Bacon's Essays, and Wisdom of the Ancients
endeavor to create and set up some head of their own. Such designs
are generally set on foot by the secret motion and instigation of the
peers and nobles, under whose connivance the common sort are prepared
for rising; whence proceeds a swell in the state, which is appositely
denoted by the nursing of Typhon. This growing posture of affairs is
fed by the natural depravity and malignant dispositions of the vulgar,
which to kings is an envenomed serpent. And now the disaffected,
uniting their force, at length break out into open rebellion, which,
producing infinite mischiefs, both to prince and people, is represented
by the horrid and multiplied deformity of Typhon, with his hundred
heads, denoting the divided powers; his flaming mouths, denoting
fire and devastation; his girdles of snakes, denoting sieges and
destruction; his iron hands, slaughter and cruelty; his eagle’s talons,
rapine and plunder; his plumed body, perpetual rumors, contradictory
accounts, &c. And sometimes these rebellions grow so high, that kings
are obliged, as if carried on the backs of the rebels, to quit the
throne, and retire to some remote and obscure part of their dominions,
with the loss of their sinews, both of money and majesty.
But if now they prudently bear this reverse of fortune, they may, in a
short time, by the assistance of Mercury, recover their sinews again;
that is, by becoming moderate and affable; reconciling the minds and
affections of the people to them, by gracious speeches and prudent
proclamations, which will win over the subject cheerfully to afford
new aids and supplies, and add fresh vigor to authority. But prudent
and wary princes here seldom incline to try fortune by a war, yet do
their utmost, by some grand exploit, to crush the reputation of the
rebels; and if the attempt succeeds, the rebels, conscious of the wound
received, and distrustful of their cause, first betake themselves to
broken and empty threats, like the hissings of serpents; and next, when
matters are grown desperate, to flight. And now, when they thus begin
to shrink, it is safe and seasonable for kings to pursue them with
their forces, and the whole strength of the kingdom; thus effectually
quashing and suppressing them, as it were by the weight of a mountain.
III.—THE CYCLOPS, OR THE MINISTERS OF TERROR.
EXPLAINED OF BASE COURT OFFICERS.
It is related that the Cyclops, for their savageness and cruelty,
were by Jupiter first thrown into Tartarus, and there condemned to
perpetual imprisonment; but that afterwards Tellus persuaded Jupiter it
would be for his service to release them, and employ them in forging
thunderbolts. This he accordingly did; and they, with unwearied pains
and diligence, hammered out his bolts, and other instruments of terror,
with a frightful and continual din of the anvil.
It happened, long after, that Jupiter was displeased with Æsculapius,
the son of Apollo, for having, by the art of medicine, restored a
dead man to life; but concealing his indignation, because the action
in itself was pious and illustrious, he secretly incensed the Cyclops
against him, who, without remorse, presently slew him with their
thunderbolts: in revenge whereof, Apollo, with Jupiter’s connivance,
shot them all dead with his arrows.
EXPLANATION.—This fable seems to point at the behavior of princes,
who, having cruel, bloody, and oppressive ministers, first punish
and displace them; but afterwards, by the advice of Tellus, that is,
some earthly-minded and ignoble person, employ them again, to serve
a turn, when there is occasion for cruelty in execution, or severity
in exaction; but these ministers being base in their nature, whet by
their former disgrace, and well aware of what is expected from them,
use double diligence in their office; till, proceeding unwarily, and
over-eager to gain favor, they sometimes, from the private nods, and
ambiguous orders of their prince, perform some odious or execrable
action: when princes, to decline the envy themselves, and knowing they
shall never want such tools at their back, drop them, and give them
up to the friends and followers of the injured person; thus exposing
them, as sacrifices to revenge and popular odium: whence, with great
applause, acclamations, and good wishes to the prince, these miscreants
at last meet with their desert.
IV.—NARCISSUS, OR SELF-LOVE.
Narcissus is said to have been extremely beautiful and comely, but
intolerably proud and disdainful; so that, pleased with himself, and
scorning the world, he led a solitary life in the woods; hunting only
with a few followers, who were his professed admirers, amongst whom the
nymph Echo was his constant attendant. In this method of life, it was
once his fate to approach a clear fountain, where he laid himself down
to rest, in the noonday heat; when, beholding his image in the water,
he fell into such a rapture and admiration of himself, that he could by
no means be got away, but remained continually fixed and gazing, till
at length he was turned into a flower, of his own name, which appears
early in the spring, and is consecrated to the infernal deities, Pluto,
Proserpine, and the Furies.
EXPLANATION.—This fable seems to paint the behavior and fortune of
those, who, for their beauty, or other endowments, wherewith nature
(without any industry of their own) has graced and adorned them,
are extravagantly fond of themselves: for men of such a disposition
generally affect retirement, and absence from public affairs; as a
life of business must necessarily subject them to many neglects and
contempts, which might disturb and ruffle their minds: whence such
persons commonly lead a solitary, private, and shadowy life: see little
company, and those only such as highly admire and reverence them; or,
like an echo, assent to all they say.
And they who are depraved, and rendered still fonder of themselves by
this custom, grow strangely indolent, inactive, and perfectly stupid.
The Narcissus, a spring flower, is an elegant emblem of this temper,
which at first flourishes, and is talked of, but, when ripe, frustrates
the expectation conceived of it.
And that this flower should be sacred to the infernal powers, carries
out the allusion still further; because men of this humor are perfectly
useless in all respects: for whatever yields no fruit, but passes, and
is no more, like the way of a ship in the sea, was by the ancients
consecrated to the infernal shades and powers.
V.—THE RIVER STYX, OR LEAGUES.
EXPLAINED OF NECESSITY, IN THE OATHS OR SOLEMN LEAGUES OF PRINCES.
The only solemn oath, by which the gods irrevocably obliged themselves,
is a well known thing, and makes a part of many ancient fables. To this
oath they did not invoke any celestial divinity, or divine attribute,
but only called to witness the River Styx, which, with many meanders,
surrounds the infernal court of Dis. For this form alone, and none
but this, was held inviolable and obligatory; and the punishment of
falsifying it, was that dreaded one of being excluded, for a certain
number of years, the table of the gods.
EXPLANATION.—This fable seems invented to show the nature of the
compacts and confederacies of princes; which, though ever so solemnly
and religiously sworn to, prove but little the more binding for it: so
that oaths, in this case, seem used rather for decorum, reputation, and
ceremony, than for fidelity, security, and effectuating. And though
these oaths were strengthened with the bonds of affinity, which are
the links and ties of nature, and again, by mutual services and good
offices, yet we see all this will generally give way to ambition,
convenience, and the thirst of power: the rather, because it is easy
for princes, under various specious pretences, to defend, disguise,
and conceal their ambitious desires and insincerity, having no judge
to call them to account. There is, however, one true and proper
confirmation of their faith, though no celestial divinity, but that
great divinity of princes, Necessity; or, the danger of the state; and
the securing of advantage.
This necessity is elegantly represented by Styx, the fatal river that
can never be crossed back. And this deity it was, which Iphicrates the
Athenian invoked in making a league; and because he roundly and openly
avows what most others studiously conceal, it may be proper to give
his own words. Observing that the Lacedæmonians were inventing and
proposing a variety of securities, sanctions, and bonds of alliance,
he interrupted them thus: “There may, indeed, my friends, be one bond
and means of security between us; and that is, for you to demonstrate
you have delivered into our hands, such things as that, if you had the
greatest desire to hurt us, you could not be able.” Therefore, if the
power of offending be taken away, or if, by a breach of compact, there
be danger of destruction or diminution to the state or tribute, then
it is that covenants will be ratified, and confirmed, as it were by
the Stygian oath, whilst there remains an impending danger of being
prohibited and excluded the banquet of the gods; by which expression
the ancients denoted the rights and prerogatives, the affluence and the
felicities, of empire and dominion.
VI.—PAN, OR NATURE.[617]
EXPLAINED OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY.
The ancients have, with great exactness, delineated universal nature
under the person of Pan. They leave his origin doubtful; some asserting
him the son of Mercury, and others the common offspring of all
Penelope’s suitors. The latter supposition doubtless occasioned some
later rivals to entitle this ancient fable Penelope; a thing frequently
practised when the earlier relations are applied to more modern
characters and persons, though sometimes with great absurdity and
ignorance, as in the present case; for Pan was one of the ancientest
gods, and long before the time of Ulysses; besides, Penelope was
venerated by antiquity for her matronal chastity. A third sort will
have him the issue of Jupiter and Hybris, that is, Reproach. But
whatever his origin was, the Destinies are allowed his sisters.
He is described by antiquity, with pyramidal horns reaching up to
heaven, a rough and shaggy body, a very long beard, of a biform figure,
human above, half brute below, ending in goat’s feet. His arms, or
ensigns of power, are, a pipe in his left hand, composed of seven
reeds; in his right a crook; and he wore for his mantle a leopard’s
skin.
His attributes and titles were the god of hunters, shepherds, and all
the rural inhabitants; president of the mountains; and, after Mercury,
the next messenger of the gods. He was also held the leader and ruler
of the Nymphs, who continually danced and frisked about him, attended
with the Satyrs and their elders, the Sileni. He had also the power
of striking terrors, especially such as were vain and superstitious;
whence they came to be called panic terrors.[618]
Few actions are recorded of him; only a principal one is, that he
challenged Cupid at wrestling, and was worsted. He also catched the
giant Typhon in a net, and held him fast. They relate further of him,
that when Ceres, growing disconsolate for the rape of Proserpine, hid
herself, and all the gods took the utmost pains to find her, by going
out different ways for that purpose, Pan only had the good fortune
to meet her, as he was hunting, and discovered her to the rest. He
likewise had the assurance to rival Apollo in music, and in the
judgment of Midas was preferred; but the judge had, though with great
privacy and secrecy, a pair of ass’s ears fastened on him for his
sentence.[619]
There is very little said of his amours; which may seem strange among
such a multitude of gods, so profusely amorous. He is only reported to