Hys sseld that het Prydwen.
Myd ye suerd he was ygurd, that so strong was and kene;
Calybourne yt was ycluped, nas nour no such ye wene.
In ys right hond ys lance he nom, that ycluped was Ron.
I. 174.
Prynne (Hester). Handsome, haughty gentlewoman of English birth, married to a deformed scholar, whom she does not love. She comes alone to Boston, meets Arthur Dimmesdale, a young clergyman, and becomes his wife in all except in name. When her child is born she is condemned to stand in the pillory, holding it in her arms, to be reprimanded by officials, civic and clerical, and to wear, henceforward, upon her breast, the letter “A” in scarlet. Her fate is more enviable than that of her undiscovered lover, whose vacillations of dread and despair and determination to reveal all but move Hester to deeper pity and stronger love. She is beside him when he dies in the effort to bare his bosom and show the cancerous Scarlet Letter that has grown into his flesh while she wore hers outwardly.—Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter (1850).
Psalmist (The). King David is called “The Sweet Psalmist of Israel” (2 Sam. xxiii. 1). In the compilation called Psalms, in the Old Testament, seventy-three bear the name of David, twelve were composed by Asaph, eleven by the sons of Korah, and one (Psalm xc.) by Moses.
Psycarpax (i. e. “granary-thief”), son of Troxartas, king of the mice. The frog king offered to carry the young Psycarpax over a lake; but a water-hydra made its appearance, and the frog-king, to save himself, dived under water, whereby the mouse prince lost his life. This catastrophe brought about the fatal Battle of the Frogs and Mice. Translated from the Greek into English verse by Parnell (1679-1717).
Psyche [Si´.ke], a most beautiful maiden, with whom Cupid fell in love. The god told her she was never to seek to know who he was; but Psychê could not resist the curiosity of looking at him as he lay sleep. A drop of the hot oil from Psychê’s lamp falling on the love-god, woke him, and he instantly took to flight. Psychê now wandered from place to place, persecuted by Venus; but after enduring ineffable troubles, Cupid came at last to her rescue, married her, and bestowed on her immortality.
This exquisite allegory is from the Golden Ass of Apulēios. Lafontaine has turned it into French verse. M. Laprade (born 1812) has rendered it into French most exquisitely. The English version, by Mrs. Tighe, in six cantos, is simply unreadable.
Pternog´lyphus (“bacon-scooper”), one of the mouse chieftains.—Parnell, Battle of the Frogs and Mice, iii. (about 1712).
Pternoph´agus (“bacon-eater”), one of the mouse chieftains.
But dire Pternophagus divides his way
Thro’ breaking ranks, and leads the dreadful day.
No nibbling prince excelled in fierceness more,—
His parents fed him on the savage boar.
Parnell, Battle of the Frogs and Mice, iii. (about 1712).
Pternotractas (“bacon-gnawer”), father of “the meal-licker,” Lycomĭlê (wife of Troxartas, “the bread-eater”). Psycarpas, the king of the mice, was son of Lycomĭlê, and grandson of Pternotractas.—Parnell, Battle of the Frogs and Mice, i. (about 1712).