Door-Opener (The), Cratês, the Theban; so called because he used to go round Athens early of a morning and rebuke the people for their late rising.
Dora [Spenlow], a pretty, warmhearted little doll of a woman, with no practical views of the duties of life or the value of money. She was the "child-wife" of David Copperfield, and loved to sit by him and hold his pens while he wrote. She died, and David then married Agnes Wickfield. Dora's great pet was a dog called "Jip," which died at the same time as its mistress.—C. Dickens, David Copperfield (1849).
Dora'do (El), a land of exhaustless wealth; a golden illusion. Orella'na, lieutenant of Pizarro, asserted that he had discovered a "gold country" between the Orino'co and the Am'azon, in South America. Sir Walter Raleigh twice visited Gruia'na as the spot indicated, and published highly colored accounts of its enormous wealth.
Dorali'ce (4 syl.) a lady beloved by Rodomont, but who married Mandricardo.—Ariosto, Orlando Furioso (1516).
Dor'alis, the lady-love of Rodomont, king of Sarza or Algiers. She eloped with Mandricardo, king of Tartary.—Bojardo, Orlando Innamorato (1495), and Ariosto, Orlando Furioso (1516).
Dorante (2 syl.), a name introduced into three of Molière's comedies. In Les Fâcheux he is a courtier devoted to the chase (1661). In La Critique de l'école des Femmes he is a chevalier (1602). In Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme he is a count in love with the marchioness Doremène (1670).
Daras'tus and Faunia, the hero and heroine of a popular romance by Robert Greene, published in 1588, under the title of Pandosto and the Triumph of Time. On this "history" Shakespeare founded his Winter's Tale.
Dorax, the assumed name of Don Alonzo of Alcazar, when he deserted Sebastian, king of Portugal, turned renegade, and joined the emperor of Barbary. The cause of his desertion was that Sebastian gave to Henri'quez the lady betrothed to Alonzo. Her name was Violante (4 syl.) The quarrel between Sebastian and Dorax is a masterly copy of the quarrel and reconciliation between Brutus and Cassius in Shakespeare's Julius Cæsar.
Sebastian says to Dorax, "Confess, proud spirit, that better he [Henriquez] deserved my love than thou." To this Dorax replies:
I must grant,