The Dedication in the Shakespeare Sonnets

[Kate]

Thanks to the use of the cipher tool kindly supplied by Rob http://www.light-of-truth.com/ciphers.html I think I may have discovered something new (do let me know if it has been seen before though).

In the dedication in the Sonnets, the wording is: To the onlie begetter. Begetter means the creator of a work. Therefore I looked at what the word begetter is in cipher and lo and behold it is the simple cipher for Lord Bacon (79)

I then thought to myself, well hang on, the Sonnets are from the late 1500s and Bacon wasn't a Lord then, but I am reliably told that there is no certainty as to when the dedication was written and as publication was in 1609, FB was most certainly Lord Bacon by then.

The Dark Lady in the Sonnets is thought by some to be the mistress of William Herbert (3rd Earl of Pembroke 1580-1630), Mary Fitton.

The dedication is usually read as: To the onlie begetter of these insuing sonnets Mr. W. H.  All happinesse and that eternitie promised by our ever-living poet wishest the well-wishing adventurer in setting forth. 

If it is read like this though:

To the onlie begetter (Lord Bacon) of these insuing sonnets

Mr. W. H. (William Herbert) - all happinesse and that eternitie promised by our ever-living poet (ie God) - wishest the well-wishing adventurer in setting forth. 

It makes sense because this could well be a reference to the fact that both WH and Bacon were part of the Virginia Company formed under the Second Virginia Charter of 1609  (see both men listed here)

 http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/documents/1600-1650/the-second-virginia-charter-1609.php 

This as you can see below was called the Virginia Company of Adventurers of 1609. So at the time of the publication and perhaps the writing of the dedication in 1609, they were both 'adventurers' setting forth in the colonisation of the new world, America.  There was/is an ancient Guild that predates both their lives called The Company of Merchant Adventurers  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_of_Merchant_Adventurers_of_London from which this is taken:

Here is another entry about William Herbert:

 

One reason for the odd wording in the dedication could be to ensure this four corner code, which I have pointed out before, also applies. See here

 

 

 

There may well be other code in here too - one I mentioned in my video. Certainly there is dual symbolism in the words  'an adventurer setting forth' as those in the Brotherhood set forward on a journey through the two pillars to the 'great beyond' as we see in the famous frontispieces with Ships setting forth.

Finally, one of the flagships in the 1609 colonisation was the Sea Venture, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamestown_supply_missions which ran aground in Bermuda (Somers Isle) and I believe I read AP say this story is linked to The Tempest in the 1623 First Folio.

[Kate]

Found it. I knew I'd read it recently in https://aphoenix1.academia.edu/research  It's on page 174  and onwards (Sea Venture and The Tempest). K