Pentap´oliff, “with the naked arm,” king of the Garaman´teans, who always went to battle with his right arm bare. Alifanfaron, emperor of Trap´oban, wished to marry his daughter, but, being refused, resolved to urge his suit by the sword. When Don Quixote saw two flocks of sheep coming along the road in opposite directions, he told Sancho Panza they were the armies of these two puissant monarchs met in array against each other.—Cervantes, Don Quixote, I. iii. 4 (1605).
Pentecôte Vivante (La), Cardinal Mezzofanti, who was the master of fifty or fifty-eight languages (1774-1849).
Penthe´a, sister of Ith´oclês, betrothed to Or´gilus by the consent of her father. At the death of her father, Ithoclês compelled her to marry Bass´anes, whom she hated, and she starved herself to death.—John Ford, The Broken Heart (1633).
Penthesile´a, queen of the Amazons, slain by Achilles. S. Butler calls the name “Penthes´ilê.”
And laid about in fight more busily
Than th’ Amazonian dame Penthesile.
S. Butler, Hudibras.
Pen´theus (3 syl.), a king of Thebes, who tried to abolish the orgies of Bacchus, but was driven mad by the offended god. In his madness he climbed into a tree to witness the rites, and being descried was torn to pieces by the Bacchantes.
As when wild Pentheus, grown mad with fear,
Whole troops of hellish hags about him spies.
Giles Fletcher, Christ’s Triumph over Death (1610).
Pentheus (2 syl.), a king of Thebes, resisted the introduction of the worship of Dyoni´sos (Bacchus) into his kingdom, in consequence of which the Bacchantes pulled his palace to the ground, and Pentheus, driven from the throne, was torn to pieces on Mount Cithæron by his own mother and her two sisters.
He the fate [may sing]
Of sober Pentheus.
Akenside, Hymn to the Naiads (1767).
Pentweazel (Alderman), a rich city merchant of Blowbladder Street. He is wholly submissive to his wife, whom he always addresses as “Chuck.”