Page:The Works of Francis Bacon (1884) Volume 1.djvu/426

 298 THE WISDOM OF THE ANCIENTS. compassion as the flower of virtue cropped with too sudden a mischance. Neither hath it been iften known that men in their green years become so loathsome arid odious, as that at their deaths either sorrow is stinted or commiseration moderated : but that lamentation and mourning do not only flutter about their obsequies like those funeral birds, but tliis pitiful commiseration doth continue for a long space, and specially by occasions and new mo tions, and beginning of great matters, as it were by the morning rays of the sun, their passions and desires are renewed. TITHONUS, OR SATIETY. IT is elegantly feigned that Tithonus was the paramour of Aurora who, desirous to enjoy his company, petitioned Jupiter that he might never die, but through womanish oversight, forgetting to insert this clause in her petition, that he might not withal grow old and feeble, it followed that he was only freed from the condition of mortality ; but for old age that came upon him in a marvel lous and miserable fashion, agreeable to the state of those who cannot die, yet every day grow weaker and weaker with age. Insomuch that Jupiter, in commiseration of that his misery, did at length metamorphose him into a grasshopper. This fable seems to be an ingenious character or description of pleasure, which in the beginning, and as it were in the morning, seems to be plea sant and delightful, that men desire they might enjoy and monopolize it forever unto themselves, unmindful of that satiety and loathing, which, like old age, will come upon them before they be aware. And so at last, when the use of pleasure leaves men, the desire and affection not yet yielding unto death, it comes to pass that men please themselves only by talking and commemorating those things which brought pleasure unto them in the flower of their age, which may be observed in libidinous persons, and also in men of military professions : the one delighting in beastly talk, the other boast ing of their valorous deeds, like grasshoppers, whose vigour consists only in their voice. JUNO S SUITOR, OR BASENESS. THE poets say, that Jupiter, to enjoy his lustful delights, took upon him the shape of sundry crea tures, as of a bull, of an eagle, of a swan, and of a goldenshower: but being a suitor to Juno, he came in a form most ignoble and base, an object full of contempt and scorn, resembling indeed a miferable cuckoo, weather-beaten with rain and tempest, numbed, quaking, and half dead with coll. This fabie is wise, and seems to be taken out of the bowels of morality ; the sense of it being this, that men boast not too much of themselves, think ing by ostentation of their own worth 10 insinuate themselves into estimation and favour with men. The success of such intentions being for therm/st part measured by the nature and disposition of those to whom men sue for grace: who, if of themselves they be endowed with no gifts and ornaments of nature, but are only of haughty and malignant spirits, intimated by the person of Juno, then are suitors to know that it is good policy to omit all kind of appearance that may any way show their own least praise or worth ; and that they much deceive themselves in taking any other course. Neither is it enough to show deformity in obsequiousness, unless they also appear even abject and base in their very persons. CUPID, OR AN ATOM. THAI which the poets say of Cupid or Love, cannot properly be attributed to one and the self same person, and yet the difference is such that by rejecting the confusion of persons, the similitude may be received. They say that Love is the ancientest of all the gods, and of all things else except chaos, which they hold to be a contemporary with it. Now, as touching chaos, that by the ancients was never dignified with divine honour, or with the title of the god. And as for Love, they absolutely bring him in without a father; only some are of opinion that he came of an egg that was laid by Nox, and that on chaos he begat the god and all things else. There are four things attributed to him, perpetual infancy, blindness, nakedness, and an archery. There was also another Love, which was the youngest of the gods, and he, they say, was th^ son of Venus. On this also they bestow the attributes of the elder Love, as in some sort will apply unto him. This fable tends and looks to the cradle of na ture, Love seeming to be the appetite or desire of the first matter, or, to speak more plain, the na tural motion of the atom, which is that ancient and only power that forms and fashions all things out of matter, of which there is no parent, that is to say, no cause, seeing every cause is a parent to its effect. Of this power or virtue there can be no cause in nature, as for God we always except him, for nothing was before it, and therefore no efficient cause of it. Neither was there any thing better known to nature, and therefore neither genus nor form. Wherefore whatsoever it is, positive it is, and but inexpressible. Moreover, if the manner and proceeding of it were to be conceived, yet could it not be by any cause, seeing that, next unto God, it ts the cause of causes, itself only without any cause. And perchance there is no likelihood that the manner of it may be contained or comprehended within the narrow compass of human search. Not without reason therefoie it is feigned to come of an egg that was laid by Nox. Certainly the divine philosopher grants so much Eccl. iii. 11 : &quot;Cuncta fecit tetnpesta-