© Gunnar Tómasson

24 February 2017

I. Do I dare Disturb the Universe

(The Love Song, First Part)

1971861

9907 = LET us go then, you and I,

21251 = When the evening is spread out against the sky

14829 = Like a patient etherized upon a table;

22330 = Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,

12145 = The muttering retreats

20316 = Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels

24878 = And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:

22136 = Streets that follow like a tedious argument

10052 = Of insidious intent

19817 = To lead you to an overwhelming question.

11430 = Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”

12692 = Let us go and make our visit.

14359 = In the room the women come and go

9096 = Talking of Michelangelo.

27936 = The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,

31133 = The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes

22491 = Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,

20100 = Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,

24654 = Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,

14976 = Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,

19360 = And seeing that it was a soft October night,

17439 = Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

11136 = And indeed there will be time

23433 = For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,

19164 = Rubbing its back upon the window panes;

16738 = There will be time, there will be time

19440 = To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;

17127 = There will be time to murder and create,

17653 = And time for all the works and days of hands

19676 = That lift and drop a question on your plate;

11439 = Time for you and time for me,

15560 = And time yet for a hundred indecisions,

17655 = And for a hundred visions and revisions,

13213 = Before the taking of a toast and tea.

14359 = In the room the women come and go

9096 = Talking of Michelangelo.

11136 = And indeed there will be time

12165 = To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”

16402 = Time to turn back and descend the stair,

16052 = With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—

21640 = (They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)

23854 = My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,

22497 = My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—

21863 = (They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)

2657 = Do I dare

10947 = Disturb the universe?

10718 = In a minute there is time

28010 = For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

20756 = For I have known them all already, known them all:

21978 = Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,

21075 = I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

18134 = I know the voices dying with a dying fall

15892 = Beneath the music from a farther room.

12872 = So how should I presume?

20011 = And I have known the eyes already, known them all—

18715 = The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,

19361 = And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,

19029 = When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,

10728 = Then how should I begin

22169 = To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?

12183 = And how should I presume?

20566 = And I have known the arms already, known them all—

16366 = Arms that are braceleted and white and bare

24603 = (But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)

11852 = Is it perfume from a dress

10625 = That makes me so digress?

21329 = Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.

11345 = And should I then presume?

9499 = And how should I begin?

25707 = Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets

21652 = And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes

26279 = Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…

15639 = I should have been a pair of ragged claws

21694 = Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

21321 = And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!

10658 = Smoothed by long fingers,

12446 = Asleep … tired … or it malingers,

18197 = Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.

13416 = Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,

24970 = Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?

21931 = But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,

31272 = Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,

17168 = I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;

18995 = I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,

22965 = And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,

10731 = And in short, I was afraid.

18655 = And would it have been worth it, after all,

14193 = After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,

19168 = Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,

16460 = Would it have been worth while,

18950 = To have bitten off the matter with a smile,

18266 = To have squeezed the universe into a ball

25291 = To roll it toward some overwhelming question,

14892 = To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,

17875 = Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—

14575 = If one, settling a pillow by her head,

18879 = Should say: “That is not what I meant at all;

9193 = That is not it, at all.”

18655 = And would it have been worth it, after all,

16460 = Would it have been worth while,

28523 = After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,

35617 = After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—

10477 = And this, and so much more?—

19321 = It is impossible to say just what I mean!

29308 = But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:

16460 = Would it have been worth while

24235 = If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,

22254 = And turning toward the window, should say:

9193 = “That is not it at all,      

13875 = That is not what I meant, at all.”

1971861

II + III + IV = 1089901 + 383551 + 498409 = 1971861

II + V = 1089901 + 881960 = 1971861

II. 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

III. No, I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be

(The Love Song – Second part)

383551

  19421 = No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;

15941 = Am an attendant lord, one that will do

22057 = To swell a progress, start a scene or two,

16611 = Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,

10581 = Deferential, glad to be of use,

16785 = Politic, cautious, and meticulous;

16076 = Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;

15811 = At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—

11244 = Almost, at times, the Fool.

11036 = I grow old … I grow old …

23093 = I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

17225 = Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?

27995 = I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.

16422 = I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

18350 = I do not think that they will sing to me.

19845 = I have seen them riding seaward on the waves

21508 = Combing the white hair of the waves blown back

23567 = When the wind blows the water white and black.

16768 = We have lingered in the chambers of the sea

23084 = By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown                            

 20131 = Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

383551

***

Scialetheia – A Shadow of Truth

(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)

***

IV. The Genius of Antiquity alias Shadow of Truth

(Ancient Creation Myth)

498409

        -10 = DEAD Father

Scialetheia

  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.

Genius of Antiquty  Exits

   -4600 = Scialetheia

J. Alfred Prufrock ponders

  18050 = To be, or not to be; that is the question.

498409

***

And so we leave you to other of his Friends,

whom if you need, can bee your guides:

***

V. Enter Prince Hamlet´s Friends

To guide J. Alfred Prufrock in his quest

(Hamlet, Act III, Sc. i)

881960

           1 = Monad

10773 = Spiritus Sanctus

J. Alfred Prufrock Enters

As archetypal Prince Hamlet

(Act III, Sc. i, First folio, 1623)

    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,

14972 = 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.

Drowning in Virgin’s Well

On Mons Veneris

   -7678 = J. Alfred Prufrock

881960

***

Calculator for converting letters to cipher values is at:

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