Part 2 - Parallels between Bacon's Promus and Romeo and Juliet
(with special emphasis on Promus Folio 112)
(with special emphasis on Promus Folio 112)
Part 2T
Act 3.3.29-33
(Friar Lawrence tells Romeo of his banishment. Romeo responds bitterly:)
"Heaven is here
Where Juliet lives, and every cat and dog
And little mouse, every unworthy thing,
Lives here in heaven and may look on her,
But Romeo may not".
Where Juliet lives, and every cat and dog
And little mouse, every unworthy thing,
Lives here in heaven and may look on her,
But Romeo may not".
Bacon's Promus 489 (again):
"A cat may look on a king"
Comment: We have seen this proverb once already used obliquely reflected in Act 3.1.49-53 & 75-76.
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Act 3.3.88-90
(Romeo is on the floor, weeping over his banishment. The Nurse enters, and exhorts him:)
"Stand up, stand, stand and you be a man.
For Juliet's sake, for her sake, rise and stand.
Why should you fall into so deep an O?"
For Juliet's sake, for her sake, rise and stand.
Why should you fall into so deep an O?"
Bacon's Promus entry 1217 (Folio 112):
"I pray God your early rising do you no hurt; Amen when I use it"
Comment: in the Nurse's lines "be a man" and "rise and stand" are bawdy puns. "O" means an anguished exclamation of depression, but is also an allusion to the shape of the vagina. The Promus line means that one person says: "I pray God your early rising do you no hurt", to which another person (pretending to misunderstand) jokes in effect: "I too hope that my early morning 'rising' does me no harm when I use it". So Bacon's joke is different from the Nurse's but both depend on the bawdy meaning of "rise".
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