The Lone Oxfordian: Recent Comments

Comment on Charles Beauclerk Q&A Video (taped at the Shakespeare Symposium, May 8, 2010, Watertown, Mass.)

2010-08-19T19:22:50Z

Great post!

Comment on "Principum Amicitias" : Does it matter?

2010-08-01T10:36:38Z

This truly changed my insight and ideas. In a good way.

Comment on Symposium: Shakespeare from the Oxfordian Perspective

2010-03-02T06:16:38Z

The updated version by Warren Hope and Kim Holston of their earlier survey of the Shakespeare Authorship Question. Includes an annotated bibliography of selected publications on the SAQ.A concise introduction to the Shakespeare Authorship Question. An excellent resource for students new to the controversy.

Comment on Symposium: Shakespeare from the Oxfordian Perspective

2009-12-08T21:23:36Z

The Shakespeare authorship debate has been a lifelong interest of mine. I am an Oxfordian.

For me, the only point that is murky is the so called “1604 problem”. If Edward de Vere died in 1604, how does one explain the fact that new plays continued to surface long after his death?

Thanks very mech.

Most sincerely,

David N. Guthrie
12117 Goddard Avenue
Overland Park, KS 66213

Comment on Actor Kenneth Branagh moving towards Oxford?

2009-05-25T17:56:12Z

Thanks for interesting article. I will take into consideration.

Comment on Actor Kenneth Branagh moving towards Oxford?

2009-05-17T14:17:01Z

I think it's only fair to correct this post in that Branagh came out the next day or two and said he's still a staunch Stratfordian. I wish he'd switch over to Oxford, but I'm sure there are a lot of good financial reasons he doesn't. (Or perhaps he really believes in the Stratford lad.) In respect to Branagh, I'd urge a new post that makes his views clear. At least he's nibbling at the Oxford bait.

Comment on Actor Kenneth Branagh moving towards Oxford?

2009-05-05T14:50:46Z

It appears that the shift in authorial paradigm is coming from the theatrical establishment, with Jacobi, Rylance, and Branagh convinced of the Oxfordian source for "Shakespeare". Acting has a necessary concern for social and political truth, otherwise psychological understanding is impossible. You can't fake and fudge motivation on the stage like you can behind a typewriter. The primary means of comprehending live personal veracity is knowing the author's own life and thought. At this historical point the major Shakespearean actors don't have a stake in maintaining the sanctification of English political power which required "an unlifted shadow" to fall over Oxford's name all these years. I suppose the powers that be today know better than to tangle with their artists. Academicians won't have that kind of moral freedom until they struggle for it. Then Shakespearean scholarship will include accessible but formerly unacceptable fact. As Edward Hyde put it, "All cultures set their watchful dogs around their eternal cattle."

Comment on "Principum Amicitias" : Does it matter?

2009-03-18T15:47:21Z

Thanks for this further insight on the motto. I hope the Birthplace Trust will explain themselves in the not too distant future about whether they wish to stick with the Horatian allusion interpretation, and if so, what do *they* think that tells us about Shakespeare.

Also, I understand through the Oxfordian grapevine that someone who knows a bit about art history and about this portrait is saying that the case for Overbury as the sitter is "problematic" at best. If something gets published on this, it will appear here.

Comment on "Principum Amicitias" : Does it matter?

2009-03-18T15:41:58Z

I agree that we need to hear more from professionally trained art historians. But the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust has had this portrait in their possession for years before their "unveiling" last week. Surely they have had some experts look it over? If there are real problems with this portrait, its provenance, the identity of the sitter, the motto, etc., it's all on them to explain it.

Comment on "Principum Amicitias" : Does it matter?

2009-03-18T05:37:45Z

It’s important to recognize that the motto on the Cobbe portrait of Overbury--“principum amicitias!”-- alludes to the complete phrase “gravisque prinicipum amicitias” from Horace, Bk. II, Ode I. I’ve seen some translations on the web that add the injunction “Beware…”, and the rationale for that is clear from the phrasal, and textual context (as well as the exclamation mark).

Here’s Horace:

Motum ex Metello consule civicum
Bellique causas et vitia et modos
Ludumque Fortunae gravisque
Principum amicitias et arma

Nondum expiatis uncta cruoribus,
Periculosae plenum opus aleae,
Tractas et incedis per ignes
Suppositos cineri doloso.

And here’s a web translation from 2003, posted by A. S. Kline:

You’re handling the Civil Wars, since Metellus / was Consul, the causes, errors, and stages, / Fortune’s game, and the heavy friendships
of princes, and the un-expiated

stain of blood over various weapons, /
a task that's filled with dangerous pitfalls, / so that you’re walking over embers / hidden under the treacherous ashes.

Another translation I consulted rendered the phrase as “disastrous leagues,” which has a nice Shake-spearean ring to it, I think (however inappropriate to the man from Stratford, and appropriate to Thomas Overbury!)

For those who care, note too that the word is gravīs (long ī), a f.pl.acc., poetic alternate for gravēs, modifying amicitias, “friendships, alliances.” Second, note that the connotations of gravīs here are quite negative, as in “grave,” “oppressive,” or “noxious”—rather than “important,” “mighty,” or “venerable” (hence the addition of “Beware…!). Finally, note that the motto must be read as an allusion to the passage from Horace, i.e. that it can’t stand alone, since it preserves the oblique (accusative) inflections of the original. So don’t let anyone suggest to you the motto means “The alliances of princes (is a great thing to enjoy)”!