© Gunnar Tómasson

30 August 2015.

Background

Archetypal Robert Greene

(S. Schoenbaum, see below)

With [Robert] Greene we cannot always separate fact from fiction in the fantasias he composed on autobiographical themes, or the legend made of him by his contemporaries.  The pattern of his life – necessarily pieced together from the testimony of biased witnesses – assumes the lineaments of archetype.

[…]

[One] evening he over-indulged in Rhenish wine and pickled herrings, and this excess brought on his last illness.  He was then lodged with his mistress, ‘a sorry ragged quean’, and their bastard in the house of a shoemaker of Dowgate, one Isam, and his wife.  For a month Greene lingered in squalor, deserted by friends but attended by a troop of lice.  Mrs. Isam gave him the penny-pot of malmsey he pitifully begged, while Gabriel Harvey exulted in the downfall of the wicked:

14354 = A rakehell, a makeshift, a scribbling fool:

12839 = A famous bayard in city, and school.

14914 = Now sick as a dog, and ever brainsick:

16176 = Where such a raving and desperate Dick?

58283

Question: Where?

Answer: Stratford

15621 = The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke

Something rotten in the State of Denmarke/Stratford

17252 = Gulielmus filius Johannes Shakspere

2602 = 26 April – second month of year old-style

1564 = 1564 A.D – Stratfordian’s baptismal date

10026 = Will Shakspere, gent.

2502 = 25 April

1616 = 1616 A.D. – Stratfordian’s burial date

The State of Denmarke Set Right

7000 = Microcosmos – Man in God’s Image

   100 = The End

58283

***

I. Ben Jonson – To the Reader…

(First folio, 1623)

   5506 = To the Reader.

18235 = This Figure, that thou here seest put,

16030 = It was for gentle Shakespeare cut;

13614 = Wherein the Graver had a strife

15814 = with Nature, to out-doo the life:

16422 = O, could he but have drawne his wit

13172 = As well in brasse, as he hath hit

19454 = His face; the Print would then surpasse

16560 = All that was ever writ in brasse.

13299 = But, since he cannot, Reader, looke

15354 = Not on his Picture, but his Booke.

     541 = B. I.

164001

…Gentle Shakespeare’s Booke…

17013 = GREENES, GROATS-WORTH of witte,

16389 = bought with a million of Repentance.

29168 = Describing the follie of youth, the falshood of make-shifte flatterers,

28707 = the miserie of the negligent, and mischiefes of deceiuing Courtezans.

26621 = Written before his death and published at his dyeing request.

117898

…And Challengew to New Passenger:

19949 = STAY PASSENGER WHY GOEST THOU BY SO FAST

22679 = READ IF THOU CANST WHOM ENVIOUS DEATH HATH PLAST

24267 = WITH IN THIS MONUMENT SHAKSPEARE: WITH WHOME

20503 = QUICK NATURE DIDE WHOSE NAME DOTH DECK YS TOMBE

20150 = FAR MORE THEN COST: SIEH ALL YT HE HATH WRITT

21760 = LEAVES LIVING ART BUT PAGE TO SERVE HIS WITT

129308

Object of Death’s Envy:

Light of the World’s Living Art

1000 = Light of the World

11931 = Saga Cipher Key

-4119 = Ignorance – Advancement of Learning

8812

164001 + 117898 + 129308 + 8812 = 420019

 II. Beware Stratfordian …

(S. Schoenbaum)

Between prayers Greene scribbled his last confessions, and near the end wrote piteously to his cast-off Dorothea, asking her to forgive him and pay the ten pounds he owed his host.  When he died, Mrs. Isam crowned him with a garland of bays, in accordance with his last wish.  Before the year was out the bookstalls of St. Paul’s Churchyard displayed The Repentance of Robert Greene, Master of Arts and Greene’s Groatsworth of Wit, bought with a million of Repentance.  Decribing the folly of youth, the falsehood of makeshift flatterers, the misery of the negligent, and mischiefs of deceiving Courtesans.  Written before his death and published at his dying request.

Thus lived and died Robert Greene, the saddler’s son who would not willingly let the world forget that he was a Master of Arts.  His progress furnishes a direct antithesis to that of the glover’s son from Stratford who never proceeded beyond grammar school.  But Greene’s career holds more than an exemplary interest.  In the Groatsworth of Wit he makes the first unmistakable reference we have to Shakespeare in London. […]

Yet the Groatsworth of Wit contains – no question – a desperate shaft directed at Shakespeare.  The author hurls it later, after having abandoned any pretence at fiction; he speaks as Greene, offering, while life still beats, the bitter wisdom of experience.  […] (William Shakespeare – A Compact Documentary Life, Oxford University Paperback, 1978, pp. 147-151)

…vpstart Crow…

10282 = Yes trust them not:

29160 = for there is an vp-start Crow, beautified with our feathers,

23774 = that with his Tygers hart wrapt in a Players hyde,

25415 = supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse

7638 = as the best of you:

16349 = and beeing an absolute Iohannes fac totum,

25466 = is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrey.

138084

…a.k.a. Poet-Ape

(Ben Jonson)

   4707 = On Poet-Ape

22358 = Poore Poet-Ape, that would be thought our chiefe,

21702 = Whose workes are eene the fripperie of wit,

14123 = From brocage is become so bold a thiefe,

15695 = As we, the rob’d, leaue rage, and pittie it.

22145 = At first he made low shifts, would picke and gleane,

21385 = Buy the reuersion of old playes; now growne

17994 = To a little wealth, and credit in the scene,

19578 = He takes vp all, makes each mans wit his owne.

21867 = And, told of this, he slights it. Tut, such crimes

17655 = The sluggish gaping auditor deuoures;

23174 = He markes not whose ‘twas first: and after-times

16562 = May iudge it to be his, as well as ours.

18313 = Foole, as if halfe eyes will not know a fleece

24677 = From locks of wooll, or shreds from the whole peece?

281935

138084 + 281935 = 420019

III. Gentle Shakespeare’s Vow

(Venus and Adonis)

   9987 = TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE

20084 = Henrie Vvriothesley, Earle of Southampton,

8814 = and Baron of Titchfield.

21943 = Right Honourable, I know not how I shall offend

23463 = in dedicating my vnpolisht lines to your Lordship,

25442 = nor how the worlde vvill censure mee for choosing

25266 = so strong a proppe to support so vveake a burthen,

17161 = onelye if your Honour seeme but pleased,

13387 = I account my selfe highly praised,

18634 = and vowe to take aduantage of all idle houres,

23217 = till I haue honoured you vvith some grauer labour.

23437 = But if the first heire of my inuention proue deformed,

15796 = I shall be sorie it had so noble a god-father:

12970 = and neuer after eare so barren a land,

16690 = for feare it yeeld me still so bad a haruest,

17417 = l leaue it to your Honourable suruey,

18884 = and your Honor to your hearts content,

27199 = vvhich I wish may alvvaies answere your ovvne vvish,

17766 = and the vvorlds hopefull expectation.

11662 = Your Honors in all dutie,

   9322 = William Shakespeare

378541

Something Rotten in the State of Denmarke

(Interpretation G.T.)

                 First heire of Gentle Shakespeare’s Inuention…

17252 = Gulielmus filius Johannes Shakspere

2602 = 26 April – second month of year old-style

1564 = 1564 A.D – First heire’s baptismal date

                …proves deformed and rotten…

2102 = Fart

                   …until dead and buried

10026 = Will Shakspere, gent.

2502 = 25 April

1616 = 1616 A.D. – First heire’s burial date

                   Fart’s Family Coat of Arms

7933 = Non, sanz droict (No, without right)

                   The vvorlds hopefull expectation

-4119 = Ignorance – Advancement of Learning

41478

378541 + 41478 = 420019

***

Calculator for converting letters to cipher values is at:

http://www.light-of-truth.com/ciphersaga.htm