© Gunnar Tómasson

14 May 2016

I. To The Great Variety of Readers

(Dedication, First Folio, 1623)

1089901

    13561 = To the great Variety of Readers.

18892 = From the most able, to him that can but spell:

23910 = There you are number’d.  We had rather you were weighd.

15557 = Especially, when the fate of all Bookes

13394 = depends upon your capacities:

20912 = and not of your heads alone, but of your purses.

13554 = Well!  It is now publique, [&]

23807 = you wil stand for your priviledges wee know:

18554 = to read and censure.  Do so, but buy it first.

21606 = That doth best commend a Booke, the Stationer saies.

26811 = Then, how odde soever your braines be, or your wisedomes,

15985 = make your licence the same, and spare not.

24287 = Judge your sixe-pen’orth, your shillings worth,

17527 = your five shillings worth at a time,

24612 = or higher, so you rise to the just rates, and welcome.

11893 = But whatever you do, Buy.

21523 = Censure will not drive a Trade, or make the Jacke go.

16347 = And though you be a Magistrate of wit,

14375 = and sit on the Stage at Black-Friers,

16653 = or the Cock-pit to arraigne Playes dailie,

19936 = know, these Playes have had their triall alreadie,

11212 = and stood out all Appeales;

25048 – and do now come forth quitted rather by a Decree of Court,

18968 = then any purchas’d Letters of commendation.

25920 = It had bene a thing, we confesse, worthie to have bene wished,

22206 = that the Author himselfe had liv’d to have set forth,

16780 = and overseen his owne writings;

18214 = But since it hath bin ordain’d otherwise,

14716 = and he by death departed from that right,

16744 = we pray you do not envie his Friends,

19372 = the office of their care, and paine, to have collected [&]

18118 = publish’d them; and so to have publish’d them,

14326 = as where (before) you were abus’d

24981 = with diverse stolne, and surreptitious copies,

17347 = maimed, and deformed by the frauds and stealthes

21644 = of injurious impostors, that expos’d them:

22192 = even those, are now offer’d to your view cur’d,

10913 = and perfect of their limbes;

25862 = and all the rest, absolute in their numbers, as he conceived the.

19215 = Who, as he was a happie imitator of Nature,

16850 = was a most gentle expresser of it.

13670 = His mind and hand went together:

24530 = And what he thought, he uttered with that easinesse,

25193 = that wee have scarse received from  him a blot in his papers.

28510 = But it is not our province, who onely gather his works,

12949 = and give them you, to praise him.

11633 = It is yours that reade him.

20122 = And there we hope, to your divers capacities,

21545 = you will finde enough, both to draw, and hold you:

23021 = for his wit can no more lie hid, then it could be lost.

12608 = Reade him, therefore; and againe, and againe:

11921 = And if then you doe not like him,

27037 = surely you are in some manifest danger, not to understand him.

19247 = And so we leave you to other of his Friends,

15036 = whom if you need, can bee your guides:

24153 = if you neede them not, you can leade yourselves, and others.

13893 = And such Readers we wish him.

4723 = John Heminge

      5786 = Henrie Condell

1089901

II + III + IV = 484969 + 593833 + 11099 = 1089901

***

After the Play at the Curtain

(Robert Payne)

In 1598 an unknown author of considerable talent and great charm wrote a series of satires, which he called Scialetheia, or A Shadow of Truth.  In his snapdragon verses he described the vanity of the times.  Staying late after the play at the Curtain, he had the wit to see that the dark theatre, vast and secret, represented something unfathomably precious. (By Me, William Shakespeare, 1980, p. 75)

***

II. The Genius of Antiquity Come to Complain

Of Our Variety of Fickle Fashions.

(Scialetheia – A Shadow of Truth)

484969

  13328 = The City is the map of vanities,

16587 = The mart of fools, the magazin of gulls,

20512 = The painter’s shop of Anticks: walk in Paul’s

18826 = And but observe the sundry kinds of shapes

21682 = Th’ wilt swear that London is as rich in apes

14080 = As Africa Tabraca.  One wries his face.

20587 = This fellow’s wry neck is his better grace.

14586 = He coined in newer mint of fashion,

24232 = With the right Spanish shrug shows passion.

15935 = There comes on in a muffler of Cadiz beard,

19993 = Frowning as he would make the world afeard;

18479 = With him a troop all in gold-daubed suits,

19235 = Looking like Talbots, Percies, Montacutes,

21589 = As if their very countenances would swear

17842 = The Spaniard should conclude a peace for fear:

17567 = But bring them to a charge, then see the luck,

23345 = Though but a false fire, they their plumes will duck.

21733 = What marvel, since life’s sweet?  But see yonder,

14906 = One like the unfrequented Theatre

18199 = Walks in vast silence and dark solitude.

20492 = Suited to those black fancies which intrude

19795 = Upon possession of his troubled breast:

19151 = But for black’s sake he would look like a jest,

15724 = For he’s clean out of fashion: what he?

14513 = I think the Genius of antiquity,

14586 = Come to complain of our variety

    7465 = Of fickle fashions.

484969

III. Our Variety of Fickle Fashions

(Matt. 16:13-23, KJB 1611)

593833

  23675 = When Iesus came into the coasts of Cesarea Philippi,

11616 = he asked his disciples, saying,

17235 = Whom doe men say, that I, the sonne of man, am?

22774 = And they said, Some say that thou art Iohn the Baptist,

23541 = some Elias, and others Ieremias, or one of the Prophets.

19313 = He saith vnto them, But whom say ye that I am?

14266 = And Simon Peter answered, and said,

19943 = Thou art Christ the sonne of the liuing God.

16129 = And Iesus answered, and said vnto him,

13647 = Blessed art thou Simon Bar Iona:

20799 = for flesh and blood hath not reueiled it vnto thee,

13923 = but my Father which is in heauen.

19578 = And I say also vnto thee, that thou art Peter,

19317 = and vpon this rocke I will build my Church:

20444 = and the gates of hell shall not preuaile against it.

24422 = And I will giue vnto thee the keyes of the kingdome of heauen:

27217 = and whatsoeuer thou shalt bind on earth, shall be bound in heauen:

28617 = whatsoeuer thou shalt loose on earth, shall be loosed in heauen.

11853 = Then charged hee his disciples

26502 = that they should tel no man that he was Iesus the Christ.

29661 = From that time foorth began Iesus to shew vnto his disciples,

18499 = how that he must goe vnto Hierusalem,

26389 = and suffer many things of the Elders and chiefe Priests & Scribes,

14138 = and be killed, and be raised againe the third day.

19850 = Then Peter tooke him, and began to rebuke him, saying,

22014 = Be it farre from thee Lord: This shal not be vnto thee.

14777 = But he turned, and said vnto Peter,

20644 = Get thee behind mee, Satan, thou art an offence vnto me:

23056 = for thou sauourest not the things that be of God,

    9994 = but those that be of men.

593833

IV. Complaint Delivered – The Last Judgement

(Il Giudizio Universale – Sistine Chapel)

11099

***

Who’s there?

  8811 = Iesus the Christ

11346 = The Genius of Antiquity

20157

1000 = Light of the World

4600 = Scialetheia

9060 = Mörðr Valgarðsson¹

  5497 = Et in Arcadia Ego.

20157

10039 = The Spirit of Jesus

                Transformation

-7 = Man-Beast of Seventh Day

10125 = Sannr Maðr ok Sannr Guð²

20157

***

Calculator for converting letters to cipher values is at:

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

¹ Evil Personified – Brennu-Njálssaga

² True Man and True God – Jesus Christ, 13^th century Icelandic.