Lot, king of Orkney. According to Tennyson, King Lot’s wife was Bellicent, daughter of Gorloïs, lord of Tintag´il Castle, in Cornwall, and Lot was the father of Gaw´ain (2 syl.) and Modred. This account differs entirely from the History of Prince Arthur, by Sir T. Malory. There the wife of Lot is called Margawse or Morgawse (Arthur’s sister). Geoffrey of Monmouth, on the other hand, calls her Anne (Arthur’s sister). The sons of Lot, according to the History, were Gawain, Agravain, Gaheris, and Gareth; Modred or Mordred being the offspring of Morgawse and Arthur. This ignoble birth the History assigns as the reason of Mordred’s hatred to King Arthur, his adulterous father and uncle. Lot was subdued by King Arthur, fighting on behalf of Leodogran or Leodogrance, king of Cam´eliard.—See Tennyson, Coming of Arthur.
Lot’s Wife, Wâhela, who was confederate with the men of Sodom, and gave them notice when any stranger came to lodge in the house. Her sign was smoke by day and fire by night. Lot’s wife was turned into a pillar of salt.—Jallâlo´ddin, Al Zamakh.
Lothair. Young English gentleman, the hero of the once-famous political novel of the same name, by Benjamin Disraeli (Lord Beaconsfield). The action of the story turns chiefly upon the vacillation of Lothair between the claims of the Roman Catholic and of the English Church. He decides to unite himself with the latter.
Lotha´rio, a noble cavalier of Florence, the friend of Anselmo. Anselmo induced him to put the fidelity of his wife, Camilla, to the test, that he might rejoice in her incorruptible virtue; but Camilla was not trial-proof, and eloped with Lothario. Anselmo then died of grief, Lothario was slain in battle, and Camilla died in a convent.—Cervantes, Don Quixote, I. iv. 5, 6 (“Fatal Curiosity,” 1605).
Lothario, a young Genoese nobleman, “haughty, gallant, gay, and perfidious.” He seduced Calista, daughter of Sciol´to (3 syl.), a Genoese nobleman, and was killed in a duel by Altamont, the husband. This is the “gay Lothario,” which has become a household word for a libertine and male coquette.—N. Rowe, The Fair Penitent (1703).
Is this the haughty, gallant, gay Lothario?
Rowe, The Fair Penitent.
⁂ The Fair Penitent is taken from Massinger’s Fatal Dowry, in which Lothario is called “Novall, Junior.”
Lothian (Scotland). So named from Llew, second son of Arthur; also called Lotus and Lothus. Arthur’s eldest son was Urian, and his youngest Arawn.
⁂ In some legends, Lothian is made the father of Modred or Medraut, leader of the rebellious army which fought at Camlan, A.D. 537, in which Arthur received his death-wound; but in Malory’s collection, called The History of Prince Arthur, Modred is called the son of Arthur by his own sister, the wife of King Lot.