117 Quick Proofs of Thomas North's Authorship of the "Shakespearean" True-Crime-Tragedy "Arden of Faversham"
Unique Verbal Parallels
Absent handwriting samples, the only known, tried-and-true method of authorship identification—the one method that holds up in courts of law in the US, UK, Europe, and most countries around the world—the one that has successfully solved anonymous authorship cases and first pointed to Ted Kaczynski as the Unabomer (out of a suspect pool that included all adult Americans)—is unique verbal parallels. The rationale behind their use in identifying authors of certain texts is both simple and unassailable. Certain lines, phrases, word-strings, or word-groupings are so extremely rare—or even unique—that we can necessarily reject the notion that they occurred just by chance in the same peculiar context in the writings of two different authors. Frequently, one can establish a connection between shared lines in different texts with a far greater certainty than that achieved in fingerprint or DNA analyses. And if we find that an anonymous-text shares language—some identical word-string or line—with another known-author’s text that is so rare we can disregard coincidence, we are left with two possibilities:
Either both texts are by the same author …
Or the unidentified author was recalling the language of the known author’s text and was crafting a similar passage.
But the more unique borrowings you find, the less likely it is that the texts are by two different writers — with one writer constantly remembering the language of another. Indeed, uncovering someone's unique lines repeated throughout a suspect text is akin to discovering a suspect’s DNA all over a crime scene. In both cases, the only alternative explanation left for the defense is that someone else repeatedly planted them there. But even this hopeful explanation starts to crumble when we find unique language in the questionable text from multiple texts of a suspected writer, which is tantamount to finding multiple links to a suspect at a crime scene—his blood, his hair, his fingerprints, etc. Are we to believe some other culprit was repeatedly planting different lines from different texts of the same writer throughout the questionable text?
Indeed, with the Shakespeare canon, we have 37 plays—that is, 37 different crime scenes—spanning decades. And at every crime scene, we find liters of North's linguistic DNA splattered all over everything — in every large scene of every act of every play.
Such unique verbal parallels have now helped expose Sir Thomas North as the original author of the old plays that Shakespeare later adapted for the stage (and no scholar denies that Shakespeare frequently reworked earlier plays). Indeed, with the Shakespeare canon, we have 37 plays—that is, 37 different crime scenes—spanning decades. And at every crime scene, we find liters of North's linguistic DNA splattered all over everything — in every large scene of every act. In fact, in essentially every play, we find unique verbal links to multiple texts of North, some of them unpublished. Essentially everything Shakespeare ever wrote shows a profound and persistent fluency with everything North ever wrote—all four of his translations (including one before it was published), his handwritten travel-journal, and North’s marginal notes that he scribbled into books. So those motivated to deny North’s involvement in Shakespeare’s source-plays would have to contend that 1) some other unknown author(s) wrote those older source-plays; 2) Shakespeare somehow managed to then obtain all of North’s texts, including his unpublished writings; and 3) Shakespeare then planted North’s lines all throughout his adaptations of someone else’s dramas. Further, we would have to believe Shakespeare remained fanatically devoted to this bizarre, North-focused modus operandi for decades, starting with his first play and continuing to his last.
Unique verbal parallels have also exposed North’s authorship of the anonymous Arden of Faversham (1592), a true-crime tragedy about Alice Arden’s murder of her husband Thomas with her lover Mosby. North’s interest in the crime is understandable as Alice was his half-sister, Thomas his brother-in-law, and Mosby a North-family servant. Thomas knew everyone involved in the crime. North’s authorship also explains why so many editors and scholars have considered the play so “Shakespearean.” In 2014, Macdonald P. Jackson published a book, “Determining the Shakespeare Canon: Arden of Faversham and A Lover’s Complaint” (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), focusing on Shakespeare’s possible authorship of the domestic tragedy. Jackson examines a few dozen linguistic parallels between the play and Shakespeare’s works—and editors and scholars have now found such arguments so convincing that they accept Shakespeare’s involvement in the play. In 2016, The New Oxford Shakespeare included Arden of Faversham in its collection of his works.
Yet the parallel passages and unique verbal correspondences relating Arden of Faversham to North’s Dial of Princes (and indeed all of North’s works) are far more compelling, both in terms of quality and quantity, than those relating this tragedy to any other author’s works, including Shakespeare’s. This is not to suggest that the parallels between the tragedy and Shakespeare’s plays are weak; it is just that verbal correspondences involving Arden and North’s translations, and especially his Dial, are much more pervasive and convincing. And it really does not matter what yardstick we use:
1) Quantity: Arden includes a significantly greater number of unique or rare links with North’s Dial than it does with the entire Shakespeare canon—even though the canon is much larger. This includes rare word-strings of all lengths, 3-word, 4-word, etc.
2) Quality: The Arden-North parallels are far superior in terms of peculiarity, similarity, word-string length, identity of meaning and context, etc., than the Arden-Shakespeare parallels.
3) Concentration: In his own copy of The Dial, North marked the “fierce-wives” sections that he then used to help him update both Arden of Faversham and The Taming of the Shrew, and these highlighted pages and sections include a far greater number of uniquely corresponding passages, word-strings, and verbal echoes with Arden than does any comparable sized fragment of the canon, whether broken into play, act, scene, speech, poem, or series of stanzas.
Indeed, The Dial and Arden of Faversham share more unique linguistic parallels than the writings of the Unabomber and Kaczynski or that have ever been used in any effort at authorship identification:
This is a somewhat surprising discovery, even from the point of view endorsed here. As many of North’s passages remain in the Shakespeare canon, I naturally assumed Arden of Faversham would share far more elements with North’s plays rather than his prose. The tragedy consists mostly of first-person dialogue, is mostly in blank verse, and includes many stage conventions (e.g., entrances, exits) and plot points (e.g., death, murder, vengeance)—all features that are common in Shakespeare’s plays. North’s translations, in contrast, are mostly expository essays and third-person descriptions, and The Dial is a 1557 humanist instruction manual on the proper behaviors and philosophies of courtiers and princes. First published 35 years prior to Arden of Faversham (1592), North’s Dial would seem to have nothing in common with the tragedy in terms of subject matter. Yet it is this old translation that shares the most unique linguistic parallels with the tragedy. Indeed, The Dial and Arden of Faversham share more unique linguistic parallels than the writings of the Unabomber and Kaczynski or that have ever been used in any effort at authorship identification:
Below is a list of more than 100 parallel passages and lines linking Arden of Feversham with the translations of North. The parallels marked by a vertical blue line are from the same passages and chapters that North wrote about with a pen in both the table of contents and the margins of his personal copy of The Dial.
1. Dial: Wherein is expressed the great malice and little patience of an evil woman (755)
Arden: Wherein is shewed the great malice and dissimulation of a wicked woman (1)
2. Dial: for he is of a pure melancholy humor, and therefore he that doth him pleasure augmenteth his disease, and he that vexeth him shall prolong his life. (253)
Arden: Fr: Read them, and leave this melancholy mood.
Ard: Franklin, thy love prolongs my weary life (1.8-9) [Nearly Unique]
3. Dial: They flatter the pages and servants….For the gorgeous Courtier…jetting in his velvets and silks, to beg and seek his dinner daily at every man’s board, being nobly and honorably entertained of the prince, and able to bear his countenance….the Noblemen to whose houses they come to, are offended with them, the Stewards of the house murmur at them, the pages and servants mocks them and laughs them to scorn (619-620)
Arden: Crept into service of a nobleman, /And by his servile flattery and fawning
Is now become the steward of his house,/ And bravely jets it in his silken gown.
Fr: No nobleman will countenance such a peasant (1.27-31)
[Isolated parallels: jetting in his … silks/jets it in his silken gown, the steward of the house/the steward of his house, flatter-servants/servile flattery, nobleman-countenance. Also in Arden: the white-livered peasant is gone to bed, and laughs us both to scorn. (5.38-9)]
4. Plutarch: There was no such matter: but he could not make Antonius believe the contrary (977)
Arden: There 's no such matter, Michael; believe it not. (1.151)
5. Dial: being in his City of Agrigentine…wrote him a taunting letter (169)
Arden: I’ll send from London such a taunting letter (1.158)
6. Dial: Thou sayest, thou never sawest constancy in a woman’s love (756)
Arden: A woman's love is as the lightning-flame…
To try thy constancy have I been strange (1.207-9)7. Dial (Faustine): for they do not speak the half of their griefs: because their heavy and woeful hearts commandeth their eyes to weep and tongues to be silent. (224)
Arden: That makes him frame a speaking countenance,
A weeping eye that witnesses heart’s grief. (1.257-8)8. Dial (Antithesis/Faustine): that they will cherish them that they love,
and revenge them of those that they hate. (227)
Arden (Antithesis/Faustine): That rather than you’ll live with him you hate,
You’ll venture life and die with him you love. (1.270-1)9. Dial: who protesteth to God and confesseth to the world…I must needs appeal to all (561)
Arden: I do appeal to God and to the world (1. 318)10. Dial: Now Faustine, since I have the old venom
from my heart expelled, I will answer… (235)
Arden: Arden, now thou hast belched and vomited
The rancorous venom of thy mis-swoll’n heart,
Hear me but speak …1.324-26,
11. Dial: For as a Noble Dame, she would quench with coals of fire her burning heart, that
enflamed was with fiery brands of love (189)
Arden: I loved her once—sweet Arden, pardon me. I could not choose, her beauty fired my heart. /But time hath quenched these over-raging coals (1.330-32)
12. Dial: damnation, the wrath of God lighted upon him (95)
Arden: Hell-fire and wrathful vengeance light on me (1.336)
13. Dial: All the knights and gentlemen sought to the uttermost …(312)
Arden: When all the knights and gentlemen …
You shall command me to the uttermost (1.343, 549)
14. Dial: [I] assure you, Princes and Noble men, that you in working virtuous deeds, shall not want slanderous tongues…” Truly, this Emperor Octavian by his words declared himself to be a wise man, and of a noble heart, and lightly to weigh both the murmurings of the people and also the vanities of their words (116-7)
Arden: Mos: Who lives that is not touched with slanderous/ Tongues..?
By my faith, sir, you say true. /And therefore will I sojourn here a while….
Ard: And I will lie at London all this term /To let them see how light I weigh their words. (1.345-359)
15. Dial: the speech of men (232)
Dial: hazarding also his gravity and reputation to the rumor and bruit of others (618)
Arden: Then, Mosbie, to eschew the speech of men,
Upon whose general bruit all honor hangs…
Were to confirm the rumor that is grown. (1.346-52)
16. Dial: The days and troubles of Claudinus thy husband are ended (486)
Dial: The cares and troubles that follow man in this life (471)
Arden: Then should my cares and troubles have an end (1.388)
17. Dial: To mark what they speak and do, that treading once awry… (712)
Plutarch: he angrily again cast him in the teeth (704)
Arden: I cannot speak or cast aside my eye,
But he imagines I have stepped awry.
Here’s he that you cast in my teeth so oft (1.370-2)
18. Dial: the fault shall not be pardoned (387)
Arden: the fault shall not be mine (1.412)
19. Dial (Faustine): She bathed her woeful words with bitter tears… I have told thee all this Faustine, because thy words have wounded me in such sort, thy tears in such wise have compelled me …They wrote not so many troubles in all their books as one woman causeth her husband to feel in one day. (223-4)
Arden: Alice: For never woman loved her husband better /Than I do thee.
Arden: I know it, sweet Alice; cease to complain, /Lest that in tears I answer thee again.
Come, leave this dallying, and let us away.
Alice: Forbear to wound me with that bitter word 1.393-7
[Wound-words, tears, bitter, woman-husband, I-thee, – in a debate between husband and crying wife. ]20. Dial: Now I must needs think that thy love was feigned, that thy words were double … for if they had been otherwise, it had been unpossible thou should’st have denied me….You give many fair words, you make us fair promises, you say you will do marvels, but in the end you do nothing but deceive us…. When we suffer ourselves to be overcome, then you begin to forsake us…. Do it, at least, because I may no more importune thee: (220)
Dial: all his fair words are then but wind, and indeed they make an art of it … to promise much and to perform nothing” (723).
Arden: Mos: It is unpossible, for I have sworn /Never hereafter to solicit thee
Or, whilst he lives, once more importune thee.
Alice: Thou shalt not need; I will importune thee./ What, shall an oath make thee forsake my love...? /Tush, Mosby. Oaths are words, and words is wind. (1.429-33, 36)
Arden: Instead of fair words and large promises (14.111)
21. Doni: To pay him home 4
Arden: To pay him home 1.446
22. Plutarch: His purposed journey (4)
Dial: They labour in vain (326)
Plutarch: by many days journeys spent in vain (559)
Arden: My purposed journey was to him
Yet all my labour is not spent in vain (1.452-3)
[According to EEBO journey FBY.15 spent in vain yields only one result]
23. Dial: Oftentimes the husband’s come home chafed, troubled, wrathful, angry, and vexed…[and their wives] shall have either evil words with his tongue, or else suffer sore blows with his fists. Truly, it is not meet…that Princesses and great Dames should 1. overthwart their husbands with froward words… (196)
Arden: I never live good day with him alone.
When he is at home, then have I froward looks,
Hard words, and blows to mend the match withal. (1.493-5)
24. Doni: thus sorrow and bewail the loss of him which made thee live in continual fear (95)
Arden: Thus live I daily in continual fear, /In sorrow, so despairing … (1.502-3)
25. Doni: He stamped, he snuffed, he cried…. And when he was wearied with these storms and passions, down he laid him, and roared out amain (108v)
Plutarch: as by divine revenge to cry quittance (667)
Arden: I told him all, whereat he stormed amain/And swore he would cry quittance with the churl (1.558-560) [cry-storm-amain and cry quittance]
26. Plutarch: such a slave as thou (224)
Dial: so vile…a thing as (667)
Arden: such a slave, so vile a rogue as he (2.5)
27. Doni; play thee many of these pranks (31v)
Arden: he played such pranks 2.9
28. Dial: and all the evil feared him for being just. (217)
Arden: As all the camp feared him for his villainy (2.10)
29. Dial: fitly to the purpose (231)
Plutarch: Fit for his purpose (825)
Arden: The fitter he is for my purpose (2.13)
30. Doni: to do ye any good I can (49v)
Arden: to do thee any good I can (2.17) [EEBO search for to do FBY any good I can yields only Arden and Doni in the sixteenth century.]
31. Dial: he might freely and without any danger of law put her to death (255)
Arden: that murder would grow to an occupation that a man might follow without danger of law (2.103-4)
32. Dial: what manner of man he hath been (571)
Plutarch: what manner of man he was (4, 204, 675)
Arden: what manner of man was he (2.45)
33. Plutarch: What manner of man he was,
by the marks that Erginus had given him of him: that he had a black curled hair, that his face was black, and that he had no beard (1092)
Arden: BW: What manner of man was he?
Br: A lean-faced, writhen knave … / Long hair down his shoulders curled;
His chin was bare.
[Isolated Correspondences: What manner of man was he (he was), curled hair, face(d), he had no beard (chin was bare)] (2.45)
34. Dial: This villain had a small face, great lips, hollow eyes, his color burnt,
curled hair… a long beard and thick, his eye brows covered his eyes (362)
Arden: A lean-faced, writhen knave / Hawk-nosed and very hollow-eyed,
With mighty furrows in his stormy brows / Long hair down his shoulders curled …;
A mutchado, which he wound about his ear.
35. Dial: weareth his gown all-to-torn, his shoes out, his points without aglets, an evil-favoured girdle, his coat rent, his hat old, his hose, seam rent, his cap greasy, and his shirt lousy (445)
Arden: A watchet satin doublet all-to-torn/ (The inner side did bear the greater show),
A pair of threadbare velvet hose, seam rent,/ A worsted stocking rent above the shoe,
A livery cloak, but all the lace was off; … (2.46-57)
36. Plutarch: Let me intreat you (617)
Arden: Let me intreat you (2.73)
37. Doni: A frowning look (39)
Arden: A frowning look (3.8)
38. Dial: filching knaves,with other loitering vagabonds (671)
Arden: Why, you paltry knave, /Stand you here loitering…
Here will be old filching (3.15-16, 46)
39. Doni: but hearest thou me, God’s my bones, not a word for thy life (62)
Arden: let me hear no more of this/ Nor for thy life once write to her a word (3.25-6)
40. Dial: Grieves me not so much (218, 758)
Arden: Grieves me not so much (3.59) [Very rare: only three other records in 16th century—Arden does not show up though]
41. Dial: why he journeyed so oft from Athens to Sicily being the way he traveled, indeed very long…suffered the parching heat of the mountains Riphei … 563
Arden: I tell thee, Greene, the forlorn traveler,
Whose lips are glued with summer's parching heat (3.92-3)
42. Dial: When my dead phere in swallowing earth was cast (191)
North’s Journal: The ground opened to swallow him up… fell a bleeding
Arden: Whose earth may swallow up this Arden’s blood (3.110)
Arden: Gapes open wide like graves to swallow men. (4.82)
43. Doni: And wot ye what? thither came… (36)
Arden: Yonder comes his man, and wot you what? (3.111)
44. Dial: come to the purpose (539)
Arden: come to the purpose (3.132)
45. Dial: What thing is that which needeth no excuse in the accomplishment thereof? Byas answered: ‘The thing that is promised, must of necessity be performed.’
Arden: What I have promised I will perform…
I will accomplish all I have revealed. (3.179-81)
46. Dial: The many good turns I have received at your hands (572)
Dial: To reward that which thou hast done to me,
I do some service unto thee (215)
Arden: The many good turns that thou hast done to me
Now must I quittance with betraying thee. (3.189-90)
47. Dial: If the fear of the gods, the infamy of the person,
and the speech of men do not restrain the woman,
all the chastisements of the world will
not make her refrain from vice (232)
Arden: If fear of God or common speech of men…
And reprehension makes her vice to grow (4.2,12)48. Dial: they are once deeply rooted in vices (229)
Arden: she is rooted in her wickedness. (4.6)49. Dial: when I think on this I turn to my bosom (753 – Boemia)
Arden: when I think on this /My heart’s grief (4.18-19)50. Dial: till the hour of death…thou with sorrows art so replenished, and my heart with care so oppressed… I earnestly desire thee to leave the lamentation. (490-1)
Arden: Ard: My heart's grief rends my other powers/ Worse than the conflict at the hour of death.
Fr: Gentle Arden, leave this sad lament …
Now will he shake his care-oppressed head…
Pouring fresh sorrow on his weary limbs (4.19-21, 43, 52)
[Correspondences: care (so) oppressed, the hour of death, leave the/this lament(ation), my heart(’s), sorrows fresh/replenished This is obviously unique: Just checking the hour of FBY.5 death NEAR.500 care FBY.2 oppressed yields six results in three records -- two editions of Dial and AF. This grouping appears nowhere else.]
51. Dial: The good Emperor being so loaden with years…sorrows and cares oppressed his heart. Sometimes he cast up his eyes, and at other times he wrung his hands: always he was silent, and continually he sighed. His tongue was swollen, that he could not spit: and his eyes very hollow with weeping… at the hour of death. (527-8)
Arden: Worse than the conflict at the hour of death…
what deep-fetched sighs, What grievous groans and overlading woes
Accompanies this gentle gentleman! Now will he shake his care-oppressed head,
Then fix his sad eyes on the sullen earth. Ashamed to gaze upon the open world ;
Now will he cast his eyes up towards the heavens) (4.20, 40-6)
[Correspondences: sometimes he cast up his eyes/ now will he cast his eyes up; care(s) oppressed, his eyes-weep/sad, at the hour of death, loaden/overlading.]
52. Dial: Of the comfortable words which the Secretary Panutius spake to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius at the hour of his death: ‘O My Lord and Master, my tongue cannot keep silent, mine eyes cannot refrain from bitter tears, nor my heart leave from fetching sighs…’ (531)
Dial: wise men at the hours of their death… the sighs that he fetcheth. (218-19)
Arden: My heart’s grief rends my other powers/ Worse than the conflict at the hour of death…
What pity-moving words, what deep-fetched sighs, (4.19-20, 40)
[at the hour of (his) death, my heart, fetch(ing) sighs, words is unique.]
53. Dial: as a man being vexed, lifting up his eyes unto the heavens, fetching a grievous sigh from the bottom of his heart, said these words (232)
Arden: What pity-moving words, what deep-fetched sighs, /What grievous groans and overlading woes…/Now will he cast his eyes up towards the heavens… (4.40-46)
[lifting up his eyes unto the heavens/ cast his eyes up towards the heavens; fetch-sigh-grievous-words]
54. Plutarch: cut off his tale (812)
Doni: cut off his tale (69)
Arden: cutteth off his tale (4.51) [Nearly unique.]
55. Plutarch: he could not sleep in the night, or if he slept,
had fearful dreams that troubled him, and still he thought…
Arden: Nothing, sir but as I fell asleep… /
I had a fearful dream that troubled me / And in my slumber thought... (4.92-3)
56. Dial: the pages and servants mocks them, and laughs them to scorn (620)
Arden: the white-livered peasant is gone to bed, and laughs us both to scorn. (5.38-9)
57. Plutarch: cankered rust doth fret, the steel full bright of trenchant blades (80)
Arden: Ne'er let this sword assist me when I need, /But rust and canker (5.42-3)
58. Doni: [Alluding to fear of punishment of the Lion-King in a forest]
he trembled every joint of him, and quaked like an Aspen leaf
and a beastly fever took him (103v)
Arden: With this I woke trembled every joint, / Like one obscured in a little bush,
That sees a lion foraging about, /And, when the dreadful forest-king is gone..,
And will not think his person dangerless. /But quakes and shivers though the cause be gone: (6.20-7)
59. Plutarch: he seemed to be a coward and timorous when there was no danger nor misfortune happened
Arden: He pries about with timorous suspect…/And will not think his person dangerless…though the cause be gone (6.24-7)
60. Dial: stand in doubt whether they be true or no ( 714)
Arden: stood in doubt whether I waked or no (6.29)
61. Dial: thou oughtest not to believe a dream.
For all that the fantasy in the night doth imagine.. (129)
Arden: Ard: But oftentimes my dreams presage too true.
Fr:. To such as note their nightly fantasies,
Some one in twenty may incur belief (6.38-40)
62. Doni: This inward grief doth vex thy mind, feebleth thy body (97)
Plutarch: His mind being troubled with continual fear (221)
Arden: Continual trouble of my moody brain/ Feebles my body…
Whose troubled mind is stuffed with discontent (8.3-4, 10)
63. Dial: Feeleth great grief in his heart, when in the prime-time the tree is loaden with blossoms, and yet by reason of some sharp and bitter frost, it never beareth fruit (204)
Arden: Continual trouble of my moody brain / Feebles my body ..,
And nips me as the bitter north-east wind / Doth check the tender blossoms in the spring. (8.3-6)
64. Dial: the gods would marvel and men would wonder at the body which hath endured so much (534)
Arden: God, I besee thee… / Either there be butchered by thy dearest friends,
Or else brought for men to wonder at (8.30-6).
65. Dial: Make me partaker of your secrets (716)
Arden: Make me partaker of thy pensiveness (8.46)
66. Dial: For the true love is not wearied to love (169)
Arden: It is not love that loves to anger love. (8.58)
67. Dial: importune him to do it (632)
Doni: importune me to tell you (14v)
Arden: importuned me to give you (8.154)
68. Doni: thy sweet sugared words hast given him bitter gall (98)
Arden: your sweet-set tongue…
then my bliss is mixed with bitter gall. (8.147, 163)
69. Dial: as if a wind had blown this rumor into every man’s ear (387)
Dial: And therefore that a man will have published to the world,
let him tell it a woman in great secret. (695)
Arden: And then — conceal the rest, for 'tis too bad
Lest that my words be carried with the wind,
And published in the world to both our shames. 8.63-65
70. Dial: he began desperately to curse and ban (813)
Arden: if you ban, let me breathe curses forth (8.80)
71. Dial: he shall lose his credit, by keeping ill company. (622)
Arden: This certain good I lost for changing bad.
And wrapt my credit in thy company. 8.92-3.
72. Dial: to hide much copper under little gold, 452
Arden: the rain hath beaten off thy gilt,/ Thy worthless copper shows 8.100
73. Dial: For it grieveth me more to see…than (744)
Arden: It grieves me not to see…but (8.102)
74. Dial: It grieveth me not (149)
Dial: Grieves me not so much (218 Faustine, 758 Boemia)Dial: (Antithesis): The husband ought to make his wife believe that she is fair,
though indeed she be foul (235, Faustine)
Arden (Antithesis): It grieves me not to see how foul thou art,
But mads me that ever I thought thee fair. (8.102-3)
75. Dial: he hath spoken a word or two (651)
Arden: Hear me speak, Mosbie, a word or two (8.110)
76. Dial: (Antithesis/Faustine:) If he desire peace, they would have war. (225)
Arden: If thou cry war, there is no peace for me: (8.114)
77. Dial (isocolon/antithesis): among the pricking briers and thorns the sweet roses do grow, the sharp beech giveth us the savoury chestnuts (143)
Dial (isocolon/antithesis): gold amongst the rust, rose amongst the thorns, corn amongst the chaff (22)
Arden (isocolon/antithesis): flowers do sometimes spring in fallow lands,
Weeds in gardens, roses grow on thorns (8.142-3)
78. Doni: He would not miss of his purpose (5)
Doni: And missing of our purpose (45)
Plutarch: he had missed of his purpose (1150)
Arden: We have missed of our purpose (8.157)
Arden: How missed you of your purpose (14.49)
79. Dial: if as they have…laws prohibiting for to wear or carry weapon they had like laws also to punish detractive and wicked tongues (711)
Arden: That carry a muscado in their tongue.
And scarce a hunting weapon in their hand. (9.20)
80. Dial: kneeled down on both his knees, and holding up his hands to the heavens (678)
Arden: Then he kneels down and holds up his hands to heaven. (9.37-38 sd.)
[EEBO reveals one work other than The Dial and Arden with this quote.]
81. Dial: and lay the bird lime… on the dry and withered sticks to snare the silly birds (574)
Arden: and once more/ Lime well your twigs to catch this wary bird. (9.38-9)
82. Dial: Bound to do service (592)
Arden: Bound to do you service (9.101)
83. Dial: which is a half penny matter (599)
Arden: tainted for a penny matter (9.124) [Exclusive as of 1592]
84. Dial (antithesis): that which above all things doth most torment my heart is to have seen thee live as wise, and now to see thee die as simple. (532)
Arden (antithesis): And make him wise in death that lived a fool. (10.81)
Arden: My husband's death torments me at the heart. (14.266)
85. Dial: a little blast of wind doth stir them…striketh them all flat to the ground…for admit the pillars be of gold (451)
Arden: Like to a pillar built of many stones…/it shakes with every blast of wind,/ And, being touched, straight falls unto the earth (10.91-95)
86. Dial: Life shall end before thy covetousness (102)
Arden: Life shall end before my love depart. (10.89)
87. Dial: never to dine nor sup but first the trumpets should blow (279)
Arden: should never dine nor sup without candle-light. (12.10-11)
88. Dial (antithesis): Some man giving a little is counted liberal, and another giving much is counted a niggard. (457)
Arden (antithesis): His conscience is too liberal, and he too niggardly
To part from anything may do thee good. (13.2-3)
89. Plutarch: Furthered his intent (342)
Arden: To further my intent (13.10)
90. Doni: he will set thee where thou shalt see no Sun nor Moon a good while (79)
Arden: I’ll lay thee up so close a twelve month’s day
As thou shalt neither see the sun nor moon (13.22-5)
91. Dial: [In Margin]: How careful a man ought to be to bridle his tongue:
[On page:] For no man hurteth the reputation of another with his tongue,
but with the self-same he condemneth his own conscience (708)
Arden: bridle thine envious tongue ;
For curses are like arrows shot upright,
Which falling down light on the shooter's head (13.39-41)
92. Dial: railing knave (513)
Arden: railingest knave (13.54)
93. Dial: So bountiful and liberal (602)
Arden: Most bounteous and liberal (13.68)
94. Dial: If she laugh a little, they count her light.
If she laugh not, they count her an hypocrite.
If she go to the Church, they note her for a gadder…
If she go ill appareled, they account her a niggard (483)
Arden: If I be merry, thou straightways thinks me light;
If sad, thou sayest the sullens trouble me;
If well attired, thou thinks I will be gadding;
If homely, I seem sluttish in thine eye. (13.108-11)
95. Dial: I wish and desire my death. For there is
no such death or torment as to have to do with you
Arden: For in thy discontent I find a death,
A death more tormenting than death itself (13.120-1)
96. Dial: so long in speaking, (doc image 16)
Plutarch: so long in getting (472)
Arden: so long in killing (14.1)
97. Plutarch: Will come and sup with you to night (574)
Arden: Will come and sup with you at our house this night (14.38)
[EEBO: Will come and sup with you FBY night yields only Arden and Plutarch.]
98. Plutarch: sparing for no cost, laying on money bountifully (642)
Arden: lay it on, spare for no cost (14.45) [2 other works, Arden has coast]
99. Plutarch: came so bravely & lustily to assail him. (563)
Arden: He in a bravery flourished o'er his head ;
With that comes Franklin at him lustily (14.52-3)
100. Doni: I will give thee a watch word to serve thy turn at need
when thou shalt come before the King (75v)
Arden: Shall, at a certain watchword given, rush forth…
But come not forth before in any case. (14.99,102)
Arden: serve the turn (1.242, 635, 2.91, 15.57), serve our turn, once.
101. Dial: keep the key… which in thy eyes am the fairest…
you give many fair words, you make us fair promises...
give me the key… (220)
Arden: Alice: keep the key.../ that in mine eyes art fair..;
Instead of fair words and large promises…
Give me the key (14.104, 109-11, 130)
102. Doni: Who cunningly dissembled (99v)
Arden: How cunningly she can dissemble (14.181)
103. Doni: Why doest thou…meddleth with that thou hast naught to do? (48v)
Arden: I pray you, meddle with that you have to do. (14.199)
[meddle with that FBY to do* 4 other works in the 16th century]
104. Dial: ought to be as strange in him….as (753)
Arden: Be you as strange to me as I to you. (14.205)
105. Dial: That women…should not deserve to be ill spoken of
by such as resort to their houses (198)
Arden: And I for you, God knows, have undeserved
Been ill spoken of in every place ;
Therefore henceforth frequent my house no more. (14.207-9)
106. Dial (antithesis): so that when we think to be alive in the morning,
we are dead in the night. (452)
Arden (antithesis): so it be known that I shall marry thee in the morning,
I care not though I be hanged ere night. (14.289-90)
107. Dial: By guiltless blood (92)
Arden: his guiltless blood (14.395)
108. Plutarch: the place where he was wont to sleep (54)
Arden: the place where he was wont to sit. (14.398)
109. Dial: If…the blood which was shed had been turned into wine, (145)
Dial: The blood which was shed surmounted the wine that was drunk (518)
Arden: It is a cup of wine that Michael shed…
It is his blood, which, strumpet, thou hast shed. (14.400-02)
110. Plutarch: came thither, thinking to have raised the siege (229)
Plutarch: Thrust him out of the doors (768)
Arden: I came thither, thinking to have had
harbor as I was wont
And she was ready to thrust me out at doors 15.4-6
111. Dial: …why doth he desire to live any longer?
My life is now finished, and the time is short to make amends (139)
Arden: Alice. Let my death make amends for all my sins.
Mosbie. Fie upon women ! this shall be my song ;
But bear me hence, for I have lived too long. (15:33-5)
112. Dial: It was a foul fault (623)
Arden: Confess this foul fault (16.2)
113. Plutarch: flying away at all adventure, they ran… (757)
Arden: And run full blank at all adventures (17.10)
114. Doni: received the law, condemned to die (58v)
Arden: I am by the law, condemned to die. (18.3)
115. On page 530 of The Dial, North writes about those who sin while young, thinking they can repent when they are older, but often it is too late:
All worldlings willingly do sin upon a vain hope only in age to amend, and at death to repent. (530)
This inspired young Alice’s language of repentance and particularly her last three lines:
I was too young to sound thy villainies, / But now I find it, and repent too late… Let my death make amends for all my sins (18.16-17, 33)
116. In North’s full passage on page 530 (see above), we find no fewer than ten verbal echoes in the first few dozen lines of scene 18, mostly placed in the mouth of Alice: (18.2, 9-11, 16-17, 33):
Dial: young, repent, death, amend, sins, so late, to God, meditations, Christians, worldlings Arden: young, repent, death, amends, sins, too late, to God, meditate, Christ, worldly
117. Plutarch: but a thing most chiefly to be noted above the rest,
he would not vouchsafe to speak to Mithridates… (527)
Arden: But this above the rest is to be noted (Epilogue)
Arden: He never will vouchsafe to speak with me (13.6) Arden: thou hast a box of mithridate (1.380)
Seven Comparable Antitheses:
Dial (Antithesis): that they will cherish them that they love,
and revenge them of those that they hate (227).
Arden (Antithesis): That rather than you’ll live with him you hate,
You’ll venture life and die with him you love. (1.270-1)
Dial: (Antithesis): The husband ought to make his wife believe that she is fair,
though indeed she be foul (235, Faustine)
Arden (Antithesis): It grieves me not to see how foul thou art,
But mads me that ever I thought thee fair. (8.102-3)
Dial: (Antithesis/Faustine:) If he desire peace, they would have war. (225)
Arden: If thou cry war, there is no peace for me: (8.114)
Dial (isocolon/antithesis): among the pricking briers and thorns the sweet roses do grow, the sharp beech giveth us the savoury chestnuts (143)
Dial (isocolon/antithesis): gold amongst the rust, rose amongst the thorns, corn amongst the chaff (22)
Arden (isocolon/antithesis): flowers do sometimes spring in fallow lands,
Weeds in gardens, roses grow on thorns (8.142-3)
Dial (antithesis): Some man giving a little is counted liberal, and another giving much is counted a niggard. (457)
Arden (antithesis): His conscience is too liberal, and he too niggardly
To part from anything may do thee good. (13.2-3)
Dial (antithesis): so that when we think to be alive in the morning,
we are dead in the night. (452)
Arden (antithesis): so it be known that I shall marry thee in the morning,
I care not though I be hanged ere night. (14.289-90)
Dial (antithesis): to have seen thee live as wise, and now to see thee die as simple (532)
Arden (antithesis): And make him wise in death that lived a fool. (10.81)
Obviously, some other writer did not obsessively study everything Thomas North had written so he could plant his lines and phrases all throughout a North-family tragedy. North was the one who originally wrote this tragedy about his half-sister—and more proofs of his authorship will soon be posted in “All The Mysteries That Remain.”