"Shepherds," said he, "I am the Blue Centaur. If you will give me every third year a young child, I promise to bring a hundred of my kinsmen and drive the Ogri away." ... He [_the Blue Centaur_] used to appear on the top of a rock, with his club in one hand ... and with a terrible voice cry out to the shepherds, "Leave me my prey, and be off with you!"--Comtesse d'Aunoy, _Fairy Tales_ ("Princess Carpillona," 1682). CEN'TURY WHITE, John White, the nonconformist lawyer. So called from his chief work, entitled _The First Century of Scandalous, Malignant Priests, etc._ (1590-1645). CE'PHAL (Greek, _Kephalê_), the Head personified, the "acropolis" of _The Purple Island_, fully described in canto v. of that poem, by Phineas Fletcher (1633). CEPH'ALUS (in Greek, _Kephalos_). One day, overcome with heat, Cephalus threw himself on the grass, and cried aloud, "Come, gentle Aura, and this heat allay!" The words were told to his young wife Procris, who, supposing Aura to be some rival, became furiously jealous. Resolved to discover her rival, she stole next day to a covert, and soon saw her husband come and throw himself on the bank, crying aloud, "Come, gentle Zephyr; come, Aura, come, this heat allay!" Her mistake was evident, and she was abont to throw herself into the arms of her husband, when the young man, aroused by the rustling, shot an arrow into the covert, supposing some wild beast was about to spring on him. Procris was shot, told her tale, and died.--Ovid, _Art of Love_, iii. (Cephalus loves Procris, _i.e._ "the sun kisses the dew." Procris is killed by Cephalus, _i.e._ "the dew is destroyed by the rays of the sun.") CERAS'TES (3 _syl_.), the horned snake. (Greek, _keras_, "a horn.") Milton uses the word in _Paradise Lost_, x. 525 (1665). CERBERUS, a dog with three heads, which keeps guard in hell. Dantê places it in the third circle. Cerberus, cruel monster, fierce and strange, Through his wide threefold throat barks as a dog ... His eyes glare crimson, black his unctuous beard, His belly large, and clawed the hands with which He tears the spirits, flays them, and their limbs Piecemeal disparts. Dantê, _Hell_, vi. (1300, Cary's translation). CER'DON, the boldest of the rabble leaders in the encounter with Hu'dibras at the bear-baiting. The original of this character was Hewson, a one-eyed cobbler and preacher, who was also a colonel in the Rump army.--S. Butler, _Hudibras_, i. 2 (1663). CERES (2 _syl._), the Fruits of Harvest personified. In classic mythology Cerês means "Mother Earth," the protectress of fruits. _Ceres_, the planet, is so called because it was discovered from the observatory of Palermo, and Cerês is the tutelar goddess of Sicily. CER'IMON, a physician of Ephesus, who restored to animation Thaisa, the wife of Per'iclês, prince of Tyre, supposed to be dead.--Shakespeare, _Pericles Prince of Tyre_ (1608).