Part 208

=Uther= (_ū´ther_).--Son of Constans, one of the fabulous or legendary kings of Britain, and the father of Arthur.

=Utopia= (_ū-tö´pi-ä_).--The name of an imaginary island described in the celebrated work of Sir Thomas More, in which was found the utmost perfection in laws, politics, and social arrangements. More’s romance obtained a wide popularity, and the epithet _Utopian_ has since been applied to schemes for the improvement of society which are deemed not practicable.

=Uzziel.=--In _Paradise Lost_, the next in command to Gabriel. The word means “God’s strength.”

=V=

=Valentine= (_val´en-tīn_).--(1) One of the heroes in the old romance of _Valentine and Orson_. (2) One of the _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, by Shakespeare. (3) A gentleman attending on the duke in Shakespeare’s _Twelfth Night_. (4) One of the characters in Goethe’s _Faust_. He is a brother of Margaret.

=Valerian= (_va-lē´ri-an_).--_Canterbury Tales_, Chaucer. The husband of St. Cecilia. Cecilia told him she was beloved by an angel, who constantly visited her; and Valerian requested to see this visitant. Cecilia replied that he could do so if he went to Pope Urban to be baptized. This he did, and on returning home the angel gave him a crown of lilies, and to Cecilia a crown of roses, both from the garden of paradise.

=Valley of Humiliation.=--_Pilgrim’s Progress_, Bunyan. The place where Christian encountered Apollyon, just before he came to the “Valley of the Shadow of Death.”

=Vanity Fair.=--A novel without a hero, by Thackeray. “There are scenes of all sorts,” says the author in his preface to the work, “some dreadful combats, some grand and lofty horse-riding, some scenes of high life and some of very middling indeed, some love making for the sentimental, and some light comic business; the whole accompanied by appropriate scenery, and brilliantly illuminated by the author’s own candle.”

=Vathek= (_vath´ek_).--By Beckford. Originally written in French. “It was composed,” says the author, “at twenty-two years of age. It took me three days and two nights of hard labor. I never took off my clothes the whole time.” The description of the Hall of Eblis, which is often quoted, was taken, it appears, from the old hall at Fonthill, Beckford’s residence, probably the largest in any private house in England. “It was from that hall I worked, magnifying and coloring it with Eastern character. All the female characters were portraits drawn from the domestic establishment of old Fonthill, their good or evil qualities ideally exaggerated to suit my purpose.” _Vathek_ was translated into English, it is not known by whom, immediately on its appearance. “It was one of the tales,” says Byron, “I had a very early admiration of. For correctness of costume, beauty of description, and power of imagination, it far surpasses all European imitations, and bears such marks of originality that those who have visited the East will find some difficulty in believing it to be more than a translation.”

=Veck, Toby.=--_The Chimes_, Dickens. A ticket-porter who went on errands and bore the nickname Trotty. One New Year’s eve he had a nightmare and fancied he had mounted to the steeple of a neighboring church, and that goblins issued out of the bells. He was roused from his sleep by the sound of the bells ringing in the new year.

=Veiled Prophet.=--_Lalla Rookh_, Moore. He assumed to be a god, and maintained that he had been Adam, Noah, and other representative men. Having lost an eye, and being otherwise disfigured in battle, he wore a veil to conceal his face, but his followers said it was done to screen his dazzling brightness.

=Vernon, Di=, or =Diana=.--_Rob Roy_, Scott. The heroine of the story, a high-born girl of great beauty and talents. She is an enthusiastic adherent to a persecuted religion and an exiled king.

=Vicar of Wakefield.=--A novel by Goldsmith. The hero is Dr. Primrose, a simple-minded, pious clergyman, with six children. He begins life with a good fortune, a handsome house, and wealthy friends, but is reduced to poverty without any fault of his own, and, being reduced like Job, like Job he is restored.

=Vincentio= (_vin-sen´shiō_).--The duke of Vienna in Shakespeare’s _Measure for Measure_. He commits his scepter to Angelo, under the pretext of being called to take an urgent and distant journey, and by exchanging the royal purple for a monk’s hood, observes incognito the condition of his people.

=Vincy= (_vin´si_), =Rosamond.=--One of the principal female characters in George Eliot’s novel _Middlemarch_.

=Viola.= (_vi´ō-lä_)--_Twelfth Night_, Shakespeare. A sister of Sebastian. They were twins, and so much alike that they could be distinguished only by their dress. When they were shipwrecked Viola was brought to shore by the captain, but her brother was left to shift for himself. Being in a strange land, Viola dressed as a page, and, under the name of Cesario, entered the service of Orsino, duke of Illyria. The duke greatly liked his beautiful page, and, when he discovered her true sex, married her.

=Violenta.=--_All’s Well That Ends Well_, Shakespeare. A character in the play who enters upon the scene only once, and then she neither speaks nor is spoken to. The name has been used to designate any young lady nonentity; one who contributes nothing to the amusement or conversation of a party.

=Virgilia= (_ver-jil´i-ä_).--In Shakespeare’s _Coriolanus_, was the wife of Coriolanus, and Volumnia his mother; but historically Volumnia was his wife and Veturia his mother.

=Virginia= (_ver-jin´i-ä_).--A young Roman plebeian of great beauty, decoyed by Appius Claudius, one of the decemvirs, and claimed as his slave. Her father, Virginius, being told of it, hastened to the forum, and arrived at the moment when Virginia was about to be delivered up to Appius. He seized a butcher’s knife, stabbed his daughter to the heart, rushed from the forum, and raised a revolt. This has been the subject of a host of tragedies. It is one of Lord Macauley’s lays (1842), supposed to be sung in the forum on the day when Sextus and Licinius were elected tribunes for the fifth time.

=Vivian= (_viv´i-an_), or =Viviane=, or =Vivien=.--In the Arthurian cycle of romance, an enchantress, the mistress of Merlin. She brought up Lancelot in her palace, which was situated in the midst of a magical lake; hence her name “the Lady of the Lake.”

=Volpone= (_vol-pō´ne_), or the _Fox_.--A comedy by Ben Jonson, written in 1605. Hazlitt calls it his best play; prolix and improbable, but intense and powerful. It seems formed on the model of Plautus in unity of plot and interest. The principal character is represented as a wealthy sensualist, who tests the character of his friends and kinsmen by a variety of strategems, obtains from them a large addition to his riches by the success of his impostures, and finally falls under the vengeance of the law. “_Volpone_,” says Campbell, “is not, like the common misers of comedy, a mere money-loving dotard, a hard, shriveled old mummy, with no other spice than his avarice to preserve him--he is a happy villain, a jolly misanthrope, a little god in his own selfishness; and Mosca is his priest and prophet. Vigorous and healthy, though past the prime of life, he hugs himself in his harsh humor, his successful knavery and imposture, his sensuality and his wealth, with an unhallowed relish of selfish existence.”

=W=

=Wallenstein= (_väl´len-stīn_).--A trilogy by Schiller, comprising _Wallenstein’s Lager_, _Die Piccolomini_, and _Wallenstein’s Tod_. Schiller conceives his hero in these dramas as the type of the practical realist, serious, solitary, and reserved.

=Wandering Jew, The=--(F. _Le Juif Errant_).--A novel by Eugene Sue. The chief character is an imaginary person in a legend connected with the history of Christ’s passion. As the Savior was on the way to the place of execution, overcome with the weight of the cross, he wished to rest on a stone before the house of a Jew, who drove him away with curses. Driven by fear and remorse, he has since wandered, according to the command of the Lord, from place to place, and has never yet been able to find a grave.

=War and Peace.=--An historical novel by Tolstoi, published 1865-1868. The scene is laid in the time of the Czar Alexander I., and the novel is a picture of Russian society during the Russo-French wars.

=Waverley= (_wā´ver-li_) =Novels.=--General name given to Scott’s historical novels.

=Wayside Inn, Tales of a.=--Poems in various meters by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The first series includes a Prelude (_The Wayside Inn_), the Landlord’s Tale (_Paul Revere’s Ride_), the Student’s Tale (_The Falcon of Ser Federigo_), the Spanish Jew’s Tale (_The Legend of Rabbi Ben Levi_), the Sicilian’s Tale (_King Robert of Sicily_), the Musician’s Tale (_The Saga of King Olaf_), the Theologian’s Tale (_Torquemada_), the Poet’s Tale (_The Birds of Killingworth_), several Interludes, and Finale.

=Weller= (_wel´er_), =Sam.=--In Dickens’ celebrated _Pickwick Papers_. A servant to Mr. Pickwick, to whom he becomes devotedly attached. Rather than leave his master when he is sent to the Fleet, Sam Weller gets his father to arrest him for debt. He is an inimitable compound of wit, simplicity, quaint humor, and fidelity. Tony Weller, father of Sam; a coachman of the old school, who drives between London and Dorking. On the coachbox he is a king, elsewhere a mere London “cabby.” He marries a widow, and his constant advice to his son is, “Sam, beware of the vidders.”

=Westward Ho!=--A novel by Charles Kingsley, the scene of which is laid in “the spacious times of great Elizabeth,” when the safety of England was threatened by the Spanish armada. Several historical personages figure in the story, such as Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Richard Grenville, Admiral Hawkins, and Sir Francis Drake; and the narrative carries the reader from Bideford to London, and from thence to Ireland, to the Spanish main, and the South American continent, back again to Bideford and Plymouth, whence the hero, Amyas Leigh, sails to take part in the famous sea-fight.

=Wild= (_wīld_), =Jonathan.=--A cool, calculating, heartless villain, with the voice of a Stentor, hero of Defoe’s romance of the same name.

=Wilford.=--(1) In Knowles’ _The Hunchback_, supposed to be earl of Rochdale. (2) In Knowles’ _The Beggar of Bethnal Green_, the truant son of Lord Woodville, who fell in love with Bess, the daughter of the “blind beggar of Bethnal Green.”

=Wilhelm Meister= (_vil´helm mīs´ter_).--Title of a philosophic novel by Goethe. The object is to show that man, despite his errors and shortcomings, is led by a guiding hand, and reaches some higher aim at last. This is considered to be the first true German novel.

=Wimble= (_wim´bl_), =Will.=--A member of the fictitious _Spectator Club_, said to be intended as a portrait of a Mr. Thomas Morecroft, a gentleman of simple habits and good nature.

=Winter’s Tale, The.=--A play by Shakespeare. Leontês, King of Sicily, invites his friend Polixenês to visit him, becomes jealous, and commands Camillo to poison him. Camillo warns Polixenês, and flees with him to Bohemia. Leontês casts his queen, Hermionê, into prison, where she gives birth to a daughter. Hermoinê is reported dead and the child is brought up by a shepherd, who calls it Perdita. Florizel sees Perdita and falls in love with her; but Polixenês, his father, tells her that she and the shepherd shall be put to death if she encourages the suit. Florizel and Perdita flee to Sicily, and being introduced to Leontês, it is soon discovered that Perdita is his lost daughter. Polixenês tracks his son to Sicily, and consents to the union. The party are invited to inspect a statue of Hermoinê, and the statue turns out to be the living queen.

=Worldly-Wiseman, Mr.=--One of the characters in Bunyan’s _Pilgrim’s Progress_, who converses with Christian by the way, and endeavors to deter him from proceeding on his journey.

=Wrayburn= (_rā´bern_) =Eugene.=--_Our Mutual Friend_, Dickens. Barrister-at-law; an indolent, moody, whimsical young man, who loves Lizzie Hexam. After he is nearly killed by Bradley Headstone, he reforms and marries Lizzie, who saved his life.

=Y=

=Yahoo= (_yȧ-hö´_).--A name given by Swift, in his satirical romance of _Gulliver’s Travels_, to one of a race of brutes having the form and all the vices of man. The Yahoos are represented as being subject to the Houyhnhnms, or horses endowed with reason.

=Yorick= (_yor´ik_).--(1) The King of Denmark’s jester, mentioned in Shakespeare’s _Hamlet_. Hamlet picks up his skull in the churchyard and apostrophizes it. (2) A humorous and careless parson in Sterne’s _Tristram Shandy_.

=Z=

=Zadig.=--The title of a novel by Voltaire. Zadig is a wealthy young Babylonian, and the object of the novel is to show that the events of life are beyond human control.

=Zanoni= (_za-nō´ni_).--Hero of a novel, so-called, by Lord Lytton. Zanoni is supposed to possess the power of communicating with spirits, prolonging life, and producing gold, silver, and precious stones.

=Zara= (_zä´rä_; French, _zaire_), a tragedy by Voltaire. Zara is the daughter of Lusignan d’Outremer, king of Jerusalem and brother of Nerestan. For twenty years Lusignan and his two children were captives at the court of the sultan Osman. The latter loves Zara, and was jealous of Nerestan, of whose relationship he was ignorant, and stabbed her to the heart. Nerestan being brought before the sultan, told him he had slain his sister. Osman then stabbed himself out of remorse.

=Zenobia= (_ze-nō´bi-ä_).--_Blithedale Romance_, Hawthorne. A strong-minded woman, beautiful and intelligent, who was interested in playing out the pastoral of the life at Brook Farm. She is represented as disappointed in love, and at last she drowned herself.

=Zephon.=--A “strong and subtle spirit” in Milton’s _Paradise Lost_, whom Gabriel dispatched with Ithuriel to find Satan.

=Zillah.=--One of Southey’s characters, beloved by Hamuel, a brutish sot. Zillah rejected his suit, and Hamuel vowed vengeance. Accordingly, he gave out that Zillah had intercourse with the devil, and she was condemned to be burnt alive. God averted the flames, which consumed Hamuel; but Zillah stood unharmed, and the stake to which she was bound threw forth white roses, “the first ever seen on earth since paradise was lost.”

=Zimri= (_zim´ri_).--In Dryden’s _Absalom and Achitophel_, is intended for George Villiers, duke of Buckingham, who had satirized Dryden in _The Rehearsal_ as Bayes.

=Zophiel= (_zō´fi-el_).--In Milton’s _Paradise Lost_, an angelic scout.

=Zuleika= (_zū-lē´kä_).--The heroine in Byron’s poem of _The Bride of Abydos_, in love with Selim:

“Fair, as the first that fell of womankind... Soft, as the memory of buried love; Pure, as the prayer which childhood wafts above: Such was Zuleika--such around her shone The nameless charms unmark’d by her alone: The light of love, the purity of grace, The mind, the music breathing from her face, The heart whose softness harmonized the whole-- And, oh! that eye was in itself a soul!”

GODS, HEROES AND MYTHICAL WONDER TALES

A myth is a story told about gods or heroes. Mythology is a term applied to the collected myths of a nation or people, sometimes to the scientific study of myths. The first to busy itself in a large sense with mythology was the Greeks, whose myths had the most luxuriant and fanciful development. When the Romans received the arts and sciences from the Greeks, they adopted also their gods and their entire religious system. Thus it was that the Greek and Roman mythologies were to a great extent the same.

THE IMPORTANCE OF MYTHOLOGY IN EDUCATION

On account of their great beauty and universal interest, myths were made the themes of poets, priests, artists and commentators alike. Not only were the myths the inspiration of classical literature, art and religion, but they kept their place in later civilizations, and mythological allusions are so frequent in our own literature that an acquaintance with classic fable is a necessary part of modern education.

HOW THE MYTHS ORIGINATED

A large proportion of these myths are due to men’s observations of Nature, and her various active and creative forces, which appeared to their lively Southern fancy as manifestations of single supernatural beings. These were regarded now as friendly, now as hostile, to man; and men therefore strove as eagerly to gain their favor as to appease their wrath. Of the appearance of the deities who thus manifested themselves in the workings of nature, men necessarily formed at first very crude and fantastic ideas. But later, when men emerged from the simple conditions of the early patriarchal epoch, and began to dwell in regular political communities, they gradually ceased to regard the gods as mere personifications of natural forces. They began to regard them as beings acting in accordance with unchangeable moral laws, and endowed with forms similar to those of men. They brought the gods into connection with each other by means of genealogies in a great measure artificial, and built up a vast political system, which has its center in Zeus, or Jupiter, the “father of gods and men.” (See Chart on following pages.)

HOW THE GODS RESEMBLE MORTALS

The ancient Greeks believed their gods to be of the same shape and form as themselves, but of far greater beauty, strength, and dignity. They also regarded them as being of much larger size than men; for in those times great size was esteemed a perfection, supposed to be an attribute of divinities, to whom they ascribed all perfections. A fluid named ichor supplied the place of blood in the veins of the gods. They were immortal, but they might be wounded or otherwise injured. They could make themselves visible or invisible to men, and assume the forms of men or of animals. Like men they stood in daily need of food and sleep. The meat of the gods was called ambrosia, their drink nectar. The gods, when they came among men, often partook of their food and hospitality.

Like mankind, the gods were divided into two sexes; namely, gods and goddesses. They married and had children. Often a god became enamored of a mortal woman, or a goddess was smitten with the charms of a handsome youth, and these love tales form a large portion of Grecian mythology.

To make the resemblance between gods and men more complete, the Greeks ascribed to their deities all human passions, both good and evil. They were capable of love, friendship, gratitude, and all affections; on the other hand, they were frequently envious, jealous, and revengeful. They were particularly careful to exact all due respect and attention from mankind, whom they required to honor them with temples, prayers, costly sacrifices, splendid processions, and rich gifts; and they severely punished insult or neglect.

HOW AND WHERE THE GODS LIVED

If we look to the employment of the gods, we find that it consists chiefly in pleasant idleness; though they endeavor, like the rich among mankind, to make time fly by indulging in their favorite pastimes. They take their meals in common, and assemble for this purpose in the palace of Zeus, on the windy heights of Olympus. There they refresh themselves, while Hebe ministers to their wants, listening to the strains of Apollo’s lute, and to the songs of the sweet-voiced Muses, and entertaining themselves with pleasant conversation. Not always, indeed, is the company so peaceful and pleasant. At times these great gods quarrel finely; nay, even small conspiracies arise to interrupt the uniformity of their existence, such as that of Hera, Poseidon, and Athene against Zeus during the Trojan war, which is related in the fifteenth book of the “Iliad.”

RELATIONSHIP AND DOMINION OF THE GODS

Lastly, that no point in their resemblance to mankind may be omitted, all the different deities are united in one great family, of which Zeus, or Jupiter, the father of men and the ruler of the gods, is the head and center. Zeus has, however, a special dominion over the celestial deities only, those of the sea and waters being subjected to Neptune or Poseidon, and those of the lower world to Hades, or Pluto.

A PRONOUNCING DICTIONARY OF MYTHOLOGY

KEY TO PRONUNCIATION

The long (marked) vowels are pronounced as in the following words; _fāte_, _fāre_, _far_; _mē_; _mīne_; _mōte_; _mūte_. The short vowels, which include all not marked as above, are pronounced as in the following words: _pat_; _pet_; _pit_; _pot_; _put_. The accented syllable in each word is indicated by a mark placed immediately after it. (_q.v._), _quod vide_ (L)--which see.

=A=

=Abaris= (_ab´a-ris_).--A mythical personage who is said to have taken no earthly food, and to have ridden on an arrow--the gift of Apollo, whose priest he was--through the air.

=Absyrtus= (_ab-sir´tus_).--A son of Æetes, king of Colchis, sister of Medea. (See “Medea.”)

=Acamas= (_ak´a-mās_).--(_i_) Son of Theseus and Phædra; went with Diomedes to Troy to recover Helen.

=Acantha= (_ak-an´tha_).--A nymph beloved by Apollo and changed into the acanthus.

=Acca Laurentia= (_ak´ka law-ren´shi-a_).--The nurse of Romulus and Remus, after they had been taken from the she-wolf. (See “Romulus.”)

=Achates= (_a-kā´tēz_).--A friend of Æneas--“_fidus Achates_” famous for his fidelity.

=Acheloiades= (_a-ke-lō´i-a-dẽz_).--The Sirens, so called because they were the daughters of Achelous.

=Achelous= (_ak-el´ō-us_).--The river-god was the son of Oceanus and Tethys, and the eldest of three thousand brothers. He and Hercules both loved Deianira, and fought for the possession of her. Hercules conquered him, when he took the form of a bull, but was defeated again and deprived by Hercules of one of his horns. Achelous, who was looked upon as the representative of all fresh water, was considered a great divinity throughout Greece.

=Acheron= (_ak´er-ōn_).--Generally signifies the whole of the lower world. Properly, it is the river of the lower world, around which the shades of the departed hover, and into which the Cocytus and Pyriphlegethon flow. There are other rivers also named Acheron.