|
138 |
Book
Four |
Ch.
5. |
On
the same Preparation,
Considered with reference to Indeterminate Letters of the Word.
Such is
the process of Composition of Discourse when the initial or the final word is to
be written Consignificant; see the whole of Bk.
3, and the present book to this point. Let us now consider the case
wherein discourse beneath which lurks a hidden meaning is to be composed of
words such that at one time the first, at another time the last, and at still
another time an indeterminate letter is Significant. This Mode is accomplished
Naturally, under a fixed arrangement of its own; Arbitrarily,
through the arrangement of a key; or Fortuitously,
through the use of an instrument.
The Mode depending on a fixed arrangement of its own is accomplished. Simple, according to a fixed number in each line; according to the diverse methods of Strewing or Scattering (concerning which, see Bk. II.cc.6,7, above); or , finally, with regard to some figure.
The Simple Mode is understood to take place when we fix upon these letters to be Significant, namely: in the first line, the 6th, 12th, 18th, 24th, 30th and 36th: in the second line, the 5th, 10th, 15th, 20th 25th, 31st and 37th; in the third line, the 4th, 8th, 13th, 17th, 21st, 27th, and 32nd; in the fourth line, the 2nd, 9th, 14th, 19th, 23rd, 29th , 35th, etc.
The Altered Mode takes place when, retaining the principle of the Simple Mode, we add thereto either, on the one hand, the device of Scattering or that of Inversion, or, on the other, the disguise of some other method, such as Transposition or the Superinduction of Non-significant Lines, or the like.
The Mode Clothed in Figure takes place only by a method involving careful calculation: when, namely, the letters are so distributed that, while the arrangement as a whole preserves perfect structure, the Significant letters form a figure. The art of distributing letters by this method was first undertaken in verse by Publilius Optatianus Porphyrius, in the Panegyricus, written in honor of the Emperor Constantine about 324 A.D. and published not so very long ago, in 1595, namely, at Augsburg, from a manuscript (another similar one to which I have in my possession) of Paul Velser, Patrician of Augsburg. In imitation of Optatianus, Magnentius Hrabanus wrote his work on the Holy Cross. Hrabanus, if we are to trust John Bale, Script Britann , cent 14, c.40, (2), was a Scotchman by birth; he was at first Abbot of Fulda, and afterwards Archbishop of Mains, flourished about the time of the Emperors Charlemagne and Lewis the Pious, and died 856 A.D. at Mains. It is my belief that it was in imitation of these men that Trithemius, on a more systematic principle and one better fitted for use in secret-making, worked out his system of Steganography; although, as far as use is concerned, if letters distributed here and there and containing a special meaning, were not, in the manuscripts, written in red, and, in the following schemes, included within lines, in this way describing a definite figure, the meaning here would escape observation equally well, or perhaps even better.