TOTAL INFORMATION ANALYSIS

Monday, December 20, 2004

SirBacon.org:

Emblematic picture dedicated "To the most judicious, and learned, Sir Francis Bacon, Knight" is found in the 1612 book, Minerva Britannia. "The emblem shows Bacon's direct connection with the Knights of the Helmet from which Freemasonry evolved. The Knight is wearing a high hat which simulates the Knight's Helmet and the Mason's high hat, to indicate his order and invisibilty; and he has the staff in his right hand in the act of destroying the Serpent of Ignorance."--from Bacon Masonry by George Tudhope

Francis Bacon Research Trust :

The illustration depicts a 'SHEPHERD SWaine'—that is, a SHEPHERD who is also a SWineherd—who is piercing a viper with his SPEAR. The text accompanying the emblem speaks of how the viper, having stung the
SHEPHERD whilst he lay asleep, is now with hyssop caught and cut in two, in order that its fat might be used to take the poison away and heal the
SHEPHERD's wound. This is stated to be an allegory of ‘the virtuous king who can, with cunning, out of manners ill make wholesome laws and take away the sting wherewith foul vice doth grieve the virtuous still; or can prevent, by quick and wise foresight, infection ere it gathers further might’.

Both the SHEPHERD and the swineherd are associated with Apollo, the god of poetic inspiration and illumination, who is reputed to have incarnated in those forms in order to look after his sheep or swine. Both the sheep and swine are symbols for mankind. In the Christian story it is Christ who became the SHEPHERD. In the Bardic Mysteries it is Merlin who became the swineherd. The courtier-poet was represented in Elizabethan England as a SHEPHERD-knight, the symbolism stemming from that of Apollo and the allegory of Arcadia, the idyllic land of the great god Pan, whose inhabitants were famed as warriors, poets and SHEPHERDs. Hyssop is an aromatic plant used in purification rituals. According to Greek myth, Apollo inhabits the twin-peaked summit of Mount Parnassus, the Mountain of Poetry and Music, together with Athena, his feminine counterpart, and the nine Muses. On the slopes of Parnassus lies Delphi, the Oracle centre, by the Castalian spring. Apollo is known as the Daystar and Leader of the choir of Muses, whilst Athena is called the Tenth Muse, Chief of the other nine.

Francis Bacon was known to his contemporaries, including King James, as Apollo.



The ardour of his noble heart could bear no longer that you, divine Minerva, should be despised. His god-like pen restored your wonted honour and as another Apollo dispelled the clouds that hid you. But he dispelled also the darkness which murky antiquity and blear-eyed old age of former times had brought about; and his super-human sagacity instituted new methods and tore away the labyrinthine windings, but gave us his own. Certainly it is clear that the crown of ancient sages had not such penetrating eyes. They were like Phoebus rising in the East, he like the same resplendent at noon… They begot the infant muses, he the adult. They were parents of mortal muses, he produced goddesses… Pallas too, now arrayed in a new robe, paces forth, as a snake shines when it has put off its old skin.

Thomas Randolf, Manes Verulamiani (1626), Elegy 32.


The viper and spear imagery is that of Apollo as a Spear-Shaker, who shakes his spear of light at the serpent of ignorance and vice. The Archangel Michael and his human equivalent, St George, the Rose Cross Knight, are the counterparts to Apollo and his incarnate form.

| Posted at 02:51 | PERMA-LINK |

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