Bacon's Signature Ciphers in Shakespeare -55- Horne-book Part 1

-55-

23)  Another riddling passage is found on page 136 of the Comedies, again in Love’s Labours’ Lost where we found the long word honorificabilitudinitatibus. There’s been much written and speculated by Baconians about this passage. The part I’ll focus on begins with a riddle on the Horn-book between a student, a boy or page, and a Pedant.

Page. Yes, yes, he teaches boyes the Horne-booke :

What is Ab speld backward with the horn on his head?

Then the Pedant answers:

Peda. Ba, puericia [child], with a horne added.
Pag.  Ba most seely Sheepe, with a horne : you heare his learning.

So the Baconians, suspicious as they are about such riddles, saw here the potential for an embedded signature of “Bacon”. One of them noticed that the “Ba with a horne on his head” appears to be portrayed as a rebus in Shake-Speares Sonnets. Here is the emblem:

Here we have the letter ‘A’ with a second crossbar which allows the semblance of the letter ‘B’ within the larger ‘A’. Then on the ‘head’ of this figure we can see a ‘horn’ added. This is easiest seen with the ‘A’ on the right side.