Bacon's Signature Ciphers in Shakespeare -82- Sonnet 76

-82-

47)  This makes the next signature candidate especially interesting. In Sonnet 76 there is the line:

“That every word doth almost sel my name,

Shewing their birth, and where they did proceed?”

The word “sel” is not a misprint on my part. That’s how it reads in the Sonnet of 1609.

But it’s considered an “error” and modern editions use “tell”. And from the orthodox perspective of Shakespeare’s authorship it should be. But from the perspective of Bacon’s hidden authorship it is a perfect selection. From this perspective the poet would expect the word “sel” to stand out to the reader. And to some careful readers it could be seen as a clue to look into this phrase further. The word “tell” is used 18 other times in the Sonnets and only in Sonnet 12 does it have one letter “L”. The word “sell” is used twice in the Sonnets and both times with two “L”s. The casual reader would emend the “s” to “t” and add a second “L”. But the line stands out to authorship sleuths (the “Seals” authors wrote of it) because it suggests that his name is hidden and that the words he uses nearly give him away. We’ve seen this questioning of name or identity scenario in several other cipher candidates. So again we look at this line and note that it has only 32 letters. That is, the line is one letter short of a count of 33 which would equate to “Bacon” in the Simple alphabet. So in this case every word does “almost” tell his name. And when it is emended to ‘tell’ it does! Between the two possibilities of this being either a pure coincidence or being of design, which is really more likely?

Here are the other sonnets with the word “tell” or “tel”.

Tell: 3, 14 (2), 28, 30, 76 (telling), 82 (telling), 84, 89, 93, 95, 98, 103, 139, 140, 144, 151,

Tel: 12 (tels),

SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS can be viewed here:

http://isebeta.uvic.ca/Library/facsimile/book/UC_Q1_Son/1/?zoom=1

48)  The poem bound up with the sonnets, A Lovers complaint, is listed, unlike the Sonnet’s title, as by WILLIAM SHAKE-SPEARE. It covers eleven pages. After its title page each left hand page is led at the top with “A Lovers” and each right hand page is led at the top with “Complaint”.  This follows except for the very last left hand page on which the poem is ended. The last page is led at the top with “The Lovers” so that the word “The” has replaced the word “A”. The whole poem at the bottom ends with “FINIS”. The number 287 is again not difficult to arrive at though it is less convincing that it could have been intended because it uses numerical subtraction and this subtraction method I’ve been avoiding . So for what it’s worth, out of 47 total verses in this poem, the last three verses are on the last page, verses 45, 46, 47 which total 138. The number of letters in these three verses total 158, together this is 296. To arrive at 287 there would be a count of nine to deduct. The word FINIS is of no help, but the top page phrase of “The Lovers” has a count of 9 and can be deducted. And this number of “9” is only available because of the word change from “A” to “The”. I was thinking of not using this as it appears a weaker candidate to me. But the change in wording from “A Lovers” to “The Lovers” is a bit too questionable to let slip by. The number “100” can also be found here. The last sonnet in this poem, which would be 47 if it had a labeled number, has 53 words. Together this equals 100.