Pandolfe (2 syl.), father of Lélie.—Molière, L’Etourdi (1653).
Pando´ra, the “all-gifted woman.” So called because all the gods bestowed some gift on her to enhance her charms. Jove sent her to Prometheus for a wife, but Hermês gave her in marriage to his brother, Epime´theus (4 syl.). It is said that Pandora enticed the curiosity of Epimetheus to open a box in her possession, from which flew out all the ills that flesh is heir to. Luckily the lid was closed in time to prevent the escape of Hope.
More lovely than Pandora, whom the gods
Endowed with all their gifts, ... to the unwiser son
Of Japhet brought by Hermês, she ensnared
Mankind with her fair looks, to be avenged
On him [Promētheus] who had stole Jove’s ... fire.
Milton, Paradise Lost, iv. 714, etc. (1665).
*** “Unwiser son” is a Latinism, and means “not so wise as he should have been;” so audacior, timidior, vehementior, iracundior, etc.
Pandos´to, or The Triumph of Time, a tale by Robert Greene (1588), the quarry of the plot of The Winter’s Tale by Shakespeare.
Panel (The), by J. Kemble, is a modified version of Bickerstaff’s comedy ’Tis Well ’tis no Worse. It contains the popular quotation:
Perhaps it was right to dissemble your love;
But why do you kick me downstairs?
Pangloss (Dr. Peter), an LL.D. and A.S.S. He began life as a muffin-maker in Milk Alley. Daniel Dowlas, when he was raised from the chandler’s shop in Gosport to the peerage, employed the doctor “to larn him to talk English;” and subsequently made him tutor to his son Dick, with a salary of £300 a year. Dr. Pangloss was a literary prig of ponderous pomposity. He talked of a “locomotive morning,” of one’s “sponsorial and patronymic appellations,” and so on; was especially fond of quotations, to all of which he assigned the author, as “Lend me your ears. Shakespeare. Hem!” or “Verbum sat. Horace. Hem!” He also indulged in an affected “He! he!”—G. Colman, The Heir-at-Law (1797).
A.S.S. stands for Artium Societatis Socius (“Fellow of the Society of Arts”).
Pangloss, an optimist philosopher. (The word means “All Tongue.”)—Voltaire, Candide.