are more allowed. And the poets indeed have been busy with it; for it is in effect the thing which is figured in that strange fiction of the ancient poets, which seemeth not to be without mystery;[1] nay, and to have some approach to the state of a Christian; that Hercules, when he went to unbind Prometheus,[2] (by whom human nature is represented), sailed the length of the great ocean in an earthen pot or pitcher; lively describing Christian resolution, that saileth in the frail bark of the flesh thorough the waves of the world. But to speak in a mean.[3] The virtue of Prosperity is temperance; the virtue of Adversity is fortitude; which in morals is the more heroical virtue. Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; Adversity is the blessing of the New; which carrieth the greater benediction, and the clearer revelation of God's favour. Yet even in the Old Testament, if you listen to David's harp, you shall hear as many hearse-like airs as carols; and the pencil of the Holy Ghost hath laboured more in
- ↑ Mystery. Hidden meaning, as in the word 'myth,' which is a fable containing elements of truth.
- ↑ Prometheus was the son of Iapetus, one of the Titans. He formed men of clay, and animated them with fire brought from heaven. For this Jupiter sent Mercury to bind him to the Caucasus, where a vulture preyed upon his liver until killed by Hercules. 'Prometheus' means 'the Foreknower,' as in Mrs. Browning's drama, Prometheus Bound,W. M. Rossetti, in his Memoir of Percy Bysshe Shelley, p. 97, places Shelley's drama, Prometheus Unbound, 1820, "at the summit of all latter poetry." "It is the ideal poem of perpetual and triumphant progression—the Atlantis of Man Emancipated." Prometheus; or the State of Man, in Of the Wisdom of the Ancients, is Bacon's version of the myth of Prometheus.
"Unto me the foreknower."
- ↑ To speak in a mean. To speak with moderation.Wordsworth. Ecclesiastical Sonnets. Part III. Sacheverel. 13–14.
"the golden mean, and quiet flow,
Of truths that soften hatred, temper strife."
