The Secrets Shakespeare Didn’t Tell Us About Romeo and Juliet

Part 2 of Unlocking the Mysteries Behind Romeo and Juliet -  and the Secrets Shakespeare Didn’t Tell Us

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet;

So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,

Retain that dear perfection which he owes

Without that title.”

- Romeo and Juliet, II,ii

🌹 What’s in a name? Exquisite poems, like exquisite roses, are sweet no matter what name the poet uses - because the scent of genius lingers.

In our last post, Unlocking the Mysteries Behind Romeo and Juliet 📌, we dug among the tangled literary roots of Shakespeare’s most iconic love story. We unearthed Italian and French writers with a flair for fatal romance, and clues that Romeo and Juliet wasn’t exactly Shakespeare’s idea to begin with.

But we hit a buried headstone: the play’s first English translation, The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet, published in 1562 by a mysterious young author known only as “Ar. Br.”. Later identified (maybe) as “Arthur Brooke”, this forgotten poet left behind more questions than answers when he died the next year.

And so here we are – back in the archive, candle in hand – searching deeper for the shadowy backstory of Romeo and Juliet. Brooke’s spectral trail leads to a second poet named George Turberville, and other Elizabethan phantom poets –including one nobleman with a habit of leaving breadcrumbs everywhere. Will we finally uncover what Shakespeare knew, when he knew it, and why he kept it under wraps for 400 years?

You can never tell.  Let’s go hunt some ghosts.

🧩 George Turberville on “Ar. Br.” as Arthur Brooke

In 1567, poet George Turberville published a dramatic elegy for someone he’d never met. What did Turberville say inspired him? A vague “good report” “came” to him from somewhere unspecified about a baffling young writer who had died 4 years previously – possibly by shipwreck – and left behind a soul-baring behemoth of a poem.

Turberville confidently named this lost author alternatingly “Authur” and “Arthur” “Brooke” and championed Brooke’s superior learning, melodious lines and meticulous meter. Intriguingly, he tied Brooke to Ar. Br. and Romeo and Juliet with these three breezy lines: 

 “As may be judged by Julet and her Mate,

For there he showed his cunning passing well

When he the Tale to English did translate”.

Neither a footnote for the ages, nor grounded in friendship or even acquaintance between Turberville and Brooke and oddly 4 years late – but enough to start a 450-year whisper campaign about “Ar. Br.” and Brooke being one and the same.

Turberville claimed that because Brooke “sounded” his verses to the lute, sat in the Muses’ laps and was nursed by Athena, his “pleasant pen did pass the others skill” and whoever saw his book “gave thanks to him and praised his learned quill.”

Meanwhile, Ar. Br. himself told a very different story  . . .

🧸 Keeping a Dozen Bloody-mouthed Dogs at Bay

Far from lounging comfortably in Turberville’s glowy post mortem description, Ar. Br. described himself as a trembling beginner who had seen “the same argument lately set forth on stage . . . much better  . . . than I have or can do”. In his prologue to Romeus and Juliet, Ar. Br. compares his debut poem to a helpless bear club, surrounded by snarling critics (“a dozen bloody-mouthed dogs”), and praying that his Muse, like a mother bear, will defend and rescue it.

 In a wild plea for support, he summons not just Athena and the Muses, but the Fates, even demons, and anyone else willing to lend a pen to help him tackle the monster he has been commanded to produce from French and Italian sources:

“Help learned Pallas, help, ye Muses with your art,

Help, all ye damned fiends to tell of joys returned to smart.

Help eke, ye sisters three, my skilless pen t’indite;

For you it caused which I, alas, unable am to write.”

🧩 Compare Ar. Br.’s lines to these by a poet who signed his name “E.O.”, (that would be Edward Oxenford, better known as Edward de Vere, 17^th Earl of Oxford):

“Help Gods, help saints, help sprites and powers that in heaven do dwell.

Help ye that are to wail, ay wont, ye howling hounds of hell,

Help man, help beasts, help birds and worms that on the earth doth toil,

Help fish, help fowl that flocks and feed upon the sea salt soil.”

Same structure. Same all-hands-on-deck desperation and energy.

🤔 So, was Turberville exaggerating? Or was Ar. Br. under-selling himself?  Or was someone else behind the curtain?

To sort it out, we need to ask:  Who exactly was George Turberville and how much did he really know about a dead poet he had never met? 

🦅 Falconer Illustration from Turberville’s Book Of Falconry (1575). Pseudonyms, allonyms, abbreviations, initials, humorous handles (Cutbert Curry-knave, anyone?) or no name, the Renaissance was called a “golden age of pseudonyms” for good reason.  In addition to his 1567 elegy on the elusive Brooke, Turberville knew the art of the hunt – on paper and in the field. 

👻 Who was George Turberville – and Why Trust Him?

Let’s pause and meet the man delivering all this posthumous praise. 

George Turberville (or Turbervile, depending on the mood of the typesetter) was a translator, courtier and occasional poet with a mixed reputation and a murky timeline. His exact birth and death dates? Unclear.  A 1561 fellowship at Oxford; spent some time at the Inns of Court; and his biographical details were recorded 100 years after his death – obviously, by someone who never met him either. (Sound familiar?)

🧩 Turberville published other works, some religious. His 1567 Epitaphs, Epigrams, Songs and Sonnets containing Brooke’s elegy included sonnets in a style influenced by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, also Edward de Vere’s uncle.  Turberville translated some Bandello, Boccaccio and Ovid. Another of de Vere’s uncles, Arthur Golding, is credited with translating  Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” in 1567. Several of Turberville’s works were published in London during the years that de Vere studied at the Inns of Court. One was published there during the same year Turberville was in Moscow, working as a secretary.

While John Harrington praised Turberville, Thomas Nashe deemed his style obsolete by 1590. You can check out John Harrington here:

📌 Orlando Furioso’s Contribution to the Corruption of Queen Elizabeth’s Maids-of-Honor and 📌 The Very Merry Maids-of-Honor: Class of 1591, but you will find Harrington’s biography doesn’t match his best seller either . . . although he did invent a flush toilet and install it for the Queen. 

🔎 6 Unsolved Mysteries Behind Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet

Now it’s your turn in this literary hall of mirrors to solve the puzzle of names and identities!  

After all, when Juliet asks, “What’s in a name?”, Shakespeare’s answer is: “Nothing. It’s just a name.”

 Have fun!

🏰  Arche Scaligeri, Verona, Italy. How to bury evidence. These tombs aren’t Juliet’s or her Romeo’s. They’re Verona’s then ruling dynasty, the Della Scalas’. Shakespeare named his prince “Prince Eskales”. Over 400 years, editorial meddling changed “Eskales” to “Escales” then “Escalus”, and a subtle playwright’s clue vanished. What’s in a name?  Maybe everything. 👉 Search for the matching picture here and find out! More about Seeking Shakespeare in Verona is there, too!

🕯️ Mystery #1: Who was “Ar. Br.” really? Was he Authur/Arthur Brooke? Or did someone else write Romeus and Juliet but mask himself behind the initials: “Ar. Br.” ? Did the initials “Ar. Br.” stand for Brook’s name, or some other words or someone else entirely?

🕯️ Mystery #2: How much do you trust Turberville to correctly identify “Ar. Br.”? Did the real George Turberville write the elegy linking Brooke to Ar. Br. and Romeus and Juliet?  Or was Turberville’s name and identity borrowed and used as another mask to make that connection? If so, is there a double layer of allonyms going on here?

🕯️ Mystery #3: Why do so many pieces of the puzzle take place in 1567 around the Inns of Court?

🕯️ Mystery #4: Why do de Vere’s poetry, his uncles, his years at the Inns of Court  - keep popping up in the middle of Romeo and Juliet’s backstory? 

🕯️ Mystery #5: Who was the formidable she who commanded Ar. Br. to perform that intimidating assignment? Was it a punishment? A test of wills? Did she bet he’d fail?

All of those mysteries lead to the BIG mystery:

🕯️ Mystery #6:  What did Shakespeare know about Da Porto, Bandello, Boaistuau, Belleforest, Ar. Br., Brooke and Turberville, and when did he know? Because he has been keeping a lot of things awfully quiet for the last 400 years!

📪 Let me know how you fit it all together!  Contacts are on my website: https://www.dorotheadickerman.com/

Does this Elizabethan literary history detective work intrigue you?

📚 There’s a lot more here: https://www.dorotheadickerman.com/blog

 📪 Sign up here to have future posts delivered straight to your box.

 Because the past is never what you think it was.

If you liked this post, use the buttons below to share!