Alphabets; factoral values

Shakespeare's Epitaph

A. Values of Text and Names

E. Gematric aspects of the 4 Y-Words;

F. Meaning of letter Y

G. The Y-words in the Angel's Annunciation to Mary

I. Introduction

II. IESUS and his Titles in the Annunciation account

H. Cross and Salvation: the meaning of Ypsilon and 22, 23

J. The Annunciation words in Greek and Latin

K. Shakespeare understands himself as Mary's Son

6	GOOD FREND FOR IESVS SAKE FORBEARE
6	TO DIGG THE DVST ENCLOASED HEARE.
8	BLESTE BE YE MAN YT SPARES THES STONES
8	AND CVRST BE HE YT MOVES MY BONES.

I. Introduction

1. The Roman practice of gematria was based on the principles and meanings of the decimal system. Shakespeare somehow was able to obtain that knowledge and to develop his own concept. As he understood the close relationship between 22 and 23, he saw a chance in counting the letter Y both according to the Roman alphabet (22) and the alphabet of his own time (23). God gives every Age its own meaning.

2. Shakespeare did not care about the position of the letter YPSILON in the Greek alphabet. It's numeric value (NV) according to the Roman alphabet is 102, its factoral value (FV) 68. This enables an internal ratio of 34*(2:1) and an external ratio of 34*(2:3). The NV 102 connects YPSILON to the identical value of PENSATOR, the 8 different letters of the SATOR Square.

If Y is counted 23, the NV of YPSILON is 103, which is also the NV of SHAKESPEARE, the FV 78:

YPSILON			sm.
	NS	FS
22	102	68	170
23	103	78	181
	205	146	351

The total 351 = 27*13 is the sum of the numbers 1-26. Its NV is 22.

II. IESUS and his Titles in the Annunciation account

1. By explicitly naming IESVS in his epitaph, Shakespeare makes clear that he expects his eternal salvation and reward from him. The first time the name of Jesus is made known is when the Angel Gabriel delivers his message to the Virgin Mary. It is written down in the gospel of St. Luke, 1:26-38. The Angel twice says who the announced child is:

HYIOS HYPSISTOU – Son of the Highest

HYIOS THEOU – Son of God.

2. Shakespeare, who recognized the piety of the Romans and their poets, wanted to unite their cultural and literary achievements with the culture that Christianity had brought into the world. He was much impressed with the SATOR Square and especially with the word SATOR itself, whose NV is 3*23. It must be remembered that the total numeric sum (NS) of the epitaph is 54*23. If Shakespeare gave the letter Y the value 23, he could connect the four words of the Annunciation scene with the SATOR Square.

3. In the Greek alphabet there was no letter for the breathed sound H. Each word beginning with a vowel was given a sign above it to indicate whether it was breathed or not. The two signs looked like a round bracket: ⁽ = breathed, ⁾ = unbreathed. So Shakespeare might have formed the idea to include words into his epitaph starting with a Y.

The TH in Greek was one letter, the THETA. Being pronounced as one sound, the English alphabet also had a character of its own, called "thorn". In handwriting it looked similar to a Y and finally was used in various documents. Shakespeare, of course, knew this. He could have written "BLESTE BE THE MAN", just as he said before THE DVST, but he wanted to make an assimilation to the other 3 Greek Y-words, which was possible because of the peculiarity of English language history to represent TH by the letter Y.

4. Shakespeare wanted four 2-letter words in his epitaph to combine their values with the word PE|NS|AT|OR. But he certainly intended to form analogous letter groups out of the four gospel terms. If he, in a kind of exchange, kept the three first letters of THEOU, he could go on to form three 2-letter with Y as first letter and the following one. The letter groups of the gospel and the Y-words of the epitaph can be arranged in a table together:

Luke	YI	YP	YI	THE
Epitaph	YE	YT	YT	MY

Shakespeare repeated YT analogous to twice YIOS. YE is the only word that refers semantically to THEOU.

What gematric parallels do exist?

5. A key to the understanding of Shakespeare's conception lies in the pair YI – YT. In the following table the values of the letters I and T are joined. There are again two counts (ct) because of the letter Y, once with 22 and once with 23:

ct.		23			22
		I	T	sm.	I	T	sm.	sm.
	NV	9	19	28	9	19	28
	FV	6	19	25	6	19	25
sm.				53			53	106
ct.		NV	FV		NV	FV
22	Y	22	13	35	22	13	35	70
23	Y	23	23	46	23	23	46	92
								268

The inversion numbers 35 a and 53 refer, as I have explained in the previous part, to the radial elements of the two concentric circles of the tetraktys star, representing the ratio 1:3 of area units. Radial elements exist in double number, which accounts for the sums 70 and 106. 70 is the NV, 106 the NV+FV 36 of IESUS.

The number 53 is a main gematric concept also in the results to follow.

6. The double nature of radial elements is reflected in the duplication of YI and YT. So at the centre of the Y-words is HYIOS – Son, twice referred to by the Angel in his Annunciation Speech. The values repeat the pattern of IESUS, but in reverse order:

	NV	FV	sm.		FV	NV	sm.
IESUS	70	36	106	HYIOS	52	72	124
	2*35		2*53		4*13		4*31

The inverse numbers 13 and 31 confirm the trinitarian meaning of 35 and 53 and their reference to the tetraktys star. The FV1/2 result in another number 53:

	NS	FS	sm.	FV1	FV2
IESUS	70	36	106	14	10
HYIOS	72	52	124	12	17
	142	88	230	26	27	53	283

The total sum 230 again emphasizes the significance of 23. The FS 88 can be understood as composed of the inverse numbers 35+53.

The number 53 is consists of its constituent components 26+27. It refers to the 26 or 27 elements of the octahedron, the 27^th element being the volume. The part number 26 and the whole number 27 form complements for 53. The total sum 283 has to be read as 28+3. It refers to two frames of double rhombi which, arranged rectangularly, can be shaped into an octahedron:

7. These are the total values of the 4 biblical pairs of letters:

ct	NS	FS	sm.
23	134	119	253	23*11
22	131	89	220	20*11
	265	208	473	43*11

Both sums are divisible by 11. The 23-count is matched by factor 23. The NS 265 = 5*53 refers to half the NS+FS of IESUS. Its single numbers represent the elements of the double triangle in the hexagon: 2 triangular areas, 6 lines, 5 points:

265 is the FV of its inverse variant 526 = 2*263. IESUS as the second divine person is "the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation" (Col 1,15).

8. The biblical pairs of letters can be connected with the Y-words of Shakespeare's epitaph and finally with PENSATOR. These are the results:

	Bible			Epitaph				PENSATOR
ct	NS	FS	sm.	NS	FS	sm.	tot.	NS	FS	sm.	tot.
23	134	119	253	147	142	289	542
22	131	89	220	143	102	245	465
	265	208	473	290	244	534	1007	102	80	182	1189
1007 = 19*53 > FV 72; 1189 = 29*41>FV 70

The FV 72 and 70 correspond to the NV of HYIOS and IESUS.

The numbers 29 and 41 both refer to the elements of a cross out of two double rhombi, the first to its frame, the second to all its elements:

9. The 4 full biblical words provide proportional results only if Y is counted 23:

	NV	FV	sm.		NV	FV	sm.
HYIOS	72	52	124	HYIOS	72	52	124
HYPSISTOU	144	96	240	THEOU	66	48	114
sm.	216	148	364		138	100	238
72:144 = 72*(1:2); 96:144 = 48*(2:3)
72:66 = 6*(12:11); 48:66 = 6*(8:11)
364:238 = 14*(26:17) = 14*43

The table shows some noteworthy ratios. All results are even numbers. The number 364 corresponds to twice the NV of SATOR OPERA TENET.

Why do these 4 words only achieve such proportional results if Y is counted 23? Today Y takes the 25^th position in the alphabet. We can give an answer only if we believe that God is the supreme power of cosmic order from the highest category of things down to the lowest. He also steers the affairs of human history. His wisdom in guiding and determining them are beyond the capacities of man's intelligence. As I have already pointed out, there was a period of the Christian Age called Renaissance and Humanism that tried to unite the cultures of Antiquity with its own culture. For a short time the numbers 22 and 23 which ontologically belong closely together were both open for being associated with the letter Y. The 3 Greek Y-words in the biblical account of the Annunciation were suitable to be brought in line with SATOR, whose gematric value is 3*23. In this way the name SATOR received, as it were, a Christian identity as the one God in three persons revealed by the "Word become Flesh". Perhaps Shakespeare was a greater theologian than we imagine – and a phantastic mathematician in addition.

10. One Y-word has remained unregarded so far, the word MY, that concerns Shakespeare's own person and his eternal salvation. What can it gematrically mean, surrounded by such religious context? The following table will show:

	NS	FS
23	35	30	65
22	34	20	54
	69	50	119

The double count produces the gematric structure of SATOR: 35 for the first and last letters, 34 for the three middle letters.

The NS 35 plus the NV+FV 35 of Y link Shakespeare to the NV of IESUS.

11. At second sight I've found a proportional relationship between the 4 complete biblical words (BW), the 4 Y-words of the Epitaph (EP) and the biblical letter pairs (BL):

ct	23			22			23	22
	BW	EP	sm.	BW	EP	sm.	BL		sm.
NS	354	147	501	351	143	494	134	131	265	1260
FS	248	142	390	218	102	320	119	89	208	918
	602	289	891	569	254	814	253	220	473	2178
23	891+253 = 11*(81+23) = 11*104
22	814+220 = 11*(74+20) = 11*94
23:22	22*(52:47) = 11*11*18

The joined sums of the 23- and 22-counts are both divisible by 11, which demonstrates the close relationship between the two numbers. The product result 11*11*18 can mean several things: Most general is the idea of a circle arc, starting from a certain point, reaching its symmetrical counterpoint and returning to its beginning. If the two points are numbered with 1 and 2, the orbital movement can be represented by the number 121, which is 11*11:

If the number 18 is added, there seem to be two ideas both connected with the tetraktys star. The first refers to the 2+3 and 2+2 diametrical elements of the two concentric circles, numbered from 1-5 from the centre:

The numbers of the inner circle sum up to 11, the numbers of the outer ring area to 18. The area ratios covered by the numbers 11+(11+18) are 1:(1:2) = 1:3. So Shakespeare's intention was to make a reference to the doctrine of the trinitarian God.

The second meaning derives from the geometric figure of the double rhombus with 11 elements for each. The points and lines of the frame can be numbered from 1-17. If the two ends are connected, there is place for a second number which is 18:

By connecting two double rhombi, an octahedron can be formed (s.above).

The total FS 918 and NS 1260 form the ratio 18*(51:70). The FV of 11*104 and 11*94 are 30 and 60 and so confirm the importance of the ratio 1:2. The balance calculation provides the following result:

		FV	sm.
NS	11*104	30
FS	11*94	60
sm.	11*198	90
FV	30	13	43

12. It's not so surprising that both gematric counts of the 2 titles for Jesus in the Annunciation scene also congrue with the word PENSATOR referring to the eternal judge who weighs the merits and the offences of men after their lives have ended. According to Christian doctrine Jesus Christ "will come again with glory to judge the living and the dead" (et iterum venturus est cum gloria iudicare vivos et mortuos).

If the NV 102 of PENSATOR is added to the 23-count, and the FV 80 to the 22-count of St. Luke's words, the sums are divisible by 11 again:

PENSATOR	102	80	sm.
23 ct NS+FS	602
23 ct NS+FS		569
sm.	704	649	1353
	11*64	11*59	11*123

Written: February 2009

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