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The Two Shakespeares
The inscription on the Shakespeare Monument in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon, appears to indicate that there were two Shakespeares. The first line of the inscription likens Shakespeare to Nestor, Socrates and Virgil, who were respectively a great judge and statesman, a renowned philosopher and a highly refined scholar-poet. From what we know of his life, the Stratford-upon-Avon actor, businessman and money-lender, William Shakspere, was like none of these, but the description does suit the author of the Shakespeare works, as can be ascertained from a study of those works. Nevertheless, the date given in the last two lines of the inscription is that of the death of the actor. From this we can perhaps see that the Monument commemorates two Shakespeares, the actor and the author, and that the two are intimately linked. Furthermore, the positioning of the lines relating to the author and the actor are such that the author is placed at the top and the actor at the foot of the inscription, suggesting a Hermetic arrangement whereby the author is above, in heaven, as an immortal (i.e. the immortal, ever-living poet), and the actor is below, on earth, as a mortal (who has just died). That such an interpretation is valid is given credence by the second line of the inscription ('The Earth encloses, the people mourn, Olympus holds him') which refers to the three worlds of Neoplatonic and Hermetic teaching - the earth, the soul (or human) realm and the heavens - and associates the author with Olympus (heaven), which 'holds' him. The inscription is divided into three parts that echo this concept:
Such an immortal-mortal Shakespeare partnership is in keeping with the myth of the Gemini, wherein one twin (Pollux) is immortal and the other (Castor) is mortal. The Gemini are known in myth as 'spearshakers' and also as 'swans', their mother Leda being a swan. Besides being represented as two centurions riding white horses and holding shining spears vibrating with light, the twins are also represented in art by two naked twin boys. Examples of the latter can be found in the 'AA' headpiece in the Shakespeare Folio of plays and the 'Bacony' headpiece on the title page of Shake-speares Sonnets. They are also depicted symbolically in the headpiece on the title pages of Shakespeare's poems, Venus and Adonis and Lucrece, where they are depicted as two peacocks. Peacocks are representative of the Gemini in Arabian literature. Twinship, in fact, constitutes a primary theme in the Shakespeare works.
The 'Bacony' headpiece depicts the Gemini as being winged, which particularly suits the meaning of their name, 'the heavenly twins'. The headpiece shows two rabbits or conies with their backs to each other, which give the rebus, 'bacony' - a Baconian signature. The swans are sacred to Apollo and Pallas Athena, hence the Gemini are portrayed in the 'AA' headpiece as reclining on the two A's, which signify Apollo and Athena. The Gemini are depicted openly on the Shakespeare Monument in sculpted form as the two naked boys who surmount the two side-columns of the Monument. Not only are they representative of the Gemini but they also indicate the meanings of the two pillars, which are usually referred to in Cabala and Freemasonry as the Twin Pillars or the Great Pillars or the Pillars of Enoch or the Pillars of Hercules. The twin surmounting the right-hand pillar (i.e. the pillar on the right-hand side of Shakespeare) holds a spade, emblematic of life and creativity. The twin surmounting the left-hand pillar holds an inverted torch and rests his right hand on a skull, both of which are emblems of mortality and death. In this way the twinship of actor and author is emphasised. In other words, there was an actor and there was an author. The two worked together and together constitute what is presented to the world as 'Shakespeare'. But whilst the actor is the public face of Shakespeare, the author remains hidden, masked by the actor, as confirmed by the design of the opening pages of the Shakespeare Folio. Peter Dawkins, 2006 (See the author's book, The Shakespeare Enigma) The Francis Bacon Research Trust |
