More Digges
Now the true meaning behind Digges’s unequivocal reference to four suicides[1] – two by name and two by allusion – has been deciphered perhaps its time to look at the rest of Digges’s elegy.
When analyzing some of Digges’s other lines the Project will be mindful of the fact that men of 17th century literature – authors, playwrights, poets, editors, compilers, elegists – often wrote using double-speak, used hidden-meanings, punned, tripled their entendres and wrote one thing when they really wanted to convey something else. And clever, they loved to be clever.
For ease of reference, his entire elegy is reproduced:
To The Memory Of The Deceased Author
MAISTER W. S H A K E S P E A R E.
Shake-speare, at length thy pious fellowes give
The world thy Workes : thy Workes, by which, out-live
Thy Tombe, thy name must when that stone is rent,
And Time dissolves thy Stratford Moniment,
Here we alive shall view thee still. This Booke,
When Brasse and Marble fade, shall make thee looke
Fresh to all Ages: when Posteritie
Shall loath what’s new, thinke all is prodegie
That is not Shake-speares; ev’ry Line, each Verse
Here shall revive, redeeme thee from thy Herse.
Nor Fire, nor cankring Age, as Naso said,
Of his, thy wit-fraught Booke shall once invade.
Nor shall I e’re beleeve, or thinke thee dead
(Though mist) untill our bankrout Stage be sped
(Imposible) with some new straine t’out-do
Passions of Juliet, and her Romeo ;
Or till I heare a Scene more nobly take,
Then when thy half-Sword parlying Romans spake.
Till these, till any of thy Volumes rest
Shall with more fire, more feeling be exprest,
Be sure, our Shake-speare, thou canst never dye,
But crown’d with Lawrell, live eternally.
L. Digges.[2]
Given Digges’s references to only suicides near the end of his elegy a new line that caught the attention of the Project is redeeme thee from thy Herse and more specifically the word redeeme. Redeem or redeeme can have two meanings. One, simply, to reclaim something or buy something back; this is the secular usage. The second meaning and usage has overt religious connotations. Seeing Digges coupled redeeme with Herse he’s using the word for its religious meaning and therefore the word redeeme should be read in its religious context. As such, when Digges used the word redeeme he is connecting it to the religious meaning of ‘redemption’.
A simple Google search put Oxford Languages definition of ‘redemption’ first: the action of saving or being saved from sin, error or evil. Dictionary.com says ‘redemption’ means an act of atoning for guilt, a fault or mistake.
So when Digges says ev’ry Line, each Verse Here shall revive, redeeme thee from thy Herse what he means is ‘Shakespeare, your lines and verses shall redeem you from any sin, error, evil, guilt, fault or mistake.’
And why would Shakespeare need to be redeemed from his herse? Why would Shakespeare – his soul – require redemption? Well, a couple of lines below Digges provides the reason. If Shakespeare committed suicide – which was seen as a sin against God and a crime against the king in the 17th century – then Digges is saying, ‘don’t worry, Shakespeare, your lines will save you from your sin, you will enjoy redemption, you will be redeemed from your herse.’
Digges also personifies fire and writes it as Fire. A capital F and personified Fire could mean the Fires of hell, could. However, given the fact Naso – Ovid – in his Metamorphoses Book XV – when he writes And now my work is done, which neither the wrath of Jove, nor fire, nor sword, nor the gnawing tooth of time shall ever be able to outdo is not unequivocally advertently equating fire with the fires of hell, it is unlikely Digges is referring to the fires of hell when he writes Fire in his elegy. Possible, but unlikely.
Now that Digges’s elegy has finally been interpreted correctly after 400 years maybe other elegists left some clues too – back to the Folio.
SDRP
[1] Digges’s unequivocal references to only characters who killed themselves was because he was, in fact, adverting to their suicides and not because they were his favourite characters or it was just coincidence. An interpretation suggesting Digges’s references and admiration for four suicides in his Folio elegy was coincidence and had nothing to do with the four characters’ suicide would be an interesting one; and incorrect.
[2] Works, xxx.