If your mother, in hopes to ruin me, should consent to marry my pretended uncle, he might, like “Mosca” in The Fox, stand upon terms.—W. Congreve, The Way of the World, ii. 1. (1700).
Mo´ses, the Jew money-lender in Sheridan’s comedy, The School for Scandal (1777).
Moses’ Clothes. The Korân says: “God cleared Moses from the scandal which was rumored against him” (ch. xxxiii.). The scandal was that his body was not properly formed, and therefore he would never bathe in the presence of others. One day, he went to bathe, and laid his clothes on a stone, but the stone ran away with them into the camp. Moses went after it as fast as he could run, but the Israelites saw his naked body, and perceived the untruthfulness of the common scandal.—Sale, Al Korân, xxxiii. notes.
Moses’ Horns. The Vulgate gives quod cornuta esset facies sua, for what our version has translated “he wist not that the skin of his face shone.” The Hebrew word used means both a “horn” and an “irradiation.” Michael Angelo followed the Vulgate.
Moses’ Rod.
While Moses was living with Re’uël [Jethro], the Midianite, he noticed a staff in the garden, and he took it to be his walking-stick. This staff was Joseph’s, and Re’uel carried it away when he fled from Egypt. This same staff Adam carried with him out of Eden. Noah inherited it, and gave it to Shem. It passed into the hands of Abraham, and Abraham left it to Isaac; and when Jacob fled from his brother’s anger into Mesopotamia, he carried it in his hand, and gave it at death to his son Joseph.—The Talmud, vi.
Moses Slow of Speech. The tradition is this: One day, Pharaoh was carrying Moses in his arms, when the child plucked the royal beard so roughly that the king, in a passion, ordered him to be put to death. Queen Asia said to her husband, the child was only a babe, and was so young he could not discern between a ruby and a live coal. Pharaoh put it to the test, and the child clapped into his mouth the burning coal, thinking it something good to eat. Pharaoh’s anger was appeased, but the child burnt its tongue so severely that ever after it was “slow of speech.”—Shalshel, Hakkabala, 11.
Moses Slow of Speech. The account given in the Talmud is somewhat different. It is therein stated that Pharaoh was sitting one day with Moses on his lap, when the child took the crown from the king’s head and placed it on his own. The “wise men” of Egypt persuaded Pharaoh that this act was treasonable, and that the child should be put to death. Jithro [sic] the priest of Midian, said it was the act of a child who knew no better. “Let two plates,” said he, “be set before the child, one containing gold and the other live coals, and you will presently see that he will choose the coals in preference to the gold.” The advice of Jithro being followed, the boy Moses snatched at the coals, and putting one of them into his mouth, burnt his tongue so severely that ever after he was “heavy of speech.”—The Talmud, vi.
Moses Pennell. Waif rescued from a wrecked vessel, and adopted by old Captain Pennell and his wife. He is, in time, discovered to belong to a noble Cuban family.—Harriet Beecher Stowe, The Pearl of Orr’s Island.
Most Christian King (Le Roy Tres-Christien). The king of France is so called by others, either with or without his proper name; but he never styles himself so in any letter, grant, or rescript.