Lord Oxford's PhOEnix Cipher

WHY THE GREATEST POET EVER

CHOSE THE MYTH OF THE PHOENIX

IN WHICH TO HIDE THE TRUTH OF HIS IDENTITY

        (A Full Drama in Onely OnE Scene)

© Elwood LeRoy Miller, February 18, 2016

“The name Phoenix Nest is clever. Possibly, it was suggested by a phrase in "The countess of Pembroke's Love," a poem that concludes Breton's The Pilgrimage to Paradise (1592) and that speaks at some length of the phoenix, one passage ending:

Oh let my soule, beseech her sacred nest.

But in the ashes of the Phoenix nest. . .”

                              Introduction: The Phoenix Nest, H.E. Rollins, 1930

                                [“Love” credited to Lord Oxford, by ELM, 2004]

SCENE OnE:

[Scene Opens:  Somewhere, where there is only a huge cloudy whitish grey dream-mist, a very small image of a person in black, at the very edge of the mist, nothing more. Light fades, comes on slowly, voice-over as lights come on]

PROLOG: 

Now we turn to our heart-crushing tale,

The True sufferings of the Greatest Poet Ever,

Whom, Extreme Fate, cruelly cause ‘d to suffer

Banishment from History! The History we Hail!

IO! IO! should be his rightful honor’s call!

But, on we now to matter’s hereto sounded

Whereby we bring you this, our brief tale,

Wherewith we hope to have, at our owne will,

The very truth of the matter impounded.

(Scene OnE: Assembly of Muses, gracefully gathered about; only one of them speaks, and is called “The Court,” but scene very informal. The Attorney speaker to the Court,  is nonetheless, appropriately formal)

Atty:  Your Honor, the Phoenix code has been broken,

And, in advance of any claims now registered, or others that may occur, as counsel to Poet, Defendant, Edward de Vere . . .

The Court:  O, no! Is this that Cipher business? 

Atty: (awkwardly stumbling for words) What I was hoping to stave off, is what. . .

The Court: (impatiently):  What is it that you want from us, counsel? (Atty shuffles through papers; more stridently) You can’t answer that question, Counsel? 

Atty:  (coming up from his paper) The problem is simply this: Did Lord Oxford violate his Poet’s Honor by encoding his own Phoenix name cipher in praise of the Great Sidney, or other?  Did he, by using his name codes even in (or especially, some would say) elegies and epitaphs of his own praise to England’s most praiseworthy poets—to serve the purpose of his own name—he, who it was decreed, would have no name—

The Court:   The point is made. There is no action ‘gainst Lord Oxford, pending, that I know of. But, proceed

Atty:  We seek injunctive relief against any action that may evolve.  For, Lord Oxford is not responsible for any of the fraud that followed on—and has continued long after. . .

The Court:  We’ll deal with one thing at a time, if you, please.

Atty:  Very well, your Honor. One of the main issues, it appears, has to do with Sir Philip Sidney. Immediately after the death of the “Phoenix”—as Sir Sidney is directly referred to—in LO’s Elegy to Sidney, he writes these words:

The general sorrow that was made

Among the creatures of kinde

Fired the Phoenix where she laid,

Her ashes flying with the winde,

   So as I might with reason see,

   That such a Phoenix nere should be.

Indeed, but now:  in the next stanza, may it be noted by The Court, an observation that my client makes:

Haply the cinders, driven about,

May breede an offspring neere that kinde,

But hardly a peer to that, I doubt;

It cannot sinke into my minde,

   That under branches ere can bee

   Of worth and value as the tree.

Note, what is in the poet’s mind. He is wondering if the cinders of the dead Phoenix Sidney might “breede an offspring neere that kinde”?  And, instantly after, he also observes, one may say, self-consciously, that there aren’t any peers about for that—or so it seems.  And it can’t “sink into mind” that there could be one of the same “kind.” That is to say a great poet of Universal standing, that could come from his peers.

The Court:  Come, come! What’s the point of all of this? It’s a lovely day

Atty:  Your Honor, the charge may be made that Lord Oxford, by using the honored memories of England’s greatest dead, demeaned the art of which he was acknowledged Master, to further his own fame into history.

The Court:  What’s wrong with that if he did? So we say, at most, “for shame,” what other remedy, by what other name?

I see no meritorious action to be filed against LO.

Atty:  The point is, your Honor, the Phoenix, as Sir Sidney himself was, is Said to have been “slaine”—he was killed, he didn’t just die.  And LO was saying, too, he, too, his name, didn’t just die, it was killed! So, you perhaps can see why I. . .

The Court:  I begin to suspect you worry about history. . Again, what is the point?

Atty:  In the Elegy, EO, first wants to establish that Sidney himself in his own poem said that the Phoenix was “slaine.” And my LO was simply making the analogy, and insisting on it, that his case is the same.  Please, a moment more. Immediately after the stanza just said, we have:

“The egel markt with pearcing sight

The mournfull habite of the place,

And parted then with mounting flight,

To signify to Jove the case,                      [Jove = “Iove,” in orig.]

What sorrow Nature doth sustaine

For Astrophill by envie slaine.”

So, too, it is written, the key is this (continues reading):

“And that which was of woonder most

The Phoenix left sweet Arabie,

And on a cedar in this coast

Built up her tombe of spicerie,

   As I conjuecture by the same,

   Preparede to take her dying flame.”

The Court: (sarcastically) Is there a plot to this story?

Atty: (with a big sigh)  Indeed! Exactly, Your Honor! You hit it on the head. It follows just so. Anyone now can see what’s going on. Please, listen (continuing to read):

In the midst and center of this plot,

[he tells the cipher center of his plot]

I saw OnE groveling on the grasse:

A man or stOnE, I knew not that:

No stOnE: of man the figure was,

   And yet I could not count him OnE,

   More than the image made of stOnE

The Court: Heaven Help Us All! I have the feeling, sir, you have a long story, here for de Vere, but, best tell you now, I’ve no taste for it. Make your point and be done.

Atty: Simply, now that the code is broken, it’s clear for all to see, who can extract an “n” from a one; or add on front of one and “n” to get to “none,”, and, thereby extinction, to still be OnE, just as the PhOEnix and the Sun.

And, if I might add, Lord Oxford made no contract with anyone that he would not put codes in his poems; poetry, I need not remind this court, is “code” from the beginning!

The Court: So noted.

Atty: And, finally, Lord Oxford affirmatively declares (rather, I, on his behalf) that the fraud perpetuated against him to ensure his Banishment from History, the truth of his imprisonment, and Queen Elizabeth’s insanity—and the long history to conceal it, all this, is now open to Discovery! That’s why I’m here: As to Lord Oxford’s name: “A man’s murder may be concealed, but one day it’ll be undone.” Even if the Queen of England has to pay, and all your corruptions, which last even to this day.

The Court:  We have no more to say. History is history, regardless the truth and all the lies at play. In Veritas, Veritas! We’ll with that, whatever others say.  Good Day!

Scene One finis

NOTES & APPENDIX

Note: All Phoenix capital P, not as Cambridge has it, in 1595, but in the original The Phoenix Nest! Also, Cambridge has capital K for kinde, lower case, as in The Phoenix Nest, 1593.

“The name Phoenix Nest is clever. Possibly, it was suggested by a phrase in "The countess of Pembroke's Love," a poem that concludes Breton's The Pilgrimage to Paradise (1592) and that speaks at some length of the phoenix, one passage ending:

Oh let my soule, beseech her sacred nest.

But in the ashes of the Phoenix nest.

Perhaps, too, in a fashion Sir Philip Sidney was connected with the  phenix. . ..”

ABOVE, "The Phonenix Nest, 1593" by Hyder Edward Rollins, Introduction, p. x.

ELM copyrighted (Jan. 1/17/2016) the claim that the poem “Love” was written by Lord Oxford.