The Complete Plays (102 page)

Belcher
comic name of an otherwise unknown devil.

Belgasar
town in Asia Minor.

Belgia
the Netherlands.

Bellona
Roman goddess of war.

Belus
son of Neptune and the founder of Babylon.

Biledull
district of northern Africa.

Bithynia
province of north-west Asia Minor.

Blois
French town, the site of a royal château.

Boötes
northern constellation, identified as the driver of the Plough; also known as Arcturus the Bear.

Boreas
the north wind.

Borno
chief town of Nubia; the same name applies to the nearby Lake Chad.

Buda
region of Hungary including modern Budapest.

Byather
probably Biafra, west African province.

Byron
town close to Babylon.

Caesar, Julius
Roman general and politician (100–44
BC
), whose dictatorship finally ended on the Ides (15th) of March when he was assassinated by a number of conspirators, amongst whom wereCassius and Brutus.

Cain
first-born son of Adam and Eve; he murdered his brother, Abel, for which he was cursed by God.

Caire, Cairon
Cairo in Egypt.

Calabria
area in southern Italy.

Campania
in the 16th century a district of Italy near Naples.

Canarea
Canary Islands.

Candy
Crete.

Capys
paternal grandfather of Aeneas.

Carmonia
Carmania, province on the borders of Syria and Asia Minor.

Carolus the Fifth
Charles V of Spain, and Holy Roman Emperor (1519–56).

Caspia
the Caspian Sea.

Cassandra
daughter of Priam, inspired with prophecy but fated not to be believed.

Catiline
Lucius Sergius Catilina (d. 62.
BC
), Roman politician, conspirator and enemy of Cicero, who composed diatribes against him.

Caucasus
barren and harsh mountain range between the Black and Caspian Seas.

Cazates
town near the source of the Nile. In Ortehus's atlas the home of the Amazons.

Cephalus
famed hunter, beloved of Aurora. He accidentally killed his wife Procris while hunting, and took part in the hunt for the Teumessian fox with his hound Lailaps.

Ceraunia
dangerous promontory in north-west Greece.

Cerberus
three-headed dog which guarded the entrance to the underworld.

Ceres
goddess of corn and harvests, mother of Proserpina by Jupiter, and closely associated with Sicily where annual sacrifices to her were performed.

Cham
title (khan) of the emperors of Tartary, fabled for their wealth.

Charon
ferryman who transported the souls of the dead over the river Styx into the underworld.

Chio
Chia, on the Black Sea coast of Asia Minor.

Cimmerians
race believed to live in a sunless land at the edge of the world, and thus associated with the perpetual darkness of the underworld.

Circe
enchantress who transformed her rival Scylla into a monster, and humans she seduced into animals. She tried to detain Odysseus on his journey home.

Clymene
beloved of the sun-god Apollo and mother of Phaethon, who died attempting to drive his father's chariot.

Cocytus
river of the underworld.

Codemia
town on the river Dniester.

Colchis
country on the east of the Black Sea, home of the Golden Fleece.

Corinna
the name Ovid gave to the woman who is the focus of his erotic poetry, much of which Marlowe translated.

Creusa
daughter of the Trojan king, Priam, and his wife, Hecuba; wife to Aeneas and mother of Ascanius. She died during the escape from Troy following its siege by the Greeks.

Cubar
Gubar, chief town of Biafra.

Cutheia
town in Asia Minor (modern Kütahya).

Cyclopes
(plural of Cyclops) one-eyed monsters who forged thunderbolts for Jupiter.

Cymbrian
Teutonic.

Cymodoce
a sea-nymph.

Cynthia
Diana, the goddess of the moon, named after her birthplace, Mount Cynthus on Delos.

Cyrus
6th-century
BC
King of Persia, conqueror of Babylon, sometimes regarded by the Greeks as an ideal ruler.

Cytherea
Venus, named after Cythera, her favourite island.

Damon
philosopher from Syracuse, famed for his friendship with Pythias; his offer to be executed in place of his friend so impressed the tyrant Dionysius that he pardoned both of them.

Danaë
the daughter of Acrisius, the king of Argos, who was imprisoned in a bronze tower when an oracle predicted that her son would murder her father. While she was incarcerated, Jupiter visited her in a shower of gold and she later bore his son Perseus.

Dardania
Troy.

Dardanus
founder of Troy.

Darius
Darius III, 4th-century
BC
Persian king, defeated in battle by Alexander the Great, who took from him a jewelled chest in which he allegedly kept the works of Homer.

Darote
town of the Nile delta.

Deiphobus
successor to Paris as lover of Helen.

Deucalion
when Zeus flooded the earth, Deucalion and his wife, Pyrrha, were the only human survivors; they threw stones which metamorphosed into the men and women who were to re-people the world.

Diana
goddess of the moon, chastity, woodland and hunting.

Dido
daughter of a king of Tyre (whom Virgil names as Belus). Following the murder of her husband Sychaeus by her brother Pygmalion, she fled to Libya where she founded Carthage.

Dionysius
Tyrant of Syracuse (405–367
BC
).

Dis
alternative name for Pluto.

Dolon
Trojan spy captured by the Greeks.

Draco
7th-century
BC
Athenian legislator, whose ‘draconian' laws were said to be written in blood and frequently involved the death penalty.

Ebena
Night (from Latin,
hebenus
).

Edward Longshanks
Edward I (1239–1307), King of England, nicknamed for his long legs.

Eleanor of Spain
wife of Edward I.

Elysium
that part of the underworld where heroes enjoyed a blissful afterlife.

Emden
an important trading port on the German North Sea coastline.

Epeus
builder of the Trojan Horse.

Erebus
primeval darkness, often associated with the underworld.

Erycina
Venus, named after her temple on Mount Eryx in Sicily.

Europa
a Phoenician princess whom Jupiter seduced by assuming the shape of a beautiful bull.

Euxine
the Black Sea.

Famastro
in Ortelius's atlas, a town on the Black Sea coast of Asia Minor.

Fates
Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos, daughters of Jupiter, who (respectively) spin, measure and cut the thread of life.

Fez
town in North Africa.

Flora
Roman goddess of flowers and fertility.

Furies
Roman demons of the underworld, identified with the Greek Erinyes, spirits of vengeance.

Gaetulia
Morocco.

Galen
Greek physician (
c
.
AD
129–99) whose medical knowledge was still respected in the sixteenth century.

Ganymede
beautiful son of Tros, king of Troy, who was carried away by Jupiter to become his cup-bearer; he is usually regarded as an icon of homoerotic desire.

Gihon
biblical name for a river flowing out of Eden, identified with the Nile.

Gorgon
(i) Demogorgon, supposedly a primeval god (actually a post-classical invention), later a devil; (ii) the gorgon Medusa.

Graces
three goddesses of gracious kindness.

Gruntland
Greenland.

Guallatia
Gualata, a town and province of western Libya.

Guyron
town on the upper Euphrates, possibly a border outpost of Natolia.

Hainault
county of Flanders near France.

Halla
town to the south-east of Aleppo.

Harpies
monsters with the faces of women but the bodies of vultures.

Hebe
daughter of Zeus and Hera, the Greek goddess of youth and her father's cup-bearer.

Hector
most illustrious of all Trojan warriors, eventually killed by Achilles.

Hecuba
wife of Priam and queen of Troy. The mother of many children; when her beloved son Polydorus was treacherously killed by Polymes-tor, she blinded the murderer and slew his children. In her inconsolable grief, she was transformed into a howling dog.

Helen
(of Troy or Greece) the wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta; reputedly the most beautiful woman in the world, her adultery with the Trojan Paris became the pretext for the Trojan War.

Hephaestion
soldier, lover and adviser to Alexander the Great.

Hercules
son of Jupiter and Alcmene, the greatest of mythic heroes, famed for physical strength, obedience to his father, and for performing the Labours (including the cleaning of the Augean stables) set him by King Eurystheus. Sometimes called Alcides, after his grandfather Alceus.

Hercynia
wilderness in Persia. See Nigra Silva.

Hermes
see Mercury.

Hesperia
‘the western land', Italy.

Hesperides
the daughters of Hesperus, nymphs of the setting sun who guarded the golden apples in the far west.

Hippolytus
son of Theseus. When he rejected the advances of his stepmother Phaedra, she accused him of attempting to rape her, causing Theseus to call on Poseidon (Neptune) to destroy him. The god sent a monster to terrify his chariot-horses, which dragged him to his death.

Homer
Greek epic poet, reputedly blind, and who composed the
Iliad
and the
Odyssey
.

Hyades
daughters of Atlas who were turned into seven stars in the constellation of Taurus and who were believed to cause bad weather.

Hybla
town in Sicily famous for its honey.

Hydra
many-headed monster which lived in the Lernean swamp near Argos; each of its heads would be replaced by two more if cut off, but it was eventually killed by Hercules.

Hylas
a beautiful boy kidnapped by water-nymphs from the expedition of the Argonauts; loved and lamented by Hercules.

Hymen
Greek god of marriage, conventionally portrayed as a veiled young man bearing a flaming torch.

Iarbas
son of Jupiter and Garamantis, king of Gaetulia.

Ibis
sacred bird of Egyptian religion.

Icarus
the son of Daedalus; he escaped from captivity with his father on a pair of wings held together with wax, but he flew too near the sun, the wax melted and he fell into the sea.

Ida
(i) Mount Ida, near Troy, birthplace of Aeneas and site of the Judgement of Paris; (ii) Idalium in Cyprus.

Ilion, Ilium
Troy.

Illyrians
inhabitants of Illyria, on the eastern shore of the Adriatic.

Inde
India or the West Indies.

Io
a priestess of Juno, desired by Jupiter; for a time she was metamorphosed into a beautiful cow and then back to the human form in which she bore Jupiter a son, Epaphus.

Iphigen
Iphigenia, the daughter of Agamemnon, who sacrificed her at Aulis to gain a favourable wind to sail for Troy.

Iris
winged messenger of Juno.

Iras
a beggar; one of the suitors of Penelope.

Jaertis
the river Jaxartes which runs from Tartary into the Caspian Sea.

Janus
Roman god of beginnings, doors and gates; the gates of his temple in the Forum stood open in times of war and closed in the rare interludes of peace.

Jason
Greek hero who led the Argonauts in the quest for the Golden Fleece of Colchis.

Jebusite
Canaanite tribe who were dispossessed of Jerusalem by David; the word became an abusive term for Jesuits.

Jerome
St Jerome, 4th-century
AD
theologian, whose highly influential translation of the Bible into Latin (the Vulgate) was the standard text of the scriptures until the Reformation.

Jubalter
Gibraltar.

Juno
goddess of marriage, wife of the incessantly promiscuous Jupiter. She defended the sanctity of marriage by seeking the destruction of those who were implicated in his adultery. Saturnia was a cult name for Juno.