[Footnote 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_.]
[Footnote 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."
]
[Footnote 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."]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 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_.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 316: Romulus. The reputed founder of the city of Rome.]
[Footnote 317: Laodamia, Dion. Read these two poems by Wordsworth, the
great English poet, and tell why you think Emerson mentioned them
here.]
[Footnote 318: Scott. Sir Walter Scott, a famous Scotch author.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 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_.]
[Footnote 321: Robert Burns. A Scotch lyric poet. Emerson was probably
thinking of the patriotic song, _Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled_.]
[Footnote 322: Harleian Miscellanies. A collection of manuscripts
published in the eighteenth century, and named for Robert Harley, the
English statesman who collected them.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 324: Simon Ockley. An English scholar of the seventeenth
century whose chief work was a _History of the Saracens_.]
[Footnote 325: Oxford. One of the two great English universities.]
[Footnote 326: Plutarch. (See note 264.)]
[Footnote 327: Brasidas. This hero, described by Plutarch, was a
Spartan general who lived about four hundred years before Christ.]
[Footnote 328: Dion. A Greek philosopher who ruled the city of
Syracuse in the fourth century before Christ.]
[Footnote 329: Epaminondas. A Greek general and statesman of the
fourth century before Christ.]
[Footnote 330: Scipio. (See note 205.)]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 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.'"
]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 336: Bokhara. Where is Bokhara? It corresponds to the
ancient Sogdiana.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 339: King David, etc. See First Chronicles, 11, 15-19.]
[Footnote 340: Brutus. Marcus Junius Brutus, a Roman patriot of the
first century before Christ, who took part in the assassination of
Julius Cæsar.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 342: Euripides. A Greek tragic poet of the fifth century
before Christ.]
[Footnote 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."]
[Footnote 344: Socrates. (See note 187.)]
[Footnote 345: Prytaneum. A public hall at Athens.]
[Footnote 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."]
[Footnote 347: Blue Laws. Any rigid Sunday laws or religious
regulations. The term is usually applied to the early laws of New
Haven and Connecticut which regulated personal and religious conduct.]
[Footnote 348: Epaminondas. (See note 329.)]
[Footnote 349: Olympus. A mountain of Greece, the summit of which,
according to Greek mythology, was the home of the gods.]
[Footnote 350: Jerseys. Consult a history of the United States for a
full account of Washington's campaign in New Jersey.]
[Footnote 351: Milton. (See note 151.)]
[Footnote 352: Pericles. A famous Greek statesman of the fifth century
before Christ, in whose age Athens was preëminent in naval and
military affairs and in letters and art.]
[Footnote 353: Xenophon. A Greek historian of the fourth century
before Christ.]
[Footnote 354: Columbus. Give an account of his life.]
[Footnote 355: Bayard. Chevalier de Bayard was a French gentleman of
the fifteenth century. He is the French national hero, and is called
"The Knight without fear and without reproach."]
[Footnote 356: Sidney. Probably Sir Philip Sidney, an English
gentleman and scholar of the sixteenth century who is the English
national hero as Bayard is the French; another brave Englishman was
Algernon Sidney, a politician and patriot of the seventeenth century.]
[Footnote 357: Hampden. John Hampden was an English statesman and
patriot who was killed in the civil war of the seventeenth century.]
[Footnote 358: Colossus. The Colossus of Rhodes was a gigantic
statue--over a hundred feet in height--of the Rhodian sun god. It was
one of the seven wonders of the world; it was destroyed by an
earthquake about two hundred years before Christ.]
[Footnote 359: Sappho. A Greek poet of the seventh century before
Christ. Her fame remains, though most of her poems have been lost.]
[Footnote 360: Sevigné. Marquise de Sevigné was a French author of the
seventeenth century.]
[Footnote 361: De Staël. Madame de Staël was a French writer whose
books and political opinions were condemned by Napoleon.]
[Footnote 362: Themis. A Greek goddess. The personification of law,
order, and justice.]
[Footnote 363: A high counsel, etc. Such was the advice given to the
Emerson boys by their aunt, Miss. Mary Moody Emerson: "Scorn trifles,
lift your aims; do what you are afraid to do; sublimity of character
must come from sublimity of motive." Upon her monument are inscribed
Emerson's words about her: "She gave high counsels. It was the
privilege of certain boys to have this immeasurably high standard
indicated to their childhood, a blessing which nothing else in
education could supply."]
[Footnote 364: Phocion. A Greek general and statesman of the fourth
century before Christ who advised the Athenians to make peace with
Philip of Macedon. He was put to death on a charge of treason.]
[Footnote 365: Lovejoy. Rev. Elijah Lovejoy, a Presbyterian clergyman
of Maine who published a periodical against slavery. In 1837 an
Illinois mob demanded his printing press, which he refused to give up.
The building containing it was set on fire and when Lovejoy came out
he was shot.]
[Footnote 366: Let them rave, etc. These lines are misquoted, being
evidently given from memory, from Tennyson's _Dirge_. In the poem
occur these lines:
"Let them rave.
Thou wilt never raise thine head
From the green that folds thy grave--
Let them rave."
]