Part i. (1681).
EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. Nitetis, the real daughter of Hophra, king of Egypt, and the assumed daughter of Amases, his successor. She was sent to Persia, as the bride of Cambyses, the king, but before their marriage, was falsely accused of infidelity, and committed suicide.--George Ebers, _An Egyptian Princess_.
EGYPTIAN THIEF (_The_), Thyamis, a native of Memphis. Knowing he must die, he tried to kill Chariclea, the woman he loved.
Why should I not, had I the heart to do it, Like to th' Egyptian thief at point of death, Kill what I love? Shakespeare, _Twelth Night_, act v. sc. 1 (1614).
EIGHTH WONDER (_The_). When Gil Blas reached Pennaflor, a parasite entered his room in the inn, hugged him with great energy, and called him the "eighth wonder." When Gil Blas replied that he did not know his name had spread so far, the parasite exclaimed, "How! we keep a register of all the celebrated names within twenty leagues, and have no doubt Spain will one day be as proud of you as Greece was of the seven sages." After this, Gil Blas could do no less than ask the man to sup with him. Omelet after omelet was despatched, trout was called for, bottle followed bottle, and when the parasite was gorged to satiety, he rose and said, "Signor Gil Blas, don't believe yourself to be the eighth wonder of the world because a hungry man would feast by flattering your vanity." So saying, he stalked away with a laugh.--Lesage, _Gil Blas_, i. 2 (1715).
(This incident is copied from Aleman's romance of _Guzman d' Alfarache, q.v._)
EIKON BASIL'IKÊ (4 _syl_.), the portraiture of a king _(i.e._ Charles I.), once attributed to King Charles himself; but now admitted to be the production of Dr. John Gauden, who (after the restoration) was first created Bishop of Exeter, and then of Worcester (1605-1662).
In the _Eikon Basilikê_ a strain of majestic melancholy is kept up, but the personated sovereign is rather too theatrical for real nature, the language is too rhetorical and amplified, the periods too artificially elaborated.--Hallam, _Literature of Europe_, iii. 662.
(Milton wrote his _Eikonoclasêts_ in answer to Dr. Gauden's _Eikon Baslikê_.)
EINER'IAR, the hall of Odin, and asylum of warriors slain in battle. It had 540 gates, each sufficiently wide to admit eight men abreast to pass through.--_Scandinavian Mythology._
EINION (_Father_), Chaplain to Gwenwyn Prince of Powys-land.--Sir W. Scott, _The Betrothed_ (time, Henry II.).
EIROS. Imaginary personage, who in the other world holds converse with "Charmion" upon the tragedy that has wrecked the world. The cause of the ruin was "the extraction of the nitrogen from the atmosphere."
"The whole incumbent mass of ether in which we existed burst at once into a species of intense flame for whose surpassing brilliancy and all fervid heat even the angels in the high Heaven of pure knowledge have no name. Thus ended all."--Edgar Allen Poe, _Conversation of Eiros and Charmion_ (1849).
ELVIR, a Danish maid, who assumes boy's clothing, and waits on Harold "the Dauntless," as his page! Subsequently her sex is discovered, and Harold marries her.--Sir. W. Scott, _Harold the Dauntless_ (1817).
ELAIN, sister of King Arthur by the same mother. She married Sir Nentres of Carlot, and was by King Arthur the mother of Mordred. (See ELEIN)--Sir T. Malory, _History of Prince Arthur_, i. (1470).
EUNICE (_Alias "Nixey_"). A friendless, ignorant girl, who bears an illegitimate child, while almost a child herself. She is taken from the street by a Christian woman and taught true purity and virtue.
In her horror at the discovery of the foulness of the sin, she vows herself to the life of an uncloistered nun. Her death in a thunderstorm is translation rather than dissolution.--Elizabeth Stuart Phelps _Hedged In_ (1870).
EUPHRA'SIA, daughter of Lord Dion, a character resembling "Viola" in Shakespeare's _Twelfth Night_. Being in love with Prince Philaster, she assumes boy's attire, calls herself "Bellario," and enters the prince's service. Philaster transfers Bellario to the Princess Arethusa, and then grows jealous of the lady's love for her tender page. The sex of Bellario being discovered, shows the groundlessness of this jealousy.--Beaumont and Fletcher, _Philaster_ or _Love Lies A-bleeding_ (1608).
_Euphra'sia_, "the Grecian daughter," was daughter of Evander, the old king of Syracuse (dethroned by Dionysius, and kept prisoner in a dungeon on the summit of a rock). She was the wife of Phocion, who had fled from Syracuse to save their infant son. Euphrasia, having gained admission to the dungeon where her aged father was dying from starvation, "fostered him at her breast by the milk designed for her own babe, and thus the father found a parent in the child." When Timoleon took Syracuse, Dionysius was about to stab Evander, but Euphrasia, rushing forward, struck the tyrant dead upon the spot.--A. Murphy, _The Grecian Daughter_ (1772).