© Gunnar Tómasson
1 June 2016
There you are number’d.
I. The Epistle Dedicatory
(First folio, 1623)
1184171¹
TO THE MOST NOBLE AND INCOMPARABLE PAIRE OF BRETHREN
WILLIAM Earle of Pembroke, [&] c.
Lord Chamberlaine to the Kings most Excellent Maiesty.
AND
PHILIP Earle of Montgomery, [&] c. Gentleman of his Maiesties Bed-Chamber,
Both Knights of the most Noble Order of the Garter, and our singular good LORDS.
Right Honourable, Whilst we studie to be thankful in our particular, for the many fauors we haue receiued from your L.L. we are falne vpon the ill fortune, to mingle two the most diuerse things that can bee, feare, and rashnesse; rashnesse in the enterprize, and feare of the successe. For, when we valew the places your H.H. sustaine, we cannot but know their dignity greater, then to descend to the reading of these trifles: and, while we name them trifles, we haue depriu’d our selues of the defence of our Dedication. But since your L.L. haue beene pleas’d to thinke these trifles some-thing, heeretofore; and haue prosequuted both them, and their Authour liuing, with so much fauour: we hope, that (they out-liuing him, and he not hauing the fate, common with some, to be exequutor to his owne writings) you will vse the like indulgence toward them, you haue done vnto their parent. There is a great difference, whether any Booke choose his Patrones, or finde them: This hath done both. For, so much were your L.L. likings of the seuerall parts, when they were acted, as before they were published, the Volume ask’d to be yours. We haue but collected them, and done an office to the dead, to procure his Orphanes, Guardians; without ambition either of selfe-profit, or fame: onely to keepe the memory of so worthy a Friend, & Fellow aliue, as was our SHAKESPEARE, by humble offer of his playes, to your most noble patronage. Wherein, as we haue justly obserued, no man to come neere your L.L. but with a kind of religious addresse; it hath bin the height of our care, who are the Presenters, to make the present worthy of your H.H. by the perfection. But, there we must also craue our abilities to be considerd, my Lords. We cannot go beyond our owne powers. Country hands reach foorth milke, creame, fruites, or what they haue: and many Nations (we haue heard) that had not gummes & incense, obtained their requests with a leauened Cake. It was no fault to approch their Gods, by what meanes they could: And the most, though meanest, of things are made more precious, when they are dedicated to Temples. In that name therefore, we most humbly consecrate to your H.H. these remaines of your seruant Shakespeare; that what delight is in them, may be euer your L.L. the reputation his, & the faults ours, if any be committed, by a payre so carefull to shew their gratitude both to the liuing, and the dead, as is
our Lordshippes most bounden,
IOHN HEMINGE.
HENRY CONDELL.
Cipher Value 1184171
II + III = 1089901 + 94270 = 1184171
II. From the most able, to him that can but spell
(First folio, 1623)
1089901²
To the great Variety of Readers
From the most able, to him that can but spell: There you are number’d. We had rather you were weighd. Especially, when the fate of all Bookes depends upon your capacities: and not of your heads alone, but of your purses. Well! It is now publique, [&] you wil stand for your priviledges wee know: to read and censure. Do so, but buy it first. That doth best commend a Booke, the Stationer saies. Then, how odde soever your braines be, or your wisedomes, make your licence the same, and spare not. Judge your sixe-pen’orth, your shillings worth, your five shillings worth at a time, or higher, so you rise to the just rates, and welcome. But whatever you do, Buy. Censure will not drive a Trade, or make the Jacke go. And though you be a Magistrate of wit, and sit on the Stage at Black-Friers, or the Cock-pit to arraigne Playes dailie, know, these Playes have had their triall alreadie, and stood out all Appeales; and do now come forth quitted rather by a Decree of Court, then any purchas’d Letters of commendation.
It had bene a thing, we confesse, worthie to have bene wished, that the Author himselfe had liv’d to have set forth, and overseen his owne writings; But since it hath bin ordain’d otherwise, and he by death departed from that right, we pray you do not envie his Friends, the office of their care, and paine, to have collected [&] publish’d them; and so to have publish’d them, as where (before) you were abus’d with diverse stolne, and surreptitious copies, maimed, and deformed by the frauds and stealthes of injurious impostors, that expos’d them: even those, are now offer’d to your view cur’d, and perfect of their limbes; and all the rest, absolute in their numbers, as he conceived the. Who, as he was a happie imitator of Nature, was a most gentle expresser of it. His mind and hand went together: And what he thought, he uttered with that easinesse, that wee have scarse received from him a blot in his papers. But it is not our province, who onely gather his works, and give them you, to praise him. It is yours that reade him. And there we hope, to your divers capacities, you will finde enough, both to draw, and hold you: for his wit can no more lie hid, then it could be lost. Reade him, therefore; and againe, and againe: And if then you doe not like him, surely you are in some manifest danger, not to understand him. And so we leave you to other of his Friends, whom if you need, can bee your guides: if you neede them not, you can leade yourselves, and others. And such Readers we wish him.
John Heminge.
Henrie Condell.
Cipher Value 1089901
III. Some Last Pieces of the Puzzle
(Gunnar Tómasson)
94270
A. Edward Oxenford’s Imperfect Booke
(From E.O. letter to Robert Cecil)
12363 = For I am aduised, that I may passe
22634 = my Booke from her Magestie yf a warrant may be procured
21532 = to my Cosen Bacon and Seriant Harris to perfet yt.
Hamlet/E.O.’s alter ego’s Dying Words
Perfect the Book
(Act V, Sc. ii)
7936 = Edward Oxenford
9015 = The rest is silence.
The Epistle Dedicatory
(Signatures)
4723 = IOHN HEMINGE.
5558 = HENRY CONDELL.
To the Great Variety of Readers
There you are number’d.
(Signatures)
4723 = John Heminge
5786 = Henrie Condell
94270
B. Saga Völuspá/Sybil’s Prophecy
4714 = Völuspá
5627 = Stratford
23237 = Heere Shakespeare lyes whome none but Death could Shake³
16602 = and heere shall ly till judgement all awake;
21976 = when the last trumpet doth unclose his eyes
22014 = the wittiest poet in the world shall rise.
100 = THE END
94270
C. Franscisco Goya – Los Caprichos
Edward Oxenford’s Imperfect Book
12363 = For I am aduised, that I may passe
22634 = my Booke from her Magestie yf a warrant may be procured
21532 = to my Cosen Bacon and Seriant Harris to perfet yt.
Los Caprichos – Alpha 1st Version
19212 = El sueno de la razón produce monstrous – The sleep of reason produces monsters.
-1000 = Darkness
At the Last Trumpet
4000 = Flaming Sword
Los Caprichos – Alpha 2nd Version
14017 = Fran co Goya y Lucientes, Pintor.
1412 = Amen
100 = THE END
94270
D. Francisco Goya – The Mousetrap
Man´s Passage Through Time
To Consummation Devoutly to be Wished
7302 = The Mousetrap
5409 = La Maja Vestida
11359 = Snorri Sturluson
9814 = Sturla Þórðarson
5385 = Francis Bacon
7936 = Edward Oxenford
Sacred Triangle of Pagan Iceland
Man’s Course Through Life/Time
7196 = Bergþórshváll
6067 = Miðeyjarhólmr
3027 = Helgafell
Time
25920 = Platonic Great Year
Consummation
4855 = La Maja Denuda
94270
E. The Rennes-le-Chateau Cipher Documents
(The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail)
Alpha
16199 = A DAGOBERT II ROI ET A SION EST CE TRESOR
7650 = ET IL EST LA MORT.
Treasure’ Grave
8282 = Will Shakespeare
Omega
10165 = BERGERE PAS DE TENTATION
16322 = QUE POUSSIN TENIERS GARDENT LA CLEF
2455 = PAX DCLXXXI [DCLXXXI = 681 in Roman numbers]
12214 = PAR LA CROIX ET CE CHEVAL DE DIEU
10511 = J’ACHEVE CE DAEMON DE GARDIEN A MIDI
6472 = POMMES BLEUES.
Cheval de Dieu
4000 = Flaming Sword
94270
F. Stratfordian Man-Beast/Tyrant
(Saga-Shakespeare Myth)
729 = Platonic Tyrant
17252 = Gulielmus filius Johannes Shakspere
2602 = 26 April (2nd month old-style)
1564 = 1564 A.D. Baptismal date
Advent of Christianity
Alpha – Brennu-Njálssaga
1000 = Light of the World
12685 = Höfðingjaskipti varð í Nóregi.
Time
25920 = Platonic Great Year
Tyrant Dead and Buried
10026 = Will Shakspere, gent.
2502 = 25 April
1616 = 1616 A.D. Burial date
Advent of Christianity
Omega – Brennu-Njálssaga
11274 = Fara menn við þat heim af þingi.
Brave New World
7000 = Microcosmos – Man in God’s Image
100 = THE END
94270
***
Calculator for converting letters to cipher values is at:
http://www.light-of-truth.com/ciphersaga.htm
Footnotes
¹ For detailed Cipher Calculation see The Divine William’s Saga-Shakespeare Opus, 11 May 2016.
² For same, see The Workes of William Shakespeare, 14 May 2016.
³ ³One of the First Folios in the Folger Shakespeare Library (no. 26 according to the Folger numbering) contains three handwritten poems on the last end page of the volume, written in a secretary hand dating from approximately the 1620s. The first of these is the poem from Shakespeare’s monument in the Stratford church („Stay passenger why go’st thou by so fast“). The second is not recorded elsewhere, and goes as follows:
Heere Shakespeare lyes whome none but Death could Shake
and heere shall ly till judgement all awake;
when the last trumpet doth unclose his eyes
the wittiest poet in the world shall rise. ,
[Shakespeare Quarterly 39 (1988):60]
The third poem is the one on Shakespeare’s tombstone, also in the Stratford church („Good ffriend for Jesus sake forbeare“). Apparently, somebody went to Stratford and transcribed the poems off the monument and the tombstone, then transcribed them into a copy of the First Folio along with another epitaph. This writer seems not only to have believed that the man buried in Stratford was the author of the First Folio, but that he was „the wittiest poet in the world.“ (David Kathman, Seventeenth-century References to Shakespeare’s Stratford Monument.)
Gunnar Tómasson
