Chapter Palamedes to Palmyra of the Deccan of P by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Palinode , a shepherd in Spenser’s Eclogues. In ecl. v. Palinode represents the catholic priest. He invites Piers (who represents the protestant clergy) to join in the fun and pleasures of May. Piers then warns the young man of the vanities of the world, and tells him of the great degeneracy of pastoral life—at one time simple and frugal, but now discontented and licentious. He concludes with the fable of the kid and her dam.

The fable is this: A mother-goat, going abroad for the day, told her kid to keep at home, and not to open the door to strangers. She had not been gone long, when up came a fox, with head bound from “headache,” and foot bound from “gout,” and carrying a ped of trinkets. The fox told the kid a most piteous tale, and showed her a little mirror. The kid, out of pity and vanity, opened the door; but while stooping over the ped to pick up a little bell, the fox clapped down the lid, and carried her off.

In ecl. vii. Palinode is referred to by the shepherd Thomalin as “lording it over God’s heritage,” feeding the sheep with chaff, and keeping for himself the grains.—Spenser: Shepheardes Calendar (1572).

Palinode , a poem in recantation of a calumny. Stesichoros wrote a bitter satire against Helen, for which her brothers, Castor and Pollux, plucked out his eyes. When, however, the poet recanted, his sight was restored to him again.

The bard who libelled Helen in his song,
Recanted after, and redressed the wrong.
   —Ovid: Art of Love, iii.

Horace’s I Odes, xvi. is a palinode. Samuel Butler has a palinode, in which he recanted what he said in a previous poem of the Hon. Edward Howard. Dr. Watts recanted in a poem the praise he had previously bestowed on queen Anne.

Palinurus, the pilot of Æneas. Palinurus, sleeping at the helm, fell into the sea, and was drowned. The name is employed as a generic word for a steersman or pilot, and sometimes for a chief minister.

More had she spoke, but yawned. All nature nods…
E’en Palinurus nodded at the helm.
   —Pope: The Dunciad, iv. 614 (1742).

Palisse (La), a sort of M. Prudhomme; a pompous utterer of truisms and moral platitudes.

Palladio (Andrea), the Italian classical architect (1518–1580).

The English Palladio, Inigo Jones (1573–1653).

Palladium.

(1) Of Ceylon, the deláda or tooth of Buddha, preserved in the Malegawa temple at Kandy. Natives guard it with great jealousy, from a belief that whoever possesses it acquires the right to govern Ceylon. When, in 1815, the English obtained possession of the tooth, the Ceylonese submitted to them without resistance.

(2) Of Eden Hall, a drinking-glass, in the possession of sir Christopher Musgrave, bart., of Edenhall, Cumberland.

(3) Of Jerusalem. Aladine king of Jerusalem stole an image of the Virgin, and set it up in a mosque, that she might no longer protect the Christians, but become the palladium of Jerusalem. The image was rescued by Sophronia, and the city taken by the crusaders.

(4) Of Megara, a golden hair of king Nisus. Scylla promised to deliver the city into the hands of Minos, and cut off the talismanic lock of her father’s head while he was asleep.

(5) Of Rome, the ancilê or sacred buckler which Numa said fell from heaven, and was guarded by priests called Salii. Æneas also introduced “Venus” as a palladium.