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

Argus
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accomplish—if need were, at the price of life; it
was his to sit at home, to study the calendar, and to
wait” (Robert Louis Stevenson, <strong>The</strong> Wrecker, 1892).
Argus (ahrgbs) An ea gle- eyed watchkeeper or
guardian. Argus Panoptes appears in Greek mythology
as a monster with 100 eyes who was appointed
by Hera to guard over the heifer into which Io
had been transformed by Zeus. He was, however,
lulled to sleep by the music Hermes played on
his lyre. Hermes then killed him, and his 100
eyes were placed by Hera in the tail of the peacock,
her favorite bird. In his memory, anyone
who proves himself or herself vigilant may be
described as being Argus- eyed. “Now Argus, the
poets say, had an hundred eyes, and was set to watch
with them all, as she does, with her goggling ones”
(Samuel Richardson, Pamela, 1741).
Ariadne See labyrinth.
Ariel (aireebl) An ethereal fairy spirit, especially
one who seems otherworldly and remote from
human concerns. Ariel appears as a supernatural
character in Shakespeare’s <strong>The</strong> Tempest (1611),
using his powers of invisibility to serve his master
prospero, who ultimately rewards him by granting
him his freedom. In modern usage, his name is
sometimes invoked to describe a person of either
sex who is sylphlike in his or her delicate form and
lightness of touch. “But for him Ayala would run
about as though she were a tricksy Ariel” (Anthony
Trollope, Ayala’s Angel, 1881).
Arion (brion) A musician. According to Greek
mythology, Arion was a celebrated poet and player
of the kithara who lived in the seventh century b.c.
When threatened by the crew of the vessel in
which he sailed home victorious from a musical
contest, he played his kithara and then hurled himself
into the sea, from which he was rescued by
music- loving dolphins and carried home. “But then
there were some sceptical Greeks and Romans,
who, standing out from the orthodox pagans of
their times, equally doubted the story of Hercules
and the whale, and Arion and the dolphin; and yet
their doubting those traditions did not make those
traditions one whit the less facts, for all that” (Herman
Melville, Moby- Dick, 1851).
Aristotelian (aristbteeleebn) Of or relating to the
philosophical ideas of Aristotle. <strong>The</strong> Greek phi los opher
Aristotle (384–322 b.c.) studied under Plato
and later became tutor to Alexander the Great.
Found er of the Peripatetic School in Athens, he
wrote infl uential works on logic, ethics, politics,
poetics, rhetoric, biology, zoology, and metaphysics.
In modern usage, this adjective is usually used
in reference to his work on logic or to philosophical
positions that incorporate some of his ideas,
notably his recommendation that a phi los o pher
should adopt an objective viewpoint in de pen dent
of social or moral contexts. “In morals he was a
profest Platonist, and in religion he inclined to be
an Aristotelian” (Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, 1749).
Aristotle Onassis (aristotbl onasis) Archetype of
a billionaire tycoon. Aristotle Onassis (1906–75)
was a Turkish- born Greek shipowner who built up
one of the largest in de pen dent shipping lines in
the world, making a vast fortune in the pro cess.
After a lengthy relationship with opera singer
Maria Callas, he married Jackie Kennedy, widow
of assassinated U.S. president John F. Kennedy, in
1968. You’d need the wealth of an Aristotle Onassis to
buy a house around here.