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

Pilate washed his hands
374
Pilate washed his hands See pontius pilate;
wash one’s hands of.
pile Pelion on Ossa (peeleebn, ahsb) To heap diffi
culty upon diffi culty or embarrassment upon
embarrassment. <strong>The</strong> expression has its roots in
Greek mythology and the legend of the giants
who tried to climb up to heaven by piling the
mountain Pelion on top of Mount Ossa, in eastern
<strong>The</strong>ssaly. <strong>The</strong>n, piling Pelion on Ossa, the news came
through that the date for the completion of the project
had been moved forward by two weeks.
Pilgrim’s Progress A Christian’s progress
through life. <strong>The</strong> allusion is to the epic moral allegory
<strong>The</strong> Pilgrim’s Progress (1678, 1684) by the
En glish writer and Baptist preacher John Bunyan
(1628–88). <strong>The</strong> poem follows Christian as he
makes the long and diffi cult journey to the delectable
mountains and the celestial city. Bunyan
himself was no stranger to the diffi culties of life,
writing <strong>The</strong> Pilgrim’s Progress while in prison after
defying a royal edict forbidding him from preaching.
He made a Pilgrim’s Progress through the ranks before
fi nally making it to commander- in- chief. See also land
of beulah; muckraker; slough of despond; valley
of the shadow of death; vanity fair.
Piltdown Man A scientifi c hoax. In 1912 the fossil
remains of an early man found in a gravel pit at
Piltdown in Sussex, En gland, was thought to prove
the missing link between apes and the development
of the fi rst humans. However, closer examination
of the fi nd in 1953 revealed that it comprised
the skull of a human and the jaw of an orangutan.
It remains uncertain who was responsible for this
deliberate fraud, although suspicion has rested
upon rival palaeontologists seeking to discredit
Sir Arthur Smith Woodward (1864–1944), Keeper
of Geology at the British Museum (Natural History).
Personally, I think his account of events is about
as reliable as the Piltdown Man.
pillar of fi re A revelatory sign that serves as a
guide to show the way. <strong>The</strong> allusion is to the biblical
story of the pillar of fi re—a pillar of cloud
by day—set up by God to guide the Israelites out
of the wilderness on their fl ight from Egypt, as
related in Exodus 13:21–22. “You are unjust to
women in En gland. And till you count what is a
shame in a woman to be an infamy in a man, you
will always be unjust, and Right, that pillar of fi re,
and Wrong, that pillar of cloud, will be made dim
to your eyes, or be not seen at all, or if seen, not
regarded” (Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance,
1893). See also cloud by day, pillar of fi re by
night.
pillar of salt See lot’s wife.
pillar of society A person or institution seen as
part of the establishment. <strong>The</strong> phrase is closely
associated with the 1877 play <strong>The</strong> Pillars of Society
by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen (1828–
1906). Entitled Samfundets støtter in the original
Norwegian, it was fi rst produced in En glish in
1888 under the title Quicksands. In Ibsen’s play the
pillars in question are the spirit of truth and the
spirit of freedom rather than par tic u lar individuals.
“In fact, he was the archetypal ‘pillar of society’:
fl our- miller, magistrate and county councillor”
(Philip Heselton, <strong>The</strong> Elements of Earth Mysteries,
1991).
pillars of Hercules (herkyooleez) <strong>The</strong> limits of
the known world. In classical times the rocks on
opposite sides of the entrance to the Mediterranean
were called the Pillars of Hercules in allusion