A MATTER OF GRACE
THE IDENTITY OF DE VERE AS SHAKESPEARE
©
by E.L. Miller, 2012
If, in one word, I could with grace define,
Those qualities his genius did possess,
That word needs be so elegant and fine,
That he himself did use, as tho’ ‘twere his.
That very word must needs as well apply
To any candidate who’d claim his fame;
As genius of such stamp seld passes by:
The word must be especially
used by him.
After much study, that word is now come clear,
A simple word, a word that tells us much;
It’s, too, the heart-root word of Ed de Vere,
Of equal worth with Honor, Faith, and such.
Attend, the word I now pronounce, in
place,
It e.ver was and e.ver will be ‘Grace.’
“GRACE” COUNT COMPARISONS:
All forms of the word
“grace” : Shakespeare Concordance – Open Source
All-disgraced (1)
Disgrace
(55)
Disgrace’s
(1)
Disgraced
(17
Disgraceful
(1)
Disgraces
(5)
Grace
(595)
Grace’s
(22)
Graced
(14)
Graceful
(7)
Gracefully
(1)
Graceless
(6)
Graces
(49)
Well-graced
(1)
APPROXIMATELY 30 MORE “GRACE”
WORDS IN SONNETS AND POEMS
EPIDICUM – 6 USES OF GRACES – 2,327
WORD COUNT
DE VERE POEMS – 7 GRACE – 4,000 WORLD
COUNT (“officially” credited)
IN PRISON PENT –16 GRACE – 11,356
WORD COUNT – ALL “ANOMOS POEMS”
IN PRISON PENT – 12 GRACE -- 8,719
WORLD COUNT (IPP/only)
IN THE SONNETS – 16 GRACE – 17,551
WORD COUNT
IN COMPLETE IGNOTO – 48 GRACE- 37, 500 WORD COUNT.
There are 957,428
total word count in Shax’s writings
There are 617 results for GRACE
vs
There are 270,757
total words in Spenser’s Fairey Queene
There are 164 results for GRACE
All forms of the word “grace” : Shakespeare Concordance – Open Source
A NOTE ON “THE TIRESOME PUNS ON
GRACE”
& THE IMPORTANCE OF GRACE
R.A.
Bond in his is book, The Complete Work of
John Lyly, posits without any genuine proof, that John Lyly was the author
of the Funeral Oration and Elegy which declares, on its cover, and again on the
first inside page, to be written by Infelice
Academico Ignoto. John Lyly, it will be recalled, became famous for his
book, Euphues in England (1580)—which
was dedicated to his mentor, if not master, Lord Oxford, Edward de Vere. In
making his untenable claim, Bond did however stumble onto a characteristic of
our ‘Ignoto’ whom we have identified as Edward de Vere. The reader need merely
substitute the name of de Vere in the sentence below—to get our point of the
use of the word “grace”, not whether Bond found it tiresome or not. Bond wrote,
comparing Lyly’s usage with Ignoto’s and their supposed common use of, as he
says:
. .tiresome puns on ‘grace’ and ‘Anglia’
(pp.
511, 513) Bond, pp. 83
Bond apparently did not know his
Shakespeare very well and, had he but turned to a concordance of Shakespeare,
he would have had a real complaint
for the tiresome use of “grace” not only by Shakespeare but by Edward de Vere
in his own and other personas of ‘Anomos’
and ‘Ignoto’ as well as others.
Bond, of course, had reference to
“tiresome puns on ‘grace’” in Ignoto’s Funeral Oration and unnamed Elegy for
Queen Elizabeth. Here is one of the only two references Bond gives from
Ignoto’s Epicedium:
In a word, she enjoyed so much
grace, as all the graces possessed not together; and he that had the grace to
see her grace, accompted it his happiness to be so graced. (Bond, pp. 511)
as to ‘Anglia’, Bond cites Ignoto’s remarks that:
hee only wonderful in an Angle, She famous in the worlds fayre Anglia [another word for England]
Did Shakespeare ever make play on the word ‘angle’?
The answer is yes. In The Tempest
Shakespeare speaks of “the angle of the isle.
.” Angle, of course, is the name of the early English people (the
Angles) who gave their name also to the word ‘England,’ as its etymological
basis. So the isle is England and “angle of the isle” plays off of this.
Bond gives no examples from Lyly at all. It is
perhaps, most interest of all, as the reader shall soon see in our statistical
examination of ‘grace’, that the two plays of Lyly for which we could get
concordances, handily, uniquely (of all the other concordances examined) does not use the word ‘grace’ at all!
Shakespeare’s
use and puns on grace
Turning to Shakespeare’s use of and puns on “grace”
in his poems we find:
When sighs and groans and tears
may grace the fashion of her disgrace.
(Lucrece, ln 1319)
And arts with thy sweet graces
graces be.
(Sonnet, 79)
Both grace and faults are loved
of more and less;
Thou makest faults graces that to
thee resort
(Sonnet, 96)
Their purposed trim
Pierced not his grace, but were
all graced by him. Love. Comp., ln 119
Thy grace being graced causes all
disgrace in me
Passionate Pilgrim, ln 36
The number of entries for ‘grace’ in Shakespeare’s entire
works are almost staggering, not to even speak of derivative words (gracious,
gracefully, graciously, etc.). By comparison, for example, to Spenser’s work Faerie Queene, which it ought be recalled,
is rooted in chivalry and knighthood and would be expected (in this writer’s
view) to be far more larded with such
terms admitting of easy and conventional use of the term grace. This is not the
case.
We will look at puns on ‘grace’ shortly, but first
we must underscore that ‘grace’ was not just a word to Shakespeare/Oxford, it
existed in the most exalted states, with Virtue and Honor, even unto Godliness.
And yet, too, it was a very toy to bandy about in almost unashamed irreverence.
THE IMPORTANCE OF GRACE
The importance of ‘grace’ at the outset needs be
known far exceeds an unconscious use of a “favorite word.” Rather, we have an especial word in ‘grace,’ a word that is
shibboleth to the heart and soul of the man. Grace exists in Shakespeare’s Parthenon
of Virtues, along with Honesty, Honor, Beauty, Health and Conscience, it is the
all of all:
To whom in all this presence
speaks your grace?
To thee, that thou hast nor
honesty nor grace
Hen.lll,
i 3 54
No less than life, with grace,
health, beauty,
Lear,
i l 59
Conscience and grace, honor, to
the profoundest pit! Hamlet, iii 4 144
. . . all the grace,
Which makes her both the heart
and place
Of general wonder. . . Pericles iii 4 (Cerimon’s house)
Below is the entire snatch of dialog from Pericles:
In music, letters; who hath gain'd
Of education all the grace,
Which makes her both the heart and place
Of general wonder. But, alack,
That monster envy, oft the wrack
Of education all the grace,
Which makes her both the heart and place
Of general wonder. But, alack,
That monster envy, oft the wrack
One versed in the verse of Lord Oxford, probably would
involuntarily recall another instance, in young Edward’s poetry, where mention
is made of the skills that need be taught to create that all important ‘grace’.
In his The Tears of Fancy, we read a series of queries:
Who
taught thee first to sigh, alas, my Heart?
Who
taught thy tongue to woeful words of plaint?
Who
filled your eyes with tears…
and we come to the first “punch line”:
Above
the rest in court who gave thee grace?
Who
made thee strive in honor to be best?
Chiljin,
p. 180
Indeed, grace makes the beloved, as we learn in Pericles, that is one who is properly
instructed, “the heart and place/Of general wonder.” So amazing is the power of
grace.
And, yes, one can imagine the obverse, as well. For
such a man, who deeply holds ‘grace’ in highest honor and esteem, nothing could
be worse than the disgrace of grace. In Edward’s letters we find that is just
how he felt when he returned from abroad in 1576 and found rumors of his
just-had-a-baby-wife, implicated in dishonoring his own grace. Pieced to the
heart that she had become “the fable of the world”, his own deeply hurt feeling
is encompassed in the words he says about other things, too, that so
discontented him: “I will not blaze nor publish until it please me.” As to his
wife he willingly will be “rid of her cumber’ and the “molestations” he has had
to endure, “which made her disgraced, the world raised suspicion openly…’
(Chiljin, p. 25, April 27, 1576
In Prison Pent
Turning to In Prison pent, we note the very
first poem of Anomos indicates that he is of same mind as
"Shakespeare". In the first poem of In Prison Pent, a sonnet, Anomos opens his book of verse, with the
following:
Me,
neither nature hath a poet made,
Nor
love of glory mov'd to learn the trade,
Nor
thirst of gold persuaded for to write;
For
nature's graces are to fine for me. . .
And, in the very next poem he speaks of his
love; to give her the highest praise possible is to only to speak of her:
Thrice
threefold graces her alone befell,
From
her do flow the streams that water me."
For his suffering from unrequited love he
speaks of one who has to bide "her stay apace,/And hope for better
grace."
Praising his love again, he speaks of,
"In none, but her, all graces friendly meet."
Indeed, Anomos cries out, in his conflict,
for there is a kind of war ‘twixt grace and ruth:
His
plea was such as each man might decry,
For
grace and ruth were read in either eye."
and again,
For
grace, sweet grace thy name doth sound.
Yet
ah! in thee no grace is found."
He fears of his love that , "Some
braver youth will sue to thee for grace."
GRACE USAGE AND WORD COUNT OTHER
WRITERS
EPIDICUM – 6 USES OF GRACES – 2,327
WORD COUNT 0.00257
DE VERE POEMS – 7 GRACE – 4,000 WORLD
COUNT (“officially” credited) 0.00175
IN PRISON PENT –16 GRACE – 11,356 WORD
COUNT – ALL “ANOMOS POEMS” 0.00140
IN PRISON PENT – 12 GRACE -- 8,719
WORLD COUNT (IPP/only)
0.00137
IN THE SONNETS – 16 GRACE – 17,551
WORD COUNT 0.00091
IN COMPLETE IGNOTO – 48 GRACE- 37, 500 WORD COUNT. 0.00128
There are 957,248 total words in SHAX’s
complete works.
There are 617 results for Grace 0.00064
There are 270,757 total words in SPENSER’S
FQ
There
are 164 results for Grace 0.00060
ASTROPHEL AND STELLA – 30 GRACE – 17221
WORD COUNT (SIDNEY) 0.00174
SHEPHEARDES CALENDAR – 8 GRACE – 17489 WORD
COUNT (SPENSER) 0.00045
SAPPHO AND PHAO OR ENDIMION – 0 GRACE –
ZERO WORD COUNT (LYLY) 0.00000
4 MARLOW PLAYS – 30 GRACE – 71,411 WORD COUNT (C.MARLOW) 0.00042
DR. FAUSTUS, JEW OF MALTA,,
TAMBURLAINE I, & II
PARADISE LOST/REGAINED – 45 GRACE – 98,678
WORD COUNT (MILTON) 0.00045
EVERYMAN/EPIONE – 12 GRACE – 80.588 WORD
COUNT (JONSON) 0.00014
ALCHEMIST/BARTHOLOMEW – 61 GRACE – 79,337
WORD COUNT (JONSON) 0.00076
(BOTH PLAYS ABOVE HAVE CHARACTER NAMED
GRACE OR CALLED SO)
The reader can easily consult the text used
here, the “official” early de Vere poems can be found at the Shakespeare Oxford
Society website; In Prison Pent can
be found at www.ericmillerworks.com
along with the Elegy and Oration of Queen Elizabeth by Infelice Academico
Ignoto, as well as , The Complete Poems
of Ignoto. Concordances can be found on-line, for all the indicated works. Osgood
Concordance of Spenser.
********
Note: from
Encyclopedia Britannica (2005 edition)
Angle/Anglia
England in the 5th century AD. The Angles gave their name to
England, as well as to the word Englisc, used even by Saxon writers to denote
their vernacular tongue. The Angles are first mentioned by Tacitus (1st century
AD) as worshipers of the deity Nerthus.
Concordances for all cited authors at:
The Victorian Literary Studies Archive
(Hyper-Concordance
OTHER COMPARISONS
Sidney,
Astrophel
and Stella
Of course,
examples of punning on the word 'grace' is not difficult to find in writer of
the period. Take Sidney for example, in his Astrophel and Stella with the
following statistics:
Sidney, Philip : Astrophel and Stella
Total
text lines : 2464
Total
word count : 17221
Query
result : 30
"well sugrred lies /That her grace gracious
makes the wrong that . . ."
"naked shew/Might winne some grace in
your sweet grace arraid;"
"late by your best-graced grace, I
caught at one of them"
Spenser,
Edmund : The Shepheardes Calender
Total
text lines : 2736
Total
word count : 17489
Query
result : 8
In Shepheardes Calender, Spenser makes all
in all rather conventional, or orutine uses of 'grace'.
Perhaps most interestingly, the is NO
'GRACE' at all in John Lyly's Sappho and Phao or Endemion
Marlowe,
Christopher : The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus
Total
text lines : 2089
Total
word count : 12801
Query
result : 10
Marlow, too, makes mostly pedestrian uses of the word
'grace'.
Marlowe,
Christopher : The Jew of Malta
Total
text lines : 3635
Total
word count : 20544
Query
result : 2
Marlowe,
Christopher : Tamburlaine the Great, Part II
Total
text lines : 2999
Total
word count : 19316
Query
result : 8
Spenser,
Edmund : The Faerie Queene
Total
text lines : 34258
Total
word count : 270757
Query
result : 164
Strangely, it seems, Spenser seldom uses
'grace' as an address,
JOHN
MILTON—PARADICE LOST
Total
text lines : 10948
Total
word count : 82859
Query
result : 39
Milton,
John : Paradise Regained
Total
text lines : 2164
Total
word count : 15908
Query
result : 6
Shakespeare,
William : All (5,742 KB)
Total
text lines : 128676
Total
word count : 957428
Query
result : 617
