Brave VoadicÄa made with her resolvedest menTo Virolam [St. Alban’s], whose siege with fire and sword she plyedTill levelled with the earth ... etc.Drayton,Polyolbion, viii. (1612).
Brave VoadicÄa made with her resolvedest menTo Virolam [St. Alban’s], whose siege with fire and sword she plyedTill levelled with the earth ... etc.Drayton,Polyolbion, viii. (1612).
Brave VoadicÄa made with her resolvedest menTo Virolam [St. Alban’s], whose siege with fire and sword she plyedTill levelled with the earth ... etc.Drayton,Polyolbion, viii. (1612).
Brave VoadicÄa made with her resolvedest men
To Virolam [St. Alban’s], whose siege with fire and sword she plyed
Till levelled with the earth ... etc.
Drayton,Polyolbion, viii. (1612).
Voadine(2syl.), bishop of London, who reproved Vortiger[n] for loving another man’s wife and neglecting his own queen, for which reproof the good bishop was murdered.
... good Voadine, who reprovedProud Vortiger, his king, unlawfully that lovedAnother’s wanton wife, and wronged his nuptial bed,For which by that stern prince unjustly murdered.Drayton,Polyolbion, xxiv. (1622).
... good Voadine, who reprovedProud Vortiger, his king, unlawfully that lovedAnother’s wanton wife, and wronged his nuptial bed,For which by that stern prince unjustly murdered.Drayton,Polyolbion, xxiv. (1622).
... good Voadine, who reprovedProud Vortiger, his king, unlawfully that lovedAnother’s wanton wife, and wronged his nuptial bed,For which by that stern prince unjustly murdered.Drayton,Polyolbion, xxiv. (1622).
... good Voadine, who reproved
Proud Vortiger, his king, unlawfully that loved
Another’s wanton wife, and wronged his nuptial bed,
For which by that stern prince unjustly murdered.
Drayton,Polyolbion, xxiv. (1622).
â‚ This is very like the story of John the Baptist and Herod.
Voice(Human). The following animals possessed both human voice and articulate speech, speaking in the language of their masters:--
Al Borak, the animal which conveyed Mahomet to the seventh heaven. He not only spoke good Arabic, but had also a human face.
Arion, the wonderful horse which Herculés gave to Adrastos. It not only spoke good Greek, but both his near feet were those of a man.
Balaam’s Assspoke Hebrew to Balaam on one occasion.--Numb.xxii.
The Black Pigeons, one of which gave the responses in the temple of Ammon, and the other in DodÅna.--Classic Story.
TheBulbul-Hezar, which had not only human speech, but was oracular also.--Arabian Nights(“The Two Sistersâ€).
Comrade, Fortunio’s horse, spoke with the voice of a man.--Comtesse D’Aunoy,Fairy Tales(“Fortunioâ€).
The littleGreen Birdwhich Fairstar obtained possession of, not only answered in words any questions asked it, but was also prophetic and oracular.--Comtesse D’Aunoy,Fairy Tales(“Cherry and Fairstarâ€).
Katmîr, the dog of the Seven Sleepers, spoke Greek.--Al Korân, xviii.
Säleh’s Camelused to go about crying, in good Arabic, “Ho! every one that wanteth milk, let him come, and I will give it him.â€--Sale,Al Korân, vii. (notes).
TheSerpentwhich tempted Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit.--Gen.iii.
Temliha, the king of serpents, had the gift of human speech.--Comte de Caylus,Oriental Tales(“History of Aboutalebâ€).
Xanthos, one of the horses of Achillês, announced to the hero, in good Greek, his approaching death.--Classic Fable.
Voiture(2syl.), a French poet, idolized by his contemporaries in the reign of Louis XIV., but now only known by name (1598-1648).
E’en rival wits did Voiture’s death deplore,And the gay mourned, who never mourned before;The truest hearts for Voiture heaved with sighs,Voiture was wept by all the brightest eyes.Pope,Epistle to Miss Blount(1715).
E’en rival wits did Voiture’s death deplore,And the gay mourned, who never mourned before;The truest hearts for Voiture heaved with sighs,Voiture was wept by all the brightest eyes.Pope,Epistle to Miss Blount(1715).
E’en rival wits did Voiture’s death deplore,And the gay mourned, who never mourned before;The truest hearts for Voiture heaved with sighs,Voiture was wept by all the brightest eyes.Pope,Epistle to Miss Blount(1715).
E’en rival wits did Voiture’s death deplore,
And the gay mourned, who never mourned before;
The truest hearts for Voiture heaved with sighs,
Voiture was wept by all the brightest eyes.
Pope,Epistle to Miss Blount(1715).
Voland(Squire), the devil. (German,Junker Voland.)
Volan´te(3syl.), one of the three daughters of Balthazar. Lively, witty, sharp as a needle and high-spirited. She loves the Count Montalban; but when the count disguises himself as a father confessor, in order to sound her love for him, she sees the trick in a moment, and says to him, “Come, count, pull off your lion’s hide, and confess yourself an ass.†Subsequently, all ends happily and well.--J. Tobin,The Honeymoon(1804).
Volet´ta, Free-will personified.
Voletta,Whom neither man, nor fiend, nor God constrains.Phineas Fletcher,The Purple Island, vi. (1633).
Voletta,Whom neither man, nor fiend, nor God constrains.Phineas Fletcher,The Purple Island, vi. (1633).
Voletta,Whom neither man, nor fiend, nor God constrains.Phineas Fletcher,The Purple Island, vi. (1633).
Voletta,
Whom neither man, nor fiend, nor God constrains.
Phineas Fletcher,The Purple Island, vi. (1633).
Volksmährchen(“popular talesâ€), in German, the best exponents being Ludwig Tieck (1773-1853), Musäus (1735-1787), De la Motte Fouqué (seeUndine), Chamisso (seeSchlemihl, Peter), Wilhelm Hauff (1802-1827), Achim von Arnim (1781-1831), Clemens Brentano (1777-1842),Zschokke (1771-1848), Hoffmann (1776-1822), Gustav Freytag, “The German Dickens†(1816-1878), and the brothers Grimm.
Vol´pone(2syl.), orThe Fox, a comedy by Ben Jonson (1605). Volpone, a rich Venetian nobleman, without children, feigns to be dying, in order to draw gifts from those who pay court to him under the expectation of becoming his heirs. Mosca, his knavish confederate, persuades each in turn that he is named for the inheritance, and by this means exacts many a costly present. At the end, Volpone is betrayed, his property forfeited, and he is sentenced to lie in the worst hospital in all Venice.
Jonson has three great comedies:Volpone, orThe Fox,Epicene, or The Silent Woman, andThe Alchemist.--R. Chambers,English Literature, i. 192.
Volscius(Prince), a military hero, who falls in love with the fair ParthenÅpê, and disputes with Prince Prettyman upon the superiority of his sweetheart to Cloris, whom Prince Prettyman sighs for.--Duke of Buckingham,The Rehearsal(1671).
Why, this is worse than Prince Volscius in love!--Sir W. Scott.
Oh, be merry, by all means. Prince Volscius in love! Ha, ha, ha!--W. Congreve,The Double Dealer(1694).
Volsunga Saga(The), a collection of tales in verse about the early Teutonic heroes, compiled by Sæmund Sigfusson in the eleventh century. A prose version was made some 200 years later by Snorro Sturleson. This saga forms a part of theRhythmicalRhythmical, orElder Edda, and of theProse, orYounger Edda.
Voltaire(The German), Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1838).
Christoph Martin Wieland is also called “The German Voltaire†(1733-1813).
Voltaire(The Polish), Ignatius Krasicki (1774-1801).
Voltaire(The Russian), Alex P. Sumorokof (1727-1777).
Vol´timand, a courtier in the court of Claudius, king of Denmark.--Shakespeare,Hamlet(1596).
Volumniawas thewifeof Coriolanus, and Vetu´ria hismother; but Shakespeare makes Virgilia the wife, and Volumnia the mother.--Coriolanus(1610).
The old man’s merriment in Menenius; the lofty lady’s dignity in Volumnia; the bridal modesty in Virgilia; the patrician and military haughtiness in Coriolanus; the plebeian malignity and tribunitian insolence in Brutus and Sicinius, make a very pleasing and interesting variety.--Dr. Johnson.
Voluspa Saga(The), the prophecy of Völa. It contains between 200 and 300 verses, and resembles the Sibylline books of ancient Rome. TheVoluspaSaga gives, in verse, a description of chaos, the formation of the world, the creation of all animals (including dwarfs and giants, genii and devils, fairies and goblins), the final conflagration of the world and its renewal, when it will appear in celestial beauty, like the new Jerusalem described in the book of theRevelation.
Vorst(Peterkin), the sleeping sentinel at Powys Castle.--Sir W. Scott,The Betrothed(time, Henry II.).
Vortigern, counsel of the Gewisseans, who crowned Constans, king of Britain, although he was a monk, but treacherously contrived to get him assassinatedafterwards, and then usurped the crown. He married Rowen’a, daughter of Hengist, and was burnt to death in a tower set on fire during a siege by Ambrosius.--Geoffrey,British History, vi. 6; viii. 1 (1142).
Vortigern, a drama put forward by Henry W. Ireland (1796) as a newly discovered play by Shakespeare. It was brought out at Drury Lane Theatre, by John Kemble. Dr. Parr declared it to be his opinion that the play was genuine.
Vortigern and Hengist.The account of the massacre of the Long-Knives, given by Geoffrey, in hisBritish History, vi. 15, differs greatly from that of theWelsh Triads(SeeStonehenge,a Trophy). Geoffrey says that Hengist came over with a large army, at which King Vortigern was alarmed. To allay this suspicion, Hengist promised to send back all the men that the king did not require, and begged Vortigern to meet him in conference at Ambrius (Ambresbury), on May-day. Hengist, in the meantime, secretly armed a number of his soldiers with “long-knives,†and told them to fall on the Britons during the conference, when he uttered the words, “Nemet oure Saxas.†This they did, and 460 “barons and consuls†fell. It does not appear from this narrative that the slaughter was due “to the treachery of Vortigern,†but was wholly the work of Hengist. Geoffrey calls the earl of Gloucester “Eldol,†and not “Eidiol.â€
Vortigern’s Tower, like Penelopê’s web, is a work ever beginning, and never ending. Vortigern was told by his magicians to build a strong tower for his own security; so he commanded his workmen to build one on Mount Erir, but whatever they built one day, was wholly swallowed up by the earth during the night.--Geoffrey,British History, vi. 17 (1142).
Vos non Vobis.The tale is that Virgil wrote an epigram on Augustus Cæsar, which so much pleased the emperor that he desired to know who was the author. As Virgil did not claim the lines, one Bathyllus declared they were his. This displeased Virgil, and he wrote these four words,Sic vos non vobis... four times as the commencement of four lines, and Bathyllus was requested to finish them. This he could not do, but Virgil completed the lines thus:
Sic vos non vobis nidificatis aves;Sic vos non vobis villera fertis oves;Sic vos non vobis mellificatis apes;Sic vos non vobis fertis aratra boves.Not for yourselves your nests ye song-birds build;Not for yourselves ye sheep your fleeces bear;Not for yourselves your hives ye bees have filled;Not for yourselves ye oxen draw the share.
Sic vos non vobis nidificatis aves;Sic vos non vobis villera fertis oves;Sic vos non vobis mellificatis apes;Sic vos non vobis fertis aratra boves.Not for yourselves your nests ye song-birds build;Not for yourselves ye sheep your fleeces bear;Not for yourselves your hives ye bees have filled;Not for yourselves ye oxen draw the share.
Sic vos non vobis nidificatis aves;Sic vos non vobis villera fertis oves;Sic vos non vobis mellificatis apes;Sic vos non vobis fertis aratra boves.
Sic vos non vobis nidificatis aves;
Sic vos non vobis villera fertis oves;
Sic vos non vobis mellificatis apes;
Sic vos non vobis fertis aratra boves.
Not for yourselves your nests ye song-birds build;Not for yourselves ye sheep your fleeces bear;Not for yourselves your hives ye bees have filled;Not for yourselves ye oxen draw the share.
Not for yourselves your nests ye song-birds build;
Not for yourselves ye sheep your fleeces bear;
Not for yourselves your hives ye bees have filled;
Not for yourselves ye oxen draw the share.
Vox et præterea Nihil.A Spartan, pulling a nightingale, and finding only a very small body, exclaimed, φωνὰ Ï„Ï Ï„Î¹Ï‚ á¼ÏƒÏƒÎ¹, καὶ οá½Î´á½²Î½ ἄλλο (“Voice art thou, and nothing moreâ€).--Plutarch,Apophthegmata Laconica.
Vox(Valentine), enterprising ventriloquist, who figures in the novel called by his name.--Henry Cochton (1840).
Vran(Bendigeid,i.e., “Blessedâ€), king of Britain, and father of Caradawc (Caractacus). He was called “Blessed,†because he introduced Christianity into this island. Vran had shared the captivity of his son, and had learned the Christian faith during his seven years’ detention in Rome.
Vran or Bran the Blessed, son of Llyr, first brought the faith of Christ to the nation of the Cymry, from Rome, where he was seven years a hostage for his son, Caradawc, whom the Romans made prisoner, through craft and the treachery of Aregwedd Fôeddawg [Cartismandua]Welsh Triads, xxxv.
Vran’s Caldronrestored to life whoever was put therein, but the revivified never recovered speech. (SeeMedea’s Kettle.)
“I will give thee,†said Bendigeid Vran, “a caldron, the property of which is that if one of thy men be slain to-day, and be cast therein to-morrow, he will be as well as he was at the best, except that he will not regain his speech.â€--The Mabinogion(“Branwen,†etc., twelfth century).
Vrience(King), one of the knights of the Round Table. He married Morgan le Fay, half-sister of King Arthur.--Sir T. Malory,History of Prince Arthur(1470).
Vulcanwas the lawful offspring of Jupiter and Juno, but the former, upon beholding his homely son, kicked him out of heaven.
“From mornTo noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,A summer’s day, and with the setting sunDrop’t from the zenith like a falling starOn Lemnos, the Ægean isle.â€Milton,Paradise Lost, I.
“From mornTo noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,A summer’s day, and with the setting sunDrop’t from the zenith like a falling starOn Lemnos, the Ægean isle.â€Milton,Paradise Lost, I.
“From mornTo noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,A summer’s day, and with the setting sunDrop’t from the zenith like a falling starOn Lemnos, the Ægean isle.â€Milton,Paradise Lost, I.
“From morn
To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,
A summer’s day, and with the setting sun
Drop’t from the zenith like a falling star
On Lemnos, the Ægean isle.â€
Milton,Paradise Lost, I.
His leg was broken, and he remained lame forever after. He was a blacksmith, and employed by the Cyclops to forge their thunderbolts.
Vulcan’s Badge, the badge of cuckoldom. Vulcan was the husband of Venus, with whom Mars intrigued.
We knowBetter than he have worn Vulcan’s badge.Shakespeare,Titus Andronicus, act ii. sc. 1 (1593).
We knowBetter than he have worn Vulcan’s badge.Shakespeare,Titus Andronicus, act ii. sc. 1 (1593).
We knowBetter than he have worn Vulcan’s badge.Shakespeare,Titus Andronicus, act ii. sc. 1 (1593).
We know
Better than he have worn Vulcan’s badge.
Shakespeare,Titus Andronicus, act ii. sc. 1 (1593).
Vulnerable Parts.
Achilleswas vulnerable only in the heel. When his mother, Thetis, dipped him in the river Styx, she held him by the heel, and the water did not touch this part.--A Post-Homeric Story.
Ajax, son of Telamon, could be wounded only behind the neck; some say only in one spot of the breast. As soon as he was born Alcīdês covered him with a lion’s skin, which rendered the whole body invulnerable, except in a part where the skin had been pierced by Herculês.
Antæoswas wholly charmed against death so long as he touched the earth.--Lucan,Pharsalia, iv.
Ferracute(3syl.) was only vulnerable in the navel.--Turpin, Chronicle of Charlemagne.
He is called Ferrau, son of Landfūsa, by Ariosto, in hisOrlando Furioso.
Megissogwonwas only vulnerable at one tuft of hair on his head. A woodpecker revealed the secret to Hiawatha, who struck him there and killed him.--Longfellow,Hiawatha, ix.
Orillowas impervious to death unless one particular hair was cut off; wherefore Astolpho, when he encountered the robber, only sought to cut off this magic hair.--Ariosto,Orlando Furioso.
Orlandowas invulnerable except in the sole of his foot, and even there nothing could injure him except the prick of a pin.--Italian Classic Fable.
Siegfriedwas invulnerable except in one spot between the shoulders, on which a leaf stuck when he dipped his body in the dragon’s blood.--The Nibelungen Lied.
₠The Promethĕan unguent rendered the body proof against fire and wounds of any sort. Medea gave Jason some of this unguent.--Classic Story.
Vulture(The Black), emblem of the ancient Turk, as the crescent is of the modern Ottoman empire.
And that black vulture, which with dreadful wingO’ershadows half the earth, whose dismal sightFrightened the Muses from their native spring,Already stoops, and flags with weary wing.Phineas Fletcher,The Purple Island, vii. (1633).
And that black vulture, which with dreadful wingO’ershadows half the earth, whose dismal sightFrightened the Muses from their native spring,Already stoops, and flags with weary wing.Phineas Fletcher,The Purple Island, vii. (1633).
And that black vulture, which with dreadful wingO’ershadows half the earth, whose dismal sightFrightened the Muses from their native spring,Already stoops, and flags with weary wing.Phineas Fletcher,The Purple Island, vii. (1633).
And that black vulture, which with dreadful wing
O’ershadows half the earth, whose dismal sight
Frightened the Muses from their native spring,
Already stoops, and flags with weary wing.
Phineas Fletcher,The Purple Island, vii. (1633).
Vulture Hopkins.John Hopkins was so called from his rapacious mode of acquiring money. He was the architect of his own fortune, and died worth £300,000 (in 1732).
â‚ Pope refers to John Hopkins in the lines:
When Hopkins dies, a thousand lights attendThe wretch who, living, saved a candle end.
When Hopkins dies, a thousand lights attendThe wretch who, living, saved a candle end.
When Hopkins dies, a thousand lights attendThe wretch who, living, saved a candle end.
When Hopkins dies, a thousand lights attend
The wretch who, living, saved a candle end.