In both the title page illustration to the 1645 De Dignitate & Augmentis Scientiarum and the frontispiece illustration to the 1640 Advancement of Learning Francis Bacon is shown seated on a chair, hatted and robed as the Lord Chancellor. This ‘enthroned’ posture of his is not only taken from life but is a symbolic one, first used in the memorial statue of him erected after his death in St. Michael’s Church, St. Albans, by his principal secretary and friend, Thomas Meautys. Outwardly it epitomises Bacon as the Lord Chancellor, but symbolically also as Solomon and Apollo, by which names he was referred to by his contemporaries.

Solomon was renowned for his wisdom, for building the temple at Jerusalem, and for his songs and writings—notably, his Book of Wisdom, his Song of Songs, his Proverbs and his Natural History. He was the great patron of Israel’s Wisdom literature. His name, Solomon, is variously spelt, but is said to derive from the Hebrew Shelomoh, meaning ‘The Peaceful One’. Solomon was known also as Jedidiah, ‘Beloved of the Lord’. An alternative meaning of his name in esoteric tradition, as an archetype, is as Sol-Om-On, used to represent the Light (Sol), the Holy Spirit (Om, the Sound of the Word) and the Most High or ‘Father’ (On)—i.e. the Light or Sun/Son of the Spirit of the Most High.

In this archetypal form Solomon is equated with Apollo, the Greek and Roman name for this same divine archetype, god of the Sun. This refers to the invisible, all-powerful, spiritual and intellectual effulgence of the Sun, the spirit of universal illumination. Apollo was the patron god or archetype of all the classical Mystery schools, and still features as such in Freemasonry today as an alternative emblem for Solomon. His solar chariot is drawn by a swan, the emblem of his musical and poetic abilities. His ‘shaking spear’ is, like Athena’s, symbolic of the illuminating ray of light vibrating with that sweet sound—the sound of the Word—referred to by Bacon when quoting from Virgil:-

Associated with Apollo is Bacchus, also known as Dionysus. Apollo, with his partner Athena and their ‘children’, Bacchus and Æsclepius, inhabit Mount Parnassus, which is their seat or throne. In the Orphic Mysteries Bacchus is associated with Orpheus, the founder and author of the Mysteries. As such, Bacchus is known as the divine author, the hidden or secret author of the Mystery plays, who wears a mask to the outer world. Theatrical comedy and tragedy derive from the Orphic Mysteries, and so Bacchus is commonly referred to as the god of Drama.

One form of Bacchus’ name is as Bacco, which is how Bacon’s name is rendered in Italian versions of his works. The symbolism connected with this word-play was used to great effect by Bacon. For instance, in the initiatory rites of the Orphic Mysteries the pig, like the goat, was sacrificed as a representation of the incarnate god. This is cleverly referred to in the Shakespeare play, The Merry Wives of Windsor, in Mistress Quickly’s line:–

Successive editors, completely misunderstanding the meaning, have usually changed the Folio’s ‘latten’ to ‘Latin’ and reduced ‘Bacon’ to ‘bacon’, which kills the intended allusion and hidden meaning. In fact Mistress Quickly is referring to a witty (but deadly serious) story concerning Francis Bacon’s father, Sir Nicholas Bacon, which Francis carefully recorded for posterity. This was printed as Apophthegm 36 in Resuscitatio, published by Dr William Rawley in 1671:-

This story is told for its value as a parable, which is pointed out by Evans in his rejoiner to Mistress Quickly in the following line, where he notes that she has spoken a ‘prable’ (parable):–

‘Latten’ means a mixture of metals, particularly an alloy resembling or identical to brass. It is used elsewhere in the Shakespeare plays and in Bacon’s letters as a word-play on ‘Latin’. This word-play forms a series of puns, such that ‘latten’ infers a debased Latin or secret language, confirmed by the Latin word latentis, meaning concealed.

The whole of Mistress Quickly’s sentence is a remarkable example of punning, the Latin for ‘to hang’, for instance, being suspendere. Sus is the Latin for a sow, pig, swine or hog, and pendere means to hang down. ‘Warrant’ can be rendered in Latin as auctor, a word which is often used by Bacon to denote an inventor or author. Even Mistress Quickly’s name is important in this context, for ‘quickly’ is cito in Latin, and cito also means to summon, call forward or name, especially in a court of law, or to call upon a god for help.

Then the word-play on Bacchus, Bacon and Bacco is also used in the term ‘noted weed’, which appears in the Shakespeare sonnet 76:-

‘Weed’ was a term used by 16th and 17th century writers to signify a disguise, as witness the use of the word by both Francis Bacon and Edmund Spenser:–

In Shakespeare's sonnet, ‘weed’ cannot refer to the actor William Shakspere, because that is his real name, not a disguise. It obviously refers to the author, whose name is disguised, as he links it to himself and to the fact that every word of the noted weed ‘doth almost tell’ his name. ‘Noted’ is surely a clue.

In poetry, ‘weed’ generally meant any herb or small plant, but early on in King James I’s reign it became specifically used as a name for tobacco. James despised tobacco and wrote a treatise against the smoking of it. The State Calendar of his time names it as the ‘contemptible weed’. That is to say, it was a ‘noted weed’—noted in writing by the King as contemptible.

Tobacco derives its name from the Spanish word tabaco, which was the native American Indian name for the pipe through which they inhaled the smoke, and for the tubular roll of tobacco leaves they prepared for smoking. The informal, common name for it was ‘Bacco’ (later developed into ‘Baccy’).

Bacco, therefore, is the ‘noted weed’ that almost tells Bacon’s name, as also that of Bacchus, the god of Drama, with whom Bacon is deliberately associated.

Furthermore, Bacon’s friend, the English antiquarian and Clarenceux king-of-arms, William Camden, in his history of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, translates Bacco as meaning ‘the lame’:-

This is not by chance, for the god Bacchus was said to be lame, his second name Dionysus meaning either ‘son of God’ or ‘the lame god’.

According to his own Sonnets, Shakespeare was lame:–

All this helps to makes sense of why Francis Bacon said in one of his prayers:–

In his tribute to Shakespeare printed in the First Folio, Ben Jonson called the Author, his ‘Beloved’. This is Solomon’s epithet, as also that of John the Beloved—and Solomon is Bacon.

© Peter Dawkins, FBRT, 1999

The Francis Bacon Research Trust