The cryptography of Shakespeare

A kind of anagram in which the transposition of the letters is regular is the palindrome, which is a spelling constructed from another spelling by the simple process of reversing the sequence of the letters.

Two famous palindromes are AMOR for ROMA and AVE for EVA. AVON is the palindrome of NOVA; and the palindrome is intended, I believe, in the reference to Avon in Jonson's poem in the Shakespeare Folio.

The allusion is to the plays as nova organa, just as novum is used in Loves Labour's lost as an allusion to the project of the Novum Organum.

The anagrammatic method employed in the construction of a palindrome is inflexible; it is a method which establishes between the palindrome and the spelling from which the palindrome is constructed, an inflexible correspondence as to the number, the identity, and the sequence of the letters involved.

The number and the identity of the letters of the palindrome are the same as the number and the identity of the letters of the original spelling, and the sequence of the letters of the palindrome is simply the reverse of the sequence of the letters of the original spelling.

Such an inflexible correspondence is capable, as we have already seen, of indicating a single spelling which precludes the possibility of an alternative spelling.

The spelling which is indicated by the structure of a palindrome is therefore inevitable...

...An example of an inflexible cryptographic method is the common acrostic constructed on the total number of the selected units of the acrostic text.

Another inflexible method is the palindrome, when the palindrome is itself the total form of the cryptographic text.

When the palindrome is embodied in a longer text it establishes no inflexible correspondence between its cryptographic spelling and the form of the text as a whole, and the method involved is therefore no longer inflexible...

... An inflexible acrostic spelling is its own proof of intention, for the chance that such a spelling could be an accidental coincidence is practically negligible.

But an inflexible anagrammatic spelling, such as appears in the palindrome, might be merely coincidental to the use of a spelling for the sake of its manifest meaning alone, and the possibility of deciphering a spelling in accordance with an inflexible anagrammatic method can therefore not be regarded as evidence that the author intended the spelling to be so deciphered.

The proof of the author's intention in regard to an inflexible anagrammatic spelling must be based on evidence external to the mere possibility of such a spelling...

..In the light of Bacon's reference to the swans that got a name, let us now examine the designation:

"Szveet Swan of Auon".

Any name that a swan got, it will be remembered, was on a medal, '*a little Medall containing the Persons name" ; and it is obvious, therefore, that if the medal was used, like a seal, to impress the name, the name would be reversed as to the sequence of its letters, exactly as in a palindrome...

... Now the name which the "Sweet Swan of Auon" got was, of course, the name of Avon ; and Avon, as I have already pointed out in discussing the structure of the palindrome, is a word

which forms NOVA by the simple process of reversing the sequence of its letters.

Thus the name which the "Sweet Swan of Auon" got may be understood, in the implied reversal of the sequence of its letters, to refer to the Plays as Nova, or Nova Organa.

Such a designation of the plays which were intended by Bacon, as I believe, to illustrate the principles of his philosophy, would be consistent with the spirit in which he refers, in The

Advancement of Learning, to Solomon's "excellent Parables, or Aphorismes concerning diuine and morall Philosophic."

The reference to these Nova Organa by the single word Nova may be paralleled in Loues Labour s lost by the use of the single word "Novum" to refer, as I believe, in a cryptic disguise, to the project of the Novum Organum.

Thus the designation, "Sweet Swan of Auon", which has so long been understood as a reference to the actor who was born on the shore of the Avon, may be understood to be addressed to Bacon as the author of the plays which he considered as his nova organa.

Walter Conrad Arensberg -The cryptography of Shakespeare, Los Angeles, 1922

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