XXI. Of Delays.
Fortune is like the market; where many times, if you can stay a little, the price will fall. And again, it is sometimes like Sibylla's[1] offer; which at first offereth the commodity at full, then consumeth part and part, and still holdeth up the price. For occasion (as it is in the common verse) turneth a bald noddle, after she hath presented her locks in front, and no hold taken;[2] or at least turneth the handle of the bottle first to be received, and after the belly,[3] which is hard to clasp. There is surely no greater wisdom than well to time the beginnings and onsets of things. Dangers are no more light, if they once seem light;
- ↑ Bacon alludes to the Sibyl of Cumae in Italy, the most celebrated of the wise women. According to story, she appeared before Tarquin the Proud and offered him nine books for sale. He declined to buy them, whereupon she burned three and offered the remaining six at the original price. On being again refused, she destroyed three more and offered the remaining three at the price she had asked for the nine. Tarquin, unable to understand her importunity and her bargaining, bought the three books, which were found to contain directions as to the worship of the gods and the policy of the Romans. The Sibylline books were kept with great care at Rome, and were consulted from time to time under direction of the senate. They were burned in the fire which destroyed the temple of Jupiter, in 83 B.C.
- ↑ Spenser describes Occasion as an old woman lame of one leg. Her hair hangs down before her face, so that no one may know her, till she is past; at the back of her head she is bald, so that when once she is past, no one may grasp her from behind. She personifies the truth that an opportunity once missed never returns. Read The Faery Queene. Book II. Canto iv. Stanza 4. A Latin proverb, from a distich of Dionysius Cato, runs:
"Fronte capillata, post est occasio calva.
Time hath a Lock before, but 's bald behind."
Catonis Distichorum de Moribus Liber II. 26.
- ↑ Belly. That part of a thing, here a bottle, which swells out.
