As most regular
readers of this blog probably know, some years ago I came up with an
interpretation of the poem on Shakespeare's monument in Holy Trinity Church,
Stratford upon Avon, which gave it a distinctly Marlovian slant. But for those
who haven't heard of this, the latest version of my interpretation, and the
reasons why I claim that it must have been intentional, can be found on the IMSS website.
What I have not done so far, however, other than in online discussion, is to
consider the two lines of Latin which precede the poem. In Latin our
"U" and "V" were the same letter, so for ease of reading I
have shown all of the "V"s in the original as "U"s:
IUDICIO PYLIUM, GENIO SOCRATEM, ARTE MARONEM,This might be translated word for word as:
TERRA TEGIT, POPULUS MÆRET, OLYMPUS HABET
In judgement a Pylius, in inspiration a Socrates, in art a Maro,
The earth covers, the people mourn, Olympus holds
The
"Pylius" refers to Nestor of Gerenia, who in Greek mythology was the
king of Pylos, Socrates is of course the well-known Greek philosopher, and
"Maro" was the surname of the Roman poet Publius Vergilius Maro,
better known to us as Virgil.
It is also worth pointing out that the versions "Pylium", "Socratem" and "Maronem" are in the accusative case, and are therefore the objects of the verbs "tegit", "mæret" and "habet". As we in English normally put the verb before its object, it might be a bit clearer if we also switch the two lines, giving us:
It is also worth pointing out that the versions "Pylium", "Socratem" and "Maronem" are in the accusative case, and are therefore the objects of the verbs "tegit", "mæret" and "habet". As we in English normally put the verb before its object, it might be a bit clearer if we also switch the two lines, giving us:
The earth covers, the people mourn, Olympus holdsWhat is not clear is whether each verb corresponds with one of the names, or whether all three relate to all three names. We can see this when we compare Park Honan's translation with Katherine Duncan-Jones's. He has:
A Nestor in judgement, a Socrates in inspiration, a Virgil in art.
"The earth covers one who is a Nestor in judgement;
The people mourn for a Socrates in genius;
Olympus has a Virgil in art"1
where Katherine
Duncan-Jones prefers:
I'm not sure that it
matters much, but having discussed this with some Latinists I feel slightly
more comfortable with the Duncan-Jones version."The earth covers, the people mourn, Olympus holds [a man who was] a Pylius [=Nestor] in judgement, a Socrates in wisdom, a Virgil in literary skill"2
In my interpretation of the poem which follows this Latin couplet, however, I argued that there was an overt meaning which the author intended most people to think was meant, and a covert one recognizing what most of us here think of as being the more likely scenario. The latter told us that Christopher Marlowe was somehow "in" the monument with Shakespeare. Could there also be some hidden reference to Marlowe in these two lines?
First of all, let's consider "Terra tegit". Although the obvious, and clearly intentional, overt meaning is "the earth covers," can it be seen differently? I think so. The Vulgate Bible (Jeremiah 13.10) includes the words Quia adulteris repleta est terra quia a facie maledictionis luxit terra, which in the King James version was translated as "For the land is full of adulterers; for because of swearing the land mourneth". So "Terra" could be interpreted as "land", meaning either the country itself or the people of that country. And "tegit"? As I said, "covers" (or perhaps "buries") him would be the obvious meaning. On the other hand it is certainly possible to interpret the word as "hides" or "conceals". I think that most Marlovians would assume that by the 1620s Marlowe must have returned to England and be living in hiding, his identity concealed by at least some of the people, even the leading representatives, of the country. In other words, the land or country hides him.
"Populus mæret" (the people mourn). I wouldn't want to make too much of this one, but even five or six years after Shakespeare's death, and despite Marlowe's unsavoury reputation, there had still been more evidence of mourning over the apparent death of our Christopher than there had been over William.
For an inscription in an English church, the reference to the polytheistic Mount Olympus, the home of the Greek gods, rather than the Christian Heaven – or even the home of the Muses, Mount Parnassus – might be thought somewhat strange. If it is Marlowe we are talking about, however, a home among the heathen gods might be considered a better option than the Christian alternative! As George Peele put it, "Marley, the Muses darling for thy verse; / Fitte to write passions for the soules below" / If any wretched soules in passion speake."3 Would this mean that Marlowe must be dead, though? Not necessarily. The gods of Olympus might "have" him in similar way to how Satan "has" Doctor Faustus for twenty-four years.
If any Shakespearian scholar has discussed the choice of Nestor, Socrates and Virgil as exemplars, I have been unable to find it. Yet they all seem rather odd choices if it is the generally accepted Shakespeare they are supposed to refer to.
For a start, the use of Nestor is a bit of a back-handed compliment to him of all people. It is perhaps worth quoting what David Bevington says about the character as he is portrayed in Shakespeare's own Troilus and Cressida.4
"Nestor is [...] a tedious and senile old man, ready at a moment's notice to recall when 'I have seen the time' and to ramble on through sententious truisms about shallow boats giving way before 'ruffian Boreas' and the like as though he were actually adding something to what his fellow generals have already said. Their polite condescension suits his role as one who never has an idea of his own and is all too willingly led by the nose by someone as clever as Ulysses."So what else do we know about him? What Nestor really stands out for is being a survivor. When Heracles attacked Pylos, Nestor's father and all eleven of his siblings were slaughtered; but not Nestor, who was away at the time. As a young man he survived battles with the Arcadians, the Eleians, and the Centaurs. He was apparently one of the Argonauts, who accompanied Jason on his search for the golden fleece, and lived to tell the tale. When the Calydonian boar attacked him and his fellow boar-hunters he escaped death by using his spear to pole-vault up into a tree! At Troy, when about to be killed, his son Antilochus came to his aid and was himself killed, thus providing a replacement corpse for the gods. Finally, Nestor's good judgement allowed him – almost alone among the Achaean generals at Troy – to return home in safety from overseas. And having done so he went on, some say, to survive until he was three hundred years old.5 He should have been dead long ago, but in fact survived. Sound familiar?
The comparison with the philosopher Socrates is also a bit strained for a poet and playwright. On the other hand, in 399 AD Socrates was accused of impiety, as not believing in the gods recognized by the city (Athens), and corrupting its youth – in fact teaching them to judge both public and private morality by the light of reason. Again, sound familiar? The penalty proposed was death, and it was assumed that he would leave Athens, but he surprised everyone by remaining. All of his words were, of course, presented by someone else (Plato), as we claim that Marlowe's words were presented by Shakespeare. He was also (probably wrongly) accused of pederasty, particularly with Alcibiades.
Why Virgil? The poet usually associated with Shakespeare (and Marlowe) was Ovid, so can Virgil's biography, as believed at that time, give us a clue? Exiled at an early age, he lost everything, and reflected this situation in the first poem of the Eclogues, called The Dispossessed. He nevertheless had the support of Maecenas, the chief adviser to the ruler, and even of the ruler himself, Augustus. He was employed by them, being paid from public funds, to present propaganda on their behalf in the form of poetry – e.g. the Aeneid. Could this actually be telling us something about the relationship between a surviving Marlowe and the establishment in the form not only of members of the Privy Council, such as the Cecils, but also of the sovereign? The Aeneid was the work upon which Marlowe's earliest known play, Dido Queen of Carthage, was based, and Virgil was also thought to have dabbled in magic.
Now that brings us to an interesting point. The use of the names "Pylius" and "Maro" for Nestor and Virgil was really very unusual. I have discussed this essay with Anthony Kellett and Ros Barber – for whose input I am extremely grateful, it having provided and stimulated several ideas which would never have occurred to me otherwise. Ros has searched Early English Books Online and found very few examples of these names being used rather than the more familiar versions. Furthermore, as far as I can discover (and I would be most grateful if anyone can prove me wrong), there is in fact just one author who has used all three of the monument's names – "Pylius", "Socrates" and "Maro" – in his works. That author is Christopher Marlowe.
"Pylius"
appears in his translation of Ovid's Amores
– Book 3, Elegy 6 (the one where he finds himself unable to "perform"
for his mistress). "Yet might her touch make youthful Pylius
fire,6 / And Tithon7 livelier than his years require." What he,
faithfully following Ovid, is saying is that she could even get the most
ancient of men, like Nestor and Tithonus, going. This fits in very well with
the idea of Nestor (like Marlowe, who should also have been dead long ago)
being a survivor.
Socrates is mentioned in Edward II, when (1.4) Mortimer Senior is arguing that Edward should be allowed his minions: "The Roman Tully loved Octavius, / Grave Socrates wild Alcibiades." Most of Mortimer Senior's examples do seem to be a bit wide of the mark, and Socrates was probably unjustly accused of pederasty, so one cannot help recalling Baines's "quotation" from Marlowe that "All they that love not tobacco and boys are fools."
"Maro" appears in Doctor Faustus (3.1), when his travels with Mephistopheles are being described.
Then up to Naples, rich Campania,In Roma Gill's Mermaid edition, she provides the following footnote: "The poet Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro) was buried in Naples in 19 B.C., and posthumously acquired some reputation as a magician. His tomb stands at the end of the promontory of Posilippo between Naples and Pozzuoli; legend ascribes the tunnel running through this promontory to his magic art." So could the "arte Maronem" of the monument in fact be the sort of art referred to by the Evil Angel: "Go forward, Faustus, in that famous art / Wherein all nature's treasury is contained"? That Marlowe was inevitably associated with his characters' enthusiasms should go without saying. He was also known as Merlin at Cambridge, and was referred to by Gabriel Harvey as one of two "such mad and scoffing poets, that haue propheticall spirits as bred of Merlins race..."8
Whose buildings fair and gorgeous to the eye,
The streets straight forth and paved with finest brick,
Quarter the town in four equivalents.
There saw we learned Maro's golden tomb.
The way he cut, an English mile in length,
Thorough a rock of stone in one night's space.
The main author of the works of Shakespeare, whoever he was, could indeed be reasonably described as having had the judgement of Nestor at his best, the inspiration of Socrates, and the literary art of Virgil. However, there is no obvious reason why these three names – and in particular those two specific forms, Maro and Pylius – should be chosen as in any way relevant to Shakespeare. No rationale. It's inexplicable. And it feels like that, like empty eulogizing. On the other hand (to sum up), if the referent is Marlowe there are very strong reasons for choosing those particular names (and forms of names) – biographical resonance, and the leaving of hints that when tracked down and put together (who used all three names?) points only in one direction.
© Peter Farey,
November 2013
1Honan, Park (1999). Shakespeare: A Life. Oxford University Press. p.403.
2Duncan-Jones, Katherine (2001). Ungentle Shakespeare. The Arden
Shakespeare. p.272.
3Peele, George (1593). The Honour of the Garter.
4Bevington, David (1998). ed. Troilus and Cressida. The Arden Shakespeare. pp.23–4.
5Graves, Robert (1955, 2011). The Greek Myths. 139.f. Penguin. p.546.4Bevington, David (1998). ed. Troilus and Cressida. The Arden Shakespeare. pp.23–4.
6In other words, she could make (old) Pylius's "fire" youthful.
7Tithonus was given immortality, but not eternal youth.
8 Harvey, Gabriel (1588). Introduction to Perimedes The Blacke-Smith, pp.A3-A3v.
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