Francis Bacon Research Trust

The Goddess Fortune

(Title page to the 1642 Latin edition of Francis Bacon’s History of the Reign of Henry VII)

The winged goddess Fortune is depicted standing on her globe, turning her wheel with her left hand whilst with her right hand she holds over Bacon’s head a bridle and a ceremonial salt. Streaming forward from her head is a long lock of hair known as the forelock of time.

Fortune is usually depicted in art as standing on a globe (the world), with a forelock of hair streaming out in front of her, blown by the wind. She normally carries a cornucopia (to reward the just) and a bridle (to bind men’s pride), although sometimes she is depicted holding a sail. Besides being portrayed as standing on the globe of the world, Fortune is associated with the wheel of fortune, which she turns. This wheel, sometimes shown in addition to the globe and at other times taking the place of the globe upon which she stands, is the wheel of karma or wheel of life, also known as the medicine wheel.

Fortune is said to turn the wheel ‘with rapid motion’ (Orphic Hymn to Nature) so that the proud are tumbled and the humble raised; but she is also known as being fickle, supposedly standing unsteady on the wheel or globe and being blown hither and thither by the winds of fortune—winds which are really the results of our own thoughts and emotions. Apuleius regarded Fortune as ‘blind and even eyeless, because of the way she rewards the unworthy or the positively wicked’ (Golden Ass, vii, 2). Hence the fortunes and misfortunes of life can seem to be fickle or unjust, as the ‘blind’ goddess may sometimes lose her balance and judgment. The path of the initiate is to try to help Fortune keep her balance and follow a true path, so that justice and harmony might reign in the world.

The goddess Fortune was known to the Romans as Fortuna and to the Greeks as Artemis. Artemis is the Isis of Egyptian religion, the Initiatrix or Enlightener of virgin souls and the fructifying and all-nourishing power of Nature. She is known as Nature, also as Diana, the ‘many-breasted’, the patron and protectress of all virgins (i.e. of all pure souls). But to those who are not pure she becomes Hecate, the avenger and destroyer. The hounds of Artemis/Diana pursue and hunt down the soul from birth to birth, to (a) urge on and initiate the good soul, and (b) to tear to pieces the corrupt soul.

The darker aspect of Fortune is not only known as Hecate but also as Fate or Nemesis (‘righteous wrath’), who destroys all that is corrupt so that good has the chance to arise. She is the Avenging Angel of Christian tradition—the Angel of Judgement—whereas the light aspect of Fortune is the Guardian Angel.

Bacon was very concerned with Fortune, or Artemis. In his Shakespeare sonnets he addresses her darker aspect (Hecate) as the ‘dark lady’ or ‘dark angel’ who has brought him much sorrow and pain—as was certainly the case in his life. In several of his Shakespeare plays he addresses her outright, such as in Midsummer Night’s Dream (v, 2), Macbeth (ii, 1; iii, 2, 5), 1 Henry VI (iii, 2), Lear (i, 1) and Hamlet (iii, 2). In her triple-goddess form, as Hecate Triformis (‘the three-headed Hecate’), she is represented by the Three Weird Sisters or Fates, who are portrayed so vividly in the Shakespeare play, Macbeth. These three aspects were described as being swift as a horse, sure as a dog and implacable as a lion.

Fortune, or Fate, rules the seven astral or planetary spheres of delusion, known as the seven paradises or lower heavens, each of which is governed under her by an astral power that is represented symbolically by a planet or planetary deity. The powers of Fate, it is said, reside in the stars, whose overall genius is typified by the 100-eyed Argos.

The astral spheres are the realms of karma, subject to and the result of time and manifestation, and our own thoughts and desires. Beyond them lie the celestial ‘Nine Abodes’ or higher heavens, which are beyond time and karma—beyond Fortune. In these celestial abodes dwell Demeter and, originally, her daughter Persephone, until Persephone fell into the Underworld of the astral realms—the mundane and material state of being that lies under the power of Fate, or Fortune.

Persephone represents the human soul (psyche), also known as Koré Kosmou, the ‘Cosmic Virgin’, or Lucifer, the ‘Light bearer’. Her mother is Demeter, the Divine Intelligence, the heavenly Fountain or super-mundane Source from whence the soul originally derives her being. As soon as the soul falls into the mundane spheres of generation, then the goddess Fortune becomes her directress and the dispenser of her fate.