Iphis, the woman who was changed to a man. The tale is this: Iphis was the daughter of Lygdus and Telethusa of Cretê. Lygdus gave orders that if the child about to be born was a girl, it was to be put to death. It happened to be a girl; but the mother, to save it, brought it up as a boy. In due time, the father betrothed Iphis to Ianthê, and the mother, in terror, prayed to Isis for help. Her prayer was heard, for Isis changed Iphis into a man on the day of espousals.—Ovid, Metaph., ix. 12; xiv. 699.
⁂ Cæneus [Se.nuce] was born of the female sex, but Neptune changed her into a man. Ænēas found her in hadês changed back again.
Tirēsias, the Theban prophet, was converted into a girl for striking two serpents, and married. He afterwards recovered his sex.
Ippolito (Don), Italian priest, who should never have taken orders. He is handsome, sensitive and susceptible, and has for a pupil Florida Vervain, an American girl. He loves her and tells her so. She pities him, advises him to break the shackles of his priesthood and go to America. When she departs, he succumbs to despair and Roman fever. On his death-bed he disabuses Florida’s American lover of the impression that the girl loved the priest.—W. D. Howells, A Foregone Conclusion (1874).
Iras, a female attendant on Cleopatra. When Cleopatra had arrayed herself with robe and crown, prior to applying the asps, she said to her two female attendants, “Come take the last warmth of my lips. Farewell, kind Charmian! Iras, farewell!” And having kissed them, Iras fell down dead, either broken-hearted or else because she had already applied an asp to her arm, as Charmian did a little later.—Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra (1608).
Ireby (Mr), a country squire.—Sir W. Scott, Two Drovers (time, George III.).
Ireland (S. W. H.), a literary forger. His chief forgery is Miscellaneous Papers and Instruments, under the hand and seal of William Shakespeare, including the tragedy of King Lear, and a small fragment of Hamlet, from the original, folio, £6 4s. (1795).
His most impudent forgery was the production of a new play, which he tried to palm off as Shakespeare’s. It was called Vortigern and Rowena, and was actually represented at Drury Lane Theatre, in 1796.
Weeps o’er false Shakesperian lore
Which sprang from Maisterre Ireland’s store,