Chapter Tithonus to Toboso of T by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Titus, “the delight of man,” the Roman emperor, son of Vespasian (40, 79–81).

Titus, the penitent thief, according to Longfellow. Dumachus and Titus were two of a band of robbers, who attacked Joseph in his flight into Egypt. Titus said, “Let these good people go in peace;” but Dumachus replied, “First let them pay their ransom.” Whereupon Titus handed to his companion forty groats; and the infant Jesus said to him—

When thirty years shall have gone by
I at Jerusalem shall die…
On the accursèd tree.
Then on My right and My left side,
These thieves shall both be crucified,
And Titus thenceforth shall abide
In paradise with Me.
   —Longfellow: The Golden Legend (1851).

Tityre Tus (long u), the name assumed in the seventeenth century by a clique of young blades of the better class, whose delight was to break windows, upset sedan-chairs, molest quiet citizens, and rudely caress pretty women in the streets at night-time. These brawlers took successively many titular names, as Muns, Hectors, Scourers, afterwards Nickers, later still Hawcubites, and lastly Mohawks or Mohocks.

“Tityre tu-s” is meant for the plural of “Tityre tu,” in the first line of Virgil’s first Eclogue: “Tityre, tu patulæ recubans sub tegmine fagi,”—and meant to imply that these blades were men of leisure and fortune, who “lay at ease under their patrimonial beech trees.”

Tityrus, in the Shepheardes Calendar, by Spenser (ecl. ii. and vi.), is meant for Chaucer.

The gentle shepherd sate beside a spring…
That Colin hight, which well could pipe and sing,
For he of Tityrus his song did learn.
   —Spenser: The Shepheardes Calendar, xii. (1579).

Tityrus, a giant, whose body covered nine a cres of ground. In Tartarus, two vultures or serpents feed for ever on his liver, which grows as fast as it is gnawed away.

Prometheusis said to have been fastened to mount Caucasus, where two eagles fed on his liver, which never wasted.

Nor unobserved lay stretched upon the marle
Tityus, earth-born, whose body long and large
Covered nine acres. There two vultures sat,
Of appetite insatiate, and with beaks
For ravine bent, unintermitting gored
His liver. Powerless he to put to flight
The fierce devourers. To this penance judged
For rape intended on Latona fair.
   —Fenton’s Homer’s Odyssey, xi. (1716).

Tizona, th e Cid’s sword. It was buried with him, as Joyeuse was buried with Charlemagne, and Durindana with Orlando.

Tlalala, surnamed “The Tiger,” one of the Aztecas. On one occasion, being taken captive, Madoc released him, but he continued the unrelenting foe of Madoc and his new colony, and was always foremost in working them evil. When at length the Aztecas, being overcome, migrated to Mexico, Tlalala refused to quit the spot of his father’s tomb, and threw himself on his own javelin.—Southey: Madoc (1805).

To, an intensive particle, about equal to “wholly,” “altogether.”

My parkes ben to broken.
   —Chaucer: Canterbury Tales (“Cook’s Tale,” 1388).

Gamelyn cast the wrestler on his left syde that thre ribbes to brake.—Canterbury Tales (1838).

Toad with an R, worthlessness, mere dung. Anglo-Saxon, tord or toord, (now spelt with a u); hence in the Gospel of St. Luke xiii. 8, “He answeringe seide to him, Lord, suffer also this zeer, til the while I delue [delve] aboute it, and sende toordis…”—Gothic and Anglo-Saxon Gospels, Bosworth, p. 365; Wycliffe (1389).