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  Monday, 30 November 2009
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This series Shakespeare-Bacon parallels derives from Melsome’s book The Bacon-Shakespeare Anatomy, (1945). The parallels selected are just the ones most easily recognized and don’t really do the comparison justice. Melsome goes into much greater depth showing how Bacon’s philosophy permeates the Shakespeare works.

There is a letter extant from Sir Tobie Mathew to Francis Bacon, the date on which has been erased, acknowledging receipt of some work which is un-named. In this letter Mathew writes:

“I will return you weight for weight but measure for measure.”

Knowing as we do that Bacon frequently submitted his works in manuscript to Mathew before publication Baconians think it’s possible that Bacon had Mathews review this new play.

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(Line numberings in the Shakespeare quotes are only approximate)

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Shake-Speare:
Duke. “Since I am put to know that your own science Exceeds, in that, the lists of all advice My strength can give you; then no more remains But that to your sufficiency - as your worth is able - And let them work”.
Meas.,1.1.5
(The Duke speaking to Escalus acknowledges his great knowledge of law, and so passes over any advice on it.)

Bacon:
“Considering that I write to a king that is a master of this Science, and is so well assisted, I think it decent to pass over this part in silence.”
Advancement of Learning, 2.23.48
(Bacon, writing to King James also on the subject of law, passes over a discussion of it after acknowledging the king’s mastery of it.)
14 years ago
·
#3007
Some Shake-Speare / Bacon parallels in Measure for Measure (12)


Shake-Speare:
Isabel: “Yet show some pity”.
Angelo: “I show it most of all when I show justice; for then I pity those I do not know, which a dismissed offence would after gall, and do him right that, answering one foul wrong, lives not to act another.”
Meas., 2.2.100

York: ”If thou do pardon whosoever pray,
More sins for this forgiveness prosper may.
This fest'red joint cut off, the rest rest sound;
This let alone will all the rest confound.”
Richard II, 5.3

Bacon:
“But lest this principle might seem to include all kinds of compassion, Solomon wisely adds that ‘the mercies of the wicked are cruel.’ Such is the sparing to use the sword of justice upon wicked and guilty men; for this kind of mercy is the greatest of all cruelties, as cruelty affects but particular persons whilst impunity lets loose the whole army of evil doers and drives them upon the innocent.”
De Augmentis, 8.2, Parabola 14

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Shake-Speare:
“Those many had not dar’d to do that evil if the first that did the edict infringe had answered for his deed”.
Meas., 2.2.91


Bacon:
“It is the part of discipline to punish the first buddings of all grave offences”.
De Augmentis, 8.3.44

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Shake-Speare:
“Mercy is not itself that oft looks so; Pardon is still the nurse of second woe”.
Meas., 2.1.298


Bacon:
“No virtue is so often delinquent as clemency”.
Exempla Antihetorum
14 years ago
·
#3008
Some Shake-Speare / Bacon parallels in Measure for Measure (13)

Shake-Speare:
“The law hath not been dead though it hath slept . . . now ‘tis awake”.
Meas., 2.2.90


Bacon:
“”Although, as is well said, nobody should be wiser than the laws (Aristotle, Rhet. 1.15.12) yet this should be understood of laws when they are awake and not when they sleep”.
Aphorism 58

“I see a fair deed . . . and I see some probable reason why it hath slept”.
Life and Letters (Spedding et al., 5. P. 124)

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Shake-Speare:
“Yes; I do think that you might pardon him, and neither heaven nor man grieve at the mercy”.
Meas., 2.2.50


Bacon:
“In causes of life and death judges ought (as far as the law permitteth) in justice to remember mercy”.
Essay, Of Judicature

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Shake-Speare:
“ . . . Looks in a glass that shows what future evils- . . .”
Meas., 2.2.128

Bacon:
If we could obtain a magic glass wherein we might view all the enmities and all the hostile designs that are at work against us”.
De Augmentis, 8.2. Parabola IV
14 years ago
·
#3009
Some Shake-Speare / Bacon parallels in Measure for Measure (14)


Shake-Speare:
Angelo: “Thieves for their robbery have authority when judges steal themselves”.
Meas., 2.2.176


Bacon:
“For when once the court goes on the side of injustice the law becomes a public robber and one man simply a wolf to another”.
De Augmentis, 8.2, Parabola xxv

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Shake-Speare:
Duke (to Angelo): “Your scope is as mine own, so to enforce or qualify the laws as to your soul seems good”.
Meas.,1.1.65

Theme of role of Judges.
See also Meas., 2.4.172

Bacon:
“The judge as long as his judgment was contained within the compass of the law was excused; the subject knew by what law he was to govern himself and his actions; nothing was left to the judge’s discretion; and when it was required long since by a bill in parliament to have somewhat left to the judge to allow or dislike in a particular case which should be made arbitrary by the said bill, it was rejected, and upon this reason, that men were better be subject to a known inconvenience than to an unknown discretion.”
Life and Letters, 3.pp. 331-2
14 years ago
·
#3010
Some Shake-Speare / Bacon parallels in Measure for Measure (15)


Shake-Speare:
Angelo: “ . . . Thus wisdom wishes to appear most bright when it doth tax itself”.
Meas., 2.4.78 (a show of false modesty meant actually to showcase excellence).


Bacon:
” . . . like poets who if you except of any particular verse in their composition, will presently tell you that that single line cost them more trouble than all the rest; and then produce you another, as suspected by themselves, for your opinion, whilst, of all the number, they know it to be the best and least liable to exception”.
De Augmentis, 8.2 (notice also the respect poets had for Bacon’s poetic judgment)


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Shake-Speare:
Angelo to Isabel: “Say what you can, my false o’erweighs your true”. Meas., 2.4.171
Isabel to the audience: “Did I tell this, who would believe me”? Meas., 2.4.171
(His false outweighs her true due to the unequal power and authority he has over her).

Later, in Act 5:
“O gracious duke! Harp not on that; nor do not banish reason for inequality; but let your reason serve to make the truth appear where it seems hid, and hide the false seems true”. Meas., 5.1.78


Bacon:
“A judge ought to prepare his way to a just sentence, as God useth to prepare his way, by raising valleys and taking down hills; so when there appeareth on either side a high hand, violent prosecution, cunning advantages taken, combination, power, great counsel, then is the virtue of the judge seen to make inequality equal; that he may plant his judgment as upon an even ground”.
Essay, Of Judicuture

(note: The word “inequality” is not used elsewhere in the plays; and it has the same meaning as it has in Bacon's essay, and is used regarding the same subject.)
14 years ago
·
#3011
Some Shake-Speare / Bacon parallels in Measure for Measure (16)


Shake-Speare:
Isabella: ” . . . Bidding the law make curtsy to their will; Hooking both right and wrong to th' appetite, ... ”
Meas 2.4. 172

(Complaining of Angelo’s use of his own discretion in interpreting laws.)
Also in Henry VIII: “We must not rend our subjects from our laws and stick them in our will.” H8, 1.2.93


Bacon:
Bacon argues “no court of equity should have the right to decree contrary to a statute under any pretext of equity whatever, otherwise the judge would become a legislator, and to have all things dependent upon his will.”
De Augmentis, 8.3.44


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Shake-Speare:
The Duke puts Angelo in power to test how this affects him and “to practise his judgment with the Disposition of Natures”. Meas., 3.1.165

(Thus to see if the judge’s robe changes Angelo’s purpose.)

Duke: “ . . . not changing heart with habit”. Meas., 5.1.389

Duke: “ . . .Hence shall we see, If power change purpose, what our seemers be”. Meas., 1.3.59

Likewise - “Sure this robe of mine does change my disposition”. Winter’s Tale 4.4.13



Bacon:
Bacon: “The raising of the fortune seldom mendeth the disposition,” and “that Vespasian alone of the emperors changed for the better”. (after coming to power).
Advancement of Learning 2.22.5

“Unto princes and states, and especially towards wise senates and councils, the Natures and Dispositions of the people . . . ought to be . . . in great part clear and transparent”.
Advancement of Learning 2.23.48
14 years ago
·
#3012
Some Shake-Speare / Bacon parallels in Measure for Measure (17)


Shake-Speare:
Duke: “ . . . Thou art not noble; For all th' accommodations that thou bear'st are nurs'd by baseness”.
Meas., 3.1.13

“He then unto the ladder turns his back, looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees by which he did ascend”.
J. Caesar, 2.1.25

Bacon:
“The rising into place is laborious . . .and it is sometimes base”.
Essay Of Great Place

“ . . . by indignities men come to dignities”.
Essay Of Great Place


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Shake-Speare:
Isabella: “I am now going to resolve him; I had rather my brother die by the law than my son should be unlawfully born”.
Meas., 3.1.194


Bacon:
“Proceeding and resolving in all actions is necessary”.
Colour, iv
14 years ago
·
#3013
Some Shake-Speare / Bacon parallels in Measure for Measure (18)


Shake-Speare:
Duke: “. . .; his unjust unkindness, that in all reason should have quenched her love, hath, like an impediment in the current, made it more violent and unruly”.
Meas., 3.1.250

“As all impediments in fancy’s course are motives of more fancy”
All’s Well that Ends Well, 5.3.214

“The more thou damm’st it up the more it burns”.
Two Gentlemen of Verona 4.3.14


Bacon:
“Force maketh nature more violent in the return”.
Essay Of Nature in Men

“The force with which an agent acts is increased by the antiperistasis (reaction) of its opposite”.
De Augmentis, 3.1

“Every passion grows fresh, strong and vigorous by opposition or prohibition as it were by reaction or antiperistasis”.
De Augmentis, 2.8.

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Shake-Speare:
Duke: “No might nor greatness in mortality can censure ‘scape; back-wounding calumny the whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue”?
Meas., 3.2.196


Bacon:
Bacon considered this idea in writing to Queen Elizabeth (though he flatters her with overcoming it):
“You have now Madam obtained victory over two things, which the greatest princes in the world cannot at their wills subdue: the one is over fame, . . .” (meaning libel or slander).
Life and Letters, 3. P. 154
14 years ago
·
#3014
Some Shake-Speare / Bacon parallels in Measure for Measure (19)

(note: this first parallel in this set was also posted earlier (in the ‘Parallels’ topic) as one probably unique view shared by Shake-Speare and Bacon. See it for a little further commentary.)

Shake-Speare:
Duke: “ . . . it is virtuous to be constant in any undertaking”.
Meas., 3.2.239

Bacon:
“Constancy is the foundation of virtue”.
De Augmentis, 6.3

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Shake-Speare:
Duke: “ 'Tis good; though music oft hath such a charm to make bad good and good provoke to harm”.
Meas., 4.1.15


Bacon:
“The sense of hearing and the kinds of music have most operation on manners; as to encourage men and make them warlike; to make them soft and effeminate; to make them grave; to make them light; and to make them gentle and inclined to pity”.
Sylva Sylvarum, 114
14 years ago
·
#3015
Some Shake-Speare / Bacon parallels in Measure for Measure (20)

Shake-Speare:
Angelo: “ . . . He should have liv'd, save that his riotous youth, with dangerous sense, might in the times to come have ta'en revenge, . .” (Angelo was being prudent in intending to kill Claudio, since he saw Claudio as a danger to him, if he was allowed to live).
Meas., 4.4.31


Bacon:
“Cruelty proceeding from danger is prudence”.
Exempla Antithetorum


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Shake-Speare:
Angelo’s evil conception (to abuse Isabel) could not be dealt with until he communicated his intentions to her; then, and only then could care be taken that, as Isabella says of Angelo: “ . . . His act did not o’ertake his bad intent”.
Meas., 5.1.456


Bacon:
“And it is part of clemency to punish the middle or intermediate acts to prevent their ends from being accomplished”. And as was posted earlier: “It is the part of discipline to punish the first buddings of all grave offences”.
Aphorism 41

(Once Angelo’s intent is communicated (the first budding, or intermediate act of a grave offence, then he could be disciplined to prevent its completion).
14 years ago
·
#3016
Some Shake-Speare / Bacon parallels in Measure for Measure (21)


Shake-Speare:
Angelo pleads: “Now, good my lord, give me the scope of justice; My patience here is touched”.
Meas., 5.1.235


Bacon:
“For the advocates and counsel that plead, patience and gravity of hearing is an essential part of justice”.
Essay Of Judicature


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Shake-Speare:
Duke: “Dear Isabel, I have a motion much imports your good; Whereto if you’ll a willing ear incline, what’s mine is yours and what is your is mine”.
Meas., 5.1.540


Bacon:
“There is in man’s nature a secret inclination and motion towards the love of others”.
Essay Of Love
14 years ago
·
#3017
Some Shake-Speare / Bacon parallels in Measure for Measure (22)

Shake-Speare:
Instruments of some more mightier member that sets them on”.
Meas., 5.1.237

“What poor an instrument may do a noble deed”.
Antony and Cleopatra 5.2.236

“Call me what instrument you will”.
Hamlet 3.2.387


Bacon:
“The king had gotten for his purpose two instruments, Empsom and Dudley”.
Works, 6. P. 217

And as earlier posted elsewhere:
“In choice of instruments, it is better to choose men of a plainer sort,. . .”
Essay Of Negotiating


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The above parallels that Melsome cited are what may be just a small subset of those that actually exist between this play and those thoughts found in Bacon’s writings. Melsome said that he actually counted over 200 remembrances or echoes between the two. Unfortunately, he was writing for a Baconian audience and not trying to make a full case for the curious but uncommitted reader on the authorship question.

Final commentary on this play from an author of some time ago:

Measure for Measure – from Bertram Theobald’s “Enter Francis Bacon

Mr. E. J. Castle, Q.C., considered this play to be one of those which display the most legal knowledge. It turns on the technicalities of pre-contract.

"Throughout the whole play we find traces of its being the work of one thoroughly acquainted with legal proceedings."
(Shakespeare, Bacon, Jonson and Greene London : Sampson Low, 1897, p.41)

Speaking of Act II, Scene i., he says :

"If any lawyer reads this scene, every line of which requires, I think, careful study, he must admit it has been written either by one who has drawn the scene from life, or has been assisted by one well versed in the everyday life of the English law courts." (Ibid p.50)

And again, when speaking of what he calls "the legal plays" he says:

"In Shakespeare's works we have not only the mere legal acquirements...... but we have pictures drawn of the different members of the legal profession. We have, as a photographer would say, in 'Measure for Measure' the English judge taken in four positions; the stern hanging judge, the kindly humane Escalus, inclined to trifle a bit on the bench, yet doing justice after all. We have Escalus, prejudiced and misled, doing injustice on the bench, and we have him shamed and repentant. We have the argumentative barrister in the Temple, a sketch of life in Parliament, and a knowledge of its procedures........"

This testimony from a practicing barrister, a member of the Inner Temple, is extremely valuable, because it gives us the considered opinion of a professional lawyer, not merely that these Shakespeare plays contain an abundance of legal knowledge--which is always admitted--but that they also contain

". . . pictures drawn of the different members of the legal profession."

In other words, these plays could by no possibility have been written by any layman, however gifted. They give as studies taken from the life of a practicing lawyer. It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of this fact in its bearing on our problem. Taken in conjunction with all the evidence from other sides of the question, it virtually fixes the authorship on Francis Bacon, and on no one else.

It is worth noting that this play was first performed before the King and his Court at Wilton, the residence of Bacon's life-long friend, the Earl of Pembroke. At this time, Raleigh and others were being tried at Winchester, and it has been suggested, with some show of reason, that the speech on mercy, put into the mouth of Isabella, may have been purposely contrived in order to incline the King towards leniency with Raleigh and his associates. Another and a stronger point is that this play emphasizes the line of argument in Bacon's speech on the enforcement of obsolete laws, and likewise in his Essay Of Judicature.
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