The Facts on File Dictionary of Allusions - Green Valley High School

via Dolorosa
490
own chastity is likely to be accused of acting like a
vestal virgin. <strong>The</strong> young man struck a vesta against the
rough wall and by its feeble light strained to see further
into the room.
via Dolorosa (veeb dolbrosb, veeb dolbrosa) A
painful or sorrowful experience; a period of suffering;
any unfortunate series of events leading to
a melancholy conclusion. Literally translated
from Latin as “sad road,” the original via Dolorosa
was the route taken by Christ through Jerusalem
on his way to the Crucifi xion after his condemnation
by Pontius Pilate (Matthew 27:31–33, Mark
15:20–22, Luke 23:26–33, and John 19:16–17).
Although the site of Pilate’s judgment hall is not
known and the modern city plan bears little relation
to that of 2,000 years ago, tradition identifi es
a par tic u lar route as that taken by Christ on his
way to Golgotha, complete with 14 stations of
the cross marking the locations of certain events
that took place in the course of the pro cession.
“She was well aware that directly Mrs. Neale
received her money she went round the corner to
drink ardent spirits in a mean and musty publichouse—the
unavoidable station on the Via Dolorosa
of her life” ( Joseph Conrad, <strong>The</strong> Secret Agent,
1907).
vials of wrath Vengeance, especially on the
wicked. <strong>The</strong> allusion is biblical, referring, in the
vision of John in Revelation 15:7, to the vials
(bowls) “full of the wrath of God” that the seven
angels will pour on the earth. With the emptying
of the vials will come seven terrible plagues or
other terrible affl ictions (part of the Last Judgment).
<strong>The</strong> image usually appears nowadays in the
phrase empty the vials of one’s wrath (signifying
to discharge one’s anger), although the phrase has
made many appearances in literature, including in
Joseph Conrad’s Typhoon (1902), in which an
approaching storm is described as “something formidable
and swift, like the sudden smashing of a
vial of wrath.”
Vicar of Bray A person who changes his or her
principles to suit the times. <strong>The</strong> allusion is to a
song of the early 18th century that celebrated the
memory of a 16th- century vicar of Bray in Berkshire
who was notorious for changing his religious
stance, switching from Catholic to Protestant and
vice versa as the times demanded in order to keep
his living through the various religious upheavals
that took place under the Tudors: “And this is the
law, I will maintain, / Unto my dying day, Sir, /
That whatsoever King shall reign, / I will be the
Vicar of Bray, sir!” “When Margaret fi nally foundered,
some hoped that he had gone down with the
ship, but here he was as buoyant as the Vicar of
Bray” ( Julian Critchley, <strong>The</strong> Floating Voter, 1993).
Victorian (viktoreebn) Stern, prudish, straitlaced,
old- fashioned. <strong>The</strong> Victorian period lasted
from the coronation of Queen Victoria in London in
1837 to her death in 1901. <strong>The</strong> period saw Britain
emerge as the world’s leading industrial and military
power, with an empire that extended across the
globe. It also witnessed a signifi cant rebellion against
the relatively lax moral standards of the preceding
period and a greater value being placed upon selfreliance,
restraint, and piety. Later generations
came to view the Victorians, for all their other
achievements, as smug, narrow- minded, and censorious.
We all thought it was very Victorian of the vicar
when he refused to allow us to hold a fund- raising disco in
the church hall.
Vietnam (veeetnahm, vyetnahm) <strong>The</strong> Vietnam
War, or a situation that looks set to become a