Part 9 (1/2)

=Melea'ger=, son of Althaea, who was doomed to live while a certain log remained unconsumed. Althaea kept the log for several years, but being one day angry with her son, she cast it on the fire, where it was consumed. Her son died at the same moment.--Ovid, _Metam._, viii. 4.

Sir John Davies uses this to ill.u.s.trate the immortality of the soul. He says that the life of the soul does not depend on the body as Meleager's life depended on the fatal brand.

Again, if by the body's prop she stand-- If on the body's life her life depend, As Meleager's on the fatal brand; The body's good she only would intend.

_Reason_, iii. (1622).

=Melesig'enes= (5 _syl._). Homer is so called from the river Meles (2 _syl._), in Asia Minor, on the banks of which some say he was born.

... various measured verse, aeolian charms and Dorian lyric odes, And his who gave them breath, but higher sung, Blind Melesigenes, thence Homer called, Whose poem Phbus challenged for his own.

Milton, _Paradise Regained_ (1671).

=Melema= (_t.i.to_). Beautiful accomplished Greek adventurer who marries and is unfaithful to Romola. He dies by the hand of an old man who had been the benefactor of his infancy and youth, and whom he had basely deserted and ignored.--George Eliot, _Romola_.

=Me'li= (_Giovanni_), a Sicilian, born at Palermo; immortalized by his eclogues and idylls. Meli is called ”The Sicilian Theocritus”

(1740-1815).

Much it pleased him to peruse The songs of the Sicilian Muse-- Bucolic songs by Meli sung.

Longfellow, _The Wayside Inn_ (prelude, 1863).

=Meliadus=, father of Sir Tristan; prince of Lyonnesse, and one of the heroes of Arthurian romance.--_Tristan de Leonois_ (1489).

? Tristan, in the _History of Prince Arthur_, compiled by Sir T. Malory (1470), is called ”Tristram;” but the old minnesingers of Germany (twelfth century) called the name ”Tristan.”

=Mel'ibe= (3 _syl._), a rich young man married to Prudens. One day, when Melibe was in the fields, some enemies broke into his house, beat his wife, and wounded his daughter Sophie in her feet, hands, ears, nose and mouth. Melibe was furious and vowed vengeance, but Prudens persuaded him ”to forgive his enemies, and to do good to those who despitefully used him.” So he called together his enemies, and forgave them, to the end that ”G.o.d of His endeles mercie wole at the tyme of oure deyinge forgive us oure giltes that we have trespased to Him in this wreeched world.”--Chaucer, _Canterbury Tales_ (1388).

? This prose tale is a liberal translation of a French story.--See _MS.

Reg._, xix. 7; and _MS. Reg._, xix. 11, British Museum.

=Melibee=, a shepherd, and the reputed father of Pastorella. Pastorella married Sir Calidore.--Spenser, _Faery Queen_, vi. 9 (1596).

”Melibee” is Sir Francis Walsingham. In the _Ruins of Time_, Spenser calls him ”Melib.” Sir Philip Sidney (the ”Sir Calidore” of the _Faery Queen_) married his daughter Frances. Sir Francis Walsingham died in 1590, so poor that he did not leave enough to defray his funeral expenses.

=Melibus=, one of the shepherds in _Eclogue_ i. of Virgil.

Spenser, in the _Ruins of Time_ (1591), calls Sir Francis Walsingham ”the good Melib;” and in the last book of the _Faery Queen_ he calls him ”Melibee.”

=Melin'da=, cousin of Sylvia. She loves Worthy, whom she pretends to dislike, and coquets with him for twelve months. Having driven her modest lover to the verge of distraction, she relents, and consents to marry him.--G. Farquhar, _The Recruiting Officer_ (1705).

=Mel'ior=, a lovely fairy, who carried off, in her magic bark, Parthen'opex, of Blois, to her secret island.--_Parthenopex de Blois_ (a French romance, twelfth century).