Chapter Ventidius to Versailles of V by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Ventidius to Versailles

Ventidius, an Athenian imprisoned for debt. Timon paid his debt, and set him free. Not long after, the father of Ventidius died, leaving a large fortune, and the young man offered to refund the loan; but Timon declined the offer, saying the loan was a free gift. When Timon got into difficulties, he applied to Ventidius for aid; but Ventidius, like the rest, was “found base metal,” and “denied him.”—Shakespeare: Timon of Athens (1609).

Ventidius, the general of Marc Antony.

The master scene between Ventidius and Antony in this tragedy is copied from The Maid’s Tragedy (by Beaumont and Fletcher), Ventidius being the “Melantius” of Beaumont and Fletcher’s drama.—Dryden: All for Love or the World Well Lost (1678).

Ventriloquist. The best that ever lived was Brabant, the engastrimisth of François I. of France.

VENUS (Paintings of). Venus Anadyomenê or Venus rising from the sea and wringing her golden tresses, by Apellês. Apellês also put his name to a “Sleeping Venus.” Tradition says that Campaspê (afterwards his wife) was the model of his Venus.

The Rhodian Venus, referred to by Campbell, in his Pleasures of Hope, ii., is the Venus spoken of by Pliny, xxxv. 10, from which Shakespeare has drawn his picture of Cleopatra in her barge (Antony and Cleopatra, act ii. sc. 2). The Rhodian was Protogenês.

When first the Rhodian’s mimic art arrayed
The queen of Beauty in her Cyprian shade,
The happy master mingled in his piece
Each look that charmed him in the fair of Greece…
Love on the picture smiled. Expression poured
Her mingling spirit there, and Greece adored.
   —Campbell: Pleasures of Hope, ii. (1799).

Statues of Venus. (1) The Cnidian Venus, a nude statue, by Praxitelês, bought by the Cnidians.

(2) The Coan Venus, a draped statue, by Praxitelês, bought by the Coans.

(3) T he Venus De’ Medici, a statue dug up in several pieces at Hadrian’s villa, near Tivoli (seventeenth century), and placed for a time in the Medici palace at Rome, whence its name. It was the work of Cleomenês the Athenian. All one arm and part of the other were restored by Bandinelli. In 1680 this statue was removed to the Uffizi gallery at Florence. It was removed to Paris by Napoleon, but was afterwards restored.

(4) The Venus of Arles, with a mirror in the right hand and an apple in the left. This statue is ancient, but the mirror and apple are by Girardin.

(5) The Venus of Milo. The “Venus Victorious” is called the “Venus of Milo,” because it was brought from the island of Milo, in the Ægean Sea, by admiral Dumont d’Urville in 1820. It is one of the chefs d’œuvre of antiquity, and is now in the Louvre of Paris.

(6) The Pauline Venus, by Canova. Modelled from Pauline Bonaparte, princess Borghese.

I went by chance into the room of the Pauline Venus; my mouth will taste bitter all day. How venial! how gaudy and vile she is with gilded upholstery! It is the most hateful thing that ever wasted marble.—Ouida: Ariadnê, i. 1.

(7) The Venus Pandemos, the sensual and vulgar Venus (Greek, pan-dêmos, for the vulgar or populace generally); as opposed to the “Uranian Venus,” the beau-ideal of beauty and loveliness.

Amongst the deities from the upper chamber a mortal came, the light, lewd woman, who had bared her charms to live for ever here in marble, in counterfeit of the Venus Pandemos.—Ouida: Ariadnê, i. 1.

The Venus of Praxitelês. (See above.)