The Shakespeare Monument Challenge

The second part of the inscription on the Shakespeare Monument (erected in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon c.1621) is quite extraordinary for a memorial. It comprises a command, a question and a challenge.

The command is to 'stay' (i.e. to wait or pause). The question is 'why goest thou by so fast?' The challenge is 'Read if thou canst, whom envious Death hath plast within this monument Shakspeare' (i.e. 'Read if thou canst, whom envious death hath placed within this Shakespeare monument').

The command and question reminds one of Portia's similar interjection during the trial of Antonio. Just at the moment when Shylock is about to plunge his knife into the chest of Antonio, she cries, 'Tarry a little, there is something else'. This proves to be rather important! There is indeed something else, something that Shylock and the others have not recognised or thought about. That something else is so important that it changes the whole perspective and situation dramatically. So, concerning the Shakespeare Monument, what is the 'passenger' (i.e. traveller or visitor) likely to miss if he or she rushes by too fast?

The challenge is as to whether we can read whom envious Death has placed in this Shakespeare Monument, the name of whom, the inscription tells us later, 'doth deck (i.e. decorate) this tomb'. But surely we know? The inscription itself tells us, doesn't it? So why the challenge? Are we missing something by reading too quickly and jumping to conclusions too quickly?

Certainly this could be so. First of all, the seventh and eighth lines of the inscription inform us that Shakespeare has left us only a single page of art to serve (i.e. commemorate or represent) his wit. The meaning of this seemingly absurd statement is reinforced by the single sheet of paper held under the hand of Shakespeare as depicted by the sculpture of Shakespeare above the inscription. This paper is shown blank. How extraordinary! Is this really all that he has left us, and which represents his wit? The fact that the manuscripts of the Shakespeare plays were gathered together a few years later in order to produce the Shakespeare Folio make this statement doubly curious and enigmatic.

Secondly, the description of the author Shakespeare as given in the first line of the inscription does not match the life of the actor Shakespeare, yet the last two lines in abbreviated Latin certainly refer to the Stratford-upon-Avon actor, giving his date of death.

So, are there perhaps two Shakespeares being commemorated - the actor and the author? The actor who, from a historical study of his life, is not known to have written anything, and the author who was, according to the Monument's first line inscription, a judge, statesman, philosopher and scholar-poet (see 'Nestor-Socrates-Virgil').

Peter Dawkins, 2006

(See the author's book, The Shakespeare Enigma)

The Francis Bacon Research Trust