eminent personages. However, where Plutarch's work represents historical and mythological figures of his time, Shakespeare's play concerns those who contributed to scientific awakening in the later Renaissance. The play is remarkable for a high incidence of integers and an unusual leap of sixteen years within the timeline of the story. Analysis of words and numbers in the script requires auditors to hone their arithmetical skills in order to identify eminent contemporary natural philosophers and their major works. The tragic death of the young Prince Mamillius finds a ready explanation, as does the most famous stage direction in all of drama, “Exit, pursued by a bear.” The Winter's Tale, like plays analyzed in previous chapters, has a surreal quality which helps explain the survival of Perdita and the revivification of Hermione.
Chapters 2–6 argue that Shakespeare describes details of celestial objects that no one else knew at the time. Leonard Digges'perspective glass is a reasonable means for resolving such detail. Chapter 7 documents events in Leonard's life, including his role in Wyatt's rebellion of 1554, his conviction for treason, the good sense that saved him from the gallows, and his eventual reinstatement in 1558 under Elizabeth I. Chapter 7 further notes the coincidence that neither Leonard Digges nor William Shakespeare left any artifactual evidence of their work. The rule “watch out especially for anything odd” (Hotson, Hilliard 182) impels investigation through hypothesis and test, and chapter 7 adheres to this rule, addressing an array of oddities associated with Leonard and the Stratford actor William Shakspere (1564–1616) who is widely regarded as the poet Shakespeare. Some have wondered whether Shakspere wrote Shakespeare, and they have proposed alternate candidates for the authorship of the Canon—but the unique facet of this work is that the cosmic allegorical context provides an entirely new perspective on these propositions.
The analysis of four more plays in addition to Hamlet adds considerably to the web of evidence previously assembled and published. On a simple model, connections between the parts that establish a theme increase quadratically, so the examination of four more plays substantially bolsters the case for a self-consistent and historically accurate network of astronomical descriptions and allusions. Antecedent