Love's Labor's Lost - Authorship Evidence - Part 1

Love's Labor's Lost - Authorship Evidence - Part 1

There's a great deal of evidence on the authorship question regarding this play. And it's important enough to post most of the main points. So it will cover four separate posts to make it more digestible. Remember I'm leaving out much of the evidence and analysis for sake of space.

This is taken from Cockburn's Chapter 9 pgs 129-146

The play's plot has the King of Navarre (then an autonomous province in the South-West corner of France) and three of his young Lords vowing to devote three years to study, excluding woman and merriment. They set up an academy for this purpose. But a princess (daughter of the King of France) arrives with her three Ladies-in-waiting, whom the men find distracting.

The incidents of this plot match very well actual events in France in 1578. Then, Henri Bourbon was King of Navarre and another Henry, Henry III was King of France. Francis Bacon was in France from September 1576-March 1579, being attached to the British Ambassador there.

The play was first known to have been published in 1598, but this appears to be a revised version. It's also not known where it was first played. For many reasons, it's argued here that it was meant to part of the Gray's Inn Christmas Revels of 1594-95 along with The Comedy of Errors. The firm evidence we have is that it was played before two private audiences--once before Queen Elizabeth, and another time at either Southampton House or at the home of Robert Cecil before Queen Anne in 1605.

Following are the points relevant to the authorship question:

Point 1) Like with The Comedy of Errors, it wouldn't have been economical for a playwright to write a play meant for a private audience, either at Gray's Inn, or elsewhere. The 1631 Folio of Shake-Speare's Works says it was performed at the Globe and at the Blackfriars Theatres, but we don't have evidence that it actually was and this may have been added as another sales ploy long after the event.

Point 2) The clever bantering and in-jokes in the play favor an insider authorship and a peculiar audience, rather than the usual public theater attendees.

Example (a) the reference to the School of Night [act 4,scene 3] refers to the disagreements between the circle of friends of Walter Raleigh that favored a life of contemplation and study as opposed to having love interests, and Raleigh's enemy the Earl of Essex and his circle (including Bacon) that didn't exclude the study of love, along with their academic interests. The slight at Raleigh's school favors Bacon's authorship, as Essex was his close friend and someone he advised. The argument for Will Shakepere is that he had the Earl of Southampton as his patron and as Southampton was also friends with Essex that W. Shakspere too might have made the same slight at Raleigh. But there isn't clear evidence of Southampton's patronage of Will Shakspere. Nor is there any evidence of a friendship between him and Essex.

Example (b) The character in the play named Don Armado acts and speaks like a historical person that was a friend to Francis Bacon and his brother Anthony. Don Armado resembles Antonio Perez who was a Spanish Secretary of State who defected and came to England in April 1593 and joined somewhat to the Essex circle. Both Francis Bacon and his brother Anthony mention him in their letters, as does King Henry IV of France and Navarre in a letter to Anthony. In the play, Don Armado was a Spanish braggart who used flowery, affected language. Antonio Perez had a similar personality to this and used similar language, which annoyed the Bacon brothers so much they were glad to be rid of him later. More specifically, in the play, Holofernes says of Don Armado: "He is too picked, too spruce, too affected, too odd, as it were, too peregrinate, as I may call it". "Peregrinate" meaning "Having the air of one who has lived or travelled abroad". Antonio Perez had nicknamed himself "Peregrino" and signed letters and his book with this name. We also know that Francis Bacon well knew this word as he used a variation of it, writing "a full period [end] of all instability and peregrination". In addition, one of Anthony Bacon's contacts wrote of Perez that "Surely he is, as we say, an odd man".

Francis Bacon was far more likely to know of these peculiarities of Perez than would be Will Shakspere, and far more likely to have a motive to write them in a play since he close friends could appreciate the inside joke. The Stratfordian argument is that Don Armado (as well as other characters) is a stock character of the Italian Commedia del Arte and not unusual. Italian players had visited England, but this was in the 1570's and so would have been much too early for Will Shakspere to be very familiar with them, whereas Bacon had ample opportunity to learn about them while at the French court in the 1570s. Plus, Martin Hume, in his Spanish Influence in English Literature (1905) observed that "No one can read Perez's many published letters and Relacianoes [a book] without identifying numerous affected turns of speech with those put into the mouth of Don Adriano Armado".

So, the forgoing evidence again favors Bacon's authorship of Love's Labor's Lost over that of William Shakspere's. [end of Part 1 of 4]

Love's Labor's Lost - Authorship Evidence - Part 2

Part 2 of 4 on Summary Authorship Evidence in Love's Labour's Lost 

Point 3) The play uses historical incidents within Bacon's, but not Shakspere's known experience and awareness.

    The Arden editor said that "Shakespeare's play follows historical fact remarkably closely." The parallels are:   

(a) The Academy.   An actual academy, like that in the play, was set up at the Court of Navarre by Henri. There is also a letter from 1583 by the English Ambassador to Sir Francis Walsingham, one of Queen Elizabeth's Secretaries of State, that the King of Navarre "has furnished his Court with principal gentlemen of the Religion and reformed his house", which also is found echoed in the play.  

(b) in the play, an embassy of women come from the French court to King of Navarre's academy. In actual history, there were two such embassies, though the characters are slightly different. For instance, a princess is used in the play rather than the sister of the King of France. But in each there were negotiations over money and over the region of Aquitaine.  

(c)   the historical embassy was led by Marguerite de Valois, and her journey corresponds exactly with the princess's journey in the play. For instance, both real and play embassies visited the Duc d'Alencon at his residence, and they both also visited Brabant/Flanders. In addition the Alencon family dies out before 1589, before the likely writing of the play, but after Bacon's time in France. So, again, these particular correspondences between the play and history were much more likely to be known by Francis Bacon, who had a deep interest in Academies and whose brother Anthony lived with the King of Navarre at his court in the summer of 1584, and who later resided some years with Francis after his return to England.  (Anthony Bacon had spent 12 years living on the continent and was a great resource of information and communication to him regarding European events and contacts.) 

(d)   The French surnames in the play for the three young lords (Berowne, Longaville, and Dumain) are nearly exactly those of real persons--(Duc de Biron, Duc de Longueville, and Duc de Mayenne). These characters in the play don't reflect the personalities of the actual historical persons, and the names themselves would have been known to many in England that followed events in France. However, they would be more easily known to Francis and Anthony Bacon due to their years spent in France and their associations with various personages there. In addition, Anthony Bacon personally knew the Duc de Longueville (like Longaville in the play). And one of his servants had passports in which were found the names of a de Lomagne (similar to Dumain) and a Baron de Biron (similar to Berowne). Antonio Perez, the Spanish braggart onetime friend of the Bacons, had also for a time been a companion of Henri of Navarre.     

(e)   The play refers to King of Navarre's manner of horse riding. "Was that the King, that spurred his horse so hard / Against the steep-up rising of the hill?" (4.1.1-2) The real King Henri of Navarre actually did have a habit of riding impetuously. The Bacon brothers would have known this.  

 (f)   The play also has the princess say

"Nothing but this! yes; as much love in rhyme
As would be crammed up in a sheet of paper,
Writ o' both sides the leaf, margent and all,
That he was fain to seal on Cupid's name."  (5.2.6-9)

Henri, the real King of Navarre, actually did cover the whole sheet, including margins, in his love letters, and he did seal them with romantic "special emblematic signet".   

(g)   In the play the princess has an interest in hunting. Her historical counterpart Margurite had hunting as a favorite pastime.

The above facts were mostly not published in Shakspere's lifetime. There had been a book on The French Academy published in English in 1586 but Bacon would be much more likely to have read it out of his consuming interest in academies, than would have Will Shakspere. Nor does the book mention such an academy at the court of Navarre. Casual chats with travelers would not likely be a source for all these personal and peculiar historical facts represented in the play. And I've only described maybe half of them listed by Cockburn.

Point 4)  At the end of the play the Princess has to leave due to the sudden death of her father. A more appropriate ending would have had her complete the business that she had planned and could also then have had a happy ending, as usual for a comedy. Nor was the princess' father hardly mentioned in the play, last hear about early in act 2. Plus, the historical father, Henry II, died many years before in 1559. But it so happens that Francis Bacon's own father had died on February 20, 1579 while he was in France (and while the historical Marguerite was on her embassy visit to Navarre) and this caused Francis' time on the continent to abruptly end as he then had to return to England. This would seem a perfect explanation for the similar ending in the play.

There are two other important points of evidence that I'll deal with in separate posts following this.

[end of Part 2 of 4]

Love's Labor's Lost - Authorship Evidence - Part 3

[Part 3 of 4]  Summary Authorship Evidence in Love's Labor's Lost

Parallels between Love's Labor's Lost (L.L.L) and Gray's Inn Revels of 1594-5

I summarized in earlier posts how The Comedy of Errors was integrated into these revels at Bacon's law school. Shake-Speare's 'L.L.L' also has strong connections to these same Revels.

(a)   In the Revels there were rules given for the students to read, one of which was to read a book on "The French Academy", again, one of Francis Bacon's fascinations.  

(b)   One of the themes of the play was the rival merits of Love versus Play. This was also a theme in the Revels, as would be natural for a law school. Among the speeches ascribed to Bacon is one that advocates the study of philosophy, and another that advocates the pursuit of pastimes and sport including love. And as in the play, so in the Revels is there a temporary abandonment of study for the pleasure of revelry. And in another speech in the Revels, a counsellor says "What! Nothing but tasks, nothing but working-days? No feasting, no music, no dancing, no triumphs, no comedies, no love, no ladies? Let other men's lives be as pilgrimages, but Princes' lives are as Progresses [royal visits] dedicated only to variety and solace." Compare the similarity of this speech to that in 'L L L' by Berowne  "O, these are barren tasks, too hard to keep,/ Not to see ladies, study, fast, not sleep".  

(c)   In 'L L L' the characters disguise themselves as 'Muscovites' and 'blackamoors'. Likewise, in the Revels, there are characters playing 'Russians' and 'Negro Tartars'.  

(d)  In the play Rosaline mocks the King as looking "Sea-sick, I think, coming from Muscovy". In the Revels, a character supposedly returning from Russia describes himself as having seasickness.   From correspondences like these, the Stratfordian Francis Yates even observed that "It is my belief...that Love's Labor's Lost ... took immediate inspiration from the Gray's Inn Revels of 1594-5". So the question is asked - How could Shakspere be so familiar with all the minute details and speeches of the Revels, and then to be so motivated to add them to his plays, especially considering it's very unlikely he could have even attended them? 

Francis Yates also wrote "It is very curious indeed to remember that the speeches of the Counselors in Gesta Grayorum have been attributed to Francis Bacon, and if that attribution is correct, and if i am also correct in hearing echoes of those speeches in Love's Labor's Lost, then the "civil war of wits" in that play may be, in one of its aspects, a reflection of some friendly crossing of swords between the two greatest wits of the age, Shakespeare and Bacon".   If only he had been aware of all the current evidence for Bacon's authorship of both, the curiosity would be much less surprising.

Love's Labor's Lost - Authorship Evidence - Part 4

Part 4 of 4 on  Summary Authorship Evidence in Love's Labor's Lost

Finally, there's a connection between a part of the play (LLL) with another French historical fact, and with the play of Hamlet.

In LLL, 5.2.1-9 there is this passage:

Rosaline:   That was the way to make his godhead wax;
                   For he hath been five thousand year a boy.
Katharie:   Ay, and a shrewd unhappy gallows too.
Rosaline:   You'll ne'er be friends with him: a' killed your sister.
Katharine:  He made her melancholy, sad and heavy;
                    And so she died.

There is a strong historical parallel of this in French history, and Francis Bacon was perfectly positioned to hear of it. It almost certainly refers to the daughter of Marguerite's principal Lady-in-waiting. The daughter was Helene de Tournon and she died at Liege in 1577. Marguerite, again, was the sister of the French King Henry III (not to be confused with Henri, King of Navarre, who lived at the same time as the French King Henry, and who took his place as King of France when Henry III died).

Helene de Tournon had fallen in love with a young nobelman, the Marquis of Varembon, while living in Flanders. She later returned to Paris. When the King's sister Marguerite planned to visit Flanders in the summer of 1577, Helene was happy to go along in hopes of again seeing the Marquis of Varembon. When they met again in Flanders the Marquis treated her with indifference. And when he departed on a trip without acknowledging her at all it seems, she became "so stricken that she could only breathe by crying out for mortal pain." She died at Liege 8-9 days later. The cause of death attributed to spasms of the heart. Then the Marquis, having second thoughts of his treatment of her, returned to Liege to apologize. On his arrival he met Helene's funeral cortege and asking whose funeral it was, he was told, then was said to have swooned and fell from his horse.

The Arden editor of 'LLL' wrote that "It is highly probable that this incident suggested not only the decline of Katharine's sister (in the play) but the story of Ophelia in Hamlet". Remember that Hamlet only learned of Ophelia's death when he met her funeral cortege by chance. So how many noblemen first learn of the death of a girl friend by encountering her funeral cortege by chance. Both women were members of royal court, in love with a great nobleman, both facing opposition to such a relationship (the Marquis's family had other plans for him). Both had their hearts broken over overt indifference of their beloved, both of whom relented too late. And as Hamlet had jumped into Ophelia's grave, the soul of the Marquis was said to have gone down into the grave afterward.

Again, Francis Bacon was in France when this historical event occurred and which had likely been a topic of conversation. He may even heard of it directly from Marguerite. Would Shakspere, though, some 20 years later, have known about it? The odds are very low for this.

THE MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE

Perhaps serious consideration should be given as to whether or not William Shakspere of Stratford should be credited with the discovery of the circulation of the blood, rather than William Harvey. One medical practitioner ponders this question.

THE MEDICINE IN SHAKESPEARE

BY ORVILLE W. OWEN, M. D.,

_________

Extracts from a lecture at a stated meeting of the Detroit Medical and Library Association.

I wish to open up a comparatively new question--the circulation of the blood as found in the plays. With it I shall give you a little anatomical knowledge from the plays, for the author must have either dissected the human body or at least seen it done, and that he was perfectly familiar with the experiments and proofs of the circulation I think I can show to your satisfaction. For we find it scattered through all the thirty-six plays contained in this volume, and in so plain and elaborate a manner that I cannot believe but that I can show you he was either the original discoverer of the great anatomical and physiological truth or knew intimately the experiments and dissections upon which it is based.

Here I make an extraordinary statement which is, if William Shakespeare wrote the plays bearing his name, he discovered the circulation of the blood instead of Dr. William Harvey. And further, if Shakespeare wrote the plays, Harvey stole the discovery from Shakespeare. One of these statements must be correct if it is allowed for an instant that William Shakespeare wrote the plays, and I will now proceed to prove my statement. I must preface it with a short epitome of both Harvey and Shakespeare.

Dr. Harvey took his literary degree at Caius College, Cambridge, and his medical degree at the great school of medicine at Padua. He returned to London and was, in the year 1615, appointed Lumlian professor at Bartholomew Hospital. In the year 1616, about the latter part, he made his first discovery of the circulation, but did not make it public until the year 1619, when he published his first little monograph upon the subject, but it was not until the year 1628 that he became fully sure the world was ready for the announcement. In that year he published the work which makes him famous at the present day.

Master William Shakespeare finished writing, so his biographers tell us, in the year 1612, and although the works bearing his name were not published until 1623, and although they were double in amount, all of them having been rewritten, still, the gentlemen referred to say he did nothing after 1612. Master William, having finished his work, thought it best to depart from this vale of tears, and did so in April, 1616. Notice the last of his writing, done in 1612, and his death occurring in the April before Harvey makes his discovery.

If there is one word in the plays of the circulation, then there is a great discrepancy between Shakespeare and Harvey. For if Harvey did make it Shakespeare must have risen from his grave to write it in the 1623 edition. If, on the other hand, Shakespeare wrote it before his death, then Harvey must have stolen it. The first thought that arises is, get the early editions of the plays and see if it was in them. But here steps in a difficulty which we cannot overcome, namely, six of the plays never appeared except in the 1623 edition, and all the others are completely rewritten and enlarged to about double their original size. For instance, Richard Third’s whole opening speech, commencing "Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of York" is not found in any of the early editions of the plays. So of them all, they are so changed from the first printed copies that there is no use in citing them in any way, so that we are forced to abide by the 1623 edition and no other. This being the case, and as the 1623 is the only edition having all the so-called Shakespeare plays, we will use that as the basis of comparison.

Examine these quotations:

Coriolanus 1.1.126-139
"Your most grave belly was deliberate,
Not rash like his accusers and thus answered:
True is it, my incorporate friend, quoth he,
That I receive the general food at first
Which do you live upon; and fit it is;
Because I am the store-house and the shop
Of the whole body: but if you do remember,
I send it through the rivers of your blood,
Even to the court the heart--to th’ seat o’ th’ braine;
And, through the cranks and offices of man,
The strongest nerves, and small inferior veines,
From me receive that natural competencie
Whereby they live; and though that all at once,
You, my good friends (this says the belly) mark me."

Now please turn to Romeo and Juliette, 1.1.85 and read:

"With purple fountains issuing from your veins."

Then in this same play at 4.1.93-99:

"Take thou this viole, being then in bed,
And this distilling liquor drink thou of,
When presently through all thy veins shall run
A cold and drowsy humor, for no pulse
Shall keep his native progress but surcease;
No warmth nor breath shall testify thou livest;
The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade."

Next turn to Love’s Labour Lost, 4.3.309-12:

"Why, universal plodding poisions up
The nimble spirits in the arteries:
As motion, and long during action, tires
The sinewy vigor of the traveler."

 http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/LLL_4_3.html

Now drop down the same column at 4.3.332-337 read:

"Lives not alone emured in the brain;
But with the motion of all elements,
Courses as swift as thought in every power;
And gives to every power a double power,
Above their functions and their offices.
It adds a precious seeing to the eye;"

Now see what's in Twelfth Night at 1.1.38-39:

"Liver, brain, and heart,
These sovereign thrones are all supplied and filled."

The same play at 3.2.58-60:

"If he were opened and you find so much blood in his liver
As will clog the foot of a flea, I will eat th’ rest of th’ anatomy."

Now turn to Henry the Sixth, part II, 3.2.160-168:

"See how the blood is settled in his face.
Oft have I seene a timely-parted ghost
Of ashy semblance, meagre, pale, and bloodless
Being all descended to the labouring heart
Who in the conflict that it holds with death
Attracts the same for aidance ’gainst the enemy
Which with the heart there cools and ne’re returneth
To blush and beautifie the cheek againe.
But see his face is blacke and full of blood."

Now read Henry the Fourth, part II, 4.3.108-110:

"The vitall commoners and inland pettie spirits
Muster me all to their capitaine, the heart, who great
And puft up with his retinue, doth any deed of courage."

The Winter’s Tale, 5.3.62-68:

Leontes. "Let be, let be would.
I were dead but that methinks alreadie
(What was he that did make it? See (my Lord)
would you not deeme it breathed and that those veines
Did verily beare blood?"
Polixenes. "Masterly done!
The very life seems warm upon her lip"
Leontes. "The fixture of her eye has motion in it,
As we are mock’d with art."

Finally, in The Merchant of Venice, 4.1.108, we find:

"A messenger with letters from the doctor, new come from Padua."

And just below it 4.1.112, read:

"My flesh, blood, bones and all
Ere thou shalt lose for me one drop of blood."
--------------------------------------------

Was Shakespeare an anatomist? Every portion of the human body known to his day is mentioned. Was he a student of physiology? Physiological functions are given in detail. Had he knowledge of materia medica? He speaks of many medicines. Was he a neurologist? It might be called his specialty, and I must confess I feel hardly competent to analyze his wonderful descriptions and delineations in this great field of our science. All the types of insanity are fully described. The sleep-walking dementia of Lady Macbeth is paralleled by the suicidal insanity of Ophelia. King Lear’s delirium is a good foil to Hamlet’s feigned madness. The tragical jealousy of Othello is a counterfoil to the comical jealousy of Master Ford. Richard the Third, Macbeth, Edmund, Malvolio, the different fools, Gonerill, Timon of Athens, and Titus Andronicus, will show types of either real or feigned madness, or mental instability. How did he give these medical observations to the world three hundred years ago. How did he know it? Where did he find it if not from the study of the insane?

* * *

If we consider that Francis Bacon could be the author of the plays, then our questions are easily answered:

"I have oft seene Dr. William Harvey, the new doctor from Padua, at Bartholomew Hospital, in the presence of the learned doctors, force a purple, distilling liquor through the veines of a dead body, and, after it had descended to the heart, liver, and lungs, the blood-coloured liquor returneth againe to the face which blacke and full of blood, or pale, meagre, and bloodless before, doth blush and beautifie, as if with life; you would think the body breathed; the very lippe is warme to look upon; but we are mock’d with art as there is no pulse gainst the finger and though the arteries seem full, yet no life is present. The legs, waist, arms, hands, brow, and limbs seem alive, but we can never ransome nature. The doctor was enrolled at Caius College."-Francis Bacon
William Harvey was a close friend of Bacon, as well as his private physician.

In addition, Francis Bacon in 1600 wrote to Queen Elizabeth that his mother was "much worn." Shortly afterwards she became violently insane and continued to do so, under the sole care of Francis Bacon, until her death in 1610.

The Bacon and Shakespeare Theory of Spirits - 3

The Bacon and Shake-Speare Theory of "spirits"

part 3 of 9 

(b)  if one's sprits are imprisoned, one will be a dulled or tired

First, Shake-Speare:

From Love's Labour's Lost 4.3.301-4 & 323-6

[Berowne is objecting to the proposal that he and his fellows should forswear women in favor of studies]
"Why, universal plodding poisons up
The nimble spirits in the arteries,
As motion and long-during action tires
The sinewy vigour of the traveller".
-----------
"But love, first learned in a lady's eyes,
Lives not alone immured in the brain,
But with the motion of all elements,
Courses as swift as thought in every power".

Comments: The Arden editor comments on "poisons up" in L.301: "Dyce pointed out that the Folio misprints poison'd for prison'd in 1 H6, V.IV.120. Halliwell and Furnivall retain 'poisons'. Furnivall says: "You don't want the metaphor of nimble spirits struggling to burst their prison: you want them dulled and numbed by poison'...Much may be said on both sides, but it is better to adhere to the originals".

But in my view Shake-Speare obviously wrote "prisons up". Though there is no such verb as either "poison up" or "prison up", Shake-Speare coined the latter by analogy with "pent up" - the metre requires "prison", not "pent" in connection with spirits. In a letter to the Duke of Buckingham in 1621 thanking him for procuring Bacon's release from the Tower, Bacon wrote: "Wherein your Lordship, by the grace of God, shall find that my adversity hath neither spent nor pent my spirits". Bacon's theory explains the consequences of the nimble spirits being imprisoned in the arteries - they cannot reach the outward parts, so that they and their owner are not "lively and stirring" (to use Bacon's words already quoted--see (a) in previous post).

Bacon speaks a number of times of spirits being imprisoned or detained. For example, in his Natural History he lists as one of the causes of putrefaction "closeness and stopping which detaineth the spirits in prison more than they would". In his History of Life and Death we find at p. 283 "detains the spirit within"; at p. 286 "the spirit being shut in"; and at p. 287 "all spirit (which like flame is fanned by motion) by being shut up becomes languid and therefore less active...slow in motion". This in essence is what Berowne says. -- If the nimble spirits are prisoned up in the arteries, they become slower in motion like a tired traveller.

In line 325 of the passage we again have Bacon's beloved word "motion". Shake-Speare was probably thinking of the motion of the lover's spirits throughout his body, engaging all his faculties. As to "spirits of the arteries", this part of Berowne's lines accords with an Elizabethan doctrine of which Shake-Speare was evidently aware. Hall's Work of Anatomie (1565) says: "The arterial spirit is more subtle, and pierceth sooner unto the quickening of the members than doth the venal or nutrimental blood". Thus Berowne's line expresses the medical theory (which prevailed before William Harvey) that the arteries were not the conduits of the blood but of the vital spirits.

end of (b) part 3 of 9
  

More Promus - 2-4 - Repartee

2. Bacon's Promus entry 198

"Hear me out. [As repartee] You were never in [i.e. "you were never saying anything pertinent"]

now from Shake-Speare:

Love's Labour's Lost 4.1.136:

"And if my hand be out [at archery], then belike your hand is in [with Rosaline].

Comment:  The young courtiers are engaging in banter and double meanings about Rosaline. The Promus entry is one of a number of pieces of repartee devised by Bacon. In this one A says "Hear me out", and B snaps back "You were never in". The Shake-Speare line is likewise repartee based on "in" and "out", though in a different context. This is quoted along with two more in the next two examples of additional repartee by Bacon to show how similar they are in style to Shake-Speare's repartee. Bacon could not have used such repartee in his prose works - only in private conversation and / or in plays.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

3. Bacon's Promus entry 200

"You go from the matter [As repartee] but it was to follow you [i.e. in effect "It was you who go from the matter"]

Then in Shake-Speare's All's Well That Ends Well 2.1.98

"Now, fair one, does your business follow us?  [i.e. what is your business?"]

Comment:  These references to "the matter" or "business" "following" a person seem odd terminology in their contexts.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

2. Bacon's Promus entry 204

"You take more than is granted [As repartee] You grant less than is proved".

now from Shake-Speare: Richard II, 3.3.15-7

Bolingbroke:   Mistake not uncle, further than you should.

York:                 Take not good cousin, further than you should,

                           Lest you mistake

and from The Tempest, 2.1.20-1

Gonzalo:    You have spoken truer than you purpos'd.

Sebastian:  You have taken it wiselier than I meant you should.

Comment: Very similar types of repartee.

More Promus - 5-6 - Ice boys; Ignorance

5. Bacon's Promus entry 828

"Puer glaciem"   "A boy [playing with] ice"; [from Adagia]

All's Well That Ends Well  2.3.93

"These boys are boys of ice; they'll none have her".

Comment:  According to Mrs. Pott, puer glaciem was "said of those who, though they cannot keep a certain thing, are unwilling to part with it";  e.g. boys who are reluctant to come in from the ice.  It looks as though Shake-Speare had the Latin tag in mind, but here makes it mean that they are frigid boys with no interest in Helena.  Thus he ironically inverts the usual meaning - instead of the boys wanting something, they do not want it.  Editors seem to have missed this Adagia echo.

------------------------------------------------------------

6.  Bacon's Promus entry 948    [I think these had been posted earlier but they're a good reread]

"Better unborn than untaught"  [from Heywood's Proverbs L.603]

2 Henry VI, 4.2.161

          "O gross and miserable ignorance!"

and 4.7.70-1

          "ignorance is the curse of God;

Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven,"

Love's Labour's Lost  4.2.23

         "O! thou monster Ignorance"

King John 4.2.59

          "Barbarous ignorance"

Twelfth Night  4.2.43-4

          "There is no darkness but ignorance"

Troilus And Cressida  2.3.28-9

          "The common curse of mankind, folly and ignorance"

Othello  3.3.410-11

           "....and fools as gross

As ignorance made drunk"

Comment: There are many other statements in Bacon's works on the supreme importance of knowledge. It was his passionate and life-long creed. And Shake-Speare seems to have shared it, probably more than other Elizabethan playwrights.

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.