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

pearls before swine
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parables describing the value of spiritual riches:
“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant
man, seeking goodly pearls: Who, when he
had found one pearl of great price, went and sold
all that he had, and bought it.” Government contracts
are pearls of great price, and competition for them is
usually intense.
pearls before swine Something good or valuable
that is offered to or in the possession of a person
who cannot appreciate it. <strong>The</strong> expression comes
from Matthew 7:6: “Give not that which is holy
unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before
swine, lest they trample them under their feet,
and turn again and rend you.” “Against establishment
predictions—polite variants on the theme
‘pearls before swine’—the project worked, and
still fl ourishes” (Guardian, September 12, 2001).
pearly gates <strong>The</strong> entrance to heaven or, more
loosely, heaven itself. <strong>The</strong> gates of the Christian
heaven are described in Revelation 21:21: “And
the twelve gates were twelve pearls; every several
gate was of one pearl: and the street of the city
was pure gold, as it were transparent glass.” She
expressed the hope that by the time she came to appear
before the pearly gates of heaven, she would be reconciled
with her daughter.
Pecksniff (peksnif ) An oily, fawning hypocrite.
Seth Pecksniff is an unctuous hypocrite in the 1844
novel Martin Chuzzlewit by British novelist Charles
Dickens (1812–70). He attempts to smooth- talk
Chuzzlewit into leaving him his fortune, but is
eventually exposed as the hypocrite he really is.
His name has also given rise to the adjective Pecksniffi
an. Pecksniff himself couldn’t have done a better
job than this young salesman with his fl attering manner
and greasy smile.
pedagogue (pedbgog) A teacher, especially one
that is pedantic or dogmatic. In ancient Greece a
pedagogos (meaning “boy leader”) was a slave who
was required to accompany the children of his
master whenever they left their home. “<strong>The</strong>ir children
from earliest childhood / Grew up together
as brother and sister; and Father Felician / Priest
and pedagogue both in the village, had taught them
their letters / Out of the selfsame book, with the
hymns of the church and the plain- song” (Henry
Longfellow, Evangeline, 1849).
peel me a grape, Beulah See beulah, peel me a
grape.
Peeping Tom Someone who looks at something
forbidden; a voyeur. According to a 17th- century
addition to the much older legend of lady godiva,
the original Peeping Tom was a tailor called Tom
who disobeyed the order not to look upon the
naked Lady Godiva as she rode through Coventry
in a bid to dissuade her husband Leofric from
imposing new taxes on the local population. Tradition
has it that the moment the tailor peeped
through a knothole in his shutters, he was struck
blind. “This Peeping Tom has put his eye to the
nick or cranny in our walls and peers shamelessly
in” (A. S. Byatt, Possession, 1990).
Pegasus (pegbsbs) Archetypal fl ying horse; any
speedy mount, animate or mechanized. In Greek
mythology Pegasus was a winged horse that arose
from the blood of medusa when Perseus cut off
her head. <strong>The</strong> Corinthian hero Bellerophon, with
the aid of Athena, managed to catch Pegasus,
mount him, and kill the chimera, but when Bellerophon
tried to fl y on Pegasus to heaven, he fell
off and was lamed. Pegasus carried on upward,
however, and became a constellation. Another