Sunday, May 1, 2011

More Promus - 10-12

10. From Bacon's Promus (entry 1430)

"It may well be the last for it hath lasted well"


Then in Love's Labour's Lost 1.1.159 we find:

"I am the last that will last keep his oath".

Comment:  Exactly the same pun on "last" in sequence and "last" in duration.

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11.  From Bacon's Promus (entry 1431)

"Those are great with you that are great by you"


Then in I Henry IV, 1.3.10-13

"Our house, my sovereign liege, little deserves
The scourge of greatness to be used on it;
And that same greatness, too, which our own hands
Have holp to make so portly".

Comment:  The Promus entry means: "Those are oppressive towards you whom you yourself have raised to eminence". And this is exactly the complaint in Shake-Speare's lines.

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12.  Bacon's Promus (entry 634)

"to play to be prophet"


and then in King Lear 5.3.72

"Jesters do oft prove prophets".

Comment:  Both lines mean the same.

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