© Gunnar Tómasson

1 May 2017

Background

In what purports to be the last will and testament of Actor Will Shakspere of Stratford-upon-Avon, the only bequest for his wife, Anne Hathaway, was inter-lineated in the will as if it were an afterthought. The bequest, which has caused much speculation, read as follows:

„Item I gyve vnto my wife my second best bed with the furniture.“

Orthodox Shakespeare scholars have been able to persuade themselves that this apparent afterthought was not what, at first sight, it would seem to be: A derisive farewell to a partner in an unhappy marriage. Instead the “second-best bed“ is held to have been a special and cherished piece of furniture because of its supposed association with marital love-making between Will and Anne.

In Ancient Creation Myth, the Seat of Man‘s Lower Emotions is Anus or “the second best bed“ of Man-Beast viewed as “the bay where all men ride“ (see Sonnet CXXXVII below). In the fulness of time, Man-Beast is “redeemed“ from his“second best bed“ through the Resurrection as Flaming Sword of Light of the World that is within him to “the best bed“ on Mons Veneris.

The imagery concerns Fallen Man‘s redemption through “union“ with the Virgin aspect of his OWN SELF, as reflected in Dante‘s enigmatic phrase, Vergine Madre, figlia del tuo figlio. – Virgin Mother, Daughter of your Son.  Hence also the blunt statement by Jorge Luis Borges: “All men, in the climactic instant of coitus, are the same man.  All men who repeat one line of Shakespeare are William Shakespeare.”

***

I. The Bay Where All Men Ride

(Shakespeares Sonnet CXXXVII, 1609)

281119

24091 = Thou blind foole love, what doost thou to mine eyes,
17301 = That they behold and see not what they see?
21365 = They know what beautie is, see where it lyes,
20182 = Yet what the best is, take the worst to be.
18395 = If eyes corrupt by ouer-partiall lookes,
14550 = Be anchord in THE BAYE WHERE ALL MEN RIDE,
20317 = Why of eyes falsehood hast thou forged hookes,
18530 = Whereto the iudgement of my heart is tide?
22008 = Why should my heart thinke that a seuerall plot,
26278 = Which my heart knowes the wide worlds common place?
17800 = Or mine eyes seeing this, say this is not
18113 = To put faire truth vpon so foule a face?
20280 = In things right true my heart and eyes haue erred,
21909 = And to this false plague are they now transferred.

281119

II. A note about the „second best bed.“¹

(Internet)

1315397

”The following excerpt from one of the most famous early biographies of Shakespeare, by Charles Knight, sheds light on the controversy regarding Anne receiving such a seemingly insignificant token”:

30278 = Among the very few facts of his life that have been transmitted to us,

30509 = there is none more clearly proved than the unhappiness of his marriage.

16140 = The dates of the births of his children,

23952 = compared with that of his removal from Stratford,

31640 = the total omission of his wife’s name in the first draft of his will,

32921 = and the bitter sarcasm of the bequest by which he remembers her afterwards,

28263 = all prove beyond a doubt both his separation from the lady early in life,

24602 = and his unfriendly feeling towards her at the close of it.

39491 = In endeavouring to argue against the conclusion naturally to be deduced from this will,

27302 = Boswell, with a strange ignorance of human nature, remarks,

22095 = ‘If he had taken offence at any part of his wife’s conduct,

30893 = I cannot believe he would have taken this petty mode of expressing it.'“

32519 = Steevens, amongst many faults of taste, has the good sense and the good feeling

24330 = to deny the inferences of Malone in this matter of the „old bed.“

25121 = He considers this bequest „a mark of peculiar tenderness;“

25100 = and he assumes that she was provided for by settlement.

19941 = Steevens was a conveyancer by profession.

16333 = Malone, who was also at the bar, says,

29711 = „what provision was made for her by settlement does not appear.“

14514 = A writer in „Lardner’s Cyclopaedia“

31607 = doubts the legal view of the matter which Steevens charitably takes:

11034 = „Had he already provided for her?

20103 = If so, he would surely have alluded to the fact;

20005 = and if he had left her the interest of a specific sum,

12957 = or the rent of some messuage,

21550 = there would, we think, have been a stipulation

29565 = for the reversion of the property to his children after her decease.“
31013 = Boswell, a third legal editor, thus writes upon the same subject:

34225 = „If we may suppose that some provision had been made for her during his lifetime,

14038 = the bequest of his second-best bed

33496 = was probably considered in those days neither as uncommon or reproachful.“

37367 = As a somewhat parallel example Boswell cites the will of Sir Thomas Lucy, in 1600,

19447 = who gives his son his second-best horse,

29236 = but no land, because his father-in-law had promised to provide for him.

37498 = We will present our readers with a case in which the parallel is much closer.

28796 = In the will of David Cecil, Esq., grandfather to the great Lord Burleigh,

21213 = we find the following bequest to his wife:

33423 = „Item I will that my wife have all the plate that was hers before I married her;

  9948 = and twenty kye and a bull.“

26951 = Our readers will recollect the query of the Cyclopaedist,

11034 = „Had he already provided for her?

20103 = If so, he would surely have alluded to the fact.“

22417 = Poor Dame Cecil, according to this interpretation,

22915 = had no resource but that of milking her twenty kye,

30720 = kept upon the common, and eating sour curds out of a silver bowl.
20135 = The „forgetfulness“ and the „neglect“ by Shakespere

26857 = of the partner of his fortunes for more than thirty years

31331 = is good-naturedly imputed by Steevens to „the indisposed and sickly fit.“

12589 = Malone will not have it so:

35758 = „The various regulations and provisions of our author’s will show

11612 = that at the time of making it

15446 = he had the entire use of his faculties.“

25353 = We thoroughly agree with Malone in this particular.

1315397

I + III + IV = 281119 + 524537 + 509741 = 1315397

III. Ben Jonson Remembers Shakespeare

(Discoveries)

524537

19116 = I remember, the Players have often mentioned it

22552 = as an honour to Shakespeare, that in his writing,

21394 = (whatsoever he penn’d) hee never blotted out line.

22406 = My answer hath beene, would he had blotted a thousand.

18121 = Which they thought a malevolent speech.

24813 = I had not told posterity this but for their ignorance,

15271 = who choose that circumstance

22022 = to commend their friend by, wherein he most faulted.

22162 = And to justifie mine owne candor, for I lov’d the man,

25930 = and doe honour his memory (on this side Idolatry) as much as any.

19837 = Hee was (indeed) honest, and of an open, and free nature;

10140 = had an excellent Phantsie;

17853 = brave notions, and gentle expressions;

18375 = wherein hee flow’d with that facility

23484 = that sometime it was necessary he should be stop’d:

23469 = Sufflaminandus erat; as Augustus said of Haterius.

18146 = His wit was in his owne power;

16400 = would the rule of it had beene so too.

27845 = Many times hee fell into those things, could not escape laughter:

24385 = As when hee said in the person of Cæsar, one speaking to him:

13195 = Cæsar thou dost me wrong.

3946 = Hee replyed:

21881 = Cæsar did never wrong, but with just cause:

18145 = and such like; which were ridiculous.

20502 = But hee redeemed his vices, with his vertues.

25042 = There was ever more in him to be praysed, then to be pardoned.

Shake-speare in Saga Myth

Archetypal Man-Beast

    2770 = Flosi – ‘Pardoned‘ at Saga‘s End for Burning-Njáll

Guided By

    1000 = Light of the World

To

    4335 = Kristr – Christ in Icelandic

524537

INSERT

  4260 = FR. St. ALBAN

10594 = Sir Francis Bacon, Knight

14854

9322 = William Shakespeare

1000 = Light of the World

4000 = Flaming Sword

432 = Right Measure of Man

    100 = THE END

14854

***

 IV. Francis Bacon alias William Shakespeare

 (Dedication, Essayes, 1625)

509741

16411 = TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE MY VERY GOOD LO.

12189 = THE DVKE of Buckingham his Grace,

9271 = LO. High Admirall of England.         

5815 = EXCELLENT LO.

22090 = SALOMON saies; A good Name is as a precious oyntment;

8263 = And I assure my selfe,

22962 = such wil your Graces Name bee, with Posteritie.

21416 = For your Fortune, and Merit both, haue beene Eminent.

20248 = And you haue planted Things, that are like to last.

13223 = I doe now publish my Essayes;

25098 = Which, of all my other workes, haue beene most Currant:

9396 = For that, as it seemes,

19523 = they come home, to Mens Businesse, and Bosomes.

18429 = I haue enlarged them, both in Number, and Weight;

15649 = So that they are indeed a New Worke.

19918 = I thought it therefore agreeable, to my Affection,

25598 = and Obligation to your Grace, to prefix your Name before them,

10975 = both in English, and in Latine.

20651 = For I doe conceiue, that the Latine Volume of them,

13148 = (being in the Vniuersall Language)

12837 = may last, as long as Bookes last.

16577 = My Instauration, I dedicated to the King:

14781 = my Historie of HENRY the Seuenth

21369 = (which I haue now also translated into Latine)

23643 = and my Portions of Naturall History, to the Prince:

13053 = And these I dedicate to your Grace;

20322 = Being of the best Fruits, that by the good Encrease,

21295 = which God giues to my Pen and Labours, I could yeeld.

10530 = God leade your Grace by the Hand.

20801 = Your Graces most Obliged and faithfull Seruant,

  4260 = FR. St. ALBAN

509741

INSERT

   1796 = Graal

-1000 = Darkness

4000 = Flaming Sword – Resurrected Light of the World

-2487 = Anus – Bequest inter-lineated post-Resurrection

524537 = # III.

526846

***

V. Francis Bacon’s Last Letter Prior to

His ‘Death‘ on Easter Morning 1626

(Alfred Dodd.)

526846

Every schoolboy knows the story told in their history books how Francis Bacon one snowy day on or about All Fools Day, 1 April 1626, drove with the King’s Physician, Sir John Wedderburn, to Highgate and that at the foot of the Hill he stopped, bought a fowl, and stuffed it with snow with his own hands in order to ascertain whether bodies could be preserved by cold.  During the procedure, we are told, he caught a chill, and instead of Dr. Wedderburn driving him back to Gray’s Inn (whence he had come) or taking him to some warm house, the worthy doctor took him to an empty summer mansion on Highgate Hill, Arundel House, where there was only a caretaker; and there Francis Bacon was put into a bed which was damp and had only been “warmed by a Panne” (a very strange thing for a doctor to do) with the result that within a few days he died of pneumonia.  Dr. Rawley, his chaplain, says that he died “in the early morning of the 9^th April, a day on which was COMMEMORATED the Resurrection of Our Saviour”.

That is the story and this is Francis Bacon’s last letter:

14285 = To the Earle of Arundel and Surrey.

7470 = My very good Lord:

27393 = I was likely to have had the fortune of Caius Plinius the Elder,

19392 = who lost his life by trying an experiment

21445 = about the burning of the mountain Vesuvius.

27312 = For I was also desirous to try an experiment or two,

23426 = touching the conservation and induration of bodies.

27127 = As for the experiment itself, it succeeded excellently well;

19881 = but in the journey between London and Highgate,

18137 = I was taken with such a fit of casting,

20866 = as I knew not whether it were the stone,

24599 = or some surfeit of cold, or indeed a touch of them all three.

19809 = But when I came to your Lordship’s house,

20992 = I was not able to go back, and therefore was forced

10541 = to take up my lodging here,

27187 = where your housekeeper is very careful and diligent about me;

10692 = which I assure myself

24956 = your Lordship will not only pardon towards him,

14898 = but think the better of him for it.

21030 = For indeed your Lordship’s house is happy to me;

18831 = and I kiss your noble hands for the welcome

15120 = which I am sure you give me to it.

30197 = I know how unfit it is for me to write to your lordship

15772 = with any other hand than mine own;

32508 = but in troth my fingers are so disjointed with this fit of sickness,

12980 = that I cannot steadily hold a pen…

526846

***

Calculator for converting letters to cipher values is at:

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

¹ http://www.shakespeare-online.com/biography/shakespearewill.html