© Gunnar Tómasson

23 April 2016

Background – Nicholas Rowe

(Shakespeare Birthplace Trust)

Nicholas Rowe (1674-1718) was the first editor of William Shakespeare, modernising the punctuation and spelling to the practice of his day. His edition, published in 6 volumes in 1709, was a first in a number of ways:

• The first edition in octavo, following the four Folios of the seventeenth century
• The first to bear an editor’s name
• It contained the first formal biography of William Shakespeare, completed with the aid of researches done in Stratford-upon-Avon by the Restoration actor Thomas Betterton, who worked with actors who had known Shakespeare. The biography included several of the legends relating to Shakespeare’s life, including arguably the most famous one of how he was caught poaching deer at Charlecote Park (although this story had already been in circulation before Rowe’s edition).
• A Dramatis Personae was attached to each play for the first time
• The first complete division of the plays into acts and scenes
• The edition was also the first to include illustrations, which were based on contemporary stage performances of the plays. The plates therefore give valuable evidence of early eighteenth century stage costume, showing that the plays were staged in what would have been modern costume at the time. Macbeth wears a three-cornered hat and William and Mary style wig and coat. Hamlet’s mother wears a late Stuart gown.

Rowe was the most successful dramatist of his time. He was also a poet and became Poet Laureate in 1715, succeeding Nahum Tate.

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I. The Life of Shakespeare – A Pythagorean Version

(Rowe, The Golden Verses of Pythagoras, 1707)

330839

22581 = I Hope the Reader will forgive the Liberty I have taken

22037 = in Translating these Verses somewhat at large,

27002 = without which it would have been almost impossible

29373 = to have given any kind of Turn in English Poetry to so dry a Subject.

23196 = The Sense of the Author is, I hope, no where mistaken;

15023 = and if there seems in some Places to be

24862 = some Additions in the English Verses to the Greek Text,

27831 = they are only such as may be justify’d from Hierocles’s Commentary,

16887 = and deliver’d by him as the larger and explain’s

17678 = Sense of the Author’s short Precept.

21439 = I have in some few Places ventur’d to differ from

19654 = the Learned Mr. Dacier’s French Interpretation,

22125 = as those that shall give themselves the trouble

16068 = of a strict Comparison will find.

25083 = How far I am in the right, is left to the Reader to determine.

330839

II. What is Truth? Or: How far I am in the right,

is left to the Reader to determine.

(A Reader’s construction)

330839

Francis Bacon – Essay of Truth,

Alpha

33294 = What is truth, said jesting Pilate and would not stay for an answer.

Omega

22422 = Surely the Wickednesse of Falshood, and Breach of Faith,

17402 = cannot possibly be so highly expressed,

13942 = as in that it shall be the last Peale,

24494 = to call the Iudgements of God, vpon the Generations of Men,

20293 = It being foretold, that when Christ commeth,

15732 = He shall not finde faith vpon the earth.

Stay Passenger – Read if thou canst…

(Stratford Holy Trinity Church)

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

…Whom envious Death hath plast

With in this Monument Shakspeare…

(Augstan-Saga-Shakespeare Myth)

          1 = Monad

3045 = LOGOS

345 = Soul‘s material frame

360 = Devil‘s Circle

216 = Soul‘s resurrection

3394 = Jesus

… In Brennu-Njálssaga

Alpha

   6257 = Mörðr hét maðr.

12685 = Höfðingjaskipti varð í Nóregi.

Omega

11274 = Fara menn við þat heim af þingi.

13530 = Ok lýk ek þar Brennu-Njálssaga.

     100 = The End

328094

I + II = 330839 + 328094 = 658933

III. Man, wretched Man, thou shalt be taught to know,

Who bears within himself the inborn Cause of Woe.

(Nicholas Rowe, The Golden Verses of Pythagoras, 1707)

658933

22268 = Man, wretched Man, thou shalt be taught to know,

23953 = Who bears within himself the inborn Cause of Woe.

16941 = Unhappy Race! That never yet could tell

20275 = How near their Good and Happiness they dwell.

17740 = Depriv’d of Sense, they neither hear nor see;

16072 = Fetter’d in Vice, they seek not to be free,

17950 = But stupid to their own sad Fate agree.

25196 = Like pond’rous Rolling-stones, oppress’d with Ill,

21053 = The Weight that loads ‘em makes ‘em roll on still,

15792 = Bereft of Choice, and Freedom of the Will.

18066 = For native Strife in ev’ry Bosom reigns,

17850 = And secretly an impious War maintains:

19029 = Provoke not THIS, but let the Combat cease,

16118 = And ev’ry yielding Passion sue for Peace.

23006 = Wouldst thou, great Jove, thou Father of Mankind,

16365 = Reveal the Demon for that Task assign’d,

20915 = The wretched Race an End to Woes would find.

13682 = And yet be bold, O Man, Divine thou art,

15669 = And of the Gods Celestial Essence Part.

16846 = Nor sacred Nature is from thee conceal’d,

18826 = But to thy Race her mystick Rules reveal’d.

17583 = These if to know thou happily attain,

19994 = Soon shalt thou perfect be in all that I ordain.

23807 = Thy wounded Soul to Health thou shalt restore,

14688 = And free from ev’ry Pain she felt before.

18437 = Abstain, I warn, from Meats unclean and foul,

16826 = So keep thy Body pure, so free thy Soul;

17633 = So rightly judge; thy Reason, so, maintain;

18256 = Reason which Heav’n did for thy Guide ordain,

16921 = Let that best Reason ever hold the Rein.

16695 = Then if this mortal Body thou forsake,

16669 = And thy glad Flight to the pure Æther take,

17175 = Among the Gods exalted shalt thou shine,

14884 = Immortal, Incorruptible, Divine:

19453 = The Tyrant Death securely shalt thou brave,

16300 = And scorn the dark Dominion of the Grave.

658933

I + III = 330839 + 658933 = 989772

IV. World Soul: Adam – Prince Hamlet – Jesus

(Augustan-Saga-Shakespeare Myth)

989772

105113 = Platonic World Soul¹

3045 = LOGOS

913 = Adam

345 = Soul‘s material frame

878864 = The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke²

216 = Soul‘s resurrection

3394 = Jesus

   -2118 = Time, End of

989772

***

Calculator for converting letters to cipher values is at:

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

¹ The numerical value of Plato’s World Soul is defined as the sum of 34 numerical values which are derived from the tonal scale according to what is known as the Traditional Construction of the World Soul. (See p. 229, Plato´s Mathematical Imagination by Robert Brumbaugh. On the Internet.)

² Prince Hamlet‘s – Everyman’s – Thorny Path to Faith

(Hamlet, Act III, Sc. i – First Folio, 1623)

878864

    5415 = Enter Hamlet.

Hamlet

18050 = To be, or not to be, that is the Question:

19549 = Whether ’tis Nobler in the minde to suffer

23467 = The Slings and Arrowes of outragious Fortune,

17893 = Or to take Armes against a Sea of troubles,

16211 = And by opposing end them: to dye, to sleepe

13853 = No more; and by a sleepe, to say we end

20133 = The Heart-ake, and the thousand Naturall shockes

19800 = That Flesh is heyre too? ‘Tis a consummation

17421 = Deuoutly to be wish’d. To dye to sleepe,

19236 = To sleepe, perchance to Dreame; I, there’s the rub,

19794 = For in that sleepe of death, what dreames may come,

21218 = When we haue shufflel’d off this mortall coile,

20087 = Must giue vs pawse. There’s the respect

13898 = That makes Calamity of so long life:

24656 = For who would beare the Whips and Scornes of time,

24952 = The Oppressors wrong, the poore mans Contumely,

18734 = The pangs of dispriz’d Loue, the Lawes delay,

16768 = The insolence of Office, and the Spurnes

20720 = That patient merit of the vnworthy takes,

17879 = When he himselfe might his Quietus make

21696 = With a bare Bodkin? Who would these Fardles beare

17807 = To grunt and sweat vnder a weary life,

17426 = But that the dread of something after death,

21935 = The vndiscouered Countrey, from whose Borne

20927 = No Traueller returnes, Puzels the will,

19000 = And makes vs rather beare those illes we haue,

20119 = Then flye to others that we know not of.

20260 = Thus Conscience does make Cowards of vs all,

18787 = And thus the Natiue hew of Resolution

21086 = Is sicklied o’re, with the pale cast of Thought,

17836 = And enterprizes of great pith and moment,

22968 = With this regard their Currants turne away,

18723 = And loose the name of Action. Soft you now,

16746 = The faire Ophelia? Nimph, in thy Orizons

9726 = Be all my sinnes remembred.

Ophelia

5047 = Good my Lord,

17675 = How does your Honor for this many a day?

Hamlet

17391 = I humbly thanke you: well, well, well.

Ophelia

15437 = My Lord, I haue Remembrances of yours,

14927 = That I haue longed long to re-deliuer.

12985 = I pray you now, receiue them.

Hamlet

12520 = No, no, I neuer gaue you ought.

Ophelia

19402 = My honor’d Lord, I know right well you did,

24384 = And with them words of so sweet breath compos’d,

19172 = As made the things more rich, then perfume left:

14959 = Take these againe, for to the Noble minde

24436 = Rich gifts wax poore, when giuers proue vnkinde.

    5753 = There my Lord.

878864

***