A Taste of Bacon Sir? - The Secret of Shakespeare

[David Guyatt]

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"If Bacon wrote Shakespeare,
the Promus is intelligible -
if he did not,
it is an insoluble riddle."
-Robert Theobald,
Shakespeare Studies In Baconian Light, 1901





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From Edward D. Johnson: "The Shaksper Illusion," chapter:"Francis Bacon's Promus"
FRANCIS BACON 'S Promus is by itself sufficient evidence to show that the man who wrote the Promus also wrote the "Shakespeare" Plays.
Bacon kept a private memorandum book which he called The Promus of Formularies and Elegancies which from time to time he jotted down any words, similies, phrases, proverbs or colloquialisms which he thought might come in useful in connection with his literary work, gathering them together so as to be able to draw upon them as occasion should require. The word Promus means storehouse, and Bacon's Promus contains nearly 2,000 entries in various languages such as English, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish and French.
The Promus which was in Bacon's own hand-writing, fortunately was preserved and is now in the British Museum. It was reproduced and published for the first time by Mrs. Henry Pott in 1883. No one, of course, knows the date when he commenced to make this collection, it may have been written during the years 1594 to 1596. Folio 85 being dated Dec. 5, 1594(This is a sample page), and Folio 4 being dated 27 Jan. 1595. The Promus was a private note book and was unknown to the public for a period of more than 200 years after it was written.
Now it is a significant fact that Bacon in the works published under his own name makes very little use of the notes he had jotted down in the Promus . What was the object of making this collection of phrases, etc.? The answer is that they were used in his dramatic works published by Bacon in the name of ''William Shakespeare.'' A great number of these entries are reproduced in the ''Shakespeare'' plays. An appendix to the book has a table illustrating the many entries which also appear in the works of Shakespeare.

The Stratfordians try to get over this fact by contending that these expressions were in common use at the time, but Bacon would not be such a fool as to waste his time by making a note of anything that was commonly current. The words and expressions in the Promus occur so frequently in the ''Shakespeare'' plays that it is quite clear that the author of the Plays had seen and made use of the "Promus "and Will Shakesper could not have seen Francis Bacon's private notebook.

The most important evidence in the Promus is the word ALBADA, Spanish for good dawning (Folio 112). This expression good dawning' only appears once in English print, namely, in the play of King Lear where we find "Good dawning to thee friend," Act 2, Scene 2. This word ALBADA is in the Promus 1594-96 and King Lear was not published until 1600's.If Will Shaksper had not seen the "Promus", and as he could not read Spanish, it would mean that some friend had found this word ALBADA, meaning good dawning and told Shaksper about it, and that Shaksper then put the word into King Lear, which sounds highly improbable. A part of one of the folios in the "Promus "is devoted by Bacon to the subject of salutations such as good morrow, good soir, good matin, bon jour, good day. From this it would appear that Bacon wished to introduce these salutations into English speech. These notes were made in the Promus in 1596 and it is a remarkable co-incidence that in the following year 1597 the play of Romeo and Juliet was published containing some of these salutations, and they afterwardsappeared in other "Shakespeare" plays good morrow being used 115 times; good day, I5 times; and good soir (even), 12 times. These words are found in the ''Shakespeare'' Plays and nowhere else.

The following show some of the connections between the Promus and the "Shakespeare" Plays.

Promus (I594-96) "To drive out a nail with a nail.''
Coriolanus, Act 4 Sc. 7 (1623) ''One fire drives out one fire; one nail, one nail."
"One nail by strength drives out another."

* *
Promus (1594-96) "Fire shall try every man's work."
Merchant of Venice, "The fire seven times tried this''
Act 2, Sc. 9 (1600)
* *
Promus (1594-96) "Conscience is worth a thousand witnesses."
Richard III, Act 5, ''Every man's conscience is a thousand swords." Sc. 2 (1597)
* *
Promus (1594-96) "A Fool's bolt is soon shot."
Henry V, Act 3, Sc.7(1623) "A Fool's bolt is soon shot."
* *
Promus (1594-96) "Good wine needs no bush."
As You Like It,Epilogue (1623) "Good wine needs no bush."

* *
Promus (1594-96) "I had not known sin but by the law.''
Measure for Measure Act 2, Sc. I (1623) "What do you think of the trade Pompey? Is it a lawful trade."

* *
Promus (1594-96) "Gratitude is justly due only for things unbought."
Timon of Athens, Act I, Sc. 2 (1623) "You mistake my love, I give it freely ever; and there's none can truly say he gives, if he receives.''

* *
Promus (1594-96) "To slay with a leaden sword."
Love's Labour's Lost, Act 5, Sc. 2 (1598) "Wounds like a leaden sword."

* *
Promus (1594-96) 'If our betters have sustained
the like events; we have the less cause to be grieved.''
Lucrece (1594)''When we our betters see bearing our woes, we scarcely think our miseries our foes.''
* *
Promus 1594-96) "When he is dead, he will beloved."
Coriolanus, Act 4 Sc.6 (1600) "I shall be loved when I am lacked."

* *
Promus (1594-96)Suum cuique." (To every man his own).
Titus Andronicus,Act I, Sc. 2 (1600) "Suum cuique is our Roman Justice."

* *
Promus (1594-96) "Galen's compositions and Paracelsus' separations.''
All's Well that Ends Well,"So I say both of Galen and Paracelsus." Act 2, Sc. 3 (1623)

* *
Promus (1594-96) "He had rather have his will than his wish."
Henry V, Act 5, Sc.2 (1623) "So the maid that stood in the way for my wish shall show me the way to my will."

* *
Promus (1594-96) "They have a better question in Cheapside, 'What lack you?
King John, Act 4,Sc. I (1623) "What lack you?"
* *
Promus (1594-96) "Poets invent much."
As You Like It, Act 3, Sc. 3 (1623) ''The truest poetry is the most feigning."

* *
Promus (1595-96) "He who loans to a friend loses double."
Hamlet, Act I,Sc. 3 (1604) ''Loan oft loses both itself and friend."

* *
Promus (1594-96) "We think that a rich man is always right."
Timon of Athens,Act I, Sc. 2 (1623) ''Faults that are rich are fair."

* *
Promus (1594-96) "Have recourse to a foreign war to appease parties at home."
2 Henry IV, Act 4,Sc,5 (1600) "Be it thy course to busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels.''

* *
Promus (1594-96) ''Always let losers have their words."
Titus Andronicus, Act 1, Sc. I (1600) ''Losers will have leave to ease their stomachs with their bitter tongues."
* *
Promus (1594-96) "The prudent man conceals his knowledge."
3 Henry VI, Act 4 Sc.7 (1623) "'Tis wisdom to conceal our meaning."

* *
Promus (1594-96) "Things done cannot be undone."
Macbeth, Act 5, Sc.i (1623) "What's done cannot be undone."

* *.
Promus (1594-96) "Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak."
Hamlet, Act, I,Sc. 3(1604) ''Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice."

* *
Promus (1594-96) ''Leisure breeds evil thoughts.''
Anthony and Cleopatra Act I, Sc. 2 (1623) "We bring forth weeds when our quick minds be still."
* *
Promus (1594-96) "A boy's love doth not endure.''
King Lear, Act 3 Sc. 6 (1608) "He's mad that trusts in a boy's love."

* *
Promus (1594-96) "A cat may look on a King."
Romeo and Juliet, Act 3,Sc.3 (1597) "Every cat and dog may look on her."

* *
Promus (1594-96) "He had need be a wily mouse should breed in a cat's ear."
Henry V, Act 3 Sc. 7 (1623) "That's a valiant flea that dare eat his breakfast on the lip of a lion."

* *
Promus (1594-96) "Our sorrows are our school-masters.''
King Lear, Act 2, Sc. 4 (1608) ''To wilful men, the injuries that they themselves procure, must be their schoolmasters.''

* *
Promus (1594-96) "To fight with a shadow."
Merchant of Venice, Act I, Sc. 2 (1600) ''He will fence with his own shadow.''

* *
Promus (1594-96) ''Diluculo surgere saluberrimum est.''
Twelfth Night (Act 2,Sc,2)(1623) "Diluculo surgere, thou knowest.''

* *
Promus (1594-96) "To stumble at the threshold."
3 Henry VI, Act 4, Sc. 7 (1623) "Many men that stumble at the threshold.''

* *
Promus (1594-96) ''Thought is free.''
The Tempest, Act 3 Sc.2 (1623)''Thought is free.''
Twelfth Night, Act I,Sc. 3 (1623) ''Thought is free.''
* *
Promus (1594-96) "Out of God's blessing into the warm sun."
King Lear, Act 2, Sc. 2 (1608)"Thou out of heaven's benediction com'st to the warm sun."
* *
Promus (1594-96) "Put no confidence in Princes"
Henry VII, Act 3' "0, how wretched is that poor man, that hangs on princes' favours.''
* *
Promus (1594-96) ''Frost burns.''
Hamlet Act 3 Sc.4 (1604) ''Frost itself as actively doth born."

* *
Promus (1594-96) "Appetite comes by eating."
Hamlet, Act I, ''As if increase of appetite had grownby what he feeds on."
Sc. 2 (1604)
* *
Promus (1594-96) "Better coming to the ending of a feast than to the beginning of a fray."
I Henry IV , Act 4, "The latter end of a fray and the beginning of a feast." Sc. 2 (1598)
* *
Promus (1594-96) "He stumbles who makes too much haste."
Romeo and Juliet,Act 2, Sc. 3 (1599) "They stumble that run fast."

* *
Promus (1594-96) "Anyone can manage a boat in calm weather."
Coriolanus, Act 4, Sc. I (1623) ''When the sea was calm, all boats alike show'd master-ship in floating."

* *
Promus (1594-96) "Happy man, happy dole."
Merry Wives of Windsor Act 3, Sc. 4(1623) "Happy man be his dole."
Henry IV, Act 2,Sc. 2 (1598) "Happy man be his dole."
The Taming of the Shrew Act I, Sc. I (1623) "Happy man be his dole."
The Winter's Tale, Act 1, Sc. 2 (1623) "Happy man be his dole."
* *
Promus (1594-96) "An ill wind that bloweth no man to good."
2 Henry IV, Act 5, "The ill wind which blows no man to good."

* *
Promus (1594-96) "Seldom cometh the better."
Richard III, Act 2,Sc. 3(1597)''Seldom comes the better."

* *
Promus (1594-96) "A thorn is gentle when it is young."
Henry VI, Act 5,Sc. 5 (1623) "What can so young a thorn begin to prick."

* *
Promus (1594-96) "He who has not patience has nothing.
"Othello, Act 2, Sc. 3 (1622) "How poor are they that have not patience.''

* *
Promus (1594-96) "Know thyself."
As You Like It, Act 3, Sc. 5 (1623) "Know yourself."

from: sirbacon.org

[R.K. Locke]

And so it begins...


http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2...lays?sc=tw



Christopher Marlowe Officially Credited As Co-Author Of 3 Shakespeare Plays


October 24, 2016·12:57 PM ET

Rebecca Hersher


Oxford University Press has announced that its new edition of the complete works of William Shakespeare will credit Christopher Marlowe as a co-author on the three Henry VI plays.

Despite years of controversy about the authorship of some of Shakespeare's work, this is the first time a major publishing house has formally named Marlowe as a co-author.

Christopher Marlowe is a 16th century British poet and playwright. The extent of his possible influence on (or even collaboration with) William Shakespeare is the subject of much academic scholarship, as NPR has reported, but for many years, mainstream academics had mostly derided efforts of independent scholars who challenged the authorship of plays attributed to Shakespeare.


Who Wrote Shakespeare's Plays? Debate Goes On


The new Oxford edition, which will be available in November, was edited by four Shakespeare scholars: Gary Taylor of Florida State University, John Jowett of the University of Birmingham, Terri Bourus of Indiana University and Gabriel Egan of De Montfort University.

Taylor tells NPR the conclusion that Marlowe should be credited as co-author is partly based on a combination of new and old research. In particular, Taylor cited 2009 research by Hugh Craig and Arthur Kinney that analyzed vocabulary from the Henry VI plays and compared it to plays known to have been written by Marlowe, and a 2015 article by John Nance analyzing the prose of Part 2 of Henry VI.

Taylor himself has published scholarly work on Marlowe and Shakespeare, including work from last year titled Imitation or Collaboration? Marlowe and the Early Shakespeare Canon, on which he collaborated with Nance.

"All these publications have been subjected to rigorous peer-review," Taylor told NPR in an email.

He said there is also new work by Craig and another Shakespeare scholar, John Burrow, that is specifically on Henry VI, Part 3, and will be published in a companion text devoted entirely to research on the authorship of work attributed to Shakespeare. The chapter on the third part of Henry VI is one of 25 chapters on authorship, written by 18 scholars in five countries, according to Taylor.

Oxford University Press told The Associated Press that "identifying Marlowe's hand in the Henry VI plays is just one of the fresh features of this project."

Much of the authorship analysis is quite technical because it involves analyzing every word of entire plays, looking for patterns and clues. For example, an article on Marlowe's presence in the Henry VI plays, due to be published in the next issue of Shakespeare Quarterly, is a collaboration between another of the Oxford project editors, Gabriel Egan, and a team of mathematicians from the University of Pennsylvania.

The addition of Marlowe's name to the Henry VI plays does not settle the question of Shakespearean authorship. Carol Rutter, a professor of Shakespeare and performance studies at the University of Warwick, told the BBC, "It will still be open for people to make up their own minds. I don't think [Oxford University Press] putting their brand mark on an attribution settles the issue for most people."

Rutter told the BBC, "I believe Shakespeare collaborated with all kinds of people ... but I would be very surprised if Marlowe was one of them."

As for how Marlowe's vocabulary and style could have made it into Shakespeare's work without direct collaboration, Rutter said: "It's much more likely that he started his career working for a company where he was already an actor, and collaborated not with another playwright but with the actors who will have had Marlowe very much in their heads, on the stage, in their voices. ... They were the ones putting Marlowe's influence into the plays."

Although she disagrees with the conclusion reached by Taylor and his co-editors, she told the BBC she thinks the discussion of authorship is good for Shakespearean scholarship. "We have really stopped thinking about the richness of the writing experience in the early modern theater, and by crediting Marlowe, people like Gary Taylor are making us attend to that," she said.

[David Guyatt]

How interesting RK.

Marlowe has for a long time been considered to be one of (I think it was 7) "pens" of Shakespeare - at least in certain quarters. Of course, the number "7" is very dear to the Knights Templar (likewise the Skull and Bones of course).

[Mark A. O'Blazney]

How interesting RK.

Marlowe has for a long time been considered to be one of (I think it was 7) "pens" of Shakespeare - at least in certain quarters. Of course, the number "7" is very dear to the Knights Templar (likewise the Skull and Bones of course).

More fascinating still are the circumstances behind the murder of Master Marlowe…….. he'd tend to get drunk in public places and start screaming obscenities about…. Our Lord & John the Baptist……. not a good idea, given the context of the times, would you say?

[Paul Rigby]

How interesting RK.

Marlowe has for a long time been considered to be one of (I think it was 7) "pens" of Shakespeare - at least in certain quarters. Of course, the number "7" is very dear to the Knights Templar (likewise the Skull and Bones of course).

More fascinating still are the circumstances behind the murder of Master Marlowe…….. he'd tend to get drunk in public places and start screaming obscenities about…. Our Lord & John the Baptist……. not a good idea, given the context of the times, would you say?

That was his job - he was, after all, a "projector" (in modern parlance, an agent provocateur).

[David Guyatt]

How interesting RK.

Marlowe has for a long time been considered to be one of (I think it was 7) "pens" of Shakespeare - at least in certain quarters. Of course, the number "7" is very dear to the Knights Templar (likewise the Skull and Bones of course).

More fascinating still are the circumstances behind the murder of Master Marlowe…….. he'd tend to get drunk in public places and start screaming obscenities about…. Our Lord & John the Baptist……. not a good idea, given the context of the times, would you say?

That was his job - he was, after all, a "projector" (in modern parlance, an agent provocateur).

Apparently the story of his death is exaggerated. Marlowe, Sir Francis Boar and doubtless other of the Shakespeare "pens" unquestionably were spooks, but...

Blame it on the Belgians

Hilary Mantel

• The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe by Charles Nicholl
  Cape, 413 pp, £19.99, June 1992, ISBN 0 224 03100 7
  

You don't want to see him,' said the porter at Corpus, when Charles Nicholl went to Cambridge to look at the portrait that is probably Christopher Marlowe. He died in a tavern brawl.'
Nicholl viewed the putative Marlowe, in his opulent slashed doublet, and wondered how he could afford the outfit. He looked at his buttery bills too, and noted when the shoemaker's son had money to spend; noted when (unless he was starving himself) he was absent from college. His conclusion? There was no tavern. There was no brawl. It is an old lie that Nicholl has set out to nail, but he is unable, he admits, to substitute a new truth. All he can hope for is a faint preserved outline where the truth once lay'. In Elizabeth's England, men lied to their reflection; and Marlowe belonged to a shadow world of espionage, where every straight action is mirrored by treachery, where the agent provocateur is king.
Charles Nicholl has previously written on alchemy in the Elizabethan age. As above, so below': this was the maxim of alchemists. It works in the real world too. The factious giants of Elizabeth's court are supported by a vast root-system of con-men, of prison informers, of spies, projectors' and ambodexters'. Marlowe was part of this underground world: this is not in contention. But his reputation is surrounded by rumour, misinformation, disinformation. Shady and unpleasant he may have been, Nicholl says, but we owe him something not simply because he was a great dramatist and poet, but because his death was murder, and the crime is unsolved. Nicholl is an investigator with a compelling sense of duty to the past and the people who inhabit it. To accept an untruth, to assent to a lazy version of history, is not just negligent but immoral.
Charles Nicholl writes vividly, without the academic's compulsion to cover his back; but where he is speculating he says so clearly. Part of the success of his book comes from the fact that he has focused sharply on his central incident. He begins with an account of Marlowe's death; he leads us away from it, into the thickets of European politics and the literary and political underworld; then he leads us back, by ways digressive but sure, to the Widow Bull's victualling house in Deptford, where in spring 1593 four young men spent a day drinking wine in the garden.
Mrs Bull's house was not a tavern, nor was she a sort of Mistress Quickly, half-expecting a fight to break out as the sun declined. She was a bailiff's widow, with some court connections; her house was a respectable one. Nicholl evokes the Deptford evening: the scent of apple orchards mingling with the reek of fish and sewage. At about six o'clock, the young gentlemen came in for their bespoke supper. A short while later, Ingram Frizer put the point of his dagger into Christopher Marlowe's right eyesocket. He inserted it to a depth of two inches. Marlowe died quickly, with no great fuss.
The full text of this book review is only available to subscribers of the London Review of Books.

Source

Unfortunately the LRB is locked behind a paywall and as interesting as it looks I ain't paying for the rest. :tampfeet::

[Mark A. O'Blazney]

Thanks. Will keep an eye out for the rest of this fascinating article/review.

Much more to this mystery, yes? Wading throughout the internet can be dizzying at times.

[Tracy Riddle]

A fascinating subject. This guy closed his blog down a year too early:[URL="http://marlowe-shakespeare.blogspot.com/"]
http://marlowe-shakespeare.blogspot.com/[/URL]

[Paul Rigby]

Looney's 1920 classic in PDF: https://ia800207.us.archive.org/9/items/...oniala.pdf

If you want to listen to the book:

[video=youtube_share;nK5fDsCgVXk]http://youtu.be/nK5fDsCgVXk[/video]

Published on Feb 8, 2014

The establishment's view of Looney is well-captured here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Thomas_Looney

Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, as patron of Francis Bacon: http://shakespeareoxfordfellowship.org/w...EO-ELR.pdf

Extract:

In 1578, 18-year-old Francis Bacon had arrived back in England for his father's funeral. Unable to return to Paris for lack of funds (unfortunately for Francis, his father had died before providing him with a living), and with nothing more important to engage his voracious intellectual energies, Bacon hooked up with Oxford, falling quickly into the role of Puck to his Oberon, Ariel to his Prospero.

His Lordship returned the favor by connecting the talented youth with printers who published his poems, anonymously at first, then, with Sir Walter Raleigh's help, as by Edmund Spenser. With the real Spenser far off in the wilds of southern Ireland, and with Sir Walter willing to see to it that he got a stipend for the use of his name, Bacon was encouraged to publish for the public some of the writings he'd been distributing to the Court community via manuscript, among them such divergent works as The Faerie Queene, written to entertain the Queen and her ladies, and Mother Hubberd's Cupboard, a satire in the vein he'd soon be spieling
as Thomas Nashe.

Lacking a paying Court position, Bacon was forced to provide for himself by working as a high level private secretary to Court figures in need of politically sensitive, well-written letters and official documents in both English and Latin. First among his patrons was Secretary of State Walsingham, who, when Oxford refused to write for the Court during his banishment, urged Francis to step in with plays for the boys in a style that came as close as he could manage to the euphuism that the Queen had come to expect and that were directed and staged by Oxford's secretary John Lyly. By the end of the decade there were eight of these, which, like Oxford's Euphues novels, were published under Lyly's name.