Chapter Rhine to Richelieu of R by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Rhine to Richelieu

Rhine (The Irish). The Blackwater is so called from its scenery.

Rhinnon Rhin Barnawd’s Bottles had the virtue of keeping sweet whatever liquor was put in them.—The Mabinogion (“Kilhwch and Olwen,” twelfth century).

Rhinoceros. The horn of the rhinoceros being “cut through the middle from one extremity to the other, on it will be seen several white lines representing human figures.”—Arabian Night (“Sinbad’s Second Voyage”).

Rhinoceros-Horn a Poison-Detector. If poison is put into a vessel made of a rhinoceros’s horn, the liquid contained therein will effervesce.

Rhinoceros and Elephant. The rhinoceros with its horn gores the elephant under the belly; but blood running into the rhinoceros’ eyes, blinds it, and it becomes an easy prey to the roc.—Arabian Nights (“Sinbad’s Second Voyage”).

Rhodalind, daughter of Aribert king of Lombardy, in love with du ke Gondibert; but Gondibert preferred Birtha, a country girl, daughter of the sage Astragon. While the duke is whispering sweet love-notes to Birtha, a page comes post-haste to announce to him that the king has proclaimed him his heir, and is about to give him his daughter in marriage: The duke gives Birtha an emerald ring, and says if he is false to her the emerald will lose its lustre; then hastens to court in obedience to the king’s summons. Here the tale breaks off, and was never finished.—Sir W. Davenant: Gondibert (1605–1668).

Rhodian Venus (The). This was the “Venus” of Protogenês mentioned by Pliny in his Natural History, xxxv. 10.

When first the Rhodian’s mimic art arrayed
The Queen of Beauty in her Cyprian shade,
The happy master mingled in his piece
Each look that charmed him in the fair of Greece.
   —Campbell: Pleasures of Hope, ii. (1709).

Prior (1664–1721) refers to the same painting in his fable of Protogênes and Apelles—

I hope, sir, you intend to stay
To see our Venus; ’tis the piece
The most renowned throughout all Greece.

Rhodope or Rhodopis, a celebrated Greek courtezan, who afterwards married Psammetichus king of Egypt. It is said that she built the third pyramid.—Pliny: Nat. Hist., xxxvi. 12.

A statelier pyramis to her I’ll rear,
Than Rhodope’s.
   —Shakespeare: I Henry VI. act i. sc. 6 (1589).

Rhombus, a schoolmaster who speaks “a leash of languages at once,” puzzling himself and his hearers with a jargon like that of “Holofernês” in Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost (1594).—Sidney: Pastoral Entertainment (1587).

Rhombus, a spinning-wheel or rolling instrument, used by the Roman witches for fetching the moon out of heaven.

Quæ nunc Thessalico lunam deducere rhombo [sciet].—Martial: Epigrams, ix. 30.

Rhone of Christian Eloquence (The), St. Hilary (300-367).

Rhone of Latin Eloquence (The). St. Hilary is so called by St. Jerome (300-367).

Rhongomyant, the lance of king Arthur.—The Mabinogion (“Kilhwch and Olwen,” twelfth century).

Rhuddlan. (See Statute.)