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The mathematics and the metaphysics, Fall to them as you find your stomach serves you ~ Taming of the Shrew (I.1) Woodcut from Record's Arithemetic/The Ground of Arts, by Robert Record in 1543 | The book was written as a dialogue between a teacher and a student, designed to provide instruction for the reader who did not have a teacher. Source Jack of All Trades In his book, Rob writes that Robert Greene, who is famous for calling Shakespeare an “upstart crow” also called him a “Johannes factotum." which was an alternate expression for a "Jack of All Trades" Of course, the rest of that phrase is "Jack of All Trades, Masters of None," so Greene was still insulting Shakespeare, by saying he had his hand in lots of endeavors, but was not really great at any of them. While Robert Greene's reference doesn't mean anything beyond that definition of the phrase, what the reference revelas for us is that "Greene is not probably referring to much beyond that, but in a wider sense it is a kind of sign that "Shakespeare was a guy who could do lots of things, or who had a wide ranging interest in lots of things. Astrology, science, games, arithmetic, music, etc." Shakespare left formal education at age 14, and he was not educated at university. What he knew about the various subjects he references in his works was accomplished through independent research, reading, and potentially talking with people who worked in these spheres . Cunning in music and the mathematics, To instruct her fully in those sciences,Whereof I know she is not ignorant. ~ Taming of the Shrew (II.1) Four Score and Seven Years Ago In his plays, Shakespeare uses the word “score” several times including in Othello when Bianca uses the phrase “eight score eight” to tell us how many hours are in a week. Rob shares that there is a rich history behind the word "Score:" The word “score” is an old Norse word, SKOR, means a notch or a scratch, and we use the word “Score” to mean scratching a line in something, and this notching was used to count, perhaps to count sheep. Clip from the John Wayne film, Angel and the Badman, where John Wayne's character, Quirt Evans, agrees to help out at an Amish farm. The first time he uses a pitch fork, Quirt marks the occasion by making a notch in the wooden post, which is an example of scoring wood to keep track of something numerically. Later in the film, you see the post again, this time with several notches in the post where Quirt had been keeping track of how many times he used the pitch fork. The word SKOR, also spelled "Score", became associated with batches of 20, and a score became “20” and the most famous example of score not in Shakespeare is in King James Bible, talking about 70 being 3 score and 10. The days of our years are...
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