SHAKESPEARE'S GEMATRIC
CONSTRUCTION OF HIS EPITAPH
REVIEW
2014 on the four y-words
I. Introduction
1. At
a distance of five years I wonder how many things I compiled on the 4 y-words YE
2. Shakespeare's
epitaph may be called a cryptogram in that the poet has encoded his deepest
beliefs that he wants to share only with the eternal power he feels responsible
to and with those who have gained sufficient insight into his cryptic science.
Perhaps we should rather call it "divine science", because in truth
there is nothing irrational, but lucid and logical light.
3. After
five years I still keep to my principal tenets:
–
Shakespeare gained full
knowledge of the Roman gematric system. Whether it in some way survived or was
reconstructed during Renaissance, is totally unexplored. Evidence increases
that Shakespeare spent several of his "lost years" in
–
A lot of circumstances
surrounding Shakespeare's life suggest that he inclined to "the old
faith". When I started examining his epitaph, I was far from conjecturing
Catholic evidence in it. But in the end, gematric results convinced me that
"MY" refers to the Virgin MARY, mother of Jesus Christ.
In matters of grand
intellectual achievements we should not underestimate the motivation of
religious devotion which may even be the strongest impetus for finest spiritual
art. Highest aspirations may have urged Shakespeare to match his poetical
forerunner OVID. I do not appreciate people who keep levelling down
high ethical standards upheld by others. These people are suspect to conceal
their own deficiencies of moral views.
4.
I do not want to rewrite the
high implications of the Y-words. I am rather trying to be as formal and
sober-minded as possible. So I can't spare the readers going through the sites
in point.
II. The Logical Concept
1.
The letter Y
with three lines meeting in the centre is a strong trinitarian symbol.
2.
The possessive pronoun MY, which Shakespeare was determined to use, forms
the first and last letter of MARY.
3. The
redemption of mankind starts with the Annunciation of the Angel Gabriel and
ends with Jesus' Crucifixion. At the beginning Jesus is conceived in Mary as
her son, at the end Jesus entrusts all mankind to his mother as her children.
4. The
true belief in Jesus Christ starts with what the Angel tells Mary about the son
she is to conceive: He is "Son of the Highest", and "Son of
God". The Greek words are (H)YIOS (H)YPSISTOU and (H)YIOS THEOU.
5. The
letter "thorn" (þ) was often written like a Y so that the article "THE" and "THAT" was rendered by Y plus superscript E and T. Shakespeare makes intelligent
use of this ambiguity with YE YT YT MY In the first case Y means TH both in Greek and English, in the
next two cases Y in Greek and TH in English, in the last case Y in Greek and in English.
6. According
to the Greek pattern YE
corresponds to THEOU, twice YT to (H)YIOS and MY to (H)YPSISTOU. But
Shakespeare deals with this correlation only formally. Thus YE is to be equalled to THE of
7. Y is the 22nd
of the Latin and the 23rd
of the
|
|
(F = area size)
The numbers equate radial
elements with area size: 3 radial elements of the
inner circle mean 1 area unit, 2 radial elements of the
outer ring 2 area units.
Shakespeare responded to
these two combinations of 4 by determining the epitaph's numerical sum (NS) 1242 + the factoral sum (FS) 971 to total 2213. The two letters of
MY have a similar
gematric pattern: 12+23.
8.
Shakespeare counts the Y in the Greek words as 22 and the English words as 23.
III. Calculations
1. In
three Addenda I dealt with the 4values of
Ovid's and Shakespeare's epitaphs. The importance of the Y-words has to be
verified mainly on that basis.