Polyx´ena, a magnanimous and most noble woman, wife of Charles Emmanuel, king of Sardinia (who succeeded to the crown in 1730).—R. Browning, King Victor and King Charles, etc.
Pomegranate Seed. When Perseph´onê was in Hadês, whither Pluto had carried her, the god, foreknowing that Jupiter would demand her release, gathered a pomegranate, and said to her, “Love, eat with me, this parting day, of the pomegranate seed;” and she ate. Demēter, in the mean time, implored Zeus (Jupiter) to demand Persephonê’s release; and the king of Olympus promised she should be set at liberty, if she had not eaten anything during her detention in Hadês. As, however, she had eaten pomegranate seeds, her return was impossible.
Low laughs the dark king on his throne—
“I gave her of pomegranate seeds” ...
And chant the maids of Enna still—
“O fateful flower beside the rill,
The daffodil, the daffodil.” (See Daffodil.)
Jean Ingelow, Persephone.
Pomoma. The incomparable maid-of-work, custodian, novelist, comedienne, tragedienne, and presiding genius of Rudder Grange. Her chef d’œuvre is the expedient of posting the premises “To be Sold for Taxes,” to keep away peddlers of trees, etc., in her employers’ absence.—Frank Stockton, Rudder Grange (1879).
Pompey, a clown; servant to Mrs. Overdone (a bawd).—Shakespeare, Measure for Measure (1603).
Pompey the Great, was killed by Achillas and Septimius, the moment the Egyptian fishing-boat reached the coast. Plutarch tells us they threw his head into the sea. Others say his head was sent to Cæsar, who turned from it with horror, and shed a flood of tears. Shakespeare makes him killed by “savage islanders” (2 Henry VI. act iv. sc. 1, 1598).
Pompil´ia, a foundling, the putative daughter of Pietro (2 syl.). She married Count Guido Franceschini, who treated her so brutally that she made her escape under the protection of a young priest named Caponsacchi. Pompilia subsequently gave birth to a son, but was slain by her husband.
The babe had been a find i’ the filth-heap, sir,
Catch from the kennel. There was found at Rome,
Down in the deepest of our social dregs,
A woman who professed the wanton’s trade ...
She sold this babe eight months before its birth
To our Violante (3 syl.), Pietro’s honest spouse, ...
Partly to please old Pietro,
Partly to cheat the rightful heirs, agape
For that same principal of the usufruct,
It vexed him he must die and leave behind.
R. Browning, The Ring and the Book, ii, 557, etc.
Ponce de Léon, the navigator who went in search of the Fontaine de Jouvence, “qui fit rajovenir la gent.” He sailed in two ships on this “voyage of discoveries,” in the sixteenth century.