Stiff in opinion, always in the wrong,
Was everything by turns, and nothing long.
Pt. i. (1681).
Zine´bi (Mohammed), king of Syria, tributary to the caliph Haroun-al-Raschid; of very humane disposition.--Arabian Nights (“Ganem, the Slave of Love”).
Zineu´ra, in Boccaccio’s Decameron (day 11, Nov. 9), is the “Imogen” of Shakespeare’s Cymbeline. She assumed male attire with the name of Sicurano da Finalê (Imogen assumed male attire and the name Fidelê); Zineura’s husband was Bernard Lomellin, and the villain was Ambrose (Imogen’s husband was Posthŭmus Leonātus, and the villain Iachimo). In Shakespeare, the British king Cymbeline takes the place assigned by Boccaccio to the sultan.
Ziska or Zizka, John of Trocznov, a Bohemian nobleman, leader of the Hussites. He fought under Henry V. at Agincourt. His sister had been seduced by a monk; and whenever he heard the shriek of a Catholic at the stake, he called it “his sister’s bridal song.” The story goes that he ordered his skin at death to be made into a drum-head (1360-1427).
⁂ Some say that John of Trocznov was called “Ziska” because he was “one-eyed;” but that is a mistake--Ziska was a family name, and does not mean “one-eyed,” either in the Polish or Bohemian language.
For every page of paper shall a hide
Of yours be stretched as parchment on a drum
Like Ziska’s skin, to beat alarm to all