Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol. 3: A Revised American Edition of the Reader's HandbookBrewer, Ebenezer Cobham
General
Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol. 3: A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook
Brewer, Ebenezer Cobham
Allusions; Fiction -- Dictionaries; Literature -- Dictionaries
=Morgia´na=, the female slave, first of Cassim, and then of Ali Baba,
“crafty, cunning, and fruitful in inventions.” When the thief marked the
door of her master’s house with white chalk in order to recognize it,
Morgiana marked several other doors in the same manner; next day she
observed a red mark on the door, and made a similar one on others, as
before. A few nights afterwards, a merchant with thirty-eight oil-jars
begged a night’s lodging; and as Morgiana wanted oil for a lamp, she
went to get some from one of the leather jars. “Is it time?” asked a
voice. “Not yet,” replied Morgiana, and going to the others, she
discovered that a man was concealed in thirty-seven of the jars. From
the last jar she took oil, which she made boiling hot, and with it
killed the thirty-seven thieves. When the captain discovered that all
his men were dead, he decamped without a moment’s delay. Soon
afterwards, he settled in the city as a merchant, and got invited by Ali
Baba to supper, but refused to eat salt. This excited the suspicion of
Morgiana, who detected in the pretended merchant the captain of the
forty thieves. She danced awhile for his amusement, playfully sported
with his dagger, and suddenly plunged it into his heart. When Ali Baba
knew who it was that she had slain, he not only gave the damsel her
liberty, but also married her to his own son.--_Arabian Nights_ (“Ali
Baba, or the Forty Thieves”).
=Morglay=, the sword of Sir Bevis, of Hamptoun, _i.e._ Southampton, given
to him by his wife, Josian, daughter of the king of Armenia.--Drayton,
_Polyolboin_,[TN-23] ii. (1612).
You talk of Morglay, Excalibur [_Arthur’s sword_], and Durindana
[_Orlando’s sword_], or so. Tut! I lend no credit to that is fabled
of ’em.--Ben Jonson, _Every Man in His Humor_, iii. 1 (1598).
=Morgue la Faye=, a _fée_ who watched over the birth of Ogier, the Dane,
and after he had finished his earthly career, restored him to perpetual
youth, and took him to live with her in everlasting love in the isle and
castle of Av´alon.--_Ogier, le Danois_ (a romance).
=Mor´ice= (_Gil_ or _Chĭld_), the natural son of Lady Barnard, “brought
forth in her father’s house wi’ mickle sin and shame.” One day, Gil
Morice sent Willie to the baron’s hall, with a request that Lady
Barnard would go at once to Greenwood to see the chĭld. Lord Barnard,
fancying the “chĭld” to be some paramour, forbade his wife to leave the
hall, and went himself to Greenwood, where he slew Gil Morice, and sent
his head to Lady Barnard. On his return, the lady told her lord he had
slain her son, and added, “Wi’ the same spear, oh, pierce my heart, and
put me out o’ pain!” But the baron repented of his hasty deed, and
cried, “I’ll lament for Gil Morice, as gin he were mine ain.”--Percy,
_Reliques, etc._, III. i.
⁂ This tale suggested to Home the plot of his tragedy called _Douglas_.
=Mor´land=, in _Lend Me Five Shillings_, by J. M. Morton (1838).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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