Folklore & Mythology Figure
Documented in Fuller’s letters, books, manuscripts
This page brings together documented engagements currently identified within the Fuller Reading Worlds catalog.
“Hercules I fancy when in the fire which so pleased his father Jove, could not have touched the cup, though filled with nectar by Hebe his bride.”
L-2 [Letter 295, 24 January 1841, To Caroline Sturgis]
“Tantalus-like, he makes this world a Tartarus, or, like Hercules, rises in fires to heaven [...] Thoas urges his suit undismayed by the fate that hangs over the race of Tantalus.”
Fuller, Margaret. Life Without and Life Within; or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and Poems. Edited by Arthur B. Fuller. Boston: Brown, Taggard and Chase, 1860. · p29-54
Inferred Identification rationale not yet recorded.
“cease to love so well, and any Hercules will spin among thy maids, if thou wilt.”
B-3-05 Chapter V
“Siquis tam^n, Hercule, siquis / Forte Deo doliturus erit, data prsemia nollet, / Sed meruisse dari sciet, invitus que probabit, / Assensere Dei.”
“Other heroes since Hercules have fulfilled the zodiac of beneficent labors, and then given up their mortal part to the fire without a murmur while no God dared deny that they should have their reward”
Inferred Identification rationale not yet recorded.
“Hercules wished rather to rest with Dejanira, and received the poisoned robe, as a fit guerdon.”
Inferred Fuller alludes to the myth of Hercules (Heracles) choosing the weaker Deianeira over the Amazons, and receiving the poisoned robe (the Shirt of Nessus) as his punishment.
“Macaria is more like one of Massinger's women...”
Inferred Appendix G: Macaria's speech from The Heraclidae (Children of Hercules) — 'Macaria has the clear Minerva eye.'. Macaria (daughter of Hercules) is from Euripides' Heraclidae. Extended quotation of her self-sacrifice speech.
Fuller, Margaret. Woman in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Greeley & McElrath, 1845.
Undated
Pieces with no legible date. They are part of the record but cannot be placed on the lifeline.
“in the figures on antique gems and bas-reliefs of meetings between the gods, it is yours I find, by far they present me another with the fall flower of being rather than grow together.”
Fuller, Margaret. "On Friendship." Unbound pages, undated. Boston Public Library Archives & Special Collections; MS Am. 1450; Box: 2, Folder: 96.
“If I had fineness of instinct it might be ex pede Hercules, but with me a great deal of comparison and analysis is needed to give the dignity of certainty.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. VI. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988.
Inferred Fuller uses the Latin phrase "ex pede Hercules" (from the foot, one measures Hercules), a classical commonplace meaning that from one part the whole can be inferred.