=Volan´te= (3 _syl._), one of the three daughters of Balthazar. Lively, witty, sharp as a needle and high-spirited. She loves the Count Montalban; but when the count disguises himself as a father confessor, in order to sound her love for him, she sees the trick in a moment, and says to him, “Come, count, pull off your lion’s hide, and confess yourself an ass.” Subsequently, all ends happily and well.--J. Tobin, _The Honeymoon_ (1804). =Volet´ta=, Free-will personified. Voletta, Whom neither man, nor fiend, nor God constrains. Phineas Fletcher, _The Purple Island_, vi. (1633). =Volksmährchen= (“_popular tales_”), in German, the best exponents being Ludwig Tieck (1773-1853), Musäus (1735-1787), De la Motte Fouqué (see UNDINE), Chamisso (see SCHLEMIHL, PETER), Wilhelm Hauff (1802-1827), Achim von Arnim (1781-1831), Clemens Brentano (1777-1842), Zschokke (1771-1848), Hoffmann (1776-1822), Gustav Freytag, “The German Dickens” (1816-1878), and the brothers Grimm. =Vol´pone= (2 _syl._), or THE FOX, a comedy by Ben Jonson (1605). Volpone, a rich Venetian nobleman, without children, feigns to be dying, in order to draw gifts from those who pay court to him under the expectation of becoming his heirs. Mosca, his knavish confederate, persuades each in turn that he is named for the inheritance, and by this means exacts many a costly present. At the end, Volpone is betrayed, his property forfeited, and he is sentenced to lie in the worst hospital in all Venice. Jonson has three great comedies: _Volpone_, or _The Fox_, _Epicene, or The Silent Woman_, and _The Alchemist_.--R. Chambers, _English Literature_, i. 192. =Volscius= (_Prince_), a military hero, who falls in love with the fair Parthenŏpê, and disputes with Prince Prettyman upon the superiority of his sweetheart to Cloris, whom Prince Prettyman sighs for.--Duke of Buckingham, _The Rehearsal_ (1671). Why, this is worse than Prince Volscius in love!--Sir W. Scott. Oh, be merry, by all means. Prince Volscius in love! Ha, ha, ha!--W. Congreve, _The Double Dealer_ (1694). =Volsunga Saga= (_The_), a collection of tales in verse about the early Teutonic heroes, compiled by Sæmund Sigfusson in the eleventh century. A prose version was made some 200 years later by Snorro Sturleson. This saga forms a part of the _Rhythmical_, or _Elder Edda_, and of the _Prose_, or _Younger Edda_. =Voltaire= (_The German_), Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1838). Christoph Martin Wieland is also called “The German Voltaire” (1733-1813). _Voltaire_ (_The Polish_), Ignatius Krasicki (1774-1801). _Voltaire_ (_The Russian_), Alex P. Sumorokof (1727-1777). =Vol´timand=, a courtier in the court of Claudius, king of Denmark.--Shakespeare, _Hamlet_ (1596).