# Poems (Proctor)/Notes

NOTES.
Note 1, page 3.
"Cleobis and Biton, natives of Argos, possessed a sufficient fortune, and had withal such strength of body that they were both alike victorious in the public games. When the Argives were celebrating a festival of Hera, it was necessary that their mother should be drawn to the temple in a chariot; but the oxen did not come from the field in time; the young men, therefore, being pressed for time, put themselves beneath the yoke, and drew the car in which their mother sat; and having conveyed it forty-five stades, they reached the temple. . . . The men of Argos who stood round commended the strength of the youths, and the women blessed her as the mother of such sons; but the mother herself, transported with joy both on account of the action and its renown, stood before the image, and prayed that the goddess would grant to Cleobis and Biton, her own sons, who had so highly honored her, the greatest blessing man could receive.
'After this prayer, when they had sacrificed and partaken of the feast, the youths fell asleep in the temple itself, and never awoke more, but met with such a termination of life. Upon this the Argives, in commemoration of their piety, caused their statues to be made and dedicated at Delphi."—Herodotus, i. 31.
Cicero (Tusc. Disp. I. 47) and others, as Servius (ad Virg. Geog. iii. 532) and the author of the Platonic dialogue entitled "Ariochus" (367 C), relate that the ground ​of the necessity was the circumstance that the youths' mother was priestess of Juno at the time. Servius says a pestilence had destroyed the oxen, which contradicts Herodotus. Otherwise the tale is told with fewer variations than most ancient stories. The Argives had a sculptured representation of the event in their temple of Apollo Lycius to the time of Pausanias (Pausan. II. xx. § 2).
Note 2, page 9.
See Prescott's "Conquest of Peru;" "The Life of Pizarro," and "The Spanish Conquest in America," by Sir Arthur Helps; the "Commentarios Reales" of Garcilaso de la Vega, etc.
"Atàc!" the exclamation of the Inca according to Garcilaso, is rendered "Alas!" by Sir Arthur Helps; but Professor John Fiske says concerning it, "There is a good deal of latitude in the meaning of interjections;" and probably, here, it expressed indignation.
The borla was a crimson, tasseled fillet; emblem of sovereignty; the crown of the Incas.
Note 3, page 17.
Ancient and widespread tradition ascribes the ruined towers on the headlands of the Levant to St. Helena, and avers that they were built for the beacon-fires which flashed the news of the discovery of the Cross to her royal son, the Emperor Constantine, at Constantinople. Maundrell, the English traveler, who visited Palestine in 1697, associates them with Helena, but as constructions for the defense of the country against pirates. Many other authors and travelers have referred to them, and to the tradition; notably, in our own day, Dr. W. M. Thomson in "The Land and the Book" (pp. 58 and 145), and Mr. W. C. Prime in his glowing monograph, "Holy Cross."
​Perhaps St. Elmo's or St. Helen's fire (feu d'Héléne) is a nautical memento of Helena's Beacons.
Note 4, page 23.
With the Buddhist belief in the transmigration of souls, a rare white animal (albino), especially a white elephant, is thought to be the incarnation of a distinguished person, perhaps of a future Buddha (Enlightened One),—therefore the worship. "Merit," in the Buddhist sense, is the accumulation of good deeds to secure reward.
"Kandy's tooth" is a relic of Buddha, and the palladium of Ceylon. It is a bit of ivory, in form like a tooth, enshrined in six cases of gold and silver inlaid with precious stones, and preserved in a chamber of the temple attached to the palace of the kings, at Kandy. The "Footprint" is a print in the rock at Probat, Siam, resembling a huge human foot, and believed to be an imprint of the foot of Buddha. Over it is a beautiful shrine, and it is a place of yearly pilgrimage for the Siamese. The "Bo-tree" (Ficus religiosa) is the tree under which Gautama was sitting when he became a Buddha.
Note 5, page 25.
Mahdi is an Arabic word, meaning Leader or Guide. Moslems generally believe that the expected great Mahdi will be a descendant of the Prophet, and will appear towards the end of time to uproot wickedness and establish a reign of righteousness on earth. There have been many Mahdis in Mohammedan history.
Mohammed Achmet, "El Mahdi" of 1881 and succeeding years, was born about 1848, in Dongola. He studied religion in a village near Khartoum, and then took up his abode on an island in the White Nile, living in a cave or recess in the earth. Here he acquired a reputation for sanctity, assembling many dervishes (holy ​men) about him, and increasing his influence by marrying the daughters of Arab chiefs. In 1881 he proclaimed himself Mahdi, preaching universal equality, law, and religion, community of goods, and a "Holy War" against the Infidels. The oppressed Soudanese flocked to his standard; his emissaries were everywhere busy; his proclamations thrilled the Moslem world; his victories inflicted great loss upon Egypt and upon her British allies. A man of genius and of rare force and fervor, his name will live in the annals of the nineteeth century.
Note 6, page 32.
"In the ecclesiastical history of Nicephorus Callixtus, he has inserted a description of the person of Mary which he declares to have been given by Epiphanius, who lived in the fourth century, and by him derived from a more ancient source. 'She was of middle stature; her face oval; her eyes brilliant and of an olive tint; . . . her complexion fair as wheat.'"
"The Empress Eudocia, when traveling in the Holy Land, sent home a picture of the Virgin holding the Child to her sister-in-law Pulcheria, who placed it in a church at Constantinople. It was at that time regarded as of very high antiquity, and was afterwards attributed to St. Luke. It is certain that a picture, traditionally said to be the same, did exist at Constantinople, and was so much venerated by the people that it was regarded as a sort of palladium, and borne in a superb litter or car in the midst of the imperial host when the emperor led the army in person. This relic is said to have been taken by the Turks in 1453, and dragged through the mire, but others deny this. . . . According to the Venetian legend it was taken by the blind old Dandolo when he besieged and took Constantinople in 1204, and brought in triumph to Venice, where it has ever since been preserved, in the Church of St. Mark."—Mrs. Jameson's "Legends of the Madonna."
Note 7, page 35.
This incident of the Crusade of Richard Cœur de Lion is given in the "Chronicles of the Cistercians."
Note 8, page 56.
Written for the commemoration of the Bi-Centennial Settlement of the State of New Hampshire by the New Hampshire Historical Society, May 22, 1873. "Captain Smith " was Jobn Smith of Pocahontas fame, who sailed along the New England coast in 1614, and discovered the Isles of Shoals. A poor monument to his memory stands upon the highest point of Star Island, one of the group.
Note 9, page 70.
Kearsarge, the mountain which gave its name to the vessel that sunk the Alabama, off Cherbourg, June 19, 1864, is a noble granite peak in Merrimack County, New Hampshire, the twin of Monadnoe, rising alone, three thousand feet above the sea. A lofty mountain in Carroll County, N. H., has also been known as Kearsarge; but the name belonged, from the earliest times, to the Merrimack County peak, and the other is more properly called Pequawket.
Note 10, page 75.
Duston's Island, at the mouth of the Contoocook, just below the village of Penacook in Concord, New Hampshire. This island is some two acres in area, and its name comes from Hannah Duston, who on March 15, 1697, was, with her nurse, carried away by the Indians from Haverhill, Mass., and brought to this island, which was their abode. Here, one midnight, with the help of ​her companion and a captive white boy, all of them having feigned slumber, she dispatched the Indians in their sleep. and made her way, in one of their canoes, down the Merrimack to Haverhill. To her memory, in June, 1874, there was erected on the island an impressive monument of Concord granite, representing her as standing with a tomahawk in hand. The Northern Railroad crosses the island to the west of the statue.
Note 11, page 78.
The history of our Southwestern Border is replete with stories of capture and escape similar to the one here related. The records of that able, humane, and lamented officer, the late General Crook, when he commanded the Department of Arizona, furnish many such incidents. Captain John G. Bourke, U. S. A., has detailed some of them in his brilliant narratives, "An Apache Campaign" (Scribners, New York, 1886)—that memorable campaign when General Crook and his command penetrated to the fastnesses of the Sierra Madre, and surprising the savage Chiricahua Apaches, brought them, humbled, to the San Carlos Agency. Five Mexican women who had been their captives came into the camp, exhausted, ragged, and almost famished—one with a baby in her arms. "'Praise be to the All-Powerful God!' ejaculated one. 'And to the most Holy Sacrament!' echoed her companions. 'Thanks to our Blessed Lady of Guadaloupe!' 'And to the most Holy Mary, Virgin of Soledad, who has taken pity upon us!'"
Note 12, page 174.
The Be-thar-wa-an,—Love Song of the Omaha Indians,—according to Miss Alice Fletcher, is sung at dawn. "The lover leaves his tent while the morning star is shining, and goes to the valley of his maiden. On a ​hill overlooking her tent, among the trees and not far from the stream, he pauses and waits the dawn. As the east flushes and glows, with stream and bird and breeze accompanying, he sings,"—each strain ending with a long, emphatic, imploring note, a veritable cry.
Note 13, page 201.
Baidar Gate is an arch of masonry built as a barrier across the road from Sevastopol to Yalta, at the height of the pass above the Crimean Vale of Baidar. The traveler emerging from it comes suddenly upon the enchanting view of sea and shore.
Note 14, page 202.
Alupka is the superb seaside residence of Prince Worouzoff, on the Crimean shore below Yalta.