“One after one the stars have risen and set,
Sparkling upon the hoarfrost on my chain.”
Prompt, the servant of Mr. and Miss Blandish. General Burgoyne, The Heiress (1781).
Pronando (Rast). The early lover of Anne Douglas. He is handsome, weak, and attractive in disposition, a favorite with all his friends. His pliant character and good-natured vanity make him a prey to the whimsical fascinations of Tita, Anne’s “little sister,” whom he marries instead of his first betrothed.—Constance Fenimore Woolson, Anne (1882).
Pronouns. It was of Henry Mossop, tragedian (1729-1773), that Churchill wrote the two lines:
In monosyllables his thunders roll—
He, she, it, and we, ye, they, fright the soul;
because Mossop was fond of emphasizing his pronouns and little words.
Prophecy. Jourdain, the wizard, told the duke of Somerset, if he wished to live, to “avoid where castles mounted stand.” The duke died in an ale-house called the Castle, in St. Alban’s.
... underneath an ale-house’ paltry sign,
The Castle, in St. Alban’s, Sumerset
Hath made the wizard famous in his death.
Shakespeare, 2 Henry VI. act v. sc. 2 (1591).
Similar prophetic equivokes were told to Henry IV., Pope Sylvester II., and Cambysês (see Jerusalem).
Aristomĕnês was told by the Delphic oracle to “flee for his life when he saw a goat drink from the river Neda.” Consequently, all goats were driven from the banks of this river; but one day, Theŏclos observed that the branches of a fig tree bent into the stream, and it immediately flashed into his mind that the Messenian word for fig tree and goat was the same. The pun or equivoke will be better understood by an English reader if for goat we read ewe, and bear in mind that yew is to the ear the same word; thus: