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

mentor
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series. <strong>The</strong> term refl ects the pop u lar idea that such
agents dress in dark suits, wear dark glasses, and
drive in black cars. She refused to tell us about the
incident, saying she feared she might be silenced by the
men in black.
mentor A wise and faithful adviser or teacher,
especially one who gives advice to someone
younger or less experienced. In Greek mythology,
Mentor was identifi ed by Homer as the trusted
friend of odysseus and, in the absence of Odysseus
during the Trojan War, the tutor of his son
Telemachus. When Telemachus went in search of
his father, the goddess Athena took the guise of
Mentor to accompany him. “He did not think it
expedient to receive her alone. He consulted his
mentor, Mr. Dove, and his client, John Eustace,
and the latter consented to be present” (Anthony
Trollope, <strong>The</strong> Eustace Diamonds, 1873).
Mercury (merkybree) Epithet for a messenger
or, alternatively, a thief. In Roman mythology
Mercury was the god of commerce, thieves, and
traffi c, equivalent to the Greek Hermes. He
remains best known as the messenger of the gods
and is conventionally depicted wearing the pair of
winged sandals that gave him great speed. <strong>The</strong>
adjective mercurial (meaning “lighthearted” or
“volatile”) was originally applied by astrologers to
people born under the infl uence of the planet
Mercury and were thereby supposed to have fanciful,
changeable natures. Like her mother, she had a
mercurial character, melancholy one moment but laughing
the next as if she didn’t have a care in the world.
Mercutio See plague on both your houses, a;
romeo and juliet.
mercy seat See throne of grace.
Merlin (merlin) A person who appears to have
magical powers at his disposal. Merlin is one of the
main characters in the various myths and legends
surrounding king arthur and the knights of the
round table. Merlin plays an important role in
most of the key events of Arthur’s life, and the
Round Table was said to have been his own creation.
It has been suggested that the character was
based upon a real historical fi gure, a bard who lived
around the end of the fi fth century a.d., perhaps in
Wales. He played Merlin in the court of John F. Kennedy.
Merops’s son (meropsiz) A person who mistakenly
thinks he or she can put everything right. <strong>The</strong>
reference is to the legendary phaeton, reputedly
the son of King Merops of Ethiopia, who thought
he could steer the car of phoebus (actually the
Sun itself) safely through the sky and only narrowly
avoided setting the Earth on fi re. In modern
usage the term is usually applied to agitators or
demagogues. <strong>The</strong> butler murmured darkly something
about Merops’s son but oozed out of the room before he
could be questioned more closely, leaving us all wondering
to whom he had been referring.
merry men See robin hood.
Meshach See fi ery furnace.
mesmerism (mezmbrizbm) <strong>The</strong> use of hypnotism
as a therapeutic treatment. <strong>The</strong> practice is named
after the Austrian physician Franz Anton Mesmer
(1734–1815), who fi rst experimented with such
therapies in Vienna. <strong>The</strong>re was no way they would get
her to agree to it short of resorting to mesmerism.
Messalina (mesbleenb) A lustful, sexually voracious
woman. Valeria Messalina (c. a.d. 22–48)
married the future emperor Claudius at the age