This is an introduction to an ingenious and creative cipher system to be found in the works of William Shakespeare. A DOS disk is available containing the programs to be described. It also includes the full text of my book, `The Second Cryptographic Shake- speare'. Ordering instructions are at the end of this file. Here it is necessary to explain that cryptography is a very old technique. Even in antiquity the rule was, whenever the name of a place or person must be repeated in a message, it must always be misspelled. Therefore Bacon's name is never spelled correctly, and there are many alternate forms. Sometimes it is preceded by "F" or "FS," as he abbreviated his first name in his signature. Bacon was himself a cryptographer, if not a cryptanalyst as his brother Anthony was. All of which brings us to a short article about Francis Bacon, William Shakespeare, and many examples of the name of the author hidden in the ciphertext. Italicized letters in the original text, or others marked for emphasis, are shown in < >. July 1, 1995 Penn Leary --Are there Ciphers in Shakespeare?-- Copyright 1993 By Penn Leary It is considered by some (yet certainly not by all) academicians that it is a lunacy to question the authorship of the Works of William Shakespeare --a comical 1984 thought-crime, a preposterous and radical and specious view of the obvious, a conspicuous deviation from normal and proper opinion. But Charles Dickens, a student of human nature, had this to say: "The life of Shakespeare is a fine mystery, and I tremble every day lest something should turn up." Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: "As long as the question is of talent and mental power, the world of men has not his equal to show. . .The Egyptian verdict of the Shakespeare societies comes to mind that he was a jovial actor and manager. I cannot marry this fact to his verse." John Green- leaf Whittier said, "Whether Bacon wrote the wonderful plays or not, I am quite sure the man Shakspere neither did nor could." James M. Barrie put it more whimsically: "I know not, sir, whether Bacon wrote the works of Shakespeare, but if he did not it seems to me that he missed the opportunity of his lifetime." Samuel Taylor Coleridge said, "Ask your own hearts, ask your own common sense, to conceive the possibility of the author of the Plays being the anomalous, the wild, the irregular genius of our daily criticism. What! are we to have miracles in sport? Does God choose idiots by whom to convey divine truths to man?" And there yet remains a band of doubters. If someone else wrote the plays and poems, then who? Let us consult a calendar of years: The Reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603) ++|+++++++++|+++++++++|+++++++++|+++++++++|++| |-- Publication of the Plays --| 1560 1570 1580 1590| 1600 1610 1620 |1626 |+|+++++++++|+++++++++|+++++++++|+++++++++|+++++++++|+++++++++|+++++| Edward De Vere, Earl of Oxford (1550-1604) --|+++++++++|+++++++++|+++++++++|+++++++++|+++| Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) |+++++|+++++++++|+++++++++|++| William Shaksper, of Stratford (1564-1616) |+++++|+++++++++|+++++++++|+++++++++|+++++++++|+++++| Francis Bacon (1561-1626) |++++++++|+++++++++|+++++++++|+++++++++|+++++++++|+++++++++|+++++| The 1623 edition of the First Folio contained twenty new plays. At that time Shakespeare had been dead for seven years, Edward De Vere for nineteen and Christopher Marlowe for thirty. Only Francis Bacon survived the 1623 publication. This is hardly enough to credit the authorship to Bacon, but it casts some suspicion upon the prospects of the other three leading contenders. There is also considerable doubt about the facts of Shakespeare's own life. Let us read what Mark Twain had to say about that (From Is Shake- speare Dead? 1909) He was born on the 23rd of April, 1564. Of good farmer-class parents who could not read, could not write, could not sign their names. At Stratford, a small back settlement which in that day was shabby and unclean, and densely illiterate. Of the nineteen important men charged with the government of the town, thirteen had to "make their mark" in attesting important documents, because they could not write their names. Of the first eighteen years of his life is known. They are a blank. On the 27th of November (1582) William Shakespeare took out a license to marry Anne Whateley. Next day William Shakespeare took out a license to marry Anne Hathaway. She was eight years his senior. William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway. In a hurry. By grace of a reluctantly granted dispensation there was but one publication of the banns. Within six months the first child was born. About two (blank) years followed, during which period nothing at all happened to Shakespeare, so far as anybody knows. Then came twins--1585. February. Two blank years follow. Then--1587--he makes a ten-year visit to London, leaving the family behind. Five blank years follow. During this period , as far as anybody actually knows. Then--1592--there is mention of him as an actor. Next year--1593--his name appears in the official list of players. Next year--1594--he played before the queen. A detail of no conse- quence: other obscurities did it every year of the forty-five of her reign. And remained obscure. Three pretty full years follow. Full of play-acting. Then. In 1597 he bought New Place, Stratford. Thirteen or fourteen busy years follow; years in which he accumulat- ed money, and also reputation as actor and manager. Meantime his name, liberally and variously spelt, had become associ- ated with a number of great plays and poems, as (ostensibly) author of the same. Some of these, in these years and later, were pirated, but he made no protest. Then--1610-11--he returned to Stratford and settled down for good and all, and busied himself in lending money, trading in tithes, trading in land and houses; shirking a debt of forty-one shillings, borrowed by his wife during his long desertion of his family; suing debtors for shil- lings and coppers; being sued himself for shillings and coppers; and acting as a confederate to a neighbor who tried to rob the town of its rights in a certain common, and did not succeed. He lived five or six years--till 1616--in the joy of these elevated pursuits. . . When Shakespeare died in Stratford . It made no more stir in England than the death of any other forgotten theatre-actor would have made. Nobody came down from London; there were no lamenting poems, no eulogies, no national tears--there was merely silence, and nothing more. A striking contrast to what happened when Ben Jonson and Francis Bacon, and Spenser, and Raleigh and the other distinguished literary folk of Shakespeare's time passed from life! No praiseful voice was lifted for the lost Bard of Avon; even Ben Jonson waited seven years before he lifted his. , Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon never wrote a play in his life. he never wrote a letter to anybody in his life. . So far as anyone can , Shakespeare of Stratford wrote only one poem during his life. This one is authentic. He did write that one--a fact which stands undisputed; he wrote the whole of it; he wrote the whole of it out of his own head. He commanded that this work of art be engraved upon his tomb, and he was obeyed. There it abides to this day. This is it: Good frend for Iesus sake forbeare to digg the dust encloased heare! Blest be ye man yt spares thes stones And curst be he yt moves my bones. Richard Bentley, writing in the American Bar Association Journal, ("Elizabethan Whodunit," February, 1959) abridges Francis Bacon's biogra- phy: The facts of Bacon's life are well known. He was born three years before Shaksper (1561) and died ten years after him (1626). Bacon was educated at Cambridge University (1574-6). He then went to Paris in the suite of the English Ambassador. After his return he studied law and was admitted to the Bar at the age of 21 years. He became a Bencher at Gray's Inn. . . Bacon came into royal favor with James I. He was knighted almost at once, became Solicitor General (in 1607), Attorney General (in 1613), Lord Keeper of the Great Seal (in 1617) and then (in 1618) Lord Chancellor. Within four years, however, he confessed to a charge of bribery and was imprisoned; but was released after a few days [by order of James I who had required him to confess for political reasons]. Thereafter he devoted himself to literature, writing on jurisprudence, science and philosophy. His education, his breadth of learning, knowledge of law, familiarity with Court circles both abroad and in England, and his unusual literary ability made him the natural choice of those who were convinced the Shakespeare works must have been written by someone possessed of these advantages, and not by Shaksper of Stratford, who apparently had none of them. Oxfordians, seeking the prize for their idol who died nineteen years too soon, complain that Bacon is ineligible. He was too busy, they say, with other things to write The Works. Bacon became a barrister in 1582, age 21. He had almost no practice and survived by becoming a special counsel to the Queen in 1588. He was a member of Parliament for many years, but the House met very infre- quently and attendance was not considered a profession. In 1605, at age 44, he published The Advancement of Learning; before that he had published nothing but a book of Essays and of meditations, a matter of 8000 words. Two years later his public life began when he was made Solicitor General by James I. His twenty-two major works were not printed until 1621 and after. Bacon was interested in ciphers and invented one of his own that he called the "Biliterarie Cipher." His system anticipated the Binary Scale supposedly invented by Leibniz in 1671. Any two unlike things could be used, such as "a" and "b", "0" and "1", or even signal flags. An extended version is called the ASCII code and is the basis for computer science. He offered this example: A=aaaaa B=aaaab C=aaaba D=aaabb E=aabaa F=aabab G=aabba H=aabbb I=abaaa K=abaab L=ababa M=ababb N=abbaa O=abbab P=abbba Q=abbbb R=baaaa S=baaab T=baaba V=baabb W=babaa X=babab Y=babba Z=babbb In the (1623) Bacon had this to say: , hath drawne on with it a knowledge relative unto it, which is the knowledge of , or of Discret- ing , and the Capitulations of secrecy past between the Parties. it is an Art which requires great paines and a good witt and is (as the other was) consecrate to the Counsels of Princes: yet notwith- standing by diligent prevision it may be made unprofitable, though, as things are, it be of great use. For if good and faithfull were invented & practised, many of them would delude and forestall all the Cunning of the , which yet are very apt and easie to be read or written: but the rawnesse and unskilfulnesse of Secretaries, and Clarks in the Courts of Princes, is such that many times the greatest matters are Committed to futile and weake Cyphers. At another place Bacon continues on the same subject: For CYPHARS; they are commonly in Letters or Alphabets, but may bee in Wordes. he kindes> of CYPHARS, (besides the SIMPLE CYPHARS with Changes, and intermixtures of NVLLES, and NONSIGNIFICANTS) are many, according to the Nature or Rule of the infoulding: WHEELE- CYPHARS, KAY-CYPHARS, DOVBLES, &c. But the vertues of them, whereby they are to be preferred, are three; that they be not laborious to write and reade; that they bee impossible to discypher; and in some cases, that they bee without suspition. The highest Degree whereof, is to write OMNIA PER OMNIA; which is vndoubtedly possible, with a proportion Quintuple at most, of the writing infoulding, to the writing infoulded, and no other restrainte whatsoever. This Arte of , hath for Relatiue, an Art of by supposition vnprofitable; but, as things are, of great vse. For suppose that were well mannaged, there bee Multitudes of them which exclude the . But in regarde of the rawnesse and vnskilfulnesse of the handes, through which they passe, the greatest Matters, are many times carryed in the weakest . By ciphers "without suspition," Bacon meant This may be accomplished by the use of acrostics, whereby the first capitalized letter of each line in a poem may convey the message; the strategy included his own Biliterarie Cipher. Here the very existence of a cipher writing may never be noticed. Francis Bacon was not a poet: so say modern critics. Perhaps they are unaware of these quotations collected by Mrs. Henry Pott <(Francis Bacon > , Schulte & Co., Chicago 1891): # It is he that filled up all numbers [lines of verse], and performed that which may be compared or preferred to insolent Greece or haughty Rome (Ben Jonson). # His Lordship was a good poet, but , John Davies of Hereford (1565-1618) wrote this epigram: Thy and the of thy Witt Compris'd in Lists of and the learned , Each making thee for great fitt, Which now thou hast, (though short of thy deserts) Compells my pen to let fall shining And to bedew the that thy ; And to thy health in Helicon to drinke As to her the is wont; For thou dost her embozom; and dost vse Her company for sport twixt graue affaires. So vtter'st Law the liuelyer through the . And for that all thy are sweetest ; Thus John Davies in 1610 states plainly that Francis Bacon was a poet and that he had woven into his works spirited illustrations of the law. John Davies was the same man to whom Bacon had written a letter which concluded, "so desiring you to be good to concealed poets." Francis Bacon had a great respect and affection for poetry; here are his words: . . . cheereth and refreshes the soule; chanting things rare, and various, and full of vicissitudes. So as serveth and conferreth to Delectation, Magnaminity, and Morality; and therefore it may seem deservedly to have some Participation of Divinenesse, becauwse it doth raise the mind, and exalt the spirit with high raptures, by proportioning the shewes of things to the desires of the mind; and not submitting the mind to things, as and doe. Why might Bacon have concealed his creations? George Puttenham in (1589) wrote, "I know many notable Gentle- men in the Court that have written commendably, and suppressed it agayne, or else suffered it to be publisht without their owne names to it, as if it were a discredit for a Gentleman to seem learned, and to shew himself amorous of any learned Art." In addition, the Plays were written during a very dangerous period. The airing of some political doctrine might offend a royal sensibility, and death or mutilation was the penalty. What did Bacon's contemporaries think of his poetic talents? Here is a statement made by Edmund Howes in 1615: Our moderne, and present excellent poets which worthely florish in their owne workes, and all of them in my owne knowledge lived to- geather in this Queenes raigne, according to their priorities as neere as I could, I have orderly set downe (viz) George Gascoigne, Thomas Churchyard, Edward Dyer, Edmond Spencer, Philip Sidney, John Har- rington, Thomas Challoner, , John Davie, Iohn Lillie, George Chapman, W. Warner, , Samuell Daniell, Michaell Draiton, Christopher Marlo, Benjamine Johnson, Iohn Marston, Abraham Frauncis, Frauncis Meers, Joshua Siluester, Thomas Deckers, John Flecher, John Webster, Thomas Heywood, Thomas Middleton, George Withers. Thus did Edmund Howes rank "Frauncis" Bacon with Shakespeare among these twenty-seven contemporary "excellent Poets." He put him six names ahead of "Willi." Are there ciphers in Shakespeare's Works? Yes, dear reader, indeed there are. Necessarily, the discussion that follows is not complete because it is very much condensed from my book (Westchester House, 218 So. 95, Omaha NE 68114, $15). Let us begin with the 1609 edition of "SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS." Here is a copy of the title-page: SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS. Neuer before Imprinted. ___________________ ___________________ AT LONDON By G. for and are to be solde by . 1609. And next, on the recto of the second leaf, the mysterious Dedication (all quotes are from facsimiles of the originals): TO.THE.ONLIE.BEGETTER.OF. THESE.INSVING.SONNETS. Mr.W.H. ALL.HAPPINESSE. AND.THAT.ETERNITIE. PROMISED. BY. OVR.EVER-LIVING.POET. WISHETH. THE.WELL-WISHING. ADVENTVRER.IN. SETTING. FORTH. T.T. What were all those periods doing there, stuck in for no befitting reason, after every word? Were they just someone's attempt at decoration, a feeble example of the compositor's art? And why were there four unneces- sary spaces between the lines? Why I couldn't guess, except that they had attracted my attention. Could that have been the reason? Using the title-page, the Dedication and my computer, I found a message containing 25 letters. The normal Elizabethan 24 letter alphabet (No "J" or "U") had been shortened to 21 letters (No "W, X, or Z"). Bacon's abbreviated key cipher alphabet was found to be this: A B C D E F G H I K L M N O P Q R S T V Y Here are the ciphertext letters: S S R D T N Y G D T T M Y A F I O E E R F E G S R Julius Caesar is said to have invented this elementary substitution cipher. Here is the "Caesar cipher" -4 table (using the "FORTH." letter back) for decipherment: Ciphertext alphabet: E F G H I K L M N O P Q R S T V Y A B C D Plaintext alphabet: a b c d e f g h i k l m n o p q r s t v y It has been said that the solution to any cryptogram, once found, looks easy. Here is the easy solution: The ciphertext letters are selected by using the last letter of each capitalized word (and a capitalized letter standing alone is to be recognized as the last letter of a capitalized word) beginning with SHAKE-SPEARES on the title page and ending with the lower case, superscripted "r" in "Mr." in the Dedication. For the date, "1609", the letters "A F I" are entered because these numbers represent the elementary, numerically corresponding letters of the Elizabethan alphabet (there is no letter equivalent to the number zero). Using a computer and my Baconian Caesar cipher program, you may enter: | (from title-page) |date |(from Dedication)| | |1 6 9| | S S R D T N Y G D T T M Y A F I O E E R F E G S R The first four possible plaintext lines of the -4 (fourth letter back) computer readout look like this: S S R D T N Y G D T T M Y A F I O E E R F E G S R R R Q C S M V F C S S L V Y E H N D D Q E D F R Q 1 Q Q P B R L T E B R R K T V D G M C C P D C E Q P 2 P P O A Q K S D A Q Q I S T C F L B B O C B D P O 3 The solution appears as the fourth numbered line. We notice that the words "CYPPHRS," "BEKAAN" and "BACON" are directly adjoining. Bekaan is a phonetic spelling of Bacon, while Cypphrs identifies this plaintext as having been originally written in cipher. In Elizabethan England, spelling was still in its infancy; there were no standardized dictionaries. Words were spelt auricularly, as they sounded and one spelling was considered as no better than another. According to the comprehensive Oxford English Dictionary, these forms of the word "cipher" were also acceptable in the Seventeenth Cen- tury: "sipher, cyfer, cifer, ciphre, sypher, ziphre, scypher, cyphar, cyphre, ciphar, zifer, cypher." Francis Bacon spelled it "ciphras" in Latin. As to "Bekann" for "Bacon," Francis once wrote his brother's name (in a legal document preserved in the London Lambeth Library) in this way: "Anth. Books dedicated to Bacon spelled his first name as "ffrauncis." His kinsmen were not particular about it either: It is worthy of notice that the Bacon family in early times spelt their name "Becon" or "Beacon." Some of them seem to have written under this name, and there is a work by Thomas Becon, 1563-4 in which, on the title page of the second volume, his name changes from to (Mrs. Henry Pott, p. 341.) John Florio (1591, ) once alluded to a "gammon of bakon." The Oxford English Dictionary gives these as valid spellings for the period: But there is a much better reason for the misspelling of Bacon's name, as it appears in this solution and in many others to be described. The Italians, in the 15th Century, discovered that their wartime ciphers were being broken by the "probable word" method. For some good reason, a guess might be made by the enemy that a letter was addressed to someone in Venice, or contained references to Venice. Then a search could be made in the ciphertext for repetitions of identical six letter groups. When found, these reliable six letter cipher conversions were used to extend the unknown alphabet. Cipher clerks have always been lectured on cryptographic security. Whenever a place name or personal name appeared more than once in a message it had to be misspelled, and in as many ways as possible. Failure to follow this rule would have disastrous results, as one Lt. Jaeger once found out. The example is given by David Kahn in (Macmil- lan Co., 1967, p. 336.) During WWI a German Signal officer by the name of Jaeger set out to stiffen code discipline. However his own name was not in the codebook and had to be spelled out in every transmitted order. "This was frequently. Its peculiar formation--the repetition of the high frequency for example--permitted G.2 A.6 to identify it readily,and this in turn led to important clues concerning the superenciphering Geheimklappe. . .Jaeger was beloved by his adversaries because he kept them up to date with code changes, and it was with genuine regret that they saw his name disappear from the German traffic." Thus any word (a suspected "crib") routinely recurring in cipher messages is an apt key to a solution. Those who may mock such spellings must consider that the authenti- cated Shakespeare signatures spell the Bard's name in six different ways, a matter the Shakespearean philologists have chosen to disregard. According to Charles Hamilton, a manuscript expert who says he can read the untidy scrawls <(In Search of Shakespeare,> Harcourt Brace, 1985),these are the spellings: The man was baptized as gave bond for marriage as was married as and buried as John Lyly as he is now known, in four successive editions of Euphues and other works, spelled his name as Lyllie, Lily, Lylly, Lilly, Lilie and Lylie, and never as Lyly. David Kahn, author of , quotes Giovanni Battista Porta who published, in 1563, a famous cryptographic book, He urged the use of synonyms in plaintexts, noting that "It will also make for difficulty in the interpretation if we avoid the repetition of the same word." Like the Argentis, he suggested deliberate misspellings of plaintext words: "For it is better for a scribe to be thought ignorant than to pay the penalty for the detection of plans," he wrote. Bacon was not so careless as to spell his name always in the same way, as in the hundreds of examples I have located. In connection with Porta, some may have noticed the "double A" printer's ornament on the title page of my own book. This "logo" showed two capital letters "A" in a scroll design, with other decorations such as rabbits, squirrels, archers and birds. According to W. T. Smedley's (1910), Porta's 1563 book was reprinted in England by one John Wolfe in 1591. It was falsely dated 1563 as if it was the first edition, and the double A ornament was added at the top of the dedication. This was the first use of this design. The general form was also printed as a heading in Venus & Adonis, Lucrece, the Sonnets, most of the quartos, in the 1623 edition of Shakespeare's works, and also in some others that Smedley attributes to Bacon. It also appears in Napier's book on logarithms and in another dedicated to Anthony Bacon, Francis' brother. The last use of the "AA" device was in an edition of Bacon's Essays published in 1720. In the Sonnet title-page and Dedication, Bacon's name appears twice more, spelled as "Beakyn" and as "Baikehn," together with "Fs" (his signa- ture abbreviation of his first name), and also "Fra." Space will not permit an exposition; however, following the solution given above, his cipher system afterward consistently used the fourth letter rather than the "FORTH." letter back. William F. Friedman was perhaps the most famous cryptanalyst of modern times. During WWII he and a U. S. Army Signal Corps crypto- graphic team broke the Japanese "PURPLE" cipher in August, 1940. The enemy never afterward materially changed the system. Our admirals often knew the current position of every group of the Japanese battle fleet; the messages were sometimes deciphered before the enemy commanders re- ceived them. The advantage gained was enormous. In 1916 Friedman had become interested in cryptography because of his study of certain ciphers claimed to be found in Shakespeare's works. He retired in 1955 and, surprisingly enough, he became an historian of what he considered to be false cipher methods. In 1957 he and his wife Elizebeth (also a cryptanalyst) published (Cambridge Univ. Press). It is worth observing that, before the Second World War, and espe- cially before the Friedmans, the science of cryptography was almost unknown to the universities and to the public. Except for the rare and scattered and concealed professional practitioners, there were hardly any authorities for those interested to consult. Where it was taught, it was taught secretly. Books explaining cryptography were mostly out of print and never had much circulation. The casual reader became aware of the topic through Herbert O. Yardley's book, which was published in 1931. The U.S. State Department had closed its own cipher room in 1929. There was really no way for a reader to make a so- phisticated judgment of the cipher "systems" which were invented. Very possibly some of the authors of these methods, in their ardor, had no better way to innocently judge their own creations. It is too bad, but many of them actually harmed their cause. The Friedmans, using wry but cheerful humor, took aim at the Baconian crypto-cryptologists and sank their frail, poorly armed, mostly 19th century vessels. The litany of the names of the drowned and the dates of their too-early ventures into combat with the forces of science and mathe- matics, not to mention the Friedmans, is a grievous sorrow; they sailed forth almost unarmed. To wit: Ignatius Donnelly, 1887; Dr. Orville Owen, 1893; William Stone Booth, 1909; Sir Edward Durning-Lawrence, 1910; Walter Arensberg, 1921; Frank and Parker Woodward, 1923; Elizabeth Wells Gallup, 1899; Mrs. Henry Pott, 1891. Their bones, already bleached, were exhumed, sorted, categorized, mounted, and illuminated by the Friedmans in their entertaining treatise. As had been mentioned, Francis Bacon preferred steganographic ciphers in which the occurrence of a hidden name would not be noticed. What better way to conceal that name than And where should that word be placed so as to be most preeminent? The name of the real author of the First Folio of Shakespeare's Plays is concealed in the first spoken word. It stands alone as the word of dialogue on the page of the printing of the play in the First Folio, the 1623 first edition of Shakespeare's collected It is a solitary word distinguished by its primal detachment. A cipher method based upon whole words, rather than designated letters, presents itself. "The Tempest," as recorded in the First Folio, is the sole authority for the language and printing of that fanciful drama. The first word of dia- logue in "The Tempest" is . The first letter, "B", is a great capital, the kind of large ornamental initial that heads the first page of almost all of the plays. The script, after some "scene setting" instructions which are printed in italics, gives the "Master" the first word to speak: . BOte-swaine. . Heere Master: What cheere? . Good: Speake to th'Mariners: fall too't, yarely, or we run our selves a ground, bestirre, bestirre. . To apply the Caesar decryption here we must remember that the letter "W" is not included in our key alphabet but it was often typeset as "VV" in the Folio and in the . We shall install "BOTESVVAIN" as the ciphertext and run our computer program: B O T E S V V A I N E C P V F T Y Y B K O F 1 D Q Y G V A A C L P G 2 E R A H Y B B D M Q H 3 R I 4 The plaintext, then, is "F S B I A C C E N R I". It appears on the "FORTH." (+4) line in which "A" = "e". Bacon's 21 letter alphabet, ending in "T V Y", remains the same. "FS" is Bacon's own abbreviation of his first name while "BIACCEN" is yet another phonetic spelling of his surname. versions were typeset and printed as the first page of "The Tempest" in the First Folio. In both of them "Bote-swaine" appears as the first word, but something noteworthy happened to one of the initial great capital "B"s (preceding "ote-swaine") on at least one of this play's journeys to the press. We should keep in mind the typographical oddities that adorned the Dedication of , the decimal points (or periods or full stops, if you will).Like pointers,these signals attracted our attention to that page so as to merit a suspicion that a cipher was concealed in the text. Here again in "The Tempest" such an absurd, capsized great capital "B" deserves the same respect; the use of such signals is confirmed by the discovery that Francis Bacon's ciphered name is to be found, and is entirely contained, within that word "Bote-swaine." It is the word that begins with this freakishly printed letter "B". We shall next be dealing with acrostic ciphers; here is an example from the Friedman's book: We have already remarked that acrostics were popular in Elizabethan literature; it should also be stressed that spelling in those days was errat- ic. Sir John Salusbury, who was as devoted to acrostics as he was to a lady called Dorothy Halsall, enfolded her name in poem after poem [citing Bryn Mawr College Monographs, vol. XIV, 1913]. One of them, with comments by Col. Friedman, runs: ormented heart in thral, ea thrall to love, especting wil, eart-breaking gaine doth grow, ver DOLOBELI, ime will so proue, inding distrese, gem wilt thou allowe, his fortune my wil epose-lesse of ease, nlesse thou LED, ver-spread my heart, utting all my rut, dayne isdaine to cease, yield to fate, and welcome endles mart. This, with occasional irregularities, conceals the name CUTBERT (Dorothy's husband) reading the initial letters upwards from the seventh line, and the two parts of the name DOROTHY HALSALL as the letters on either side of the break in the middle of each line; the initials I.S. (for Iohn Salusbury) appear as the first letter of the first word and the first letter of the last word in the final line--In all, Salusbury uses six different versions of his own name in various acrostic signatures; spells the name Francis as Fransis wherever it suits him; regards I and IE as interchangeable with Y; and replaces J's with I's or I's with J's according to whim. Thus Friedman does not insist upon accurate name spelling and permits "occasional irregularities." The cipher does not read from top to bottom; it is reversed and the plaintext travels from bottom to top. Here, he writes, . . .is one of a number of instances which could be cited; but what makes it true that they, and the others, are genuine cases of cryptogra- phy is that the validity of the deciphered text and the inflexibility of the systems employed are obvious. . .In each case, there is no room to doubt that they were put there by the deliberate intent of the author; the length of the hidden text, and the absolutely rigid order in which the letters appear, combine to make it enormously improbable that they just happened to be there by accident. Friedman may not have known that Shakespeare's "Phoenix and the Turtle" . This brings us to a number of acrostic signatures in the works of Mr. Shakespeare. Remember that the cipher system, after the example given in the Sonnets, now follows the fourth letter (+4) forward: Ciphertext alphabet: S T V Y A B C D E F G H I K L M N O P Q R Plaintext alphabet: a b c d e f g h i k l m n o p q r s t v y Often the text includes curious language--hints to the existence of a cipher. Here is a specimen in which the capital letters are employed, from "Measure for Measure" (i, 3, 40): have on ngelo impos'd the office, ho may in th'ambush of my name, strike home, nd yet, my nature never in the fight o do in slander: nd to behold his sway A signature is hidden "in th'ambush of my name." Reading all capi- tals downward, the Ciphertext is: I A W A T A Ciphertext reversed is: A T A W A I Plaintext (+4) is: E "Caps" is a word long used by printers as an abbreviation for upper case type. This word, or "cap," is used six times in thirty lines in "The Taming of the Shrew" (iv, 3, 68). Heere is the cap your Worship did bespeake. Why this was moulded on a porrenger, A veluet dish: Fie, fie, 'tis lewd and filthy, Why 'tis a cockle or a walnut-shell, A Knacke, a toy, a tricke, a babies cap. Away with it, come let me have a bigger. Then follow these five lines: Kate. le haue no bigger, this doth fit the time, nd Gentlewomen weare such caps as these. Pet. hen you are gentle, you shall haue one too, nd not till then. Hor. hat will not be in hast. Let us examine these "caps," the initial capitalized letters of each line: Ciphertext is: I A W A T Ciphertext reversed is: T A W A I Plaintext is: Published in 1640 by John Benson was a book of "POEMS: WRITTEN BY WIL. SHAKESPEARE. Gent." Many of the were included, but in a different order, together with other poems. Most of the latter are rejected by the scholars as unjustly imputed. Several verses memorialize the Bard, as witness the following: William Shakespeare, Anno Dom. 1616. REnowned lie a thought more nigh To learned and rare lie A little neerer to make roome, For in your three-fold, foure-fold Tombe; To lodge all foure in one bed make a shift, Vntill Dommes-day, for hardly shall a fift Betwixt this day and that by Fate be slaine, For whom your Curtaines may be drawne againe. f your precedencie in death doth barre, fourth place in your sacred Sepulchre nder this sacred Marble of thy owne, leepe rare Tragedian , sleepe alone; hy unmolested peace in an unshar'd Cave, Possesse as Lord, not Tennant of thy Grave. That unto us, and others it may be, Honour hereafter to be laid by thee. W. B. "For whom your Curtaines may be drawne againe." Consider the initial capitalized letters of the five lines following that one: Ciphertext is: I A V S T Ciphertext reversed: T S V A I Plaintext is: Or, we may choose all of the capitals in the four lines following "Curtaines," and just preceding Ciphertext is: I A S V M S T Ciphertext reversed: T S M V S A I Plaintext (+4) is: The following is a comparison of two very similar versions of a Shakespeare sonnet. The lines printed in Roman type are from verse II of (1599) while the are from Sonnet 144 of the 1609 Quarto: 1. TWo Loues I haue, of Comfort, and Despaire, 2. That like two Spirits, do suggest me still: 3. My better Angell is a Man (right faire) 4. My worser spirite a Woman (colour'd ill.) 5. To winne me soone to hell, my Female euill 6. Tempteth my better Angell from my side, 7. And would corrupt my Saint to be a Diuell, 8. Wooing his purity with her faire pride. 9. And whether that my Angell be turnde feend, 10. Suspect I may (yet not directly tell: 11. For being both to me: both, to each friend, 12. I ghesse one Angell in anothers hell: 13. The truth I shall not know, but liue in doubt, 14. Till my bad Angell fire my good one out. In this later version there are minor changes in spelling, punctuation and one change in sense ( in line 8 becomes in the later version). The major change is in capitalization. Let us string all the capitals together and examine them: Ciphertext of the 1599 verse: T V L I C D T S M A M M V T F T A A S D V A A S I F I A T I T A Plaintext, +4 is: B C P N G H B A Q E Q Q C B K K N E B N B E Perhaps the earlier version of Bacon's plaintext name seemed too long; therefore, in editing the 1609 version, the author reduced fifteen of the capitals to lower case with this effect: Ciphertext of the 1609 verse: T V I V T T T T A V A S I B I Y T Plaintext, +4 is: B C N C B B B F N D B Karl Andreassen, writing in (Prentice-Hall, Inc. 1988), discusses null ciphers of this variety: An interesting type of cipher not often seen in the popular literature is the concealment, or null, cipher. Among its many variations is the use of prearranged letter positions in ordinary plaintext. Because the English language is so richly endowed with synonyms and capable of colloquial interpretation, it is particularly adaptable to null-cipher applications. For instance, a plain language sentence may appear to convey an interesting but common statement of fact. While the sentence reads innocuously like simple plain language, the words used are carefully selected to divert attention, that of concealing [by steganography] a message other than the obvious one. A few years ago, Wayne Shumaker, Professor Emeritus of English at the University of California at Berkeley, published a book entitled Renais- sance Curiosa, (Center for Medieval Studies, S.U.N.Y. 1982). The Professor shows himself to be a master of Medieval Latin and German. In one of his fascinating chapters he discusses the copious writings of Johannes Trithemius (1462-1526) who was a German monk. Trithemius' books, written in Latin, were mostly concerned with history and theology but the author has been called "the first theoretician of cryptography." His "Steganographia" was circulated while the manuscript was still in composi- tion and John Dee, later to become a friend of Francis Bacon, copied at least half of it in 1563. Steganography was the basis for most of Trithemius' schemes and a key, a hint, was customarily included in the ciphertext. Professor Shumaker explains one method: PAMERSIEL A O R A R S L B A O H A A R L E I R S I L A R S R E U T L S A L N HAMORPHIEL. If we ignore the first and last words, which are nulls--that is, insig- nificant for the meaning--and read only the alternate letters of the rest, we arrive at a key for the decoding of the following cryptogram: or "Take the first letters of every word." Thus of the plaintext may be made significant, as in this example from "The Comedie of Errors" (v, 1, 336): Duke. ne of these men is genius to the other: nd so of these, which is the naturall man, nd which the spirit? S. Dromio. sir am Dromio, command him away. E. Dro. sir am Dromio, pray let me stay. S. Ant. geon art thou not? or else his ghost. S. Drom. h my olde Master, who hath bound him heere? Abb. ho euer bound him, I will lose his bonds, nd gaine a husband by his libertie: peake old Egeon, if thou bee'st the man hat hadst a wife once call'd AEmilia, hat bore thee at a burthen two faire sonnes? h if thou bee'st the same Egeon, speake: nd speake vnto the same AEmilia. Of the two Dromios, one is suspected of being an impostor; this affords a convenient moment for the author to discard his mask. We must choose the initial capitals of each line of dialogue: Ciphertext is: O A A I I E O V A S T T O A Ciphertext reversed is: A O T T S A V O E I I A A O Plaintext, +4 is: E S B B A E C S I N N E E S Plaintext, alternate letters: E E Who deciphers them? So goes one of the lines of Ben Jonson's "To the memory. . ." tribute to the author of the plays collected in the 1623 Folio. He hints at another author's name, who was still living, but veils the allusion with the last phrase. However at that time Shakespeare a splendid monument and tomb which had been erected at great cost in the chancel of Holy Trinity Church, Stratford. Toward the end of these praises Ben Jonson writes, "Sweet Swan of Avon!" Some literary critics are still unaware that swans are Still, they point with delight at this phrase to entangle the Avon man with the author of the plays. Here is the caption of the poem and the first two lines: o the memory of my beloued, he VTHOR r. illiam hakespeare: nd what he hath left vs. O draw no enuy (hakespeare) on thy name, m thus ample to thy Booke, and Fame: The true name was well known to Ben Jonson, and it is concealed in the initial capital letters of each word, reading from the begin- ning: Ciphertext is: T T A M W S A T S A I Plaintext is: B B E Q C A E B A E N Alternate letters are: Here is another acrostic from "The two Gentlemen of Verona," (iv, 1, 50): ut to the purpose: for we cite our faults, hat they may hold excus'd our lawlesse liues; nd partly seeing you are beautifide ith goodly shape; and by your owne report, Linguist, and a man of such perfection, s we doe in our quality much want. <2. Out.> ndeede because you are a banish'd man, The capitalized first letters of each line produce the ciphertext: B T A W A A I Plaintext is: Ciphertext of the last line is: I N D E E D E B E C A V S E Y O V A R E A B A N I S H D M A N Plaintext, +4 is: N R H I I H I F I G E C A I D S N A M H Q E R Bacon's fascination with acrostics led him to rewrite his own previ- ously published works. He hints at ciphers with suggestive words, in "The Life of Henry the Fift" (ii, 2, 53), and, compared to the 1600 Quarto, these lines were painstakingly rearranged when edited for the 1623 Folio: In the earlier Quarto he had written: If litle faults proceeding on distemper should not bee winked at, How should we stretch our eye, when capitall crimes, Chewed, swallowed and digested, appeare before vs: Well yet enlarge the man, tho Cambridge and the rest In their deare loues. . . Now we may glimpse the cryptogapher at work, as he redrafts this excerpt, so as to encipher the intial capital letters of each line for the 1623 Folio: f little faults proceeding on distemper, hall not be wink'd at, how shall we stretch our eye hen capitall crimes, chew'd, swallow'd, and digested, ppeare before vs? Wee'l yet inlarge that man, hough Cambridge, Scroope, and Gray, in their deere care Ciphertext is: I S V A T Ciphertext reversed is: T A V S I Plaintext is: The sense of these lines was scarcely modified, and the remainder of this speech of King Henry V was not altered. In the edited version the clues have been preserved for the benefit of the most intractable academicians. The lower case letters in the original version have been "inlarged." By the use of "capitalls" the writer has direct- ed our attention to these newly minted upper case letters. For what reason were these transformations made, unless to encipher the author's name? A cardinal measure of cipher authenticity----has been demonstrated. The author has left behind an unmistakable "smoking pistol." On at least two other occasions Bacon amended the ciphertext of an early quarto edition so as to include his name in the Folio plaintext. In the 1604 edition of "Hamlet," Hamlet is warned of the Ghost by Horatio: "It you to go away with it / As if it some impartment did desire / To you alone." Hamlet replies, "It waves me ... Then Bacon writes: That bettles ore his base into the sea, And there assume some other horrable forme Which might depriue your soueraigntie of reason, And draw you into madnes, thinke of it, The very place puts toyes of desperation Without more motiue, into euery braine That lookes so many fadoms to the sea And heares it rore beneath. Ham. It waues me still, Goe on, Ile followe thee. In the 1623 Folio version of the plays (i, 4, 55) the author strikes out four lines of splendid metaphor in order to accomplish his purpose: hat beetles o're his base into the Sea nd there assumes some other horrible forme, hich might depriue your Soueraignty of Reason, nd draw you into madnesse thinke on it? Ham. t wafts me still: goe on, Ile follow thee. The initial capitalized letters of each line now disclose the author's name: Ciphertext is: T A V A I Plaintext is: Again, the 1604 quarto version of the same play contains these words: Obserue my Vncle, if his occulted guilt Doe not it selfe vnkennill in one speech, t is a damned ghost that we have seene, nd my imaginations are as foule s Vulcans stithy: giue him heedfull note, or I mine eyes will riuet to his face, nd after we will both our iudgements ioyne In [] censure of his seeming. In the 1623 play (iii, 2, 87) Bacon altered a few minor spellings, but he most unnecessarily changed in the last line to . Now the ciphertext (reversed) is: T A F A A I Plaintext is: And again: in the 1594 Quarto of Titus Andronicus are these lines: Chiron. Thou hast vndone our mother Aron. Villaine I haue done thy mother. Deme. And therein helish dog thou hast vndone her, Woe to her chaunce, and damde her loathed choice, Accurst the offspring of so foule a fiend. Chi. It shal not liue. However, in the 1623 Folio (iv, 2, 75) the second line is dropped, so as to invoke the author's name: Chi. hou hast vndone our mother. Deme. nd therein hellish dog, thou hast vndone, oe to her chance, and damn'd her loathed choyce, ccur'st the off-spring of so foule a fiend. Chi. t shall not liue. Now the ciphertext of the initial capital letters is: T A V A I Plaintext is: Here is a passage from "The Tragedie of Julius Caesar" (i, 2, 198): Would he were fatter; But I feare him not: Yet if my name were lyable to feare, I do not know the man I should auoyd So soone as that spare He reades much, He is a great Obseruer, and he lookes Quite through the Deeds of men. He loues no Playes, As thou dost he heares no Musicke; Seldome he smiles, and smiles in such a sort As if he mock'd himselfe, and scorn'd his spirit Now, having described a character to mistrust, these lines continue. Witness the initial letters: hat could be mou'd to smile at any thing. uch men as he, be neuer at hearts-ease, hiles they behold a greater then themselves, nd therefore are they very dangerous. rather tell thee what is to be fear'd, Then what I feare: for alwayes I am Ciphertext of these five initial capitals: T S V A I Plaintext, +4, is: But we are not finished with this illustration. We shall repeat the last two lines of the above: I rather tell thee what is to be fear'd, Then what I feare: for alwayes I am Ciphertext is: I R A T H E R T E L L T H E E V H A T I S T O B E F E A R D T H E N V H A T I F E A R E F O R A L V A Y E S I A M C A E S A R Plaintext, +4 is: N Y E B M I Y B I P P B M I I C M E B N A B S F I K I E Y H B M I R C M E B N K I E Y I K S Y E P C E D I A N E Q G E I A E Y Plaintext, skip even letters: N E M Y I P M I M B A S I I Y< B I C E N> I Y K Y P E I N Q E A Y Plaintext, skip odd letters: Y B I B P< B I C E N> B F K E H M R M B K E I S E C D A E G I E Here the author has inserted his name, first within the initial capital letters of each line, and then twice within the last two lines as alternate even and odd letters with identical spelling. And notice the reference to as in "Caesar cipher." Shakespeare often included a clue to assist in the unveiling of his 21 letter cipher alphabet, or perhaps to confirm it. Consider a letter Malvolio is reading, from "Twelfth Night" (II, 2, 86): By my life this is my Ladies hand: these bee her very s, her s, and her s, and thus makes shee her great s. It is in contempt of question her hand. Her s, her s, and her s: why that? [Then, four lines afterward:] What followes? The numbers alter'd: No man must know. . . Why did Malvoli choose these four letters, to remark upon? What's all this about the and ? What number has been altered? Why, the number of letters in the 21 letter cipher alphabet, of course. "T" follows four letters after "P", but "C" does not trail four letters after "U" in the Elizabethan 24 letter alphabet (in which "I" is equivalent to "J" and "U" is equivalent to "V"). Not unless "W X Z" are omitted. The abbreviated series, vital to Bacon's Caesar cipher, is: "V Y A B C"-- "V W X Y Z A B C." The odds against all of the letters in the 24 letter Elizabethan alphabet appearing in any particular order are 24 x 23 x 22 x 21, or 255,024 to one. Then, to choose these four successive letters from the alphabet of 24, we must multiply by 24/4, or 6, again. The result is 1,530,144 to one. To make it more enlightening, Bacon has, in this way, shown the this complete uninterrupted alphabetical succession:

And, of course, <"P" = "T"> and <"V" = "C"> in Bacon's cipher process. The verse following is from lines 890-896: Thy pleasure turnes to open shame, Thy feasting to a publicke fast, Thy smoothing titles to a ragged Thy sugred tongue to bitter wormwood tast, Thy violent vanities can neuer last. How comes it then, vile opportunity Being so bad, such numbers seeke for thee? (The clues are in < >). The ciphertext of the second and third lines is: T H Y< P R I V A T E >F E A S T I N G T O A P V B L I C K E F A S T T H Y S M O O T H I N G T I T L E S T O A R A G G E D Ciphertext reversed is: E M A N D E G G A R A O T S E L T I T G N I H T O O M S Y H T T S A F E K C I L B V P A O T G N I T S A E F E T A V I R P Y H T Plaintext, +4 is: I Q E R H I L L E Y E S B A I P B N B L R N M B S S Q A D M B B A E K I O G N P F C T E S B L R N B A E I K I B E C N Y T D M B Plaintext, alternate odd letters: I E H L E E B I B B R M S Q D F T S L N A I I E N T M "Bakon," we will recall, is how Francis spelt the name while drawing a Power of Attorney for the signature of his brother Anthony. Bacon delighted in employing single words that contained a version of his name. In "As you like it"(iv, 3, 166), the word "counterfeit" is repeat- ed six times in seventeen lines for no good reason except stress: Be of good cheere youth: you a man? You lacke a mans heart. I doe so, I confesse it: Ah, sirra, a body would thinke this was well , I pray you tell your brother how well I : heigh-ho. This was not , there is too great testimony in your complexion that it was a passion of earnest. , I assure you. Well then, take a good heart, and So I doe: but yfaith, I should have beene a woman by right. Come, you looke paler and paler: pray you draw homewards: good sir, goe with us. That will I: for I must beare answere backe. How you excuse my brother, Rosalind. I shall deuise something: but I pray you commend my to him: will you goe? Ciphertext is: A B O D Y V O V L D T H I N K E T H I S V A S V E L L C O V N T E R F E I T E D I P R A Y Y O V T E L L Y O V R B R O T H E R H O V V E L L I C O V N T E R F E I T E D H E I G H H O T H I S V A S N O T C O V N T E R F E I T T H E R E I S T O O G R E A T T E S T I M O N Y I N Y O V R C O M P L E I O N T H A T I T V A S A P A S S I O N O F E A R N E S T C O V N T E R F E I T I A S S V R E Y O V V E L L T H E N T A K E A G O O D H E A R T A N D C O V N T E R F E I T T O B E A M A N S O I D O E B V T Y F A I T H I S H O V L D H A V E B E E N A V O M A N B Y R I G H T Plaintext, +4 is: E F S H D C S C P H B M N R O I B M N A C E A C I P P G S C R B I H N T Y E D D S C B I P P D S C Y F Y S B M I Y M S C C I P P N G S C R B I H M I N L M M S B M N A C E A R S B G S C R< B I Y K I N> B B M I Y I N A B S S L Y I E B B I A B N Q S R D N R D S C Y G S Q T P I N S R B M E B N B C E A E T E A A N S R S K I E Y R I A B G S C R B N E A A C Y I D S C C I P P B M I R B E O I E L S S H M I E Y B E R H G S C R B B S F I E Q E R A S N H S I F C B D K E N B M N A M S C P H M E E C S Q E R F D Y N L M B Here we see the name five times, followed by the word "CIFIIR." The emphasis is awesome. Even more accent is placed on the definitive cipher- text word "counterfeit" in "The First Part of King Henry the Fourth" (v, 4, 115), where it may be found Imbowell'd? If thou imbowell mee to day, Ile giue you leaue to powder me, and eat me too to morrow. 'Twas time to , or that hotte Termagant Scot, has paid me scot and lot too. I am no ; to dye,is to be a , for hee is but the of a man, who hath not the life of a man: But to dying, when a man thereby liueth, is to be no , but the true and perfect image of life indeede. The better part of Valour, is Discretion; in the which better part, I have saued my life. I am affraide of this Gun-Powder Percy though he be dead. How if hee should too, and rise? I am afraid hee would prove the better : therefore Ile make him sure: yea, and Ile sweare I kill'd him. Why may not hee rise as well as I: < me but eyes, and no-bodie sees me> . . . [Emphasis supplied.] For every "counterfeit" in this passage, we may read "BIYKIN", and nine times. Our eyes have confuted the supposed author; now we may perceive who is truly holding the pen. So that its significance may not be overlooked, here is the Merriam- Webster unabridged dictionary definition of this word: Counterfeit: 1.(a) SPURIOUS, not genuine or authentic; not com- posed by the author indicated. Hereafter we may leave the counterfeit labels on some old books to trustful schoolmasters. Another word that contains Bacon's enciphered name is "travail." "So to the Lawes at large I write my name." Seven lines following that begins this passage from "Loves Labour's lost" (i, 1, 161): I that there is, our Court you know is hanted With a refined travailer of A man in all the worlds new fashion planted, That hath a mint of phrases in his braine: Ciphertext, +4 is: I T H A T T H E R E I S O V R C O V R T Y O V K N O V I S H A N T E D V I T H A R E F I N E D T R A V A I L E R O F S P A I N E A M A N I N A L L T H E V O R L D S N E V F A S H I O N P L A N T E D Plaintext, +4 is: N B M E B B M I Y I N A S C Y G S C Y B D S C O R S C R B I H C N B M E Y I K N R I H P I Y S K A T E N R I E Q E R N R E P P B M I C I C K E A M N S R T P E R B I H Having given us a plain signal, in three lines the author has confid- ed his name, labeled it, and identified it as being written in cipher. And how could the author have pointed out his name more plainly than in "The Tragedy of Cymbeline," (iii, 3, 59): And when a Souldier was the Theame, Was not farre off: Ciphertext is: A N D V H E N A S O V L D I E R V A S T H E T H E A M E V A S N O T F A R R E O F F Ciphertext reversed is: F F O E R R A F T O N S A V E M A N Y M E M A E H T E H T S A V R E I D L V O S A N E H V D N A Plaintext, +4 is: K K S I Y Y E K B S R A E C I Q E R D Q I Q E I M B H P C S A E R I M C H R E Not content with forcing his name into the first word of dialogue in "The Tempest" (Boteswaine), Bacon did it again in the of the "Comedy of Errors": am not partiall to infringe our Lawes; he enmity and discord which of late prung from the rancorous outrage of your Duke, o Merchants our will-dealing Countrimen, ho wanting gilders to redeeme their liues, ave seal'd his rigorous statutes with their blouds, xcludes all pitty from our threatning lookes: or since the mortall and intestine iarres wixt thy seditious Countrimen and vs, t hath in solemne Synodes beene decreed, oth by the Siracusians and our selues, Reading from the bottom to the top, the initial capitals are: B I T F E H V T S T I The plaintext is: F N B K I M C B A B N Alternate letters are: The very next line contains the word "trafficke" which, when re- versed, spells ekt. In the "History of Sir John Oldcastle" (1664 Folio, p. 53, col. 2, l. 9), and leading up to a passage we shall penetrate, there are a number of words and phrases to put us on our guard. These are (col. 1) "do it secretly," and "make some sign," and "conceale our names." Sixteen lines later we read: 2. Iust. ut how came your sharp edg'd knives unsheath'd? L. Cob. o cut such simple victual as we had. Jud. ay we admit this answer to those Articles, hat made you in so a dark nook, o far remote from any common path, s was the thick where the dead corps was thrown? Cob. ourneying, my Lord, from London, from the Term, own into Lancashire, where we do dwell: nd what with age, and travel being faint, e gladly sought a place where we might rest. ree from resort of other passengers, nd so we stray'd into that corner. Jud. hese are but to drive off time, Ciphertext of the initial capitals: B T S V S A I D A V F A T Plaintext, +4, is: H E C K E B Here we find an unexpected dividend; the name is doubly inserted. Reversing the plaintext, we read: E A C A B F What were ? The dictionary says, What was a ? In Middle English, Bacon sometimes used of the initial capitalized letters in succeeding verses, as in this pregnant quotation from the Sonnets: 76 WHy is my verse so barren of new pride? So far from variation or quicke change? Why with the time do I not glance aside To new found methods, and to compounds strange? Why write I still all one, euer the same, And keepe inuention in a noted weed, weed=costume hat euery word doth almost sel my name, sel=spell, or (sell)=betray hewing their birth, and where they did proceed? know sweet loue alwaies write of you, nd you and loue are still my argument: o all my best is dressing old words new, pending againe what is already spent: or as the un is daily new and old, o is my loue still telling what is told. 77 Hy glasse will shew thee how thy beauties were, hy dyall how thy pretious mynuits waste, Reading all of the initial letters of the capitalized words, beginning at the end and up to "Shewing their birth," we find: Ciphertext is: T T S S F S S A I O Plaintext is: B S Alternate letters are: Many times Bacon combined the alternate letters and third letters of the ciphertext to register his name more than once. Here is an example from the first page of (1,1,29) in which he triply employed of the capital letters: o kisse her buriall; though goe to hurch nd see the holy edifice of stone, nd not bethinke me straight of dangerous rocks, hich touching but my gentle essels side ould scatter all her spices on the streame, nrobe the roring waters with my silkes, nd in a word, but euen now worth this, nd now worth nothing. hall haue the thought hat such a thing c'd would make me sad ut tell not me, know nthonio The ciphertext is: T I C A A V V V E A A S I T B I A Plaintext is: B N G E E C C C I E E A N B F N E Alternate letters are: N (Baeccen reversed) Third letters are: N E (Becen reversed) The existence of such plain indicators, such as in the open text, cannot be neglected. The word "Cipher" is often such a clue, as in "The History of Sir John Oldcastle" (1664 Folio, p. 46, col. 1, line 37). Title-paged to William Shakespeare in a 1619 quarto, "it was certainly not by him," say the knowing critics. One says it was written by Munday, Drayton, Wilson and Hathaway; another claims it was composed by Kyd, but rewritten by Peele, Greene and Marlowe. The critics confusion may now be ended. Here are some lines: And sit within the Throne, but for a . ime was, good ubjects would not make known their grief, nd pray amendment, not enforce the same, nlesse their ing were tyrant, which hope Following "Cipher," we may read the next six capital letters in the familiar acrostic fashion of the times: Ciphertext is: T S A V K I Plaintext, +4 is: In the previous, 1600, edition of this play, the word "Subjects" was not capitalized. The plaintext result is then and this is how one of Bacon's relations once spelled his name. Conclusion We have reached a place where each of these signatures cannot all be ascribed to happenstance. In my book I have described similar illustrations; they must not all have occurred by chance. separate examples are shown in which the playwright's name appears three or more times. times an abbreviation of his first name just precedes his last. times it is found in conjunction with a version of "cipher." times it is found twice within one line of text. In addition, this name appears on occasions together with, either in ciphertext or plaintext, the word "name." Must such subtlety forev- er escape the perception of the literary mind? While we follow the trail of these vintage etymological imprints, must we overlook such peculiarities? Our compass points across the wake of an immensely informed scholar; shall we still insist that he was innocent of cryptographic design--helpless to reveal his name through the composition of such coherent, but well concealed, devices? Indeed, what does it matter who wrote the works of William Shake- speare when the poems and the plays remain for us to admire and enjoy--to venerate, as Mark Twain said, "until the last sun goes down"? It matters because truth matters. There is some elemental secret about Francis Bacon's life, some basic circumstance still unexplained. At least Ben Jonson must have known. Had Bacon other friends, faithful to this strange trust, who never revealed his quiet deeds? Have the descendants of such a coterie persisted through the long ages? Do such initiates still quietly enjoy this deception with cryptic smiles? In 1621, when he retired from public life, he wrote a letter to his friend Count Gondomar, the Spanish Ambassador: Now indeed both my age, the state of my fortune, and also that of my genius, which I have hitherto so parsimoniously satisfied, call me, as I depart from the of Public Affairs, to devote myself to letters; to marshal the Intellectual of the present, and to help those of future time. Perchance that will be my honour; and I may pass the remainder of my life as if in the vestibule of a better one. It is amusing to contemplate in our imaginations the scene as the curtain rises for the first act of a faithful production of "The Tempest." According to Shakespeare's own stage directions, " " What is the first word that the "Master" shouts above the din? Not really "Bote-swaine," --that extraordinary man of astonishing equivocacy, that man who, Ben Jonson wrote, "could never pass by a jest." Finis BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Penn Leary has been a trial lawyer in his native city of Omaha, Nebraska since 1947. During WW II he was a bomber test pilot assigned to Wright Field and later to O.S.S. He is a writer in the fields of law, electron- ics, weather and aeronautics. His hobbies include photography, printing, machine shop work, electronics, Elizabethan history, computers and cryp- tography. He wouldn't mind if you bought a copy of his book, available from the author. The book contains 313 pages, 16 photo illustrations, a bibliography and an index. The price is $15.00 postpaid anywhere. The DOS disk is $3.00 pp. and contains the full text of the book, the cryptographic program and other probative files. Sorry, no credit cards. Penn Leary 218 So. 95 Omaha NE 68114 Tel. 402-391-0188 Fax 402-398-9470 CIS 70665,1065 AOL pennl@aol.com