Chapter CLIFFORD to Cloudesley of C by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Clorinda, “the faithful shepherdess,” called “The Virgin of the Grove,” faithful to her buried love. From this beautiful character, Milton has drawn his “lady” in Comus. Compare the words of the “First Brother” about chastity, in Milton’s Comus, with these lines of Clorinda—

Yet I have heard (my mother told it me), And now I do believe it, if I keep My virgin flower uncropt, pure, chaste, and fair, No goblin, wood-god, fairy, elf, or fiend, Satyr, or other power that haunts the groves Shall hurt my body, or by vain illusion Draw me to wander after idle fires, Or voices calling me in dead of night To make me follow, and so tole me on Through mire and standing pools, to find my ruin. …Sure there’s a power In that great name of Virgin that binds fast All rude, uncivil bloods.…Then strong Chastity, Be thou my strongest guard.
   —J. Fletcher: The Faithful Shepherdess (1610).

Cloris, the damsel beloved by prince Prettyman.—Duke of Buckingham: The Rehearsal (1671).

Clotaire . The king of France exclaimed on his death-bed, “Oh how great must be the King of Heaven, if He can kill so mighty a monarch as I am!”—Gregory of Tours, iv. 21.

Cloten or Cloton, king of Cornwall, one of the five kings of Britain after the extinction of the line of Brute .—Geoffrey: British History, ii. 17 (1142).

Cloten, a vindictive lout, son of the second wife of Cymbeline by a former husband. He is noted for “his unmeaning frown, his shuffling gait, his burst of voice, his bustling insignificance, his fever-and-ague fits of valour, his froward tetchiness, his unprincipled malice, and occasional gleams of good sense.” Cloten is the rejected lover of Imogen (the daughter of his father-in-law by his first wife), and is slain in a duel by Guiderius.—Shakespeare: Cymbeline (1605).

Clotharius or Clothaire, leader of the Franks after the death of Hugo. He is shot with an arrow by Clorinda.—Tasso: Jerusalem Delivered, xi. (1675).

Cloud. A dark spot on the forehead of a horse between the eyes. It gives the creature a sour look indicative of ill temper, and is therefore regarded as a blemish.

Agrippa. He [Antony] has a cloud in his face. Enobarbus. He were the worse for that were he a horse.Shakespeare: Antony and Cleopatra, act iii. sc. 2(1608).

Cloud (St.), patron saint of nailsmiths. A play on the French word clou (“a nail”)

Cloudesley (William of), a famous North-country archer, the companion of Adam Bell and Clym of the Clough, whose feats of robbery were chiefly carried on in Englewood Forest, near Carlisle. William Cloudesley was taken prisoner at Carlisle, and was about to be hanged, but was rescued by his two companions. The three then went to London to ask pardon of the king, which at the queen’s intercession was granted. The king begged to see specimens of their skill in archery, and was so delighted therewith, that he made William a “gentleman of fe,” and the other two “yemen of his chambre.” The feat of William Cloudesley was very similar to that of William Tell (q.v.).—Percy: Reliques, I. ii. 1.