In an actual legal case the documents described would be appended to the descriptions. Digital facsimiles or transcriptions can readily be found online for all.
1) William Shakspear’s name is listed as author on the title page or dedications of numerous poems published from 1593 (Venus and Adonis) onwards and plays from 1598 onwards.
2) Shakspear was a sharer in lord chamberlain’s and king’s men.
3) As a member of the King’s Men, Shakspear received red cloth to march in livery during James I’s coronation.
4) Shakspear was named in will of a King's Men player.
5) John Heminges was a trustee for “William Shakespeare of Stratford Vpon Avon in the Countie of Warwick gentleman” in the purchase of London property. Heminges later transferred the property to Shakespear’s daughter Susanna.
6) Shakspear left “26 shillings and 8 pence each” to members of the King's Men and other friends in his will “to buy mourning rings.”
7) William Shakspear of Stratford-upon-Avon was entitled to be referred to as “Gent.” - “M.” - or “Mr.” upon duly purchasing a coat-of-arms in 1599.
8) Only William Shakspear of Stratford had that distinction during that time period—no other William Shakspear qualified.
9) There were two letters in the front matter of the Shakepeare First Folio. One letter is designated a Dedication. In the Dedication letter the sentence “so worthy a friend and fellow...as was our Shakespeare” appears.1
The simple fact that the First Folio makes clear that it forwards William Shakspear, of Stratford-upon-Avon, makes for a strong prima facie case that he was the author of the plays.
Before a judge would hear this prima facie case upon this prima facie evidence, however, he would have to verify that each item of evidence met the standard of Federal Rules of Evidence, Rule 901, Authenticating or Identifying Evidence.2 This would include the letters to which the names John Heminges and Henry Condell are subscribed in the identical print font as the letter itself. These letters are regularly referred to, among Oxfraudians, as being “signed” by the two men.
By way of example, this from a recent comment thread on the matter at the Edward de Vere was Shakespeare Group:
… the prefatory letter signed by Heminges and Condell…
…People sign letters written by others all the time, but their signature is considered legally binding….
In this instance we're relying on the statement made by John Heminges and Henry Condell in the dedicatory epistle. It's a flowery groveling letter in the early modern style typical of letters from commoners to noblemen. Here it's two players writing to men who have absolute control of their quite lucrative theatrical business. Heminges and Condell's theaters could be closed with the snap of the fingers of the Lord Chamberlain. But luckily for the King's Men, the Herbert brothers seemed to be fans of the theater and of the King's Men in particular.
The letter may well have been edited by Ben Jonson, but the evidence for that is in its obsequious tone and some classical allusions. Jonson acknowledged that he differed from the players in some aspects of the letter, but the players' version is what was included in the Folio.
But, of course, their names being printed at the bottom of the letters by the printer of the volume does not remotely constitute legal signatures. Also the line “Jonson acknowledged that he differed from the players in some aspects of the letter…” is misleading in its suggestion that Jonson ever explicitly mentioned the letters in any respect whatsoever. He quietly wrote them, in all or in part, and went on his way without comment or “signature”.
As is mentioned in passing, the letters have long been accepted, in the highest scholarly circles, as the product, in all or in part, of Ben Jonson’s pen. That is to say that we know that at least part of the letters subscribed Heminges and Condell is not by either of the two at all.
Returning to the Federal Rules of Evidence, the very first requirement to authenticate evidence is
901(A) In General. To satisfy the requirement of authenticating or identifying an item of evidence, the proponent must produce evidence sufficient to support a finding that the item is what the proponent claims it is.
Before entering a purported “letters by Heminges and Condell,” the plaintiff must show evidence that they are actually by the two men. Not partly by them but the plaintiff thinks (s)he knows which parts are and which are not.
The letters are subscribed under the names Heminges and Condell, not Heminges, Condell, Jonson (maybe Edward Blount and maybe some other managers of the production of the Folio edited just a smidge). If it fails to be demonstrably a “letter by Heminges and Condell” alone it fails entirely and irretrievably to meet the evidentiary standards of authentication.
It might be suggested that, they being historical documents, they cannot be held to the same evidentiary standards. It is for this reason that the Federal Rules 901(B)(8) Evidence About Ancient Documents or Data Compilations is provided. In order to authenticate “Evidence About Ancient Documents or Data Compilations.”3 it must be “in a condition that creates no suspicion about its authenticity”. A ghost writer is a condition that creates an insuperable suspicion.
Number 9 in the Oxfraudian prima facie brief That ‘John Heminges and Henry Condell state [in letters in the front matter of the First Folio] that the works in the First Folio were written by “so worthy a friend and fellow...as was our Shakespeare,”'… is not admissible as prima facie evidence in the case presented or in any case.
We also know, due to centuries of careful research and scholarship that the letters include mistakes of fact. For example:
we pray you do not envie his Friends, the office of their care, and paine, to haue collected & publish’d them; and so to haue publish’d them, as where (before) you were abus’d with diuerse stolne, and surreptitious copies, maimed, and deformed by the frauds and steathes of injurious impostors, that expos’d them: euen 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 them…
It is highly improbable that the two could have served the role claimed for them and have been unaware that their description of the texts printed in the Folio was patently incorrect. It may be claimed that they were just advertising rather than trying to tell the precise truth. But then the question arises when were they just advertising and when not in other parts of the letters.
In the prima facie brief, it is also not permitted to state as factual the plaintiff’s assertion that the man from Stratford was “the playwright” when that is the question at issue. The same prohibition applies to references to him as a "fellow player". Thus the term “the playwright,” in the original Item 7, should properly read “Shakspear” or some spelling variation thereon.
1 See “The Prima Facie Case for Shakespeare” https://oxfraud.com/sites/PrimaFacie.html
3 Ibid.
Also at Virtual Grub Street:
Ben Jonson and the Dedication to the Shakespeare First Folio. December 12, 2022. “Country hands reach foorth milke, creame, fruites, or what they have:...”.
On the Oxfrauds Needing Better Lawyers. December 10, 2022. "I have pointed out that the Oxfraudian claim in their so-called “Prima Facie” brief, that Heminges and Condell actually wrote the letters..."
- Edward de Vere and Marlowe’s Dido of Carthage. July 5, 2022. “It was an historical effort and an historical two years for Elizabethan theater.”
- The Death of Sir Edward Vere, son of the 17th Earl of Oxford and Anne Vavasour. May 8, 2022. “Mr. Sedgwick wrote to me for a prayer for Sir Edward Vere.”
- How Shakespeare gave Ben Jonson the Infamous Purge. November 7, 2021. “Of course, De Vere could not openly accuse Jonson of having outed him as Shakespeare.”
- Check out the Shakespeare Authorship Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.
- Check out the Letters Index: Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford for many letters from this fascinating time, some related to the Shakespeare Authorship Question.
43 comments:
It is interesting that the administrators of the site revised its "evidence" after I posted a video of mine, By Plato's Beard, which shows how a "prima facie" standard of evidence is the lowest standard of all in judicial courts. If I were a lawyer, I would never use that standard since it is so easy to refute. Now, I am not claiming that they paid attention to my presentation, only that the timing of the change is suspicious.
I am glad more scholars are showing that the site in question is not to be trusted, nor does it provide good information on the authorship question. Everything they post should be taken with a grain of salt. The very fact (pun intended) that ad hominem attacks are regularly used should tip off viewers that they have no good evidence to back up their claim that the Stratford man wrote the most sublime plays in the English language. That type of attack is the last resort of someone who has no solid evidence to back their argument.
@rroffel
A prima facie case is not a legal standard of evidence at all, but such cases can in principle be built for any standard of evidence currently employed. You're confusing a prima facie case with a preponderance of the evidence standard.
Also, a prima facie case does not purport to be the final word on a subject, so saying it's "easy to refute" misses the point entirely. What a prima facie case does is establish a rebuttable presumption that the proposition it argues for is true. Note the word "rebuttable".
Finally, if it's so "easy to refute", then why don't you refute it?
Is there any evidence for Oxford that would meet Rule 901?
@nulifidian
Thanks for clarifying the definition. You are correct that prima facie is a standard for presenting a case. Going by what you say, however, any case is a prima facie case. The evidentiary standard we want to have is "by a preponderance of the evidence" and my point is that the website in question does not meet that standard and never will.
I could refute the proposition the Stratford man was a writer, but that has been done over and over again by countless scholars, from Sir George Greenwood to today's most recent doubters. What is required is for the orthodoxy to support their argument with more than just an "on the face of it" amount of evidence. That, they cannot do under any circumstances unless you throw out so much evidence that you throw out the baby with the bath water.
Here is an example.
The canon shows the writer knew the local customs and geography of northern Italy, especially for Venice and Verona. Researchers like Richard Roe and Dorothea Dixon went to Italy and using descriptions in the Italian plays discovered that every location from the plays either exists today or once existed. Stratfordians argue that sort of information could have been overheard in conversations in a mythical tavern and retained for future use, but that is moving the goalposts back. It presupposes that some Italians or travelers arriving from Italy would have spent hours narrating their travels to such a degree that even locals would be amazed. It is far easier to suppose the simple fact the writer visited Italy, and there is no evidence that Stratford man ever left England.
It is easier to follow the words and read from them that the writer visited Italy for an extended period, remembered minute details of his journey, then put those into his plays than it is to try and prove the writer overheard mythical conversations. Therefore, most Stratfordians ignore the evidence before their eyes and presume that every detail was somehow imagined and perhaps his imagination was so good that he got many details correct.
Requiring that the Italian evidence meets the Rule 901 standard would take pages of examples and would take up too much space on this comment. Stratfordians have nothing on this subject other than an alleged tavern with alleged conversations. We know de Vere visited northern Italy. We have letters to prove it.
It is not up to doubters to continuously harp on about pointing out the logical flaws in the Stratford narrative, but to move on with accumulating more evidence supporting their own candidates. In a little more than 300 years (the period since the alleged playwright's life has been investigated) there has not been more than a handful of documents discovered which support the orthodox "biography", and none of those state that the man from Stratford was a writer, some only dimly associate him with shares in the lease of a theater.
@ Ben Hackman
Please read my comment above to "nulifidian" to see some evidence that meets the Rule 901 standard.
As I said above, presenting evidence the playwright visited Italy would take up hundreds of pages, not just the space for a blog comment. Suffice it to say that there is so much Rule 901 evidence for de Vere as an anonymous writer who used the pen name William Shakespeare, that entire books have been written about it, from Looney's Shakespeare Identified (republished in 2020), to Charlton Ogburn Jr's The Mysterious William Shakespeare, to Margot Anderson's recent biography Shakespeare by Another Name (published under her former name Michael).
But in typical Stratfordian fashion, this entire corpus of evidence and research done by competent scholars is ignored. While doubters advance Shakespearean scholarship well past the Stratford paradigm into the new century with new facts and reinterpretations of old facts, researchers in the Stratford story are stuck with over 300 years of speculation about their man's "lost years", his education, and the "inconceivable nature of genius" to quote the late Stanley Schoenbaum. That does not meet the Rule 901 standard whatsoever.
@rroffel
Part 1 of 2:
It's not the case that every case is a prima facie case. Some cases, for example, may simply not lead logically to their conclusions. Conveniently, you've just provided an example of that very thing.
And you're still misunderstanding the standards of evidence. A preponderance of evidence standard is the weakest standard that can nevertheless prevail in court—in certain civil cases, specifically, because criminal cases require a more stringent standard. It establishes that the arguer has met the burden of showing that their allegation is probably true. Another standard one might encounter, again in civil cases, is the clear and convincing standard. This is a standard that is above 51-49% probability and yet is not as stringent as the beyond a reasonable doubt standard, which is the third and most stringent standard, commonly used in criminal cases.
Now, it indeed would be something if the prima facie case for Shakespeare's authorship failed even at the preponderance of evidence standard, but just saying that it fails is not a rebuttal.
I also find it ironic that you're accusing "the orthodoxy", as you term it, of throwing out evidence when it's the heterodox who throw out all of the title page attributions, Stationers' Register entries, Revels Accounts entries, and contemporary testimony identifying Shakespeare as an author as their starting point.
Now, on to your case. Logically, three things must be true for Shakespeare's Italian settings to be relevant to authorship: this clear insider knowledge of Italy must actually exist in the works, the only possible source for these details must be firsthand experience, and that Shakespeare must have never been to Italy himself.
For the first point, you've provided absolutely nothing except a couple of dubious 'authorities' whose work is presumably supposed to put the issue of Shakespeare's knowledge of Italy beyond question. But if there are good reasons to conclude that their work is sloppy and doesn't establish its conclusion, then where does that leave this argument? I'd say it leaves it nowhere. Just as a for instance, Richard Roe's method of establishing the existence of sycamores in Verona was to hop in a cab and instruct the driver to take him to see some. He then got out, saw trees, assumed they were sycamores and that they were ancient enough to have been there when Shakespeare was writing Romeo and Juliet. He didn't do any research in the archives to show that these were indeed ancient relics, he didn't make any other attempt to establish the plants' age, and he didn't even bother to confirm that they were actually sycamores—and they may well not be. The cream of the joke, however, is that this little jaunt happened in the southern area of the city, not the western side where a grove of sycamore was improbably described as rooting from the western wall. So every single element of his 'research' is flawed and irrelevant.
On the distaff side, one can also point out all of the things Shakespeare gets wrong about Italy. If he knew Venice well, then he should have known, for example, that the Jews were locked in the ghetto at sundown. The elopement subplot of Jessica and Lorenzo in The Merchant of Venice requires free movement for Jews at night. Even if we assume Jessica could be sneaked away in disguise, there's nothing to suggest that Shylock went away to dinner in disguise. Furthermore, since the ghetto was locked, Lorenzo, Gratiano, etc. couldn't get at Jessica. They go to her house in the play; she doesn't come to them. There is nothing to suggest, pace Roe, that Shakespeare was truly personally familiar with Italy.
However, even if you could prove that Shakespeare did work convincing local detail into his plays, you are then faced with the fact that you have not eliminated all alternatives to firsthand experience nor have you established that Shakespeare was never in Italy. Strawmanning and sneering at the alternatives as a series of tavern conversations doesn't actually do anything to eliminate all other possibilities, nor does it fill one with confidence when you can't even defeat your straw man scenario. Nor can you assume that just because there's no record of Shakespeare travelling to Italy that he didn't. For men of Shakespeare's class, foreign travel most often didn't leave any records unless they had gotten in trouble while over there. We wouldn't know Christopher Marlowe had ever been to Flushing, for example, except that he was imprisoned for coining while over there. For the middle-classes, if you kept your nose clean you might well not leave any mark on the historical record at all.
So the argument you're using as your primary example of the sort of anti-Shakespearean case that can be made doesn't actually establish its premise as true and doesn't eliminate other reasonable possibilities to the inference of another author. And you have nothing better to tie de Vere to the plays than the fact that he was known to have travelled to Italy. That's the problem with these kinds of arguments. They're both overly specific in their assumption that firsthand knowledge is required of an author, but they're too broad in that anyone who had ever been to Italy might as well be the author. This is not the way to do proper attribution studies. Furthermore, all you've got in support of it is your interpretation of the plays as revealing firsthand experience of Italy, but interpretations are not evidence, and in this case the argument is self-defeating. Because how do you know the plays reveal insider information about 16th century Italy? You've obviously never been. If you have enough knowledge to make that conclusion based on nothing more than mere report, then what's to stop a playwright writing plays on the same kind of reported facts you're relying on? It's a hopeless argument no matter which way you slice it.
However, I do agree with you on one point: it is past time for the Shakespeare "doubters" to actually come up with some primary evidence supporting their own candidates. The reason that they're stuck still arguing against William Shakespeare is because they don't appear to have any.
I'm a lawyer. I sometimes draft affidavits for witnesses, which they they read and, if they agree that the affidavits are accurate, they execute. These affidavits are then admitted into evidence. This is standard practice in the courts.
Your argument that, if we assume Jonson was involved in the drafting of the dedication and the letter to readers, we can therefore disregard them, is without foundation in the law. It's also without any foundation in history, since politicians and generals regularly employ ghostwriters for their memoirs, which historians nevertheless make use of.
@rroffel
@Nullfidian has already shown why Shakespeare's alleged extraordinary knowledge of Italy does not advance your cause. But the extraordinary knowledge of Italy does not, in fact, exist. The author of Two Gentlemen of Verona thought Verona was a seaport and that you reached Milan by sailing there. This is demonstrated not just by the well-known Launce-Panthino scene but the dialog between Proteus and Speed in Act I. After Speed wheedles money out of Proteus and then tells him Julia has no use for him. Proteus angrily says "Go, go, be gone, to save your ship from wreck,/Which cannot perish having thee aboard,/Being destined to a drier death on shore."
This is the same joke as Gonzalo makes in the Tempest at the other end of Shakespeare's career, though Gonzalo spells it out a little more: this man is born to be hanged, so no ship he is on can sink.
That is not a joke you make about someone who's about to board a canal barge.
Shakespeare definitely got more knowledgeable about Italy after he wrote TGOV, whether from personal experience, reading or tavern-talk. But he never stopped making mistakes, as @Nullfidian has pointed out. Even in The Tempest, Prospero's and Miranda's voyage from Milan when he is exiled is very difficult to match with Milan's actual geography, 150 or so miles from the Mediterranean. But it lines up with the geography of London quite well.
@keypusher
I never once said we have to disregard Jonson's evidence. This is a misrepresentation of my comments.
And the author of TGOV never said he thought Verona was a seaport at all. This is a misinterpretation of the text and the historical evidence.
There were many canals in northern Italy and at least one connected Verona to the River Po and was deep enough for large ships to pass through. I would take a long hard look again at the historical evidence and not believe whatever Stratfordians say about the "incorrect" knowledge found in the Italian plays. Dorothea Dickerson's video on her travels to Italy with her husband (both are lawyers who know about evidence) provides conclusive proof that the plays got it right. There are a few more videos and papers on the same subject that provide strong evidence the writer had visited Italy. It is one reason why Italian scholars think so, and if anyone should know about Italy and its history, it would be those living there.
When you merely look at the text and assume it was written by a man who never left England, you get it wrong. When you take a look at what is in northern Italy that matches almost word for word what is in the plays and understand that the actual writer had visited Italy, things become much clearer.
None of that knowledge came from tavern-talk in a mythical tavern spoken by mythical nobles who would never really associate with commoners in such a place. You both assume and ignore too much, which seems to be typical of those who believe the Stratford paradigm.
You assume that what is described in The Tempest is about Milan and "lines up with London". There is nothing in the play which would lead audiences or readers to believe the play alludes to London at all. The geography is more like that for somewhere in the Mediterranean.
If you recall, Prospero and Miranda are put on what is described as little more than a raft and they drift for a few days. Knowing that the former Duke lived in Milan and that the voyage took only a few days suggests that the island they found themselves on was in or near the eastern Mediterranean and not the Atlantic. Furthermore, Caliban says the Greek name "Sycorax" which is another clue the island was nowhere near London or Bermuda. It would take weeks for a small raft to drift against the currents to get to the Caribbean (if it got there at all), not just days.
If you really believe the story from Warwickshire, then whatever I write should not bother you, but since you troll Mr. Purdey's blog, you may secretly have doubts yourself. Otherwise you would just ignore this site and my comments. The fact that you don't do either shows your devotion to the myth is strong and I applaud you for it.
Meanwhile, Oxfordians are expanding the boundaries of Shakespearean scholarship while the orthodoxy remains mired in a swamp of misdirection and speculation that has little to do with scholarship and more to do with preserving academic tenures, publishing contracts, and speaking engagements.
In short, the conventional story supports earning a living based on the myth and also it supports tourism dollars for the pilgrimage town which incidentally should get at least double the number of visitors next year because it will be the 400th anniversary of the publication of the First Folio. Already the propaganda is coming thick and fast from the town to boost the local economy and perpetrate the myth longer.
The Stratfordian epistemic bubble/echo chamber rarely looks out to historical events and personages, preferring to listen to each other, all the while preventing other qualified researchers from presenting their scholarship. Once you stay in that quasi-religious space, no uncomfortable facts can get in the way of believing the Horatio Alger-like story of a commoner who made good in rigidly class-restrictive England. The high priests of Stratfordianism never allow the facts to get in the way of a good story.
I of II
I never once said we have to disregard Jonson's evidence. This is a misrepresentation of my comments.
Mr. Purdey claimed that Ben Jonson's alleged role in the dedication and the letter to readers in the First Folio was a reason to disregard the dedication and letter's attribution of the plays to Shakespeare. Do keep up.
And the author of TGOV never said he thought Verona was a seaport at all. This is a misinterpretation of the text and the historical evidence.
I just explained, using the actual words of the play, exactly why I think the author of TGOV thought that Verona was a seaport and that his characters got from Verona to Milan by sea. What is your answer? "This is a misinterpretation" is not an answer. Show me how I am wrong! Nor is waving in the direction of Dickerson and Roe an argument. Do they have anything to say useful about the passage I just quoted? Bring those words in if so.
Also, what do they say about Lance and Panthino? But I'll tell you, the entire canal scenario is ludicrous; if Launce was trying to catch up to his master floating down a canal, he'd get on a horse. Later on Launce, misconstruing a question about "mastership" says his master's ship is at sea. Why would his master's ship be at sea if it was a canal barge?
There is no need for a canal from Verona to the Po, since the Adige flows into the Po. Unfortunately, well downstream of Milan. I remember another Oxfordian triumphantly sending me an advert for a tour package of canal trips in northern Italy. Sadly, but most Oxfordianishly, he hadn't read his own advert. The trip from Verona to Milan was by bus.
When you merely look at the text and assume it was written by a man who never left England, you get it wrong. When you take a look at what is in northern Italy that matches almost word for word what is in the plays and understand that the actual writer had visited Italy, things become much clearer.
The only people quoting from the plays in this thread are Stratfordians. If we're getting it wrong, you should have no trouble giving examples. But more to the point -- @Nullifidian said
However, even if you could prove that Shakespeare did work convincing local detail into his plays, you are then faced with the fact that you have not eliminated all alternatives to firsthand experience nor have you established that Shakespeare was never in Italy.
What is your answer?
II of II
Obviously "The Tempest" is set in the Mediterranean -- it's just that the Mediterranean of the Tempest bears no resemblance to the real thing.
Prospero eplains to Miranda "In few, they hurried us a-boord a Barke,/Bore us some Leagues to Sea, where they prepared/A rotten carkasse of a Butt, not rigged..."
How do you even propose to get from Milan to the Mediterranean by boat? The Po flows into the Adriatic. Assuming you could figure out a route, would you describe it as "some Leagues"? London to Gravesend is about 25 miles. I'm not saying "The Tempest" is set in London or the North Sea. I'm saying Shakespeare knew little of genuine Italian geography, and cared less.
If you really believe the story from Warwickshire, then whatever I write should not bother you, but since you troll Mr. Purdey's blog, you may secretly have doubts yourself. Otherwise you would just ignore this site and my comments. The fact that you don't do either shows your devotion to the myth is strong and I applaud you for it.
There are lots of stupid types of arguments on the internet, but this is among the dumbest. No, I'm not a secret doubter, and I'm not trolling this website. Mr. Purdy, for whatever reason, chose to post an attack on people who post on the Oxfraud website or are a member of the facebook group. He also wrote some very foolish things about the rules of evidence, which I, as a lawyer, was able to refute. I'm sure he wasn't surprised to see Stratfordians respond to his post, and you shouldn't be either.
Meanwhile, Oxfordians are expanding the boundaries of Shakespearean scholarship I suppose this article is an example of this "scholarship." Or Waugh on "Avon." Or Jack Goldstone on the monument. https://shakespeareoxfordfellowship.org/the-latin-inscription-on-the-stratford-shakespeare-monument-unraveled-its-bearing-on-the-stratfordian-controversy/ It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
@keypusher
Part I Answer
Now you are attributing Purdey's words to me.
You have to see the word "tide" from TGOV in the context of the larger picture as in this exchange:
Panthino. Launce, away, away, aboard! thy master is shipped
and thou art to post after with oars. What's the
matter? why weepest thou, man? Away, ass! You'll
lose the tide, if you tarry any longer.
Launce. It is no matter if the tied were lost; for it is the
unkindest tied that ever any man tied.
Panthino. What's the unkindest tide?
Launce. Why, he that's tied here, Crab, my dog.
Panthino. Tut, man, I mean thou'lt lose the flood, and, in
losing the flood, lose thy voyage, and, in losing
thy voyage, lose thy master, and, in losing thy
master, lose thy service, and, in losing thy
service,—Why dost thou stop my mouth?
Launce. For fear thou shouldst lose thy tongue.640
Panthino. Where should I lose my tongue?
Launce. In thy tale.
Panthino. In thy tail!
Launce. Lose the tide, and the voyage, and the master, and
the service, and the tied! Why, man, if the river
were dry, I am able to fill it with my tears; if the
wind were down, I could drive the boat with my sighs.
Notice how they pun on "tide/tied"? Notice how they pun on "Tale/tail"?
An earlier definition for "tide" by the way was not as narrow as today. "Tide" could mean the actual sea tides or it could mean time as in "time and tide wait...".
My handy Concise OED from 1944 has this as the first definition for the word: "Time, season" (p 1281) then gives several examples such as Whitsuntide, Christmastide, etc. and they add that this is an archaic use of the word. Another definition is "period of time" which is the same thing. Are you to say the editors of the Concise OED got this wrong?
Pay attention to where they are saying this: far inland. Audience members would have instantly recognized the word "tide" was used in the sense of "time". Try it for yourself: substitute "time" for "tide" and you see that the meaning of the lines shift subtly while at the same time allowing the puns to flow.
I should have been more clear when I mentioned canals, though. I meant it in the context of Milan, not Verona.
Even today there are canals - called navigli - in Milan. The largest is the Naviglio Grande which Dorothea Dickerson photographed for her presentation to the SOF a few years back. The Navilgio Grande links to the Ticino River via the Porta Ticinese and the dock known as the Darsena. This is what Stratfordians seem to not understand when canals are mentioned in context of the Milanese locations. They existed in de Vere's time, the remnants exist today, so it is still possible to sail from Milan to the Adriatic via boat. Thus, the geography is accurate.
Canals even linked interior cities such as Padua to larger cities, though my knowledge of the geography is not so good at the moment.
Among the boats which traveled these waterways were small boats known locally as veronas, thereby confusing Stratfordians once again with a term that locals knew, but non-locals would not have known. Would some traveler have called the boats by their Italian name in some mythical tavern talk? I doubt it. He would have called it merely a boat or barge, since his fellow pub crawlers would not have understood the term unless they had visited northern Italy themselves.
@keypusher
Part II Answer
The Oxfraud website often attacks prominent Oxfordians by name, yet many members of the erstwhile "educational" group remain anonymous like yourself. Had you watched my video By Plato's Beard, you would understand how poor the arguments really are on the site. Ridicule and ad hominems are common and they substitute for real facts in their case. The fact someone had to create a website specifically targeting the Oxford claim is a testament to the real case for Oxford which is far stronger than any for the Stratford businessman.
Speaking of which, the De Vere Society still has an open offer for any Stratfordian to argue their case against Oxford's in a public forum. Should the Stratfordians win, the DVS would donate tens of thousands of pounds to the SBT. The challenge was posed almost a decade ago and nobody has taken them up on the offer, despite having "the truth" on their side.
One point about Avon is in order. It will provide proof that the word meant the great hall of Hampton Court Palace from a first-hand witness: John Leland who was a poet living during the reign of Henry VIII.
Here is what Leland said about the hall as translated in William Camden's 1610 English translation of Camden's earlier book Britannia (1600): "A stately place for rare and glorious show / There is, which Thamis with wandering stream doth dowse / Times past, by Avon men it knew; / Here Henry the Eighth of that name, built an house / So sumptuous, as that on such a one / (Seek through the world) the bright Sun never shone." (page 366)
The original Latin for the important line is "nomine ab antiquo iam tempore dictus Avona". Camden supervised the translation into English which was done by Philemon Holland, so it reflects what Camden meant by quoting Leland's lines.
This may all be fine and dandy but there are two reasons why Jonson included this in his poem. First he was a student of Camden's and Epigram XIV from his own 1616 folio lavishes praise on his teacher. Second, Camden died in 1623, giving Jonson an opportunity to not only make a reference to the excerpt from Leland via Camden, but honour his teacher's memory. Recall that the title of his First Folio poem is "To the memory of my beloved / The AVTHOR". It is an oblique allusion to the passing of his teacher as well as the man who wrote using a pen name we all know. Furthermore, being a master of ambiguity, Jonson would realize that readers who did not understand the name was for Hampton Court Palace's Great Hall - meaning most commoners - would confuse it with one of three rivers in England sharing the same name. It was concealment and revelation at the same time.
I hope this has answered some of your concerns.
I have quoted TGOV extensively and provided the real definition of "tide" in the context of Early Modern English. I have provided proof that some of the geography in the Italian plays is accurate by showing there are canals linking interior cities to the Mediterranean and Adriatic. I have also provided evidence that Jonson meant the Great Hall at Hampton Court when he used the name Avon in his FF poem. He did it to pay homage to his teacher William Camden who died in 1623.
@benhackman
For a contextual definition of the word "tide" in TGOV, please see my answer to nulifidian, Part One above. The word originally meant "time" as in Whitsuntide or Christmastide. Check any good dictionary for proof. Audiences in Elizabethan and Jacobean England would have known this and not been confused at all, unlike many of today's scholars. In order to fully understand the works, you must know how the language was used and what words meant during their "tide".
RR, You are deliberately ignoring the clearly nautical context, opting instead for a pun on tide = time as opposed to tide = rise and fall of the sea.
Then as a test, you suggest that “Audience members would have instantly recognized the word ‘tide’ was used in the sense of ‘time.’. Try it for yourself: substitute ‘time’ for ‘tide’.”
So I tried it, and I do not ”instantly” recognize the word “tide” being used in a temporal sense, again, given the clearly nautical context.
Launce. “Lose this period of time, and the voyage, and the master, and
the service, and the tied.” Sorry, doesn't work. Just a bit tortured, especially when compared to:
Launce. “Lose the flood tide, and the voyage, and the master, and
the service, and the tied.” Works rather well, n’est ce pas?
The ship must be ready to depart at the peak of the flood tide, before it starts to ebb, in order to proceed down river to the sea. The writer’s London audience would get that. Instantly.
I would also suggest that Shakespeare is possibly playing on all three: tide in a sense of the moment (as you propose), tide in a nautical sense (as I propose), and, of course, the pun on poor Crab “tied” to a post. Especially given this later line from “Julius Caesar,” where Brutus says, “There is a tide in the affairs of men. Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.” And recall Panthino’s, “Tut, man, I mean thou'lt lose the flood.” All of which points to the writer treating Verona as a London-like city on a tidal river.
But you are forced to exclude the nautical sense, even though the context demands it, even though excluding the nautical sense would water down the writer’s word play. And seriously, do you think the audience, sitting in a bankside theater, would not first think of the tides along the Thames, where once the tide went out, i.e., the flood was lost, ships would be left high and dry until the tide came back in?
Bottom line: You must dodge the nautical meaning, since it would be a significant factual blunder if a well-travelled Shakespeare didn’t know the difference between London on the very tidal Thames and Verona well up the tideless Adige.
Now for the canals. Yes, it would have been possible to take a vessel down the Adige to the Adriatic, slip down the coast and up the Po, then up the Ticino (or perhaps the Adda), and then by canal to Milan. So what? Likewise, what manner of boat, or more likely boats, were used on the voyage is merely another distraction to obfuscate the singular issue that Verona is not on a tidal river, though it is clearly rendered such in TGoV.
RR. Rather than just mentioning Pathino's "flood," I should have specifically asked what you think the writer meant here. What's your take?
@rroffel
"Tide" could mean the actual sea tides or it could mean time as in "time and tide wait...".
No, in "time and tide wait for no man" "time" means "time" and "tide" means "tide." The examples from the OED refer to "tide" meaning a period or festival, like Whitsuntide. Do you have any examples contemporaneous to Shakespeare of "tide" being used to mean "time" simpliciter? Anyway, as Ben Hackman has demonstrated, even if it could be used that way, that meaning doesn't work nearly as well as the normal meaning of tide in the Launce-Panthino passage.
You haven't even made an argument about Proteus' gibe at Speed about saving his ship from wreck, presumably because you have no argument to make. (I sure can't think of one.) Nor Launce's later reference to his master's ship at sea.
Stepping back, you need the author of TGOV to be faultless about Italy because your authorship theory requires it. The text of TGOV presents many hurdles for that hypothesis, but you can't get over the first one. That should be a sign to you that your authorship theory is wrong.
Thanks for bringing up Hampton Court. One of the best Oxfraud articles, in my opinion, was a demolition of Oxfordian "scholarship" on that topic. https://oxfraud.com/index.php/100-braver-new-avon
@Ben Hackman
Here's Waugh on the "flood."
The “flood” thereby refers to the frequent filling of the navigable fossions after the rains. These fossions were deep man-made dykes (fossi navicabile) – navigable during periods of frequent flooding – that connected the rivers Po, Tartaro and Adige and were controlled by locks (barricate a chiave).
https://doubtaboutwill.org/pdfs/SBD_chapter_7_Keeping_Shakespeare_Out_of_Italy.pdf at 74.
Waugh doesn't develop the thought, but I guess the "flood" is what happens when a lock is opened? I thought maybe it means "the fossion is full" but that doesn't make sense. The flood doesn't last, else Panthino wouldn't be trying to hurry Launce along so. By "flood" he obviously doesn't mean "the water level is up because it's rained a lot." But if Waugh means "the lock is opened", that's just more nonsense. If Launce's boat is going to be carried along by the flood of water being released from a lock, what are the oars for? Would opening a lock really move the barge quickly or a long way? Not on any canal I've ever seen.
@benhackman
I am not ignoring the nautical sense of "tide" only pointing out that the word has a different meaning which was in more common use at the time as in "noontide", "eventide", etc.
Here again is the dialogue from Act II, scene 3 in TGOV: my internal word substitutions and comments are in square brackets.
Panthino. Launce, away, away, aboard! thy master is shipped
and thou art to post after with oars. What's the
matter? why weepest thou, man? Away, ass! You'll
lose the tide [time], if you tarry any longer.
[Note that the word "tarry" contextualizes the word "tide" as a euphemism for time, since to "tarry" is to be slow.]
Launce. It is no matter if the tied were lost; for it is the
unkindest tied that ever any man tied.
Panthino. What's the unkindest tide? [This puns on the nautical theme and is not meant to be literal.]
Launce. Why, he that's tied here, Crab, my dog.
Panthino. Tut, man, I mean thou'lt lose the flood, and, in
losing the flood, lose thy voyage, and, in losing
thy voyage, lose thy master, and, in losing thy
master, lose thy service, and, in losing thy
service,—Why dost thou stop my mouth?
Flood is a complicated substitute for time. The "flood" in this case represents how much time Launce has and refers back to "tide" as a word for time. You cannot read this literally.
Where in this does the writer mention the local river? Nowhere.
Here is Proteus speaking to Julia from Act II, Scene 2.
Proteus. Here is my hand for my true constancy;
And when that hour o'erslips me in the day
Wherein I sigh not, Julia, for thy sake,
The next ensuing hour some foul mischance
Torment me for my love's forgetfulness!
My father stays my coming; answer not;
The tide [time] is now: nay, not thy tide [time] of tears;
That tide [time] will stay me longer than I should.
Julia, farewell!
[Exit JULIA]
What, gone without a word?
Ay, so true love should do: it cannot speak;
For truth hath better deeds than words to grace it.
You obviously do not understand how putting canals into the Italian plays shows the writer either visited or lived there. It was not widely-known that northern Italy has/had canals. There were no travel guides to let commoners know they were there, either. How could anyone know this through some mythical conversations in a mythical tavern?
I suppose it is possible, but is there any evidence this happened? If you say the evidence is in the words, you then have a circular argument.
You use a red herring when you go on about "flood". It still does not prove the Stratford man visited Italy or refutes the fact that the geography in the Italian plays is accurate.
The Oxfordian authorship theory does not rest solely on the fact of Italian geography: it is based on cumulative evidence (clear and convincing evidence for many).
@keypusher
You obviously did not understand Jonson's use of Avon in his poem, and neither does the author of the Oxfraud website "paper".
What is the immediate context of "Sweet Swan of Avon"? It is the following:
"Sweet Swan of Avon! what a sight it were / To see thee in our waters yet appear, / And make those flights upon the banks of Thames, / That so did take Eliza and our James!"
Did Jonson mention a river in these lines? Yes, he did; the Thames. What is next to the River Thames where Queen Elizabeth and James I would have gone to see plays?
Why, Hampton Court (definitely not the Globe!) which as John Leland said in a Latin poem has a great hall which was once called Avon. His actual words were "Nomine ab antiquo iam tempore dictus Avona" which William Camden instructed Philemon Holland to translate into English as "Times past, by name of Avon, men it knew". This is on page 366 of the English translation published in 1610. Look it up if you want; nobody is holding you back from seeing evidence outside of the Stratford paradigm.
I will now address Proteus' gibe about the wreck. Ships can be wrecked on the shores of lakes and rivers just as well as the shores of oceans and islands. That is as good a counter argument as any. And it answers your point logically and accurately.
Launce mentions his master's ship being at sea, but it is not in the context of traveling between cities or travel at all: it is in the context of a pun on what Speed asks of him. Here is the dialogue. You have taken the words out of context as is usual for Stratfordians.
Act III, scene 1
Speed. How now, Signior Launce! what news with your
mastership?
Launce. With my master's ship? why, it is at sea.
Speed. Well, your old vice still; mistake the word [this tells the audience Launce misheard "mastership" as "master's ship".]. What
news, then, in your paper?
As I said to Ben Hackman, the Oxfordian authorship theory does not rest solely on the accuracy of the geography of the Italian plays: it is cumulative and is based on not just a preponderance of the evidence, but clear and convincing evidence and even to substantial evidence. Taking one item from the whole is reducing it by one element of the entire corpus of evidence we have for Oxford, which numbers in the hundreds.
Of course, Stratfordians ignore the evidence in favour of their own "evidence" which is not personal in nature, but only literary. We know Oxford wrote plays since several writers said he did and we have letters written by him to other people and poems with his name under them. Nobody can say the same for the Stratford man: everything that mentions him outside of birth notices or his will is about money or property.
That is the core of any arguments which posit an author other than the Stratford merchant.
@rroffel
Flood is a complicated substitute for time. Call a lifeguard, RR is drowning! Waugh is less absurd than this.
Where in this does the writer mention the local river? Nowhere.
Launce, a couple lines later:
Why, man, if the river
were dry, I am able to fill it with my tears; if the
wind were down, I could drive the boat with my sighs.
Sails tend not to work too well on canals, incidentally.
My father stays my coming; answer not;
The tide [time] is now: nay, not thy tide [time] of tears;
That tide [time] will stay me longer than I should.
Julia, farewell!
Proteus is using tide in the nautical sense, like everyone else in this play. The tide of Julia's tears will slow him, just as the nautical tide will speed his voyage.
You use a red herring when you go on about "flood". It still does not prove the Stratford man visited Italy or refutes the fact that the geography in the Italian plays is accurate.
As demonstrated by this very thread: no, it isn't. There are other geographical errors in the play we haven't even touched on yet.
RR: “You use a red herring when you go on about "flood". It still does not prove the Stratford man visited Italy or refutes the fact that the geography in the Italian plays is accurate.”
Sorry, but you’re wrong on both counts. Nobody on this side of the aisle is trying to prove that Shakespeare/Stratford visited Italy. We see no need for him to have visited, just like we see no need for any of the Shoreditch playwrights to have visited the foreign venues where they set their plays. Nor is the geography in the Italian plays accurate, unless you still believe Verona is a tidal port.
OTOH, Oxenfordians like yourself desperately try to prove that Shakespeare/Oxford’s personal knowledge of Italy is evidence that he alone wrote Shakespeare. Italy is an Oxfordian obsession, not a Stratfordian.
At this point, perhaps you should remember the first rules of holes and just stop digging.
First, your dogmatic insistence that “tide” is not used in a nautical sense when the scene in TGOV is set on a dock, in a port, from which a ship is about to depart. Such blind insistence is really unbecoming.
Second, you claim that “Flood is a complicated substitute for time. The 'flood' in this case represents how much time Launce has and refers back to 'tide' as a word for time. You cannot read this literally.” Yes you can. And it’s not complicated. A word used in an appropriate context means what it means. Your contortions in service to Milord Oxford are painful to watch. But understandable. Because to an Oxfordian, there’s always a hidden meaning that, if properly tortured, can become evidence for your guy.
Third, you ask, “Where in this does the writer mention the local river? Nowhere.” But as “Keypusher” pointed out, the writer does. Have you not read the play? Maybe not. Because Oxfordians seem to mine the plays selectively for what they think are nuggets of evidence (invariably context-free) in their continuing attempts to support Oxford’s authorship.
Fourth, your obsession with canals. Where in the play does it mention canals? Inquiring minds want to know. Because Oxfordians alone have inserted them, solely to shore up their belief in Oxford’s perfect knowledge of all things Italian, which we already know is far from perfect. The playwright only says that Valentine, soon to be followed by Proteus, are going by ship to Milan, meaning they boarded a ship in Verona and would proceed by sea until they arrive at, or near, the port of Milan. No canals.
As mentioned upthread, Val & Pro could board one of the larger river-going vessels that might properly be called a ship, proceed down the Adige, then a short jog in the Adriatic to the Po, then upriver, perhaps as far as Pavia, disembark, and take a horse or carriage for the last 15 miles to Milan, especially since they were hurrying to court. Of course, none of these details are in the play. But neither is any mention of a much slower trip by barge that would use canals. This is strictly an invention of Team Oxenford, which you cannot impose on TGOV when there is no language in the play to support it.
I must, however, commend you for your loyal devotion to Lord Oxenford. Clearly you despise Stratford, a common drudge who lacked all the advantages that you and Oxford have enjoyed. In your gross and scope, you simply cannot imagine Stratford doing what he did, especially when his accomplishments so far outstrip yours. But if Lord Oxford was the playwright, then all is right in the world. The deplorables are kept in their place, while the elites enjoy their rightful place in the great chain. So despising Stratford must bring you a great deal of satisfaction, as would being a devoted acolyte of Hedingham.
Thus we suspect that no amount of fact-based argument will sway you from your devotion to Oxford. You are far too deeply committed, driven by what appears to be an all-consuming emotional investment in Naughty Eddie.
But we'll keep trying. There's hope for everyone.
@benhackman
"Thus we suspect that no amount of fact-based argument will sway you from your devotion to Stratford. You are far too deeply committed, driven by what appears to be an all-consuming emotional investment in the great hoax."
"It's not enough to wreck the ship; the ship has to be wrecked in such a way as to cause the passengers to drown. Which they're not going to do if the ship hits a riverbank, but they would if the ship were to sink at sea."
You can drown if the ship hits a rock in the middle of the lake or in rapids and you cannot swim. Or didn't you realize that most people in historical times couldn't swim? It's a weird fact that until the latter half of the 20th century, most English sailors couldn't swim.
"So despising Stratford must bring you a great deal of satisfaction, as would being a devoted acolyte of Hedingham."
The same can be said of Stratfordians about Oxford. You and yours always split hairs, insert red herrings, and take things out of context more so than doubters. That is your problem as I have said before. Whatever negative can be said about doubters can just as well be said about Stratfordians.
"Because Oxfordians seem to mine the plays selectively for what they think are nuggets of evidence (invariably context-free) in their continuing attempts to support Oxford’s authorship."
The same is said about Stratfordians who ignore counterevidence and dismiss new evidence as you have done. Read Roe's book, watch the Dickerman video, then use your brains. They present facts, not speculation, as to locations in the Italian plays. And it is NOT the sole reason to support any alternate candidates, but one reason among many.
Your utter lack of lateral thinking is apparent. "Tide" means "time" as well as what we know as the rising and falling of ocean waters due to the pull of the moon's gravity. And if you read my comments, you would see the logic of it and stop being snarky, snide, and insulting. That is the last resort of someone who has no evidence to back up their argument.
Everything you say can be refuted, especially the Stratfordian devotion to literal interpretations of the text when and where it will suit their arguments. In past ages, people read texts looking for hidden meanings, allegories, allusions, etc. which Stratfordians will never admit. Read Arthur Metzer's book Philosophy Between the Lines for a history of esoteric writing if you refuse to believe what I say in my comments. He puts it better than I can. And yep, he was writing about philosophers and politicians, but it can readily be applied to other forms of writing, especially Elizabethan drama where playwrights disguised prominent figures they knew about, and "Shakespeare" knew about the Court unlike any commoner could. Or have you also ignored the fact that every play includes characters who were nobles? And how could a commoner have known about the inner lives of the most powerful people in the kingdom? Certainly not from any overheard conversations. No aristocrats would air their laundry out in public then or now.
Everything in the plays can be read in more than one way, yet Stratfordians are literalists unwilling to read the words as poetry or allusions to the writer's life. Playwrights were called poets by many contemporaries of the earl yet like faithful members of the flock, Stratfordians seem to want to have the monopoly on reading and interpreting "Shakespeare". But they do so at the expense of history through the bogus "death of the author" paradigm in which the writer's life and experiences count for nothing: everything is imaginary because the Stratford man was an "incomprehensible genius" as Stanley Schoenbaum once said. Yeah, right. He knew everything by telepathy and listening in on conversations in taverns.
OK. No more snarks.
Your write, “. . . Elizabethan drama where playwrights disguised prominent figures they knew about, and ‘Shakespeare’ knew about the Court unlike any commoner could.”
Please provide, let’s say, three examples of prominent figures who were disguised by Elizabethan playwrights in order mock, scorn, or ridicule them (which seems implicit in you claim, as opposed to an allegorical work praising the person). Recall that the Master of the Revels approved all plays, so it would seem that you’ll be identifying instances that the Revels office missed.
And while we’re at it, could you provide three examples from the plays of the “inner lives” of the nobility that you believe only a fellow nobleman, like de Vere, would be able to write about.
Just asking you to support two of the better-known predicates that Oxfordians employ against Stratford. I think this could lead to an interesting discussion that I promise to keep snark free, although we must acknowledge up front that both of these topics (disguised figures and hidden lives) will likely tend toward the subjective.
@benhackman
I can provide more than three examples.
William Cecil was long ago identified by Stratfordians as the person on whom Polonius was based. The proverbs he cited "Neither a borrower nor a lender be", etc. were paraphrases from his small book of precepts which he gave to his sons first published as "Certain Precepts for the Well Ordering of a Man's Life" in 1617, 17 years after after the first quarto of Hamlet was released. Commoners would likely not have been able to read the manuscripts of the book since they were privately given to Thomas Cecil, Robert Cecil, and some Wards of the Court. Cornell University issued a version in 1962 from such a manuscript dated 1615 in a collection under the aegis of the Folger Library.
Ophelia is thought to represent Anne Cecil Vere; like Ophelia she suffered similar indignities while they were estranged. Extant letters seem to confirm this, though at the moment, I do not have them handy.
Horatio is thought to be based on Sir Horace Vere, the earl's favourite cousin. Francesco, a minor guard seen at the beginning is likely based on Francis Vere, the second of the "fighting Veres" who helped to liberate Holland from Spanish rule in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At the beginning of the play, Horatio relieves Francis of his watch which is an allusion to Horace taking over his brother's position as commander of English forces - and as governor of Brill - in the late 1590s. It's a tiny detail which only someone with direct knowledge of the transfer of command would know. De Vere would have known of it, it is unlikely that commoners would.
A fifth example is Slender from The Merry Wives of Windsor. Slender is thought to have been modeled after Sir Philip Sidney, who was de Vere's rival for Anne Cecil's hand in 1570. Unlike Fenton, one of three foils for de Vere in the play, he was "of slender means". Though we have not much insider information how the courtship went, we know Robert Dudley, Sidney's uncle (aka Shallow) was a broker between William Cecil and Sidney just as Justice Shallow was brokering the contract for his nephew Slender.
Ford - we are still in this play - is de Vere as a jealous husband. De Vere accused his first wife Anne of not being faithful after he was told by an enemy from the Howard family their first daughter Elizabeth was not really his. Apparently the bed-switch trick in the play was actually done to help de Vere reconcile with Anne.
Titania is thought to represent Queen Elizabeth I since the character is identified with the moon, and the allegedly virgin Queen Elizabeth was seen as the embodiment of Diana, who is a goddess of the moon. Her courtship with the duc D'Alencon is probably mirrored in Titania mistaking Bottom (as an ass) for Oberon. The speech by Bottom in Act III, scene 1 where he says "I will not stir from this place, do what they can" is paraphrased from D'Alencon's actual words from 1581. Bottom's words show insider information which no commoner would have had access to. The courtship between the queen and the Duke was no longer topical in the 1590s, but it was in the mid-1580s, when Oxfordians think the play was first written.
I could go on, but I trust that satisfies your request.
I can only address your first example of disguised figures, as I’m visiting family and don’t have access to my references, but I will tackle the rest later next week when I get back.
Polonius may have been based on Cecil, as some Strafordains and all Oxfordians have posited. But even if this were the case, the Master of the Revels saw nothing malevolent, given that, IMHO, Polonius is, at worst, a well-intentioned advisor to the king, and a doting and overly solicitous parent. And of course, Cecil was never murdered by Oxford for his efforts.
As far as the precepts, they are platitudes, commonplaces. But most of all, the precepts bear little similarity to those in Cecil’s letter to his son Robert.. For example, Cecil’s first precept begins, “When it shall please God to bring thee to man’s estate, use great providence and circumspection in choosing thy wife.” Polonius has nothing to say on this matter. Or Cecil’s second precept, “Bring thy children up in learning and obedience, yet without outward austerity.” Again, Polonius is silent on this subject. Or the third precept where Cecil advises, “Live not in the country without corn and cattle about thee; for he that putteth his hand to the purse for every expense of household, is like him that putteth water in a sieve.” Again, nada on this subject from Polonius, though deliciously ironic wrt Oxenford.
Some of the Cecil’s later precepts have modest similarities to Polonius’s. For example, In the 8th Burghley advises, “Towards thy superiors be humble, yet generous; with thine equals familiar, yet respective,” while Polonius urges, “Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.” Oxfordians will point out that both Burghley and Polonius use the word “familiar, but Cecil distinguished between superiors and equals, Polonis does not.
Burghley and Polonius also give advice on borrowing and lending, though the actual advice on those subjects is quite different. Burghley says, if you have to borrow, borrow from strangers. Polonius says don’t borrow at all. Burghley says, if you have to lend, get a bond in writing for collateral. Polonius says don’t lend at all.
But that’s about it. The similarities are threadbare, while the omissions are glaring, leaving very little, if anything, for Oxfordians to base their claim on.
So I recommend that you do your own comparison of Cecil’s precepts, which are conveniently available in the following link, which also provides a more detailed refutation of this bit of Oxfordian mythology: Hurghley Burghley | The man who wasn't Hamlet (oxfraud.com) You really should start doing your own research instead of uncritically recycling the claims, that through endless repetition, have become articles of faith among Oxfordians, which they further insist have some probative value.
Thus we find ourselves here, reduced to debating whether a passage in Hamlet is similar enough to Cecil’s precepts to support a claim that Oxford used them as the source for Polonius’s advice to Laertes. And never mind that the Cecil addressed the letter to his son, Robert, not his son-in-law Oxford, (upon whom Cecil would have known the advice would be wasted). And this point only muddies the water further, i.e., what evidence is there that Oxenford ever saw the letter, which seems a rather significant obstacle that Oxfordians apparently have side-stepped.
Part II Follows . . .
Continued. . .
In a larger sense, however, I find it unfortunate, but not surprising, that our discussion has been reduced to such trifles. Wouldn’t you rather be debating the meaning of the inscription on Oxford’s funerary statue, the one in Hedingham that called him:
IVDICIO PYLIVM, GENIO SOCRATEM, ARTE MARONEM
Or perhaps discussing the probative value of some other piece of documentary evidence that identifies Oxford as the author of the Shakespeare canon. For example, if William Camden’s “Remaines concerning Britaine,” had named Oxford one of “the most pregnant wits of these our times, whom succeeding ages may justly admire."
Or possibly evaluating the meaning of one of the many poetic tributes to Oxford, such as this:
Liue Spenser euer, in thy Fairy Queene:
Whose like (for deepe Conceit) was neuer scene:
Crownd mayst thou bee, vnto thy more renowne,
(As King of Poets) with a Lawrell Crowne.
And Daniell, praised for thy sweet-chast Verse:[1]
Whose Fame is grav'd on Rosamonds blacke Herse.
Still mayst thou liue: and still be honored,
Eor that rare Worke, The White Rose and the Red.
And Drayton, whose wel-written Tragedies,
And sweete Epistles, soare thy fame to skies.
Thy learned Name, is sequall with the rest;
Whose stately Numbers are so well addrest.
And Oxford thou, whose hony-flowing Vaine,
(Pleasing the World) thy Praises doth obtaine.
Whose Venus and whose Lu crece (sweete, and chaste)
Thy Name in fames immortall Booke haue plac't.
Liue euer you, at least in Fame liue euer:
Well may the Bodye dye, but Fame dies neuer.
. . . with apologies to John Barnfield
Or this:
Renowned Spencer, lye a thought more nye
To learned Chaucer, & rare Beaumont lye
A little neerer Spenser to make roome
For Oxford in your threefold fowerfold Tombe
To lodge all fowre in one bed make a shift
Vntill Doomesdaye, for hardly will a fift
Betwixt yis day & yat by Fate be slayne
ffor whom your Curtaines may be drawn againe.
If your precedency in death doth barre
A fourth place in your sacred sepulcher,
Vnder this carued marble of thine owne
Sleepe rare Tragœdian, Oxford sleep alone
Thy vnmolested peace, vnshared Caue
Possesse as Lord not Tenant of thy Graue
That vnto us and others it may be
Honor hereafter to be layde by thee.
. . . with apologies to Wm Basse
Indeed, our discussions would be so much meaningful, and interesting, if we had documentary evidence like the above for Oxford, instead of debating the tenuous probative value of subjective speculations.
And I promise to tackle Ophelia as Anne, et al, upon my return.
RR, I also forgot to point out the obvious. You were going to offer “disguised prominent figures.” But Cecil was hardly disguised if, as you claim, some Stratfordians and all Oxfordians know that Polonius is a send up of Cecil. Elizabethans would, of course, have known, too. Thus zero disguise. More to the point, Shakespeareknew how to navigate the potentially treacherous Bankside waters, unlike Ben Jonson. And to reiterate, Polonius is neither mocked nor ridiculed in the play. If you think you can make the case, please do.
You also wrote, “Everything in the plays can be read in more than one way.” Yet you refuse to read “tide” in TGOV as anything other than time. Recall I conceded that Shakespeare likely meant time as well as the literal meaning. But you absolutely refuse to accept the literal meaning, despite the clearly nautical context. So the only obdurate lad here is you violating you own precept. But you have no choice, else you’d be forced to concede that the playwright thought Verona was a tidal port. And there goes your “perfect knowledge” theory. BTW, I can easily destroy a lot of Roe’s other claims. I see that Nullifidian has already demolished Roe’s silly sycamores.
Likewise, Roe’s bit on Vulcano. First there’s no evidence Oxford went further south than Sienna. That aside, Roe’s Vulcano might as well be England with the “hedgehogs which/lie tumbling” in Caliban’s path and prick his feet. (No hedgehogs in England’s hedges are there?) And a jay’s nest, young scamels (which Roe acknowledges are found along the beaches in England), crab apples, and mulberries (at Henry VIII’s Tudor manor house, as well as downtown London). Finally, the “pricking gorse” that are prominent along exposed Atlantic coastal heathland habitats from Iberia to England, but not, repeat not in the Med.
Roe also emphasizes the “hot mud pools” he found on the island, then cites Ariel’s report of Caliban, Stephano, and Trinculo “I’th’ filthy-mantled pool beyond your cell.” But in the play there is no heat, no sense of hotness, except the trio was “red-hot with drinking.” Instead, it seems like just plain old filthy mud. Then Roe emphasizes the “volcanic sulfur dust” covering the pools. Yet the trio smells not of sulfur. Says Trinculo, “Monster, I do smell of Horse piss.” Sounds, rather, smells like a stable, a cesspool, a London gutter, a country barnyard--but not the very distinct smell of rotten eggs. Roe then places special emphasis on the “filthy-mantled” nature of the stinking pool. But it is not yellow-mantled like the pictures he shows, but filthy-mantled, i.e., brown. But Roe sees what he wants to see, what he has to see.
Finally, Roe notes Caliban describing the music of the island, “The isle is full of noises/Sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.” But Roe inexplicably compares this to Virgil’s description of “Vulcano’s groaning, hissing, pounding, and panting.” And this would be “sweet airs?” No spewing volcanoes are ever described on Caliban’s island. And erupting volcanos do not sound “sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.” Roe was a lawyer pleading a case. But under cross-examination, his case falls apart.
In the epilogue, Roe cannot even imagine that Caliban’s island is imaginary. Instead, everything must be based on something Oxford surveyed, or was merely nearby, as he was nearby Golding and thus translated The Metamorphoses (I call it the Oxfordian Law of Proximity). Thus, and sadly, Roe ends up like so many other Oxfordians, who most assuredly are smarter than the bellowing butcher from Turnip Town. And in his efforts to erase Shakespeare, the sincere barrister has only proven once again that if you look hard enough for evidence to prove what you already know in your heart, you’ll find it, somewhere, over the rainbow, or perhaps in the “deep nook” on Caliban’s volcano-free island.
Anywho, I promise to tackle the other ““disguised prominent figures” upon my return. Just got on a roll.
@benhackman
This may be the last reply I post on this thread since it is taking up too much space for something that we will never agree on. I admit that I sometimes get my facts a bit wrong or that I might not use precise examples to make my point. I apologize if I have given you the wrong impression of my interpretation of the Oxfordian theory.
I have taken into account your arguments, from the prima facie definition to your most recent post which I answer in part here.
I think I know how Stratfordians interpret the presence of allusions to nobles in the plays: they believe the average commoner would know character traits and details of the real people portrayed in the plays and link them to the fictional characters. Here is why that is not sound reasoning.
You and I know Polonius is based on William Cecil. The character’s position as the queen’s right-hand man and attitude fit what the record shows of Lord Burghley. Sure, this could fit other courtiers like Sir Christopher Hatton to some extent, but who would know that? Would aristocrats who did not personally know Cecil see how closely he was portrayed? Would anyone see it from overhearing talk in a tavern? I doubt it. To paint such a consistent and accurate picture of someone takes months of careful observation.
Many researchers have a conceptual bias when they approach clues in the authorship game. We understand who “Shakespeare” meant when he based characters on then-living nobles. We have the hindsight benefit of research from historians and biographers and access to thousands of papers and books to know that. This is the root of the bias.
When we see something in the canon from a classical source or a reference to contemporary events and people, often we assume that patrons of public playhouses would also know this merely because the plays have those allusions. That is not true: lower-class audiences had a limited base of information to draw from and without access to classical translations and biographies of courtiers, nobody would know these things other than someone who knew the original sources and the people who were portrayed in the plays.
Most nobles would have understood the allusions because of their broader education and life experience.
The Oxfordian theory is not about snobbery against the possibility that a commoner could have written the works but about the evidence in the writing that the playwright was an educated nobleman. He knew hundreds of books and could pick from them anything for his plays so long as they fit the purpose of a scene. He also knew falconry, military tactics, sailing, cosmology, and medicine which were not taught in grammar schools.
The plays show a knowledge of books not yet translated into English. They show someone well read in the law. They show someone who had a full life that included travel to Italy even though Stratfordians distort, dismiss, or ignore the evidence. They show a person who had an insider’s view of Queen Elizabeth I’s and knew personal details about the courtiers.
None of this knowledge or experience could have come from the life of a commoner. None of it could have come from merely reading books, overhearing conversations in taverns, using the imagination, or a combination of all three. It had to have come from advanced education and life experience alone.
When non-aristocratic playwrights such as Jonson or Marlowe tried penning a play set in some royal court, the results lack the subtle nuances of aristocratic life and how nobles thought found in Shakespeare's work.
The only type of person who could have done such an exceptional job of alluding to nobles in the plays would have been an aristocrat. The Stratfordian take on this seems to be that the average spectator would understand them. The logic demonstrates this was not true.
@benhackman
Part 2
I originally included the following example in Part 1 above, but as it grew, thought it best to put it into another comment. Outside of the resemblance of Polonius to Cecil and other personal allusions already mentioned, it is perhaps one of the strongest pieces of evidence for de Vere as the author of Hamlet.
Jan Steffanson wrote more than a century ago that Hamlet had “correct knowledge of Danish names, words, and customs of his time” (Contemporary Review Jan. 1896). One custom was the “cannon health” salute: each time the king drank, a cannon fired a blank.
Here are pertinent lines from Hamlet: “No jocund health that Denmark drinks today, / But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell” (Act I, scene 2). He is speaking of how the king of Denmark should be firing cannons to mourn Hamlet's father in heaven instead of toasting his own health.
In Act V scene 2, the King says:
…Give me the cups;
And let the kettler to the trumpet speak,
The trumpet to the cannoneer without,
The cannons to the heavens, the heavens to earth
“Now the king drinks to Hamlet!“
He is ordering the drummers to signal his trumpeters to play the order to fire the cannons to the castle’s artillery officers as he makes a toast to Hamlet.
So, how would we argue how the cannon health salute got into Hamlet?
Here is just one possible version of the Stratford case as I see it but it omits any speculation on how the businessman became a writer. That is for another day.
Peregrine Bertie, 13th Baron Willoughby, was envoy to Denmark and stationed in Elsinore Castle from July 22 to September 27 1582. He would have seen the custom of the cannon health salute.
There may have been an (unnamed) servant from his household who may have frequented the Mermaid Tavern which Shakspere probably visited from time to time. The unidentified servant might have overheard his boss talking with someone about the cannon health salute and thought it was something to use later in conversation. While drinking at the Mermaid one night, he may have encountered Shakspere, and if he knew that Shakspere was a playwright, he may have given out the information in general conversation. Shakspere may have been writing Hamlet at the time, remembered the detail about the health salute, and then used it in the play.
In this brief we have eight items of pure conjecture comprising six steps which makes for a long chain of possible links in the argument for which there is no corroborative evidence. There are countless possible variations on this, but each one would have as much, if not more, items of speculation for which there is no evidence.
Compare this to what we have in Oxford’s brief.
We know Peregrine Bertie married Mary Vere, Oxford’s sister. We know he was envoy to Denmark for several months in 1582 where he would have seen first-hand the cannon health salute. We know that Oxford with either of his wives (or both in succession) spent time with his sister Mary and Bertie at their estate after they returned from Denmark where the health salute could have been a topic of discussion. We know from contemporary accounts that Oxford was a playwright. Finally, we have strong evidence that he wrote using the name William Shakespeare as a pen name.
For Oxford’s case, we have five provable facts, one very plausible item of speculation (the cannon salute as a topic of conversation), and one item based on plenty of cumulative evidence that de Vere wrote as Shakespeare.
To sum up. Shakspere has eight items of speculation/conjecture. Oxford has five provable facts, one item of conjecture, and one item of speculation for which there is plenty of corroborative evidence.
What story would you accept as evidence in the case of the king’s cannon health salute and how it got into Hamlet?
Part I. Why are you so fixated on Polonius? I’ve already shown how your key link to Cecil (the precepts) is trash, once you examine them carefully, instead of uncritically swallowing whatever Hank Whittemore serves up. By your own admission, the portrayal of Polonius “could fit other courtiers like Sir Christopher Hatton to some extent.” And therein lies the rub. Polonius is a type, the overly solicitous parent or grandparent or uncle. So tell me, what specific traits uniquely identifies Polonius as Cecil. I’ll wait.
Your problem is that you confound the general with the specific. Polonius is an advisor to the king, Cecil was an advisor to the QE, therefore Polonius is Cecil. No, just two advisors in a large pool of advisors to a head of state. What you have failed to do is identify unique similarities, identities, that clearly and convincingly portray Polonius as Cecil. But even if that were the case, so what? To what end?
But prove me wrong. Along with identifying the Polonius’s traits that uniquely tie Cecil to him, please also identify the resaone behind Polonius being a send up of Cecil. To mock Cecil for what? To ridicule him for what? Else why bother? Again, I’ll wait.
“The Oxfordian theory is not about snobbery . . . but about the evidence in the writing that the playwright was an educated nobleman.” You mean like Verona being a tidal city? And Roe’s silly sycamores. Or Vulcano. Or the pirates? Or the cannon salute that I’ll cover below? Oxfordians keep waving their hands about all the evidence they have, but whenever it’s individually challenged, whenever we peel back the onion, it always turns out to be nicely packaged fluff, but with no probative value.
“When non-aristocratic playwrights such as Jonson or Marlowe tried penning a play set in some royal court, the results lack the subtle nuances of aristocratic life and how nobles thought found in Shakespeare's work.” So give me three or four examples or these “subtle nuances” that Shakespeare gets that only an insider/nobleman would know I’ll wait. More likely, the details are in Holinshed, or even more likely, the result of Shakespeare’s uncanny ability to create powerful characters, to get inside their minds and convey those insights to us, which you mistake for insider knowledge.
Which brings us back to your fixation on Stratford learning everything in a pub. Come now. He could read. His friend, Richard Field, was the largest bookseller in London. Stratford worked amidst the Bankside writers, a hotbed of literacy. He knew his Holinshed’s Chronicles (which is where his nobleman came from, not personal experience at court). And The Metamorphoses, and all the other classical texts that the English grammar school boys were relentlessly drilled on.
And why is any explanation of the cannon salute necessary? Ironically, your audit trail for Oxford is fraught with holes, too. For starters, Bertie’s account (at least as cited in Hank Whittemore’s #74) makes no mention of kettle drums signaling the cannons. Ditto, the extract cited by Hank from the 1896 Staffanson article. No drums in either. So we’re reduced to cannons and fireworks as part of a celebration where a king knocks back a few. And suddenly we’re getting into pretty ordinary stuff that kings do. Even in England. Cannons. Fireworks. Partying.
Part II
But that’s not the real obstacle. You have no evidence that upon his return to England, Bertie discussed the custom with his wife, Oxford’s sister. Nor that at some point some one of them shared this tidbit with Oxford. Nor that Oxford took note thereof and said, ‘I’m going to include this in a play I’m writing that’s set in Denmark. You know, the one with the pirates. And I think I’ll add some kettle drums, too. Pirates and kettle drums. I think I have winner here, especially since the play is all about moi!” Yup, because that’s how plays were written back then. Oxford alone in his drafty garret wringing out the words from his tortured personal experience, a la “Anonymous.“
A more likely explanation is that this detail appeared in one of the sources, perhaps Belleforest (1570). Or perhaps the “Ur,” Hamlet of Nashe’s “whole Hamlets” (1589) and mentioned by Lodge in “Wits Misery” (1596). Though the kettle drum does not appear in Q1 (c. 1602). The key point being, Shakespeare made very little up from whole cloth. Rather, he took sources and reimagined them. Shakespeare was a great borrower. As Walter Savage Landor remarked “Shakespeare was more original than his originals. He breathed upon dead bodies and brought life to them.” So Shakespeare was not writing autobiography. In fact, I don’t even see an autobiographical connection between his son’s name and Hamlet.
Coincidence, yes, but nothing autobiographical. Because Hamlet was around long before Hamnet died in 1596. Just like Lear’s three daughters were around long before Oxford’s.
Regardless, we just don’t know how the kettle drums got there. Shakespeare may have added them from something he read in Holinshed, or elsewhere. Or simply added to get the line to scan. But Oxfordians love gaps, real and imagined. And gleefully fill them by rigorous application of the Oxfordian Law of Proximity, and sometimes it first derivative, the Proxy Variant. So if someone who Oxford knew was near “X,” then Oxford must have known about “X,” too, and even though he did not experience it personally (ironically in violation of the great canard of Oxfordoxy), it still counts, and alone explains how “X” made its way into the play. Like the pirates.
So let’s wrap this up. No mas. I agree. It’s pointless. But you still have zero actual evidence for Oxford. Just speculative application of the Oxfordian Law of Proximity, along with an occasional dose of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon
In parting, I commend you to this passage that I know you know. The Bard on playwriting:
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Such tricks hath strong imagination,
That if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy.
Do you really think this is imagination-free Oxford speaking? Dull sublunary Oxford. Whose dum-de-dum poetry lacks a single graceful trope. (My theory, his secretaries wrote the stuff for him, and as an inside joke, dumbed it down just enough so that Oxford, with his tin ear, would suspect nothing, and happily pass it off as his own.)
It’s a shame that you scan and glean the words of Shakespeare, not with a poet’s eye but a sleuth’s, searching for authorship clues. Instead of apprehending joy, you look at the plays for what they tell you about Oxford. But then Oxfordians all imagine themselves little Oxfords, suffering unrecognized in homage, and sympathy, with their dear unrecognized lord. The rest of us, however, look to see what Hamlet tells us about us, because Shakespeare unerringly put a little bit of all of us in Hamlet. What Samuel Johnson called, “just representations of general nature.”
But learning more about Oxford? Yuk. That’s what we have Nelson for.
Cheers!
There is no legal reason whatsoever to require that the prima facie case, including Item 9, should comport with the Federal Rules of Evidence, as the PFC does not qualify as evidence and is not being offered into evidence.
The requirements of Rule 901 only pertains to actual evidence. In this particular instance, regarding Item 9, that would be the documentary evidence that is the Dedication to the First Folio.
Additionally, there is no legal basis at all for Mr. Purdy's claim that his Ben-as-ghostwriter notion results in making the document suspicious. As has been shown, by rules of statutory construction and, and more decisively, by federal case law, "condition" only means the physical appearance of the evidence. The ghostwriter argument, having absolutely nothing to do with the physical appearance of the documentary evidence, is not at all relevant to the issue of the authentication of the document.
Could you please state specifically what revision you contend was made to the evidence at the Oxfraud website? I would really like to see what that is and find out what admin made such a change. Thanks.
@markjohnson
You are spot-on with your comment vis a vis the fact that claiming Jonson ghost-wrote the Dedication in the First Folio (to the Herberts) is not relevant to the issue of authenticating the document. That requires having the draft on hand, among other things.
As to the revision to the Oxfraud website, I am afraid you have to go to someone else for that as I am busy enough with videos to try and find it. It would be interesting to see the rationale behind it though.
It would, in fact, be interesting to see such a revision, as I can't find any factual change at all made at the Oxfraud website. Oh well.
Thank you for your comments on the authentication process and Rule 901. I only wish that Mr. Purdy could recognize the errors in his argument. "When all parties are honorably engaged in genuine debate, each learns how their ideas hold up in a challenging arena. Hopefully, they accept the weaknesses of their arguments and go back to the books, manuscripts, etc., in order to strengthen them. Perhaps they even have the integrity and self-confidence to change them."
What is to be avoided is giving "blatantly partisanship a thin patina of scholarship. It makes a mortal weakness of admitting to (re) assessing anything, this making their arguments rigid, and, where they are wrong, willfully, unalterable wrong." (To quote our host)
Anyway, thank you for engaging in genuine debate regarding this issue.
@markjohnson
You are welcome. It is refreshing to have a dialogue with someone without there being ad hominem attacks or other snide remarks. I trust that your spirit of open debate - as much as we can have online - will spread to all who love the works which were published under the byline William Shakespeare, whoever he really was.
I am aware of no such revision. The PFC page is created using different CMS tools to the main site. I have exclusive access to these and made no alterations at rroffel's request.
I spent a few days in Venice, Verona and the surrounding with a camera, a GPS and a measuring tool.
Almost every specific claim relied upon by Oxfordians, from the plane trees on the Via Colonella, where Ro(m)e(o)'s sycamores are supposed to be, to Magri's claim that the Villa Malatesta must be Belmont because it is 20 miles distant are inaccurate. Every claim regarding canals is inaccurate or imaginary and the tidal draft of the Med at Venice is less than half a metre and at Verona, scarcely noticeable. Sailing from Verona to Milan would have taken weeks around the whole of Italy, or even months by the non-existent direct route, pulling a barge up against the current of the Po. As opposed to a two-day ride on good roads.
Shakespeare's knowledge of Italy was no better than Marlowe's or Jonson's and worse than Dekker's or Webster's, i.e. normal for Bankside.
@Alfa
You must not have noticed that Milan still has some canals that date from the 12th to the 17th centuries. At one point, there was one which encircled the city as proven by early maps of Milan. They even had locks to raise and lower water levels, which explains why some characters would talk about going "against the tide": it meant going against water pouring into the locks. Throughout Tuscany and northern Italy canals were regularly used and some were large enough to carry big ships. By the way, Verona and Milan had canals linking them, so you did not have to go around the heel of Italy to make a boat ride from one city to the other. Just look up "I Navigli" and "Milan", and you will find a few good sites. The city offers canal tours, to boot.
De Vere's/Shakespeare's knowledge of Italy was superior than any other writer except those who traveled to Italy. Shakspere of Stratford was not one of them, and it is not plausible that some sailor(s) would be describing the finer details of Venice, Verona, Milan, or Padua in some mythical tavern discussion so that some rural Warwickshire businessman could use the information in equally mythical plays he wrote.
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