Messages from The Man in The Moon
byMather Walker
Among other credit due Francis Bacon, is the fact that when life gave him a lemon, he made lemonade. Banished from his rightful title as the son of Queen Elizabeth, heir to the throne of England, doomed to live in the shadows, he created his own shadow kingdom. When he proclaimed that he had taken all knowledge for his province, he also proclaimed, in his enigmatic way, a new title for himself. This is clearly shown in the symbolic title page of the De Augmentis: The visible world is the world of the sun, but the intellectual world, of which Bacon has proclaimed himself ruler, is shadowed, and is the world of the moon. Bacon became the Moon Man, the man of the shadows. In the frontispiece to Thomas Sprat's History of the Royal Society there Is a group of three people: William Brouncker, the first president on the right, A bust of Charles II, the royal founder in the middle, and to the left, beneath the wing of a prominent angel, holding a trumpet, is Francis Bacon, and he is ENTIRELY IN THE SHADOW.It should be noted also that Bacon was of the lineage of Selena. For it
must be remembered, that in the cult that sprang up around Elizabeth, she
was commonly referred to as Selena, Diana, or various other titles signifying the moon. Bacon's family coat of arms, which was used by Nicholas Bacon had a boar with no special markings. But Bacon apparently had his coat of arms changed according to a new design he made himself. In Guillim's Heraldry, in the 1610 edition, there is a Coat of arms with the same motto from the family coat of arms, but with two large figures of Castor and Pollux, one on either side, with the same motto, and the same boar at the top, but on the side of the boar is a crescent MOON. The name of Diana was particularly significant to Bacon. Giordano Bruno had spent two years in England, meeting and mingling with the Sidney
circle of which Bacon was a member (under the mask of Spenser). Bruno (no doubt influenced by Bacon) chose for the image of his doctrine the great chaste huntress DIANA. Under the mask of Spenser Bacon weaves the same Diana into his Fairy Queen. In the preface he explains that he gives her the name Of Gloriana, but SHADOWS her as Bel-Phoebe, and again As Raleigh's Cynthia,-'Phoebe and Cynthia,' he says, "being both names for Diana." In Henry IV, Act I, Scene 2, Falstaff says,"...let
us be Diana's foresters, GENTLEMEN OF THE SHADE, minions of the moon; and let men say we be men of good government, being governed, as the sea is, by our noble and chaste mistress the moon, under whose countenance we steal." And the prince acquiesces, saying, "..us that are the moon's men.." If we assume that Bacon as the son of Elizabeth, was himself represented by the prince, this becomes particularly significant. The character of Diana as a goddess was rather complex. As a patroness of hunting, she resembled Pan, the god of hunters, and like him also represented Nature, and man's ideas about Nature, or Philosophy. This is significant. Bacon divided the invention of Arts and Sciences into two parts:1. Literate Experience 2. Novum OrganumHe referred to Literate Experience as "the Hunt of Pan." The office of Pan, he said, could not be more lively represented than by making him the god of hunters. So the Arts and Science have their particular end which they hunt after. For every natural action, every motion and process, is no other than a hunt. The symbolic emblem of this idea, "The Hunt of Pan" was used as a headpiece in Spencer's Faerie Queen in 1610; in the King James Bible in 1611; in Bacon's Novum Organum in 1620, and in the First Folio in 1623 at the beginning of the catalogue of contents, and The Tempest: Therefore, the central figure in the emblem is Pan, shown by the fact that He was god of hunters, by the shaggy nature of his legs, and by the
fivefold headdress. According to Bacon the generations of Nature naturally
fell into Five divisions:1. Celestial 2. Meteors 3. Earth and Sea 4. Elements 5. SpeciesSo in the emblem the hounds of the chase are depicted as turned toward Pan, the central figure, with their noses to the ground, i.e. hot on the scent of Pan. The archers are also turned toward the central figure of Pan, but their arrows are dipped low so they are actually directed about half way between Pan and the clusters of grapes beneath him. This was entirely In accordance with the logic of Literate Experience, of which Bacon had Said:'I pledge mankind a liquor strained from countless Grapes, from grapes ripe and fully seasoned, collected In clusters, and gathered, then squeezed in the press, And finally purified and clarified in the vat.'Here also are seen the rabbits, emblem of that vigilance necessary to the Sons of Science (it was believed that rabbits slept with one eye open), and here are seen the running vines of ivy since Bacon said Science in its healthy state should be like running vines or ivy, continually growing. The blossoms are shown with two directed straight up, and two directed outward to the reader, since Bacon said one beam of knowledge is directed upward toward God, and one toward man. The two peacocks held by the seated figure may be a covert allusion to Bacon. A prominent part of Bacon's coat of arms was the large figures of Castor and Pollux. The name given to the constellation of Castor and Pollux by the Arabians was The Peacock. The peacocks may have had another, still more covert, allusion. Bacon had decided to preserve the most notable of the knowledge which had survived from the distant past. Discussing this knowledge he continually used the metaphor of a flood which had submerged ancient knowledge. In his allegory of the New Atlantis he said the only survivors when the ancient Atlantis (ancient knowledge) was submerged, were the birds. That is, allegorically, he represented what had survived from this flood which submerged ancient knowledge as birds. In accordance with this metaphor, the two resplendent birds, which are held by Pan, may represent those notable examples of ancient knowledge which Bacon preserved in his Plays. The huntress Diana was the parallel feminine Symbol to Pan, for she was The goddess of the Arts and Sciences. Frances Yates says Diana was "a favorite mythological wrapping for the pursuit of natural science." In sculpture Diana was represented in both white and black stone. In "The Lost Language of Symbolism" Harold Bayley notes that there was nothing inappropriate about this use of black; quite the contrary, for black denoted "the Divine Dark Of Inscrutability, of Silence and Eternity." Black was essentially a color symbolic of Wisdom, and the divine Sophia was consistently depicted as Black. Milton says:" Goddess, sage and holy, Whose saintly visage is too bright, To hit the sense of mortal sight; And therefore to our weaker view, O'erlaid with black, staid Wisdome's hue."A statue of black Diana, known in mythology as Artemis or Diana Dictynna, stood in ancient times near "Ambrysos in Phocis." The first Shake-speare play, The Comedy of Errors, is set at Ephesus, an ancient Greek city in West Asia Minor, which was famous as the site of Artemis, Diana of Ephesus, and there was also a statue of black Diana there. In Love's Labour Lost, another of the earliest plays Bacon still shows Himself occupied with the idea of Diana. In the conversation between the two schoolmen, Holofernes and Nathaniel, and the countryman Dull, Dull propounds a riddle to the learned pair:"You are two bookmen, can you tell me by your wit, What was a month old at Cain's birth, that's not five weeks old as yet?"and Holofernes replies:"Dictinna, goodman Dull! Dictinna, goodman Dull!"Dull exclaims, "What is Dictinna?" and gets the answer, "A title to Phoebe, to Luna, to the Moone!" It is significant that, in The Tempest, the last of the Plays, the idea is still in Bacon's mind, and the same allusion is expressed. Gonzalo says:"You are gentlemen of brave metal. You would lift the moon out of her sphere if she would continue in it five weeks without changing."And a little further on Antonio says:'The Man I' the moon's too slow.'These are allusions planted in the Play to evoke specific associations, just as Sebastian's remark:" or that there were such men Whose head stood in their breast."Is an allusion intentionally inserted to evoke the association of Sir Walter Raleigh, who, as I have shown in "Shake-speare's Other Side of Midnight" brought the idea to England. And we remember that Rosaline, of whom Berowne is enamoured in the play has one very significant feature: King says to Berowne:"By heaven thy love is black as ebony."The statue of Diana at Ephesus was made from ebony wood. In As you like it, the enamoured Orlando, strolling in the Forest of Arden by the light of the Moon pins verses to his Rosalinde upon the trees:"Hang there my verse, in witness of my loue, And thou thrice crowned Queene of night suruey With thy chaste eye, from thy pale spheare aboue Thy Huntresse name, that my full life doth sway. O Rosalind, these trees shall be my Bookes, And in their barkes my thoughts Ile character, That euerie eye, which in this Forrest lookes, Shall see thy vertue witnest euery where."Orlando addresses the Moon as the chaste thrice-crowned Queen of Heaven, and says that her "Huntresse Name" (which is DIANA), sways his full life. Significantly, where her name should appear he puts Rosalind. In Hamlet's Notebook, William O'Connor transposes Rosalinde into OR ELS DIAN. We will return to Diana again in the first part of Henry IV, but in the meantime there is more material to introduce. As the head of the group of men who gathered around Him, who were a part of his secret efforts to disseminate his ideas, and his knowledge, Bacon became known as the Man in the Moon, the head of the men of the shadows. Who were these shadow men who were associated with Bacon in his secret efforts? In "Shakespeare's Other Side of Midnight" I have given evidence to support the claim that Bacon was associated under his masks of Edmund Spenser and Christopher Marlowe with John Dee, Philip Sidney and his Areopagus Group, and with Sir Walter Raleigh and and his group, and that all three were associated with the Rosicrucian phenomenon. Raleigh's group very definitely meets the label Of Shadow Men. A great deal of ink has been expended in tying the name of School of Night to this group. A well known, and mysterious poem by a member of this group, George Chapman, is titled 'Shadow of Night'. The Shadow Men, i.e. those who are hidden is the same idea as the Invisible Men of the Rosicrucians. Scholars of the Rosicrucian phenomenon have not advanced their standards very far into that unknown country from whose bourne no traveler ever returns enlightened. However, it is not really that confusing if it is put in context. A careful reading of the Fama shows it had two main thrusts: the reformation of religion, and the reformation of knowledge. The reformation of religion expressed in the document is Militant Protestantism. The reformation of knowledge is The Advancement of Learning. The authors of the document were people who were crusading in secret to oppose tyranny over the human mind, and in both the Fama, and the Confession, can clearly be seen the ideas of Bacon and Dee. The superpower of the day was Spain. Spain was allied with Rome and the Pope. These were the forces of darkness which threatened tyranny not only over the bodies, but the minds and souls of humanity. Phillip II of Spain was one of those monsters who result from one man having too much power, and believing he is right, and anyone with opinions opposing his are wrong and evil. He did horrible things like burning to death seven human beings on his birthday as an act of faith (Auto de Fe). And the Roman Catholic Church both in Rome and in Spain perpetrated the most atrocious and ungodly acts in the name of religion. Countless men and women were subjected to the most refined and inhuman torture. The Misercorde, a slender dagger with a sharp blade, was placed beside the instruments of torture. The victim was told that this was for the purpose of cutting the cord of misery. That when the agony became too great they should call out for it. The victims entered the torture believing that release was only a quick stroke of the dagger across their throat away. But when the extreme limits of pain was reached and the victim began to scream, "Misercorde! Misercorde!" The dagger was never used at all. This deception, when it was realized, broke the will of the strongest. Among others Galileo was made to renounce what he knew to be true on threat of burning, and Bruno, the premiere philosopher and free thinker of his day was burned alive, as were hundreds of others. The Protestantism of England had a rather silly origin. King Henry VIII had wearied of his sexual dalliances with Mary Bolyn, and craved a few rolls in the hay with her sister Anne. But Anne had a death wish. She would not consent unless he married her. He couldn't marry her unless he divorced his wife, Catherine of Aragon, and the Rome Catholic Church wouldn't endorse the divorce. Henry broke with Rome, turned England into a Protestant nation, married Anne Bolyn, and, eventually wearying of her, killed her. So strange are the workings of fate that somewhere along the line, this lust which had led to murder, gave birth to a bulwark against tyranny over the human mind. It was a rocky road that led to something good. England had broken with Rome in the reign of Henry VIII, moved toward radical Protestantism in the reign of his son Edward VI, reverted to Catholicism under his daugher Mary, and then reverted back to Protestantism again when Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558. Philip II of Spain had shared the crown of England with his wife Mary Tudor, and was opposed to letting it slip back to Protestantism. Increasing tensions in the Netherlands added yet another ingredient to the problems facing statesmen and politicians. In England there was a realization of how much the nation's commercial interests depended on trade with the Low Country. There was talk of the necessity of forming a general Protestant League to pull together the diverse elements of the Reformation in a common cause of defense against the Roman Catholic menace. Philip Sidney was born into this climate. In the last stage of His formal education, Sidney went to Strasbourg and established a friendship with Johann Sturm. Sturm was well known in England. He was an acquaintance of Lord Burghley and the Bacon family. From Strasbourg Sidney went on to Vienna where he came under the tutelage of a Protestant statesman, Hubert Languet. Languet fostered in Sidney a loyalty to the concept of the Protestant League. In 1577 the young Philip Sidney was sent on a mission to the imperial court to convey to Rudolph II, the condolences of Queen Elizabeth, on the death of the previous Emperor, his father, Maximilian II. Sidney also visited other German Protestant Princes, particularly the Calvinist rulers of the Palatinate, in order to explore the possibility of a Protestant League in Europe. Sidney had already developed his political and religious position, which was based on that of his uncle, the Earl of Leicester, and of Francis Walsingham, whose daughter he later married. He believed in a policy of militant Protestantism against Spain, and found a kindred spirit at Heidelberg in the person of John Casimir, brother of the then Elector Palatine. Back in England the plant that blossomed more than two generations later into Rosicrucianism began to take root. An event occurred in the summer of 1582 which was later reflected in the Fama of the Rosicrucians. The Fama listed brethren with the initials D, FB, and R. The original Fama also ended with a large letter subscript: SUB UMBRA ALARUM TUARUM JEHOVAH This identifies Raleigh as brother 'R' because it points to an event in the summer of 1582 with which Raleigh was involved. At that time William the Silent of Orange was leader of the Protestant forces in the Netherlands. A small group of Englishmen went to Antwerp to meet with him. Queen Elizabeth herself rode out with them as far as Canterbury. The group was made up of Walter Raleigh, Lord Hunsdon, the Earl of Leicester, Fulke Greville, Philip Sidney, and Edward Dyer. When the queen turned back the group continued on, crossed the channel, and proceeded to Antwerp where they met William of Orange. Raleigh was detained there by William after the others had returned, and entrusted with a special verbal message for the Queen: SUB UMBRA ALARUM TUARUM PROTEGIMUR That is, 'UNDER THE SHADOW OF YOUR WINGS WE ARE PROTECTED.' William of Orange was sending both an appeal, and an acknowledgement, to Queen Elizabeth of her support of the Protestant cause. In view of the English connections, and the Protestant activism of the Rosicrucian publications it is evident the postscript of The Fame referred to that famous event involving Sir Walter Raleigh and William of Orange. It both referred to that famous message, and amended it to conform to its source, the Psalms, where several variations of the phrase, under the shadow of your wings Jehovah we are protected, was to be found. Queen Elizabeth died in 1603. The Fama was published in 1614. King James would never become involved with anything even remotely connected with a martial cause. The Protestant cause had indeed to look for its protection under the shadow of the wings of Jehovah. It is almost certain Francis Bacon was the hidden mind behind the Rosicrucian phenomena. The Fairy Queen which Francis wrote under his Spenser Mask combines for the first time those unique features of chivalry, red cross, and advancement of learning which are the hallmark of the Rosicrucians. The first Book of the Fairy Queen narrates the adventures of the Red Cross Knight. This knight, along with Una (the Monas, or one of John Dee), is proceeding along his way when a sudden tempest arises. Seeking shelter from the Tempest, the Red Cross Knight and Una enter, and become lost in, a labyrinthine like wood (which the story tells us is Errors Den). This is paralleled in The Tempest, where, following a tempest, the passengers, become lost and undergo a labyrinthine like wandering about the island. When Red Cross finally penetrates to the center of the wood and engages the Monster Error in battle he discovers her to be a woman above the waist and a serpentine monster below. This parallels Bacon's use of Scylla as a lively image of scholastic philosophy who was a comely virgin in the upper parts, but was made up of barking monsters in her lower parts. It is significant that when Raleigh went to Guiana he named the river He sailed up, 'The Red Cross River.' In addition, it is important to note, that as far back as
1590, Raleigh and his group were using Theodor de Bry, (the publisher by
whom so many Rosicrucian works were published) to publish their works.
Hariot's Report on the New Found Land of Virginia in 1590 was published
by De Bry. A glance at the map shows the German Protestant states with which the Rosicrucian phenomenon was associated were all located adjoining each other: Palatinate, Wurttemburg, Hesse-Cassel, and Bohemia. Furthermore, these are the German Protestant states where the English Protestants went in exile during the reign of Bloody Mary. Bacon's family, Sidney, Dee, and Raleigh and his group were associated with people in these German Protestant states. In 1611, shortly before the publication of the Rosicrucian documents, Elizabeth, the daughter of King James, married Frederick V, Elector Palatine, and Francis Bacon played a large part in the entertainment for their wedding. Bacon is always the invisible man working behind the scenes. But there is evidence that after he returned from France in 1579 he was associated with John Dee, Thomas Philippes, and Philip Sidney. All of these men had one thing in common. They either worked for, or were associated with Francis Walsingham who ran the Elizabethan Secret Service. Moreover, when Anthony Bacon went abroad a little later, part of his time was spent gathering intelligence data, and filing reports to Walsingham. So it is reasonable to assume that Francis was also associated with Walsingham and with the Elizabethan Service. This brings up another possible avenue of exploration for the student of the Rosicrucians. If the Rosicrucians were a branch of the Elizabethan Secret Service, what form did this take? We have seen evidence that Bacon was behind the Rosicrucians. It may be assumed that he was a young man with a great many innovative ideas, as was Ian Fleming during World War II. Bacon was also writing plays at this time and was associated with the theatres and the players. The players traveled widely on the continent and could go everywhere unsuspected. There is evidence that the players were among the original Rosicrucians. Ben Jonson, one of the men with insider knowledge about the whole phenomenon says outright that the players were Rosicrucians. In one of his masques (The Fortunate Isles, 1625) Jonson presents a man who is seeking the Rosicrucians, after some humorous banter, another character identifies them for him, he says in the manner of one saying something everyone should know, they are, 'the players, you fool!' Johann Valentin Andreae in his Christian Mythology says of the Rosicrucians that it is, 'an admirable Fraternity which plays comedies throughout Europe.' Frances Yates suggests that detailed research into the literature of the Rosicrucian furore in Germany might 'reveal a connection between the activities of English actors and the spread of 'Rosicrucian' ideas.' Anthony Cooke, Francis Bacon's foster grandfather spent the years during the reign of Mary Tudor in Strasbourg. While there he became acquainted with Johann Sturm, and probably with the family of Johann Valentin Andreae. Surely Bacon and Andreae are associated through the Rosicrucian documents. Another person with whom Andreae was certainly associated was Prince August, Duke of Brunswick and Luneburg. Letters exist which Andreae wrote to Augustus. In a letter dated 1642 he seems to infer Augustus was the German prince referred to in the 1619 'A Modell of a Christian Society' which describes a society with similarities to the Rosicrucian society. He says:'The head of the society is a German Prince, a man most illustrious for his piety, learning and integrity, who hath under him twelve Colleagues, his privy Counsellors, every one eminent for some gift of God.'The twelve colleagues of the German prince are specialists in different branches of study, and recall the description in The New Atlantis where the visitor is told, "we have twelve that sail into foreign countries, under the names of other nations, (for our own we conceal;) who bring us the books, and abstracts, and patterns of experiments of all other parts. These we call Merchants of Light." An article by T.D. Bokenham in Baconiana claims says that Duke Augustus was in England at the coronation of James I and was well known in English Court circles. In 1624 a very remarkable book was published and printed at Lunaeburg in Germany. The author of the book was believed to be Augustus, Duke of Brunswick, however the symbolic pictures ornamenting the title page have been viewed by many Baconians as indicating that the book was associated with Bacon. Sir Edwin Dunning-Lawrence says that at the end of the book was a very handsome example of the light 'a' dark 'a' ornament (which is conclusive evidence of Bacon's authorship). The title translates as, The Cryptomenytices and Cryptography of Gustavus Selenus, and in the dedicatory poems which were prefixed to the work we are told that he is 'Homo Lunae', that is, THE MAN IN THE MOON. In the preface Gustavus tells us he was 'born of Selenic lineage.' And when he begins the preface by referring to 'this offspring of mine' which, after a number of years has been cherished and strengthened to the point where it can come into the world, he sounds eerily like the author in the preface to Don Quixote, who many recognize as Francis Bacon. We are told that Gustavus is involved in SHADOW. But that Gustavus, now Selenus called, uncovers things that time had long in SHADOW held. August Diana is called upon to shed her rays upon the earth. Gustavus says, '..I hid my secrets in SHADOW everywhere.' Seeing all this, and recognizing the far flung pen of 'The Man in The Moon', one is imbued with the hope that Francis is finally going to release some information that may be helpful in throwing light on the beginnings of the Rosicrucian phenomena, and in unweaving that tangled web of enigma, which was published just a year previously--The First Folio of 1623. The first thing we note in the Cryptomenytices is that he describes a mode of sending cryptographic messages which involves the names of various angels. In 1659 a curious book by Meric Casaubon was published with the title of ,'A True & Faithful Relation of What passed for many Yeers Between Dr. John Dee and Some Spirits.' Robert Hooke, a cryptographic expert, and a member of the Royal Society, some half century later, gave his own opinion in an address to the Royal Society. Detail is given on this in Richard Deacon's book, "John Dee." Referring to Casaubon's book, Hooke declared that:"Whatever may seem rational to others to judge of the same book, to me, I confess, it seems to be designed to comprehend another meaning than that plainly legible in the words of it, which possibly many others have read it, may have no suspicion of: neither may they have ever seen, or considered the Cryptography of Trithemius, or any other either on the like subjects."The greater part of the book--especially all that which relates to the Spirits and Apparations, together with names, speeches, clothing, prayers, etc., are all cryptography, and...some parts also of that which seems to be a Journal of his Voyages and Travels into several parts of Germany are also cryptographical-that is, under those feigned stories, he hath concealed relations of quite another thing and that he [Dee] made use of this way of absconding it that he might more securely escape discovery, if he should fall under suspicion as to the true designs of his travels, or that the name should fall into the hands of any spies as such might betray him or his intentions." Deacon says that, "Hooke also thought that , despite the quarrels between Dee and Kelley, there was always a close, secret arrangement which bound them together and which took precedence over personal animosities." According to Deacon, 'Hooke thought that strange alliance between two men so different in temperament and principles, whose relations were constantly upset by deceit and double-dealing, could only have been the result of a discipline imposed on them by somebody higher up." That somebody, Hooke thought, "was the head of the English Intelligence service.' The track gets warmer still with the publication of a paper in 1910 by C.P. Bowditch. Bowditch found a simple book cipher in Cryptomanytices, on page 351, Liber VI, Cap. 33. This example was based on a table of figures set out to illustrate a method by which two friends who possess the same editions of a given book, can communicate with each other. The table in Cryptomenytices consisted of nineteen sets of three numbers. Gustavus explained that the first number of each set referred to the page number of of the book. The second number of each set referred to the line number of that page, and the third number of each set referred to the number of the letter in that particular line. So that a message could be deciphered letter by letter by anyone in possission of the code. It was, however, not quite as simple as that, for Gustavus added:"you can countfrom left to right or from right to left on the lines
and you can skip lines and need not observe any order."The table was as follows: 7.2.16 7.1.16 7.1.21 7.1.27 7.6.16 8.1.6 8.2.4 8.3.5 8.4.4 8.5.5 8.6.1 8.7.7 8.8.5 8.9.4 8.10.30 9.1.20 9.6.9 9.7.6 9.10.36 When giving an example such as this Gustavus invariably supplied a reference to the book to which his example related. In this instance the reference was not given. Bowditch thought this was odd and the obvious reference which came to mind was the First Folio. Examining a facsimile of this book, Bowditch could find no satisfactory results on pages 7, 8 or 9 of the Comedies, Histories, or Tragedies,-each of which had a separate series of page numbers. He could also not find anything on Troilus and Cressida which only
had a page number on the first page. He then turned to the eighth unnumbered
page in the Folio which was "The address to the Great Variety of Readers."
He applied the section relating to page 8 from the table and got the
following result: Letter Paragraph Line Letter Direction of Reading Found2 1 6 L. to R. from top B 2 2 4 " " " " A 1 3 5 " " " " C 1 4 4 " " " " O 1 5 5 R. to L. from bottom N 1 6 1 " " " " E 2 7 7 " " " " A 2 8 5 " " " " O 1 9 4 L. to R. from top I 2 10 30 " " " " AIt should be noted that in Latin works Bacon's name was often printed as BACONE. The last four letters of this message are very relevant. On the first full page of text in the first play (The Tempest) in the First Folio is the following message: "SIT THE DIAL AT NBW, F. BACON, TOBEY" and this message has the letters "AO" at one end, and "AI" at the other:A Art ignorant of what thou art. naught knowing O Of whence I am: nor that I am more better T Then Prospero, Mafter of a full poore cell, A And thy no greater Father. Mira. More to know D Did neuer medle with my thoughts. Pros. 'Tis time I I fshould informe thee farther: Lend thy hand A And plucke my Magick garment from me: So, L Lye there my Art: wipe thou thine eyes, haue comfort, THE The direfull fpectacle of the wracke which touch'd T The very vertue of compaffion in thee: I I haue with fuch prouifion in mine ART S So fafely ordered, that there is no foule N No not fo much perdition as an hayre B Betid to any creature in the veffell W Which thou heardft cry, which thou faw'st sinke: Sit F For thou muft now know farther. downe, Mira. You haue often B Begun to tell me what I am, but ftopt A And left me to a booteleffe inquisition, CON Concluding, ftay, not yet. Prof. The howr's now come T The very minute byds thee ope thine eare, OBEY Obey, and be attentiue. Canft thou remember A A time before we came vnto this cell? I I doe not thinke thou canft, for then thou wast notThe "AI" in the cipher reads "IA" which is an important agreement since logic of the message indicates "AO" should be read going down, and "AI" from the end of the page up making it "IA". As the evidence develops Bacon has incorporated his discovery device in the Play, (a miniature model of the great globe, on which the sailing ship of discovery ventures forth) as an intellectual compass. So that, in the operation of the compass at the 32nd speech it has to be set to NBW, but, at the same time has an opposing setting of WBN. For more on this see: "The Secret of The Shakespeare Plays." To show the ingenuity of Bacon it is necessary to bear in mind that, in the Plays, he had fashioned an analogue model in miniature of the Great Globe, and he wanted to convey this information, through allegory, metaphor, or allusion to the viewer, or reader at the earliest possible time. He does this in the very first Play, "The Comedy of Error" in the most ingenious and hilarious fashion imaginable. The word "compass" is mentioned twice in the play, before we come to the point where Dromio of Syracuse says there is a certain women who has put a claim on him. The dialogue proceeds as follows:Antipholus of Syracuse: Then she bears some breath? Dromio of Syracuse: No longer from head to foot then from hip to hip: she is spherical, like a globe; I could find out countries in her. Antipholus of Syracuse: In what part of her body stands Ireland? Dromio of Syracuse: Marry, sir, in her buttocks; I found it out by the bogs. Antipholus of Syracuse: Where Scotland? Dromio of Syracuse: I found it out by the barrenness, hard in the palm of the hand. Antipholus of Syracuse: Where France? Dromio of Syracuse : In her forehead, arm'd and reverted, making war against her heir. Antipholus of Syracuse: Where England? Dromio of Syracuse: I look'd for the chalky cliffs, but I could find no whiteness in them; but I guess it stood in her chin, by the salt rheum that ran between France and it. Antipholus of Syracuse : Where Spain? Dromio of Syracuse : Faith, I saw it not, but I felt it hot in her breath. Antipholus of Syracuse : Where America, the Indies? Dromio of Syracuse: O, sir, upon her nose, all o'er embellished with rubies, carbuncles, sapphires, declining their rich aspect to the hot breath of Spain; who sent whole armadoes of caracks to be ballast at her nose. Antipholus of Syracuse : Where stood Belgia, the Netherlands? Dromio of Syracuse: O, sir, I did not look so low.The next interesting point in the Plays which may have a correlation with information in Cryptomenytices is in Henry IV, Part 1, Act 3. But
first we note Henry IV, Part I, Act 1, Scene 1 (on page 46 of the Histories)
begins on the first page with what could be an intentional message "FB AT":F For our aduantage on the bitter Croffe. B But this our purpofe is a tweluemonth old, A And bootleffe 'tis to tell you we will go: T Therefore we meete not now. Then let me heareThis seems as if it could be random, although that conclusion is offset somewhat by three lines, seven lines further down which spell out LAW:L Leading the men of Herefordfhire to fight A Againft the irregular and wilde Glendower, W Was by the rude hands of that Welfhman taken,FB AT LAW seems less likely to have been an accident. This impression is heighten when we find near the beginning of the next page another message: "FBACO AT" spelled out in reverse order.T The creft of Youth againft your dignity. King. But I haue fent for him to anfwer this: A And for this cause a while we muft neglect O Our holy purpofe to Ierufalem. C Cofin, on Wednefday next, our Councell we will hold A At Windfor, and fo informe the Lords: B But come your felfe with fpeed to vs againe, F For more is to be faid, and to be doneThen near the bottom of the same page, Henry IV, Act I, Scene 2, we find Falstaff saying:"...let us be Diana's foresters, GENTLEMEN OF THE SHADE, minions of the moon; and let men say we be men of good government, being governed, as the sea is, by our noble and chaste mistress the moon, under whose countenance we steal."And the prince says:"...us that are the moon's men.."Then in Henry IV, Part 1, Act 3, Scene 1, (on page 64 which is the reverse of 46 with which the page began) we find a very curious assortment of numbers: (Column one) 12 (some twelve dayes hence) 7 (seven times a week) 1/4 (once in a quarter of an hour) 3 or 4 (three or four times) (in good compass now I live out of order, out of compass) (out of all compass out of reasonable compass) 1000 (saved me a thousand markes) 32 (this two and thirtie yeeres) 12 (I bought you a dozen of shirts) 8 (of eight shilling an fill) 24 (four and twentie pounds) 40 (worth fortie Marke) 2 and 2 (yea, two and two, Newgate fashion) 3 or 4 (three or four bonds) 40 (of fortie pound apeece) 8 (a trifle, some eight-penny matter) Both the unusual array of numbers, and the stress on COMPASS, two two times in two lines seems significant. The "yea, two and two, Newgate fashion" adds to this, and the 32, the number of directions in a compass. Plus the odd pairing of numbers, that "2 and 2 of various numbers.": 12 3 or 4 12 8 40 3 or 4 40 8 There are, in fact, three or four of these pairings. Three if you leave out the pair of 3 or 4's; four if you include them. All in Act 3 of
Henry IV. This is in the 3rd Act of Henry IV, and if you look in the 3rd volume of Cryptomenytices, there is a passages which says:"The writer fixes on his writing-table, by means of a PAIR OF COMPASSES,
twenty-five points, separated one from another by equal distances. At
the first point he adds nothing; at the other points he places twenty
-four letters."The author then proceeds to describe this mode of cryptography. The compass used in Cryptomenytices is not a mariners compass, but a drawing compass. If you refer back to Henry IV, it seems the use of both compasses could be referred to, "In good compass [a mariners compass?] now I live out of order, out of compass [a drawing compass?]. The author of Cryptomenytices has no intention of making things easy for the reader. He says, concerning the various examples he gives, "If you wish you may dig them out there. For I have not wished to divulge them without some effort on your part." On the other hand certain examples are tantalizingly reminiscent of those numbers on page 64 in the First Folio Histories. At one place he says,"...each one consisting of eight, or, if you please, of twelve..." and then a little further down the page he
says,"Let us take a secret and, if possible, restrict the number of its letters
to some multiple of the number eight; e.g. thirty-two..".At still another place he says,"outside of which table valid letters, THREE or FOUR in number, are
TWICE written."Cryptomenytices certainly merits further study, because Gustavus still
walks in shadow. On April Fools day 1626, so the story goes, Francis Bacon was out for a spin in his carriage when he was suddenly moved by one of those irresistible impulses great men sometimes get to stuff dead chickens with snow. He wondered if freezing could preserve dead flesh. Never mind that his writings show he already knew this. His Lordship (this April Fools story says) caught a chill and hurried to the nearby residence of Lord Arundel, who fortunately was away at the time, just in case any deception was in the works. Also Henry Percy (that "bloody Percy" of the letters from Bacon's mother, who had been with Bacon from the earliest records) had suddenly up and quit not long before, and went to work for someone else. This too proved rather convenient. Because Francis was acting rather odd. He had always been very careful of his health before, but now he not only allowed himself to get chilled, he also allowed himself to be placed in a "damp" bed. And he died not long afterward. Not only did he die, but two of his closest friends (John Davies and Lancelot Andrewes) were stricken with sudden illnesses and died soon afterwards also. And two others (George Herbert and Thomas Bushell) dropped out of sight for a period of exactly three years soon after Bacon's "death". Not only this, but soon after Bacon's "death" a little book was published with the title Manes Verulamiani, that is, The Verulamian SHADES. Someone was keeping the flame from the GENTLEMEN OF THE SHADE going. Oddly enough, in view of the importance of the compass and the number 32 in his Plays, someone [someone?] had called together exactly 32 [exactly 32?] well known scholars from somewhere [somewhere?] and produced a little book of Latin verse containing exactly 32 elegies to Bacon, and the 32nd elegy contained a phrase giving the closest possible approximation that could be given in Latin (since the language did not contain the word compass) to convey the word compass. For anyone who believes this is all an accident I have some ocean front property in Arizona they can get at a very reasonable price.Messages for Mather Walker ******* ![]()
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