Chapter Harold to Hartley of H by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Harold to Hartley

Harold, an historical romance containing an account of the battle of Hastings, where this last of the Saxon kings was slain, and William the Norman succeeded to the crown of England.— Lord Lytton (1850).

Tennyson wrote a dramatic poem on the same subject (1850).

Harold Transome, son of Mrs. Transome and Matthew Jermyn the lawyer; he was in love with Esther Lyon, but his love was not reciprocated.— George Eliot (Mrs. J. W. Cross): Felix Holt, the Radical (1866).

Haroun-al-Raschid, caliph, of the Abbasside race, contemporary with Charlemagne, and, like him, a patron of literature and the arts. The court of this caliph was most splendid, and under him the caliphate attained its greatest degree of prosperity (765–809).

Many of the tales in the Arabian Nights are placed in the caliphate of Haroun-al-Raschid, as the histories of “Aminê,” “Sinbad the Sailor,” “Aboulhasson and Shemselnihar,” “Noureddin,” “Codadad and his Brothers,” “Sleeper Awakened,” and “Cogia Hassan.” In the third of these the caliph is a principal actor.

Harpagon, the m iser, father of Cléante and Elise. Both Harpagon and his son desire to marry Mariane; but the father, having lost a casket of money, is asked which he prefers—his casket or Mariane, and as the miser prefers the money, Cléante marries the lady. Harpagon imagines that every one is going to rob him, and when he loses his casket, seizes his own arm in the frenzy of passion. He proposes to give his daughter in marriage to an old man named Anselme, because no “dot” will be required; and when Valère (who is Elise’s lover) urges reason after reason against the unnatural alliance, the miser makes but one reply, “sans dot.” “Ah,” says Valère, “il est vrai, cela ferme la bouche à tout, sans dot.” Harpagon, at another time, solicits Jacques . to tell him what folks say of him; and when Jacques replies he cannot do so, as it would make him angry, the miser answers, “Point de tout, au contraire, c’est me faire plaisir.” But when told that he is called a miser and a skinflint, he towers with rage, and beats Jacques in his uncontrolled passion.

‘Le seigneur Harpagon est de tous les humains I humain le moins humain, le mortel de tous les mortels le plus dur et le plus serré” (ii.5). Jacques says to him, “Jamais on ne parle de vous que sous les noms d’avare, de ladre, de vilain, et de fesse-Matthiæ” (iii. 5).—Molière: L’Avare (1667).

Harpalus, in Spenser’s Colin Clout’s Come Home Again, is said to be meant for the earl of Dorset (1595).

Harpax, centurion of the “Immortal Guard.”—Sir W. Scott: Count Robert of Paris (time, Rufus).

Harpê. the cutlass with which M ercury killed Argus, and with which Perseus subsequently cut off the head of Medusa.

Harpier, a familiar spirit of mediæval demonology.

Harpier cries, “Tis time, ‘tis time!
   —Shakespeare Macbeth, act iv. sc.I (1606).

Harpocrates , the god of silence. Cupid bribed him with a rose not to divulge the amours of Venus. Harpocratês is generally represented with his second finger on his mouth.

He also symbolized the sun at the end of winter, and is represented with a cornucopia in one hand and a lotus in the other. The lotus is dedicated to the sun, because it opens at sunrise and closes at sunset.

I assured my mistress she might make herself quite easy on that score (i.e. my making mention of what was told me), for I was the Harpocrates of trusty valets.—Lesage: Gil Blas, iv. 2 (1724).