M.O.A.I. deciphered at last

Abstract

For four hundred years the cryptic letters M.O.A.I. have remained a stubborn, even notorious crux. In his Arden Series 3 edition, Keir Elam declared, ‘This fustian riddle has proved ... as much a trap for critics as for Malvolio.’1 Indeed, M.O.A.I. personifies the definition of a crux: ‘A difficulty which it torments or troubles one greatly to interpret or explain’ (OED). Among notable scholars tormented or troubled, J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps thought M.O.A.I. ‘purposely meaningless, or intended for, My Own Adored Idol, or some such words ... [or] cypher’.2 Fredrick Fleay saw a vision of ‘IO: MA, [John] Marston’s abbreviated signature’, then grumbled, ‘These anagram conceits are so common in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as to need no further notice.’3 Modern commentators have fared no better. L. S. Cox unearthed ‘an anagram of ‘I am O[livia]’.4 Leslie Hotson felt the play of four elements: ‘Mare – Sea, Orbis – Earth, Aer – Air, and Ignis – Fire’.5 Lothian and Craik dodged the bullet: ‘Attempts to wring further meaning from [M.O.A.I.] are misplaced.’6 Elizabeth Donno gave the crux a wide birth, merely comparing Orlando’s ‘Thy huntress’ name that my full life doth sway’ (As You Like It 3.2.10).7 In 1984, Elam perceived ‘Malvolio’s hermeneutic labours as a parody of the earnest anagrammatic endeavours of Renaissance magi to discover the sacred Tetragrammaton’.8 In 1991 another quasi-religious