Greater Light drowns lesser light ; Sounds are sweeter at night

From The Merchant of Venice  5.1.89-101

Portia:  That light we see is burning in my hall:
            How far that little candle throws his beams!
             So shines a good deed in a naught world.
Nerissa: When the moon shone we did not see the candle.
Portia:    So doth the greater glory dim the less,-
             A substitute shines brightly as a king
             Until a king be by, and then his state
             Empties itself, as doth an inland brook
             Into the main waters: - music - hark!
Nerissa: It is your music (madam) of the house.
Portia:   Nothing is good (I see) without respect, -
             Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day.
Nerissa: Silence bestows that virtue on it madam.

As J.M. Robertson commented in his The Baconian Heresy p. 435: "Shakespeare frequently introduces the idea of reactions and relations between the greater and the less, the greater 'hiding' or overshadowing or obscuring or absorbing the other, as in the case of lights, griefs, maladies, or sea or river". One illustration of this is afforded by L1.92-97 above. Bacon makes the same two points in his A Brief Discourse touching the Happy Union of the Kingdom of England and Scotland (1603):

"The second condition [of perfect mixture] is that the greater draws the less. So we see when two lights meet, the greater doth darken and drown the less. And when a smaller river runs into a greater, it loseth both the name and stream."

The second of these two observations was commonplace; the first somewhat less so. What is striking about this parallel is that Shake-Speare and Bacon use the same two "the less in the greater" phenomena in conjunction and in the same order. J.M Robertson was a little troubled by this, and to explain it he suggested (p. 435) that both authors may have copied an earlier source, or that Bacon may have watched or read the play. But there is no evidence of an earlier source. And would Bacon, years later when he made his comment of general application, have remembered and borrowed from a particular application of it in the play? Besides, Bacon is likely to have formed his views on such matters long before the play was published in 1600.

Now look at L1.100-1 and compare Bacon's Natural History
"Sounds are meliorated by the intension [intensification] of the sense, where the common sense is collected most to the particular sense of hearing, and the sight suspended; and therefore sounds are sweeter as well as greater in the night than in the day."

That sounds seem greater at night was of course a commonplace, and is expressed by Shake-Speare, together with the reason Bacon gives for it, in A Midsummer Night's Dream 3.2.177-8:

Dark night, that from the eye his function takes
The ear more quick of apprehension makes,
Wherein it doth impair the seeing sense,
It pays the hearing double recompense.

Compare to Bacon's "The apprehension of the eye is quicker than that of the ear"
--Natural History

However, the notion that sounds seem sweeter at night was surely not a commonplace; yet is is voiced by both authors. And they probably agree as to the reason for it. Just as Bacon in his Natural History says: "As for the night, it is true also that the general silence helpeth". He is speaking of sounds seeming greater at night, but he probably regarded the general silence as one reason for their seeming sweeter as well. It was chronologically impossible for Shake-Speare to have borrowed from Bacon, though Bacon could have borrowed from the play.

Parallels on Love and Chaos

Parallels on Love and Chaos
(And just a reminder here that "Shake-Speare" is not referring to the actor from Stratford, but to the author of the Shakespeare works).

Shake-Speare:

For he being dead, with him is beauty slain,
And, beauty dead, black Chaos comes again.
  Venus and Adonis 1019

Vast sin-concealing Chaos, nurse of blame!
  The Rape of Lucrece  767

Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms!
  Romeo And Juliet 1.1.177

But I do love thee, and when I love thee not,
Chaos is come again.
  Othello 3.3.92-3

Now Bacon:

 " They say that this love [Cupid] was the most ancient of the gods and therefore of all things else, except Chaos which they held to be coeval with him. He is without any parent of his own but himself united with chaos begat the gods and all things...
  This Chaos then, which was contemporary with Cupid, signified the rude mass or congregation of matter...There was no efficient cause of it...consequently neither genus nor form...
   The ancients set down the first matter (such as may be the beginning of things) as having form and qualities, not as abstract, potential and unshapen...Chaos is without form."
The above quotes are from Bacon's Principles and Origins.

"Matter is not without a certain inclination and appetite to dissolve the world and fall back into the ancient Chaos; but that the overswaying concord of things (which is represented by Cupid or Love) restrains its will and effect in that direction and reduces it to order."
  The Wisdom of the Ancients

Cockburn Comments:  The Shake-Speare texts seem to have baffled Stratfordian scholars. Here are their attempts at explaining the idea of Chaos. The Variorum editor 

( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variorum ) notes on the Othello text:

Chaos: JOHNSON: "When my love is for a moment suspended by suspicion, I have nothing in my mind but discord, tumult, perturbation and confusion". STEVENS: There is another meaning possible: "When I cease to love thee, the world is at an end", i.e, there remains nothing valuable or important. The first explanation [continues the Variorum editor] may be more elegant; the second is perhaps more easy. There is the same thought in Venus and Adonis (Line 1019):
      "For he being dead, with him is beauty slain,
       And, beauty dead, black Chaos comes again..."
FRANZ HORN: Othello refers to the chaos in his life before he knew Desdemona.

Cockburn comments continued: "Chaos" should have given modern scholars no difficulty, since the O.E.D. gives as one meaning of the word "The 'formless void' of primordial matter, the 'great deep' or 'abyss' out of which the cosmos or order of the universe was evolved". It cites several examples, including yet another text from Bacon (The Advancement of Learning): "The order and disposition of that Chaos or Mass was the work of 6 days". As to the relationship between Chaos and Love, that is explained by the  Bacon passages. Othello says that, if he stops loving Desdemonia, Chaos will come again because it is only love which converts Chaos into form. As to the Romeo And Juliet text, I know of no Stratfordian comment on it. But it is obviously a reference to the same ancient myth. The line is included in a list of impossibilities or contradictions. "Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms!" is intended as a paradox, a contradiction in terms - chaos cannot have form. The ancient myth about Chaos and Love, and how it could be related to his philosophy, was a major preoccupation with Bacon. And he and Shake-speare even echo each other in language - "misshapen / unshapen". "form / form".

At long last one Stratfordian scholar at least has now cottoned on to the true explanation. The American editor of the New Cambridge Shakespeare cites two references to the mythological relationship between Love and Chaos in two minor Ben Jonson works - Love Freed from Ignorance and Folly,  p. 26-7 and The Masque of Beauty, pp. 282-5 and 326-8. The Baconians have known the explanation for about 100 years. And there are the Bacon/Shake-Speare echoes in language mentioned. Plus, remember that Ben Jonson was a friend and translator of some of Bacon's works into Latin.

Bacon obviously did not borrow from Shake-Speare as the terms are part of the extensive philosophical thought of Bacon. And Shake-Speare (who evidently knew about Love and Chaos as early as Romeo And Juliet) cannot have borrowed from Bacon since both plays were written before either Bacon work was published.

Parallel - Bright Alexander

Here is a Bacon/Shakespeare parallel in I Henry VI lines 55-58

Bedford: A far more glorious star thy soul will make
                than Julius Caesar or bright ---
                                   Enter a messenger
Messenger: My honourable lords, health to you all!
                  Sad tidings bring I to you out of France.

Neither my Folger nor Signet Classics editions say anything about what might come after the word 'bright'.

Here are some relevant Bacon quotes:

"Both in persons and in times there hath been a meeting and concurrence in Learning and Arms, flourishing and excelling in the same men and the same ages. For, as for men, there cannot be a better nor the like instance, as of that pair, Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar the Dictator; whereof the one was Aristotle's scholar in philosophy, and the other was Cicero's rival in eloquence."
The Advancement of Learning

"[Alexander] gave him [Aristotle] to understand that himself esteemed it more to excel other men in learning and knowledge than in power and empire. And what use he [Alexander] had of learning doth appear, or rather shine, in all his speeches and answers, being full of science and use of science, and that in all variety . . . I am as willing to flatter, if they will so cal it, an Alexander or a Caesar or an Antonimus that are dead many hundred years since, as any that now liveth: for it is the displaying of the glory of learning in sovereignty that I propound to myself, and not an humour of declaiming in any man's praises. . . there are prints and footsteps of learning in those few speeches which are reported of this prince: the admiration of whom, when I consider him not as Alexander the Great, but as Aristotle's scholar, hath carried me too far. As for Julius Caesar, the excellency of his learning needeth not to be argued."
The Advancement of Learning

"It is not possible to have the true pictures or statues of Cyrus, Alexander, Caesar . . . But the images of men's wits and knowledges remain in books, exempted from the wrong time."
The Advancement of Learning

"In which point I promise to myself a like future to that of Alexander the Great. [For it was said of Alexander that he] had done no more than to take courage to despise vain apprehensions. And a like judgment I suppose may be passed on myself in future ages."
Novum Organum

"Alexander did not think his fame so engraven in his conquests but that he thought it further shined in the buildings of Alexandria."
Bacon's Speech at Gray's Inn Revels

Here is Cockburn's analysis and comment on what it likely said, based on Bacon's known writings:

The reader sees that in the Shake-Speare text the second line ends with a blank. The editors of William Shakespeare A Textual Companion opine that "despite numerous conjectures about the intended completion of this sentence, a dramatic interruption is almost certainly intended". But Shake-Speare would hardly have broken a sentence off between an adjective and its noun. The Arden editor and most other scholars make the far more plausible suggestion that Shake-Speare wrote a second name which the compositor could not decipher; a long name with many minims may have baffled him. Names suggested have included Sir Francis Drake, Berenice and Cassiopey. But the Bacon texts almost certainly provide the answer. They show that he greatly admired both Caesar and Alexander. Alexander fits the metre and would have to be prefaced by an adjective to fill the gap before his name since, unlike Julius Caesar, he was not known by any prenomen. Above all, he would be a natural partner for Caesar, and comparison for Henry V. "Bright" rather than 'great' is an unexpected adjective for Alexander and has put editors off the scent, but Bacon's shine (used twice) explains it - he thought Alexander bright by reason of his intellectual qualities. As for flattering Caesar and Alexander, that is exactly what Shake-Speare does in L.56, if Alexander is the missing name."

 -----------------------------------

"It is not possible to have the true pictures or statues of Cyrus, Alexander, Caesar . . . But the images of men's wits and knowledges remain in books, exempted from the wrong time."
The Advancement of Learning

Here Bacon is saying that a person's mind that remains in their books is a truer picture of them than a painting or statue. Compare this idea to the First Folio 'To the Reader' where the last 4 lines say:

His face; the Print would then surpasse

  All, that was ever writ in brasse.

But, since he cannot, Reader, looke

  Not on his Picture, but his Books.

Finally, see how this corresponds to :

"And those who have true skill in the Works of the Lord Verulam [Bacon], like great Masters in Painting, can tell by the Design, the Strength, the way of colouring, whether he was the author of this or the other Piece, though his Name be not to it."

Archbishop Tenison, in his Baconiana, 1679

A Sample of Bacon-Shakespeare Parallels

A small sample of the many parallels in language and thought between Bacon and Shake-Speare. These are not necessarily those most critical for establishing part of the authorship argument. But those that are will be found later and with accompanying analysis.


Macbeth or Bacon?
"The Spanish have a proverb, 'To-morrow, tomorrow; and when to-morrow comes, to-morrow.." Bacon
"...life is but the shadow of death..." Bacon
"It is nothing else but words, which rather sound than signify anything." Bacon
-------------

This above all- to thine own self be true,
    And it must follow, as the night the day,
    Thou canst not then be false to any man." Hamlet (Polonius)


"Be so true to thyself as thou be not false to others." Essay of Wisdom - Bacon
-------------

First, Hamlet:
"Polonius. What do you read, my lord?
Hamlet. Words, words, words.
Polonius. What is the matter, my lord?"

"Here, then, is the first distemper of learning, when men study words and not matter."  Advancement of Learning - Bacon

--------------
"Though this be madness, yet there is method in it." Hamlet - Shakespeare
"They were only taking pains to show a kind of method and discretion in their madness" Novum Organum - Bacon
--------------
" From the tables Of my memory I'll wipe away all saws of books." Hamlet
"Tables of the mind differ from the common tables...you will scarcely wipe out the former records unless you shall have inscribed the new." Bacon
---------------
"I saw him run after a gilden butterfly; and when he caught it he let it go again, and after it again, and over and over he comes, and up again, catch'd it again..." Coriolanus

"...and if her Majesty will not take me, it may be selling by parcels will be more gainful. For to be, as I have told you, a child following a bird, which when he is nearest flieth away and lighteth a little before, and then the child after it again, and so on ad infinitum...." Letter to Fulke Greville - Bacon
--------------------
"Love me little love me long." (Bacon's notebook--Promus, 959)
"Love moderately: long love doth so." Romeo And Juliet, 2.6.14
----------------------
"Assume a virtue if you have it not." Hamlet - Shakespeare
"Whatever a want a man hath, he must see that he pretend the virtue that shadoweth it." Advancement of Learning - Bacon
--------------------------
"There's such divinity doth hedge a king
That treason dares not look on."  Hamlet

"God hath implanted such a majesty in the face of a prince that no private man dare approach the person of his sovereign with a traitorous intent." - Bacon
-----------------------------
"A Fools Bolt is soon shot." K.Henry V,iii,7
"A fools bolt is soon shot" - Bacon
---------------------------
"And thus the native hue of resolution is sickled o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment with this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action." Hamlet

"So the unresolved man executes nothing." Bacon

-------------------------
"To be once in doubt is once to be resolved." Othello
"Not to resolve is to resolve." Bacon
-----------------------
:...Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason," Hamlet
"Thus is fortitude the marshal of thoughts, the armour of the will, and the fort of Reason." Bacon

Parallelisms - Part 3 of 3

Parallelisms Introduction

Part 3 of 3

The Number of Parallels

The Baconians have not compiled one comprehensive list of all the parallels they allege between the works of Bacon and Shake-Speare, though different writers have made their own lists. The fullest list is in Bacon and Shake-speare Parallelisms (1902) by Edwin Reed. He lists 885 parallels. About 230 of his are not parallels at all. I (Cockburn) regard about 150 of Reed's parallels (excluding Promus parallels) as good parallels. Further real and spurious parallels are to be found in The Great Cryptogram (1888) by Ignatius Donnelly, also in Shakespeare Studies in a Baconian Light (1901) by G.M. Theobald, and in The Bacon-Shakespeare Anatomy (1945) by W.S. Melsome, and in other Baconian works.

Most of the true parallels are not unique to Bacon and Shake-Speare. But one should be cautious about describing them as "commonplaces". Many, such as proverbs, undoubtedly merit that description. But there is a tendency among Shake-Speare scholars to apply the term "commonplaces" to anything in Shake-Speare (or Bacon) for which they have found one, two or three parallels elsewhere in Elizabethan literature. In many cases they could perhaps find more if they tried; but not necessarily. Even where a parallel can justly be called a commonplace, some are obviously more commonplace than others. Even the commonest commonplaces may in the aggregate be relevant to authorship, for each of us has his favorite commonplaces and if one finds two Elizabethan authors using a great many of the same commonplaces out of the yet far greater number available to them, that will have some significance. A further qualification which must be made is that a sentiment may be commonplace in prose but not in drama, or vice versa. Take proverbs, for example. Proverbs were common in prose, but they don't seem to be particularly common in Elizabethan drama. So if one finds one author (say, Bacon) in prose and another (say, Shake-Speare) in drama voicing a lot of identical sentiments which were common in one medium but not in the other, that gives greater weight to the parallels than if they had been common in both media.

I estimate that the total number of Bacon-Shake-Speare parallels which I personally would consider fit for inclusion on a list is somewhere in the region of 1100 (which includes about 600 Promus parallels).

Reading through seemingly interminable lists of parallels is not everyone's idea of light entertainment. But they are one extremely important plank in the Baconian case and any serious student of the authorship controversy must perform that chore. (Note: Cockburn selected about 100 non-Promus parallels that he thought were most likely to be unique to the two authors. And then added a number of Promus parallels.)

 His list of parallels contain many plural-headed ones, which are of particular importance for reason already mentioned. Many of the parallels in his list do or may shed light on the correct interpretation of Shake-Speare texts which have puzzled commentators. These explanatory parallels deserve extra attention because when one has to consult Bacon to understand Shake-Speare, it is not unreasonable to suspect common authorship. Some at least of them should also be of interest to scholars who concern themselves only with textual matters but seem unfamiliar with the Bacon texts in question.

end of part 3 of 3

Parallelisms - Part 2 of 3

Parallelisms Introduction

Part 2 of 3

Mutual Borrowing

What of the possibility that Bacon and Shake-Speare borrowed from each other? The opportunities for Shake-Speare to have borrowed from Bacon are acutely limited by the fact that by 1613, the approximate terminal date of the Shake-Speare works, the only literary or philosophical Bacon works to have been published were his first 10 Essays (1597) (with The Colours of Good and Evil and Meditationes Sacrae), The Advancement of Learning (1605) and The Wisdom of the Ancients (1609). The 2nd and fuller edition of the Essays was not entered in the S.R. till 12 October 1612, and so came too late to be of use to Shake-Speare. In the best parallels it would have been chronologically impossible for Shake-Speare to have borrowed from Bacon in almost every instance. (note: Cockburn's top 30 parallels were not posted sequentially nor identified as such here).

As to borrowing by Bacon from Shake-Speare, the Stratfordians profess to believe that Bacon disapproved of, or had no interest in, the public Theatre. Yet when it suits them, in order to explain an awkward parallel, they are ready to suppose that Bacon had read the Shake-Speare play in question or see it performed. Here they play with fire. For if Bacon was so conversant with the Shake-Speare works, may the reason not be that he was Shake-Speare himself?

Two factors make borrowing by Bacon from Shake-Speare extremely unlikely. First, 18 of Shake-Speare's 37 plays were not published till the First Folio of 1623. So Bacon could only have borrowed from them in works he wrote between 1623 and his death in 1626, unless he had earlier seen them performed on the stage. Secondly, hardly any of the parallels selected (for Cockburn's book) are consistent with borrowing by Bacon, even where borrowing was chronologically possible. They take various forms. Some are philosophizing comments on human nature or the human condition. Some are statements on nature or natural science. Some are about politics, history and other assorted subjects. It is not only ideas on these subjects which are paralleled; for again and again one finds them expressed in language which has significant points of similarity. It may be only an unusual word or it may be a collocation of non-consecutive words.

Now, Bacon had no need to borrow his ideas from Shake-Speare. Commonplaces he could find anywhere. And as to the unique or rare parallels to which we've mostly confined ourselves here, it must be emphasized that Bacon did not learn his philosophy (including human nature), his natural science, his politics, his history or his law from fleeting allusions to these subjects in the works of contemporary dramatists. He learnt them from other reading and, where applicable, from his own observations and cogitations. His acknowledged works contain countless statements on these subjects which are not to be found in the plays (which of their nature could only accommodate a small percentage) and therefore cannot have been borrowed from Shake-Speare.

Not even the verbal clothing of a parallel idea is likely to have been borrowed, for the similarity of language, though significant, is too fragmentary and oblique for easy borrowing. Many of the collocations of non-consecutive words would not even have been possible to parallel unless Bacon remembered, or had at his elbow, the exact wording of the Shake-Speare text. Often there was a gap of years between the Bacon work and the play. As to those parallels which depend solely on shared language, they too are of a kind unlikely to have been borrowed. If one found in Bacon some memorable line, such as "this sceptred isle set in a silver sea" and it was chronologically possible for Bacon to have borrowed it from Shake-Speare and there was no evidence or likelihood of a common source, one would conclude that Bacon borrowed the line from Shake-Speare. But of the purely language-only parallels included in those posted here, none are complete sentences, just little snatches of phraseology which seem idiosyncratic. For example, the parallel involving the expression "hatch and disclose", is one to suppose that one author borrowed this tautology from the other?

For these reasons borrowing by Bacon from Shake-Speare is not a realistic explanation of the parallels. And, as noted, it was almost always chronologically impossible for Shake-Speare to have borrowed from Bacon.

Apart from parallels due to sheer accident (which must be rare, except for commonplaces), the only other possible explanation remaining to be considered is derivation from a common source. But by definition this cannot explain parallels which are unique to Bacon and Shake-Speare since then they could have no earlier source. Nor is it likely to explain rare parallels, since the odds are much against both authors borrowing the same rare parallel from the same source (whether the source itself be rare or not).

end of part 2 of 3

Parallelisms - Part 1 of 3

Introduction to Parallelisms

This would be a good point to provide some background information on the evidence of the many parallelisms between Bacon and Shake-Speare in the authorship analysis. It will be presented in three parts.

Part 1 of 3

A parallelism (hereinafter usually called a "parallel" for short) is a correspondence between passages in the works of two authors. It may be a thought that is shared, or the language, or both. In the Elizabethan scholarship game the rule about this type of evidence seems to be that it is of little value as evidence of common authorship - unless it can be used to support your own case. Thus the Professors are only too happy to find such evidence when they are advancing some theory of their own, as to whether for example another writer had a hand in a Shake-Speare play or whether Shake-Speare used some particular source. Yet when confronted with a mass of Bacon-Shake-Speare parallels, not a few of which are stronger than such as they themselves commonly rely on, they dismiss them almost out of hand.

The true principle for the evaluation of parallels is as follows: In any age writers work from a common stock of ideas and language, so that any two writers under comparison will borrow from that stock and may borrow from each other. Hence between their works a number of parallels are to be expected, and only become significant if their total weight seems exceptional. Non-unique parallels may score by their cumulative weight, as dripping water ultimately makes an impression on stone. Of course the vast majority of parallels are too commonplace to be significant; so one excludes them from consideration. For example, if two writers both say "The sun is hot", that is an exact parallel. But it is too mundane to grace any list of parallels. On the other hand, if they both say "A fool's bolt is soon shot", that seems notable enough to be included even though it was a familiar Elizabethan proverb. Obviously the dividing line can be difficult to draw and will be determined by the judgment of the compiler, as will therefore the number of entries in any list of parallels.

A parallel may be difficult to weigh. Its weight will depend partly on its rarity - a matter on which one is often uncertain. Even more taxing is to assess the parallels in aggregate. It is not simply of counting them - a few good ones may weight more than a larger number of minor ones. Nor has anyone made a conscious systematic study of what weight of parallels is normal between two writers. To do that would require close comparison of the works of a wide selection of authors and would be beyond the capacity of an individual. In any event, a norm could only apply as between writers who could be regarded as comparable. Bacon's prose works by their nature (being non-dramatic) are not comparable for this purpose to the Shake-Speare plays and poems, and would in that respect be likely to yield fewer parallels. On the other hand, the greater the total output of either author under comparison, the greater the scope for parallels, other things being equal. The output of both Shake-Speare and Bacon is considerable. Shake-Speare wrote 37 plays and has his non-dramatic poetry. His plays total 108,600 lines. Making a very rough calculation, I estimate that Bacon's works in Spedding's edition (excluding his letters and speeches but including his legal writings) run to about 3500 pages, or some 140,000 lines. And the letters and speeches add many more.

In the case of the Bacon-Shake-Speare parallels some help in weighing them can be provided by comparing them with parallels which have been identified between the works of Shake-Speare and two other authors, John Lyly and Christopher Marlowe. Also - and this is most important for our purposes - the evaluation of parallels is made far easier if they include, as I think the Bacon-Shake-Speare parallels do, some which are unique to the two authors in question. Human thought and speech are, and by Elizabethan times already were, such beaten tracks that very rarely do two writers, independently of each other, conceive the identical new idea or expression. So it takes only a mere handful of unique parallels to establish common authorship, provided one can exclude mutual borrowing. In the absence of any study of the question, one can only guess at the number of unique parallels needed, and obviously something will depend on the nature of each. But it seems unlikely that one would find more than half a dozen truly unique parallels between two distinct Elizabethan writers. One type of parallel which is very likely to be unique is found where two passages under comparison yield more than one significant parallel. The plural-headed parallels immensely increase the improbability of their being due to accident.

Even without unique parallels, there can be no doubt that this type of evidence can be a significant aid to the identification of authorship and even in some cases sufficient evidence by itself - it is as foolish to attach too little weight to parallels as to attach too much.

end of part 1 of 3