Perseus [Per.suce], a famous Argive hero, whose exploits resemble those of Herculês, and hence he was called “The Argive Herculês.”
Benvenuto Cellini made a bronze statue of Perseus, which is in the Loggia dei Lanzi, in Florence.
Perseus’s Horse, a ship. Perseus having cut off Medusa’s head, made the ship Pegasê, the swiftest ship hitherto known, and generally called “Perseus’s flying horse.”
The thick-ribbed bark thro’ liquid mountains cut ...
Like Perseus’ horse.
Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, act i. sc. 3 (1602).
Persian Creed (The). Zoroaster supposes there are two gods or spirit-principles—one good and the other evil. The good is Yezad, and the evil, Ahriman.
Perth (The Fair Maid of), Catharine, or Katie Glover, “universally acknowledged to be the most beautiful young woman of the city or its vicinity.” Catharine was the daughter of Simon Glover (the glover of Perth), and married Henry Smith, the armorer.—Sir W. Scott, Fair Maid of Perth (time, Henry IV.).
Pertinax (Sir). (See MacSycophant.)
Pertolope (Sir), the Green Knight. One of the four brothers who kept the passages to Castle Perilous. He was overthrown by Sir Gareth. Tennyson calls him “Evening Star,” or “Hesperus.”—Sir T. Malory, History of Prince Arthur, i. 127 (1470); Tennyson, Idylls.
“For there, beyond a bridge of treble bow,
All in a rose-red from the west, and all
Naked it seem’d, and glowing in the broad,
Deep-dimpled current underneath, the knight
That named himself the Star of Evening, stood,
And Gareth, ‘Wherefore waits the madman there
Naked in open dayshine?’ ‘Nay,’ she cried,
‘Not naked, only wrapt in harden’d skins
That fit him like his own; and so ye cleave
His armor off him, these will turn the blade.’”
Tennyson, Gareth and Lynette.
Perviz (Prince), son of the Sultan Khrosru-schar of Persia. At birth he was taken away by the sultana’s sisters, and set adrift on a canal, but was rescued and brought up by the superintendent of the sultan’s gardens. When grown to manhood, “the talking-bird” told the sultan that Pervis was his son, and the young prince, with his brother and sister, were restored to their rank and position in the empire of Persia.—Arabian Nights (“The Two Sisters”).