Chapter Philotas to Phunky of P by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Philotas to Phunky

Philotas, son of Parmenio, and commander of the Macedonian cavalry. He was charged with plotting against Alexander the Great. Being put to the rack, he confessed his guilt, and was stoned to death.

The king may doom me to a thousand tortures,
Ply me with fire, and rack me like Philotas,
Ere I will stoop to idolize his pride.
   —Lee: Alexander the Great, i. x (1678).

Philotime (4 syl., “love of glory”), daughter of Mammon, whom the money-god offers to sir Guyon for a wife; but the knight declines the honour, saying he is bound by love-vows to another.—Spenser: Faërie Queene, ii. 7 (1590).

Philotimus, Ambition personified. (Greek, Philo-timos “ambitious, covetous of honour.”)—Phineas Fletcher: The Purple Island, viii. (1633).

Philotimus, steward of the house in the suite of Gargantua.—Rabelais: Gargantua, i. 18 (1533).

Philoxenos, an epicure who wished he had the neck of a crane, that he might enjoy the taste of his food longer before swallowing it.—Aristotle: Ethics, iii. 10.

Philpot (senior), an avaricious old hunks, and father of George Philpot. The old City merchant cannot speak a sentence without bringing in something about money. “He wears square-toed shoes with little tiny buckles, a brown coat with small brass buttons… His face is all shrivelled and pinched with care, and he shakes his head like a mandarin upon a chimney-piece”(act i. 1).

When I was very young, I performed the part of “old Philpot,” at Brighton, with great success, and next evening I was introduced into a club-room full of company. On hearing my name announced, one of the gentlemen laid down his pipe, and, taking up his glass, said, “Here’s to your health, young gentleman, and to your father’s too. I had the pleasure of seeing him last night in the part of ‘Philpot,’ and a very nice clever old gentleman he is. I hope, young sir, you may one day be as good an actor as your worthy father.”—Munden.

George Philpot. The profligate son of old Philpot, destined for Maria Wilding, but the betrothal is broken off, and Maria marries Beaufort. George wants to pass for a dashing young blade, but is made the dupe of every one. “Bubbled at play; duped by a girl to whom he paid his addresses; cudgelled by a rake; laughed at by his cronies; snubbed by his father; and despised by every one.”—Murphy: The Citizen (1757 or 1761).

Philtra, a lady of large fortun e, betrothed to Bracidas; but, seeing the fortune of Amidas daily increasing, and that of Bracidas getting smaller and smaller, she forsook the declining fortune of her first lover, and attached herself to the more prosperous younger brother.—Spenser: Faërie Queene, v. 4 (1596).

Phineus [Fi-nuce], a blind soothsayer, who was tormented by the harpies. Whenever a meal was set before him, the harpies came and carried it off. The Argonauts delivered him from these pests in return for his information respecting the route they were to take in order to obtain the golden fleece. (See Tiresias.)

Tiresias and Phineus, prophets old.
   —Milton: Paradise Lost, iii. 35 (1665).

Phiz, the pseudonym of Hablot K. Browne, who illustrated the Pickwick Papers (1836), Nicholas Nickleby, and most of Charles Dickens’s works of fiction. He also illustrated the Abbotsford edition of the Waverley Novels.

Phlegethon , one of the five rivers of hell. The word means the “river of liquid fire.” (Greek, Phlgo, “to burn.”) The other rivers are Styx, Acheron, Cocytus, and Lethê. (See Styx.)

Fierce Phlegethon.
Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage.
   —Milton: Paradise Lost, ii580 (1665).