Robert Greene was dying when he wrote this pamphlet, where he confessed and repented his sins and advised three poets not to be cheated by an upstart crow as he had been through.
Robert Greene (1558-92) put his own life story in Greene’s Groats-Worth of Wit published posthumously in 1592. He assigned each character’s name carefully. Gorinius, Roberto, Lucanio, Lamilia, Mother Gunby, Marian, and animals in Lamilia’s fable, each of them can match a person following the rules of Sidney anagram.
First Paragraph
Greene’s story takes place in an unnamed island, made rich by merchandise but Greene gave no details of that. Beginning of a story often contains invisible watermarks via anagrams, a style of Wilton House poets which can be found in various places. The first paragraph of Greene’s story has the same design.
In an Island bounded with the Ocean there was sometime a City situated, made rich by Merchandise, and populous by long peace: the name is not mentioned in the Antiquary, or else worn out by time’s Antiquity, what it was greatly skills not: but therein thus it happened.
*Island bounded with the Ocean: This line can spell Wilton House, alluding that Wilton House is an isolated literary circle bounded with the immense literary dreamland.
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*made rich: This term can spell Arcadia. The Pembroke’s Arcadia is the literary dreamland of Mary and Philip Sidney, which made rich the “Island bounded with ocean.”
*Merchandise: This word can spell Mary Sidney Arcadia. Wilton House is made rich by literary works as merchandise of poets under the patronage of the Herbert family, especially Mary Sidney Herbert. One word can spell her full name is rare.
*name is not mentioned in the Antiquary: Name of this island is not mentioned in the antiquary because it projects Wilton House of the Herbert family, contemporary to Robert Greene.
*Antiquary . . . Antiquity: Both words have the usage of ancient or old; the use of anti- suggests readers to interpret this pamphlet not in an old-fashioned way.
Gorinius, a Usurer
Gorinius is a wealthy usurer in the island. He is sick for many years and facing his death.
But as all mortal things are momentary, and no certainty can be found in this uncertain world: so Gorinius, (for that shall be this Usurer’s name) after many a gouty pang that had pinched his exterior parts, many a curse of the people that mounted into heaven’s presence, was at last with his last summons, by a deadly disease arrested.
*this uncertain world: This line can spell Wilton House Wiltshire, a literary world uncertain to the public.
*Gorinius: Gorinius can be a perfect anagram of origin-us or gory-in-us, both fit his role as the father of Roberto and Lucanio and a usurer. A usurer lends out something and takes back more. Greene complained that Wilton House patronized poets but asked more for return like a usurer. Later Greene advised three poets, Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nash, and George Peele for this issue.
*be this Usurer’s name: This line can spell Henry Herbert, husband of Mary Sidney, which reveals “this usurer’s name.”
*gouty pang, pinched his exterior parts: symptoms of syphilis. Lines describing Gorinius’ deadly disease allude to Henry Herbert’s infection of syphilis. Mary Sidney married Henry Herbert in 1577 when she was 16. In 1584 she delivered Philip Herbert (1584–1650). The same day her daughter Katherine (1581–84) died. She was 23 then but gave no birth after that. Probably she knew her infection already.
Report says Mary Sidney died of smallpox; syphilis was called Spanish pox or French pox then. Descriptions of syphilis appear also in Shake-speares Sonnets, The Tragedy of King Lear, and The Tragedy of Hamlet.
*pinched his exterior parts: This line can spell Spanish Pox, another name for syphilis. The word exterior provides the rare letter x for pox; pinch imbeds the meaning of punishment, for syphilis was seen as a shameful illness at that time.
*curse of the people that mounted into heaven’s presence: Mount has the usage of to copulate, the major cause of syphilis, which is a curse of sexual pleasure and cause of pang for Gorinius and Henry Herbert.
Roberto as Robert Greene
Roberto is Gorinius’ elder son and a scholar. He despises his father’s usury business, so Gorinius leaves only “an old groat” to Roberto to let him buy a groat’s worth of wit, a complaint of Robert Greene against his master.
Roberto reflects Robert Greene in the story. The pamphlet’s title, Greene’s Groat’s-worth of Wit, contains hidden messages by changing few letters. Groat can be Great when the middle -o- is replaced by -e- as his name Greene.
This explains why Robert Greene named his protagonist Roberto. Greene ends with -e; he changed that -e to -o and made Robert to Roberto, one who ended his life with o as zero, or the shape of a groat coin.
Wilton House’s power and wealth can support and control poets like Robert Greene, Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nashe, George Peele, Ben Jonson, and others.
The play company Earl of Pembroke’s Men was known in 1592, which can fit Greene’s accuse of “an upstart Crow beautified with our feathers.” Replacing letter -o- in crow to -e- will result crew, a group of poets. The “upstart Crow” indicates Shakespeare, code name of Wilton House poets or Wilton circle.
Groat has the usage of something small and worthless. Letter e or o has just a groat’s worth, but for Greene, playing with letters was the only great wit he owned when he wrote this pamphlet.
Lucanio, a Bird in a Cage
Lucanio is Roberto’s younger brother. Greene described Lucanio as a young ruffler when they visit Lamilia the courtesan.
Roberto and Lucanio under her window kept even pace with every stop of her instrument, but especially my young Ruffler, (that before time like a bird in a cage, had been prentice for three lives or one and twenty years at least to extreme Avarice his deceased father.
Lucanio can be a perfect anagram of you-clan or o’Lucian. Lucian has the usage of a witty scoffer (one who sneers or mocks); clan of a group of persons with common interest. You-clan alludes to Wilton House poets that Greene assumed they were cheated by Mary Sidney, as Lucanio by Lamilia.
The “prentice for three lives or one and twenty years” about Lucanio alludes to a you-clan of three less experienced and restricted poets in the third part of Greene’s pamphlet. They were captured by Wilton House like caged birds, as Lucanio by Lamilia.