Ladies and gentleman, there has not been
A prologue spoken to this play for years—
And heavily on clouds brings on the day,
The great, th’ important day, big with the fate
Of Cato and of Rome.
History of the Stage.
Porcupine (Peter). William Cobbett, the politician, published The Rushlight under this pseudonym in 1860.
Pornei´us (3 syl.), Fornication personified; one of the four sons of Anag´nus (inchastity), his brothers being Mæ´chus (adultery), Acath´arus, and Asel´gês (lasciviousness). He began the battle of Mansoul by encountering Parthen´ia (maidenly chastity), but “the martial maid” slew him with her spear. (Greek, porneia, “fornication.”).
In maids his joy; now by a maid defied,
His life he lost and all his former pride.
With women would he live, now by a woman died.
Phineas Fletcher, The Purple Island, xi. (1633).
Porphyrius, in Dryden’s drama of Tyrannic Love.
Valeria, daughter of Maximin, having killed herself for the love of Porphyrus, was on one occasion being carried off by the bearers, when she started up and boxed one of the bearers on the ears, saying to him:
Hold! are you mad, you damned confounded dog?
I am to rise and speak the epilogue.
W. C. Russell, Representative Actors, 456.
Porphyro-Genitus (“born in the Porphyra”), the title given to the kings of the Eastern empire, from the apartments called Porphyra, set apart for the empresses during confinement.
There he found Irene, the empress, in travail, in a house anciently appointed for the empresses during childbirth. They call that house “Porphyra,” whence the name of the Porphyro-geniti came into the world.—See Selden, Titles of Honor, v. 61 (1614).
Porrex, younger son of Gorboduc, a legendary king of Britain. He drove his elder brother, Ferrex, from the kingdom, and, when Ferrex returned with a large army, defeated and slew him. Porrex was murdered while “slumbering on his careful bed,” by his own mother, who stabbed him to the heart with a knife.”—Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville, Gorboduc (a tragedy, 1561-2).