Bright Phosphor, fresher for the night,
Sweet Hesper-Phosphor, double name.
Tennyson, In Memoriam, cxxi. (1850).
Phos´phorus, a knight called by Tennyson “Morning Star,” but, in the History of Prince Arthur, “Sir Persaunt of India, or the Blue Knight.” One of the four brothers who kept the passages to Castle Perilous.—Tennyson, Idylls (“Gareth and Lynette”); Sir T. Malory, History of Prince Arthur, i. 131 (1470).
*** It is evidently a blunder to call the Blue Knight “Morning Star,” and the Green Knight “Evening Star.” In the old romance, the combat with the “Green Knight,” is at dawn, and with the “Blue Knight” at nightfall. The error arose from not bearing in mind that our forefathers began the day with the preceding eve, and ended it at sunset.
Phraortes (3 syl.), a Greek admiral.—Sir W. Scott, Count Robert of Paris (time, Rufus).
Phry´ne (2 syl.), an Athenian courtezan of surpassing beauty. Apellês’s celebrated picture of “Venus Anadyomĕnê” was drawn from Phrynê, who entered the sea with hair dishevelled for a model. The “Cnidian Venus” of Praxitĕlês was also taken from the same model.
Some say Campaspê was the academy figure of the “Venus Anadyomenê.” Pope has a poem called Phryne.
Phyllis, a Thracian, who fell in love with Demoph´oön. After some months of mutual affection, Demophoon was obliged to sail for Athens, but promised to return within a month. When a month had elapsed, and Demophoon did not put in an appearance, Phyllis so mourned for him that she was changed into an almond tree, hence called by the Greeks Phylia. In time, Demophoon returned, and, being told the fate of Phyllis, ran to embrace the tree, which though bare and leafless at the time, was instantly covered with leaves, hence called Phylla by the Greeks.
Let Demophoon tell
Why Phyllis by a fate untimely fell.
Ovid, Art of Love, iii.
Phyllis, a country girl in Virgil’s third and fifth Eclogues. Hence a rustic maiden. Also spelt [Phillis] (q.v.).
Phyllis, in Spenser’s eclogue, Colin Clout’s Come Home Again, is Lady Carey, wife of Sir George Carey (afterwards Lord Hunsdon, 1596). Lady Carey was Elizabeth, the second of the six daughters of Sir John Spenser, of Althorpe, ancestor of the noble houses of Spenser and Marlborough.