most faithfully the voice of the world itself, and is written as it were from the world's own dictation; being indeed nothing else than the image and reflexion of it, which it only repeats and echoes, but adds nothing of its own. That the world has no issue, is another allusion to the sufficiency and perfection of it in itself. Generation goes on among the parts of the world, but how can the whole generate, when no body exists out of itself? As for that little woman, Pan's putative daughter, it is an addition to the fable with a great deal of wisdom in it; for by her are represented those vain babbling doctrines about the nature of things, which wander abroad in all times and fill the world-doctrines barren in fact, counterfeit in breed, but by reason of their garrulity sometimes entertaining; and sometimes again troublesome and annoying.

VII.
PERSEUS ;
OR WAR 5.

PERSEUS was sent, it is said, by Pallas to cut off the head of Medusa, from whom many nations in the westernmost parts of Spain suffered grievous calamities:a monster so dreadful and horrible that the mere sight of her turned men into stone. She was one of the Gorgons; and the only one of them that was mortal, the others not being subject to change. By way of equipment for this so noble exploit, Perseus received arms and gifts from three several Gods. Mercury gave him wings for his feet; Pluto gave him a helmet; Pallas a shield and a mirror. And yet, though so well provided and equipped, he did not proceed against Medusa directly, but went out of his way to visit the Grææ. These were half-sisters to the Gorgons; and had been born old women with white hair. They had but one eye and one tooth among them, and these they used to wear by turns; each putting them on as she went abroad, and putting them off again when she came back. This eye and tooth they now lent to Perseus. Whereupon, judging himself sufficiently equipped for the performance of his undertaking, he went against Medusa with all haste, flying. He found her asleep; but not daring to face her (in case she should wake) he looked back into Pallas's mirror, and taking aim by the reflexion, cut off her head. From the blood which flowed out of the wound, there suddenly leaped forth a winged Pegasus. The severed head was fixed by Perseus in Pallas's shield; where it still retained its power of striking stiff, as if thunder or planet stricken, all who looked on it.

The fable seems to have been composed with reference to the art and judicious conduct of war. And first, for the kind of war to be chosen it sets forth (as from the advice of Pallas) three sound and weighty precepts to guide the deliberation.

The first is, not to take any great trouble for the subjugation of the neighbouring nations. For the rule to be followed in the enlarging of a patrimony does not apply to the extension of an empire. In a private property, the vicinity of the estates to each other is of importance; but in extending an empire, occasion, and facility of carrying the war through, and value of conquest, should be regarded instead of vicinity. We see that the Romans, while they had hardly penetrated westward beyond Liguria, had conquered and included in their empire eastern provinces as far off as Mount Taurus. And therefore Perseus, though he belonged to the east, did not decline a distant expedition to the uttermost parts of the west.

The second is that there be a just and honourable cause of war: for this begets alacrity as well in the soldiers themselves as in the people, from whom the supplies are to come: also it opens the way to alliances, and conciliates friends; and has a great many advantages. Now there is no cause of war more pious than the overthrow of a tyranny under which the people lies prostrate without spirit or vigour, as if turned to stone by the aspect of Medusa.

Thirdly, it is wisely added that whereas there are three Gorgons (by whom are represented wars), Perseus chose the one that was mortal, that is, he chose such a 5 For an enlarged version of this fable, see above, pp. 448-450.

war as might be finished and carried through, and did not engage in the pursuit of vast or infinite projects.

The equipment of Perseus is of that kind which is everything in war, and almost ensures success; for he received swiftness from Mercury, secrecy of counsel from Pluto, and providence from Pallas. Nor is the circumstance that those wings of swiftness were for the heels and not for the shoulders without an allegorical meaning, and a very wise one. For it is not in the first attack, so much as in those that follow up and support the first, that swiftness is required; and there is no error more common in war than that of not pressing on the secondary and subsidiary actions with an activity answerable to the vigour of the beginnings. There is also an ingenious distinction implied in the images of the shield and the mirror (for the parable of Pluto's helmet which made men invisible needs no explanation) between the two kinds of foresight. For we must have not only that kind of foresight which acts as a shield, but that other kind likewise which enables us (like Pallas's mirror) to spy into the forces and movements and counsels of the enemy.

But Perseus, however provided with forces and courage, stands yet in need of one thing more before the war be commenced, which is of the highest possible importance, he must go round to the Grææ. These Grææ are treasons; which are indeed war's sisters, yet not sisters german, but as it were of less noble birth. For wars are generous; treasons degenerate and base. They are prettily described, in allusion to the perpetual cares and trepidations of traitors, as old and white from their birth. Their power (before they break out into open revolt) lies either in the eye or the tooth; for all factions when alienated from the state, both play the spy and bite. And the eye and tooth are as it were common to them all the eye because all their information is handed from one to another and circulates through the whole party; the tooth, because they all bite with one mouth and all tell one tale,-so that when you hear one you hear all. Therefore Perseus must make friends of those Græa, that they may lend him their eye and tooth, the eye for discovery of information, the tooth to sow rumours, raise envy, and stir the minds of the people.

These matters being thus arranged and prepared, we come next to the carriage of the war itself. And here we see that Perseus finds Medusa asleep; for the undertaker of a war almost always, if he is wise, takes his enemy unprepared and in security. And now it is that Pallas's mirror is wanted. For there are many who before the hour of danger can look into the enemy's affairs sharply and attentively; but the chief use of the mirror is in the very instant of peril, that you may examine the manner of it without being confused by the fear of it; which is meant by the looking at it with eyes averted.

The conclusion of the war is followed by two effects: first the birth and springing up of Pegasus, which obviously enough denotes fame, flying abroad and celebrating the victory. Secondly the carrying of Medusa's head upon the shield; for this is incomparably the best kind of safeguard. A single brilliant and memorable exploit, happily conducted and accomplished, paralyses all the enemies' movements, and mates malevolence itself.

VIII.
ENDYMION;

OR THE FAVOURITE.

But

TRADITION says that Endymion, a shepherd, was beloved by the moon. the intercourse between them was of a strange and singular kind. For while he lay reposing according to his habit in a natural cave under the rocks of Latmos, the moon would come down from heaven and kiss him as he slept, and go up into heaven again. And yet this idleness and sleeping did not hurt his fortunes; for the moon in the mean time so ordered it that his sheep fattened and increased exceedingly; insomuch that no shepherd had finer flocks or fuller.

The fable relates (as I take it) to the dispositions and manners of princes. For princes being full of thoughts and prone to suspicions, do not easily admit to familiar intercourse men that are perspicacious and curious, whose minds are

B.W.

3 H

always on the watch and never sleep; but choose rather such as are of a quiet and complying disposition, and submit to their will without inquiring further, and shew like persons ignorant and unobserving, and as if asleep; displaying simple obedience rather than fine observation. With men of this kind princes have always been glad to descend from their greatness, as the moon from heaven; and to lay aside their mask, the continual wearing of which becomes a kind of burden; and to converse familiarly; for with such they think they can do so safely. It was a point especially noted in Tiberius Cæsar, a prince extremely difficult to deal with; with whom those only were in favour who, though they really understood him, yet dissembled their knowledge with a pertinacity which seemed like dulness. The same thing was observable in Louis XI. of France, a most cautious and crafty king. The circumstance of the cave also, in which according to the fable Endymion used to lie, is not without its elegance. For those who enjoy this kind of favour with princes have commonly some pleasant places of retirement to invite them to, where they may have the comfort of leisure and relaxation of mind, discharged of the incumbrances which their position lays upon them. And it is true that favourites of this class are commonly prosperous in their private fortunes; for princes though they may not raise them to honours, yet since their favour springs from true affection and not from considerations of utility, they generally enrich them with their bounty.

IX.

THE SISTER OF THE GIANTS ;

OR FAME.

THE poets tell us that the Giants, being brought forth by Earth, made war upon Jupiter and the gods, and were routed and vanquished with thunderbolts, whereupon Earth, in rage at the wrath of the gods, to revenge her sons brought forth Fame, youngest sister of the giants.

The meaning of the fable appears to be this: by Earth is meant the nature of the common people; always swelling with malice towards their rulers, and hatching revolutions. This upon occasion given brings forth rebels and seditious persons, who with wicked audacity endeavour the overthrow of princes. And when these are suppressed, the same nature of the common people, still leaning to the worse party and impatient of tranquillity, gives birth to rumours and malignant whispers, and querulous fames, and defamatory libels, and the like; tending to bring envy upon the authorities of the land: so that seditious fames differ from acts of rebellion, not in race and parentage, but only in sex: the one being feminine and the other masculine.

X.

ACTEON AND PENTHEUS;

OR CURIOSITY.

THE Curiosity and unhealthy appetite of man for the discovery of secrets, is reproved by the ancients in two examples: one of Actæon, the other of Pentheus. Actæon having unawares and by chance seen Diana naked, was turned into a stag and worried by his own dogs. Pentheus having climbed a tree for the purpose of seeing the secret mysteries of Bacchus, was struck with madness; and the form of his madness was this: he thought everything was double; saw two suns, and again two cities of Thebes : insomuch that when he set out towards Thebes, he presently saw another Thebes behind, which made him go back; and so was kept continually going backwards and forwards without any rest.

As to distracted Pentheus there appear
Furies in troops, and in the sky two suns,

And on the earth two several Thebes at once.

The first of these fables seems to relate to the secrets of princes, the other to the secrets of divinity. For whoever becomes acquainted with a prince's secrets without leave and against his will, is sure to incur his hatred: and then knowing

that he is marked and that occasions are sought against him, he lives the life of a stag; a life full of fears and suspicions. Often too it happens that his own servants and domestics, to curry favour with the prince, accuse and overthrow him. For when the displeasure of the prince is manifest, a man shall scarcely have a servant but will betray him; and so he may expect the fate of Acteon.

The calamity of Pentheus is of a different kind. For the punishment assigned to those who with rash audacity, forgetting their mortal condition, aspire by the heights of nature and philosophy, as by climbing a tree, to penetrate the divine mysteries, is perpetual inconstancy, and a judgment vacillating and perplexed. For since the light of nature is one thing and the light of divinity another, they are as men that see two suns; and since the actions of life and the determinations of the will depend upon the intellect, it follows that they are perplexed in will no less than in opinion, and cannot be consistent with themselves: in which sense they in like manner see two Thebes; for by Thebes is meant the ends and aims of our actions; Thebes being Pentheus's home and resting-place. And hence it comes that they know not which way to turn, but being uncertain and fluctuating as to the sum and end of all, they are carried round and round from one thing to another, according to the impulse of the moment.

XI.
ORPHEUS ;

OR PHILOSOPHY.

THE story of Orpheus, which though so well known has not yet been in all points perfectly well interpreted, seems meant for a representation of universal Philosophy. For Orpheus himself,-a man admirable and truly divine, who being master of all harmony subdued and drew all things after him by sweet and gentle measures, may pass by an easy metaphor for philosophy personified. For as the works of wisdom surpass in dignity and power the works of strength, so the labours of Orpheus surpass the labours of Hercules.

Orpheus, moved by affection for his wife who had been snatched from him by an untimely death, resolved to go down to Hell and beg her back again of the Infernal Powers; trusting to his lyre. Nor was he disappointed. For so soothed and charmed were the infernal powers by the sweetness of his singing and playing, that they gave him leave to take her away with him; but upon one condition; she was to follow behind him, and he was not to look back until they had reached the confines of light. From this however in the impatience of love and anxiety he could not refrain. Before he had quite reached the point of safety, he looked back; and so the covenant was broken, and she suddenly fell away from him and was hurried back into Hell. From that time Orpheus betook himself to solitary places, a melancholy man and averse from the sight of women; where by the same sweetness of his song and lyre he drew to him all kinds of wild beasts, in such manner that putting off their several natures, forgetting all their quarrels and ferocity, no longer driven by the stings and furies of lust, no longer caring to satisfy their hunger or to hunt their prey, they all stood about him gently and sociably, as in a theatre, listening only to the concords of his lyre. Nor was that all for so great was the power of his music that it moved the woods and the very stones to shift themselves and take their stations decently and orderly about him. And all this went on for some time with happy success and great admiration; till at last certain Thracian women, under the stimulation and excitement of Bacchus, came where he was; and first they blew such a hoarse and hideous blast upon a horn that the sound of his music could no longer be heard for the din: whereupon the charm being broken that had been the bond of that order and good fellowship, confusion began again; the beasts returned each to his several nature and preyed one upon the other as before; the stones and woods stayed no longer in their places: while Orpheus himself was torn to pieces by the women in their fury, and his limbs scattered about the fields: at whose death, Helicon (river sacred to the Muses) in grief and indignation buried his waters under the earth, to reappear elsewhere.

The meaning of the fable appears to be this. The singing of Orpheus is of two

kinds; one to propitiate the infernal powers, the other to draw the wild beasts and the woods. The former may be best understood as referring to natural philosophy; the latter to philosophy moral and civil. For natural philosophy proposes to itself as its noblest work of all, nothing less than the restitution and renovation of things corruptible, and (what is indeed the same thing in a lower degree) the conservation of bodies in the state in which they are, and the retardation of dissolution and putrefaction. Now certainly if this can be effected at all, it cannot be otherwise than by due and exquisite attempering and adjustment of parts in nature, as by the harmony and perfect modulation of a lyre. And yet being a thing of all others the most difficult, it commonly fails of effect; and fails (it may be) from no cause more than from curious and premature meddling and impatience. Then Philosophy finding that her great work is too much. for her, in sorrowful mood, as well becomes her, turns to human affairs; and applying her powers of persuasion and eloquence to insinuate into men's minds the love of virtue and equity and peace, teaches the people to assemble and unite and take upon them the yoke of laws and submit to authority, and forget their ungoverned appetites, in listening and conforming to precepts and discipline; whereupon soon follows the building of houses, the founding of cities, the planting of fields and gardens with trees; insomuch that the stones and the woods are not unfitly said to leave their places and come about her. And this application of Philosophy to civil affairs is properly represented, and according to the true order of things, as subsequent to the diligent trial and final frustration of the experi ment of restoring the dead body to life. For true it is that the clearer recognition of the inevitable necessity of death sets men upon seeking immortality by merit and renown. Also it is wisely added in the story that Orpheus was averse from women and from marriage; for the sweets of marriage and the dearness of children commonly draw men away from performing great and lofty services to the commonwealth; being content to be perpetuated in their race and stock, and not in their deeds.

But howsoever the works of wisdom are among human things the most excellent, yet they too have their periods and closes. For so it is that after kingdoms and commonwealths have flourished for a time, there arise perturbations and seditions and wars; amid the uproars of which, first the laws are put to silence, and then men return to the depraved conditions of their nature, and desolation is seen in the fields and cities. And if such troubles last, it is not long before letters also and philosophy are so torn in pieces that no traces of them can be found but a few fragments, scattered here and there like planks from a shipwreck; and then a season of barbarism sets in, the waters of Helicon being sunk under the ground, until, according to the appointed vicissitude of things, they break out and issue forth again, perhaps among other nations, and not in the places where they were before.

XII.
COELUM;

OR THE ORIGIN OF THINGS.

It is a tradition of the poets that Cœlum was the most ancient of all the gods: that his parts of generation were cut off by his son Saturn with a scythe; that Saturn himself begot a numerous progeny, but devoured his sons as fast as they were born; that at last Jupiter escaped this fate, and as soon as he grew up overthrew his father Saturn, cast him into Tartarus, and took possession of his kingdom; also that he cut off his genitals with the same scythe with which he, Saturn,. had cut off those of Coelum, and threw them into the sea; and that from them was. born Venus. Afterwards they say that the kingdom of Jupiter, when as yet it. was scarcely settled, had to stand the brunt of two memorable wars; the first, the war of the Titans, in the subduing of whom the assistance of the Sun (the only one of the Titans that was on Jupiter's side) was conspicuous; the second, thewar of the Giants, who were likewise by thunder and the arms of Jupiter de-feated; and that when these were put down Jupiter reigned afterwards in security.. This fable seems to be an enigma concerning the origin of things, not much