Than that before whose gate
The lightning of the cherub’s fiery sword
Waves wide to bar access.
Southey, Thalaba the Destroyer, i. 22 (1797).
Ire´na, Ireland personified. Her inheritance was withheld by Grantorto (rebellion), and Sir Artegal was sent by the queen of Faëry-land to succor her. Grantorto being slain Irena was restored, in 1588, to her inheritance.—Spenser, Faëry Queen, v. (1596).[(1596).]
Ire´ne (3 syl.), daughter of Horush Barbarossa, the Greek renegade and corsair-king of Algiers. She was rescued in the siege of Algiers by Selim, son of the Moorish king, who fell in love with her. When she heard of the conspiracy to kill Barbarossa, she warned her father; but it was too late; the insurgents succeeded, Barbarossa was slain by Othman, and Selim married Irenê.—J. Browne, Barbarossa (1742).
Irene (3 syl.), wife of Alexius Comne´nus, emperor of Greece.—Sir W. Scott, Count Robert of Paris (time, Rufus).
Irene Lapham. Second daughter of a self-made man; wonderfully beautiful, unsophisticated, and beginning to have social ambitions, founded upon acquaintance with the Bromfield Coreys. She is quite sure and naively glad that Tom Corey admires, perhaps loves her, until undeceived by his declaration to her sister. Then she gives him up and goes away for a while. Hearing of her father’s failure in business, she rushes back and takes her place in the family as an energetic spinster. William Dean Howells, The Rise of Silas Lapham (1884).
Ire´nus. Peaceableness personified. (Greek, eirênê, “peace”). Phineas Fletcher, The Purple Island, x. (1633).
Iris, a messenger, a go-between. Iris was the messenger of Juno.