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.

EO phEOnix Cipher Disciphered

The Finding of Facts In Dreams:

"SHAKESPEARE'S" PHOENIX CIPHER

©Elwood LeRoy Miller, 2/17/2016

“Is All That We See Or Seem

But A Cipher In A Cipher’s Dream?” 

                                                 elm

Consumed with exhausting labor,

I took me to my dream-bedraggled bed,

Fresh rimes ringing in my head, all for to savor,

And integrate, with concinnity, what 's said—

   What needs be said, in what I write,

   For Truth is true, only if it’s said right.

And in the depths of my exhausted sleep

I had a dream, a very special One.

As, before my Muses' court, I, bowing deep,

Came to Motion that, my duty done,

   I be released from these demanding labors,

   Which consumes my life, yet none savors.

In my dream, I merely looked upon the scene,

The cluttered pile of books, facsimiles,

Scattered documents and articles--my Poet's Den

Crammed full to overflowing, if you please.

   In my poor rooms, more knowledge than space,

   Yet, here, it happened, that miracle called grace.

Before I could think, in my dream, I quoted:

"Is all that we see or seem, but a dream

Within a dream?"  Suddenly All  was sorted!

Here, in the clutter of my poor poet's den,

  Of highest Order, a Poet's long sought vision:

  "O, my God, the Phoenix has arisen!"

And, awaken'd  to my next mortal day,

I, perfunctorily got up, made my coffee,

Went to my coffee table where I play

At philosophy, art, and poetry—

   Opened my journal to its last page

  And there I read, what may Ever Live An Age:

                                *****

"Yea, the illiterate that know not how

To cipher what is writ in learned books,

   Will cote my loathsome trespass in my looks.

(Rape of Lucrece, p. 75 - Yale Shakespeare, (“cote” = “quote”)

                      *******

And Lastly this:

"So they lov'd as love in twain

Had the essence but in one.

Two distincts, division none,         (“two distincts” = distinctions)

Number there in love was slain."

(The Phoenix and the Turtle, p.113, Yale Shakespeare)

Disciphered:

"So they lov'd as lOvE in twain         [his two identies, O and E]

Had the essence but in OnE.             [OE = EO, the essence of one]

Two distincts, division nOnE,            [two names but OnE, w/o division]

Number there in lOvE was slain."    [“one” was killed as a number]

ELM

ADDITIONAL EVIDENCE EO=OE CIPHER

“The Arbor of Amorous Devices,” 1594

ADDITIONAL EVIDENCE: EO CIPHER DISCIPHERED 

© Eric Miller, Feb. 2016

New Contemporaneous Document With 3 Same Themes:

Cipher Messages/Queen of Heaven & Arraignment of Desire/

Epitaph To Sidney to Show His EO/OE’s Name

It is in The Arbor of Amorous Devices that I found, a completely explicit admission that one of its unidentified authors (whoever it is) is going to create a cipher to confess to some secret—the mere thought of which makes him tremble. The importance of this confession, however brief, or enigmatic—to the unschooled—it lifts the veil, and gives us a peek, and that is all we need. I will later deal, in-depth, with the chronological synchronization of a whole group of poems, in a very tight time frame (3-4 years), which group will include numerous poems by our Unknown One—all in a time frame that includes “Shakespeare’s” first published works, Venus and Adonis, and Lucrece. By demonstrating unique correlation between these two groups of poems, we establish, I believe, the essential concatenation of facts necessary to conclude, to a fact, that Lord Oxford and Ignoto are one and the same.

At this point, I’m here mostly interested in organizing and copywriting the essential details of the factual basis of my hypothesis. I soon expect to cease my Shakespeare historical research activities.     

It Is A Fact: We Deal With Intentionally Created Ciphers by Elizabethan Candidates Concerning Their Identities.

 First, for now, I will deal with the new cipher message, just discovered by me, by the “worthy Honorable Gentleman,” the poem, in The Arbor of Amorous Devices.

The New Code Poem Needed

To Understand A Previous Code Message:

“A prettie Poeme”

A Trembling hand, but not a traitor's heart

Writing for feare and fearing for to write,

Loath to reueale, yet willing to impart,

Sweet secret thought as fit not euery sight

   Must leaue to you in sweet conceit to know them,

   For I have sworne that I will neuer shew them.

I know not what, but sure the griefe is greene,

I know not when, but once it was not euer,

I know not how, but secretly vnseene,

And make no care if it be ended neuer,

   And yet a wound that wastes me all with woe,

   And yet would not that it were not so:

   But oh sweet God, what doe these humors moue?

   Alas, I feare, God shield it be not loue.

finis

A pretty Poem (modernized, by ELM)

A Trembling hand, but not a traitor's heart

Writing for fear and fearing for to write,

Loath to reveal, yet willing to impart,

Sweet secret thought as fit not every sight

   Must leave to you in sweet conceit to know them,

   For I have sworn that I will never show them.

I know not what, but sure the grief is green,

I know not when, but once it was not ever,

I know not how, but secretly unseen,

And make no care if it be ended never,

   And yet a wound that wastes me all with woe,

   And yet would not that it were not so:

   But oh sweet God, what do these humors moue?

   Alas, I fear, God shield it be not love.

DIDN’T GET THE FIRST CIPHER? (In Previous Sidney “Epitaph”)

WELL, HERE’S ANOTHER, “A PRETTIE pOEm”

This cipher poem comes immediately after a group of pro forma poems to honor various leading members of the Court, all of which use the first letter of each line to spell the first letter in each person’s name. We leave off those (in the book Arbor) simple and obvious ciphers, intended to be readily seen, and turn to the next poem of a different nature. It’s simply called, “A Pretty Poeme.” We are struck immediately by it, as the author is apparently, or would have the reader believe, terribly afraid. A crucial part of our analysis indicates that the author of “A Prettie Poeme” is the author of “Epitaph” for Sidney, wherein we discovered, the authors previous ciphers, on the same subjects.

The author of our poem, is trembling because he is “loath to reveal, yet willing to impart.” His “sweet secret thought” we are told, is, in essence, not fit for everyone. And he says that, however, he will leave his secret in a “sweet conceit” in order for the reader to know them. This must be, that he can’t out-right tell his secret because he has “sworn that I will never shew” to anyone. And in the next stanza, obviously, the poet has left the new secret message he is now going to deliver—HIS SECRET MESSAGE.

As any investigative professional would, one pays attention to what is coming next. Every word of it. We are already “on notice” when told there is a secret message to it—a cipher! If the reader can’t absorb that fact, they need assistance we can’t give here. The first stanza is just for the purpose of informing us that there is a cipher coming—because he can’t tell his secret straight out, he can only hide his “sweet” in his hidden message, which is in the second stanza. Let’s repeat it, by itself:

I know not what, but sure the griefe is greene,

I know not when, but once it was not euer,

I know not how, but secretly vnseene,

And make no care if it be ended neuer,

   And yet a wound that wastes me all with woe,

   And yet would not that it were not so:

   But oh sweet God, what doe these humors moue?

   Alas, I feare, God shield it be not loue.

Now, reader, I can only give you my associations, I’m not saying anyone else need accept them, or that these are the only associations possible. The associations I give to this stanza instantly came to me:

I know not what but sure the grief is greene:

Griefe is greene = his grief (the subject of the secret he cannot tell) is green, related to the word. I instantly think of Ignoto in AEP telling is us the word derivation of Spring and the spelling of “green” as “verd”—as the green is in the spring or VER(d).

I know not when, but once it was not euer,

First, I note, at a glance, the whole of the stanza, in a “journalistic” or “legalistic” mind-set: The classical: Who? What? Where? When? and “How.”  

“I know not when”:—certainly he knows “when” this is his message—that something happened to him, that he is “sworn” to never tell. Perhaps only that part of the secret he is sworn not to tell? So, he may not be able to say when “it” happened, only that and here I see: “. . . but OncE it was not E.VER—is it being said that “whenever it was that happened, doesn’t matter, but “once it did” he was no longer E.VER? Yes.

“I know not how, but secretly vunseen”—How all of it happened, he didn’t know but there were secretly unseen things afoot to undermine him. As we shall see in one of the other two pieces to be presented, in our next installment, which includes “The Dreame of Arraignment of Desire” and there, it is clear, he is charging that he was sabotaged by his enemies in the Court. The point being, “once it was” then becomes “not ever”—E.Ver will become a NOT, he will NOT be known for himself, Not-Ever. And that’s the way it happened.

And make no care if it be ended neuer, Here it seems to me, he is merely saying he doesn’t care if it is all ended, now and for E.Ver, to be never forever.

“And yet a wound that wastes me all with woe” Aye, “here’s the rub,” that “and yet” phrase comes up, which Shakespeare curses even (“and yet, and yet”)—and yet, there is a wound he has from all of it, that “wastes” him all with wOE—that even his woe must be is mystery, and it must end with OE.

Of course, we cannot fail to mention Hamlet’s:

O, good Horatio, what a wounded name

(Things standing thus unknown) shall live behind me.

If thou dids’t ever hold me in thy heart. . .

Unknown things “shall live behind” Hamlet, “things standing unknown” (Ignoto), so, too with our author in The Arbor of Amorous Deuices. Hamlet’s remark that he, too, just as with the “unknown” author we are discussing, is “sworn” or “forbid” to reveal his secrets—we know in the case of Hamlet, the secrets concerned a “prison-house.” And that is the name of the collection of poems I have discovered and published regarding the poems of Anomos or Ignoto (the same) under that title, reflecting where he wrote them, In Prison Pent—using a phrase from the collection of poems itself.

And yet would not that it were not so:  And here, the Great Ambiguity of Life! ‘Is’t really so? That he “would not that it were not so”—knowing of course, two negatives make a positive. True there is a masochistic strain we hear from Ignoto, Edward de Vere, and Shakespeare—but to this extent?  that he would not wish or hope for things, differently?

But oh sweet God, what doe these humors moue?

Alas, I feare, God shield it be not loue.

[But oh sweet God, what “dOE these humors mOuE?

Alas, I ‘eare, God shield it be not lOuE.]

OR, must we read the final line:

Alas, I feare; God shield it be not lOuE. If it is not love, God, shield it (i.e. “God shield”, “God forbid”), for I fear most anything that is Not-Love! The verse means, “Alas, God forbid it be anything but Love” (God “forbid it be anything other than love”).  It is this latter meaning that makes most sense.

Preliminary Conclusions of First Installment:

In conclusion, I would only remark, it is most interesting to me that our Unknown poet, uses the term “sweet” to describe his “secret” – “Sweet secret thought as fit not euery sight/Must leaue to you in sweet conceit to know them. . .”

So we have a “sweet secret” and a “sweet conceit” – to contain the “sweet secret”—and then we have “sweet God”—it just seems a bit strange to me.

INTERPRETATIONS NEED NOT BE THE SAME

When we consider the above, however, the important matter is the fact that we have an author, clearly informing us that he has a secret that can only be told in a secret manner and can only be understood as such. This statement is an overt granting of our primary assumption—i.e., that this is exactly what is happening. The term for a “cipher” or secret message, called “sweet message” is conveyed in a poetic manipulation of language to covey hidden meanings—and explicitly a “cipher” is a “secret message” by definition.

CHRONOLOGY

The issue of Chronology comes up again—and ever will until the issues are resolved. Apparently, we have no way of knowing which poems were added to The Arbor of Amorous Devices, 1597, for example, and which were already part of  its Jan, 7, 1594 Stationaries Registration. I wonder, do we know that any publication immediately followed the registration—or if it never happened, until three years later. In any case, it is reported there are “no extant copies.” Speculation, in any case, and will probably never be resolved. We will derive our chronological correlations with the publication dates of various works, including:

“The Phoenix Nest” (1583) – and later editions

“The Philip Sidney Epitaphs” (there are three of them, various publishers and publication dates, 1594, 1597)

“The Arbor of Amorous Devices” (1593, 1597)

“Venus and Adonis” (1593)

“Lucrece” (1594)

ETC., ETC. ETC

TO Be Continued. . .

ELM

SOURCES: 

“The arbor first published in Jan. 7, 1594” (no extant copies), only 1597, p. 288, Sir Philip Sidney and the Circulation of Manuscripts, 1558-1640, By H. R. Woudhuysen

“conceit” =  What is conceived in the mind, conception, idea. (1^st) Also given is = Fanciful design, device, invention. (5^th)   C.T. Onions, A Shakespeare Glossary 1986 (enlarged & revised)

“God shield” = God forbid

POSTSCRIPT REMARKS:

FACTS OF RECORD

1         MRDD (Miller Reports Due Diligence, 2015) has established Ignoto, the author of The Arte of English Poise, 1589, is identified as Edward de Vere, and he explicitly states, and we have previously cited the fact (chapter book and verse) and here only note the fact that, Ignoto states he used cipher in poetry dealing with the Court, as QE enjoyed the game of using cipher for names, implanted in poetry, and he also liked to play with ciphers because it challenged his ingenuity and wit and because less gifted minds won’t be able to understand it.

2.       MRDD has established, of record, that decipherment of the name code is consistent, as is De Vere’s consistent use of the same very simple, if not obvious, code. Leading, one, at least this analyst, with wondering if QE was fully aware of all that was going on—and that he just had to be careful how far he could go—which apparently was to do no more than put his identity in secret codes, but not any other way. Was this a rule of QE? A kind of cruel game?

Less than a month ago I posted on Face Book a letter I had written in Jan. 18, 2004, to a colleague and correspondence, Albert Burghstahler, then professor emeritus, in Chemistry, at Kansas State University.  We had been working together very closely since meeting at the Shakespeare Oxford Society Conference, just outside Boston, MA., I n 1999. In any case, I again mention him as I am much indebted to him for providing me with tons of research material—and putting the entire library of the University at my disposal—specific for my research activities (including obtaining facsimile copies of many Elizabethan documents and books).  The below provides NEW EVIDENCE from a new source, of the exact points made in our previous comments, in January on the poem “Love”, etc.

2004

“#42       An Epitaph on the death of a noble Gentleman: “Sorrow come set the down” is reminiscent of Ignoto in his Oration [on QE’s Funeral] and in Shakespeare “Here I and sorrow sit” (King John iii l 73). Grossart, in his notes (which you provided me with) indicates this epitaph is written to Sidney. How he arrived at that is not known or given in his remarks. The identification, however, seems correct. I believe this was written by Oxford, which give us a third epitaph on the death of Sidney. Here again “grace” plays and important role. Sidney is “the grace of your [i.e. “Pallas conceit”] and “he gave all Court’s a grace.” 

NOTE: The above remarks, made 12 years ago were completely forgotten by me. I stated that this “gives us a third epitaph on the death of Sidney.” I forgot all about this third epitaph in my extended remarks of new date—involving discovery of an EO cipher. My entire new interest was spurred by spotting, just within the recent 3 months, the cipher in the Epitaph to Sidney, found in first, Edmund Spenser’s Astrophel, 1595, then the same again, in 1597. In said publications only two of the three epitaphs, all by Lord Oxford, I claim, are discussed. Below, 2016, I now deal further with this matter.

2016

Today, February 12, 2016, going through papers and trying to get organized, I again, laid hands upon the very letter, handwritten, alluded to above, Jan., 18, of 2004, twelve years ago. I have already posted, in Jan., 2016, detailed examination of the poem “Love”, also contained in The Arbor of Amorous Devices along with other poems by Lord Oxford in that volume (1597). 

Only recently did I realize the importance of “Love”, from The Arbor of Amorous Devices, and expostulated on it in considerable more depth. Now, unbelievable to me, (I’m going to have to quit finding these things “unbelievable”) I find another—Another of “Another of the Same”!! That is to say, not only, as regards to another Epitaph to Philip Sidney by Edward de Vere, but, besides this, also another amazing Code Sample Poem. And thirdly, I present also yet another Queen of Venus VS Desire who is on trial for his Disdain and False Accusations made against him. The Very Same!!!

Again I would remind the reader that Sidney died in 1586. Our earliest of three, so far, Epitaphs to Sidney by Lord Oxford (as we see it) was published in The Phoenix Nest (1593). And in that volume were contained two separate Epitaphs to Sidney, one with full title, (“An Epitaph Upon The right Honourable Sir Phillip Sidney, Knight: Lord Governor Of Flushing) and the second, only entitled: “Another of the Same. [It is in “Another Of The Same” that we identified Lord Oxford’s EO Cipher, which we have written much about. So we have the two epitaphs published in The Phoenix Nest and NOW a third one, contained in The Arbor of Amorous Deuices.

Notice: Further study of The Arbor of Amorous Deuices indicated to me that there are a number of poems by Lord Oxford in The Arbor –the history of its publication, and they play a crucial role in chronological synchronization, integration, and identification.

Now it’s getting interesting!