Chapter Chyndonax to Cipango of C by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Cinderella, the heroine of a fairy tale. She was the drudge of the house, “put upon” by her two elder sisters. While the elder sisters were at a ball, a fairy came, and having arrayed the “little cinder-girl” in ball costume, sent her in a magnificent coach to the palace where the ball was given. The prince fell in love with her, but knew not who she was. This, however, he discovered by means of a “glass slipper” which she dropped, and which fitted no foot but her own.

This tale is substantially the same as that of Rhodopis and Psammitichus in Ælian (Var. Hist., xiii. 32). A similar one is also told in Strabo (Georg. xvii.). It is known all over Italy.

(The glass slipper should be the fur slipper, pantoufle en vair, not en verre; our version being taken from the Contes de Fees of C. Perrault, 1697.)

Thou wilt find My fortunes all as fair as hers who lay Among the ashes, and wedded a king’s son.
   —Tennyson: Gareth and Lynette, p. 76.

The v ariant of this tale as told of Rhodope, about B.C. 670, is this: Rhodopê was bathing, when an eagle pounced on one of her slippers and carried it of f, but dropped it at Memphis, where king Psammeticus was, at the time, holding a court of justice. Struck with the beauty and diminutive size of the shoe, he sent forth a proclamation for the owner. In due time Rhodopê was discovered, and, being brought before the king, he married her.—Strabo and Ælian.

Cinna, a tragedy by Pierre Corneille (1637). Mdlle. Rachel, in 1838, took the chief female character, and produced a great sensation in Paris.

Cinq-Mars (H. Coiffier de Ruze, marquis de), favourite of Louis XIII. and protégé of Richelieu (1620–1642). Irritated by the cardinal’s opposition to his marriage with Marie de Gonzague, Cinq-Mars tried to overthrow or to assassinate him. Gaston, the king’s brother, sided with the conspirator, but Richelieu discovered the plot; and Cinq-Mars, being arrested, was condemned to death. Alfred de Vigny published, in 1826, a novel (in imitation of Scott’s historical novels) on the subject, under the title of Cinq-Mars.

Cinquecento , the five-hundred epoch of Italian notables. They were Ariosto (1474–1533), Tasso (1544–1595), and Giovanni Rucellai (1475–1526), poets; Raphael (1483–1520), Titian (1480–1576), and Michael Angelo (1474–1564), painters. These, with Machiavelli, Luigi Alamanni, Bernardo Baldi, etc., make up what is termed the “Cinquecentesti.” The word means the worthies of the ’500 epoch, and it will be observed that they all flourished between 1500 and the close of that century. (See Seicenta.)

Ouidà writes in winter mornings at a Venetian writing-table of cinquecento work that would enrapture the souls of the virtuosi who haunt Christie’s—E. Yates: Celebrities, xix.

Cipango or Zipango, a marvellous island described in the Voyages of Marco Polo, the Venetian traveller. He described it as lying some 1500 miles from land. This island was an object of diligent search with Columbus and other early navigators; but it belongs to that wonderful chart which contains the El Dorado of sir Walter Raleigh, the Utopia of sir Thomas More, the Atlantis of lord Bacon, the Laputa of dean Swift, and other places better known in story than in geography.