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

the very end. A favorite expression of sports commentators
with relation to a wide variety of games
and contests in which a last- minute breakthrough
may easily change the fi nal result, it appears to
have been fi rst used in a sporting context by U.S.
sports commentator Dan Cook in 1978. Its ultimate
origins are usually traced to the appearance
of a typically sturdily- built diva to sing the fi nal
aria in Wagner’s opera Die Walküre or similar
works. It looks like nothing can stop the Giants winning
the title this year, though we must remember the
opera’s not over till the fat lady sings.
Ophelia (ofeeleeb) Archetype of a tragic, trusting
young woman. Ophelia, the daughter of polonius,
is the lover of the Danish prince hamlet in
William Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet (c. 1600).
After Hamlet kills her father, Ophelia slips into
madness, hastened by Hamlet’s apparent rejection
of her, and eventually drowns in a river while gathering
fl owers. <strong>The</strong>y found her sister in the lake, drifting
among the lilies like the drowned Ophelia.
Ophir See gold of ophir.
opiate of the people (opeebt) Religion. Religious
belief was thus described, albeit in the form
opium of the people, by the German po liti cal philos
o pher Karl Marx (1818–83) in his Critique of the
Hegelian Philosophy of Right (1843–44): “Religion is
the sigh of suppressed creatures, the feeling of the
heartless world, just as it is the spirit of unspiritual
conditions. It is the opium of the people.” <strong>The</strong>
underlying notion is that religion serves to suppress
the natural fears and desires of the common
people. “<strong>The</strong> new opiate of the people, she jeered;
now that religion had failed, TV had taken its place:
the gods and goddesses of the new world were the
stars and staresses of soap: the bosses’ latest plot
to keep the minds of the proletariat addled” (Fay
Weldon, Darcy’s Utopia, 1991).
oracle A source of authoritative information,
especially about the future. <strong>The</strong> concept of the
oracle goes back to classical mythology and to
the celebrated oracles at Delphi, Dodona, Oympia,
and elsewhere. <strong>The</strong>se shrines were consulted
by pilgrims over the course of many centuries in
the hope of receiving revelations from the gods
about the future, usually delivered through the
priestesses who attended these sites. <strong>The</strong> advice
offered was typically obscure in content and
capable of being interpreted in several different
ways. Today the term oracle is variously applied
to places, people, and branches of the media.
Those who succeed against the odds in infl uencing
the future in their favor, meanwhile, are
people who work the oracle. <strong>The</strong> man frowned
and turned to consult the oracle, his wife. See also
delphic.
orc (ork) An uncivilized, barbaric brute. <strong>The</strong>
orcs are the ugly, savage creatures that are
unleashed in huge armies by the evil wizard Sauron
in J. R. R. Tolkien’s fantasy novel <strong>The</strong> Lord of
the Rings (1954–55). Tolkien was not, however, the
fi rst writer to describe monstrous creatures called
orcs: Michael Drayton (1563–1631) gave the
name to a fearsome sea monster capable of consuming
men, while John Milton wrote of “seals,
orcs, and sea- mews” in his Paradise Lost (1667).
Rugby forwards resemble orcs in their muscle- bound physiques
and aggressive determination to wreak havoc on
their opponents.
order of Melchizedek See melchizedek.
oread See nymph.
oread
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