What shall I do to be forever known,
And make the age to come my own?
Who fears not to do ill yet fears the name,
And free from conscience, is a slave to fame.
The Duke of Wellington brought to the post
of first minister immortal fame; a quality of
success which would almost seem to include all
others.
Fame then was cheap, and the first courier sped;
And they have kept it since, by being dead.
'Tis a petty kind of fame
At best, that comes of making violins;
And saves no masses, either. Thou wilt go
To purgatory none the less.
Fame is the echo of actions, resounding them
to the world, save that the echo repeats only the
last part, but fame relates all, and often more
than all.
From kings to cobblers 'tis the same;
Bad servants wound their masters' fame.
Der rasche Kampf verewigt einen Mann,
Er falle gleich, so preiset ihn das Lied.
Rash combat oft immortalizes man. If he should fall, he is renowned in song.
The temple of fame stands upon the grave:
the flame that burns upon its altars is kindled
from the ashes of dead men.
Thou hast, a charmed cup, O Fame!
A draught that mantles high,
And seems to lift this earthly frame
Above mortality.
Away! to me—a woman—bring
Sweet water from affection's spring.
If that thy fame with ev'ry toy be pos'd,
'Tis a thin web, which poysonous fancies make;
But the great souldier's honour was compos'd
Of thicker stuf, which would endure a shake.
Wisdom picks friends; civility plays the rest;
A toy shunn'd cleanly passeth with the best.
Short is my date, but deathless my renown.
The rest were vulgar deaths unknown to fame.
The life, which others pay, let us bestow,
And give to fame what we to nature owe.
Earth sounds my wisdom, and high heaven my fame.
But sure the eye of time beholds no name,
So blest as thine in all the rolls of fame.
Where's Caesar gone now, in command high and able?
Or Xerxes the splendid, complete in his table?
Or Tully, with powers of eloquence ample?
Or Aristotle, of genius the highest example?
Fame has no necessary conjunction with praise: it may exist without the breath of a word: it is a recognition of excellence which must be felt but need not be spoken. Even the envious must feel it: feel it, and hate it in silence.
Reputation being essentially contemporaneous, is always at the mercy of the Envious and the Ignorant. But Fame, whose very birth is posthumous, and which is only known to exist by the echo of its footsteps through congenial minds, can neither be increased nor diminished by any degree of wilfulness.
Miserum est aliorum incumbere famse.
It is a wretched thing to live on the fame of others.
"Let us now praise famous men"—
Men of little showing—
For their work continueth,
And their work continueth,
Greater than their knowing.
Fame comes only when deserved, and then is as inevitable as destiny, for it is destiny.
Building nests in Fame's great temple,
As in spouts the swallows build.
His fame was great in all the land.
Nolo virum facili redirnit qui sanguine famam;
Hunc volo laudari qui sine morte potest.
I do not like the man who squanders life for fame; give me the man who living makes a name.
