Rope of Ocnus (A), profitless labor. Ocnus was always twisting a rope with unwearied diligence, but an ass ate it as fast as it was twisted.
*** This allegory means that Ocnus worked hard to earn money, which his wife squandered by her extravagance.
The work of Penelopê’s web was “never ending, still beginning,” because Penelopê pulled out at night all that she had spun during the day. Her object was to defer doing what she abhorred but knew not how to avoid.
Roper (Margaret), was buried with the head of her father, Sir Thomas More, between her hands.
Her who clasped in her last trance
Her murdered father’s head.
Tennyson.
Roque (1 syl.), a blunt, kind-hearted old servitor to Donna Floranthe.—Colman, The Mountaineers (1793).
Roque Guinart, a freebooter, whose real name was Pedro Rocha Guinarda. He is introduced by Cervantês in Don Quixote.
Rosa, a village beauty, patronized by Lady Dedlock. She marries Mrs. Rouncewell’s grandson.—C. Dickens, Bleak House (1853).
Rosabelle (3 syl.), the lady’s-maid of Lady Geraldine. Rosabelle promised to marry L’Eclair, the orderly of Chevalier Florian.—W. Dimond, The Foundling of the Forest.
Rosalind (i.e. Rose Daniel), the shepherd lass who rejected Colin Clout (the poet Spenser) for Menalcas (John Florio, the lexicographer, 1579). Spenser was at the time in his twenty-sixth year. Being rejected by Rosalind, he did not marry till he was nearly 41, and then we are told that Elizabeth “was the name of his mother, queen and wife” (Sonnet, 74). In the Faëry Queen, “the country lass” (Rosalind) is introduced dancing with the Graces, and the poet says she is worthy to be the fourth (bk. vi. 10, 16). In 1595 appeared the Epithala´mion, in which the recent marriage is celebrated.—Ed. Spenser, Shepheardes Calendar, i., vi. (1579).