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

though he slay me, yet will I trust in him
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though he slay me, yet will I trust in him An
expression of loyalty and faithfulness to someone,
even though such loyalty may not be reciprocated.
<strong>The</strong> expression comes from Job 13:15, in which
Job resisted suggestions that, after all his troubles,
he owed no duty of loyalty to God: “Though he
slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain
mine own ways before him.” <strong>The</strong> corporal gestured
ruefully after the departing emperor and refused to voice
any complaint at the harsh treatment he had received on
the latter’s orders. “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in
him” was his only comment.
thought police An oppressive secret police force,
especially one that makes it its business to suppress
subversive ideas. <strong>The</strong> thought police were an invention
of British novelist George Orwell (1903–50)
in his book Nineteen Eighty- Four (1949), in which
they maintain constant surveillance of those suspected
of wavering from prescribed thinking.
Those found guilty of such transgressions are tortured
at the Ministry of Love and then brainwashed
or vaporized. “George Barker had taken his place in
1940 but had escaped to the United States before
Pearl Harbor, for he had been followed everywhere
by the ‘thought police,’ the sinister kempeitai, who
suspected him of being a communist spy” ( James
Kirkup, A Poet could not but be Gay, 1991). See also
big brother; doublethink; room 101.
thousand cuts See death by a thousand cuts.
thousand days See hundred days.
thou shalt have no other gods before me Demand
for unswerving loyalty (sometimes used
ironically). This is the fi rst of the ten commandments,
listed in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5.
<strong>The</strong> men quickly realized that with the unyielding, yet
generally just commander it was a case of “thou shalt
have no other gods before me.”
thou shalt not steal Do not steal from others.
This appears as the eighth of the ten commandments
(Exodus 20:15 and Deuteronomy 5:19).
“Thou shalt not steal,” said the old woman severely as
she retrieved the necklace from the little girl.
thou shouldst be living at this hour You should
be living now to witness this. This is a quotation
from the poem “To Milton” by the En glish poet
William Wordsworth (1770–1850), in which
Wordsworth expressed the sentiment that the
long- dead En glish poet John Milton (1608–74), a
fellow opponent of tyrannical monarchy, would
have much appreciated the triumph of the French
Revolution of 1789. “John F. Kennedy, thou shouldst
be living at this hour,” intoned the presenter as Neil
Armstrong stepped onto the Moon.
thrasonical (thraysahnikbl, thrbsahnikbl) Boastful;
arrogant; vain. <strong>The</strong> word alludes to Thraso, a soldier
in the comedy Eunuchus by Terence (c. 185–c.
159 b.c.), who brags of his own achievements.
“Novi hominem tanquam te: his humour is lofty,
his discourse peremptory, his tongue fi led, his eye
ambitious, his gait majestical, and his general behavior
vain, ridiculous, and thrasonical” (William
Shakespeare, Love’s Labour’s Lost, 1594–95).
thread of destiny See fates.
three bears See goldilocks.
Three Graces Personifi cations of beauty and
charm. <strong>The</strong> Three Graces were beautiful goddesses
identifi ed in Greek mythology as the sisters Aglaia,
Thalia, and Euphrosyne. “As for the graces of expres