------------------------------------------------------------------ https://tinyurl.com/4x9956pu

_Secrets of the Dedication to Shakespeare’s Sonnets_
Originally published in THE OXFORDIAN, Volume 2, 1999
.
. . . John M. Rollett
.
But what I was really hoping to find was examples of Elizabethan ciphers. This took quite a long time, basically because there aren’t any. None have survived, although several people at the time did describe various useful techniques which might have
been used, for all we know. (Strictly speaking, one should class acrostics as very simple ciphers. The Elizabethans were certainly fond of them, and quite a lot do survive, especially in poetry.) The only example of a cipher I was able to find was in a
biography of John Dee, the Elizabethan savant and astrologer (he was instructed by Robert Dudley to choose an auspicious day for the Queen’s Coronation, and many people would agree that he did a good job). Here (left) is the example his biographer gave
to illustrate a method described by John Dee. This reads, going down and up the columns,

“The Spanish ships have sailed.” The message would be sent off,
reading across, as T H S S A H S H E I E I I V L S N P A E P A S H D.

To someone intercepting it, it would obviously proclaim itself as a coded message and to decode it, all one has to do is to count the number of letters––25––and write it out again in a 5 by 5 square. It is amusing to learn that Dee regarded this
as “a childish cryptogram such as eny man of knowledge shud be able to resolve.”
..................
. . <= 5 =>
.
. T H S S {A}
. H S H E {I}
. E I I V {L}
. S N P A {E}
. P A S H {D}
..............................
THE SPANISH SHIPS HAVE SAILED
. . . {DELIA}
---------------------------------------------------------------- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Winter%27s_Tale

<<The Winter's Tale is a play by William Shakespeare originally published in the First Folio of 1623. Shakespeare's apparent mistake of placing the Oracle of Delphi on a small island has been used as evidence of Shakespeare's limited education. However,
Shakespeare again copied this locale directly from Greene's "Pandosto". Moreover, the erudite Robert Greene was not in error, as the Isle of Delphos does not refer to Delphi, but to the Cycladic island of Delos, the mythical birthplace of Apollo, which
from the 15th to the late 17th century in England was known as "Delphos". Greene's source for an Apollonian oracle on this island likely was the Aeneid, in which Virgil wrote that Priam consulted the Oracle of Delos before the outbreak of the Trojan War
and that Aeneas after escaping from Troy consulted the same Delian oracle regarding his future.
.
The name {DELIA} refers to the tiny Greek island of Delos (Greek: Δῆλος), . the birthplace of Artemis and her twin brother Apollo.>> ...........................................................
Leo. Breake vp the [S]eales, and read.
.
Officer. H{E}rmion[E] is chast, Polix(E)nes blamelesse, [C]amillo a
. true Su{B}iect, Leontes a [I|E)alous Tyrant, his innocent Ba{B|E]
. truly begott{E}n, an(D) t{H}e King sha[L]l liue without an Heire,
. if that w{H}ich (I)s lost, be not found. ...........................................................
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . <= 27 =>
.
. L e o.B r e a k e v p t h e [S] e a l e s,a n d r e a d.
. O f f i c e r.H{E}r m i o n [E] i s c h a s t,P o l i x
. e n e s b l a m e l e s s e,[C] a m i l l o a t r u e S
. u{B}i e c t,L e o n t e s a [I] e a l o u s T y r a n t,
. h i s i n n o c e n t B a b [E] t r u l y{B|E}g o t t{E}
. n,a n d t{H}e K i n g s h a [L] l l i u e w i t h o u t
. a n H e i r e,i f t h a t w {H} i c h i s l o s t,b e n
. o t f o u n d.
.
[LEICES.] -27
{HEBE} -47,-6
(I.DEE) -42
-----------------------------------------------------
. And I would to God (quoth he) that this Asse
.(which VEREly was nEVER seene) could speake as a man
. to give witnesse of mine innocency: Then would you
. be ashamed of the injury which you have done to me.
. Thus (reasoning for himselfe) he nothing prevailed,
. for they tied the halter about my necke, and (maugre
. his face) pulled me quite away, and lead me backe
. againe through the woods of the hill to the place
. where the boy accustomed to resort.
.
. And after they could find him in no place, at length
. they found his body *rent and torne in peeces* , and his
. members dispersed in sundry places, which I well knew was
. done by the cruell *BEARE* : and VEREly I would have told
. it if I might have spoken, but (which I could onely do)
. I greatly rejoiced at his death, although it came too late. -----------------------------------------------------
Antigonus: Come, poore babe... Farewell,
. The day frownes more and more: thou'rt like to haue
. A lullabie too rough: I NEVER saw
. The heauens so dim, by day. A sauage clamor?
. Well may I get a-boord: This is the Chace,
. *I am gone for EVER*. Exit pursued by a *BEARE*. ....................................................
Gent.2: What, 'pray you, became of Antigonus,
. that carryed hence the Child?
.
Gent.3: Like an old Tale still, which will haue matter to
. rehearse, though Credit be asleepe, and not an eare open;
. he was *torne to pieces with a BEARE* : This auouches
. the Shepheards Sonne; who ha's not onely his Innocence
. (which seemes much) to iustifie him, but a Hand-kerchief
. and Rings of his, that Paulina knowes. --------------------------------------------------------------- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delia

<<{DELIA} is a feminine given name, either taken from an epithet
of the Greek *moon goddess* Artemis or else representing a
short form of A{DELIA}, Be{DELIA}, Cor{DELIA} or O{DELIA}.>> -----------------------------------------------------------------
Delia Bacon: Hawthorne's Last Heroine* by Nina Baym http://www.english.uiuc.edu/baym/essays/last_heroine.htm

<<{DELIA} Bacon had been victimized in a nasty little scandal
that fractured the New Haven Congregational community in 1847. Her
brother Leonard Bacon, a minister, formally accused Alexander McWhorter,
also a minister, of attempting to evade an engagement with Delia Bacon
by defaming her. Leonard was backed by the town clergy, McWhorter by
the YALE faculty. The evidence supported Leonard's claim, but the church proceedings that followed produced only the equivalent of a slap on the
wrist for the culprit and exposed Delia Bacon to public humiliation.

The bad showing by the YALE Congregationalists in this
episode delighted Boston Unitarians, and endeared
Delia Bacon especially to the women.>> --------------------------------------------------------------------
. 'Delia faileD'
. . to expose
. 'Drab barD' ---------------------------------------------------------------------- <<"[Delia] went thither with a dark lantern, which could but twinkle like
a glow-WORM through the volume of obscurity that filled the great dusky edifice.... She threw the FEEBLE ray of her lantern up towards the bust,
but could not make it visible beneath the darkness of the vaulted roof.
Had she been subject to superstitious terrors, it is impossible to
conceive of a situation that could better entitle her to feel them, for
if Shakespeare's ghost would rise at any provocation, it must have shown
itself then; but it is my sincere belief that, if his figure had
appeared within the scope of her dark lantern, in his slashed doublet
and gown, and with his eyes bent on her beneath the high, bald forehead,
just as we see him in the bust, she would have met him fearlessly and controverted his claims to the authorship of the plays, to his very
face.... Her vigil, though it appears to have had no definite object,
continued far into the night. Several times, she heard a low movement in
the aisles; a stealthy, dubious footfall prowling about in the darkness,
now here, now there, among the pillars and ancient tombs, as if some
restless inhabitant of the latter had crept forth to peep at the
intruder. By-and-by, the clerk made his appearance, and confessed
that he had been watching her ever since she entered the church."

The obsession with physical digging in Hawthorne's story
is more his own than hers. It echoes the innumerable
metaphors of subterranean concealment, buried treasure,
and underground corpses that run through his work.

Bacon writes of the unseen bust of Shakespeare looking down at her
& the clerk's creaking footsteps; in Hawthorne's rewriting these Gothic undertones balloon until they eclipse the rest of her account. Bacon's
letter confesses enormous anxiety, discomfort, even fear. Hawthorne
insists that she was unafraid; his Bacon, serene in her sense of right,
seems to have come to the church expresly for the Revolutionary
encounter that Hawthorne causes to happen, in which she valiantly
confronts and defies the terrific authority of the bard who has
simultaneously come down from his pedestal and risen from the dead.
In brief, there is the outline of an unwritten novel here that
would supplement the stories of Hester, Zenobia, and Miriam
with the tale of one more Hawthornean heroine.>> ------------------------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer

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