Saturday, April 30, 2011

Parallel - Obeying in Commanding

First Shake-Speare:

(Henry VIII pays tribute to his wife Katherine after he has discarded her in favour of Anne Boleyn):

"Thy meekness saint-like, wife-like government,
Obeying in commanding"
 Henry VIII 2.4.138-9

now Bacon: "We cannot command nature except by obeying her".
    Novum Organum

Comment: This may be derived from Publilius Syrus of the 1st century B.C. who wrote that a wife governs her husband by obeying him. But was it common in Elizabethan literature?

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