ing is translated in
the preceding sentence.]

[Footnote 305: Nonage. We use more commonly the word, "minority."]

[Footnote 306: Janus-faced. The word here means simply two-faced,
without the idea of deceit usually attached to it. In Roman mythology,
Janus, the doorkeeper of heaven was the protector of doors and
gateways and the patron of the beginning and end of undertakings. He
was the god of the rising and setting of the sun, and was represented
with two faces, one looking to the east and the other to the west. His
temple at Rome was kept open in time of war and closed in time of
peace.]

[Footnote 307: Harbinger. A forerunner; originally an officer who rode
in advance of a royal person to secure proper lodgings and
accommodations.]

[Footnote 308: Empyrean. Highest and purest heaven; according to the
ancients, the region of pure light and fire.]

HEROISM

[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