© Gunnar Tómasson

11 September 2016

Introduction

(Joyce Carol Oates)

Troilus and Cressida, that most vexing and ambiguous of Shakespeare’s plays, strikes the modern reader as a contemporary document—its investigation of numerous infidelities, its criticism of tragic pretensions, above all, its implicit debate between what is essential in human life and what is only existential are themes of the twentieth century. This is tragedy of a special sort—the „tragedy“ the basis of which is the impossibility of conventional tragedy. (The Tragedy of Existence: Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida – Originally published as two separate essays, in Philological Quarterly, Spring 1967, and Shakespeare Quarterly, Spring 1966.)

***

I. A New Play Never Stal’d With The Stage

(Hypothesis)

7000 = Microcosmos

Man in God’s Image

II. A never Writer to an ever Reader NEWES.

(1609)

948513

  16240 = Eternall reader, you have heere a new play,

13010 = never stal’d with the Stage,

23708 = never clapper-clawd with the palmes of the vulger,

16660 = and yet passing full of the palme comicall;

13201 = for it is a birth of your braine,

21808 = that never undertooke any thing commicall, vainely:

17249 = And were but the vaine names of commedies

25742 = changde for the titles of Commodities, or of Playes for Pleas;

17692 = you should see all those grand censors,

17625 = that now stile them such vanities,

21808 = flock to them for the maine grace of their gravities:

15928 = especially this authors Commedies,

11471 = that are so fram’d to the life,

17105 = that they serve for the most common

20281 = Commentaries of all the actions of our lives,

23403 = shewing such a dexteritie and power of witte,

30902 = that the most displeased with Playes, are pleasd with his Commedies.

21167 = And all such dull and heavy-witted worldlings,

20251 = as were never capable of the witte of a Commedie,

23426 = comming by report of them to his representations,

13582 = have found that witte there

16494 = that they never found in themselves,

19072 = and have parted better-wittied then they came:

16531 = feeling an edge of witte set upon them,

22250 = more then ever they dreamd they had braine to grinde it on.

18999 = So much and such savored salt of witte

27095 = is in his Commedies, that they seeme (for their height of pleasure)

21928 = to be borne in that sea that brought forth Venus.

22553 = Amongst all there is none more witty then this:

16867 = And had I time I would comment upon it,

29490 = though I know it needs not, (for so much as will make you thinke

28055 = your testerne well bestowd) but for so much worth,

18241 = as even poore I know to be stuft in it.

11685 = It deserves such a labour,

22731 = as well as the best Commedy in Terence or Plautus.

15269 = And beleeve this, That when hee is gone,

24766 = and his Commedies out of sale, you will scramble for them,

17673 = and set up a new English Inquisition.

30450 = Take this for a warning, and at the perrill of your pleasures losse,

11736 = and Judgements, refuse not,

19867 = nor like this the lesse for not being sullied,

18871 = with the smoaky breath of the multitude;

24849 = but thanke fortune for the scape it hath made amongst you.

21313 = Since by the grand possessors wills, I beleeve,

22266 = you should have prayd for them rather then beene prayd.

14729 = And so I leave all such to bee prayd for

30720 = (for the states of their wits healths) that will not praise it.

    1754 = Vale.

948513

I + II = 948513 + 7000 = 955513

III + IV + V = 225190 + 714889 + 15434 = 955513

III. Shakespeare – The Universal Hamlet Myth

(Author‘s research)

225190

First Folio 1623

  15621 = The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke

Crucified Light of the World

King James Bible 1611

           1 = Monad

1000 = Light of the World

16777 = THIS IS IESVS THE KING OF THE IEWES – Matt. 27:37
9442 = THE KING OF THE IEWES – Mark 15:26
13383 = THIS IS THE KING OF THE IEWES – Luke 23:38
17938 = IESVS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE IEWES – John 19:19

Platonic-Augustan-Saga-Shakespeare Authors

    1654 = ION

3412 = Platon

4946 = Socrates

14209 = Quintus Horatius Flaccus

12337 = Publius Virgilius Maro

11999 = Sextus Propertius

11249 = Publius Ovidius Naso

11359 = Snorri Sturluson

9814 = Sturla Þórðarson

5385 = Francis Bacon

7936 = Edward Oxenford

Time of the End

  13159 = Ártíð Snorra fólgsnarjarls – Anniversary of Snorri Sturluson’s Murder

World-Consuming FIRE

    4000 = Flaming Sword

Universal Author

  19365 = IUDICIO PYLIUM,GENIO SOCRATEM, ARTE MARONEM

  20204 – TERRA TEGIT, POPULUS MÆRET, OLYMPUS HABET ¹

225190

IV. To be, or not to be; that is the Quest ION.

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

714889

    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.

714889

V. The Last Judgement

(Construction)

15434

  4335 = Kristr – Christ in Icelandic

11099 = Il Giudizio Universale²

***

Calculator for converting letters to cipher values is at:

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

¹ With the judgment of Nestor, the genius of Socrates, the art of Virgil,

earth covers him, the people mourn him, Olympus has him.

² Michaelangelo – Sistine Chapel, St. Peter‘s Basilica.