Posted replies to Grumman, Brennen and Lorenzo. Suitable to each, I hope.
I think it's fine if no one cares to write rime royal verses in the Rime Royal thread. It takes time to do. That's why I say it was impossible for rural William to write in such a learned and lettered fashion right off the bat, so to speak, with Venus & Adonis and Rape of Lucrece, both of which show knowledge of advanced rhetorical techniques and understanding of classical legends. Neither show A TRACE of Warwickshire dialect which William spoke.

However, this be said, and it be true
Kit Marley wrote those poems without ado
Except to publish them to bid adieu.

> >We'll never know, I guess-- their tongues are tied,
> >But I, like Lord Randall, can say "I tried."
>
> But RANdall is the name. Yes? Thus you're fried.
> And I, like Fidel Castro, eyes a-far: (that means "a-fire," Dave)
> Say, "Close, Senor, and yet, Ai! No cigar."

In faith, Lorenzo, words half-baked like "l'ar" (that means "liar" Lo)
Suggest to me you didn't get too far (that means "fire" Lo)
About your hero, Ed Devere, the dunce.
I've asked you to not only twice, but once.

Text of The Rape of Lucrece

Rime toil

The silence of the Strats and Oxfrodians proves my point. Both camps are like groupies, who can't write poetry themselves, so they worship an illiterate bumpkin (or a highborn lowlife) who didn't have the education or technical skill to write a literary masterpiece like *Lucrece* in 1594 (or any other year, for that matter).

The attempt by Crowley and other ignoramuses to belittle Shakespeare's achievement, by calling it juvenile only reveals their own incompetence. Crowley can't even write ONE single stanza of rime royal, yet he says the author wrote it before puberty. Stratfordians have a different problem: their man was an "upstart crow" when Venus & Adonis was written. And apparently they can't write "Shakespearean-style" poetry.

Others have doubted my contention that the inability to write poetry diminishes one's authority for judging poetry competently. Of course, everyone is entitled to an opinion, but not all opinions are equally valid. Out of shape arm-chair quarterbacks can toss and catch a football. Most tennis fans can hit the ball over the net a few times. Even people in wheelchairs can shoot baskets, but Stratfordians can not write even a single stanza of "rime royal" to prove that their (unlettered) hero could have written it.

I'm certain that of those who have written "acceptable" rime royal in this thread (acceptable meaning ABOUT Shakespeare, not about me, written in true iambic pentameter, riming ababbcc)...none would minimize the author's great achievement in *Rape of Lucrece* -- 265 STANZAS of rime royal on an important topic (the elimination of tyrants and establishment of republic), dedicated to a young nobleman on the rise. Most definitely superior to oranges this time of year. And much better than shallow (if entertaining) concoctions like Titus Andronicus and Comedy of Errors. Lucrece was deep, in more ways than one.

Now here's one for the grave and wiser sort:
The man who wrote *Lucrece* had been to court.
He wrote the poem on purpose, not for sport,
To give a revolution his support;
For most who read Lucrece, well understood
Between the lines the message: change was good--
Especially from tyranny, and well it should
By Jove and folks be overthrown (it would).

Th' above is NOT rime royal verse I know,
but maybe soon it will so flow,
But now it's your turn, reader, yo,
stop arguing in so-so prose
and picking one another's nose
if you know who wrote those
Lucrece and Venus and Adonis, prove it:
William, Francis, Ned or Kit--
In verses lyrical and accurate.

Rime Royal (general note)

Rime royal blues

Lorenzo's spoofin' usually, like me,
But I'm a bit more serious, I guess:
I think rime-royal poetry is key,
Since Strats can't rime of William's mental stress
In penning *Venus and Adonis*, Yes?
I've challenged them to write some truthful verse
About their Will (not me, or Marley's curse).

Just think about it, folks, for a short spell:
Rime Royal (when it's right) can not be false!
That's why no Strat or Oxfrod [sic] dudes can tell
Their heroes' tales in verse: The task appalls,
Since neither camp has evidence or balls.
True poets will agree Kit wrote *Lucrece*
Unless Will's fans "step up" and state their piece.

I doubt it can be done, to tell the truth:
The facts cannot be forced to fit his case--
Like thinking an old man can cut a tooth.
In 1594, none scribbled plays:
The bard back then wrote narrative most days.
But William would've had to earn a living;
He had close kin to whom he would be giving.

And how'd he learn to write without a trace
Of Warwick dialect in that long poem?
And write rhetorically in every phrase?
At 12, he'd left his school to work at home
And six years on, hitched up, a kid to come.
Now how in all gods' names could it be done?
Though smoking, there're no bullets in Will's gun.

And Oxford is another instance of
A lack of Latin credibility,
Though his supporters think he is above
All others born of no nobility.
(Though Bacon is possibility.)
We'll never know, I guess-- their tongues are tied,
But I, like Lord Randall, can say "I tried."


omarlo
"mark the mustard"

p.s. i hope Peter Farey and the other members of the Rime Royal club will forgive "false/appalls" "come/home" "trace/phase" and "case/plays".

Hipp in High Country

Met John Hippisley in Denver last weekend. He was the guy dressed up as "Marlowe" to promote Marlowe's Restaurant in Canterbury, England ten years ago, during events to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Marlowe's "sudden end" in 1593. We travelled to Colorado Springs for a meeting of the Marlowe Lives! Association at Garden of the Gods. I'll post some photos later.

Elizabeth Writes Re: Lucrece

I went through the footnotes to Lucrece in _Venus and Adonis, Lucrece
and the Minor Poems_ by Albert W. Feuillerat, Yale University Press,1927. Feuillerat's book--I think he also wrote the Yale Shakespeare--is an example
of the supremely high level of Shakespeare [ not to be confused with Stratfordian] scholarship that preceded the loss of (especially) Latin and Greek in academia.

Feuillerat has about a hundred notes for Lucrece, most of them taken up with correcting other scholars who misattribute lines to Ovid, not Livy, but there are
> definitely some lines that would defy attribution to a very young poet--I don't know how old Crowley thinks Oxford was when he wrote Lucrece--late adolescence?

Here's one of the notes on music that looks intellectually mature:

In line 1134. descant' st. 'To descant: to play or sing an air in harmony with a fixed theme' (N.E. better skill. I.e. with better skill. So Malone and others. But Wyndham explains more subtly: 'p, [sic] here, as ever, exhibits a complete grasp of technical terms. He makes Lucrece contrast her sad, monotonous accompaniment of groans-- humming on Tarquin still--with the treble descant of the nightingale, complaining in a higher register and with more frequent modulations of the wrong wrought her by Tereus, according to Ovid's tale. The one he compares to a single droning base, chiefly in the diapason or lower octave; the other to the "better skill" or more ingenious artifice of a contrapuntal melody scored above it.' Ibid. p 160.

There are numerous legal terms in Lucrece which are punned on by a poet with easy familiarity with law. Knowledge of law would put the author beyond the age of a young adolescent.
>
> Elizabeth

Good info, as usual, from Elizabeth...As she has said elsewhere, it's down to
Marley and Bacon...and you/we haven't yet discussed what their relationship might have been prior to 1593. Marley, like many other poets of the day, aspired to the favor of the Pembroke clan, (and appears to have gotten it, judging from the testimonial of "Heminge and Condell" in the Folio).

So what's Bacon's story, circa early 1590s? What do we (you) KNOW? and how might he have had a connection to Marley...because if Bacon DID write V&A and Lucrece, then how did he get hold of a manuscript of H&L. He didn't travel in the same circle(s) as Marley.

The LASI Award Verses

I wrote:

> >Rime Royal is the longest single thread ,
> >Because 100's more than 91,
> >Where poets posted verses from their head(s)
> >And played with words and had a bit of fun,
> >And learned a thing or two when it was done.
> >Perhaps it isn't over, more's to come
> >And Groves and Kennedy will submit some.

Lorenzo replied:

> You ought observe, that, hoarder of the corn,
> (I.e. the thread, "Corn Hoarder"), was the whence,
> Wherefrom our most intriguing thread was born,
> Due due, Eliza's due. Come, hie thee hence;
> Due dues? Unduly rendered ever since.
> Nor never once at all, that I recall.
> Oh well, goodnight Irene, goodnight y'all.
>
> Lorenzo
> "Mark the music."

I replied:

Art Neuendorffer made that point himself.
Eliza's due th'award, no thanks to you,
A shiny LASSIE high up on her shelf,
A dusty sign of research overdue.
But must she dully bid D. Webb adieu?
And you, high L'o, should write of Ned DeVere:
Irene'll drink the dew in her parched ear.

omarlo
"mark the mustard"

Nihil obstat

Nihil Brennen (Spam Scone) prompted me to write:

Obviously anyone who doubts the ascription of this poem to William of Stratford, must believe that the name on the dedicatory epistle to Henry Wriothesley...WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE...was a pseudonym, an "invention," if you will. If Marlowe were going to continue writing, he would require a name that was not too obviously a pseudonym (like Penn Naigm), yet suggestive (like Neil Downing). Don't you agree? I say IF.

But back Nihil...the Marlovians have yet to have high-profile convert. I've been courting Grumman for years, but he's too comfortable with what he thinks he knows. You could be the first to pull a "Richie Miller" (Richie came to his senses and rejected the ridiculous Oxfraudian claim in favor of William. Well, maybe he hasn't come completely to his senses. It's like he got a card that says, go back to Strat. It would really be "something" if Nihil would convert. So here's a reading list:

1. In Search of Christopher Marlowe
2. Nicholl's The Reckoning
3. Hero and Leander
4. Venus and Adonis
5. reread Lucrece
6. Farey's essays

Not necessarily in that order, one group is about the bio, another literary.


To be fair, Nihil can recommend 5 books to me, Shakespeare-related. I promise to read the first one on the list (if I haven't already, in which case, I'll read the next, etc.), if you do the same with Wraight.

More with Nihil

Neil Brennen (Spam Scone) write:

> As with your fellow-traveler Toby, when you've lost an argument, you
> end with a jade's trick. I know you of old.

What does Neil mean "lost an argument"? What argument? I thought I was having a discussion, a brain-storming session with Elizabeth.

> > > > 1. The timing: Marlowe dies, Shakespeare's born within a fortnight.
> > >
> > > Even allowing for the figurative "birth", this is evidence of nothing
> > > other than coincidence.
> >
> > It's one of many coincidences. You have enough, it becomes
> > circumstantial evidence.
>
> But as we've seen, your hand is empty. You have nothing to support
> this singular coincidence.

Which hand? In some disciplines having an empty hand is desirable.

Do you mean I have no further evidence? How do you know what evidence I have? Much of it is public domain stuff. It all adds up.


> > > > 2. Dedication promising "graver labor" (Marley and Shakespeare loved
> > > > wordplay)
> > >
> > > So does Bob Grumman, yet I've never seen him suggested as author of
> > > the Canon.
> >
> > Clever.
>
> No, not at all. I could have suggested any number of writers fond of
> wordplay. The point is this is a worthless claim in the absence of
> anything concrete.

You are too modest. It WAS somewhat clever, because BG is such an amusing example. Not sure what you mean by "anything concrete."

Tell you what, Neil, why don't you take a breather and let Elizabeth Weir say what SHE has to say. Then we might learn more than you and I are likely to, since you are "arguing" without knowledge of the poems in question. Your quiver is empty, so to speak.


> > > > 3. V&A contains echoes of H&L, including the phrase "rose cheek'd
> > > > Adonis" which appears NOT WHERE ELSE IN WORLD LITERATURE, but appears
> > > > only in V&A and in H&L (which wasn't printed until 1598) on line 93
> > > > (V&A was published in '93).
> > >
> > > We don't know that H & L didn't circulate in manuscript, or that
> > > Shakespeare didn't meet Marlowe and got the phrase from him. And
> > > there's nothing extrordinary about an unknown writer echoing a more
> > > famous one.

I like the second option better. It's cleaner. like the scene in the tavern in Shakespeare in Love, Ethel the Pirate's Daughter...but "Rose cheek'd Adonis" instead. I like it. I think our work here is done.


> > Now this bears some exploration. But to do so, it will help to read
> > Hero & Leander. Let's work out the time line, etc. for the scenario
> > you suggest.
>
> Just like a wack mind to take a dismissal and turn it into a
> "scenario". Yes, H & L could have possibly circulated in manuscript,
> as allegedly Shakespeare's "sugarded" sonnets did.

Neil, I find the phrase "wack" offensive. It implies that I follow THE ONE TRUE WACK -- Bob Grumman, which I don't. If you're in love with the homonym, however, you can think of me as a "whack," okay? Whack. with an h.

> However, as
> bookburn has pointed out, a reference to roses in the cheeks is not
> unknown in the work of other writers.

Neil, this has been hashed out before, with one or two heavyweights chipping in, and the phrase "rose cheek'd Adonis" is found only in Marlowe and Shakespeare. These are not the only parallels between them. I really don't have time to go over it all again with you personally. Read the old threads or Hero & Leander. I recommend the latter and enjoy!!! I read your short story, by the way, and the tale in H&L is similar.

And as our Ever-Posting Poet
> hinted, there's nothing remarkably poetic about the phrase.

Maybe not "remarkably" poetic, but poetic.

And I like that phrase Ever-Posting Poet. Have you used it before? Can I use it? I'll trade you one "rose cheek'd Adonis" and a "tears from sluices" for it.

> In which H&L circulated in manuscript. When do you think
> > William got hold of it. What month and year? Where did he get it? What
> > connection did he have with the Marlowe circle. I'm not saying you're
> > wrong, I'm asking you to think it through. You know how difficult it
> > is to write elegant verses, like Marlowe or Shakespeare.
>
> I know how difficult it is for me to write verse - I won't speak for
> the difficulty to Shakespeare or Marlowe. I'm sure that writing music
> is equally difficult - except perhaps for a gifted few: Mozart, etc.
>
> V&A was
> > registered in April 1593. Let's give him time to write it, along with
> > his other duties. So when did William get the ms? Bear in mind, this
> > would mean that CM's poem was completed and in circ by then.

> > > > The key evidence really is the alleged murder. If you reject Poley,
> > > > Skeres and Frizers story, based on what we now know about the men and
> > > > their activities before and immediatley following the Deptford event
> > > > (in other words, they were PROFESSIONAL LIARS! get it?) then school's
> > > > out.
> > >
> > > All antiShakespeareans (this includes you and Peter Farey) begin and
> > > end with conspiracy theories.
> >
> > Well, duh. ;-)
>
> Yes, that was a truism, wasn't it? Well, others have shot holes in
> Farey's speculations, so there's no need to trot them out again.

OF COURSE, holes can be shot in speculations. But there is pretty strong circumstantial evidence that CM's death was faked in order to deceive and appease Whitgift's sense of justice.

I'd be quite confident in taking the Marlowe case before a modern jury. In fact, if you want to debate the issue in public sometime, you're on. In Philadelphia, maybe. I've done it before, I can do it again.

But right now, you haven't read enough to do that. So let's hear what Elizabeth (who HAS read a lot) has to say, okay? So do your homework, and I'll see you in Philly, maybe.


> > > > Even WITH the murder, Marley could have written V&A, since it was
> > > > registered (anonymously) in April, weeks before CM's sudden end.
> > >
> > > Perhaps he could have. However, there is no evidence that he did so.
> >
> > Actually, the evidence is stylistic and literary. Only proves that he
> > COULD have written it, not that he did.
>
> When I say "perhaps he could have", I mean "from the technical
> standpoint he was capable of writing the poem", just as Prokofiev was
> technically capable of composing Stravinsky's Le Sacre or de Falla's
> Three Cornered Hat. I am not suggesting that he did so.

hey, i'm not a classical music expert, but those styles are very different, i guess? But the styles of Marley and the author of V&A are VERY SIMILAR. Very, very similar. See? Well you WILL see when you've read H&L.

> Now Bacon, on the other hand
> > had shown no poetic skill up til 1593, so far as I know. And William?
> > he was an "upstart crow" in 1592. Upstart indeed.
> >
> > > There is evidence that someone by the name of William Shakespeare did
> > > write V & A.
> >
> > Yes. There is. There is also evidence of writers using pseudonyms
> > before this. Martin Marprelate.
>
> Yes, but there is no evidence that a pseudonym was being used in this
> case.

There is evidence that a pseudonym MAY WELL HAVE been used in this case. Because of all the "candidates" only Marley had a MOTIVE and OPPORTUNITY to use a nom de plume. Why in the name of all that's politick would Bacon have come on to Southampton that way at that time? Shhhh. Rhetorical question, Neil. Let Elizabeth say something.

> > > > I am only offering evidence that existed in 1593 to show that Marley
> > > > probably wrote V&A. Can you do the same?
> > >
> > > Your Emperor has no clothes, Dave.
> >
> > But he has ice cream. mmmmm. ice cream.
> >
>
> As with your fellow-traveler Toby, when you've lost an argument, you
> end with a jade's trick. I know you of old.

I didn't "lose the argument" because we weren't arguing! Nor did you evince the evidence I requested. But that's okay. Give me the scoop later.

Oh Elizabeth, where are you?

When last we spoke, you were going to offer your evidence that Bacon wrote V&A under the nom de plume Shakespeare in 1593, dedicated to Southampton. You say Essex would have "bitch slapped" the younger Earl for accepting it from William, the low class actor. Only Bacon and Marley could have done it, you said. So where shall I send your ML!A secret decoder ring*, Elizabeth?


David More


*in case anyone should be mystified, the secret decoder ring is a joke, harkening back to the old Captain Midnight radio/tv show. There's probably a web page or two about it.

And then there were 2

> There are only two authorship candidates remaining in the
> field--Bacon and Marlowe--but I don't see a Marlovian case.
>
> Elizabeth

Gee, Elizabeth, I thought we were hashing it out, and I find you here I got evidence, don't worry. And you? Venus and Adonis and Lucrece.

1. The timing: Marlowe dies, Shakespeare's born within a fortnight.
2. Dedication promising "graver labor" (Marley and Shakespeare loved wordplay)
3. V&A contains echoes of H&L, including the phrase "rose cheek'd Adonis" which appears NOT WHERE ELSE IN WORLD LITERATURE, but appears only in V&A and in H&L (which wasn't printed until 1598) on line 93 (V&A was published in '93).

The key evidence really is the alleged murder. If you reject Poley, Skeres and Frizers story, based on what we now know about the men and their activities before and immediatley following the Deptford event (in other words, they were PROFESSIONAL LIARS! get it?) then school's out.

I am only offering evidence that existed in 1593 to show that Marley probably wrote V&A. Can you do the same?

Hoping you don't "duck" away again,

Groves of Academe

If you read the post below about Neil Brennen, just today I heard from Dr. Peter Groves, a lecturer at Monash University in Australia, who wrote a book on English meter, who claimed that Brennen's verses scanned fine as iambic pentameter (I think that's what he meant. I wrote to him for clarification. )

Neil down to size

There's this guy who looks like this, who posts to the HLAS newsgroup, "Spam Scone" (Neil Brennen) who is always making demeaning remarks about people, but doesn't offer any evidence or information himself (that I have noticed). He's been on Greg Reynolds case for a long time, and Greg has been putting up Quality posts there for years! This morning I wrote Neil the following e-mail message:

Friendly suggestion: why don't you stop making snide comments from the sidelines and contribute something positive and productive to the group? Reynolds has contributed so much more than you over the years, it ain't even funny. Knave and Grumman used to be like you, but they learned the value of evidence over sarcastic insults. Hopefully you will too. To be honest with you, I keep reading your posts in hopes that you will contribute something positive or help advance our [knowledge of] Shakespeare and his times, but have been disappointed. But since I'm an optimist, i'm sending you this message, in case it helps. I hope so. As I said, i'm an optimist. And *Hero & Leander* is a fine example of CM's craftsmanship.
Okay, that was that... You've read this far, stay with me ...The night before I posted some verses in the "Rime Royal" newsgroup thread (HLAS) to Lorenzo, a poet from California with whom I've had friendly e-mail exchanges:

Yo, yo, Lorenzo, my new friend,
Won't you compose new verses for this thread
About old Ned--or better, Kit? Pretend
You read the news of Marley first instead,
And learned the muses' darling wasn't dead!
For if that's so, you've got a richer story
About a broken bough, and fallen glory.

So Neil Brennen, from Pennsylvania writes:

Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight,
And burned is Apollo`s laurel bough,
When pseudo-poets think "yo, yo" can rate
With Marlowe's mighty line. Oh God, and how
Lowercase does go on, and on, and now
And again shows that doggerel is king!
Truly, it seems, that dumb birds may now sing.

If the first two lines seem familiar, it's because they are actually MARLOWE'S! (from Doctor Faustus).

Neil's own words continue (notice the drop in quality and sentiment).

They are actually self-referential...because, although the lines don't scan very well, they're the best thing Brennen has written--so far.

I think my own verses DO scan well (of course), and that I succeeded in communicating to Lorenzo (the best poet in the HLAS group, as far as I know) to write some verses about the 17th Earl of Oxford--or better yet, Marley.

Although (judging from his photo) he's a large man, in Shakespeare studies he's a lightweight, because he hasn't read enough....and he would do well to follow the example of his Stratfordian betters: David Webb, Peter Groves, Terry Ross, David Kathman, and others who know their stuff, but never resort to cheap shots, except for maybe Kathman and Groves, and Webb occasionally. ;-)

For Brennen, the HLAS newsgroup is a place for his personal amusement at the expense of others. He has succeeded in pissing off the usually unflappable Peter Farey, the unusually testy Greg Reynolds, and even me.
If this were Survivor, he'd have been voted off months ago, I'm sure. Right after me.

Still, his versifying shows a bit of promise, if he would just write about William or Edward or Francis or Kit or and not about me, or Reynolds, or Elizabeth Weir or anyone else with ill intent. It's simply bad form. As Reynolds said, it's not a chatroom.

The good news is Lorenzo DID write some rime royal -- not about the topic I suggested, but they were good anyway.

I'll add links later. Enough for now.

a reminder Elizabeth Weir that she has some splainin' to do in the Kathman's Critics thread. Also, who else might have been given access to the Strachey report--names if you have them. (if you've already answered this, where?)

yours truly,
David More

you can call me Dave, and think of me as:

"Grumman with hair"
"A dumber Webb"
"Baker on meds"
"Kathman's downstate foil"
"Lorenzo's Omarlo"
"Farey's shadow"
"Greg's sparring partner"
"Knave's rhyme"
"Ross's cr*ss"
or "the merchant of Marlowe"

Wraight's Riposte reposted

When pigs fly

I agree with Mark Steese, Richie Miller isn't fanatic, but Weir isn't hateful either. I appreciate Richie's closer look at the Hunt(?) annotation on his website. ... Keep up the good work, Miller. Your decision to put the Oxfrodian (sic) lunacy behind you speaks well of your common sense. Looking forward to your attempt to demolish the Marlowe case for authorship. Here's a start: there is no Marlowe case. He was killed on May 30, 1593 (nearly every regular poster to this group will agree.) And yet, a niggling possibility remains. I mean, pigs COULD fly couldn't they? You could strap them into a hang glider, they'd probably really enjoy it, the breeze blowing in their snouts, ears blowing back. If only someone would put up some evidence that his death was faked. Here, what's this?

JSTOR: Shakespeare Quarterly

Weir having some fun now

Message to David Webb: Well, Dave, I guess we'll have to see if Elizabeth Weir has answers to, or questions about, my queries. Unlike you, i don't have much history of debate with her, but have always admired her resourceful research and in-your-face approach to presenting evidence (although from what you say, she is not so bold in putting up evidence for many of the claims she makes). Will she give me evidence for the claims she makes below? Will she be brave enough to explore the evidence surrounding Marlowe's sudden end, the immediate (re)birth of Shakespeare in print; and the posthumous history of Marlowe's reputation and literary publications? The balls (sic) in her court ...

p.s. to Kathman on the Subject of this thread:
How about those contemporary critics who say Lucrece is inferior goods!? The last reference you offered was 43 years ago. Critical opinion and scholarly research into V&A and Lucrece has changed and expanded greatly since then, no?

To Dave K:

You knew that Prince just died this month?
Obituary

I'll try to obtain his 1960 Arden edition of the poems. He says "it will not be difficult to argue..." Does he? On what grounds is Lucrece 'a failure' I wonder. Still he notices that V&A was "complete artistic success"! written in 1592-93, when William was described (Strats claim) as an upstart crow! Neither of these poems appear to have been written by an upstart. In fact, Lucrece, is a very ambitious (conceit deceitful compact kind) mini-epic about the founding of empires. But I'll read what Prince and others have to say about the poem, too.