download PDF version: 47.1MB - Global Grey

FRANCIS BACON'S CRYPTIC RHYMES 211
The two opening sentences, counterparts to the two
terminal sentences which we have just been consider
ing,
run thus :
What is Truth ; said jesting Pilate ;
And would not stay
for an Answer. Certainly there be, that delight in Giddinesse ;
And count it a Bondage, to fix a Beleefe ; Acting Free-will in
Thinking, as well as in Acting.
Any one, not acquainted with Bacon's style of
writing, would read those words without stopping to
think what they meant ;
whereas in reality this is
what has been done :
(1) Bacon has deliberately altered a passage from
the Bible.
(2) Bacon uses the word " Pilate " in a double sense.
(3)
Bacon uses the word "Free-will" in a double
sense.
(4) Bacon uses the word " Acting " in a double sense.
The passage in the Bible with which the three
opening words of the Book of Essays agree,
(John xviii. 38) :
runs thus
Pilate saith unto him, What is truth ? And when he had
said this he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them,
I
find in him no fault at all.
So that, with the exception of the first three words
of the Essay, Bacon's version is totally different from
the passage in the Gospel according to St. John. The
most striking alteration is the deliberate addition of
"
the adjective "jesting," said jesting Pilate" In the
days when this was written, " "
to jest also meant to
play a comic part on the stage a " Jester " was ;
nothing
more nor less than a Comedian. Had Bacon been
thinking of the Roman Governor, Pilate, when he