Chapter 23
[Footnote 590: Cid. _The Romances of the Cid_, the story of the Spanish national hero, mentioned in note on _Heroism_139:5, was written about the thirteenth century by an unknown author; it supplied much of the material for two Spanish chronicles and Spanish and French tragedies written later on the same subject.]
[Footnote 591: Iliad. The poem in which the Greek, poet, Homer, describes the siege and fall of Troy. Emerson here expresses the view adopted by many scholars that it was the work, not of one, but of many men.]
[Footnote 592: Robin Hood. The ballads about Robin Hood, an English outlaw and popular hero of the twelfth century.]
[Footnote 593: Scottish Minstrelsy. _The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_, a collection of original and collected poems, published by Sir Walter Scott in 1802.]
[Footnote 594: Shakespeare Society. The Shakespeare Society, founded in 1841, was dissolved in 1853. In 1874 The New Shakespeare Society was founded.]
[Footnote 595: Mysteries. See "Kyd, Marlowe, etc." 531.]
[Footnote 596: Ferrex and Porrex, or Gorboduc. The first regular English tragedy, by Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville, printed in 1565.]
[Footnote 597: Gammer Gurtor's Needle. One of the first English comedies, written by Bishop Still and printed in 1575.]
[Footnote 598: Whether the boy Shakespeare poached, etc. For a fuller account of the facts of Shakespeare's life, of which some traditions and facts are mentioned here, consult some good biography of the poet.]
[Footnote 599: Queen Elizabeth. Dining her reign, 1558-1603, the English drama rose and attained its height, and there was produced a prose literature hardly inferior to the poetic.]
[Footnote 600: King James. King James VI. of Scotland and I. of England who was Elizabeth's kinsman and successor; he reigned in England from 1603 to 1625.]
[Footnote 601: Essexes. Walter Devereux was a brave English gentleman whom Elizabeth made Earl of Essex in 1572. His son Robert, the second Earl of Essex, was a favorite of Queen Elizabeth's.]
[Footnote 602: Leicester. The Earl of Leicester, famous in Shakespeare's time, was Robert Dudley, an English courtier, politician, and general, the favorite of Queen Elizabeth.]
[Footnote 603: Burleighs or Burghleys: William Cecil, baron of Burghley, was an English statesman, who, for forty years, was Elizabeth's chief minister.]
[Footnote 604: Buckinghams. George Villiers, the first duke of Buckingham, was an English courtier and politician, a favorite of James I. and Charles I.]
[Footnote 605: Tudor dynasty. The English dynasty of sovereigns descended on the male side from Owen Tudor. It began with Henry VII. and ended with Elizabeth.]
[Footnote 606: Bacon. Consult English literature and history for an account of the great statesman and author, Francis Bacon, "the wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind."]
[Footnote 607: Ben Jonson, etc. In his _Timber or Discoveries_, Ben Jonson, a famous classical dramatist contemporary with Shakespeare, says: "I loved the man and do honor his memory on this side idolatry as much as any. He was indeed honest and of an open and free nature: had an excellent fancy; brave notions and gentle expressions: wherein he flowed with that facility that sometimes it was necessary he should be stopped.... His wit was in his own power; would the rule of it had been so, too. Many times he fell into those things could not escape laughter.... But he redeemed his vices with his virtues. There was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned."]
[Footnote 608: Sir Henry Wotton. An English diplomatist and author of wide culture.]
[Footnote 609: The following persons, etc. The persons enumerated were all people of note of the seventeenth century. Sir Philip Sidney, Earl of Essex, Lord Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh, John Milton, Sir Henry Vane, Isaac Walton, Dr. John Donne, Abraham Cowley, Charles Cotton, John Pym, and John Hales were Englishmen, scholars, statesmen, and authors. Theodore Beza was a French theologian; Isaac Casaubon was a French-Swiss scholar; Roberto Berlarmine was an Italian cardinal; Johann Kepler was a German astronomer; Francis Vieta was a French mathematician; Albericus Gentilis was an Italian jurist; Paul Sarpi was an Italian historian; Arminius was a Dutch theologian.]
[Footnote 610: Many others whom doubtless, etc. Emerson here enumerates some famous English authors of the same period, not mentioned in the preceeding list.]
[Footnote 611: Pericles. See note on _Heroism_, 352.]
[Footnote 612: Lessing. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, a German critic and poet of the eighteenth century.]
[Footnote 613: Wieland. Christopher Martin Wieland was a German contemporary of Lessing's, who made a prose translation into German of Shakespeare's plays.]
[Footnote 614: Schlegel. August Wilhelm von Schlegel, a German critic and poet, who about the first of the nineteenth century translated some of Shakespeare's plays into classical German.]
[Footnote 615: Hamlet. The hero of Shakespeare's play of the same name.]
[Footnote 616: Coleridge. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, an English poet, author of critical lectures and notes on Shakespeare.]
[Footnote 617: Goethe. (See note 85.)]
[Footnote 618: Blackfriar's Theater. A famous London theater in which nearly all the great dramas of the Elizabethan age were performed.]
[Footnote 619: Stratford. Stratford-on-Avon, a little town in Warwickshire, England, where Shakespeare was born and where he spent his last years.]
[Footnote 620: Macbeth. One of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies, written about 1606.]
[Footnote 621: Malone, Warburton, Dyce, and Collier. English scholars of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries who edited the works of Shakespeare.]
[Footnote 622: Covent Garden, Drury Lane, the Park, and Tremont: The leading London theaters in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.]
[Footnote 623: Betterton, Garrick, Kemble, Kean, and Macready, famous British actors of the Shakespearian parts.]
[Footnote 624: The Hamlet of a famed performer, etc. Macready. Emerson said to a friend: "I see you are one of the happy mortals who are capable of being carried away by an actor of Shakespeare. Now, whenever I visit the theater to witness the performance of one of his dramas, I am carried away by the poet."]
[Footnote 625: What may this mean, etc. _Hamlet_, I. 4.]
[Footnote 626: Midsummer Night's Dream. One of Shakespeare's plays.]
[Footnote 627: The forest of Arden. In which is laid, the scene of Shakespeare's play, _As You Like It_.]
[Footnote 628: The nimble air of Scone Castle. It was of the air of Inverness, not of Scone, that "the air nimbly and sweetly recommends itself unto our gentle senses."--_Macbeth_, I. 6.]
[Footnote 629: Portia's villa. See the moonlight scene, _Merchant of Venice_, V. 1.]
[Footnote 630: The antres vost, etc. See _Othello_, I. 3. "Antres" is an old word, meaning caves, caverns.]
[Footnote 631: Cyclopean architecture. In Greek mythology, the Cyclops were a race of giants. The term 'Cyclopean' is applied here to the architecture of Egypt and India, because of the majestic size of the buildings, and the immense size of the stones used, as if it would require giants to perform such works.]
[Footnote 632: Phidian sculpture. Phidias was a famous Greek sculptor who lived in the age of Pericles and beautified Athens with his works.]
[Footnote 633: Gothic minsters. Churches or cathedrals, built in the Gothic, or pointed, style of architecture which prevailed during the Middle Ages; it owed nothing to the Goths, and this term was originally used in reproach, in the sense of "barbarous."]
[Footnote 634: The Italian painting. In Italy during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries pictorial art was carried to a degree of perfection unknown in any other time or country.]
[Footnote 635: Ballads of Spain and Scotland. The old ballads of these countries are noted for beauty and spirit.]
[Footnote 636: Tripod. Define this word, and explain its appropriateness here.]
[Footnote 637: Aubrey. John Aubrey, an English antiquarian of the seventeenth century.]
[Footnote 638: Rowe. Nicholas Rowe, an English author of the seventeenth century, who wrote a biography of Shakespeare.]
[Footnote 639: Timon. See note on _Gifts_, 466.]
[Footnote 640: Warwick. An English politician and commander of the fifteenth century, called "the King Maker." He appears in Shakespeare's plays, _Henry IV._, _V._, and _VI._]
[Footnote 641: Antonio. The Venetian Merchant in Shakespeare's play, _The Merchant of Venice_.]
[Footnote 642: Talma. François Joseph Talma was a French tragic actor, to whom Napoleon showed favor.]
[Footnote 643: An omnipresent humanity, etc. See what Carlyle has to say on this subject in his _Hero as Poet_.]
[Footnote 644: Daguerre. Louis Jacques Daguerre, a French painter, one of the inventors of the daguerreotype process, by means of which an image is fixed on a metal plate by the chemical action of light.]
[Footnote 645: Euphuism. The word here has rather the force of euphemism, an entirely different word. Euphuism was an affected ornate style of expression, so called from _Euphues_, by John Lyly, a sixteenth century master of that style.]
[Footnote 646: Epicurus. A Greek philosopher of the third century before Christ. He was the founder of the Epicurean school of philosophy which taught that pleasure should be man's chief aim and that the highest pleasure is freedom.]
[Footnote 647: Dante. (See note 258.)]
[Footnote 648: Master of the revels, etc. Emerson always expressed thankfulness for "the spirit of joy which Shakespeare had shed over the universe." See what Carlyle says in _The Hero as Poet_, about Shakespeare's "mirthfulness and love of laughter."]
[Footnote 649: Koran. The Sacred book of the Mohammedans.]
[Footnote 650: Twelfth Night, etc. The names of three bright, merry, or serene plays by Shakespeare.]
[Footnote 651: Egyptian verdict. Emerson used Egyptian probably in the sense of "gipsy." He compares such opinions to the fortunes told by the gipsies.]
[Footnote 652: Tasso. An Italian poet of the sixteenth century.]
[Footnote 653: Cervantes. A Spanish poet and romancer of the sixteenth century, the author of _Don Quixote_.]
[Footnote 654: Israelite. Such Hebrew prophets as Isaiah and Jeremiah.]
[Footnote 655: German. Such as Luther.]
[Footnote 656: Swede. Such as Swedenborg, the mystic philosopher of the eighteenth century of whom Emerson had already written in _Representative Men_.]
[Footnote 657: A pilgrim's progress. As described by John Bunyan, the English writer, in his famous _Pilgrim's Progress_.]
[Footnote 658: Doleful histories of Adam's fall, etc. The subject of _Paradise Lost,_ the great poem by John Milton.]
[Footnote 659: With doomsdays and purgatorial, etc. As described by Dante in his _Divine Commedia_, an epic about hell, purgatory, and paradise.]
PRUDENCE
[Footnote 660: The essay on _Prudence_ was given as a lecture in the course on _Human Culture_, in the winter of 1837-8. It was published in the first series of _Essays_, which appeared in 1841.]
[Footnote 661: Lubricity. The word means literally the state or quality of being slippery; Emerson uses it several times, in its derived sense of "instability."]
[Footnote 662: Love and Friendship. The subjects of the two essays preceding _Prudence_, in the volume of 1841.]
[Footnote 663: The world is filled with the proverbs, etc. Compare with this passage Emerson's words in _Compensation_ on "the flights of proverbs, whose teaching is as true and as omnipresent as that of birds and flies."]
[Footnote 664: A good wheel or pin. That is, a part of a machine.]
[Footnote 665: The law of polarity. Having two opposite poles, the properties of the one of which are the opposite of the other.]
[Footnote 666: Summer will have its flies. Emerson discoursed with philosophic calm about the impediments and disagreeableness which beset every path; he also accepted them with serenity when he encountered them in his daily life.]
[Footnote 667: The inhabitants of the climates, etc. As a northerner, Emerson naturally felt that the advantage and superiority were with his own section. He expressed in his poems _Voluntaries_ and _Mayday_ views similar to those declared here.]
[Footnote 668: Peninsular campaign. Emerson here refers to the military operations carried on from 1808 to 1814 in Portugal, Spain, and southern France against the French, by the British, Spanish, and Portuguese forces commanded by Wellington. What was the "Peninsular campaign" in American history?]
[Footnote 669: Dr. Johnson is reported to have said, etc. Dr. Samuel Johnson was an eminent English scholar of the eighteenth century. In this, as in many other instances, Emerson quotes from his memory instead of from the book. The words of Dr. Johnson, as reported by his biographer Boswell, are: "Accustom your children constantly to this; if a thing happened at one window, and they, when relating it, say it happened at another, do not let it pass, but instantly check them; you do not know where deviation from truth will end."]
[Footnote 670: Rifle. A local name in England and New England for an instrument, on the order of a whetstone, used for sharpening scythes; it is made of wood, covered with fine sand or emery.]
[Footnote 671: Last grand duke of Weimar. Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach is a grand duchy of Germany. The grand duke referred to was Charles Augustus, who died in 1828. He was the friend and patron of the great German authors, Goethe, Schiller, Herder, and Wieland.]
[Footnote 672: The Raphael in the Dresden gallery. The Sistine Madonna, the most famous picture of the great Italian artist, Raphael.]
[Footnote 673: Call a spade a spade. Plutarch, the Greek historian, said, "These Macedonians ... call a spade a spade."]
[Footnote 674: Parts. A favorite eighteenth century term for abilities, talents.]
[Footnote 675: We have found out, etc. Emerson always insisted that morals and intellect should be united. He urged that power and insight are lessened by shortcomings in morals.]
[Footnote 676: Goethe's Tasso. A play by the German poet Goethe, founded on the belief that the imprisonment of Tasso was due to his aspiration to the hand of Leonora d'Este, sister of the duke of Ferrara. Tasso was a famous Italian poet of the seventeenth century.]
[Footnote 677: Richard III. An English king, the last of the Plantagenet line, the hero--or villain--of Shakespeare's historical play, Richard III.]
[Footnote 678: Bifold. Give a simpler word that means the same.]
[Footnote 679: Cæsar. Why is Cæsar the great Roman ruler, given as a type of greatness?]
[Footnote 680: Job. Why is Job, the hero of the Old Testament book of the same name, given as a type of misery?]
[Footnote 681: Poor Richard. _Poor Richard's Almanac_, published (1732-1757) by Benjamin Franklin was a collection of maxims inculcating prudence and thrift. These were given as the sayings of "Poor Richard."]
[Footnote 682: State Street. A street in Boston, Massachusetts, noted as a financial center.]
[Footnote 683: Stick in a tree between whiles, etc. "Jock, when ye hae naething else to do, ye may be aye sticking in a tree; it will be growing, Jock, when ye're sleeping."--Scott's _Heart of Midlothian_. It is said that these were the words of a dying Scotchman to his son.]
[Footnote 684: Minor virtues. Emerson suggests that punctuality and regard for a promise are two of these. Can you name others?]
[Footnote 685: The Latin proverb says, etc. This is quoted from Tacitus, the famous Roman historian.]
[Footnote 686: If he set out to contend, etc. In contention, Emerson holds, the best men would lose their characteristic virtues, --the fearless apostle Paul, his devotion to truth; the gentle disciple John, his loving charity.]
[Footnote 687: Though your views are in straight antagonism, &c. This was Emerson's own method, and by it he won a courteous hearing from those to whom his views were most objectionable.]
[Footnote 688: Consuetudes. Give a simpler word that has the same meaning.]
[Footnote 689: Begin where we will, etc. Explain what Emerson means by this expression.]
CIRCLES
[Footnote 690: This essay first appeared in the first series of _Essays_, published in 1841. Unlike most of the other essays in the volume, no earlier form of it exists, and it was probably not delivered first as a lecture.
Dr. Richard Garnett says in his _Life of Emerson_: "The object of this fine essay quaintly entitled _Circles_ is to reconcile this rigidity of unalterable law with the fact of human progress. Compensation illustrates one property of a circle, which always returns to the point where it began, but it is no less true that around every circle another can be drawn.... Emerson followed his own counsel; he always keeps a reserve of power. His theory of _Circles_ reappears without the least verbal indebtedness to himself in the splendid essay on _Love_."]
[Footnote 691: St. Augustine. A celebrated father of the Latin church, who flourished in the fourth century. His most famous work is his _Confessions_, an autobiographical volume of religious meditations.]
[Footnote 692: Another dawn risen on mid-noon. "Another morn has risen on mid-noon." Milton, _Paradise Lost_, Book V.]
[Footnote 693: Greek sculpture. The greatest development of the art of sculpture that the world has ever known was that which took place in Greece, with Athens as the center, in the fifth century before Christ. The masterpieces which remain are the models on which modern art formed itself.]
[Footnote 694: Greek letters. In literature--in drama, philosophy and history--Greece attained an excellence as signal as in art. Emerson as a scholar, felt that the literature of Greece was more permanent than its art. Would an artist be apt to take this view?]
[Footnote 695: New arts destroy the old, etc. Tell the ways in which the improvements and inventions mentioned by Emerson have been superseded by others; give the reasons. Mention other similar cases of more recent date.]
[Footnote 696: The life of man is a self-evolving circle, etc. "Throw a stone into the stream, and the circles that propagate themselves are the beautiful type of all influence."--EMERSON, in _Nature_.]
[Footnote 697: The heart refuses to be imprisoned. It is a superstition current in many countries that an evil spirit cannot escape from a circle drawn round it.]
[Footnote 698: Crass. Gross; coarse.]
[Footnote 699: The continual effort to raise himself above himself, etc.
"Unless above himself he can Erect himself, how poor a thing is man!" SAMUEL DANIEL.
]
[Footnote 700: If he were high enough, etc.
Have I a lover Who is noble and free?-- I would he were nobler Than to love me.--EMERSON, _The Sphinx._
]
[Footnote 701: Aristotle and Plato. Plato was a famous Greek philosopher who flourished in the fourth century before Christ. He was the disciple of Socrates, the teacher of Aristotle, and the founder of the academic school of philosophy. His exposition of idealism was founded on the teachings of Socrates. Aristotle, another famous Greek philosopher, was for twenty years the pupil of Plato. He founded the peripatetic school of philosophy, and his writing dealt with all the then known branches of science.]
[Footnote 702: Berkeley. George Berkeley was a British clergyman of the eighteenth century. He was the author of works on philosophy which are marked by extreme subjective idealism.]
[Footnote 703: Termini. Boundaries or marks to indicate boundaries. In Roman mythology, Terminus was the god who presided over boundaries or landmarks. He is represented with a human head, but without feet or arms,--to indicate that he never moved from his place.]
[Footnote 704: Pentecost. One of three great Jewish festivals. On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descended upon the infant Christian church, with the gift of tongues. See Acts ii. 1-20.]
[Footnote 705: Hodiernal. Belonging to our present day.]
[Footnote 706: Punic. Of Carthage, a famous ancient city, and state of northern Africa. Carthage was the rival of Rome, but was, after long warfare, overcome in the second century before Christ.]
[Footnote 707: In like manner, etc. Emerson always urged that in order to get the best from all, one must pass from affairs to thought, society to solitude, books to nature.
"See thou bring not to field or stone The fancies found in books; Leave authors' eyes, and fetch your own, To brave the landscape's look."--EMERSON, _Waldeinsamkeit_.
]
[Footnote 708: Petrarch. (See note 563.)]
[Footnote 709: Ariosto. A famous Italian author of the sixteenth century, who wrote comedies, satires, and a metrical romance, _Orlando Furioso_.]
[Footnote 710: "Then shall also the Son", etc. See 1 Corinthians xv. 28: Does Emerson quote the passage verbatim?]
[Footnote 711: These manifold tenacious qualities, etc. It is remarked of Emerson that the idea of the symbolism of nature which he received from Plato, was the source of much of his pleasure in Swedenborg, the Swedish mystic philosopher. Emerson says in his volume on _Nature_: "The noblest ministry of nature is to stand as an apparition of God."]
[Footnote 712: "Forgive his crimes," etc. This is quoted from _Night Thoughts_ by the English didactic poet, Edward Young.]
[Footnote 713: Pyrrhonism. A doctrine held by a follower of Pyrrho, a Greek philosopher of the third century before Christ, who founded the sceptical school. He taught that it is impossible to attain truth, and that men should be indifferent to all external circumstances.]
[Footnote 714: I own I am gladdened, etc. Emerson always held fast to the consoling thought that there was no evil without good, none out of which Good did not or could not come.]
[Footnote 715: Sempiternal. Everlasting; eternal.]
[Footnote 716: Oliver Cromwell. An Englishman of the middle classes who became the military and civil leader of the English Revolution of the seventeenth century. He refused the title of king; but as Lord Protector of the English commonwealth, he exercised royal power.]