Hural Oyun.—In the fairy tales found in the Koran, these are the black-eyed daughters of paradise. They are created from muck, and are free from all physical weakness and are always young. It is held out to every male believer that he will have seventy-two of these girls as his household companions in paradise.
Hylas (hī´las).—A beautiful boy, beloved by Hercules, who was drawn into a spring by the enamored nymphs. The story has been treated by Bayard Taylor, and by William Morris in his Life and Death of Jason.
Hypatia (hī-ā´shiä).—A novel by the Rev. Charles Kingsley, the scene of which is laid in Alexandria, at a time when Christianity was gaining ground against Paganism and the neo-Platonism of the schools. Hypatia herself was born about the year 370, and, after attracting to her lectures on philosophy a large and brilliant auditory, was torn to pieces by the rabble of her native city in 415. Hypatia appeared in 1853.
Hyperion (hī-pē´ri-on, or hī-per-ī´on).—A romance in four books, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. This work, which was the result of an extensive tour in Germany, was published in 1839, and with much that is purely fanciful and imaginative, contains much that came within the actual experience of the author who is represented, idealized, in the character of Paul Flemming. The episode with Mary Ashburton is supposed to have reference to a real occurrence. The book is full of description and of eloquent discussion, besides being interspersed with snatches of legend and of song.
Hypocrites’ Isle.—An island described by Rabelais in one of his satires. He pictures this island of Hypocrites as wholly inhabited by people of low and defiled natures, as, by sham saints, spiritual comedians, seducers, and “such-like sorry rogues who live on the alms of passengers like the hermit of Lamont.”
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Iago (ē-ä´gō).—Othello, Shakespeare. Othello’s ensign and the villain of the play. Iago is said to be a character next to a devil, yet not quite a devil, which Shakespeare alone could execute without scandal.
Idleness, The Lake of.—Faërie Queene, Spenser. Whoever drank thereof grew instantly “faint and weary.” The Red Cross Knight drank of it, and was readily made captive by Orgoglio.
Idylls of the King.—A series of poems by Tennyson. Taken together they form a parable of the life of man. Each idyll taken as a separate picture represents the war between sense and soul. In Lancelot and Guinevere the lower nature leads them astray and there is intense struggle before the higher nature prevails. In Vivien, Tristram, and Modred, the base and sensual triumph. In Arthur, Sir Galahad and Percivale, it is the victory of the spiritual.
Ignaro.—Faërie Queene, Spenser. Fosterfather of Orgoglio. Spenser says this old man walks one way and looks another, because ignorance is always “wrong-headed.”