An
Interpretation of Page 37 (lines 666-686) of The Rape of Lucrece
This
paper presents an interpretation of page 37 (lines 666-686) of
Shakespeare’s The Rape of Lucrece that presents possible hidden
meanings of the lines.
The interpretation relies primarily on translating certain key words
into Latin and, in a few cases, French, and by tracing the etymology
of words. The exercise of translating words into Latin and French is
not intended to produce an accurate word-for-word, line-by-line
translation of the poem into those languages. In fact, if that were
done, the translation would obscure the hidden meaning buried in the
poem. The translation exercise simply treats each word to be
translated as single isolated words, and no attempt is made to
conjugate or determine declensions. Often the translation results
need to be combined in various ways to achieve meaning.
This
method presupposes that the reader/decipher has some general
knowledge of the hidden messages concealed in the poem. In other
words, it the messages are meant for someone “in the know.”
Specifically, the reader/decipher is presumed to understand that poem
hides the fact that Lady Elizabeth Tudor (later Queen Elizabeth) had
an illicit sexual relationship with Thomas Seymour, 1st
Baron Seymour of Sudeley, Lord High Admiral, and that that
relationship produced a child who became Edward de Vere, 17th
Earl of Oxford. The method of interpretation is that the
reader/decipher is supposed to transform words, primarily into Latin,
to arrive at a meaning that fits the presupposed expectation. Of
course, a criticism of this is that the interpretation “cherry-picks”
Latin translations to fit a presupposed meaning. The rebuttal to
that criticism is “yes, that’s how it works.”
This
interpretation presupposes that messages are hidden in the poem,
essentially through steganography (i.e., hiding information in plain
sight), with the general message known but veiled for plausible
deniability by the author and reader. The interpretation is not
meant to be a proof of a rigorously applied set of rules for
decipherment. The method is not objective. The only evidentiary
weight that can be given to the method presented in this paper is to
the extent that it reveals a convincing, coherent hidden alternative
narrative that fits with the hypothesis that Lady Elizabeth Tutor and
Thomas Seymour had a sexual relationship that produced Edward de
Vere. Whether the method reveals such a coherent alternative
narrative would benefit by application of the method to the entirety
of the poem, which is not the purpose of this paper. Since the
analysis of just one page of the poem requires many pages, an
analysis of the entire poem would be a daunting task that must wait
for another time. Even if the task were to be completed, it is
doubtful that the results would be considered sufficient evidence
convince anyone in the different factions in the very acrimonious
Shakespeare authorship battle. So, it is ultimately up to the reader
of this paper to decide if the interpretation has any merit.
With
that, on to the interpretation.
The
name Seymour, referring to Thomas Seymour, 1st
Baron Seymour of Sudeley, is hidden at lines 666-668 of the poem. The
name begins at line 666, which is the number of the Antichrist
in
the Book of Revelation, so it seems that Thomas Seymour is being
compared to the Devil, as is Tarquin later in the poem (see line 847
of the poem, not shown).
The
name Seymour can be found in these lines:
So
let thy thoughts low vassals to thy state,
No
more quoth he, by Heauen I will not heare thee.
Yeeld
to my loue, if not inforced hate,
In steed
of loues coy tutch shall rudelie teare thee.
In
particular, the hidden name is centered on these letters:
The
word “No” can be translated into Latin as nullus
(null).
In classical cryptography, a null is an extra character intended to
confuse the cryptanalyst. One needs to discard null characters to
decrypt the message.
Therefore, if the word “No” is meant to be read as a null
character for decryption, then it can be ignored. (A cancel symbol is
shown over the word “No” in the image above to indicate it should
be ignored.) When the word is removed, the message reads:
The
solution can be further modified to arrive at the correct spelling of
Seymour. The instructions to modify the solution are found in the
lines –
So
let thy thoughts low vassals to thy state,
No
more quoth he, by Heauen I will not heare thee.
Yeeld
to my loue,
if not inforced hate,
In
steed of loues coy tutch shall rudelie teare thee.
The
word “love” is amour
in French and amor
in Latin. If the word “Yeeld” (yield),
in “Yeeld to my love,” is read as an instruction for decipherment
and is given the meaning “to give up one’s place to another,”
then it allows a word meaning “love,” specifically the French
word amour,
to be inserted into the decryption, in place of the word “more,”
so that the solution becomes—
a
Seymour
It
might also be possible to include the name Thomas into the solution
if the letter Y in “Yeeld” is read as a thorn. A “thorn” can
refer to the runic letter þ, used in Old English, Middle English,
and Old Norse manuscripts to represent both the voiceless sound (th)
of Modern English thin and the voiced sound (th) of Modern English
this.
In Elizabethan times, the capital letter Y was used to represent a
thorn (th). For example, “Ye olde bookshop” is read as “The old
bookshop.” Thus, the letters may conceal the name Thomas to reveal
the name Thomas Seymour–
S
amour
Thomas
Th
Regarding
“thornes, it is useful to take a brief detour in the poem.
“Thornes” are mentioned in lines 491-494 of the poem:
I
see what crosses
my attempt will bring,
I
know what thornes
the growing rose
defends,
I
thinke the honie garded with a sting,
All
this before-hand counsell comprehends.
(Emphasis
added.)
The
first thing to note is that lines include the words “rose” and
“cross.” This is probably a reference to the Rosicricians or the
Brotherhood of the Rose Cross. It seems that Edward de Vere was
associated with this secret society. Furthermore, the name Seymour is
hidden here in the words “I see … sting.” The word “sting”
can be translated into Latin as morsus
(to sting, bite),
and when that is combined with “see,” it reveals “see-morsus,
a nonsense word that sounds like Seymour. Also, the three capital
letter I’s at the beginning of the first three lines look like a
Roman numeral three, and the letter C is the third letter of the
alphabet, thus C-morsus
(Seymour) can be found again. Perhaps the lines are alluding to the
fact that the secret of Elizabeth’s (the Tudor Rose) true
relationship with Thomas Seymour is being hidden, sub
rosa,
by Edward de Vere and the Rosicrucian Brotherhood, behind wordplay
and symbols like “thornes” in the poem and other works.
