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

and the location for the judgment of paris. “As
Juno may have looked at Paris on Mount Ida, so
did Mrs. Proudie look on Ethelbert Stanhope
when he pushed the leg of the sofa into her lace
train” (Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers, 1857).
Identikit An identical copy of something that
results from duplication of different elements in
the original. <strong>The</strong> allusion is to the Identikit system
fi rst employed by the Los Angeles police in 1959
and since adopted by police forces worldwide to
identify the faces of criminals, in which witnesses
build up a composite image of a face through a
selection of photographed facial features. She lived
in one of those identikit houses that comprise so many
modern suburban estates.
Ides of March (idz) A day of reckoning, especially
one that has been foretold. In ancient Rome,
the Ides (from the verb iduo, meaning “to divide”)
marked the halfway point of a month. It was on
the Ides of March (March 15) that Julius Caesar
was murdered in the Capitol, as previously prophesied
by a soothsayer with the doom- laden words
“Beware the Ides of March.” On considering the
alternatives left after this unexpected turn of events, the
only conclusion one can reach is that the Ides of March
would appear to have arrived for the Republican Party.
I do not like thee, Doctor Fell Although I have no
reason for it, I dislike this par tic u lar individual,
however admirable he or she may otherwise be.
This is an allusion to a poem by the satirical writer
Thomas Brown (c. 1663–1704), a student at
Oxford who was faced with expulsion on the
order of Dr. John Fell (1625–86), dean of Christ
Church and bishop of Oxford, unless he could
prove capable of translating for him the 33rd Epigram
of Martial. Brown’s apparently spontaneous
if the mountain won’t come to Muhammad
response was the following verse: “I do not love
thee, Dr Fell, / <strong>The</strong> reason why I cannot tell; / But
this I know, and know full well, / I do not love
thee, Dr Fell.” This amounted to a satisfactorily
accurate translation of the original Latin, albeit
with the insertion of Dr. Fell’s name. In modern
usage, the word “like” is generally used in the place
of “love.” “All the same; we do not like Mr. Bott—
do we, Alice? He is Dr Fell to us; only I think we
could tell why” (Anthony Trollope, Can You Forgive
Her?, 1864).
if any would not work, neither should he eat
Those who are not prepared to work do not
deserve any reward. This saying comes from 2
<strong>The</strong>ssalonians 3:10, in which Paul advises the
<strong>The</strong>ssalonians that only those who work for their
bread actually deserve to have any. <strong>The</strong> manager
shrugged his shoulders and repeated the biblical injunction
that if any would not work, neither should he eat.
if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the
ditch See blind leading the blind.
if the mountain won’t come to Muhammad If
something requires some effort on the part of the
speaker before it can be attained, then he or she
must simply resign himself or herself to making
that effort. A proverbial piece of wisdom that
implies the fuller version “if the mountain won’t
come to Muhammad, Muhammad must go to the
mountain,” it refers to a story about muhammad
(570–632), the found er of the Islamic faith. In the
story, Muhammad (in front of a large crowd) commands
a hill to come to him, only to fi nd that the
hill remains stubbornly where it is. Muhammad,
reasoning that if the hill had indeed come to them
he and his followers would all have been crushed,
resigns himself to going to the hill and does so. In
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