=Pic´rochole=, king of Lernê, noted for his choleric temper, his thirst for empire, and his vast but ill-digested projects.--Rabelais, _Gargantua_, i. (1533). Supposed to be a satire on Charles V. of Spain. =Picrochole’s Counsellors.= The duke of Smalltrash, the earl of Swashbuckler, and Captain Durtaille, advised King Picrochole to leave a small garrison at home, and to divide his army into two parts--to send one south, and the other north. The former was to take Portugal, Spain, Italy, Germany (but was to spare the life of Barbarossa), to take the islands of the Mediterranean, the Morea, the Holy Land, and all Lesser Asia. The northern army was to take Belgium, Denmark, Prussia, Poland, Russia, Norway, Sweden, sail across the Sandy Sea, and meet the other half at Constantinople, when king Picrochole was to divide the nations amongst his great captains. Echephron said he had heard about a pitcher of milk which was to make its possessor a nabob, and give him for wife a sultan’s daughter; only the poor fellow broke his pitcher, and had to go supperless to bed. (See BOBADIL.)--Rabelais, _Pantagruel_, i. 33 (1533). A shoemaker bought a ha’p’orth of milk; with this he intended to make butter, the butter was to buy a cow, the cow was to have a calf, the calf was to be sold, and the man to become a nabob; only the poor dreamer cracked the jug, and spilt the milk and had to go supperless to bed.--_Pantagruel_, i. 33. =Picts=, the Caledonians or inhabitants of Albin, _i.e._ northern Scotland. The Scots came from Scotia, north of Ireland, and established themselves under Kenneth M’Alpin in 843. The etymology of “Picts” from the Latin _picti_ (“painted men”) is about equal to Stevens’s etymology of the word “brethren” from _tabernacle_ “because we breathe-therein.[TN-93] =Picture= (_The_), a drama by Massinger (1629). The story of this play (like that of the _Twelfth Night_, by Shakespeare) is taken from the novelette of Bandello, of Piedmont, who died 1555. =Pi´cus=, a soothsayer and augur; husband of Canens. In his prophetic art he made use of a woodpecker (_picus_), a prophetic bird sacred to Mars. Circé fell in love with him, and as he did not requite her advances, she changed him into a woodpecker, whereby he still retained his prophetic power. “There is Picus,” said Maryx. “What a strange thing is tradition! Perhaps it was in this very forest that Circê, gathering her herbs, saw the bold friend of Mars on his fiery courser, and tried to bewitch him, and, failing, metamorphosed him so. What, I wonder, ever first wedded that story to the woodpecker?”--Ouida, _Ariadnê_, i. 11. =Pied Horses=, Motassem had 130,000 _pied horses_, which he employed to carry earth to the plain of Catoul; and having raised a mound of sufficient height to command a view of the whole neighborhood, he built thereon the royal city of Shamarah´.--Khondemyr, _Khelassat al Akhbar_ (1495).