Chapter Penelophon to Pepys's Diary of P by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Who has seen J. Kemble [1757–1823] in “Penruddock,” and not shed tears from the deepest sources? His tenderly putting away the son of his treacherous friend,…examining his countenance, and then exclaiming, in a voice which developed a thousand mysterious feelings, “You are very like your mother;” was sufficient to stamp his excellence in the pathetic line of acting.—Mrs. R. Trench: Remains (1822).

Pentapolin, “with the naked arm,” king of the Garamanteans, who always went to battle with his right arm bare. Alifan faron emperor of Trapoban wished to marry his daughter, but, being refused, resolved to urge his suit by the sword. When don Quixote saw two flocks of sheep coming along the road in opposite directions, he told Sancho Panza they were the armies of these two puissant monarchs met in array against each other.—Cervantes: Don Quixote, I. iii. 4 (1605).

Pentecôte Vivante (La), cardinal Mezzofanti, who was the master of fifty or fifty-eight languages (1774–1849).

Penthea, sister of Ithoclês, betrothed to Orgilus by the consent of her father. At the death of her father, Ithoclês compelled her to marry Bassanes whom she hated, and she starved herself to death.—Ford: The Broken Heart (1633).

Penthesilea, queen of the Amazons, slain by Achilles. S. Butler calls the name “Penthesilê.”

And laid about in fight more busily
Than th’ Amazonian dame Penthesile.
   —S. Butler: Hudibras.

Pentheus , a king of Thebes, who tried to abolish the orgies of Bacchus, but was driven mad by the offended god. In his madness he climbed into a tree to witness the rites, and being descried was torn to pieces by the Bacchantes.

As when wild Pentheus, grown mad with fear,
Whole troops of hellish hags about him spies.
   —Giles Fletcher: Christ’s Triumph over Death (1610).

Pentheus , king of Thebes, resisted the introduction of the worship of Dyonisos (Bacchus) into his kingdom, in consequence of which the Bacchantes pulled his palace to the ground; and Pentheus, driven from the throne, was torn to pieces on mount Cithæron by his own mother and her two sisters.

He the fate [may sing]
Of sober Pentheus.
   —Akenside: Hymn to the Naiads (1767).

Pentweazel (Alderman), a rich City merchant of Blowbladder Street. He is wholly submissive to his wife, whom he always addresses as “Chuck.”

Mrs. Pentweazel, the alderman’s wife, very ignorant, very vain, and very conceitedly humble. She was a Griskin by birth, and “all her family by the mother’s side were famous for their eyes.” She had an aunt among the beauties of Windsor, “a perdigious fine woman. She had but one eye, but that was a piercer, and got her three husbands. We was called the gimlet family.” Mrs. Pentweazel says her first likeness was done after “Venus de Medicis the sister of Mary de Medicis.”

Sukey Pentweazel, daughter of the alderman, recently married to Mr. Deputy Dripping of Candlewick Yard.

Carel Pentweazel, a schoolboy, who had been under Dr. Jerks, near Doncaster, for two years and a quarter, and had learnt all As in Præsenti by heart. The terms of this school were £10 a year for food, books, board, clothes, and tuition.—Foote: Taste (1753).

Peonia or Pæonia, Macedonia; so called from Pæon son of Endymion.

Made Macedon first stoop, then Thessaly and Thrace;
His soldiers there enriched with all Peonia’s spoil.
   —Drayton: Polyolbion, viii. (1612).

People (Man of the), Charles James Fox (1749–1806).