Don Quixote

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'I suppose my day wasn't as bad as yours,' Laurie said. 'But I'm beginning to understand how Cassandra felt when Apollo made sure that she was not to be heeded!

ROBIN COOK Blindsight, 1993

Captain Corcoran Captain Corcoran is the captain of HMS Pinafore in Gilbert and Sullivan's opera of the same name (1878). He sings a song in which he proudly tells his crew of the things that he 'never, never' does. When challenged, he concedes that this is not quite true:

'What, never?' 'No, never.' 'What, never?'

'Well—hardly ever.'

Nature is so wondrously complex and varied that almost anything possible does happen. Captain Corcoran's 'hardly ever' is the strongest statement that a natural historian can make.

STEPHEN JAY COULD Ever Since Darwin, 1978

Doubting Thomas Thomas, known also as Thomas Didymus, meaning 'twin' in Aramaic, was one of the twelve Apostles in the New Testament. After the Crucifixion, when Jesus appeared before the disciples to show them that he had risen from the dead, Thomas was not present. When the other disciples told Thomas that they had seen Jesus, he said he would not believe that it was true 'except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side' (John 20: 25). The expression 'Doubting Thomas' is now used to mean an incredulous or sceptical person.

Since he became news, he's been at pains to let the figures speak for themselves. 'The lab data's there in black and white! It's also in the Vanderbilt computer system which means others can review it. When doubting Thomases from the press or the medical world come to speak to him, 'I print out the lab sheets, boom, boom, boom!

The Observer, 1997

Hamlet Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark, is the hero of Shakespeare's tragedy of that title. Introspective and indecisive, Hamlet broods over revenge for his father's murder. The play features several famous soliloquies in which Hamlet deliberates on the course of action he should take. His name can be applied to someone who stops to ponder what to do, especially to an anxiously indecisive person.

To what extent was he, Closter Ridley, justified in imposing his taste upon the newspaper's subscribers? Still, was it not for doing so that he drew his excellent salary and his annual bonus, reckoned upon the profits? What about the barber's chair; might there not be a few buttocks for Shillito? But he could go on in this Hamlet-like strain all day.

ROBERTSON DAviES Leaven of Malice, 1954

Sadduccee The Sadducees were a Jewish sect at the time of Christ, who accepted only the written law, not oral tradition, denied the existence of angels and demons, and did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. A Sadduccee is therefore someone who refuses to believe things that are readily accepted by others.

'Law, mother! I don't doubt he thought so. I suppose he and Cack got drinking toddy

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together, till he got asleep, and dreamed it. I wouldn't believe such a thing if it did happen right before my face and eyes. I should only think I was crazy, that's all.' 'Come, Lois, if I was you, I wouldn't talk so like a Sadduccee,' said my grandmother.

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE The Chost in the Mill, 1872

Dreams

As the Margaret Atwood quotation below suggests, 'a dream can mean something', and the prophetic dream which can be interpreted by those gifted to do so is a recurring motif in the Bible. Oracles perform a corresponding function in classical legend. • See also Prophecy, Sleep.

Joseph In the Bible, Joseph was the son of Jacob and Rachel. In his boyhood, he discovered he had a gift for prophetic dreams. As an adult in Egypt he was put in prison, where he interpreted the dreams of Pharaoh's butler and baker. Two years later Pharaoh was troubled by dreams that he could not understand and, hearing of Joseph's gift from his butler, sent for him. Joseph interpreted Pharaoh's dream of seven thin kine (or cows) devouring seven fat kine as predicting seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine, advising Pharaoh to store grain in preparation for the long famine ahead. • See special entry D JOSEPH on p. 224.

Morpheus In Roman mythology, Morpheus is the god of dreams, son of Somnus, the god of sleep. To fall 'into the arms of Morpheus' is thus to fall asleep.

Nebuchadnezzar Nebuchadnezzar (c. 630- 5 62 BC) was King of Babylon 605-562 BC, and built the massive fortification walls of Babylon and the Hanging Gardens. He conquered and destroyed Jerusalem in 586 BC and exiled the Israelites to Babylon. The prophet Daniel had a gift for interpreting visions and dreams. He was able to explain the meaning of a strange dream of Nebuchadnezzar's, for which he was made the king's chief adviser. Later, Daniel interpreted a second dream of Nebuchadnezzar to foretell his insanity, which immediately came to pass. • See special entry • DANIEL on p. 86.

That night was an eventful one to Eustacia's brain, and one which she hardly ever forgot. She dreamt a dream; and few human beings, from Nebuchadnezzar to the Swaffham tinker, ever dreamt a more remarkable one.

THOMAS HARDY The Return of the Native, 1880

Pharaoh •SeeJOSEPH.

Listen here . . . I have dreams like a Pharaoh. When I was fourteen and asleep in Fowey, I was here on this exact shore. I saw Will Bryant—it's none of a surprise to me. These days and night, I have dreams I cannot utter....

THOMAS KENEALLY The Playmaker, 1987

I suppose he is interested in my dreams because a dream can mean something, or so

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it says in the Bible, such as Pharaoh and the fat kine and the lean kine, and Jacob with the angels going up and down the ladder.

MARCARET ATWOOD Alias Grace, 1996

Pilate's wife In the New Testament, when Jesus was brought before Pontius Pilate for judgement, Pilate's wife reported to her husband the distress she had suffered in a dream on account of Jesus, and urged him: 'Have thou nothing to do with that just man: for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him.'

All dreams mean something! 'For Joseph and Pharaoh, or Pilate's wife, perhaps. You will have to work very hard to convince me that they mean anything here and now!

ROBERTSON DAviES The Manticore, 1972

Duality

The allusions below can be used to express the dual or divided nature of

something, especially a person's personality, JANUS and MR FACING-BOTH-

WAYS can both suggest two-facedness or duplicity. • See also Change,

Hypocrisy Similarity.

Centaur In Greek mythology, a centaur is one of a race of creatures who has the upper body, arms, and head of a man and the body and legs of a horse.

But as he straightened and pressed ahead, care caught up with him again. Turning half-beast and half-divine, divining himself like a heathen Centaur, he had escaped his death once more.

EUDORA WELTY 'A Still Moment' in The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty, 1943

Cox and Box In the operetta Cox and Box by Burnand and Sullivan (1867), Cox and Box are two lodgers whose occupations allow their landlady to let the same room out to each of them, one using it by day and one using it by night. They discover their landlady's duplicity when Cox, who sleeps in the room at night, is given a holiday. The operetta was based on a play entitled Box and Cox by J. M. Morton, published in 1847.

Mr Facing-both-ways Mr Facing-both-ways is one of several characters who are relatives of Mr By-ends in the first part of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (1678). Mr By-ends claims many rich relatives in the town of Fair-speech (not, as in the Peacock quotation, Vanity Fair) and, on being questioned by Christian as to who these relatives are, replies: 'Almost the whole town', listing a litany of names including that of Mr Facing-both-ways.

I have a great abomination of this learned friend; as author, lawyer, and politician, he is triformis, like Hecate: and in every one of his three forms he is bifrons, like Janus; the true Mr Facing-both-ways of Vanity Fair.

THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK Crotchet Costle, 1831