THE BUILDER, FEBRUARY 1919

WAS WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE A FREEMASON?
BY BRO. ROBERT I. CLEGG, NEW YORK

A few pertinent paragraphs from the great Bard, bearing on words
and phrases in common use among the Craft:

"Put on two leather jerkins and aprons."--2 Henry IV., 2: 190.

"They will put on two of your jerkins and aprons."--2 Henry IV.,
II, 4:18.

"Here, Robin, an I die, I give thee my apron."--2 Henry VI., II,
3:75.

"The nobility think scorn to go in leather aprons."--2 Henry VI.,
II, 2:14.

"Hold up, you sluts, your aprons mountant."--Timothy of Athens, IV,
3:135.

"A carpenter--where is thy leather apron and thy rule?"-- Julius
Caesar I, 1:7.

"Mechanic slaves with greasy aprons, rules and hammers."-- Antony
and Cleopatra, V, 2:210.

"He will line your apron with gold."--Pericles, IV, 6:64.

"You have made good work, you and your apron." Coriolanus, IV,
6:96.

"Being then appointed Master of this design."--Tempest, I, 2:163.

"The singing Masons, building roofs of gold."--Henry V., I, 2:98.

"What is he that builds stronger than either Mason?"-- Henry V., I,
47.

"Who builds stronger than the Mason?"--Henry V., I, 57.

"Creaking my shoes on plain Masonry."--All's Well That Ends Well,
II, 1:31.

"You shall see him in the triple pillar of the world."--Antony and
Cleopatra, I, 1:12.

"And set it down with gold on lasting pillars."--Tempest, V, 1
:208.

"And call them pillars that will stand to us." 3 Henry VI., II,
3:87.

"He is not our Craft's Master."--2 Henry IV., III, 2 :297.

"Wooing poor craftsmen."--Richard II., I, 4:28.

THE ABOVE very interesting compilation appeared in the March, 1918,
issue of the Rob Morris Bulletin, the bright publication of Rob
Morris Lodge, Denver, Colorado, and is of course the production of
its able editor, Henry F. Evans. One cannot but wish that our
excellent brother had had the space and time to elaborate his
article at such length and skill as his sound Masonic knowledge and
literary capacity fully warranted. Then indeed we should have the
more nearly arrived at a solution of the really knotty question
behind the references he has patiently assembled and which but whet
our curiosity to a keener edge. There is no present intention to
offer a complete answer to the query. At the best we can but carry
forward the inquiry a short stage or two but we shall feel quite
content if we attract attention to the problem.

We are also denied the satisfaction of going thoroughly and
definitely into explanations. This cannot be done in print. The
reader must read between the lines. He must make his own
references. If his remembrance of ritual is hazy and incomplete
there is but one remedy, get the co-operation of some well-informed
Mason, or better still, take the article over to the lodge and read
it to the brethren. Their reaction will help. There is wisdom in
the counsel of many.

Neither shall we on the present occasion delve into the
peculiarities, political or otherwise, of the Elizabethan era. We
have pointed out on another opportunity the Craft relation of the
gilds and their pageantry and we shall curb our temptation to go
deeply into Shakespeare's acquaintance with the trades and their
customs. To take but the single instance, William Blades has put on
record so many allusions to the one trade, printing, that
Shakespeare might from the testimony of his literary output be set
down not unfairly as an exponent of that calling.

How much did he know of Freemasonry ? We may perhaps meet the
inquiry by submitting such evidence as shows what he knew of things
and of practices that especially concern Freemasons. Obviously
these can be but fragmentary and merely suggestive.

Clarence tells us of King Edward's mysticism in these terms:

"Hearkens after prophecies and dreams; 
And from the cross-row plucks the letter G."
Richard III, I, 1.

One might infer that the allusion is to some means of divination,
forecasting the future, as the term "cross-row" is to be found
explained as meaning the alphabet. Sometimes the alphabet was
accompanied with a cross in the old primers or was arranged in the
form of a cross as a token of good luck. But the choice of the
letter "G" is significant.

Falstaff's death gives in a word by Mistress Quickly, "chrisom
child," "Henry V.," II, 3, a striking comparison. Knowing the
fullness of the reference the Freemason can with Shakespeare see
the larger vision. For the child when christened was given a white
garment and annointed with oil, the while was said the following
prayer, "Receive this white, pure and holy vestment, which thou
shalt wear before the tribunal of our Lord Jesus Christ, that thou
mayest inherit eternal life. Amen." After the member of the Craft
has thought over the Apron lectures of Brothers Strobo and Shaver,
and also conned over the color allusion by Stowe, "Chronicles of
London," to the gifts of the godfathers of "christening shirts with
little bands and cuffs, wrought either with silk or blue thread,"
he will see no doubt what Shakespeare saw, the dying of an old man
like unto an innocent child, as one wearing and deserving the
purity badge of an Entered Apprentice, "went away an it had been
any chrisom child."

Praise to excess is often spoken of as if it were laid on with a
trowel. So does Shakespeare speak of it with reference to that very
working tool of the Craft, see "As You Like It," I, 2.

Our friend and brother, the great Pythagoras, was by no means
unknown to Shakespeare who mentions him by name and alludes
familiarly to the theories associated with his school of
philosophy. For example:

"To hold opinion with Pythagoras 
That souls of animals infuse themselves 
Into the trunks of men."
Merchant of Venice, IV, 1.

Another instance is in "Twelfth Night," IV, 2: "What is the opinion
of Pythagoras concerning wild fowl?" "That the soul of our grandam
might haply inhabit a bird."

Transmigration of souls is elsewhere mentioned by Shakespeare, as
in the "Tempest," IV, 1, and in "Hamlet," IV, 5. That beautiful if
fanciful--certainly not unscientific--idea, "the music of the
spheres," was  also Pythagorian and well-known to Shakespeare. Thus
it is said in the "Merchant of Venice," V, 1,

"There's not the smallest orb which thou beholdest, 
But in his motion like an angel sings."

Does Shakespeare allude to the North? Yes, he deems it the place of
darkness and of evil. He mentions a devil assigned to the north.
The spirits, "I Henry VI.," V, 3, are sought "Under the lordly
monarch of the north." See also "I Henry IV.," II, 4, and the
"Merry Wives of Windsor," II, 2.

There is a noteworthy passage in "King John," IV, 2:

"And when they talk of him they shake their heads 
And whisper one another in the ear; 
And he that speaks doth gripe the hearer's wrist, 
Whilst he that hears makes fearful action, 
With wrinkled brows, with nods, with rolling eyes."

The sight of the open hand, as in the outstretched hand when
extending it to clasp that of a presumed friendly acquaintance or
raising the hand when taking an oath in a court of law or elsewhere
or when elevating the hand in giving a military salute or answering
one, all these and similar acts had a wider meaning in the days of
Shakespeare than is even now known to many of the profane. Then it
was not uncommon to brand criminals or otherwise maim or mutilate
them. The word "stigma" means such an effect as if burned deeply by
fire. Just as the mutilated criminal showed that those in authority
had branded him noticeably to the end that the beholders could
never mistake him for one unrestrained and unrestricted, free of
birth and will, so the person born deformed or accidently so was
deemed thus crippled or defaced by the will of God to designate his
evil nature. Accordingly in "Richard III.," I, 8, the hunchbacked
Duke is called:

"Thou elfish-marked, abortive, rooting hog! 
Thou that was sealed in thy nativity, 
The slave of nature, and the son of hell."

Bacon, about the same period, and by the way we will not here
venture into a discussion of the true authorship of the plays of
Shakespeare, but Bacon refers to the deformity of the body
accompanying a perversion of the mind. Thus, agrees Shakespeare,

"A fellow by the hand of nature mark'd, 
Quoted, and signed, to do a deed of shame."
King John, n, 2.

"And the blots of nature's hand 
Shall not in their issue stand; 
Never mole, hare-lip, nor scar, 
Nor mark prodigious, such as are 
Despised in infancy."
Midsummer Night's Dream, V, 1.

"But thou art neither like thy sire nor dam; 
But like a foul misshapen stigmatic 
Mark'd by the destinies to be avoided 
As venom toads, or lizards' dreadful stings."
3 Henry VI., II, 2.

Probably an allusion to the branding by a heated crown is indicated
by the words in "Richard III.," IV,  1. Assuredly there is some
ground for the belief that some regicides, notably the Earl of
Athol executed for the murder of James I. of Scotland, were
tortured with a circlet of hot iron around the head. Note the
passage:

"O, would to God that the inclusive verge 
Of golden metal, that must round my brow, 
Were red-hot steel, to sear me to the brain."

There is a classic story of the tree that revealed to Aeneas the
murder of Polydorus in discovering the grave of the one so
patiently sought. The account is to be found in Virgil or Dryden's
translation of that author, III, 22. Shakespeare seems quite
familiar with it. Thus in "Macbeth," III, 4, referring lo the fact
that murder will out, we are told,

"It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood; 
Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak; 
Augurs and understood relations have 
By magot-pies and choughs and rocks brought forth 
The secret'st man of blood."

The symbolism of the glove is all but lost among Freemasons, not so
in the days of Shakespeare. There was a time when the giving of a
pair of gloves to the newly-made Mason was as significant as was
the bestowal of anything else. Not infrequently a second pair of
gloves was given the new member to be in turn transmitted to the
one he loved best of the opposite sex. Today the Freemason is
mainly accustomed to the white gloves as an appropriate emblem of
mourning to be worn at a Masonic funeral or as adding a touch of
Masonic uniform or "clothing" at any other ceremonial of a public
character. Shakespeare refers to the gloves as a favor to be
exchanged freely by friends but when once acquired and worn it
could only be demanded as the act of an enemy. For instance,

"Give me any gage of thine, and I will wear it in my bonnet; then
if ever thou darest acknowledge it, I will make it my quarrel."
"Here's my glove; give me another of thine." 
"There."
"This will I also wear in my cap; if ever thou come to me and say,
after tomorrow, 'This is my glove,' by this hand, I will take thee
a box on the ear."
Henry V., IV, 1.

Appropriately enough from a Masonic point of view where the glove
has equal weight with the apron in symbolism, Shakespeare calls it
"honor's pawn," and a "token of honor," as may be seen by an
examination of "Richard II.," I, 1; "Richard II.," IV, 1; "Timon of
Athens," V, 4.

We are taught as Masons that the form of a lodge is oblong; its
length from east to west, in breadth from north to south, as high
as heaven, and as deep as from the surface to the center. Thus are
we shown the universality of Freemasonry and that a Mason's charity
should be equally extensive. But the expressions must sound strange
to the young Freemason, much more strange than they would would
have been to the ears of Shakespeare. He uses east to west in the
same limitless fashion thus:

"O heaven, that such companions thou'ldst unfold, 
And put in every honest hand a whip
To lash the rascals naked through the world
Even from the east to the west!"
Othello, IV, 2.

And as to the center, pray consider the following,

"As true as steel, as plantage to the moon,
As sun to day, as turtle to her mate,
As iron to adamant, as earth to the center."
Troilus and Cressida, III, 2.

There is also the claim of the self-confident Polonius who says,

"I will find
Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed
Within the center."
Hamlet, II, 2.

While dealing to some extent with the points of the compass we must
not overlook the location of graves upon which there is an
interesting note in Tylor's "Primitive Culture," vol. 2, page 423.
He says,

"It is not to late and isolated fancy, but to the carrying on of
ancient and widespread solar ideas, that we trace the well known
legend that the body of Christ was laid with the head toward the
west, thus looking eastward, and the Christian usage of digging
graves east and west, which prevailed through medieval times, and
is not yet forgotten."

He also quotes an old work to the effect that the the laying of the
head to the west was for the purpose that the dead should rise
looking toward the east. Did Shakespeare know of this centuries-old
belief ? He did, as may be seen from the following, relative to the
burial of the dead,

'Nay, Cadwal, we must lay his head to the east;
My father has a reason for't."
Cymbeline, IV, 2.

On many occasions we have called attention to the punishment by
drowning, the tying of the culprit to a stake at low water and then
leaving the body there for at least the period of a couple of
tides. Around this old English treatment of criminals grew up
certain expressions and superstitions of the liveliest interest to
we Freemasons. They are duly noted by Shakespeare. Thus of a rascal
in the "Tempest," I, 1, it is said,

"Would thou might'st lie drowning
The washing of ten tides."

And in the "Midsummer Night's Dream," III, 2, we find,

"Damned spirits all,
That in cross-ways and floods have burial."

Falstaff's death is said to have been

"Even at the turning o' the tide."
Henry V., II, 3.

and in the passing of the king in "2 Henry IV.," 4, is thus
recorded by Shakespeare,

"The river hath thrice flow'd, no ebb between; 
And the old folk, times doting chronicles, 
Say it did so a little time before 
That our great grandsire, Edward sick'd and died."

Of symbolism we have a wealth of references, too many for easy
selection. In mere allusion to numbers there is too large a choice
as the mention of significant numerals is extensive. Threes, sevens
and nines are noted as of special importance by Shakespeare, as
truly they are to all Freemasons. In fact he has put into the mouth
of Falstaff, "Merry Wives of Windsor," V, 1, an explanation with
which we may conclude this compilation,

"They say there is divinity in odd numbers,
Either in nativity, chance or death."

Of the symbolism of numbers much is taught in Freemasonry. Three,
five, seven, nine, and their multiples are frequently met. All have
a pertinent significance for the persevering student of the message
shown and conveyed by symbolism. Among the manifold references it
is well to reread in this connection the information to be found in
the Mackey-Hughan Encyclopedia, Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
(the article on "Number"), and Morals and Dogma (pages 548 et seq).

Was Shakespeare aware of the peculiar associations that these
particular numbers have for many if indeed not all of us ? It is
very likely that he was so informed. The obvious fact that these
numbers are uneven was not unnoticed by him. Nay, he goes further
and speaks of odd numbers in a way indicating his acquaintance with
the beliefs that had grown around them through the ages of
mankind's infancy and mental growth. Thus,

"They say there is a divinity in odd numbers, either in
nativity,-chance, or death."
Merry Wives of Windsor, V, 1.

So magical was the impression of odd numbers that Shakespeare to
the better suggest the uncanny he puts into the mouth of a witch
the two words "one" and "three" where four is meant.

"Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined."
Macbeth, IV, 1.

In this he had classic authority for his guide. But there is
another example of very considerable interest from our point of
view. This is in the promise made by Cade to Dick, the butcher of
Ashford. Butchers in the reign of Elizabeth were forbidden to sell
during Lent unless by dispensation. Cade therefore makes a double
promise, to lengthen Lent and also grant a very unusual permission
to kill. The number in the promise could have obviously been one
thing as another were it not for the deeper meaning associated with
the odd number.

"Therefore, thus will I reward thee--the Lent shall be as long
again as it is; and thou shalt have a license to kill for a hundred
lacking ane."
2 Henry VI, IV, 3.

There are instances where the uses of the expression has indeed
become so fixed a custom and habit in our conversation that the
symbolism and strength of lore is no longer noted by us. Yet even
here it is well worth the notice that Shakespeare prefers to employ
an odd number where with equal ease he might have used something
else. As,

"Threescore and ten I can remember well: 
Within the volume of which time I have seen 
Hours dreadful and things strange: but this sore night 
Hath trifled former knowings."
Macbeth, II, 3. 

Shakespeare has also reproduced an old charm or spell that may have
been employed as an agency against attacks of nightmare. Here it is
as will be seen the mention of a number is in both cases to an odd
one. 

"Saint Withold footed thrice the old wold; 
He met the night-mare, and her nine-fold; 
Bid her alight 
And troth her plight, 
And, aroint thee, witch, aroint thee!"
King Lear, III, 4. 

