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FRANCIS BACON'S CRYPTIC RHYMES 131
exactly as far as the first part
is concerned. In order
to correctly interpret all the Essay says, we were
obliged to resort to the English, French and Latin
editions which complement each other.
The author commences the sentences forming the
nucleus proper of the first half of the Essay, with
a cautious " I cannot tell," a phrase often met with in
the Shakespeare Plays :
But I cannot tell : This same Truth is a Naked, and Open
day light, that doth not shew, the Masques, and Mummeries,
and Triumphs of the world, halfe so Stately, and daintily, as
Candlelights.
In Latin that sentence expresses
still
more clearly
the idea of a real Theatre and its artificial lighting :
Sed nescio quomodo, Veritas ista (utpote nuda & manifesta
Lux diurna), personatas hujusMundi Fabulas, Ineptiasque, non
tarn magnifice & eleganter ostendit, quam Taedae, Lucernaeque
nocturnae.
" Personatae Fabulae
"
is the Latin expression for
"Plays"; ''Taedae, Luceraeque nocturnae" points
still more clearly than the English " Candlelights," to
the lighting of the stage, about which we learn further
details from the same book in the " Essay, Of Masques
and Triumphs,"
for the English Court Stage employed
the same implements as our modern stage, often even
more costly means.
Then follows the sentence :
Truth may perhaps come to the price of a Pearle, that
sheweth best by day : But it will not rise, to the price of a
Diamond, or Carbuncle, that sheweth best in varied lights.
That is the poetic kernel of the Essay, meaning