EMMA LAZARUS 282 BCE 282 BCE: Construction of the Colossus of Rhodes, an act of worship aimed at obtaining the favor of mighty Helios the sun god, had required 12 years. ASTRONOMY The commission for the project had been awarded to the Rhodian sculptor Chares of Lindos. To build the statue, his workers had fabricated the outer skin parts as bronze castings. The base was of white marble, to which the feet and ankles of the statue had initially been fixed. The structure had then been erected section by section, with the bronze exterior being stabilized by an iron and stone framework within. It was necessary to put up a temporary earth ramp, to haul the higher parts of the Colossus into position. In this year, the statue was completed: To you, O Sun, the people of Dorian Rhodes set up this bronze statue reaching to Olympus when they had pacified the waves of war and crowned their city with the spoils taken from the enemy. Not only over the seas but also on land did they kindle the lovely torch of liberty. HDT WHAT? INDEX EMMA LAZARUS EMMA LAZARUS It towered to about 110 feet (this would be an inspiration to Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi, whom we know for his Statue of Liberty in the harbor of New York City, towering 151 feet from the toes to the tip of the torch). For 56 years this colossal Colossus would stand at or near their Mandraki harbor entrance,1 until the island would be hit by a strong earthquake in about 226 BCE. Rhodes would be badly damaged, and its famous giant statue would snap off at the weakest point — the knee. “But,” Pliny the Elder would comment, “even lying on the ground, it is a marvel.” Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame, “Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, 1. To clear up a misconception, the Colossus did not bestride the entrance to the Mandraki harbor: We know how tall the figure was and we know how wide the entrance was: no structure could have stood with such a straddle, nor would sailing vessels have been able to get their masts through without repeatedly striking such a figure in its crotch. Also, when the statue fell, its ruins did not block the harbor mouth. Probably it stood on the eastern promontory of the Mandraki harbor, if not farther inland. 2 Copyright Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX EMMA LAZARUS EMMA LAZARUS I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” — Emma Lazarus, “The New Colossus” (1883) Inscription on the Statue of Liberty, officially inaugurated in 1886 1849 July 22, Sunday: Emma Lazarus was born as the fourth of Esther Nathan Lazarus’s and Moses Lazarus’s seven children. She would grow up in New-York and in Newport, Rhode Island, and would be educated by private tutors with whom she would study mythology, music, American poetry, European literature, German, French, and Italian. Her father, a sugar merchant, would support her writing financially as well as emotionally. 1866 Henry Thoreau had left his surveying equipment with his sister Sophia E. Thoreau. In this year she had Sam Staples auction his surveying compass and tripod, which were purchased by Sampson Douglass Mason (he would present them to the Concord Free Public Library in 1913/1914 — and you may view them in the library research room in the basement). Emma Lazarus’s father had her poems and translations to date printed up “for private circulation” as POEMS AND TRANSLATIONS: WRITTEN BETWEEN THE AGES OF FOURTEEN AND SIXTEEN. (This volume would of course be dedicated “To My Father.”) Soon after this appeared, the young poet would be introduced to Waldo Emerson, and eventually she would be presented with one of Thoreau’s compasses — not merely a similar one, but one he had actually used. View Thoreau’s surveys at the Concord Free Public Library: http://www.concordlibrary.org/scollect/Thoreau_surveys/Thoreau_surveys.htm “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 3 HDT WHAT? INDEX EMMA LAZARUS EMMA LAZARUS 1869 May: Emma Lazarus’s poem “Reality.” Celestial hopes and dreams, And lofty purposes, and long rich days, With fragrance filled of blameless deeds and ways, And visionary gleams, — These things alone endure; “They are the solid facts,” that we may grasp, Leading us on and upward if we clasp And hold them firm and sure. In a wise fable old, A hero sought a god who could at will Assume all figures, and the hero still Loosed not his steadfast hold, For image foul or fair, For soft-eyed nymph, who wept with pain and shame, For threatening fiend or loathesome beast or flame, For menace or for prayer. Until the god, outbraved, Took his own shape divine; not wrathfully, But wondering, to the hero gave reply, The knowledge that he craved. We seize the god in youth; All forms conspire to make us loose our grasp, — Ambition, folly, gain, — till we unclasp From the embrace of truth. We grow more wise, we say, And work for worldly ends and mock our dream, Alas! while all life’s glory and its gleam, With that have fled away. If thereto we had clung Through change and peril, fire and night and storm, till it assume its proper, godlike form, We might as last have wrung An answer to our cries, — A brave response to our most valiant hope. Unto the light of day this word might ope 4 Copyright Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX EMMA LAZARUS EMMA LAZARUS A million mysteries. O’er each man’s brow I see The bright star of his genius shining clear; It seeks to guide him to a nobler sphere, Above earth’s vanity. Up to pure height of snow, Its beckoning ray still leads him on and on; To those who follow, lo, itself comes down And crowns at length their brow. The nimbus still doth gleam On these the heroes, sages of the earth, The few who found, in life of any worth, Only their loftiest dream. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 5 HDT WHAT? INDEX EMMA LAZARUS EMMA LAZARUS 1871 When her ADMETUS AND OTHER POEMS appeared (NY, Cambridge: Hurd & Houghton; Riverside Press), Emma Lazarus dedicated its title poem “To My Friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson.” This volume also included “In the Jewish Synagogue at Newport” and “How Long,” as well as translations of Goethe and Heinrich Heine. In this volume the poet used a Henry Thoreau quote, from WALDEN; OR,LIFE IN THE WOODS, as the epigraph when republishing her May 1869 poem “Reality”: “Hold fast to your most indefinite waking dream. Dreams are the solidest facts that we know.” 6 Copyright Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX EMMA LAZARUS EMMA LAZARUS Here is the poem itself: Celestial hopes and dreams, And lofty purposes, and long rich days, With fragrance filled of blameless deeds and ways, And visionary gleams, — These things alone endure; “They are the solid facts,” that we may grasp, Leading us on and upward if we clasp And hold them firm and sure. In a wise fable old, A hero sought a god who could at will Assume all figures, and the hero still Loosed not his steadfast hold, For image foul or fair, For soft-eyed nymph, who wept with pain and shame, For threatening fiend or loathesome beast or flame, For menace or for prayer. Until the god, outbraved, Took his own shape divine; not wrathfully, But wondering, to the hero gave reply, The knowledge that he craved. We seize the god in youth; All forms conspire to make us loose our grasp, — Ambition, folly, gain, — till we unclasp From the embrace of truth. We grow more wise, we say, And work for worldly ends and mock our dream, Alas! while all life’s glory and its gleam, With that have fled away. If thereto we had clung Through change and peril, fire and night and storm, till it assume its proper, godlike form, We might as last have wrung An answer to our cries, — A brave response to our most valiant hope. Unto the light of day this word might ope A million mysteries. O’er each man’s brow I see The bright star of his genius shining clear; It seeks to guide him to a nobler sphere, Above earth’s vanity. Up to pure height of snow, Its beckoning ray still leads him on and on; To those who follow, lo, itself comes down And crowns at length their brow. The nimbus still doth gleam On these the heroes, sages of the earth, The few who found, in life of any worth, Only their loftiest dream. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 7 HDT WHAT? INDEX EMMA LAZARUS EMMA LAZARUS Summer: John Muir invited Waldo Emerson on a 2-week excursion in Yosemite Valley.2 Upon his return from this excursion, according to Muir’s friend John Swett, Emerson commented about Muir: “He is more wonderful than Thoreau.” Emerson, Muir, James Thayer, and others rode 25 miles on horseback to Mariposa to view a grove of giant sequoias.