The Shakespeare Code

AN ANNOUNCEMENT FROM TRIXIE THE CAT

The Code’s Chief Agent, Stewart Trotter, appeared on BBC1 Television’s……

 …..on THURSDAY, 10th MAY, 2012.

The dazzling Director and Producer, Carol White, had filmed Stewart  in conversation with the celebrated comic, writer, literateur and wit, ARTHUR SMITH….

……at the Hampshire Record Office in Winchester…..

……where Stewart showed Arthur the famous ‘1610’ map of Titchfield……

…..with features mentioned in Love’s Labour’s Lost….‘The Park’ and ‘The Place’…..

See: Shakespeare in Titchfield: a Summary of the Evidence.

Stewart also showed Arthur the will of William Beeston……

……who, The Code argues, was the original of Thomas Nashe’s ‘Mr. Apis Lapis’ and of William Shakespeare-Nashe’s Falstaff…..

See: Why Falstaff is Fat and The Strange Case of Mr. Apis Lapis.

Carol also filmed at the ravishing, oak-beamed, Great Posbrook Farm….

….the old home of William Beeston, now in private hands….

Then, after a quick lunch at Titchfield’s Fisherman’s Rest…..

 

……it was across the road to the stunning ruins of Place House itself…..

 

….. favourite country estate of  Shakespeare’s patron, the Third Earl of Southampton….

Then cross the road again to the Old Titchfield Schoolhouse….

 …..which Stewart identified as the school where Shakespeare taught in his ground-breaking 2002 book, Love’s Labour’s Found….

See: Shakespeare was a Schoolmaster in the Country:TITCHFIELD!

The wonderful Simon Callow…..

…..also appeared on ‘The One Show’ to endorse Stewart’s Titchfield Theory….

‘Bye, now….

Brothers and Sisters……

The Agents of The Shakespeare Code are delighted to announce that…..

…..by an act of glorious serendipity……

The Code received its 30, 000th VIEW……

And best day ever….

(225 VIEWS)

…..on 23rd April, 2012…..

ST. GEORGE’S DAY!!!

THE TRADITIONAL BIRTHDAY OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE!!!

St. George’s Day was an Old Catholic Festival in England…..

……banned by Queen Elizabeth I, who cut the number of religious festivals from over 100 to a paltry 27….

Stratford upon Avon Town Council, though, hid away their George Armour – vital for the celebration of St. George’s Day – in case the Old Faith returned to the land…

We know for certain that William Shakespeare DIED on St. George’s Day…..

But there is also a tradition that he was BORN on St. George’s day as well…..

(We only know that Baby Will was baptised on 26th April, 1564).

Indeed, OUR COUSIN WILL – the play about Shakespeare’s life penned by Chief Agent Trotter – speculates that the Bard died from over-exertion at a Birthday Bash……

(For details of the play, which will be performed at The Great Barn in Titchfield from 23rd – 26th May, click: here.)

The Code is also thrilled to announce that FIVE new countries have joined the Brother and Sisterhood……

ESTONIA

MONTENEGRO

 

BRUNEI DARUSSALAM

BERMUDA

NIGERIA

This brings the number of participating countries to a dazzling……

ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHT!!!

IN VINCULIS, INVICTUS….

 

 

A TRIXIE SPECIAL

One of Chief Agent Stewart Trotter’s first jobs was to write for the Times Literary Supplement…

He started to do this when he was still an undergraduate at Cambridge….

He was passing judgement on the tomes of learned Professors before he even graduated….

But because all writing for the paper in those days was anonymous, no-one knew it was him…

He went on to write to review novels for the T. L. S….

However, a lot of his meagre reviewing fee was used up in dashing his copy (and himself) over to Printing House Square in a taxi….

There were no e-mails or even faxes in those days….

And what remained of his fee was used in drinking in the pub with the Literary Editor, the late great Ian Hamilton….

After which, the two would stagger back to the paper’s offices…..

Ian would throw him another bundle of books for the next week’s edition…

And it was back to the solitude of a bed-sit in Kilburn…

So it’s wonderful to see the luminaries at Stewart’s old paper….

CATCHING UP WITH THE SHAKESPEARE CODE!!!

In this week’s edition (20th April, 2012) Laurie Maguire and Emma Smith, in a piece entitled ‘Many Hands’, state:

It is now broadly acknowledged that he [Shakespeare] collaborated ….with Nashe on 1 Henry VI in the early 1590’s.

The Shakespeare Code has been arguing from its inception that Thomas Nashe collaborated with Shakespeare on Henry VI Part One….

But The Code also believes that Nashe collaborated on many other plays as well, viz…..

Henry VI Parts Two and Three, Richard III, Edmund Ironside, The Comedy of Errors, Love’s  Labour’s Lost, Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Taming of the Shrew, Henry IV Parts One and Two, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, As You Like It…..

…..in fact right up to  Twelfth Night in 1601 in which Nashe PLAYED  and WROTE the part of Feste….

(See: Feste the Clown as Thomas Nashe)

After 1601, Shakespeare wrote NO MORE GREAT COMEDIES for one simple reason…..

THOMAS NASHE WAS DEAD!!!

We know for certain that Nashe collaborated with Christopher Marlowe…..

…..and with Ben Jonson on The Isle of Dogges…..

So why not with William Shakespeare?

Dozens of phrases in Shakespeare’s plays are IDENTICAL to phrases in Nashe’s pamphlets…

For The Code’s ACADEMIC treatment of this subject please see:

The Strange Case of Mr. Apis Lapis.

 ……an essay that has garnered praise from no less an authority than Prof. Jonathan Bate……

……who wrote…..

It’s a terrific article and very persuasive….

All this can be read in dramatic form in The Code’s:

Shakespeare: The Movie.

 It can also be see LIVE ON STAGE  from 23rd – 26th May in the Great Barn in  Titchfield in Stewart’s new play….

OUR COUSIN WILL….

(Please CLICK HERE for more information)

NOT ONLY DOES THE T.L.S. ENDORSE THE CODE’S THEORY THAT SHAKESPEARE COLLABORATED WITH NASHE…..

It also argues that All’s Well That Ends Well……

….WAS WRITTEN AND PERFORMED IN 1609….

……A DATE THE CODE HAS BEEN ARGUING FOR FOR YEARS….

Maguire and Smith use linguistic analysis to back their case….

THE CODE, OF COURSE, USES HISTORY AND LIFE!!!

BERTRAM – the ‘lascivious boy’ in the play……

…… with his…..

his arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls…

…is exactly the same as the Aristocratic Seducer in A Lover’s Complaint…..

ALSO PUBLISHED IN 1609….

 ……with his….

browny locks….

…. which…..

hung in crooked locks…..

And, The Code, argues, both Betram and the Seducer from A Lover’s Complaint are based on…

HENRY WRIOTHESLEY, THIRD EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON!!!

But not only do Maguire and Smith endorse The Code, they endorse…..

JOHN DOVER WILSON, C. H.

 …..the Patron Saint of The Shakespeare Code….

Dover Wilson argues that in 1594 Shakespeare worked in Titchfield as the Tutor to the Third Earl….

If he’d had the same information that The Code has uncovered, Your Cat firmly believes that he would have stated that …….

SHAKESPEARE WAS A SCHOOLMASTER IN TITCHFIELD AS WELL!!!

(See: Shakespeare was a Schoolmaster in the Country: TITCHFIELD!)

Your Cat’s saucer truly runneth over….

‘Bye, now…

 

From: The Chief Agent, the Board of Agents and Trixie the Cat.

To all Fellows, Roll of Honour Inductees and Brothers and Sisters of The Shakespeare Code.

Note: For a full list of Fellows and Roll of Honour Inductees, please click: About.

The Shakespeare Code, having received encouragement from the distinguished writer Michael Hentges, began posting in earnest from March, 2011…

Over the year, Membership has grown, and at 9.30 a.m. on the 9th April, 2012, The Code is delighted to report that it had received….

27,853 VIEWS!!!

Apart from Christmas 2011 (when, The Code was thrilled to record, its Brothers and Sisters were occupied by Seasonal Festivities, Duties and Observations) there has been a marked increase of Views each month.

In March, 2012…..

1. The Code broke the 4,000 Views a month barrier. (4,308 Views)

2. The Code broke the 1,000 Views a week barrier. (1071 Views in 14th Week of Year 2012)

3. The Code broke the 200 Views a day Barrier. (215 Views on 28th March, 2012)

NINE new Countries have recently joined The Code. They are:

MOLDOVA

PANAMA

TANZANIA

MACEDONIA

CAMEROON

PARAGUAY

LUXEMBOURG

DOMINICA

KAZAKHSTAN

THIS BRINGS THE NUMBER OF PARTICIPATING COUNTRIES TO OVER A CENTURY!!!

(103, to be precise….)

Please see: The Shakespeare Code Salutes the Nations.

The TOP TEN POSTS for 2011-2012 were……

1. 6ooo Views and the Appointment of Maggie Ollerenshaw.

2. Shakespeare in Titchfield. A Summary of the Evidence.

3. Macbeth Decoded. Part Four ‘The Witches’ (II).

4. Richard III Decoded. ‘All the King’s Men’.

5. Twelfth Night Decoded. Malvolio as Sir Walter Raleigh.

6. Twelfth Night Decoded. Olivia as Queen Elizabeth.

7. Macbeth Decoded. Part Five. The Macbeths as Queen Elizabeth.

8. Macbeth Decoded. Part Two. The Political Backdrop.

9. The Biography of The Code’s Chief Agent.

10. Twelfth Night Decoded. Sir Toby Belch as George, Lord Hunsdon.

EACH OF THESE POSTS HAS BEEN AWARDED A ‘TRIXIE’ – THE HIGHEST HONOUR THE CODE CAN BESTOW ON ANY INDIVIDUAL ARTICLE…..

TO CELEBRATE, THE CODE HAS APPROACHED, ON  TERMS OF THE UTMOST SECRECY, ANOTHER LUMINARY TO ADD TO ITS LIST OF FELLOWS….

WE SHALL BE ANNOUNCING THE NAME OF THE NEW FELLOW SHORTLY….

IN VINCULIS INVICTUS…..

…..by TRIXIE THE CAT

Brothers and Sisters of The Shakespeare Code,

The Dedication to the First Edition of Shakespeare’s Sonnets….

…..is one of the greatest literary mysteries of all time….

What does ‘only begetter’ mean?

Who is ‘Mr. W. H.’?

Why is ‘all happiness’ wished to him and by whom?

What ‘eternity’ did ‘our ever-living poet’ ‘promise’ to him?

Who is the ‘ever-living poet’?

Who is the ‘well-wishing adventurer’?

Who is ‘setting forth’ and why?

And who is T.T.?

YOUR  CAT, TRIXIE, WORKING IN CLOSE COLLABORATION WITH THE AGENTS OF THE SHAKESPEARE CODE, HAS THE ANSWERS!!!

The last question – ‘Who is T.T.?’ –  is the one that  is most easily explained.

The Frontispiece to the Sonnets…

 

….states that the poems were printed by G. Eld for T.T.

Eld was the printer and  ‘T. T.’ (Thomas Thorpe) was the publisher.

The ‘ever-living’ poet, The Code believes,  is William Shakespeare…..

 By 1609 Shakespeare was so famous the publisher did not have to use his Christian name on the Frontispiece….

And Shakespeare himself  proclaims his immortality in his Sonnets….

In Sonnet 107 Shakespeare states that ‘spite of him’ [Time]…

I’ll live in this poor rhyme…

And he says of Sonnet 18….

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives life, and this gives life to thee…

But before Your Cat supplies the answers to the other, more complicated questions which the Dedication poses, she would like to draw the attention of all Brothers and Sisters to another Dedication….

…..also published by Thomas Thorpe two years earlier in 1607….

……Ben Jonson’s Dedication of his play Volpone to the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge…

It reads…..

To the most noble and most equal sisters

The two famous Universities

For their love and acceptance shewn to his poem in the presentation

Ben Jonson

The grateful acknowledger

Dedicates both him and himself.

In this Dedication, Jonson names the Dedicatees first – the ‘famous’ Universities of Oxford and Cambridge…..

Then he describes them….

the most equal sisters…

He then describes what they have done to merit a Dedication…..

 For their love and acceptance shewn to his poem in the presentation

Then, as the Dedicator, he describes himself as….

the grateful acknowledger….

Put more plainly, the Dedication reads….

Ben Jonson, the grateful acknowledger, dedicates both him and himself to the two famous Universities for the love and acceptance shown to him and his poem.

The Code is of the belief that the Sonnets’ Dedication follows this formula…

Thomas Thorpe names the Dedicatee  as Mr. W. H.  and describes him as

 the only begetter of these ensuing sonnets….

….and wishes him…

all happiness and that eternity promised by our ever-living poet….

Then as Dedicator, he  describes himself as….

the well-wishing adventurer….

who is….

setting forth…

Put in a plainer way, Thorpe’s Dedication reads:

Thomas Thorpe, the Well-wishing Adventurer, in setting forth, wisheth to Mr. W. H., the only begetter of these sonnets,  all happiness and that eternity promised by our ever-living poet…

To understand who ‘Mr. W. H.’ is we must first dispel a myth….

●

Charlotte Carmichael Stopes was an early feminist and the first woman to gain the equivalent of a degree in Scotland…

…..even though she was barred from attending lectures….

She married an artist ten years younger than herself and spent a late honeymoon, pregnant, paddling down the NileRiver in Egypt…

She was the mother of the visionary, birth control advocate, Marie Stopes…..

…..who to this day has a clinic named after her in Whitfield Street in London….

Charlotte was a great Shakespearean. She was also convinced (correctly in The Code’s view) that Henry Wriothesley, the third Earl of Southampton (a.k.a. Harry Southampton) was the ‘lovely boy’ of Shakespeare’s Sonnets…

However, Stopes, great woman that she was, had a romantic view of how the Sonnets came to be published….

She thought that Mary Southampton, the Third Earl of Southampton’s mother, was in possession of all Shakespeare’s Sonnets in manuscript….

When she died her third husband, William Harvey, a ‘family friend’, found them and published them because he did not want to…..

…see them die…

SORRY, CHARLOTTE…..

MUCH AS TRIXIE ADMIRES YOU…..

SHE KNOWS FOR CERTAIN THAT THIS CANNOT BE TRUE….

BECAUSE….

SHAKESPEARE PUBLISHED HIS SONNETS HIMSELF!!!

Thomas Heywood, a contemporary of Shakespeare…….

……..was a writer and playwright….

He wrote  An Apology for Actors, published in 1612 and Dedicated it to…

….my good friends and fellows, the City Actors….

In a letter to one Nicholas Oake at the conclusion of the pamphlet, Heywood describes how William Shakespeare was….

….much offended with M. Jaggard (that altogether unknown to him), presumed to make so bold with his name.’

Jaggard (a publisher) had used Shakespeare’s name to promote a collection of poems called The Passionate Pilgrim without Shakespeare’s permission…..

Shakespeare, according to Heywood…

….to do himself right, hath since published them [the Sonnets] in his own name’.

William Drummond……..

…….writing c. 1614, also states….

The last we have are Sir William Alexander and Shakespeare, who have lately published their works….

But there are other flaws in Stopes’s argument……

William Harvey was NOT a ‘family friend’……

Harry Southampton hated his young step-father so much that the Earl of Essex had to intervene….

And there is no reason at all why Mary, Countess of Southampton (who left Titchfield in 1594 to live at Copped Hall in Essex)  should have a complete collection of the Sonnets….

Most were love letters written to individuals (including Mary’s son, Henry Wriothesley) and often contain homosexual banter….

In Sonnet 49, for example, Shakespeare talks about his fears that his lover, no longer sexually excited by him, will cast…

his utmost sum….

And that his love….

Converted from the thing [penis] it was

Shall reasons find of settled gravity…..

And when  Shakespeare is not writing homosexual banter in the Sonnets, he is writing heterosexual banter instead…

In Sonnet  135 he asks the Dark Lady, Emilia Bassano….

Wilt thou whose will is large and spacious

Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?

Shall will in others seem right gracious,

And in my will no fair acceptance shine?….

And even more graphically in Sonnet 151, Shakespeare describes how his ‘flesh’…

….rising at thy name doth point out thee

As his triumphant prize, proud of this pride:

He is contented thy poor drudge to be,

To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.

Mary Countess of Southampton, though a committed Catholic, was a broad-minded woman of the world….

But would Shakespeare really send her Sonnets like these?

Countess Mary would, though, have had a copy of the first seventeen sonnets;  she had commissioned Shakespeare to write them for Harry’s seventeenth birthday……

 ……to try to get him interested in girls….

Lord Burghley at the time wanted Harry to marry his grand-daughter: but Harry was more interested in Shakespeare…..

Harry was 17 in 1590, two years after the Armada.  We know from the anonymous satirical play Histrio-Mastix  that theatre folk had become unfashionable during the invasion scare…..

…..they were thought of as effete and useless…..

 So many playwrights sought work as tutors in great households….

Thomas Kyd, it seems, went to work for Lord Strange and Christopher Marlowe for Bess of Hardwick.

Shakespeare, The Code believes, went to work for the Countess of Southampton….

See: Shakespeare:The Movie I

Sonnet 13 in the Birthday Sequence, refers to Harry’s dead father, the 2nd Earl….

You had a father, let your son say so…

And Sonnet 3 refers to Harry’s widowed mother, Mary….

Thou art they mother’s glass, and she in thee

Calls back the lovely April of her prime….

In later Sonnets, Shakespeare refers to the lovely boy’s feminine beauty….

In Sonnet 20 he describes how the boy has….

A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted

…..and goes on to describe him as….

The master mistress of my passion…

This is certainly borne out by contemporary paintings of Harry Southampton….

So who is Mr. W. H.?

The Code believes that Mr. W.H.  is none other than Harry (Henry Wriothesley) himself….

In a satirical attack on Harry in the anonymous Willobie his Avisa, published in 1594, there is a description of Shakespeare and Harry’s love-triangle with the Dark Lady, Emilia Bassano.

Shakespeare is described as W. S. An Old Player….

And Henry Wriothesley as Mr. W. H…..

He is even called….

Friend Harry….

…and…

Good Harry….

He is also described as Italo-Hispalensis.

Italo-Hispalensis is a reference to the trip to Spain and Italy that Harry and Shakespeare made the year before (1593).

(See: Shakespeare in Italy.)

And in the satire, Mr. H. W. says to ‘Avisa’ (code for Emilia):

A thousand fewtures I have seen,

For traveller’s change and choice shall see,

In France, in Flanders and in Spain,

Yet none, nor none could conquer me:

 Till now I saw this face of thine,

That makes my wittes are none of thine’

So, it is not a big jump from Mr. H. W. to Mr. W. H……

Indeed, in Sonnet 2o Shakespeare himself plays on the ‘H’ and ‘W’ of Henry Wriothesley when he writes….

A man in hew all Hews [Shakespeare’s punctuation and italics] in his controlling….

Hews is code for ‘Henry Wriothesley, Earl of  Southampton’…

But to make the identity of the Dedicatee even clearer, Thomas Thorpe describes Mr. H. W.’ as the ‘only begetter’ of the Sonnets.

Time and again in the Sonnets, Shakespeare names the lovely boy as the source of his inspiration….

And in Sonnet 78 he directly states….

Yet be most proud of that which I compile [the Sonnets]

Whose influence is thine and born of thee [Trixitalics]

In others’ works thou dost but mend the style,

And arts with they sweet graces graced be;

But thou art all my art, and dost advance,

As high as learning my rude ignorance…

Shakespeare’s art is ‘born’ of Harry – that is why Harry is the ‘only begetter’ of the Sonnets.

Shakespeare also promises ‘eternity’, i.e. immortality, to Harry in Sonnet after Sonnet, particularly in the famous Sonnet 18…

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day….

….which concludes….

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee…

People in the past took this Sonnet to be addressed to a woman.  Indeed, John Benson (in his 1640 edition of the Sonnets) changed all the ‘he’s’ to ‘she’s’ in an attempt to heterosexualise Shakespeare’s verse…

Benson’s edition was the only one known to the public till 1788, when the great Irish barrister, Edmond Malone………

……. produced his monumental edition of Shakespeare’s works….

Modern scholars now take the first one hundred and twenty-six Sonnets to be addressed to the lovely boy. The remaining twenty-eight are mostly addressed to women.

This means that the Sonnets are not listed in order of composition…

In fact (apart from the opening sequence) the only three sonnets that The Code can date with total certainty are:

1. Sonnet 107 which mentions the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603…..

The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured….

It also mentions the release, from the Tower of London, of Harry Southampton…..

Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom…

2. Sonnet 125 which refers to Shakespeare (as a liveried Groom of the Chamber) holding the canopy over King James at his coronation in 1604….

Were’t ought to me I bore the canopy….

This sonnet also refers to the execution of Essex after Queen Elizabeth’s withdrawal of his ‘farm’ on sweet wines….

….and his crime of bursting in to the Queen’s bedchamber before she had time to dress…

Have I  not seen dwellers on form and favour

Lose all, and more [i.e. their heads] by paying too much rent, [too much sexual servicing]

For compound sweet [farm on sweet wines] forgoing simple savour,

Pitiful thrivers, in their gazing spent…

3. Sonnet 123 which refers to the coronation obelisks (‘pyramids’) set up in 1604….

Thy [Time’s] pyramids, built up with newer might,

To me are nothing novel, nothing strange;

They are but dressings of a former sight…

●

Why does Thorpe describe himself as ‘the well wishing adventurer’ who is ‘setting forth’?

All publishing ventures are a risk and publishing a book is very much like sending it on a journey….

Geoffrey Chaucer, in the epilogue to Troilus and Criseyde, writes….

‘Go, litel, bok’…..

…..in imitation of Ovid. 

But in his Dedication Thorpe presents himself as going on the journey himself…

Why?

The answer, Your Cat believes, is to make another coded reference to the Earl of Southampton….

Southampton had been involved in the Virginia Company since 1605 and in 1609 became part of the Virginia Company Council….

The Company built a huge passenger ship which could hold 500-600 people for the purpose of emigrating to Jamestown in Virginia…

The Titanic of its time……

Which, also, almost sank….

…..and, in so doing, inspired the shipwreck scenes in The Tempest……

The ship was called the Sea Venture….

……or  Sea Adventure….

Emigrants  bound for Virginia were later described by Captain John Smith….

 ……of Pocahontas fame…..

….. as ‘Adventurers’….

The Sonnets were registered by Thorpe on 20th May 1609 and the Sea Venture left Plymouth on 2nd June, 1609….

So, by describing himself as ‘an adventurer setting forth’, Thorpe would compare his publishing adventure to this mass emigration by the Virginia Company to America…

 ….and by doing so would put his readers in mind of the Earl of Southampton…

But why does Thorpe write the Dedication rather than Shakespeare?

And why does Thorpe hope for ‘all happiness’ for Southampton and why does he wish him ‘well’?

The answer is irony.  Not to say sarcasm…..

Thorpe knew full well that Southampton would be furious that his affair with Shakespeare was being made public….

So did Shakespeare, who would  certainly have had a hand in the Dedication….

The Code firmly believes that Harry Southampton terminated his liaison with Shakespeare in 1605 when he finally produced a son.

And Shakespeare responded by wishing his former patron, not immortality now, but death….

In Sonnet 126 he writes….

Yet fear her [Time] O thou minion of her pleasure:

She may detain, but not still keep her treasure!

Her audit, though delayed, answered must be,

And her quietus is to render thee…..

(For a more detailed analysis of Sonnet 126 please see: Shakespeare, Love and Religion. Part Three.)

 ‘All Happiness’ was the last thing either Thorpe or Shakespeare wished on Harry.

 Thorpe wanted a scandal to increase sales of Shakespeare’s Sonnets….

 And Shakespeare wanted revenge…..

‘Bye, now..

 

If you were interested in theis Post, you might like:

1. Why did William Shakespeare write the Sonnets?

2. Trixie the Cat’s Guide to the Sonnets (1) Background Jottings

3. Trixie the Cat’s Guide to the Sonnets (2) The Birthday Sonnets

 

The Agents of The Shakespeare Code are delighted to announce that on 20th March, 2012, The Code received its…..

25,000th VIEW!!

The Code also enjoyed its BEST DAY EVER on 11th March, 2012 when it received….

 179 VIEWS!!!

THERE IS INTELLIGENT LIFE ON EARTH!!!

And now a word from The Code’s own TRIXIE THE CAT…..

Since the Second World War, Britain and America have enjoyed a ‘Special Relationship’  which can be seen in the partnerships of….

……Churchill and Roosevelt…..

…..Thatcher and Reagan….

……Blair and Bush…..

……..Cameron and Obama….

But these are nothing compared to the Special Relationship of ……

THE BRITISH AND AMERICAN BROTHERS AND SISTERS OF THE SHAKESPEARE CODE!!!

The Code’s analysis of its world-wide Views show that there are more Brothers and Sisters living in BRITAIN…..

……and AMERICA….

Than anywhere else in the world……

For the first few months of its existence, BRITISH Brothers and Sisters out-numbered their AMERICAN counterparts….

But at the end of The Code’s first full year of operation…

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA HAS PULLED AHEAD!!!!

So….

But Brothers and Sisters of THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH OF NATIONS….

 

…….follow closely behind….

CANADA….

…..comes next, followed by AUSTRALIA….

Since our Last Post, SEVEN new countries have sought, and been granted, admission to The Shakespeare Code. 

They are:

AZERBAIJAN

MALDIVES

BELARUS

BANGLADESH

TUNISIA

IRAQ

GUINEA-BISSAU

This brings the participating countries to a staggering…..

 NINETY-FOUR!!!

Will we make it to a century…….?

But POTENTIAL Brothers and Sisters from SIX countries have been stopped from joining The Code by their own governments…

VALUE AND CHERISH YOUR FREEDOMS, BROTHERS AND SISTERS OF THE CODE!!!

They are fragile…..

 

‘Bye now….

(It’s best to first read Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six and Seven.)

1594….

On 6th October, 1594, Henry (Harry) Wriothesley, the Third Earl of Southampton, was to come of age……

He would then take charge of all his estates, including his beloved Titchfield, in Hampshire….

His mother, Mary, Second Countess of Southampton…..

…..would have to go….

She and Harry had never got on. When he was six years old, his father, the Second Earl, had accused Mary of adultery with…..

…..a common person…..

 ….and had taken Harry away from her…

The Second Earl had surrounded his little son with an all male, quasi-military household of….

…..tall goodly fellows, that kept a constant pace….

….and according to Countess Mary, had made his manservant, Dymock….

….his wife

All this had done irreparable damage to Harry’s relationship with his mother and, indeed, to his relationship with women in general……

Mary had commissioned William Shakespeare to write seventeen sonnets for his seventeenth birthday to encourage him to take an interest in girls…

Other than dressing up like them……

Harry’s guardian, Lord Burghley, wanted Harry to marry his grand-daughter. Harry had refused and was due to pay a massive £5,000 fine (£2 and-a-half million in modern money) when he came of age in October….

Harry did start to take an interest in girls: in 1592 he had started an affair with the mixed race courtesan, Emilia Bassano….

But this was to spite Shakespeare, who had fallen in love with her himself….

The upshot was that Harry started an affair with Shakespeare – a liaison that met with Countess Mary’s entire approval…

(See: Shakespeare. The Movie. I.)

●

Sir Thomas Heneage……

 ……had the ability to get on with everyone…….

He had long been a friend of the Southampton family, even though he was an ardent Protestant…..

……and even though he had been a member of Elizabeth’s Privy Council when Mary Queen of Scots was beheaded….

He had also been an old lover of Queen Elizabeth herself….

She had started to flirt with Heneage in 1565 to punish her long-time lover, Leicester, for paying attention to Lettice Knollys…

The two men came close to duelling with each other….

But Heneage worked to ensure that they ended the best of friends…

Heneage’s wife had died in 1593. After a decent period of mourning, he had proposed marriage to Mary Southampton….

He was 62 and she was 42  – so still capable of having children….

Heneage lived at Copped Hall, in a hilly part of Essex…

But he also owned the Savoy Palace in London…..

It was here, on 2nd May, that Mary and Sir Thomas were married….

A few days afterwards, Mary commissioned Garret Jonson of Southwark to create a fabulous alabaster and marble tomb for St. Peter’s Church, Titchfield….

Her first husband, the Second Earl, had left instructions that his tomb should be a solitary one.  He wanted it to be a constant reminder to the world of his wife’s indidelity….

Mary had ignored his instructions.  But if she did not act quickly, her son might carry them out when he came of age….

So she ordered a tomb which would depict the whole family….

Jane, First Countess of Southampton, (Mary’s mother-in-law) would lie central and raised,  in prayer…

She had been an ardent Catholic all her life and had introduced masques and revels to Titchfield.  She had also added a copy of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Complete Works to the Place House library, a volume which Shakespeare was to draw on…

On Jane’s right would lie her husband (and Mary’s father-in-law)  Thomas Wriothesley, First Earl of Southampton….

…..who had risen to high office under Henry VIII and had been given Titchfield Abbey for his loyalty…

He had been a keen amateur actor at Cambridge and brought playwright, Nicholas Udall, to work as a schoolmaster at Titchfield Grammar School….

On Jane’s left would lie her son, the Second Earl of Southampton (Mary’s deceased husband) dressed in armour to depict his fight for Catholicism…..

He had been involved in a plot (with his wife Mary’s father, Lord Montague) to replace Queen Elizabeth with Mary Queen of Scots…

Mary’s own son, Harry,  (the Third Earl of Southampton) was to be depicted on the side of the tomb, as a boy (also in armour) praying for the soul of his father….

Mary even managed to work in a discreet reference to herself in an inscription at the back of the tomb….

The Savoy wedding in May of Mary and Sir Thomas had been a legal one. Now the couple wanted it to be followed by a summer celebration for all their friends at Copped Hall…..

A celebration that would include feasting, jousting and dancing….

And continue for a good fortnight…..

They commissioned Shakespeare to write an entertainment that would stretch over several days and show off the architecture and grounds of Copped Hall….

Just like the Progress Entertainments for Queen Elizabeth….

(Please see: Part Two. The Progresses of Queen Elizabeth.)

But there was a problem…..

The summer of 1594 was appalling…..

Simon Forman tells us…

June and July were very wet and wonderful cold like winter, that the 10th day of July many did sit by the fire it was so cold, and so it was in May and June…there were many great floods this summer…

But John Stowe tells us that the weather rallied in August…..

And that’s when the wedding guests trooped down to Copped Hall…..

●

There had been many pressures on Shakespeare in 1594….

One of them was from supporters of Thomas Kyd…..

Kyd was a grammar-schoolboy like Shakespeare and had shared chambers with him…

But Kyd had also shared chambers with Christopher Marlowe……

When atheist papers were found in their lodging, Kyd, under torture, had told the authorities that they belonged to Marlowe….

Shakespeare never forgave him…

But Shakespeare had collaborated with Kyd on an early Hamlet and The Taming of a Shrew…

So friends of both men urged this collaboration to continue…..

…..rather like our own Queen Elizabeth……

 …..who tried to persuade Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber to team up again…

 

One ‘W. Har’ (whom scholars take to be the Countess of Pembroke’s son, William Herbert) wrote in the summer of 1594….

 You that have writ of chaste Lucretia,

 Whose death was witness of her spotless life,

Or penn’d the praise of sad Cornelia,

Whose blameless name hath made her fame so rife,

As noble Pompey’s most renowned wife:

Hither unto your home direct your eyes,

Whereas, unthought on, much more matter lies.

In 1594 Kyd had translated Robert Garnier’s play Cornelia and dedicated it to the Countess of Pembroke, mentioning his….

bitter times and privy broken passions….

(Shakespeare, of course, had written Lucrece….)

‘W. Har’s’ implication with ‘your home’ is that Shakespeare and Kyd belong together …..

….and that their potential to create new drama is enormous…

But Shakespeare had no intention of yielding to persuasion, even from the Pembroke family…..

He needed to find a way, though, to disperse the issue with Kyd….

Another pressure on Shakespeare in 1594 was the accusation he had plagiarised the work of the Robert Greene:

Greene, is the pleasing object of an eye:

Greene, pleased the eyes of all that looked upon him.

Greene, is the ground of every painter’s dye:

Greene gave the ground to all that wrote upon him.

Nay more the men, that so eclipst his fame:

Purloined his plumes, can they deny the same?

The poem is ostensibly signed by ‘R.B. Gent’ but it is much more likely to be an anonymous attack by his collaborator and gag-man, Thomas Nashe…

In 1592, Nashe, writing under the dead Robert Greene’s name in A Groatsworth of Witte, had described Shakespeare as….

…..an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers…

Another pressure on Shakespeare in 1594 was Emilia Bassano…..

She had become pregnant in 1592 and been married off to Alphonse Lanier ‘for colour’…..

She was making another bid for Harry’s attention. She had played the dark-skinned Rosaline in Love’s Labour’s Lost and, as a favourite of Mary Southampton, demanded a part in the new entertainment….

Penelope Rich – the daughter of Letttice Knollys, the sister of the Earl of Essex and the mistress of Lord Mountjoy – also had to be given a part….

She had played the Princess of France in Love’s Labour’s Lost when Shakespeare had punned on her surname – the way Sir Philip Sidney had done in his Sonnet sequence, Astrophil and Stella…

Mary Southampton, who played the Abbess in The Comedy of Errors ,would need to be given a flattering, sexy part…..

…..as would her bridegroom, Heneage, whom William Camden described as….

…a man who for the elegancy of his life and pleasantness of discourse [was] born for the Court…..

Another pressure on Shakespeare was the fact that half the audience for the entertainment would be Catholic and half would be Protestant….

…..that Queen Elizabeth would certainly see the play at some time…..

…..and that Lettice Knollys – the Queen’s sworn enemy – would certainly be in the audience….

…..and, finally, that it could pour down with rain at any moment….

This densely complex situation inspired Shakespeare to produce a densely complex masterpiece….

…..A Midsummer Night’s Dream….

(The Shakespeare Code’s next A Midsummer Night’s Dream Decoded post will deal with the staging of the play at Copped Hall.)

The Agents of The Shakespeare Code are delighted to announce that on…..

5th March, 2012….

…..The Code received its…..

23, 000th VIEW!!!

February, 2012, although it was STILL the shortest month of the year, recieved more VIEWS than any month since The Code began…..

3528 VIEWS!!!

….and on Sunday, 4th March, The Code received more VIEWS than on any other day in its history….

168 VIEWS!!! 

The Agents are fully aware that this could only be achieved by the world-wide intellectual curiosity of it revered BROTHERS and SISTERS and they extend a warm ‘Thank You’….

They also extend a warm welcome to JORDAN….

 

….which has just joined The Code, bringing the number of participating countries to a giddy….

EIGHTY SEVEN!!!

The Code has also learnt that the celebrated POWSZECHNY THEATRE of Poland….

……where Carmen Latina is playing, has applied to The Code to extend its rights to perform the show for another….

TWO YEARS!!!

Carmen Latina is a rock, pop, salsa version of Bizet’s classic opera, written by Chief Agent Stewart Trotter and Callum McLeod. It is set in Santa Maria, a mythical Latin American country, round the imminent World Cup!

Escamillo is no longer a torreador – he is a football striker….

Carmen Latina has played in Vienna, Finland, Iceland, Italy, Denmark and Poland….

It is now available for performance in countries world-wide!!!

Please click on: www.carmenlatina.com

It’s a hit!

The Sunday Telegraph

Vienna Crix loosen their ties and pile praise on rockin’ Carmen….

Variety

And to crown a glorious month, The Shakespeare Code is delighted to announce that its Chief Agent, Stewart Trotter, has completed his Titchfield commission to write….

Our Cousin Will

or

Will in his Own Words

….with some extra ones by Stewart Trotter

A life of William Shakespeare constructed from his Sonnets and Plays…..

(AND A MASSIVE DATA BASE!!!)

‘OUR COUSIN WILL’ is an entertainment, by turns hilarious and heart-breaking, which traces the course of  Shakespeare’s life from his birth to his death in Stratford-upon-Avon…..by way of Titchfield Abbey in Hampshire!  It explains how a lower class boy, with little formal education, could attain such knowledge of history and politics….…..how he could write, with such intimate ease, about the lives of kings, queens and aristocrats…..…. how he was adopted – and then dropped – by one of the most powerful Catholic families in England….….. and how, in the process, English Drama, in all its greatness, was born…

It has been described as

The Thinking Man’s Shakespeare in Love…..

For more information, please click on: ‘OUR COUSIN WILL’

And now a tailpiece from The Code’s Own Trixie the Cat….

Well Brothers and Sisters, it’s been quite a month – but this is just to let you know that The Agents (haven’t they done well!) are again breaking off their Olympic training to decode A Midsummer Night’s Dream…

A new post on the original staging of the play in the grounds of Copped Hall – a site explored in detail by The Code…..

….will be with you in a whisker…..

Also, news is just in from Your Cat’s favourite, HUNKY Simon Callow….

He’s contacted The Code to tell us that his BRILLIANT Dickens’ book…..

…..has been in the BEST SELLER list for the past TWO WEEKS!

Remember, The Code’s Chief Agent Stewart gave the book its very first RAVE REVIEW!

To read it, CLICK: HERE!

And also remember,  

YOU WILL ALWAYS HEAR IT FIRST HERE…

WHATEVER IT’S ABOUT!!!

 So, Brothers and Sisters from around the world…..

STAY TUNED TO YOUR STATION OF THE STARS!!!!

‘Bye now….

 

It is with great delight that we announce that Fellow of The Shakespeare Code, the great poet Eddie Linden….

….has just been translated into Spanish by Marina Morales and J. M. Perfectti.

They have published Eddie’s poems in their radical pamphlet Luz Del Sur which is produced in Granada. 

Here are two examples – each followed by Eddie’s original English version…

EL MINERO

A mi padre

Tu cara nunca

cambió: todavia muestra

las marcas de tu trabajo, de un añil

profundo. Este escorial

ahora reverdecido

contiente flores en vez de polvo,

y muchos hombres yacen en él enterrados,

cuyas sombras

siguen reverberando.

●

THE MINER

To my father

Your face has never

moved, it still contains

the marks of toil, deep in

blue. These slag heaps

now in green  have

flowers instead of dust

and many men are buried here

whose shadows linger on.

●

 NOCTURNO EN LA CIUDAD

Camino con la lluvia

Que canta en mis oídos

Calles empapadas y sombras

Las ideas danzan en mi mente

¿Qué sera del mañana?

¿Acaso lo veremos?

 

El café nocturno

Los residuos de la noche

Suelos mugrientos

Sucias colillas de cigarillos

Carmareros de estrechas cinturas

Que portan tazas de café

Caja de música con mensajes para solitarios

 

De vuelta a la calle silenciosa

Con sus figuras en venta que desfilan

Viejos envueltos en cartones

A las puertas de los comercios

El nocturno de la ciudad termina

Yo debo regresar a mi lecho de sueños.

 

Translations © byMarina Morales and J. M. Perfectti.

●

NIGHT TIME IN A CITY

I walk with rain

singing in my ears

damp streets and shadows

ideas dancing through my mind

what of tomorrow?

Can it be done?

The all-night café

The dregs of the night

dirty floors

mucky cigarette ends

waiters with thin waists

holding coffee cups

music-box with messages for the lonely.

Then to the quiet street

With its figures loitering for trade

old men wrapped in paper in shop doorways.

Night time in the city is over

I must return to my bed of dreams.

●

It is also with great delight that The Code reports that the first run of poems published by the celebrated Hearing Eye has completely…..

SOLD OUT!!!

Congratulations to all concerned…..

(More copies are being printed and can be ordered at: books@hearingeye.org. Tell them Trixie the Cat sent you…)

To read Trixie the Cat’s penetrating review of A Thorn in the Flesh please click: HERE.

And to read her now classic interview with Eddie, please click: HERE.

And never forget, Brothers and Sisters of The Shakespeare Code…..

YOU READ IT FIRST HERE!!!

THE TRIXIE NEWSLETTER 

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Over the weekend of 11th February, 2012, The Shakespeare Code received its…..

20,000th VIEW!!!

The two new countries which have joined are…..

KUWAIT

and GUATEMALA

……and both are most welcome….

This brings the total number of participating countries to…..

EIGHTY-SIX!!!

The other great news is that Kevin Fraser, the Director of The Titchfield Festival Theatre, has commissioned Chief Agent Stewart Trotter to write an entertainment about Shakespeare…

It will open The Shakespeare Festival to be held this summer in Titchfield, Hampshire, in the historic Great Barn…

 

It will be entitled

‘OUR COUSIN WILL’

or Will in his Own Words…..

with some extra ones written by Stewart Trotter

A Life of William Shakespeare constructed from his Sonnets and Plays……

AND A MASSIVE DATA BASE!!!

It will run in Titchfield from Wednesday, 23rd May to Saturday 26th May, 2012.

For more information, please click: ‘OUR COUSIN WILL’

It’s the Thinking Man’s Shakespeare in Love….

The second commission that Stewart has received this month is from the Director, Writer and Producer – and Chairman of The Palace Theatre Guild – Charles Sharman-Cox.

He has invited Stewart to edit the forthcoming The History of the Palace Theatre to celebrate the centenary of this famous Westcliff venue in October…

As a teenager, Stewart spent many happy hours in the gallery and recalls seeing a matinee of King Lear for sixpence – SIX OLD PEE!!!

Afterwards he went to a performance of The Monster of Piedras Blancas at the flea-pit opposite…

Simon Callow, an Inductee of The Code’s ‘Roll of Honour’………

 

…… was delighted by our review of his brilliant book Charles Dickens and The Great Theatre of the World, describing it as….

gorgeous

and adding

you certainly got it.

To read the review, click: HERE.

Eddie Linden, F. S.C., a full Fellow of The Shakespeare Code……

 ……continues to receive rave reviews for his new collection of poems – A Thorn in the Flesh…..

The distinguished poet, Eilean Ni Chuilleanain……

….who has been described as the ‘foremost female poet of the age’ wrote a beautiful review of the book in Poetry Ireland Review….

Four decades of editing his magazine Aquarius have not mellowed Eddie Linden. Yet he himself has somehow escaped, has retained an old-fashioned staunch socialism, values peace and sleepless nights in ‘that bedsit world’ of Maida Vale. He has found a mental space that allows him to craft these few sharp-edged woodcuts of his own and other lives. ‘A Sunday in Cambridge’ gives him a glimpse of an unreachable paradise: ‘You looked like Mary Magdalen?/And I wanted to wash your feet….’

In the harsher everyday world he is sustained by the example of his few heroes, including poets, priests and artists. This book in all its brevity reflects a total, unpredictable and authentic view of a life that could not belong to anyone else…

If you would like to read your own Trixie the Cat’s review of Eddie’s book, please click: HERE.

The three parts of ‘Shakespeare:the Movie’ are now complete. If you’ve not taken your seats yet, you are invited to do so NOW!

‘Bye now……