Bacon's Signature Ciphers in Shakespeare -40- zodiac years

-40-

10)  Next is a variation of the number 33 and it’s attractive for a few reasons. In the play Measure for Measure Act 1, scene 2, in the 1^st column of page 63 of the Comedies there is a passage with Claudio speaking. It begins with

Cla.   “Unhappily even so….”

 Towards the end of his lines he says:

 “…So long, that “ninteene Zodiacks have gone round,

And none of them beene worn; and, for a name
Now puts the drowsie and neglected act
Freshly on me: ‘tis surely for a name.”

 

 

 

 



Then later and in the next column over we have the Duke speaking and he says:

“We have strict Statutes, and most biting Laws,

(The needful bits and curbes to headstrong weedes,)
Which for this foureteene years, we have let slip,”

http://sceti.library.upenn.edu/sceti/printedbooksNew/index.cfm?TextID=firstfolio&PagePosition=81

 

They are speaking of the same thing yet they mention a different length of time. Some commentators have called this another “authorial error”. Another writes “Commentators worry about the discrepancy between the ‘nineteen zodiacs’ mentioned earlier, and the fourteen years. There is no reason to expect the Duke to be exact about a period of decline”.  One writer mentioned as an explanation the possibility of the manuscript using xiv and xix, or the Arabic numbers 4 and 9, and this created the confusion.

So maybe it was an error by the playwright, or the printer was confused. Or maybe the playwright wanted to give the impression that the Duke didn’t care to be exact about such things. But why would an author want to give such an impression? There’s no justification given. Compared to these possibilities the possibility of an author signature allusion seems as likely. And we’ll see as we go along that there are several “authorial errors” or “printing errors” which fit right into the Baconian signature cipher theory.

So, here we have the numbers 19 and then 14 referring to the same period of time. It seems like an error. But they conveniently add up to 33. Perhaps the “error” was meant to stand out to be noticed. Again, we twice have the reference to a name: “for a name” and “’tis surely for a name”. The word “hundred” (Simple code for Francis Bacon) is used 14 lines prior to this speech by Claudio. Also, when we count the words in the first passage mentioned, we find that after 67 words (67 = ‘Francis’ in Simple code) we have the suggestive phrase “I stagger in”. Perhaps the design is meant to be discovered only upon a closer inspection of the page.

So again we have the number 33 brought to our attention by an “error” that seems to be difficult for a playwright to have made, and within a text with repeated references to “for a name” and the count of 67 before a meaningful signature kind of phrase. And together they are not far from the count for 100. It looks capable of having been carefully arranged, as so many of these signature candidates do.