Significant Numerology in Shakespeare’s Sonnets 1609, and a Possible Alternate Emendation to Line Seven of Sonnet 76

• Published in: Notes and queries Vol. 65; no. 4; pp. 511 - 518
• Main Author: Sokol, B J
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Oxford Publishing Limited (England) 01-12-2018
• Subjects: Drama; Dramatists; Reynolds number; Shakespeare, William (1564-1616); Theater
• ISSN: 0029-3970; 1471-6941
• DOI: 10.1093/notesj/gjy158

Shakespearian numerological symbolism or arithmetic wit is sometimes explicit and sometimes more obscure. Explicit instances are seen in both plays and poems. For instance, in the course of contrasting a visitor's courtly diction and overblown flattery with his royal host's curt diction at the start of The Winter's TaJet Shakespeare has Polixenes compare himself with the number zero, or a 'cipher'. Brittle wittiness is indicated here because in the decimal system of numeration a zero on its own indicates nil but a zero placed beside greater digits may indicate a great increaseâ€"thus the number '990', for instance, far exceeds zero, and indeed it multiplies the number '99'. On this basis Polixenes avers: 'And therefore, like a cipher, / Yet standing in rich place, I multiply / With one "We thank you" many thousands more' (I.ii.6-8). A play on the word 'number' itself arises in Shakespeare's sonnet 136. For this sonnet not only puns multiply when conflating various uses of the word 'will' with the name ' Wilt, but also plays on two contradictory meanings of the term 'a number', a term that can denote either any numeral (OED2.a) or else denote a multiplicity of items (as in 'a number of geese' meaning more than one.