twos company

[peethagoras]

The first folio has that remarkable introductory verse facing the so-called "Droeshout portrait". The page bears the title "To the Reader".

Most, if not all commentators home in on the large obvious acrostic T W O down the right hand side. Few, if any, seem to go any further than that, other than to point out certain texts which seem to agree with the TWO acrostic.

I offer a deeper analysis of that page, and reveal how the whole thing was engineered, probably by Ben Jonson and the son of John Dee, Arthur Dee.

First, it is important that the structure of the pages of the folio are understood:

There are no page numbers until the first play (The Tempest) appears. That page is listed as "Folio 1" in the catalogue, and is marked simply as  "1" on the first page of the play. That particular play begins on physical page 19 - the number of T.

There are 18 unnumbered pages counted from the first physical page in the book. That first page is blank, the next page, which is physical page 2 contains the verse, To the Reader.

So it can be said that the first page which contains any text is physical page 2.

This page bears the acrostic TWO HB.

 

But there's second acrostic hiding in the same letters: this one is very much related to TWO HB, and that is BOTH W.

As all the double-u's are printed using two Vees we can say that acrostic two says BOTH VV.

While on the subject of the lettter W, it should be noted that line 4 of the verse  is unique in that it begins not with a large letter, like the other nine lines, but it starts with a little w.

I like to consider that letter as a kind of reference to little William in the opening act of The Merry Wives of Windsor. Little William is a schoolboy who suffers an interrogation by his schoolmaster. Although related to this business, it's far too complex to go into it at this time.

Nevertheless it is worthwhile noting the following: Two times two is four. Two times four is eight:

 

Line 4 begins with that little w in the word "with". The first two letters are wi.

Line four ends with "fe", so on line 4 (2 x 2) the first and last two letters are wi and fe, these make wife, as in merry wives.

This particular wife is Mistress Margret Page. She is the mother of little william - a youngster maybe, but a very clever fellow.

The hierarchy in the Page family is: first, Master Page, second Mistress Page, third, Anne Page, and fourth but not least, william.

Lastly, concerning little "w" and line four, the whole word is with (four letters) and these make this anagram: WIT H, where H represents its alphabet place-value of 8. Another way of saying that is two times two times two.

 

So, to recap, on the physical page two, there are two closely related acrostic anagrams, TWO HB and BOTH W.

If we now go to the first play in the folio,  The Tempest, we might notice that each play in the book has its pages divided into two columns. If we turn to the Tempest, folio (page) two, we read on line two these two opening words "Both, both".

 

Now, if we go to play two in the folio we see that word two in its title is TWO.

In fact, the title has been arranged so that the word TWO is on line two.

 

What do we find as the first word of dialogue in line two? "Home-keeping":

a two-part word.

The first two letters are H and O:  when numbered and added give us 20: the same as the page number above the title.

If we consider word two, in line two, which is KEEPING, it's possible to make this anagram:  KEE   P  in  G, which, after converting to numbers, produces KEE 15 + 7, and that gives us 22.

So we have KEE 22, but what does it mean? The answer is in the sound of KEE: it could be a "key", but what key is 22? The answer is that KEE is the sound of the Greek letter X, spelled chi.

According to the Greek and Latin alphabets, X is symbol 22: TWO and twenty, or 10 times TWO, plus TWO.

But enough of that stuff. The Two Gentlemen of Verona has this in common with Romeo and Juliet: both plays are set in Verona: There are no other plays set in that city, so in effect we have found another VV in Verona, twice.

Romeo and Juliet is the only play in the folio where the names of the main characters are mentioned before the play appears.

Their names are mentioned in a small eulogy with the title 'To the memorie of the deceased author master W. Shakespeare'. (See below).

 

Going back to the verse called To the reader, and using the title as line 1, then we find that word TWO on line TWO is FIGURE.

Counting TWO letters from each end of that word lands on I and R. 

I and R, or R and I, are the initials of Romeo and Iuliet, as it was written in those times.

Possibly the most famous TWO characters in the works.

 

An interesting thing about Romeo and Juliet is that although its source quarto was published before the First Folio, it contains a fourteen-line prologue, but no such prologue exists in the Folio. Why as it left out.

 

The quarto source prologue begins with this line:

"Two households both alike in dignitie."

Noting it begins with "Two",  if we write down that first word, followed by the initial letters of the others we have:

TWO H B   A I D

Does that look familiar? TWO HB?

Is that a little hint of help in AID?

If we return to the physical page two, which contains the two anagrams TWO HB and BOTH W, but this time we write down all the initial letters, not just those that seem to stick out, but exclude that little w at the start of line 4, we get:

T I W O A H A B N

Now if we write the whole visual word TWO followed by: H B A I *

It can be seen that we  have TWO H B A I * where * represents the letter D as in Dignitie.

We are left with    A  N

(and that little w of course).

But there is no D so we cannot represent Dignitie. 

Or can we?

If we look at the line where that little w resides, we read the first TWO words are

                                                  with Nature

Taking word TWO, Nature we see that it has TWO parts:  NA  TRUE.

Could that NA be the same AN as we were left with earlier?

Could it mean that NA is true? correct?

If we number N A we get 13 and 1, their sum is 14.

The number of the name DEE is 14.

'dee' is the name of the letter D.

 

We are short of d, but might we try writing 

TWO H B A I (Dee  ignitie)

In other words TWO   H   B   A   I   D

 

which matches the first line of that missing prologue - the one with 14 lines.

 

But why was Juliet Capulet only 13 years of age?

Could it have something to do with the number of letters in her name?

Could it have some connection with the date of birth of Iohn Dee?  13th July?

And why did someone make the letters in Romeo Mountague equal to 14?

And what's the number of I D anyway?

 

If we return to the fist text in the Folio, that ten line verse with the two acrostics, we see that the first TWO words are THIS FIGURE.

These hide the names of two numbers: FIVE and EIGHT.

 

Thee sum of 5 + 8 is 13.

 

The number of Iohn Dee, or even Monas is 58.

 

But where is Sir Francis Bacon hiding?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 14 by peethagoras
changed highlights

[RoyalCraftiness]

Unfortunately, we do not ever know if we are staring at an acrostic or any other sort of puzzle, do we? What we always face is the possibility of suggesting a method of our choice to incorporate familiar symbols we are presented with into a narrative we wish to give life to. The range of possibility we can face is daunting. With the number 2 we face the fact that it is incorporated in half of all numbers we can express and every sort of duality that exists. It is the in 2:1 proportion in the quaternary, for example. 2 is symbolized/allegorized by the twin in the oldest creations myths we know, and twenty is the "twin T" in etymological meaning.

There are context clues in front and under our noses which would suggest we ought to mind the T T suggestion in relation to the Christian God. Because we are often dealing with Christian imagery and emblems in these pages, we may want to try and figure out how a deeply pious Christian patron of Shakespeare is seeing the idea of T. We get started with that, perhaps, by understanding that Tau is the mark that identifies worthy men. It's your key into the vault.  If you want into the wonderful eternity of the everlasting poet you had better sort out what bearing the Tau means. Who are the twin Taus of Christianity? Well, they are Saint Anthony and Saint Paul. What is the story there? It is a story of reclamation and redemption. You may come to find that the people who are the patrons for this individual we call Shakespeare are caught up in worldly affairs where there is an expressed desire to reclaim something that was lost in order that there may be a great redemption, since it was by then common thinking that the world of Christianity had lost its way. 

If you ask me, this is way above Shakespeare's head.  Shakespeare was not that kind of a visionary. Someone is including these suggestions with the printing of the works. Someone executed it, and someone paid for it to be done. There's plenty of evidence for intent in the empirical considerations without touching the subjective.  It is highly doubtful that Shakespeare intended it in his life.  This is after Shakespeare. So, we have work to do to figure out who is seizing the opportunity to play with us. Anyone who would not consider this play is tricking themselves, imo. It is not done so much to conceal, but to draw you into the mystery of the meaning of the symbols we use daily without much consideration. Are these things real? Are all interpretations of symbols real? Can we make a Shakespeare play say anything we want with our clever minds?

I see WIT again at the top left. Below I see HOB below (prankster, diminutive form of Robert). I also see HOBAAN which we could see as A HOBAN where that is a family name meaning "of Robert". Maybe we consider AA as "A"s and see HOBSAN. Maybe we look through a looking glass and see the upside down world where THIS refers to MOHB and we see HIS TOMB. Maybe we read this phonetically and see TWO as TU and decide to incorporate HBAN to get THUBAN. If we are clever and witty we can go places with our suggestions.

If it is an acrostic then the world is our oyster to suggest something with that also. Do you want some suggestions? The thing about play is that it is fun, and it offers the possibility of learning or bettering your knowledge. What you are doing is beneficial to you.

 

Edited March 6 by RoyalCraftiness

[Light-of-Truth]

We've kicked "To The Reader" around a bit here on the B'Hive. Always something new to see, of course. But this was a fun thread: