Introduction:
I posted a longer version of this (in two parts), but I decided to shorten it to this post. I want to finish the whole speech, but it is taking me longer than I originally thought. I will finish and post it eventually. I just want it to be complete before I re-post it.
In this post, I’m going to examine Hamlet’s famous “To be, or not to be...” speech.
I decided to examine this speech because it is probably the most famous speech in Shakespeare.
I’m going to use some of Alexander Waugh’s research in this post. Alexander Waugh proposed that the number 1740 (forty) was associated with Edward de Vere:
With astounding ingenuity Oxford succeeded in aligning his name, title and earldom number to the ‘blessed Trinitie’ using the numbers 17 and 40, while mirroring the same (40 and 17) in his chosen pseudonym. In simple gematria the letter V (the 20th letter of the Latin Ro-man alphabet) is 20. Double V (‘VV’) therefore equals 40 (there being no W in the Latin alphabet). Thus ‘VVilliam Shakespeare’ as printed in Jonson’s title represents the number 40 followed by 17 letters ‘ILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’ which, as stated, ingeniously evoke associations with Pallas-Minerva (patron goddess of the playwrights) with her spear-shaking will at Ilium.
‘Double V’ (‘VV’) which contracts Oxford’s motto, Vero nihil Verius – meaning nothing truer that Vere/Truth– is found on a Vere family seal ring (before 1578), and was used as a pseudonym subscribed to a prefatory letter in a pamphlet by Oxford’s servant, John Lyly. The letter ends ‘yours at an houres warning Double V’, which may be numerologically translated ‘yours 1740’.
Waugh, A. (2023d). ‘My beloved the AVTHOR’: the subtext of Ben Jonson’s first Folio encomium to William Shakespeare. Journal of Scientific Exploration, 37(2), 255–269. https://doi.org/10.31275/20233115
See also, Alexander Waugh. (2022b, January 28). The incalculable genius of John Dee [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-PWR7-0Hp4
Therefore, the numbers 17, 40, 57 (17 + 40 = 57), and 1740 are significant indicators pointing to Edward de Vere.
Suggestions for How to Read This Paper:
In this paper, I examine the etymology of each word used in Hamlet’s “To be, or not to be” speech. This involves a lot of cutting and pasting of etymologies into the paper to show the basis for my interpretation. Throughout the paper, I try to give a representative sample of the meaning and history of each word. However, I don’t always use all the material in my interpretation. I underline or bold what I think is significant and use those parts of the etymologies for my interpretation. So, there can be pages of background etymologies for a few words or lines before I provide an interpretation.
I admit that this can result in some boring reading, but I think the format is necessary. If you can read it straight through, good for you. However, if the reader wishes, he or she can skim the paper and stop to read my interpretations scattered throughout the paper and backtrack to read etymologies that are interesting. I try to put significant interpretations in sections of italicized text, so they should be easy to spot. However, I often discuss significant allusions at the end of a paragraph setting out an etymology, so the reader may want to look for those too.
In addition, I sometimes make detours into other parts of Hamlet to help explain the text. The hidden messages are like a maze, so it’s necessary to take these detours to paint a bigger picture to support my interpretation. The best examination would be to analyze the entire play, but that would be a monumental task that would probably expand even further into other parts of the First Folio very quickly. I have tried to use just enough of the play to build enough evidence to “make my case” and support my interpretation.
Hamlet:
Enter Hamlet.
1710 Ham. To be, or not to be, that is the Question:
Whether 'tis Nobler in the minde to suffer
The Slings and Arrowes of outragious Fortune,
Or to take Armes against a Sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them: to dye, to sleepe
1715 No more; and by a sleepe, to say we end
The Heart-ake, and the thousand Naturall shockes
That Flesh is heyre too? 'Tis a consummation
Deuoutly to be wish'd. To dye to sleepe,
To sleepe, perchance to Dreame; I, there's the rub,
1720 For in that sleepe of death, what dreames may come,
When we haue shufflel'd off this mortall coile,
Must giue vs pawse. There's the respect
That makes Calamity of so long life:
For who would beare the Whips and Scornes of time,
1725 The Oppressors wrong, the poore mans Contumely,
The pangs of dispriz'd Loue, the Lawes delay,
The insolence of Office, and the Spurnes
That patient merit of the vnworthy takes,
When he himselfe might his Quietus make
1730 With a bare Bodkin? Who would these Fardles beare
To grunt and sweat vnder a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The vndiscouered Countrey, from whose Borne
No Traueller returnes, Puzels the will,
1735 And makes vs rather beare those illes we haue,
Then flye to others that we know not of.
Thus Conscience does make Cowards of vs all,
And thus the Natiue hew of Resolution
Is sicklied o're, with the pale cast of Thought,
1740 And enterprizes of great pith and moment,
With this regard their Currants turne away,
And loose the name of Action. Soft you now,
The faire Ophelia? Nimph, in thy Orizons
Be all my sinnes remembred.
Hamlet (Folio 1, 1623) :: Internet Shakespeare Editions. (2019, January 11). https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/doc/Ham_F1/complete/index.html
Analysis:
“To be, or not to be, that is the Question...”
"To be" translated into Danish is at være, which is pronounced like "a Vere" or "E. Vere." If the Danish word at in at være is treated as an English word and translated into Danish, it becomes ved, which when spelled backwards is "de V" or "de V[ere]". Google Translate pronounces it like "VU", and "VU" was the same as "VV" in the Old Latin alphabet. Because V is the 20th letter in the Old Latin alphabet, double-V is forty (40). Therefore, the words “to be” when translated into Danish result in a pun on the name de Vere and a number associated with his name— 40.
Consequently, the first few words of Hamlet's speech can be read "To be a de Vere, or not to be a de Vere, that is the question."
Gematria Side Note:
Although I don't put much reliance on gematria, the following provides the gematria values of the first line of Hamlet's speech:
The values of letters in "To be" in Old Latin gematria total 40:
(T=19)+(O=14)+(B=2)+(E=5) = 40
The value of "or not" is 77:
(O=14)+(R=17)+(N=13)+(O=14)+(T=19) = 77
Therefore, the value of the letters in "To be, or not to be" is 157 (40+77+40=157), which is the total value of the letters in FRA ROSI CROSSE [Fraternitas Rosae Crucis (Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross)] in simple cipher:
(F=6) + (R=17) + (A=1) + (R=17) + (O=14) + (S=18) + (I=9) + (C=3) + (R=17) + (O+14) + (S=18) + (S=18) + (E=5) = 157
“To be, or not to be, that is the Question...”
In Latin, the words “or not” translate into an non, which is a homophone for the English word “anon,” which means “soon.” The Latin word for soon is mox1 or iam, so the message “I am mox” can be found. Mox is a pun on “ox,” and the letter “M” (from mox) is linked to the Hebrew letter mēm מ, which has a numerical value of 40 in Gematria. The number 40 (pronounced “for-D”) is Edward de Vere’s code number. Therefore, [L.] mox can be transformed into “ox-for-D,” and so the message becomes “I am Oxford.”
Also, “[i]n the Sefer Yetzirah, the letter Mem is King over Water,”2 and so is an allusion to the idea of “King of the Sea,” which may, in turn, be an allusion to the office (i.e. Lord High Admiral) held by Edward de Vere’s real father, Thomas Seymour.
“To be, or not to be, that is the Question...”
The word "that" translated into Danish is fordi (pronounced "Four-D"), "is" is [Da.] er (pronounced "heir"), "the" is [Danish] de. Thus, the message is "forty [Edward de Vere] is the heir." As noted above, the number 40 is associated with Edward de Vere.
Another Danish term for “that” is for at (“that, in order that, so that”). The Latin word forat is a homonym of [Danish] for at. The Latin word forat is the third-person singular present active indicative of forō,3,4 which is a pun on “four-oh” (i.e. 40) and means “to bore.” The word “bore” is, in turn, a pun on “boar,” and Edward de Vere had a blue boar in his coat of arms.5 Foro is also dative/ablative singular of forum (“public place, marketplace, forum; what is out of doors, an outside space or place,” and the “forum boarium [was] the cattlemarket, between the Circus Maximus and the Tiber.”)6
“To be, or not to be, that is the Question...”
The word "question" translates into the Danish word sag (pronounced like "say"). This can be transformed into a Latin word— sagum— by adding –um to the end of sag. Of course, the Latin word sagum has a completely different etymology and meaning than the Danish word sag, but that is the point, this is part of the wordplay. In Latin, a sagum is "a military cloak" and "Saga sumere, to put on the saga, i.q. to take up arms, prepare for battle (it was the custom for all Romans to do this, in token of preparation for war, even those who were not going to the field, excepting persons of consular rank)."6
The word "mere" (in sumere) can mean "(dialectal or literary) A body of standing water, such as a lake or a pond (formerly even a body of seawater), especially a broad, shallow one. (Also included in place names such as Windermere.)" (One etymology of "mere" is "From Middle English "mere," "mer," from Anglo-Norman "meer," from Old French "mier," from Latin "merus" (“pure, unmixed, undiluted”), from Proto-Indo-European "*mer-" (“to sparkle, gleam”).)
Therefore, [L.] sagum is a link to Hamlet's line later in the speech: "to take arms against a sea of troubles." (See below.)
“Whether 'tis Nobler in the minde to suffer
The Slings and Arrowes of outragious Fortune...”
A homonym of “whether” is “weather,” which translates into Danish as vejr, and is pronounced “ver” (a pun on the name Vere). “It” translates into Danish as det, which is pronounced “de.” Thus, “whether it” (“weather it” or [Danish] det vejr) is Danish wordplay on the name de Vere.
As noted above, the word “is” translates into Danish as er, which is pronounced like “heir,” so “whether ‘tis” is wordplay on “de Vere, heir.”
“Whether 'tis Nobler in the minde to suffer
The Slings and Arrowes of outragious Fortune...”
The word “nobler” can be divided into “no-bler” and an “e” can be added to “bler” to create the Old English word blere, which means “bald” (“having little or no hair”).7 “No” is a pun on “know” and “hair” is a pun on “heir,” so “nobler” can be transformed into “know-blere” (i.e. “know no heir”).
“Whether 'tis Nobler in the minde to suffer
The Slings and Arrowes of outragious Fortune...”
“Mind” translates into Danish as sind, which is pronounced like “sin.”
“Whether 'tis Nobler in the minde to suffer
The Slings and Arrowes of outragious Fortune...”
The French word suffire (“to be enough, to suffice) is a homonym for “suffer.”8 The Latin word suffrago can mean “the ham or hough, hock of a quadruped's hind leg,”9 and “[Ham] began to refer to the cut of pork derived from the hind leg of a pig around the 15th century.”10 Since Edward de Vere’s coat of arms includes a blue boar, the word “suffer” could imply the Latin word suffrago (ham), which would be wordplay alluding to the blue boar of de Vere’s coat of arms.
Thus, the message of the line “[w]hether 'tis Nobler in the minde to suffer...” would be:
Whether [Edward] de Vere, Oxford, the heir [to the Tudor succession], should know no heir (not seek to be heir because of the sin of his birth) and suffice with being the blue boar of Oxford.
“Whether 'tis Nobler in the minde to suffer
The Slings and Arrowes of outragious Fortune...”
A “sling” is a strap, and “strap” translated into Danish is rem. The Latin word rem is a homograph of the Danish word rem. [L.] rem is the accusative singular of rēs, which in law means “whatever may be the subject of a right, whether corporeal or incorporeal.”11
The words “and arrows” translated into Danish are og pile and which is pronounced like “appeal.” The Latin root of “appeal” is appello, which means “to address as, call by name.”12 (Appello is also a near homonym of Apollo.)
Therefore, the words “slings and arrows” are wordplay alluding to the legal obstacles preventing Edward de Vere taking his true name (Tudor-Seymour), title, and right of inheritance.
“Whether 'tis Nobler in the minde to suffer
The Slings and Arrowes of outragious Fortune...”
The Danish word for “outragious” is skandale (scandal). That’s obvious enough to understand.
The word “fortune” can be divided into “for-tune.” The first part of the word is “for,” a homonym of “four.” In Danish, “four” translates into fire, which is pronounced like “ver,” and so is a pun on the name Vere. The Danish word for “tune” is stemme (pronounced “stem”), which means “voice, tune, vote.”13 The word “stem” can be translated into Latin as stirpes, which is a legal term meaning “branches, lines of descent, used in the legal expression per stirpes.”14
Therefore, “outrageous fortune” alludes to the scandal of Edward de Vere’s true line of descent from Thomas Seymour and Queen Elizabeth I.
“Or to take Armes against a Sea of troubles...”
The words “Or to” are a pun on the name Tudor (“to d’or”).
"Trouble" in Latin is salum (sea-swell; the sea in motion; waves, billow" or "(figuratively) sea of thought, anxiety, agitation or trouble."15 "Trouble" can also be translated into Latin as adversum, adversus ("hostile"), and adverto (an anagram of "to-dar [Tudor] ver”) can mean "to steer or pilot (a ship)" or "(figuratively) to turn the mind to, give attention or draw attention to, attend."16
In French, "arms" can refer to a [F.] "blason" (blazon, coat of arms) or can be translated as armoiries (which is an anagram of "I, a se-mor [and Tudor]"). The message is “Or to take up arms [to fight for his right to the Tudor succession] against a sea of [Seymour] troubles.” I think the gist of all this is that de Vere is questioning whether he should put on the sagum for battle and fight for his right to the succession to the throne, which might, of course, have ended in his death.
So, the message is:
I am E[dward] de Vere (40), Oxford. I am [the son of Thomas Seymour, Lord High Admiral and] King of the Sea, [and Queen Elizabeth] a Tudor-Seymour, and heir. Should I put on the sagum and take up arms [to fight for my right to the Tudor succession] against a sea of [Seymour] troubles and possibly die in the process.
And by opposing end them: to dye, to sleepe
No more; and by a sleepe, to say we end
The Heart-ake, and the thousand Naturall shockes
That Flesh is heyre too?
“Oppose” has meant from the 1590s "‘to set or place over against or directly opposite’ (transitive) and ‘interpose effort or objection, be adverse, act adversely’ (intransitive).’”18 The Danish word for “opposite; towards” is overfor, which is an anagram of “ver for-o [40]” or “Vere 40.” “Opposite” in Latin is diversus or adversus, which are puns on the name de Vere.
“End” can be translated into Danish as slutning (“end, finale, conclusion”), and “end them” is [Danish] afslutte dem. The Danish word slutning is wordplay on English “slut” (“slutting, slut’ning”), and meant “c. 1400, slutte, ‘a dirty, slovenly, careless, or untidy woman,’" and “[t]he meaning ‘woman of low or loose character, bold hussy,’ if not intended in the earliest use, is attested by mid-15c.”19
The message is that to fight for his recognition, Edward de Vere would necessarily destroy his mother’s (Queen Elizabeth’s) reputation as the Virgin Queen.
And by opposing end them: to dye, to sleepe
No more
“Dye” is an archaic spelling of “die.” The etymology of “dye” (n.) is—
“coloring matter in solution," Middle English deie, from Old English deah, deag "a color, hue, tinge," from Proto-Germanic *daugo (source also of Old Saxon dogol "secret," Old High German tougal "dark, hidden, secret," Old English deagol "secret, hidden; dark, obscure," dohs, dox "dusky, dark").20
(The Danish word for “dye” is farvestof. Farvestof is pronounced “faust-tof,” so its pronunciation is close to Faustus, the name of the main character in the play Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe.)
In Danish, the words “two die,” words that are homonyms of “to dye,” translate as to dør (a pun on the name Tudor). The word “die,” a homonym of “dye,” is morior in Latin and mourir in French. “To die” is mori in Latin and might be wordplay on “I-mor” or “see-mor” (Seymour). Therefore, the words “to die” lead to both a pun on the name Tudor and a pun on the name Seymour.
The word “sleep” (verb) in Middle English is “slepen, from Old English slæpan ‘to be or fall asleep; lie or remain dormant or inactive.’”21 “To sleep” translates into Latin as dormire, which is pronounce like “dor-mere” but looks like “[to]-dor mire.” The French word for “to sleep,” dormir, is similar. Therefore, the words “to sleep” can be transformed into “to-dor-mire,” which is wordplay on the name Tudor and the concept of a Tudor “mire (of scandal).”
The words “no more” can be translated into the Latin phrase non plus, which has entered English as the verb “nonplus,” which means “"to bring to a nonplus, to perplex, puzzle, confound," 1590s, from the noun nonplus “‘state in which one is unable to proceed or decide’ (1580s), usually in a phrase such as at or to a nonplus, properly ‘state where “nothing more” can be done or said,’ from Latin non plus ‘no more, no further.’”22 This meaning reflects Hamlet's indecision and alludes to the same indecision in Edward de Vere about how to proceed with his claim to be a Tudor prince.
The words “know more,” the word “know” being a homonym of the word “no,” translate into Danish as vide mere. In Danish, vide (verb) means “to know,” and vide (noun) means (obsolete) penalty, punishment.”23 The Danish word vid (noun) is an inflection of vit (“wit”).24 In Latin, vide means “to see,” so “know more” can be transformed into “see more,” which is a pun on the name Seymour. The Danish word for “more” is mere (“more, several”). The English word “mere” can mean “(dialectal or literary) [a] body of standing water, such as a lake or a pond (formerly even a body of seawater), especially a broad, shallow one,25 so the words “to sleep no more” can provide the “sea” for “sea- [L.] mori” (wordplay on the name Seymour). In addition, the Danish word mor means “mother,” so the words “no more” can be transformed into “no mother.”
Putting these etymologies together, the line “to dye, to sleepe / No more” conveys this message:
By fighting for recognition as a Tudor-Seymore, I (Edward de Vere) would end (i.e. put to death) the secrecy of Queen Elizabeth I’s relationship with Thomas Seymour (i.e. expose the scandal of the “Tudor-mire”) and end the dormancy of (i.e. end the sleep, or awaken) my claim to be Tudor-Seymour prince, which would be fatal to his mother’s reputation and rule (i.e. he would “no more” have a mother (Danish mor). [And, like Hamlet, Edward de Vere is nonplussed as to what course of action to take.]
(It’s unclear if the pun on Doctor Faustus is intended; however, there is a scene in Doctor Faustus where Faustus summons Mephistopheles and immediately sends him back to change into a more pleasing appearance. This scene hides references to Edward de Vere and Francis Bacon.)
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.