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
Photo: Pixabay/DangrafArt
Palindrome, from the Greek palin-dromos,
running back again.
.jpg "About Sotades in Plutarch's Morals")
