ABSTRACT
There is one very distinctive pseudonym - it could hardly be anything else - outstanding from the last chapter: 'Apis Lapis'. Someone is encoded as 'Bee Stone'. This someone is apparently conftated by Nashe with Gentle M. William of sack-and-sugar associations, author of a two-part 'ballad' on red noses-Henry IV? He is also implicated with a dudgen dagger and a soliloquy -and therefore, we supposed, with Macbeth. But as McKerrow points out, this someone can hardly be William Beestone the actor. The A pis Lapis of Strange Newes is clearly a poet, with a style Nashe greatly admires; and besides, the real Beestone would have been a mere child in 1592. The pursuit ofBee-Stone in this chapter will lead to re-investigation of some works already glanced at: Nashe's Christs Teares and Have With You; Harvey's Pierces Supererogation; Armin's The Italian Taylor and His Boy; Shakespeare's Merry Wives. It will move on to a poemofJohnDavies's, Nicholas Breton's Wil ofWitandhis Wits Trenchmour, and John Lyly's Euphues. 'Wit' is added to the string of pseudonyms ofR.L. A new interpretation of Shakespeare's tombstone is offered.
