3 7 2 STUPIDITY

Laocoôn Laocoôn was a Trojan priest who, with his two sons, was crushed to death by two huge sea serpents as a punishment for warning the Trojans to reject the Wooden Horse left by the Greeks. A classical marble sculpture (c.50 BC) of the death-struggle of Laocoôn and his sons, with the serpents coiled around their limbs, was rediscovered in the Renaissance and is now in the Vatican Museum. It is, in fact, this sculpture rather than the story that is often being alluded to. • See special entry • TROJAN WAR on p. 392.

'And seeing it's you, I'll give you a hint: the way the string's tied, you can get loose at once if he lies down flat and you crawl right up over his head; then the string drops off without untying the knots. Bye now.' And she was off to encourage other strugglers, who lay in Laocoon groups about the floor.

ROBERTSON DAviEs Leaven of Malice, 1954

Stupidity

The names below denote foolishness and stupidity, even the ironically titled WISE MEN OF COTHAM. • See also Intelligence, Judgement and

Decision, Knowledge, Wisdom.

Abdera Abdera was an ancient Greek city on the coast of Thrace whose inhabitants were proverbial for their stupidity.

Boeotian Boeotia was a district of ancient Greece, known for the stupidity of its inhabitants. Hence a Boeotian can mean a stupid person.

An opportunity . . . which I should have been a Boeotian indeed had I neglected. JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART VakriUS, 1821

Philistine The ancient Philistines were the traditional enemies of the Israelites, regarded by them as hostile barbarians. Their name has come to be applied to people who are indifferent to culture and the arts and have uncultivated tastes.

When I was a young man, though his books sold but little and one or two were banned by the libraries, it was very much a mark of culture to admire him. He was thought boldly realistic. He was a very good stick to beat the Philistines with,

w. SOMERSET MAUCHAM Cakes and Ale, 1930

Five hundred copies of The Voice of Youth were on sale in the dinner hall today. Five hundred copies were locked in the games cupboard by the end of the afternoon. Not one copy was sold! My fellow pupils are nothing but Philistines and Morons!

SUE TOWNSEND The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged I33A, 1982

Scarecrow In L. Frank Baum's children's story The Wizard of Oz (1900), the Scarecrow is one of the companions who joins Dorothy on the Yellow Brick Road on her journey to find Oz. He does not have, and wants to find, a brain.

Simple Simon Simple Simon is a character in a children's nursery rhyme and

SUCCESS 373

the name can be applied to any foolish person or simpleton.

Wise Men of Gotham Gotham is a village in Nottinghamshire which is associated with the English folk tale 'The Wise Men of Gotham', in which the inhabitants of the village demonstrated cunning by feigning stupidity. Gotham was proverbial in the Middle Ages for folly, and the phrase 'wise man of Gotham' used to mean a fool.

Bertie Wooster Bertie Wooster is the amiable but vacuous young man about town in The Inimitable Jeeves (1924) and the subsequent series of novels by P. G. Wodehouse. He relies on his resourceful valet, Jeeves, to rescue him from the predicaments his dim-wittedness lands him in.

At the time the Tory press was portraying Tony Blair as a sort of upper-class twit, a Bertie Wooster figure with an idiotic grin.

The Observer, 1997

Success

Each of the figures included here embodies the 'rags-to-riches' progression from humble status to prosperity or eminence. • See also Failure, Victory

Wealth.

Cinderella Cinderella, in the traditional fairy story, finds herself living with a stepmother and two stepsisters after her father's remarriage. She is maltreated by her family, who force her to do menial tasks in the house. When a royal ball is planned, Cinderella does not expect to be able to attend but her fairy godmother turns a pumpkin into a coach and provides suitable clothes and glass slippers. At the ball she meets the prince. Rushing away from the ball at the stroke of midnight, she leaves behind a glass slipper. The prince announces that he will marry whoever can wear the slipper and it fits only Cinderella. The name Cinderella is sometimes shortened to Cinders.

'Suppose I try' said Mr. Hale. 'Everybody else has had their turn at this great difficulty. Now let me try. I may be the Cinderella to put on the slipper after all.'

ELIZABETH GASKELL North and South, 1854

In fact, in the beginning, I was just as excited as my mother, maybe even more so. I pictured this prodigy part of me as many different images, trying each one on for

walk past her in a corridor at Universal. He says he saw 'this incredible-looking girl coming towards me like a young Arabian racehorse. I told my assistant to follow her

3 7 4 SUFFERING

Jacob In the Bible, Jacob was sent to Padan-Aram by his father, Isaac, to find a wife among his cousins. Jacob worked for his uncle Laban for many years, marrying his daughters, Leah and Rachel, and fathering twelve sons who became the founders of the twelve tribes of ancient Israel. Eventually Jacob wished to stop working for his uncle and set up his own flock. In lieu of wages, he agreed with Laban to take from his uncle's flocks any sheep, lambs, or goats that were dark-coloured, spotted, or speckled. Gradually, Jacob built up his own flocks from these animals until he was prosperous with large flocks, servants, camels, and asses (Gen. 27: 28-30: 43).

The fact remained that whatever he touched he prospered in. Like Jacob in PadanAram, he would no sooner humbly limit himself to the ringstraked-and-spotted exceptions of trade than the ringstraked-and-spotted would multiply and prevail.

THOMAS HARDY The Mayor of Casterbridge, 1886

Sir Joseph Porter, KCB Sir Joseph Porter KCB is a character in Gilbert and Sullivan's H.M.S. Pinafore (1878) who boasts that he has achieved the exalted status of 'ruler of the Queen's Navee' by his industry as an office boy, junior clerk, articled clerk, lawyer and MP without any experience in the Navy. His song ends with the instruction that if you want to 'rise to the top of the tree', you should:

'Stick close to your desks and never go to sea, And you all may be rulers of the Queen's Navee!'.

Suffering

This theme encompasses both mental anguish and physical torment. • See

also Grief.

Acheron In Greek mythology, Acheron ('the river of woe') was one of the rivers of Hades, sometimes used to mean Hades itself. • See special entry • HADES on p. 172.

Throughout that night Boldwood's dark form might have been seen walking about the hills and downs of Weatherbury like an unhappy Shade in the Mournful Fields by Acheron.

THOMAS HARDY Far from the Madding Crowd, 1874

Ajax Ajax was a Greek hero of the Trojan War, proverbial for his size and strength. When Agamemnon awarded the armour of the dead Achilles to Odysseus and not to him, Ajax went mad with rage, slaughtered a flock of sheep, and then committed suicide in shame. • See special entry u TROJAN WAR on p. 392.

She sat as helpless and despairing among her black locks as Ajax among the slaughtered sheep.

GEORCE ELIOT The Mill on the Floss, 1860

SUFFERING 3 7 7

can't imagine anybody more capable of worrying a family than Eggy. Just suppose if Job had had him as well as boils!'

p. c. WODEHOUSE Laughing Cas, 1936

Laocoon Laocoon was a Trojan priest who, with his two sons, was crushed to death by two huge sea serpents as a punishment for warning the Trojans to reject the Wooden Horse left by the Greeks. A classical marble sculpture (c.50 BC) depicts Laocoon and his sons dying in agony, with the serpents coiled around their limbs. Hardy alludes to this sculpture in the quotation below.

• See special entry u TROJAN WAR on p. 392.

If he had been a woman he must have screamed under the nervous tension which he was now undergoing. But that relief being denied to his virility, he clenched his teeth in misery, bringing lines about his mouth like those in the Laocoon, and corrugations between his brows.

THOMAS HARDY Jude the Obscure, 1895

St Lawrence St Lawrence (d. 258) was a Roman martyr and deacon of Rome. According to tradition, Lawrence was ordered by the prefect of Rome to hand over the church's treasure, in response to which he assembled the poor people of the city and presented them to the prefect. For this he was put to death by being roasted on a gridiron.

It is very easy to talk of repentance, but a man has to walk over hot ploughshares before he can complete it; to be skinned alive as was St Bartholomew; to be stuck full of arrows as was St Sebastian; to lie broiling on a gridiron like St Lorenzo!

ANTHONY TROLLOPE Barchester Towers, 1857

Melpomene Melpomene was the Muse of tragedy in Greek and Roman mythology.

His face is like the tragic mask of Melpomene.

THOMAS HARDY Jude the Obscure, 1895

Philoctetes Philoctetes was a Greek hero of the Trojan War. He was with Hercules when he died and received from him Hercules' bow and poisoned arrows. On his way to the war Philoctetes was bitten by a serpent and abandoned by his companions on the island of Lemnos owing to a foul-smelling wound on his foot. When in the tenth year of the war the Greeks were informed by an oracle that only with Hercules' arrows could Troy be taken, Odysseus and Diomedes came back to fetch him to Troy, where he killed Paris.

• See special entry n TROJAN WAR on p. 392.

Arresting for a moment the wave of memories, Roberto realized he had evoked his father's death not with the pious intention of keeping open that Philoctetes' wound, but by mere accident.

UMBERTO ECO The Island of the Day Before, 1994

plagues of Egypt In the Book of Exodus, God sent ten plagues to afflict the Egyptians (Exod. 7-12). The plagues were: turning the Nile to blood; frogs; gnats; flies; death of cattle; boils; hail; locusts; darkness; death of the Egyptian first-born. As a result of these plagues, Pharaoh freed the Israelites from bond-

age. • See special entry • MOSES AND THE BOOK OF EXODUS on p. 264.

If Mr Thurle's so ready to take farms under you, it's a pity but what he should take this, and see if he likes to live in a house wi' all the plagues 0' Egypt in't—wi' the cellar full 0' water, and the frogs and toads hoppin' up the steps by dozens—and the