Imagine…

…it’s 2006 and I want to write another book on Sh. Sonnets without looking like a complete and utter pretentious twat. Why, i ask myself, have i spent all these years memorising his 154 Sonnets? What motivated me to continue and what exactly have i discovered? Well I found, or think i’ve found, the obvious.

Simply i believe Sh. wrote a series of 154 sonnets because it is the maximum number of syllables in a sonnet. Normally a sonnet is 14 lines of masculine lines, with 10 syllables to a line. That’s a maximum of 140 syllables. Add an extra syllable to the line and it becomes feminine (or weaker), bringing the total to 154 syllables.

Now if you add 1+4+0= 5. Now add 1+5+4=10. Curiously if you add the series of numbers 1-17 in the following manner, 1+2+3+4+5 etc. it adds up to 153. 1+5+3=9. The number 9 contains itself 3 times, 3×3=9 3+3+3=9. Now 1-9 is the basic chain of numbers. 0 and 10 are nothing and beginning, ending and start, 11-19, 21-29, 31-39 etc.

Now i’m not a conspiracy theorist, though i love a good conspiracy theory, my problem is this numerological bollocks above is irrelevant to enjoying these poems.

‘Then in the number let me pass untold,
Though in thy store’s account I one must be,
For nothing hold me so it please thee hold,
That nothing me, a something sweet to thee.

Make but my name thy love, and love that still,
And then thou lovest me for my name is Will.’ Q136.