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The Not-Too-Hidden Key to Minerva Britanna:
The Latin Phrase, "by the Mind 'I' Shall be Seen"
May Mean Just That...
By Roger Stritmatter
Reprinted by permission of the author from the Summer 2000 (36:2) issue of the Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter
Names are divine notes, and divine notes do notifie future events; so that events consequently must lurk in names, which only can be pryed into by this mystery…
--William Camden, "Anagrams" in Remains Concerning Britannia
Minerva Britanna, the 1612 emblem book written and illustrated by Henry Peacham, has long been considered the most sophisticated exemplar of the emblem book tradition ever published in England. As Rosemary Freeman wrote of the author in 1948: "Peacham was a man of considerable versatility of mind and his wide range of accomplishments were of a kind peculiarly well suited to the writing of emblems. Consequently his emblem books are much more fully an expression of his personality than are those of any other emblem writer: for the most part, the fashion provided a casual occupation; for Peacham it was almost a profession" (69).
Minerva, however, remains an enigma. Alan Young (1998) states that the book "has little intrinsic unity as an emblem collection, apart from its generally sustained tone of moral didacticism"--a circumstance radically at odds with Peacham's practice in his three Basilikon Doron manuscripts, which "followed the tripartite division of James's book to provide a clearly defined structural basis" (xiv).
Mason Tung (1997), analyzing Peacham's appropriation of traditional emblem materials from other writers, discovers a persistent habit of "indicating 'apparent' sources yet concealing the 'real' ones" and wonders "what motivates [Peacham] to play a game of 'hide and seek' with his reader?" (187).
The search for complex coherence in this puzzling work might begin with the question of why Peacham chose the title Minerva Britanna (1). A rich Medieval and Renaissance emblematic tradition, rooted in the popular etymology of the name Pallas (from the Greek participle pallwn, pallontos, meaning to "shake" or "brandish") and the mythological traditions of the ancient world, associates the Goddess Pallas/Minerva (2) with the action of "shaking" (vibrans) a spear.
An abundance of evidence testifies to the prominence of this association in the artistic traditions which informed the construction of Peacham's work; emblems reproduced by Henkel and Schöne in their encyclopedic survey Emblemmata (1953) depict Minerva as the personification of political cunning expressed in art. In this capacity she is typically portrayed with her spear-in fact, 12 out of 15 emblems illustrate her with spear; paired with Ulysseus, she guides him, spear in hand, through means of her "providence"; paired with Mars her spear of "art" contrasts to his of "war"; for Achilles her spear prudently prevents his killing of Agamemnon; with Bellona, spear in hand, she defeats her war-like cousin, who paradoxically comes to the battle armed only with a fool's theatrical mask.
In numerous mythographic contexts throughout Renaissance Europe Minerva's spear-symbolizing the activity of the mind in art and philosophy-is the defining attribute of her emblematic figure and the primary means of expressing her divine will. One pregnant testimony to the prominence of the allegorical association between Minerva and "spearshaking" even speaks of her "vibrandae….hastae"--her "needing to be brandished spear" (Henkel & Schöne 1953 1736).
This association between Minerva and her spear is also very evident in Elizabethan and Stuart sources. When Gabriel Harvey toasts Edward de Vere in his 1578 Audley End encomium with the phrase "vultus tela vibrat"-"thy countenance shakes a speare," the context is Minervan; three lines earlier Minerva is described as "in dextra latitat"-concealed in de Vere's right hand.
A year later in the Shephearde's Calendar Spenser's exegete E.K., in a footnote on Bellona, further emphasizes the proverbial, and indeed etymological, association between Pallas and "spear shaking" in his recapitulation of the story of Minerva's birth: Pallas, which may therefore wel be called queint for that (as Lucian saith) when Iupiter her father was in traveile of her, he caused his sonne Vulcane with his axe to hew his head. Out of which leaped forth lustely a valiant damsell armed at all poynts, whom seeing Vulcan so faire & comely, lightly leaping to her, proferred her some cortesie, which the Lady disdeigning, shaked her speare at him, and threatned his sauciness" (October 186-94; emphasis added).
Sixty-two years later, the association between Shakespeare and the spearshaker Pallas is reiterated in the collection of the anonymous mythological poems included in the curious 1640 edition of Shake-Speare's Poems, in which the poet exhorts the bard "in thy hand the Spear of Pallas shake" (Ogburn 1984 238).
Finally, the image of Minerva's spear even features prominently in Peacham's introductory Latin verses dedicating his emblem book to Henry Stuart (1595-1612): "Undique fraxineam dum dextra viriliter hastam/Torquet, et incerto circûm aëra verberat ictu./She spins (torquet) everywhere her ashen spear in her virile right hand, and all around the air reverberates with mis-aimed blow(s)."
For Stuart mythographers such as Francis Bacon, as in the Renaissance emblem book tradition, Minerva, and by implication her "spear-shaking," were associated with doctrines of political circumspection-of the political theatre indulged in by monarchs to retain the loyalty of the populace. Indeed, in his De Sapientia Veterum, Bacon declares that the myth of Minerva leaping from the brow of Zeus "seems to contain a great secret of state" (sensus arcanum imperii continere videtur) (Spedding 1860 XIII 62). Does Peacham's naming of his book after Minerva reflect a similar emphasis on her traditional association with the arcana governing proper conduct in statecraft?
The possibility that Peacham's Minerva might comment on the "Shakespeare" question-that great arcanum of the Elizabethan and Stuart monarchies-was discussed as early as 1937 by Eva Turner Clarke in her book, The Man Who Was Shakespeare, although Clarke was apparently not aware of the image of Minerva "spinning" her spear in Peacham's Latin verses.
Clarke instead drew attention to the curious title page of Minerva (figure 1), which illustrates a hand coming out from behind a theatrical curtain covering a "discovery space"(3).
The hand is in the act of writing on a scroll the words "MENTE. VIDEBOR"-"by the mind I shall be seen" (figure 1). Clarke alleged-incorrectly it transpires-that this Latin legend spelled an anagram, "TIBI NOM. (4) DE VERE"(5)-"thy name is de Vere."
Figure 1: Title page of Minerva Britanna(London, 1612), showing hand with pen writing "MENTE.VIDEBOR(i)."
It is my intention in this article to pursue certain implications of Ms. Clarke's theory which have previously escaped notice by her critics, yet deserve the thoughtful attention of all researchers with a sincere interest in Henry Peacham's remarkable and enigmatic work.
Problems with Ms. Clarke's theory, by now well known among Oxfordian circles, go back to the initial publication of Clarke's book, in which the word MENTE was misspelled MENTI, a mistake which required an erratum slip to be placed in Clarke's book. A more serious-some have thought fatal-objection to Clarke's anagram solution did not surface in public until Noemi Magri's May 1999 De Vere Society Newsletter article, although discussed among Oxfordians in private before that time. Many concluded from this article that the alleged anagram had been demolished. One irate correspondent informed Phaeton (the Oxfordian Internet discussion group): "The alleged anagram, 'tibi nom. de Vere,' has been shown to be without foundation, wishful thinking, illusory, mythical and ludicrous."
In my November 1999 Shakespeare Oxford Conference lecture, "The Key to Minerva Britanna," I urged researchers to adopt a more open-minded position towards this fascinating book and the alleged anagram (see below). Although Magri's critique is undoubtedly correct it does not, in my opinion, finally settle the issue of whether there is an anagram spelling the phrase "TIB(i) NOM. DE VERE" in Peacham's book. But before examining some reasons why the alleged anagram may in fact still exist, let us consider some further reasons why Henry Peacham's testimony is highly relevant, in a more generic sense, to the authorship question.
The only extant sixteenth century manuscript of a canonical Shakespeare play is in Henry Peacham's handwriting (figure 2).
Figure 2: Longleat Library Manuscript of Minerva Britanna in Henry Peacham's hand.
This Longleat library manuscript (6) includes some forty lines from scene I.i of Titus Andronicus, in which Tamora pleads before Titus to spare her first-born son. A sketch, apparently of this same scene (7), appears at the heading of the document. The document is in Henry Peacham's holograph-that is, it includes a dated signature, "Henricus Peacham," as well as lines of text and the drawing. Schoenbaum diffidently concedes that "the signature in the lower-left hand margin suggests that a Henry Peacham transcribed the forty lines of verse and perhaps made the drawing too" (1975 123).
In fact, all things considered, the case for Peacham's transcription of the document is beyond serious doubt; although the paleographical analysis to prove the point has yet to be undertaken, both the hand and the character of the drawing are matched in Peacham's other manuscripts such as Basilikon Doron (8) or Emblemata Varia (c. 1622) (9).
The thundering implication of this Titus manuscript should not be overlooked: if any Elizabethan had reason to know Shakespeare's identity, that person was Henry Peacham.
As Peter Dickson has recently argued (1998), it is therefore surprising that Henry Peacham's memorial to the great writers of the Elizabethan era in The Complete Gentleman, published in 1622 while the 1623 "Shakespeare" first folio was in production, fails to mention Shakespeare. It does, on the other hand, prominently mention Oxford, as the first of the great poets of the Elizabethan age.
As Dickson's research has shown, moreover, this arrangement was not altered or disturbed in successive editions (1627, 1634, 1661) of this popular Stuart book: "This glaring omission of Shakespeare's name from Peacham's list is astounding" concludes Dickson, "and in all likelihood was a deliberate exclusion because Peacham knew that Oxford and Shakespeare were the same person" (1999 8). When Peacham not only fails to mention Shakespeare in his list of great Elizabethan poets, but places the name "Earl of Oxford" where one expects to see the Bard's own name, this is prima facie grounds to consider his views on "Shakespeare," whether overt or covert, with careful circumspection.
Tib(i) Nom. de Vere
Eva Turner Clarke's solution to the title page enigma, as I observed in my November lecture, fails because the printed phrase "MENTE VIDEBOR" lacks the additional "i" required to spell the word "TIB(i)" in the anagram's solution (figure 3),
In trying to accommodate for this fact, Clarke's enthusiastic epigone, the noted English classical scholar John Astley-Cox(, committed a terrible blunder in the technical area of passive Latin verb forms. The form VIDEBOR in Peacham's inscription means "I shall be seen." It completes the ablative case of MENTE; the inscription declares that "by the mind"-that is not merely with the eyes-"I shall be seen." Apparently, however, the pen in Peacham's drawing is in the process of writing a diacritic dot on a small i after the R in VIDEBOR. Astley-Cox accordingly proposed that the hand was completing the word VIDEBORI[S], meaning-he thought-"thou shalt be seen."
Unfortunately, the verb form which Astley-Cox proposed simply does not exist. The second person singular of a second declension passive Latin verb requires a thematic vowel shift from an "o" to an "e"-i.e. from "videbor" to "videberis." Hence, Astley-Cox's proposed emendation to Ms. Clarke's solution is grammatically impossible.
In pointing out the nature of this error in a recent article published in the De Vere Society Newsletter (3:3 5-6), Dr. Noemi Magri emphasized her conviction that other elements of the title page, specifically the content of the motto which accompanies the two burning candles at the upper left and right hand corners of the title page, and the nature of the motto and image of the hand extending from the discovery space, lent strong credence to the hypothesis that Peacham's book is concerned with Edward de Vere:
On a semantic basis, the Latin mottoes with their corroborating visual representation of the theatre curtain might lead one to the identification of Lord Oxford. It is unmistakable that the concepts expressed in the inscriptions can rightly be applied to his life: the prohibition on publishing his works under his own name, the concealed identity, immortality reached through the works, the destructive power of Death, are themes present in all the works of Shakespeare (6).
Thus, although Magri established the faulty grammatical premises of the belief that the phrase MENTE VIDEBOR[I] could yield the anagram TIBI NOM. DE VERE, she does endorse a connection between the book and de Vere.
In this essay I propose that Minerva Britanna does in fact contain an anagram of de Vere's name along the original lines proposed by Clarke, even though both Clarke and Astley-Cox failed to appreciate the subtle means Peacham devised to make the anagram operative and Magri's technical objections to the solutions they did devise are beyond contest. Let us see what can be discovered if we reconsider Clarke's solution from the point of view of a more comprehensive and structural analysis of this intriguing book.
Minerva's Anagrams
Minerva Britanna displays a dazzling preoccupation with word puzzles of various kinds-among them, prominently, anagrams. Richard Kennedy's listing of anagrams from the book (as posted on the Internet discussion group Phaeton) isolates at least 12 --and this includes merely the more obvious examples. Thus, the proposition that the title page invokes an anagram-the solution of which will come about through the application of the reader's mind attempting to discern the identity of the person behind the curtain-is in itself hardly objectionable.
Anagrams, as any student of the Renaissance is aware, were a popular method of expressing esoteric knowledge. The second point to bear in mind is that Peacham's text is the most sophisticated English example of a popular-intrinsically esoteric-Renaissance genre, of which literally hundreds of titles were published, in all the European vernaculars. In emblem books, visual symbols were endowed with hermetic or secret significance, often of a political as well as a moral or religious nature. As Henry Peacham himself says in his introduction:
The true use [of emblems] from time to time onely hath been, Utile dulci miscere, to feede at once both the minde, and eie, by expressing mistically and doubtfully, our disposition, either to Love, Hatred, Clemencie, Iustice, Pietie, our Victories, Misfortunes, Griefes, and the like: which perhaps could not have beene openly, but to our praejudice revealed. And in truth the bearer heerein doth but as the Travailer, that changeth his Silver into Gold, carry about his affection in a narrow roome, and more safely; the valew rather bettered then abated (A3 verso).
The critical passage is Peacham's statement that the emblem book expresses "mystically and doubtfully….[matters] which perhaps could not have beene openly, but to our prejudice, revealed…" In other words, emblems are devices for expressing "mystically and doubtfully" the author's disposition towards controversial subjects; MB in turn is a text in which such "mysticall" matter is conveyed, in part at least, through the discovery of anagrams.
Minerva's Eyes
The prefatory materials of the book place pronounced emphasis on the manner in which exacting attention which has been paid to minute elements of design, including a particular devotion to editorial correctness in every conceivable matter. We are assured, for instance, in the introductory poem of Garter Herald William Segar (figure 4), that there is, in some 212 complex pages of type, written in six different languages including Turkish, "nothing amiss." Should a reader be tempted to believe that s/he has discovered a fault in the book, that fault is not Peacham's, Segar suggests, but the reader's own.
Figure 4: Garter Herald William Segar's dedicatory poem to Minerva Britanna.
Readers of Segar's poem will be struck by the repeated emphasis on the eye as the organ of vision and by the implied English language pun in which "i" and "eye" are homophones. This identity is often activated in Peacham's book, as if to emphasize that not only "eyes"-which are needed for seeing emblems-and "minds"-which are needed for understanding them-but also "i's"-a small and apparently innocuous letter of the alphabet-are needed for comprehending Peacham's message.
Figure 5: The I/i/eye pun in Minerva Britanna.
The pun is made explicit in Peacham's emblem #142 (figure 5), which pictures a weeping eye accompanied by the motto "Hei mihi quod vidi"/ "O woe is me because I see"-in which the fivefold iteration of the small letter "i" in Latin and the occurrence of the first person pronoun "I" in English both function as pointed reminder of the subject under discussion.
In case any reader is tempted to miss the point, the same pun is repeated in the English verses below: "so I, poore Eie, while coldest sorrow fills…." With this background in mind it is intriguing to return to the title page of Minerva Britanna and to Ms. Clarke's alleged anagram: the letter which is missing from the legend to complete the phrase "TIB(i) NOM. DE VERE" is this same letter "i," about which so much has been made by Peacham as well as by Minervan collaborators such as Herald Segar.
Furthermore, this letter forms a homophone for the organ of sight; and the legend tells us that the man behind the curtain will be seen not by the literal eye, but by the mind-that is, by exercising the powers of insight and foresight praised by Herald Segar in his poem.
Are we being instructed to search for an "i"-which would complete the anagram and reveal the identity of the man behind the curtain-elsewhere in Peacham's book? My November SOS lecture suggested that the answer to this question was perhaps "yes";I drew attention to emblem #66, which contains two curious Latin phrases, one in italics and the other in Roman type: "Allah vere"/truly, Allah and "i. Deus dabit"/God will give the 'i' (figure 6).
It should be noted that the conjunction of the italic motto "Allah vere" with the Roman type "i. Deus dabit" is peculiar. Other emblems in Peacham's book which pair these two typefaces in the superscription, as if to provide an additional clue to the superabundance of anagrammatical meaning in Peacham's text-all form anagrams of the names of their respective dedicatees.
Figure 6: Emblem 66 with the reference to "Allah vere, i deus dabit." For a full-size facsimile visit Middlebury Minerva.
In twelve such examples (10) the anagrammatic motto appears in Italic type and the name "mystically signified" is itself given in Roman. #66 stands unique11 in Peacham's entire book-because the relation of Italic and Roman phrases is not, at least in any self-evident sense, anagrammatic-although it is so every other case in the book.
Instead of providing an anagram of a Roman typeface name, the italics here translate the Turkish phrase pictured in the emblem below with the four candles.
Since my November presentation, however, further research has clarified certain critical points which must be considered in evaluating the hypothesis of the intentional relation of the motto "i. Deus dabit" to the Minerva title page. Mason Tung has identified the source of this emblem #66 in the 1601-03 emblem book of Jacob Typotius, Symbola Divina & Human Pontificorum Imperatorum Regum (figure 7).
Figure 7: Typotius emblem from which Peacham derived his i. Deus dabit imagery.
Tung suggests, furthermore, that Peacham's letter "i" abbreviates the common Latin phrase, "id est"-an established medieval/Renaissance abbreviation (Capelli 1961, 168). Curiously, however, Peacham's source does not provide a precedent for this abbreviation. In his commentary on the emblem, which he dedicates to Solimanus Sultanus Ottomanus, Typotius clarifies the translation of the Turkish legend pictured in the emblem with the following phrase: "& inscribunt Turcica lingua, Alla vere, id est. Deus dabit…." "And they write, in the Turkish tongue, 'Allah Vere'-that is to say, 'God will give'" (see the detail in figure 7).
At first glance this discovery might seem to cast doubt on the interpretation that the phrase "i. Deus dabit" can be translated as "God will give the i." In fact, it strengthens the original supposition in favor of this reading: Peacham's abbreviation of "id est" to "i."- his only significant deviation from Typotius-in fact underscores the arbitrary and premeditated character of the "i".
Why didn't Peacham just follow Typotius and spell out the phrase, "id est?" Surely this would have been the most natural and unambiguous thing to do. There is plenty of room on the page. Yet Peacham did not follow this obvious course and the alert reader must wonder why. I propose that Peacham modified Typotius precisely because he needed the "i."- he needed it to create a piece of word magic, linking the "Allah vere" emblem to the title page of Minerva Britanna and completing the otherwise imperfect anagram (12).
Strong contextual support for this interpretation is provided by the phrase "Allah vere" itself, which could of course be translated into English as "Lord Vere." Another feature linking emblem #66 to the title page is the motif of the four candles, the impresa of Solimanus Ottomanus borrowed from Typotius's book. In his title page motto-"ut alijs (13) me consumo"-Peacham offers one possible symbolic interpretation of the candle: it is a thing which consumes itself in the service of others; it shines to provide light, and in doing so is itself consumed away to nothing.
Hieroglyphically the candle might also be understood to denote the small-letter i, which it closely resembles in form. In this case, Peacham's title page motto-"ut alijs me consumo"-could be applied also to the missing letter "i" in the legend MENTE. VIDEBOR below it. Dr. Magri translates this motto: "Likewise I consume myself for others."
The ut-"likewise"-signifies that, contrary to appearances, the speaker of the motto is not, in fact, the candle. It is another who, like the candle, consumes himself in labor on behalf of others. The speaker could be the author Henry Peacham, but it could also be the implied "i" in the legend below, which consumes itself for the sake of maintaining the grammatical correctness of the surface string MENTE. VIDEBOR; this "i." returns only as a "gift of God" in emblem #66.
On this understanding, then, the Latin phrase "i. Deus dabit" can serve at least two complementary functions: it clarifies the meaning of the ambiguous Turkish phrase, Allah Vere-"id est, Deus dabit"-and it also provides a mystical link to the title page, supplying the "i."- the consumed candle-which is missing to form the anagram "TIBI[i] NOM. de Vere" (14).
In isolation the interpretation may seem absurd. In view of the numerous other Minervan symbols and word puzzles which seem to invoke the "Shakespeare" question and Edward de Vere in this book, it may seem less so. Some readers have objected to the fact that the other letters in Peacham's title page scroll are in capital letters, while the embryonic diacritic mark-and the small letter "i." in the legend to emblem #66-imply a lower case "i," inconsistent with the rest of the legend.
One can speculate why Peacham may have wished to alter the anagram in this manner, but the alteration in no way effects the plausibility of the alleged solution. Only by using the small-letter "i" could Peacham make use of the diacritic mark to imply the presence of a letter not fully present on the page and meant to be "imported," as it were, from another place in the book (15).
Furthermore, the diminutive character of the letter "i" underscores the moral found in emblem #57, that objects of very slight weight or, in this case, dimension, can have profound consequence.
Finally, convincing evidence for the intentional character of this design choice may be discerned elsewhere in Peacham's book: at least one author of dedicatory verses to Minerva was apparently aware of Peacham's cunning use of the "small i." In his dedicatory Latin verses, Thomas Hardingus comments that a just reader must consider the matter of Peacham's book "et eius et suis videns ocellulis" (B1r) - "seeing with both his own and another's little eyes"-"ocellulis" being a rare diminutive form of "ocellus."
The "i" is the small thing which Peacham had to exclude from his title page in order to make his puzzle aesthetically coherent-and "small," or rather discerning, eyes are needed to perceive its alternative location.
As it turns out, intriguing analogies to this alleged practice may be found right in Peacham's own book. Let us consider, for example, the curious dedication to Henry Stuart (figure 8).
We notice here that the motto of the Prince of Wales, ICH DIEN (I serve), is given both in German (as it customarily was) and also in Latin-Servio. These two versions of the motto are linked by the small letter ".i."- which is preceded and followed by a full stop. Here, as in emblem #66, the most obvious reading is that the ".i." represents an abbreviation for "id est."16 It could be argued, furthermore, that here-unlike emblem #66-the abbreviation is required in order to set the entire passage in a single line of type. According to this conservative premise we might then transcribe the line as "ICH DIEN; that is (in German), 'I serve.'"
But, once more, alternative interpretations, inspired by the curious typography of the ".i." placed strategically between the two verb forms and two full stops, suggest themselves to an alert reader. Another way to decode this "i" is as the first person singular English pronoun, I. If we do this, Peacham's line yields three variants on the phrase "ICH DIEN": it states the concept first in German, then in Latin, and finally states-in the English homophonic construction-"I Serv-e-o." Is this, possibly, another instance of Peacham's own stated intent to "express mystically and doubtfully" his affection for a man whose published initials were "E.O." (see, for this practice, Edwards 1576, e.g. Fol. 15)?
The "Key" to Minerva's Cipher
Emblem #180 (figure 9)in Peacham's book depicts a cipher wheel-a state -of-the-art encoding device, much like a modern combination lock, which was used for the encoding of diplomatic secrets during the 16th century and which was for all practical purposes, at that time, an unbreakable method of enciphering secrets.
Figure 9: Peacham's Cipher Wheel emblem.
Peacham apparently derived the image from a 1586 Italian emblem book, Imprese Ilustri di diversi, by Camillo Camilli (Tung 1988 93). Peacham's reasons for including this emblem in Minerva Britanna are not known.
What should be noticed, however, even on a casual reading, is that Peacham literally "gives away" a key to be used with this cipher wheel; furthermore the key contains the name "Vere." The Latin for "the word that all do seek, TO LIVE"? VIVERE (17).
If we bracket momentarily the vexing question of Peacham's reasons for including an image of a cipher wheel in his book, we may now turn back to the "Allah vere" emblem #66 and notice yet a third-deeply intriguing-possible interpretation of the phrase "i. Deus dabit." The Turkish letter transcribed as the letter "v" in the phrase "Allah vere" is in fact a waw. This letter could be transcribed into the Latin alphabet as v, u or w. (18) Thus we might transcribe the Turkish as the letters "v, v, e, r, e" (in which the "double u" in the English word "were" has been broken down into its two component parts). Now, let us consider what will happen if "God will give the i" to this variant transcription: it will spell "vivere" -the cipher key stated in emblem #180!
Is this is a mere coincidence? Perhaps so. I offer it, like other interpretations of Peacham's word puzzles, in a spirit of speculative collaboration with both friends and critics.
Recapitulation
A brief recapitulation is in order. In this essay I have argued that Minerva Britanna cleverly incorporates an interlocking structure of emblematic knowledge which completes the alleged anagram, TIB(i) NOM. DE VERE-which is only implied in the title page motto MENTE.VIDEBOR-when the entire book is taken into consideration. The two complementary elements in this interlocking schema-emblems #66 and #180-interlock with one another as well as with the title page and contain references to such "de Vere" phrases as "Allah Vere" (Lord Vere) and "Vivere" (to live) (19).
In considering this solution, it should be emphasized that anagrams-like the symbolism of mottoes or images-are an elusive and intrinsically subjective form of evidence. Friedman and Friedman, in their classic work on cryptology in the Shakespeare question, classify anagrams as un-keyed transposition ciphers. They caution that "even when the anagram has only a few letters, there may be more than one 'solution'; and when it has many letters there can be many 'solutions'- all equally valid" (19). Their criteria for a valid anagram is as follows: "in order to be 'perfect' an anagram should not only involve a rearrangement of letters without additions or deletions; the resulting word or words should in some way comment upon the original" (92).
Critics of my solution will of course argue that it requires the "addition" of a "missing" letter-that itty-bitty "i." which is omitted from the title page-to complete the anagram. Henry Peacham, they will say, would never have been as clever or devious as the solution of discovering this "i" on another page of the book implies. Such critics, of course, state a belief and not a fact; there is obviously no point in arguing with them.
It must be conceded, on the other hand, that the solution I propose possesses the quality of intrinsic coherence which is the defining attribute of all significant scientific theorems. As for the second criterion proposed by the Friedmans, it seems to me that the solution could not possibly be more satisfying, at least to readers advanced enough to realize the intellectual seriousness of the authorship question, and acknowledge the weight of the already known evidence supporting the attribution of the "Shakespeare" works to Edward de Vere. Given that the phrase TIB(i) NOM. DE VERE evidently comments on the emblem on Peacham's title page, identifying by name the person obscured behind the stage curtain, the revised version of Clarke's solution proposed in this article satisfies the criterion of relevance "in spades"(20).
"Tandem Divulganda...."
"The denser the medium, the more important the message," remarked Manhattan theatre producer Ted Story after my Conference Minerva lecture. Whatever else one can say about Minerva Britanna, this book is an extraordinary instance of a narrative told in a dense medium. Consider our final emblem, #38 (figure 10) (21): an image of a winged key with the motto "tandem divulganda"-"finally, these things must be revealed."
Figure 10: "At last these things must be revealed." The nature of "these things" are elaborated in the English subscript:
The waightie counsels, and affaires of state,
The wiser mannadge, with such cunning skill,
Though long lockt up, at last abide the fate,
Of common censure, either good or ill:
And greatest secrets, though they hidden lie,
Abroad at last, with swiftest wing they flie.
If we had any doubt that Peacham has on his mind "weighty counsels and affairs of state," such as those Francis Bacon assures us are symbolized in the Minervan tradition, this emblem should remove those doubts.The image of the key, endowed with wings so that it can fly "abroad" to safety, where "hidden" it can await discovery by explorers of a future century, furthermore, reminds us once more of the "key" to Minerva Britanna: Vivere.
This realization should affirm the conclusion cunning readers may already have reached on their own accord: There is much more remaining to be discovered-and written-about this enigmatic and brilliant literary work. On the title page we were told, VIVITUR INGENIO-by wit he lives.
Who is this person who shall live?-And by whose wit shall he do so? I believe a preponderance of evidence continues to support the view that this person is, in fact, Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, and that the wit to which Peacham appeals is, ultimately, yours and mine.
©Copyright 2000, Roger Stritmatter. All Rights Reserved.
The writer would like to acknowledge the special assistance of two dedicated researchers, Richard Kennedy-known to some for stories such as Amy's Eyes and "The Rise and Fall of Ben Gizzard" as one of the best American storytellers-and Christopher Paul Harper.
Dr. Reginald Foster of the Gregorian Institute of Latin also offered his kind assistance and commentary on previous drafts of this essay.
High quality facsimiles of most of these Minerva images can be found at Middlebury Minerva.
Notes:
1) Minerva is the Latin name of the originally Greek Pallas Athena, patron Goddess of Athens, and protrectress of arts and arms. Edward de Vere was regarded by more than one contemporary as possessing a "Minervan" purpose. Verses ascribed to I. L. recall de Vere's participation in the 1588 victory over the Spanish armada with the lines: "His tusked boar 'gan foam for inward ire, While Pallas filled his breast with warlike fire".
2) Liddell and Scott (1889, 1980 588) declare that the name is "commonly deriv. from Pallw, either as Brandisher of the spear: -but prob. it is an old word pallas=neanis. " It is needless to point out that the actual derivation of the word is irrelevant to the disposition of the questions raised by this inquiry; what matters is that the former etymology was widely believed in ancient and Renaissance times.
3) Peacham's title page emblem imitates the curtains used to conceal the interior of "discovery spaces" on 17th century stages - which did not use a curtain to cover a projecting proscenium as their modern counterparts do. For an early representation (1662) of an analogous curtain, see Figure 11.
Figure 11: Restoration stage illustrating priest emerging from behind a "discovery space." 4) Clarke took the word "nom." as a legitimate medieval/Renaissance abbreviation for what Edward de Vere was missing - his name or nomen, and she took tibi as a dative of respect or ethical dative; these inferences were grammatically and historically sound. For nom. as an abbreviation of nomen see Capelli (1961 239). Note, furthermore, that the full stop included in the printed legend "MENTE. VIDEBOR" supplies the punctuation strictly required to abbreviate "NOMEN" as "NOM.".
5) It should be noted that objection has been registered to the fact that the form "DE VERE" is not Latin, while the rest of the construction is. This objection will strike students of linguistic history familiar with the rich macaronic traditions of early-modern Europe as bordering on the absurd.
6) Harley papers, i f. 159.
7) June Schlueter (for a synopsis see Heller 1999) has recently contested this common-sense interpretation, asserting that the image more closely resembles a scene from the German play, A Very Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus and the Haughty Empress. Unfortunately for adherents to the official view of Shakespeare, this interpretation fails to disassociate the manuscript from Shakespeare, since the scene copied below in Peacham's hand is manifestly from the Shakespeare play printed in the 1623 folio as by the bard.
8) Rawlinson 146; Harleian 6855, Art 13; Royal 12A LXVI.
9) Folger V.b.45.
10) Emblems illustrating this design pattern include #13 dedicated to Anne of Britain, #14 to Elisabeth Stuart, #15 to Henry IV of France #17 to Prince Henry, #19 to Robert Cecil, #35 to Thomas Chaloner, #42 to Edmund Ashfield, #92 to Mabella Colarde, #125 to Thomas Ridgeway, #166 to Nicholas White, #175 to Anna Dudley, #177 to Henry Peacham.
11) The one possible exception to this rule, emblem #130, appears to be intentionally connected in various ways to #66. This emblem, "Ad Jesum Christum opt: Max:" (to the highest lord Jesus Christ), which depicts a sacrificial lamb being slaughtered, includes an anagram in Greek of the name: Iesous (J e s u s ) : Su h ois ( thou art that sheep).
Here Peacham prints out the English translation of the Greek anagram in Roman letters, just as he prints the translation for Allah vere as deus dabit in #66. Several elements of design are however worth commenting upon. First, the expression of religious devotion to Jesus seems intentionally juxtaposed to the diatribe against Islam found in #66. The legend of emblem #130 translates a Greek phrase into its English equivalent, but that of #66 translates a Turkish phrase first into literal but apparently highly misleading English and then, for clarification, into Latin.
Comparison with emblem #130 prompts the question of why Peacham does not just translate the Turkish directly into the English phrase in #66: "that is, 'God will give'." This would certainly be the most economical practice.
Nor does Peacham find need to provide an explanatory id est or an i. for the reader of emblem #130. Finally, the presence of the anagram in emblem #130 actually reinforces the conviction of the possibility of an anagram associated with emblem #66: although the emblem varies the pattern noted above, in which all emblems with both Roman and Italic legends involve anagrams, it does not contradict it.
12) Christopher Paul Harper, who is undertaking an exhaustive but as-yet uncompleted inventory of the variations made by Peacham on his received sources, tells me that changes like this one appear to be invariably intentional on Peacham's part and to be related to the overall purpose and design of Minerva Britanna.
13) The typographical variant j for i is very common in medieval Latin since the letters are, in fact, identical in the Latin alphabet.
14) As Art Nuendorffer has recently observed, the phrase MENTE VIDEBOR, exploiting the semantic potentials of translation from Latin to English, forms a pun which confirms the presence of the unseen "i" needed to the complete the anagram: "by the mind [the]'I' shall be seen."
15) Notably, those who claim that the legend does not contain, or rather imply, an anagram, are forced to suppress consciousness of the diacritic mark, or to pretend that it represents a period, which it manifestly does not (see figure 1; the mark is level with the topmost point on the capital letter R preceding it, a most peculiar position for a period).
16) For another example of this abbreviation in Minerva see emblem #30.
17) I am indebted to Richard Kennedy for this insight (personal communication to the author, October 8, 1990).
18) These letters can also be substituted in Peacham's anagram method: see #166 in which the name "Nicholas White" spells the motto "In vos hic valet."
19) Other solutions to the alleged anagram have been proposed in ephemeral contexts such as the on-line Usenet HLAS authorship discussion group. None, however, takes into consideration the unique problems posed by the "Allah vere" emblem and its possible connection to the diacritic mark in the title page legend.
20) The theory recently proposed in certain quarters that Henry Peacham is the man behind the curtain on the title page of a book which prominently bears his name as author and states the motto MENTE VIDEBOR should be regarded as one of the most implausibly laughable theories ever proposed by partisans of the orthodox view of Shakespeare.
21) For this emblem's antecedent, see Peacham's Harleian 3.5 (Young 1998 118).
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