Chapter Custance to Czar of C by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Cynetha and his son Cadwallon accompanied Madoc to North America, where the blind old man died, while Madoc was in Wales preparing for his second voyage.—Southey: Madoc, i. 3 (1805).

Cadwallonis erat primævus jure Cynetha:
Proh pudor! hunc oculis patruus privavit Oenus.
   —The Pentarchia.

Cynic Tub (The), Diogenês, who lived in a tub, and was a cynic philosopher.

[They] fetch their doctrines from the Cynic tub.
   —Milton: Comus, 708 (1634).

Cynisca, wife of Pygmalion, very beautiful, and his model in statuary.—Gilbert: Pygmalion and Galatëa (1871).

Cynosure , the pole-star. The word means “the dog’s tail,” and is used to signify a guiding genius, or the observed of all observers. Cynosura was an Idæan nymph, one of the nurses of Zeus .

Some gentle taper,
Tho’a rush candle, from the wicker hole
Of some clay habitation, visit us
With thy long levelled rule of streaming light,
And thou shalt be our star of Arcady,
Or Tyrian cynosure.
   —Milton: Comus (1634).

Where perhaps some beauty lies,
The cynosure of neighbouring eyes.
   —Milton: L’Allegro.

Cynthia, the moon or Diana, who was born on mount Cynthus, in Dêlos. Apollo is called “Cynthius.”

… watching, in the night,
Beneath pale Cynthia’s melancholy light.
   —Falconer: The Shipwreck, iii. 2 (1756).

Cynthia. So Spenser, in Colin Clout’s Come Home Again, calls queen Elizabeth, “whose angel’s eye” was his life’s sole bliss, his heart’s eternal treasure. Ph. Fletcher, in The Purple Island, iii., also calls queen Elizabeth “Cynthia.”

Her words were like a stream of honey fleeting …
Her deeds were like great clusters of ripe grapes …
Her looks were like beams of the morning sun
Forth looking thro’ the windows of the east …
Her thoughts were like the fumes of frankincense
Which from a golden censer forth doth rise.
   —Spenser: Colin Clout’s Come Home Again (1591).

Cynthia, d aughter of sir Paul Pliant, the daughter-in-law of lady Pliant. She is in love with Mellefont . Sir Paul calls her “Thy.”—Congreve: The Double Dealer (1694),

Cyprian (A), a woman of loose morals; so called from the island Cyprus, a chief seat of the worship of Venus or Cypria.

Cyprian (Brother), a Dominican monk at the monastery of Holyrood.—Sir W. Scott: Fair Maid of Perth (time, Henry IV.).

Cyrenaic Shell (The), the lyre or strain of Callimachos, a Greek poet of Alexandria, in Egypt. Six of his hymns in hexameter verse are still extant.

For you the Cyrenaic shell
Behold I touch revering.
   —Akenside: Hymn to the Naiads.

Cyric (St.), the saint to whom sailors address themselves. The St. Elmo of the Welsh.

The weary mariners
Called on St. Cyric’s aid.
   —Southey: Madoc, i. 4 (1805).

Cyrus and Tomyris. Cyrus, after subduing the eastern parts of Asia, was defeated by Tomyris queen of the Massag etæ, in Scythia. Tomyris cut off his head, and threw it into a vessel filled with human blood, saying, as she did so, “There, drink thy fill.” Dante refers to this incident in his Purgatory, xii.

Consyder Cyrus …
He whose huge power no man might overthrowe,
Tomyris queen with great despite hath