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

to the legend that Hercules separated them in
order to reach Gades (modern Cádiz, in Spain).
Those two constellations are our pillars of Hercules,
marking the extremes of the known universe.
Pindaric verse (pindarik) A form of irregular
verse characterized by its high- fl own style. Such
poetry, written in a variety of meters, was pop u larized
by the En glish poet Abraham Cowley in the
17th century. Cowley mistakenly believed he was
re- creating a form of verse composed by the celebrated
<strong>The</strong>ban lyric poet Pindar (c. 522–443 b.c.).
<strong>The</strong>re are few writers today who excel in the fi eld of
Pindaric verse.
Pinkerton A private detective. <strong>The</strong> Scottish- born
Allan Pinkerton (1819–84) made a living smuggling
runaway slaves into Canada after immigrating
to the United States in 1850, but then became
the fi rst detective of the Chicago Police Department.
He opened what became the famous Pinkerton
Detective Agency in 1852 and subsequently
made many high- profi le arrests, although he also
earned a reputation for ruthlessness and crooked
tactics. <strong>The</strong>y weren’t satisfi ed with the efforts of the
local police to fi nd their daughter and decided to hire
their own Pinkerton.
Pinocchio (pinokeeo) A liar, especially a child
who tells lies. <strong>The</strong> allusion is to the wooden puppet
Pinocchio who is the central character in the
children’s story <strong>The</strong> Adventures of Pinocchio (1883)
by the Italian writer Carlo Collodi (Carlo Lorenzini;
1826–90). Pinocchio is a puppet boy who
comes magically to life after his maker, Geppetto,
wishes for a child of his own. He has a number of
bizarre adventures and fi nds that if he tells a lie his
nose grows mysteriously longer, thus revealing
his guilt. Having proved his essential goodness, he
is transformed into a real boy at the end of the
story. Pinocchio in Italian means “pine seed.” A
Pinocchio’s nose is something that indicates that
a lie is being told. Watergate turned Nixon into
Pinocchio.
Pinteresque (pintbresk) Reminiscent of the
subject matter and style of writing in the plays of
British playwright Harold Pinter (b. 1930). Pinter’s
much- admired early plays were notable,
among other things, for their use of deliberately
long pauses, which the author insisted should be
observed exactly during per for mance. His conversation
was peppered with Pinteresque pauses, suggesting
he didn’t really know what he was talking about.
pipes of Pan See panpipes.
Pisgah See mount pisgah.
Piso’s justice (pisoz) Strictly correct but not in
the spirit of justice, especially in relation to legal
decisions. <strong>The</strong> phrase alludes to a story related
by the Roman phi los o pher Seneca the Younger
(c. 4 b.c.–a.d. 65) about a judge called Piso. Piso
had condemned a prisoner to death on a charge of
murder and delivered the man to a centurion
for execution; however, the murder victim then
appeared, and the centurion returned the prisoner
to Piso. Piso responded by sentencing all three
men to death, the prisoner on the grounds that he
had already been sentenced, the centurion on the
grounds that he had disobeyed his orders, and the
supposed murder victim for causing the death of
two innocent men. It was generally agreed that this
decision was harsh in the extreme, a good example of
Piso’s justice.
pitch defi les See touch pitch and be defi led.
pitch defi les
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