© Gunnar Tómasson

17 September 2016

Foreword

The Shugborough Inscription

(Wikipedia – extracts)

The Shugborough Inscription is a sequence of letters – O U O S V A V V, between the letters D M – carved on the 18th-century Shepherd’s Monument in the grounds of Shugborough Hall in Staffordshire, England, below a mirror image of Nicolas Poussin’s painting, the Shepherds of Arcadia. It has never been satisfactorily explained, and has been called one of the world’s top uncracked ciphertexts.

Josiah Wedgwood, Charles Darwin and Charles Dickens are all said to have attempted to solve the enigma and failed.

Former NSA linguist Keith Massey interprets the letters as an initialism for the Latin phrase Oro Ut Omnes Sequantur Viam Ad Veram Vitam („I pray that all may follow the Way to True Life“) in reference to the Biblical verse John 14:6, Ego sum Via et Veritas et Vita („I am the Way, the Truth and the Life“)

Honorificabilitudinitatibus

(Wikipedia – extracts)

Honorificabilitudinitatibus is the dative and ablative plural of the medieval Latin word honorificabilitudinitas, which can be translated as „the state of being able to achieve honours“. It is mentioned by the character Costard in Act V, Scene I of William Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost.

As it appears only once in Shakespeare’s works, it is a hapax legomenon in the Shakespeare canon. It is also the longest word in the English language featuring only alternating consonants and vowels.

The word has been used by adherents of the Baconian theory who believe Shakespeare’s plays were written in steganographic cypher by Francis Bacon.

Comment

The Shugborough inscription and the Latin word in Love’s Labour’s Lost both feature odd arrangements of letters of the alphabet. The Cipher Value of the honorificabilitudinitatibus is 14034 and, following up on Massey’s hypothesis, I found that the Cipher Value of Ego sum Via et Veritas et Vita is also 14034. This raised the possibility that the Shugborough and Shakespeare texts might be parts of a joint puzzle.

In Shakespeare’s play, the word honorificabilitudinitatibus is met with in the following context:

                Boy

15678 = They haue beene at a great feast of Languages,

9992 = and stolne the scraps.

                Clown

21528 = O they haue liu’d long on the almes-basket of words.

19431 = I maruell thy M. hath not eaten thee for a word,

16196 = for thou art not so long by the head as

14034 = honorificabilitudinitatibus:

20669 = Thou art easier swallowed then a flapdragon.

                Page

    7463 = PEACE, the PEALE begins. [my emphasis]

124991

Iceland is mentioned twice in one line of the First Folio in the midst of a section of dialogue whose first and last lines begin with “good” – that this is meant to mark off a section of text for further analysis may be signaled by a second “good” in the first line. Further, the closing line of the scene is here construed to signal the advent of an end-of-time event. The section of text and associated construction is as follows:

Bardolfe

21809 = Good Lieutenant, good Corporal offer nothing ere.

Nym

2380 = Pish.

Pistoll

23294 = Pish for thee, Island dogge: thou prickeard cur of Island.

Hostess

29119 = Good Corporall Nym shew thy valor, and put vp your sword.

Macrocosmic Time

  25920 = Platonic Great Year, End of

Corporall Nym’s Sword

4335 = Kristr – 13^th century Icelandic

4000 = Flaming Sword – Cosmic Creative Power

14034 = Ego sum Via et Veritas et Vita

      100 = THE END

124991

Finally, it should be noted that in the stage directions at the end of the closing scene of Hamlet – Exeunt Marching: after the which, a Peale of Ordenance are shot off – and the last paragraph of Francis Bacon’s essay Of Truth – …the last peale to call the iudgements of God vpon the generations of men… – the word PEALE serves to signal THE END as in JUDGEMENT DAY at the end of Macrocosmic Time.

***

I. Christ leaveth his PEACE with his Disciples

(John, Ch. XIIII, King James Bible 1611)

127171

   Summary

26649 = Christ comforteth his Disciples with the hope of heauen:

22986 = professeth himselfe the Way, the Trueth, and the Life,

10179 = and one with the Father:

22340 = Assureth their praiers in his Name to be effectuall:

12678 = Requesteth loue and obedience,

19142 = promiseth the holy Ghost the comforter,

  13197 = and leaueth his PEACE with them.

127171

II. PEACE, the PEALE begins

(Henry V, Act II, Sc. i – First Folio)

954839

    18650 = Enter Corporall Nym, and Lieutenant Bardolfe.

Bardolfe

11538 = Well met Corporall Nym.

Nym

15575 = Good morrow Lieutenant Bardolfe.

Bardolfe

20149 = What, are Ancient Pistoll and you friends yet?

Nym

14707 = For my part, I care not: I say little:

21416 = but when time shall serue, there shall be smiles,

10337 = but that shall be as it may.

25202 = I dare not fight, but I will winke and holde out mine yron:

16344 = it is a simple one, but what though?

21118 = It will toste Cheese, and it will endure cold,

20533 = as another mans sword will: and there’s an end.

Bardolfe

21000 = I will bestow a breakfast to make you friendes,

21875 = and wee’l bee all three sworne brothers to France:

13059 = Let’t be so good Corporall Nym.

Nym

24719 = Faith, I will liue so long as I may, that’s the certaine of it:

21189 = and when I cannot liue any longer, I will doe as I may:

20412 = That is my rest, that is the rendeuous of it.

Bardolfe

26274 = It is certaine, Corporall, that he is marryed, to Nell Quickly,

13966 = and certainly she did you wrong,

16922 = for you were troth-plight to her.

Nym

22102 = I cannot tell. Things must be as they may: men may sleepe,

23129 = and they may haue their throats about them at that time,

11631 = and some say, kniues haue edges:

19997 = It must be as it may, though patience be a tyred name,

22416 = yet shee will plodde, there must be Conclusions,

8961 = well, I cannot tell.

11335 = Enter Pistoll, & Quickly.

Bardolfe

17887 = Heere comes Ancient Pistoll and his wife:

13094 = good Corporall be patient heere.

15576 = How now mine Hoaste Pistoll?

Pistoll

13172 = Base Tyke, cal’st thou mee Hoste,

20417 = now by this hand I sweare I scorne the terme:

11918 = nor shall my Nel keep Lodgers.

Hostess

10650 = No by my troth, not long:

21060 = For we cannot lodge and board a dozen or fourteene

27375 = Gentlewomen that liue honestly by the pricke of their Needles,

26394 = but it will bee thought we keepe a Bawdy-house straight.

16405 = O welliday Lady, if he be not hewne now,

24988 = we shall see wilful adultery and murther committed.

Bardolfe

21809 = Good Lieutenant, good Corporal offer nothing heere.

Nym

2380 = Pish.

Pistoll

23294 = Pish for thee, Island dogge: thou prickeard cur of Island.

Hostess

29119 = Good Corporall Nym shew thy valor, and put vp your sword.

Nym

21631 = Will you shogge off?  I would haue you solus.

Pistoll

15844 = Solus, egregious dog?  O Viper vile;

18253 = The solus in thy most meruailous face,

18417 = the solus in thy teeth, and in thy throate,

19009 = and in thy hatefull Lungs, yea in thy Maw perdy;

23119 = and which is worse, within thy nastie mouth.

23093 = I do retort the solus in thy bowels, for I can take,

    24963 = and Pistols cocke is vp, and flashing fire will follow.

954839

III. Flashing FIRE Follows

(Construction)

7891

           1 = Monad

3890 = Christ

    4000 = Flaming Sword – Cosmic Creative Power

    7891

I + II + III = 127171 + 954839 + 7891 = 1089901

IV. From the most able, to him that can but spell

(Second 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.

28951 = Especially, when the fate of all Bookes depends upon your capacities:

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

37361 = Well! It is now publique, [&]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:

33105 = even those, are now offer’d to your view cur’d, 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

***

Calculator for converting letters to cipher values is at:

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