Measure for Measure 13

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”.

Measure for Measure, 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”.

Measure for Measure, 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- . . .”

Measure for Measure, 2.2.95

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