Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson

[309]Title. Probably this essay is, essentially at least, the lecture on Heroism delivered in Boston in the winter of 1837, in the course of lectures on Human Culture.

[310]Motto. This saying of Mahomet's was the only motto prefixed to the essay in the first edition. In later editions, Emerson prefixed, according to his custom, some original lines;

"Ruby wine is drunk by knaves, Sugar spends to fatten slaves, Rose and vine-leaf deck buffoons, Thunder clouds are Jove's festoons, Drooping oft in wreaths of dread Lightning-knotted round his head: The hero is not fed on sweets, Daily his own heart he eats; Chambers of the great are jails, And head-winds right for royal sails."

[311]Elder English dramatists. The dramatists who preceded Shakespeare. In his essay on Shakespeare; or, the Poet, Emerson enumerates the foremost of these,—"Kyd, Marlowe, Greene, Jonson, Chapman, Dekker, Webster, Heywood, Middleton, Peele, Ford, Massinger, Beaumont and Fletcher."

[312]Beaumont and Fletcher. Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher were two dramatists of the Elizabethan age. They wrote together and their styles were so similar that critics are unable to identify the share of each in their numerous plays.

[313]Rodrigo, Pedro, or Valerio. Favorite names for heroes among the dramatists. Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar, known usually by the title of the Cid, was the national hero of Spain, famous for his exploits against the Moors. Don Pedro was the Prince of Arragon in Shakespeare's play, Much Ado About Nothing.

[314]Bonduca, Sophocles, the Mad Lover, and Double Marriage. The first, third and fourth are names of plays by Beaumont and Fletcher. In the case of the second, Emerson, by a lapse of memory, gives the name of one of the chief characters instead of the name of the play—The Triumph of Honor in a piece called Four Plays in One. It is from this play by Beaumont and Fletcher that the passage in the essay is quoted.

[315]Adriadne's crown. According to Greek mythology, the crown of Adriadne was, for her beauty and her sufferings, put among the stars. She was the daughter of Minos, King of Crete; she gave Theseus the clue by means of which he escaped from the labyrinth and she was afterwards abandoned by him.

[316]Romulus. The reputed founder of the city of Rome.

[317]Laodamia, Dion. Read these two poems by Wordsworth, the great English poet, and tell why you think Emerson mentioned them here.

[318]Scott. Sir Walter Scott, a famous Scotch author.

[319]Lord Evandale, Balfour of Burley. These are characters in Scott's novel, Old Mortality. The passage referred to by Emerson is in the forty-second chapter.

[320]Thomas Carlyle. Carlyle was a great admirer of heroes, asserting that history is the biography of great men. One of his most popular books is Heroes and Hero-Worship, on a plan similar to that of Emerson's Representative Men.

[321]Robert Burns. A Scotch lyric poet. Emerson was probably thinking of the patriotic song, Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled.

[322]Harleian Miscellanies. A collection of manuscripts published in the eighteenth century, and named for Robert Harley, the English statesman who collected them.

[323]Lutzen. A small town in Prussia. The battle referred to was fought in 1632 and in it the Swedes under Gustavus Adolphus gained a great victory over vastly superior numbers. Nearly two hundred years later another battle was fought at Lutzen, in which Napoleon gained a victory over the allied Russians and Prussians.

[324]Simon Ockley. An English scholar of the seventeenth century whose chief work was a History of the Saracens.

[325]Oxford. One of the two great English universities.

[326]Plutarch. (See note 264.)

[327]Brasidas. This hero, described by Plutarch, was a Spartan general who lived about four hundred years before Christ.

[328]Dion. A Greek philosopher who ruled the city of Syracuse in the fourth century before Christ.

[329]Epaminondas. A Greek general and statesman of the fourth century before Christ.

[330]Scipio. (See note 205.)

[331]Stoicism. The stern and severe philosophy taught by the Greek philosopher Zeno; he taught that men should always seek virtue and be indifferent to pleasure and happiness. This belief, carried to the extreme of severity, exercised a great influence on many noble Greeks and Romans.

[332]Heroism is an obedience, etc. In one of his poems Emerson says:

"So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man, When Duty whispers low, 'Thou must,' The youth replies, 'I can.'"

[333]Plotinus. An Egyptian philosopher who taught in Rome during the third century. It was said that he so exalted the mind that he was ashamed of his body.

[334]Indeed these humble considerations, etc. The passage, like many which Emerson quotes, is rendered inexactly. The Prince says to Poins: "Indeed these humble considerations make me out of love with my greatness. What a disgrace it is to me to remember thy name! or to know thy face to-morrow! or to take note how many pairs of silk stockings thou hast, that is, these and those that were thy peach-colored ones! or to bear the inventory of thy shirts, as, one for superfluity and another for use!" Shakespeare's Henry IV., Part II. 2, 2.

[335]Ibn Hankal. Ibn Hankul, an Arabian geographer and traveler of the tenth century. He wrote an account of his twenty years' travels in Mohammedan countries; in 1800 this was translated into English by Sir William Jones under the title of The Oriental Geography of Ibn Hankal. In that volume this anecdote is told in slightly different words.

[336]Bokhara. Where is Bokhara? It corresponds to the ancient Sogdiana.

[337]Bannocks. Thick cakes, made usually of oatmeal. What does Emerson mean by this sentence? Probably no person ever met his visitors, many of whom were "exacting and wearisome," and must have been unwelcome, with more perfect courtesy and graciousness than Emerson.

[338]John Eliot. Give as full an account as you can of the life and works of this noble Apostle to the Indians of the seventeenth century.

[339]King David, etc. See First Chronicles, 11, 15-19.

[340]Brutus. Marcus Junius Brutus, a Roman patriot of the first century before Christ, who took part in the assassination of Julius Cæsar.

[341]Philippi. A city of Macedonia near which in the year 42 B.C. were fought two battles in which the republican army under Brutus and Cassius was defeated by Octavius and Antony, friends of Cæsar.

[342]Euripides. A Greek tragic poet of the fifth century before Christ.

[343]Scipio. (See note 205.) Plutarch in his Morals gives another version of the story: "When Paetilius and Quintus accused him of many crimes before the people; 'on this very day,' he said, 'I conquered Hannibal and Carthage. I for my part am going with my crown on to the Capitol to sacrifice; and let him that pleaseth stay and pass his vote upon me.' Having thus said, he went his way; and the people followed him, leaving his accusers declaiming to themselves."

[344]Socrates. (See note 187.)

[345]Prytaneum. A public hall at Athens.

[346]Sir Thomas More. An English statesman and author who was beheaded in 1535 on a charge of high treason. The incident to which Emerson refers is one which showed his "pleasant wit" undisturbed by the prospect of death. As the executioner was about to strike, More moved his head carefully out of reach of the ax. "Pity that should be cut," he said, "that has never committed treason."