Poetry, Petrarch and ‘Shake-speare’ – essential precursors to The Wave and Laura..???

Michael B-C

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I admit I’m opening this thread with some degree of trepidation. Here I am at home, bursting with intent and ideas and an almost unstoppable wave of energy that’s making me dig, and think, and write, and link, and write some more… and its all starting to pile up there on my computer with no one to share it with… and so I of course think – post it! – And then a voice pops up saying, ‘Not again! You can’t just dump your lunacies on the forum! Haven’t you noticed when you’ve done that before it’s not exactly generated a reciprocally charged feedback loop has it…? Especially with regard to ‘Shakes-peare’? No one will be interested… leave it alone! And it’s starting to look like a monologue which only you can ramble on with…’

Oh God!!!

Predator’s mind be damned! So instead I’m listening to my gut, telling that voice to shut up and I’ll leave it up to the Mods and the rest of you to decide either to pass or to merge or delete or whatever…

I do apologise that these first few posts are going to have to be somewhat lengthy – but there’s no way round it. I’m re-reading the Wave at the same time and daily reminded how Laura never self-censored her flow, thank God, so that gives me some small amateur degree of nerve to just go for it...

I’m suggesting this thread as a stand alone due to its specific subject matter - albeit one that is obviously connected to my previous general thread on the subject – because it is a very particular, brightly lit corner that might just be of interest as a stand alone topic to some here.

I’m also hoping the specifics in the title just might more readily pique the attention and interest of those of you to whom the word ‘Shake-speare’ is an automatic no-no and hence be a way of sparking surprised interest in the wider themes still waiting to be uncovered…

But come what may, it’s lit a fire in me at present and as I say below, the current deadening noise of 3D hysteria and unending programming warrants the occasional counter note, no matter what angle it comes from, don’t you think?

A teasing mind stretch at the very least is what I hope this offers to some of you …

So here goes…


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INTRODUCTION

This time is filled with such a multiplicity of challenges that I for one feel a need to reach out for something else ‘creative’ to help my mind distance itself somewhat from the seemingly impenetrable scale of what is taking place day to day across our whole planet. So of late I’ve found myself delving back into my old love, the Bard of Avon and the mysterious meaning behind his coming and going… I confess find it hard sometimes to stay with my research for long before my mind wanders back to the here and now again… and the ‘tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow’… and ‘the petty pace’ of it all…

It was therefore with gratitude when the other day I read a post by Summerlite on the Coronavirus thread where he/she said:

I've been thinking about the phrase "sit back and watch the show". In the last 3.5 years we've been watching people become more and more crazy which has been discussed here with many examples and threads. We were warned by the C's in the last session things would become even more crazy and of course we're seeing that. In the last few days I've started to "watch the show". This requires being detached from what’s happening in a certain way, so that I can observe without an emotional response to it. This seems to be an attribute of endeavouring to follow a Stoic perspective which I've been working on. Watching my thoughts to not be pulled into negative imaginings, accepting what I can't change, looking at my own death. Also putting energy into positive and creative things… I do feel fairly positive these days. So, I think there is a deeper meaning to this simple phrase "sit back and watch the show'. It’s a bit hard to explain but I find it helpful. Something like sitting in a movie theater and watching the drama unfold. Or being in the world but not of it.

Well that is something worth considering, something to try and remember each day! So back I come to my strange project.

I recently started a dedicated thread on the deep mystery that surrounds what I called ‘The Shake-speare project’.

There I'd taken some first steps in sharing the reasons why whoever this person was, (and his relationship to attempting to heal the consequences of The Fall), it was not the William Shakespeare we have been sold but was really ‘Shake-speare’, the still hidden real writer/’channellor’ of all those plays and poems.

It’s such a complex and mysterious topic that its almost impossible to know from what angle to first approach it, but a day or so ago, as so often before, I turned my mind back to the 154 collected Sonnets ‘he’ wrote and which(sic) seem to hold many a key to the whole remarkable tale.

In so doing I re-read a couple of off beat academic papers that, in a faltering manner, touch on the uniquely strange use of cosmic imagery and obscure knowledge that permeates his whole cannon from first to last. For example these commanding words from the very first scene of a very early play may surprise members here:

“Comets, importing change of times and states,
Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky
.”
Henry VI, Part 1, Act 1, Scene 1


A startlingly resonant line of thought very much in our minds here today, is it not…?

Change of ‘times’… and ‘states’…

‘Crystal’ tresses… hmmmm…

I’ve known these lines for years but somehow today, they resonate with me with in a startlingly fresh and mysterious hint of things past and things yet to come…

Anyway, as I ploughed on I suddenly stumbled upon what seems to me to be a striking series of coincidences; ones that appear to relate prophetically to Laura and which disguise a pivotal mathematical mystery, one that perhaps links to the very heart of what ‘his’ being was about – and maybe also to Laura’s coming to us at this time of time’s.

So I thought I would share here this particular set of resonant clues to see if others might have any further illumination or comment to add on the specific matter… (especially the Maths!) including what on earth am I on and what on earth am on about…! Because of course I could easily be barking up the wrong tree!

But before I get to ‘Shakes-peare’ and the suspected connection to Laura’s work, I’ll speak briefly of the poets Ovid and Petrarch, and even of poetry itself… for it’s at the very heart of the matter.

Not poetry - as in the dull, limp, often superficially pleasing (if usually forgettable) whimsical stuff of our school days - but the mighty calling made to our ancestors to utilize sacred words in a deeply methodical – nay, deeply scientific – manner so as to unearth and reveal great mysteries hidden betwixt-and-between ideas, images, thoughts, impression, knowledge. For that was always what real poets did – bring the unseen into clearer focus by means of their brilliantly forged, utterly ‘rational’ word patterns/verse that utilised the mesmeric power of rhythm, musicality, form and energetic collision points, to squeeze through to the deeper consciousness of the attuned ear, some of the matters of life that would otherwise elude our programmed 5 senses. Words and language are a deep, deep mystery – they are the very stuff of ‘magic’ - and it is all in some way connected to the immense cosmic power of ideas that ‘begin’ or/and are ‘received’ as thoughts in the mind of man…

The Wave Vol. 3 p326

Q: (B) Are you a great distance from us in light years?
A: Distance is a 3rd density idea.
Q: (B) Light years is 3rd density?
A: Yes.
Q: (B) What do you mean by traveling on the wave?
A: Traveling on thoughts.
Q: (L) Whose thoughts are they?
A: Thoughts unify all reality in existence and are all shared.
Q: (S) You travel on a wave of energy created by all thought forms?
A: Thought forms are all that exists!


So let’s start our truly cosmic poetic journey with the most famous of all Roman verse-smith’s Ovid… I’m sure he needs little introduction to many, but for those who are not familiar here’s Wiki on the subject:


OVID

Publius Ovidius Naso; (20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the three canonical poets of Latin literature. Although Ovid enjoyed enormous popularity during his lifetime, the emperor Augustus banished him to a remote province on the Black Sea, where he remained until his death. Ovid wrote that the reason for his exile was carmen et error – "a poem and a mistake", claiming that his crime was worse than murder, more harmful than poetry, but his discretion in discussing the causes has resulted in much speculation among scholars.

(note: a number of radical minded Dutch scholars have disputably claimed that actually Ovid invented the whole banishment story as an allegorical front for his own mid-life crisis, using the metaphor of exile as a tool to express his own inner conflict… this esoteric/occult idea of ‘invention’ of autobiography/biography as an occult blind to disguise the real sacred meaning and intent of their heretical work becomes central to understanding many of the most important Renaissance writers and especially ‘Shake-speare’.)

The first major Roman poet to begin his career during the reign of Augustus, Ovid is today best known for the Metamorphoses, a 15-book continuous mythological narrative written in the meter of epic, and for works in elegiac couplets such as Ars Amatoria ("The Art of Love") and Fasti. His poetry was much imitated during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and greatly influenced Western art and literature. The Metamorphoses remains one of the most important sources of classical mythology.

…Ovid’s father wanted him to study rhetoric, toward the practice of Law. According to Seneca the Elder, Ovid tended to the emotional, not the argumentative pole of rhetoric… He married three times and divorced twice by the time he was thirty years old.

His earliest extant work is thought to be the Heroides, letters of mythological heroines to their absent lovers, which may have been published in 19 BC… The first five-book collection of the Amores, a series of erotic poems addressed to a lover, Corinna, is thought to have been published in 16–15 BC; … the premiere of his tragedy Medea, which was admired in antiquity but is no longer extant.

Ovid's next poem, the Medicamina Faciei, a fragmentary work on women's beauty treatments, preceded the Ars Amatoria, the Art of Love, a parody of didactic poetry and a three-book manual about seduction and intrigue, which has been dated to AD 2 (Books 1–2 would go back to 1 BC).

By AD 8, he had completed his most ambitious work, the Metamorphoses, a hexameter epic poem in 15 books. The work encyclopaedically catalogues transformations in Greek and Roman mythology, from the emergence of the cosmos to the apotheosis of Julius Caesar. The stories follow each other in the telling of human beings transformed to new bodies: trees, rocks, animals, flowers, constellations etc. At the same time, he worked on the Fasti, a six-book poem in elegiac couplets on the theme of the calendar of Roman festivals and astronomy. The composition of this poem was interrupted by Ovid's exile…

Despite the fact that Ovid de-sacralised much of the source myth he worked from, his influence cannot be underestimated, especially on the later Renaissance mind where translations of his emotionally playful and sexually charged works played a huge part in inspiring a whole new fascination with the ancient world and its miraculous stories of change and transformation as well as the mystical potential of ‘Love’ to act as a spur to spiritual development.

Many scholars have noted that of all the 100 or more classical authors ‘Shake-speare’ referenced, Ovid was his number one. Whilst this is debatable, (as I think they totally ignore the implicitly Stoic and Sophian development of his hidden philosophy), there is no doubt that the erotically charged verses of the Roman master were at the core of the early stages of the Bard’s process of inspiration and evolution and especially right at the out set when he specifically took Ovid’s tale of the fatal love quest between the Goddess of Love, Venus, and her son/consort, the God Adonis, and turned it into a cause celebre of the period. More on that pivotal choice and what ‘Shake-speare’ did with it another time.

Suffice to say Ovid, (especially his poems suggestive of reincarnation, self-transformation, and the mysterious power of the divine to intervene directly in the affairs of human kind through its spokesperson Nature), indelibly imprinted the burgeoning Renaissance mind. And in particular, arguably the greatest poet-mind of that period of unprecedented creativity and conflict, Petrarch.

And this is where it starts to get really interesting…
 
PETRARCH

We skip forward almost 1,300 years – post the collapse of the ancient world and the long ‘Dark Age’ that followed - and to the first flourishing of the Renaissance and the violent and rebellious rebirth of classical knowledge that swept aside more than a millennia’s worth of intellectual, religious and creative suppression and a general stagnation in spiritual knowledge. Again from Wiki:

Francesco Petrarca (July 20, 1304 – July 18/19, 1374), commonly anglicized as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar and poet during the early Italian Renaissance who was one of the earliest humanists.

Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited with initiating the 14th-century Italian Renaissance and the founding of Renaissance humanism. In the 16th century, Pietro Bembo created the model for the modern Italian language based on Petrarch's works, as well as those of Giovanni Boccaccio, and, to a lesser extent, Dante Alighieri. Petrarch would later be endorsed as a model for Italian style by the Accademia della Crusca.

… He travelled widely in Europe, served as an ambassador, and (because he travelled for pleasure, as with his ascent of Mont Ventoux), has been called "the first tourist". During his travels, he collected crumbling Latin manuscripts and was a prime mover in the recovery of knowledge from writers of Rome and Greece.

He encouraged and advised Leontius Pilatus's translation of Homer from a manuscript purchased by Boccaccio, although he was severely critical of the result. Petrarch had acquired a copy, which he did not entrust to Leontius, but he knew no Greek;



(Note: this little throw away resonates strangely with the famous and much misunderstood barb of Ben Johnson on ‘Shake-speare’ of whom he wrote "And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek"… but actually meant the complete opposite!)


…In 1345 he personally discovered a collection of Cicero's letters not previously known to have existed, the collection Epistulae ad Atticum, in the Chapter Library (Biblioteca Capitolare) of Verona Cathedral.

Petrarch's sonnets were admired and imitated throughout Europe during the Renaissance and became a model for lyrical poetry. Disdaining what he believed to be the ignorance of the centuries preceding the era in which he lived, Petrarch is credited or charged with creating the concept of a historical "Dark Age."

…Scholars note that Petrarch's letter to Dionigi displays a strikingly "modern" attitude of aesthetic gratification in the grandeur of the scenery and is still often cited in books and journals devoted to the sport of mountaineering. In Petrarch, this attitude is coupled with an aspiration for a virtuous Christian life

For pleasure alone, he climbed Mont Ventoux, which rises to more than six thousand feet, beyond Vaucluse. It was no great feat, of course, but he was the first recorded Alpinist of modern times, the first to climb a mountain merely for the delight of looking from its top. … He took Augustine's Confessions from his pocket and reflected that his climb was merely an allegory of aspiration toward a better life.

As the book fell open, Petrarch's eyes were immediately drawn to the following words:

And men go about to wonder at the heights of the mountains, and the mighty waves of the sea, and the wide sweep of rivers, and the circuit of the ocean, and the revolution of the stars, but themselves they consider not.

Petrarch's response was to turn from the outer world of nature to the inner world of "soul":

I closed the book, angry with myself that I should still be admiring earthly things who might long ago have learned from even the pagan philosophers that nothing is wonderful but the soul, which, when great itself, finds nothing great outside itself. Then, in truth, I was satisfied that I had seen enough of the mountain; I turned my inward eye upon myself, and from that time, not a syllable fell from my lips until we reached the bottom again... We look about us for what is to be found only within...

James Hillman argues that this rediscovery of the inner world is the real significance of the Ventoux event. The Renaissance begins not with the ascent of Mont Ventoux but with the subsequent descent - the "return... to the valley of soul"

Petrarch is best known for his Italian poetry, notably the Canzoniere ("Songbook") and … Secretum Meum ("My Secret Book"), an intensely personal, guilt-ridden imaginary dialogue with Augustine of Hippo; … De Remediis Utriusque Fortunae ("Remedies for Fortune Fair and Foul"), a self-help book which remained popular for hundreds of years; etc

(he) also published many volumes of his letters, including a few written to his long-dead friends from history... Cicero, Virgil, and Seneca were his literary models.

Petrarch collected his letters into two major sets of books called Epistolae familiares ("Letters on Familiar Matters") and Seniles ("Letters of Old Age"), both of which are available in English translation. The plan for his letters was suggested to him by knowledge of Cicero's letters… his "Letter to Posterity" (the last letter in Seniles) gives an autobiography and a synopsis of his philosophy in life. It was originally written in Latin and was completed in 1371 or 1372 - the first such autobiography in a thousand years (since Saint Augustine).

...Petrarch is traditionally called the father of Humanism and considered by many to be the "father of the Renaissance." In his work Secretum meum he points out that secular achievements did not necessarily preclude an authentic relationship with God. Petrarch argued instead that God had given humans their vast intellectual and creative potential to be used to their fullest.

He inspired humanist philosophy, which led to the intellectual flowering of the Renaissance
. He believed in the immense moral and practical value of the study of ancient history and literature - that is, the study of human thought and action.

A highly reflective man, he shaped the nascent humanist movement a great deal because many of the internal conflicts and musings expressed in his writings were seized upon by Renaissance humanist philosophers and argued continually for the next 200 years. For example, Petrarch struggled with the proper relation between the active and contemplative life … as a result, many political, military, and religious leaders during the Renaissance were inculcated with the notion that their pursuit of personal fulfilment should be grounded in classical example and philosophical contemplation.


A final biographical footnote of interest:


In November 2003, it was announced that pathological anatomists would be exhuming Petrarch's body from his casket in Arquà Petrarca… The tomb had been opened previously in 1873 by Professor Giovanni Canestrini, also of Padua University. When the tomb was opened, the skull was discovered in fragments, and a DNA test revealed that the skull was not Petrarch's, prompting calls for the return of Petrarch's skull.


Whether this desecration was done in 1873 or at the time of his burial in 1374 (or indeed somewhere else in between), its interesting to note that the head was apparently removed… now what does that remind one of…??

That’s enough general background.

If you’re still with me you can hopefully see we are dealing here with not only a radical revolutionary in terms of modern literary thought but also the dawning of a rebirth of a very ancient, mystical relationship between poetry, and the training of the soul to ‘see’ and to harmonise with the truth as witnessed by observation and participation in nature, knowledge and through devoted ‘Love’. In many ways he was taking up the summons of the ‘goddess’ trumpeted by the Troubadour poets, the ‘Arthurian’ revolutionary movement that swept up through Europe from the south of France, mixing Arabic/Sufi wisdom with a hotchpotch of grail influences/‘Scythian’ knowledge which all had a far greater influence on the birth of the Renaissance than most scholars are comfortable to admit. As such Petrarch stands at a cross roads between the mystical tradition of the Troubadours and the secular humanists that would lead to materialism and modern science

The greatest flourishing of his talents came with the Canzoniere ("Songbook") a sequence of 366 poems inspired by… (get ready for it!)

LAURA!!!

Again from Wiki:

Laura and poetry
On April 6, 1327, after Petrarch gave up his vocation as a priest, the sight of a woman called "Laura" in the church of Sainte-Claire d'Avignon awoke in him a lasting passion… there is little definite information in Petrarch's work concerning Laura, except that she is lovely to look at, fair-haired, with a modest, dignified bearing.

Laura and Petrarch had little or no personal contact. According to his "Secretum," she refused him because she was already married. He channeled his feelings into love poems that were exclamatory rather than persuasive… which he constantly revisited, revised and honed for more than 40 years… and wrote prose that showed his contempt for men who pursue women... later in his "Letter to Posterity," Petrarch wrote:

"In my younger days I constantly struggled with an overwhelming but pure love affair - my only one, and I would have struggled with it longer had not premature death, bitter but salutary for me, extinguished the cooling flames. I certainly wish I could say that I have always been entirely free from desires of the flesh, but I would be lying if I did".

it is possible she was an idealized or pseudonymous character - particularly since the name "Laura" has a linguistic connection to the poetic "laurels" Petrarch coveted - Petrarch himself always denied it. His frequent use of l'aura is also remarkable: for example, the line "Erano i capei d'oro a l'aura sparsi" may mean… "the wind ("l'aura") blew through her hair."



(note: denying that one is in anyway connected to the divine source is a tradition of many true mystics down the ages, for to seek any kind of ‘specialness’ was seen as the ego / predator’s mind at work. In truth only Jesus has been allowed to do this, which as readers of the New Testament down the ages undoubtedly recognised, more than anything else it was this claim that led him into fatal trouble…)


There is psychological realism in the description of Laura, although Petrarch draws heavily on conventionalized descriptions of love and lovers from troubadour songs and other literature of courtly love. Her presence causes him unspeakable joy, but his unrequited love creates unendurable desires, inner conflicts between the ardent lover and the mystic Christian, making it impossible to reconcile the two. Petrarch's quest for love leads to hopelessness and irreconcilable anguish… Laura is unreachable – the few physical descriptions of her are vague, almost impalpable as the love he pines forLaura is too holy to be painted; she is an awe-inspiring goddess.



As usual scholars have run themselves ragged trying to prove she was this woman or that – including a scholarly preference that she was Laura de Noves, the wife of Count Hugues de Sade (an ancestor of the Marquis de Sade)… I think not!

The point is that despite Petrarch’s mild protestations, she was essentially a visionary muse – a divinely wrought flash of highly charged ‘divine’ inspiration that goaded him on to the path of self development, spiritual questing and perpetual foraging for the truth in ‘Love’ she represented to him...

The vast majority (317) of Petrarch's 366 poems collected in the Canzoniere (dedicated to Laura) were sonnets in form but the most famous and important is not. No 127a canzone – is the first verse in which he raises the matter of her golden, flowing hair…

The following is an online English translation that fails to capture the lucidity and haunting musical rhythm of the original Italian, but it will have to suffice:

. ‘In quella parte dove Amor mi sprona’

In that part where Love spurs me on


I must turn these sorrowful verses,
the followers of my tormented mind,
towards the place where Love drives me.
Which shall be last, alas, and which first?



He who talks to me of my ills
leaves me in doubt, he speaks so confusedly.
But I will speak as much of the history written
in my heart’s core, in his own hand,
about my suffering (which I so often recall)

since by speaking I seek
a truce to sighs and help for sadness.

I say that, though I gaze
at a thousand diverse things attentively and fixedly,
I only see one lady, and one lovely face.
Since my pitiless fate separated me
from my greater good,

fate proud, inexorable and harmful,
Love aids me with the memory alone:
and when I see the earth in youthful guise
begin to clothe itself with grass,
I seem to see in that bitter season
the lovely young girl who is now a woman:
so that when the sun rises warming me,
it seems to me he is solely
that flame of love that claims noble hearts:

but when the day grieves
for him, who descends little by little,
I see her in her days of maturity.

Seeing leaves on the branches, or violets on the ground,
in the season when the cold lessens,
and gentler stars acquire power,

brings the violets and greenness to mind
with which Love, who still rules me,
armed himself at the start of our battle,
and that sweet graceful outer bark
that covered her childish limbs
that a gentle spirit inhabits today
seemed to me to make
all other pleasures base: so deeply I recall
her humble bearing
that flowered then, and increased beyond her years,

sole reason and solace for my torment.

Sometimes I see fresh snow
on distant hills struck by the sun:
as sun does snow, Love rules over me,
thinking of that more than mortal face
that makes my eyes moisten from afar,
but, close to, dazzles, and defeats the heart:

where between the white and the gold,
what has never been seen by human eye
except I think my own, reveals itself:
and that warm passion
which, when she smiles in sighing,
inflames me so that it makes me
forget nothing,
but becomes eternal,
nor changes state, nor quenches spring.

I never see the wandering stars
move through the calm air after night rain,
flaming more brightly among the dew and frost,

without seeing her eyes before me,
where the weariness of my life is soothed,
as I’ve seen them in the shadow of a lovely veil:
and as I saw the sky ablaze that day

with their beauty, so I see them still
sparkling through tears, so that I burn forever.

If I see the sun rising,
I feel the light appear that enamoured me:

if slowly setting,
I seem to see it turning elsewhere
leaving darkness behind as it goes.


If my eyes ever saw pure white
and vermilion roses in a gold vase
freshly picked by a virgin hand,
I thought I saw her face
that exceeded all other marvels
through the three virtues caught up in her:

the golden hair, loose on a neck
where any milk would lose its power,
and her cheeks that a sweet fire adorns.

But truly when a little breeze
stirs white and yellow flowers in the fields,
my mind turns to that place
and the first time I saw her golden hair
blown by the wind, so that I suddenly burned
.


Perhaps it would be more believable if I
counted the stars one by one, or enclosed
the waves in a little glass, as for fresh thought
to be born in me, of telling in so small a space
all places that this flower of noble beauty
remaining still herself, has scattered her light
so that I can never depart from her:
nor will I: and if I flee at times,

she has closed the passes in heaven and earth,
so that to my weary eyes
she is always present, and I am all consumed.


And she stays with me,
so that I see nothing else, nor wish to see,
nor speak another’s name in my sighing.

Song, you well know that what I say is nothing
compared to the hidden thought of love,
that I have in my mind night and day,
comforted only by that,
so that I’m still not dead of the long war:
and I should already have died,
weeping for my heart’s absence,
but by this I gain my death’s delay.

Do I detect the hint of a divinely given ‘flow’ of connection with more than a hint of a comet vision in this inspiring muse called Laura…. ????

And so, now to the maths… and the heart of the matter.
 
No. 127

127 is a prime number and more than that, it’s a Mersenne prime:

In mathematics, a Mersenne prime is a prime number that is one less than a power of two. That is, it is a prime number of the form Mn = 2n − 1 for some integer n. They are named after Marin Mersenne, a French Minim friar...

More on Marin Mersenne in a while. Suffice to say he did not create his theory until the early 17th century, well after either Petrarch - and later ‘Shake-speare’ – used this numerical position in their highly structured numbers game to highlight a complete change of gear and state of being (…a kind of ‘channelled state…?)

127 is also importantly closely related to the perfect number 8,128
8,128 is a perfect number, that is 8,128 equals the sum of its proper positive divisors, i.e., the sum of its divisors excluding 8,128 itself.

8128 = 1 + 2 + 4 + 8 + 16 + 32 + 64 + 127 + 254 + 508 + 1 016 + 2 032 + 4 064.

Note that perfect numbers are very rare: there are only 4 perfect numbers smaller than 1,000 000, viz., 6, 28, 496 and 8,128. Then, the next perfect number is 33,550,336!

The perfect number 8,128 is one of the earliest numbers to be recognized as such. As a perfect number, it is tied to the Mersenne prime 127 as follows:

Untitled1.jpg

... yielding 8,128. Also related to its being a perfect number, 8,128 is a harmonic divisor number.

Another consequence of 8,128 being a perfect number is that it has the same prime factors as the sum of its divisors, its cototient is a power of two, and it is a harmonic seed number (though there are deficient and abundant numbers that share these properties).

8,128 is the 127th triangular number, the 64th hexagonal number, a happy number, the eighth 292-gonal number, and the fourth 1356-gonal number, as well as the 43rd centered nonagonal number.

127 is also an exponent for another Mersenne prime 2127 - 1, which was discovered by Édouard Lucas in 1876, and held the record for the largest known prime for 75 years - it is the largest prime ever discovered by hand calculations, as well as the largest known double Mersenne prime. Furthermore, 127 is equal to:
Untitled2.jpg

...and 3 is the smallest Mersenne prime, this makes 7 the smallest double Mersenne prime and 127 the smallest triple Mersenne prime.

127 is also the atomic number of Unbiseptium, an element that has not yet been discovered as well as the last Class A network in IP (Internet Protocol) Version 4 being the number of the subnet used for loopback functionality in computer networking

Loopback, or loop-back, refers to the routing of electronic signals, digital data streams, or flows of items back to their source without intentional processing or modification. This is primarily a means of testing the communications infrastructure.

Does that not sound like an interesting technical analogy for the C’s eternal, timeless reaching out and Laura’s reciprocal grooving process...?

Something tells me this is all very, very interesting, certainly ‘mysterious’. For you see, as with Petrarch, ‘Shake-speare’ also used the integer 127 to denote a massive change in gear and direction in his sonnet sequence.

And how do we know for sure that Shakespeare knew of - or was possibly inspired to follow in the footsteps of - Petrarch? Well firstly it’s a given by scholars that Petrarch was a massive influence on the Sonneteers of the English Renaissance and ‘Shake-speare’ in particular. That’s fine, but did he really take on board Petrarch’s verse 127 in particular when there were 350+ to consider?

Well how about the following from his play Romeo & Juliet where Mercutio mocks Romeo as he enters for the extreme nature of his love for Juliet, and the only time the name Laura appears in his entire cannon:

Without his roe, like a dried herring: flesh, flesh,
how art thou fishified
! Now is he for the numbers
that Petrarch flowed in: Laura to his lady was but a
kitchen-wench
; marry, she had a better love to
be-rhyme her
;
Dido a dowdy; Cleopatra a gipsy;
Helen and Hero hildings and harlots; Thisbe a grey
eye or so, but not to the purpose. Signior
Romeo, bon jour! there's a French salutation
to your French slop.

Romeo & Juliet, Act 3, Sc 4,

Mercutio is but one of a litany of outlandish, bawdy, rough spoken yet truthful ‘Shake-spearian’ ‘fools’, (Mercury in disguise), and here in a seeming throw away insult, he lists Laura, Dido, Cleopatra, Helen of Troy, Hero, Thisbe… an interesting catalogue of ancient female icons of ‘desire’ and all associated with deep Tragedy, except Laura unless the tragedy is the poet’s Petrarch ‘flowing’ in ‘numbers’ says it all… but to amplify, note Mercutio’s barbed suggestion that flesh and fish have become one:

…flesh, flesh,
how art thou fishified!

Of course this is a grossly pungent sexual reference but it also hints at a deeper sexually related meaning… of scales, of water, and even of the sign of Aquarius, the water carrier who in ‘ancient times’ was represented as female and she continually pours out ‘water’ in which ‘fish’ flowed down and up, from and to, the heavens to the earth below…

As I began to outline in the dedicated thread to his Work, the 154 sonnet sequence, is without doubt the most complex, mysterious and shocking sequence of self-revelatory poems in the history of the English language, yet the entire composition is mathematically structured to precise measure and weight.

For example, the 154 sonnets comprise a perfect equilateral triangle (i.e. a pyramid) with 17 x 17 x 17 sides making up 153 but with the final 2 sonnets (153 and 154) actually being a mirror pair - a singularity split into 2 visions from the same source well - that explores precisely the same narrative and components but mixed in different ways (more on that is found in the other thread via the attached videos).

Even most mainstream scholars accept that:

  1. SECTION 1 – ‘The Procreation’ sonnets comprises the first 17 verses (as a base/foundation), and once completed, the ‘argument’ moves on with the completion/transition Sonnet 17 to the explosive glory of the world famous Sonnet 18 (‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day’);
  2. SECTION 2 – ‘The Fair Young Man’ sonnets rises thereafter up the body of the perfect triangle to complete/transition at Sonnet 126 (note 1 step further ‘in/on’ from the above) before…
  3. Sonnet 127 fully kicks off SECTION 3 – ‘The Dark Lady’ whereby this deeply troubled final group takes us all the way to Sonnet 152.
  4. The whole sequence is then topped off by the ‘cap stone’ double pair ‘completion’ of Sonnets 153-154.

SONNETS - Pyramid Structure 1.jpg

It’s hard to take any sonnet out of the whole as they are all perfectly and synchronically placed, but let’s take a closer look at Nos. 126 and 127.

But before I do, for those who may be in the dark about the journey of the whole sequence, in a nut shell:

  • The first section (1-16/17) speak in prudent and near didactic terms about the need for a young and vibrant youth to leave behind children to make sense of his life’s gifts;
  • In Section 2 (17/18-125/126) out of seeming nowhere the poet suddenly pours forth unending love, desire, and turmoil upon the young man that he appeared to be addressing in the first section but with who he now, disastrously, appears to have become infatuated with himself! The relationship is complex – sometimes mutually delirious, sometimes distant and disturbed, but essentially the poet revels in his secret love affair come what may;
  • Section 3 (126/127-152) sees the shock arrival on the scene of a rival to the poet for the young man’s affections – a dark haired, dark eyed, alluring, sexually untrustworthy female - who steals away the young boy and has her wicked way with him - and with whom the poet also gets terribly entangled…! And it all ends in tears… well almost…
As you can see it’s a strangely perverse journey often filled with the most astonishingly raw confessions and revelations…

Academia bends over backwards to presents these works as essentially an auto-biographical love triangle, with much effort and earnest debate going into identifying the real life other characters e.g. most bank for the young man being the notoriously flaky rake Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton no less – who just happens to be regarded as ‘Shake-speare’s’ patron…! Hence the ‘tradition’ that ‘Shake-speare’ was a confused and befuddled bi-sexual….

Suffice to say, I think this is complete garbage!

It’s in part due to the brilliant cover story the poet sets up, and part due to the sad fact that academia knows next to nothing about the mystical nature of true poetry. So I’ll just say it straight out – the poems are all and only about the internal life/spiritual journey of the poet himself – the young man is him; the soul-ego (poet) that loves him is him; the dark lady is a representative of the dark STS ‘she’ / Predators Mind without and within who would destroy and feed upon his spiritual carcass – indeed, all the lessons and confessions of the whole stinking process are his and his alone (though freely shared with the reader).

If I may be so bold as to suggest, think The Wave but without Laura’s name on the cover and all the characters and events so disguised that you don’t realize it’s all really about her!

I hope you’re still with me…

So let’s look at closer at Sonnets 126-127:



Edit: there were glaring errors in the maths equations that occurred due to format transfer. Rectified today with insertion of images.
 
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SONNET 126

It is uniformly assumed that the ‘poet’ was ever present at the first printing as a directing oversight to ensure this much prized first edition was presented to the world at large to his entire satisfaction. What therefore still puzzles academia is that it is riddled with type errors, strange additions, contradictory use of lower and upper case, italics in odd places - in fact you name it, its there in abundance.

Remember printing back then was a highly specialized art form, hugely time consuming (character by character) and seen as a cutting edge technological wonder of the world. The Sonnets were published by an acknowledged master in the field – and the rarest of all things – a volume actually published by ‘Shake-speare’ when he was still alive (the great body of his work was only produced in print posthumously… or so the story goes!). Yet academics will tell you it’s a total botch job which they have – thankfully - cleaned up 400 years on. Talk about Chinese whispers…!

No, everything that is there is meant to be thereincluding the Capital letters, the italicized words, the punctuation and most importantly… the 2 sets of empty brackets that fill the gap between the end of sonnet 126 and the start of 127… the only time in the entire sequence this happens (apparently the typesetter was drunk that day!)…

Here follows a modernized editor’s iteration of the original with some nod to the typeset version printed in the 1609 first edition.

O Thou, my lovely Boy, who in thy power,
Dost hold time's fickle glass, his sickle, hour:
Who hast by waning grown, and therein showest,
Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self growest.
If Nature (sovereign mistress over wrack)
As thou goest onwards still will pluck thee back,
She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill.
May time disgrace and wretched minutes kill.
Yet fear her O thou minion of her pleasure,
She may detain, but not still keep her treasure!
Her Audite (though delayed) answered must be,
And her Quietus is to render thee.

And this is the real thing in its original state and language; the format tool unfortunately wouldn't let me either place the number correctly above the first line (something of particular importance to the ongoing secret coding of the sequence) or replicate those double, empty italicized brackets at the end, but you can see them clearly here.


Sonnet 126.jpg


You can also access any of the complete set via this link to a perfect facsimile (126 is on page 57).

There remain only 13 extant copies left in the world (that itself is an interesting fact considering the original print run likely would have run into the 100s) and each one priced at 5d (old pennies!) is now valued in the millions of pounds! Not a bad return on your investment if you bought one then and passed it down… though it’s worth considering that he was basically giving them away, as 5d then would be worth £2.80 today! They are supposed to have taken about 20 years to write, so this from a man that the establishment biography says was obsessed with money…. so I wonder, was the number 5 of particular interest to him…?

I know his language can seem dense and impenetrable to those who do not live with it on a regular basis, so to aide you, here is a reasonably accurate modernized version of mine to help convey the overall feel of the surface meaning.

Oh you, my lovely Boy, who in your power
Holds time’s ever changing mirror, his scythe, his gruesome hour;
You have by fading actually increased, and there in shown
Your desires diminishing as the sweeter part of you has grown.
For though Nature, the ultimate queen over all our ruin,
Ever pulls you back as you strive forwards,
She still keeps you fast to her purpose so that her skill
May yet shame time and neutralize its wretched power of measurement.
But fear her - oh you toy of her pleasures!
Yes she may yet detain you here, but not still nurture you, her offspring!
Her total sum of your worth (though delayed) still must be accounted for in the end;
And her final death settlement is to see you fully as you truly are, and have ever been!

Note that a ‘Shake-speare’ sonnet normally comprises 14 lines and is structured on the basis of 3x sets of 4 lines (with an ABAB rhythm), with a final 2x line indented couplet as a fourth set which in some way concludes or sums up the staged development of the overall argument (with an AA rhyme).

The original of Sonnet 126 is immediately notable, however, in that instead each couplet rhymes (as in AABB) and most strangely, it has just 12 lines in total. Two are missing! To mark this we have two empty sets of brackets… left simply hanging there, in the void… like an empty tomb.

the blanks enclosed by brackets might suggest the shape of an hour glass, which will consume the youth's hours. Or their emptiness might indicate a gaping grave. At any rate the shortness of the sonnet and the closing two lines do give a sense of incompleteness, suggesting that it might have been impossible to finish the sequence, and that perhaps their love was unending.

Perhaps, rather than the silence of the grave, which Hamlet's final words The rest is silence convey, we should look for a parallel in Prospero's loving farewell to Ariel in the Tempest, (V.I.316-8) a farewell which elicits no reply, for Ariel flies off to join the fiery elements to which he belongs, and Prospero realises that he can no longer hold him.

My Ariel, chick,
That is thy charge. Then to the elements
Be free, and fare thou well!


So all in all, a mystery before we even try to decipher the sonnet’s further inner meaning…

As you can see from my attempt at a literal version above, there is much to contemplate in just these 12 lines…


Some observations:

  • The youthful/unformed part of ‘him’, so powerful in its natural physical vitality and ability to resist the shocks of time’s slow passing, is now ‘growing’ by ‘fading’ into a mature and more self-aware stage…

  • This is a result of getting some degree of control over his desires, his horses i.e. emotions, sensual passions, gross ambitions…

  • Nature herself (with a capital N – so a personage noun) is ever always also the Queen of Death…

  • Though you try to move deeper on and in, the ‘she’ that overrules here keeps calling to you to return to her physical, 3rd density ways…

  • She’s always calling you, even as one gets closer to the end than the beginning, because she ever desires the last drop you have to give, ever wants that marrow of your being to feed her world of perpetual life drainage and recycling through offspring…

  • Her greatest enemy is time – that fickle, fateful grim creature of her being - that can at any moment cull her fulsome crop before its ‘time’ of full ripeness…

  • But be warned! You must be fearful of her whispered summons because you are merely a toy for her to play with, used and abused as you fulfil her own delights….

  • Oh, yes she may allow you ‘time’ enough to live but don’t bank too much on her motherly nature to look after you whilst you’re here…

  • And remember that in the end all your deeds and achievements will be accounted for…

  • For her real secret is that in the end of ends she will see all of you – as you stand naked before her, stripped bear of your pretentions – when you finally come before the queen of queens, the Goddess of Divine Being, post mortem…

Note how ‘Shake-speare’ capitalizes and italicizes both Audite and Quietus in those last two lines before the empty ‘tomb’ brackets below. Again academics/modern editors ignore and remove these as an aberration/printing error – but his italics in the sonnets are hugely meaningful and always come with a capital. For example in the original printed version of the very first sonnet in the whole sequence and in only its second line, the one italicized word in the whole verse is Rose

That thereby beauty's Rose might never die,


We shall come back to that again some day… but I think you here will sense the meaning straight up… I suspect Laura certainly will…

Let’s look at those two strange sounding words:

Audite = from the Latin and then the French; someone who audits, brings to account or reckoning (especially in the face of God); someone who judicially hears and examines your full audit.

Quietus = Medieval Latin; a final stillness or pause as the settlement of death and the clearing of all accounts takes place.

5th density anyone…?

I’ll let that all settle in before we take a look at 127...
 
A mental stretch at the very least is what I hope this offers some of you...

Thank you Miguel B-C for your generous contribution. I have to read again and reflect on this in more detail. I have to check on mathematical data, read the authors presented through the text, well, a big task ahead. Sincerely there are elements contained in the thread that I hear for the first time. Metaphorically speaking, I suffered a mental "cramp", because the thinking muscle is not "stretched" enough and this thread is the opportunity to do such an exercise. It is fundamental for the intellect the slightly incomprehensible, because in the process of understanding, the mind gets the energy needed to continue on the path of learning. For me, "not knowing" is the key ingredient that motivates me in the search for clues. If I only study material that I understand, I feel that I am not challenging my mind. An effort must be made to move forward. I'll read the thread again. Your publication is acting as a ferment for thought. Speaking of thoughts:

Q: (B) What do you mean by riding the wave?
A: Traveling in thoughts. Q: (L) Whose thoughts are these? A: Thoughts unify all reality that exists and are shared by all. Q: (S) Are you traveling in a wave of energy created by all thought forms? A: Thought forms are all that exist!

I am currently preparing for a second reading of the thread. I hope that in this second round some new thought will shine in the consciousness. :lkj:

A greeting, a thought from a distance!:flowers:
 
Note how ‘Shake-speare’ capitalizes and italicizes both Audite and Quietus in those last two lines before the empty ‘tomb’ brackets below. Again academics/modern editors ignore and remove these as an aberration/printing error – but his italics in the sonnets are hugely meaningful and always come with a capital. For example in the original printed version of the very first sonnet in the whole sequence and in only its second line, the one italicized word in the whole verse is Rose

An error, not likely when it comes to these matters of markers.

Must say, Michael, from the original Shake-speare thread I was thinking to jump in and go down the Baconian route - a wee bit anyway. As for now, though, well that is off the table, so to speak, as you have put down much new to think about.

One thing may seem so - wherever things may go (the Sonnets structured to fit with a Cap-Stone is more than a little interesting), and as M.P. Hall noted (1929) - beyond the below controversy of plays:

Most of those seeking a solution for the Bacon-Shakspere controversy {in that sense of the Baconian route} have been intellectualists.
Notwithstanding their scholarly attainments, they have overlooked the important part played by
transcendentalism in the philosophic achievements of the ages. The mysteries of superphysics are
inexplicable to the materialist
, whose training does not equip him to estimate the extent of their
ramifications and complexities. Yet who but a Platonist, a Qabbalist, or a Pythagorean could have
written The Tempest, Macbeth, Hamlet, or The Tragedy of Cymbeline? Who but one deeply versed in
Paracelsian lore could have conceived, A Midsummer Night's Dream?

Who indeed...Shakespeare?

I’ll let that all settle in before we take a look at 127...

So, thank you thus far for putting down something not seen before whilst now following along (another review will be in order as @Stella Marys said) to wherever things may lead...
 
Wow Michael B-C. I'm devouring this information. Thank you for taking the time and trouble. It's fascinating the threads you are drawing on even if the maths bit causes a bit of a head freeze.The knowledge you have on this subject shows serious study on your part and I'm very grateful you are sharing. Like so much else in this world knowledge hidden in plain sight. What English Literature in schools would have been like if this was on the syllabus.
 
Michael B-C:

Although I've only begun to read your first post and thus this thread, I feel similarly to how you say you feel right now with regard to having all this pent up inspiration and ideas that are taking me in various directions, and how you're not quite knowing where or how to share it. I myself have a keen interest in Shakespeare. It's even tied to a writing/film project of mine, which might never be financed -- since film is such an expensive proposition. But just to say, it's an area that touches a type of intellectual, aesthetic/artistic excitement in me. All of which is to say that I'm glad you took the chance and decided to share these ideas here. Significant links sometimes occur in surprising ways, and as far as I can tell I do believe this forum represents a place where such informed and inspired "thinking out loud" is encouraged.
 
Stella Marys said:
For me, "not knowing" is the key ingredient that motivates me in the search for clues. If I only study material that I understand, I feel that I am not challenging my mind. An effort must be made to move forward. I'll read the thread again. Your publication is acting as a ferment for thought. Speaking of thoughts:
Q: (B) What do you mean by riding the wave?
A: Traveling in thoughts. Q: (L) Whose thoughts are these? A: Thoughts unify all reality that exists and are shared by all. Q: (S) Are you traveling in a wave of energy created by all thought forms? A: Thought forms are all that exist!

I'm going to have to sit down and really take time to dive into what Michael B-C has posted, but the above quote of the C's provided by Stella Mary reminded me of something I posted in relation to what was written in the book Speculum Mentis. I didn't remember the C's quote when writing, but must have influenced it:
My speculative thoughts on how Collingwood’s quote relates to the C’s session quoted below and gravity, is the question and answer dynamic or the seeking to understand reality via question and answers is gravity and/or creates unstable gravity waves. It seems to me from looking at the perspective from 1D (matter) to 7D (pure consciousness and full view of all reality) that using the senses, perception and thinking, such as a 3D human using their five senses and the ability to think, continually validates reality via a seamless process given whatever abilities a being has to perceive, think and understand reality. It is possible that this is what binds the universe together and the C’s have said is gravity and a binder. If information and theories on information for the universe forms a key aspect of understanding reality, then questioning and finding answers is an active or activating component of information and fundamental component of reality. Could this active process from 1D thru to 7D be in and of everything as the C’s explain about gravity?
 
Hi Michael, thank you so much for these posts. I am not much educated in classical literature and with all reading work piling up i must say i do not make much time for it either even though i know i would enjoy it a lot and in this way, reading your easily accessible style of writing i not only enjoyed but learned a lot. And as a sort of bonus, consciously making this time and really reading and contemplating the words, gave me the opportunity to practise a certain kind of exercising will power to stay with the words, the sentences, the contemplations, soaking up what was there, and i thought for me this constituted something like a wonderful meditation. Thanks again :flowers:
 
Hi Michael, thanks for this thread, I wish I had learned this when I was studying Ovid and Shakespeare's works back in school! So much hidden in plain sight. Makes one wonder how much was known about the reality of this world in ancient Times.
 
Love this thread. Last month I did this out of nowhere:


ShakeDown

Now comes the night
Go tell the human race
We're raining down
Like sparrows
Pouring concrete
On their
...broken wings
Oh oh...
Now comes the night

Now comes the night
Go tell the human race
'Bout a serpent
And the crown
Go tell the human race
Now comes the fright

Shake down
Break down
Shake
Your Shakespeare
False face must hide
What false heart
...doth know
...doth know

Break break
Break
Your Blake
Every particle of you
Will breathe forth joy
Don't get all
Hot and bothered
Just yet
Cause this only
The first set
Break shit
If you must
Then could you
And we're going
Underground
Underground

Grab your shoes love
It's time to run
This should be fun

Remember the love
And that I love you
All part of the plot

Once the tide turns
We'll meet again
So you can be me
And I will be you
 
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