Chapter Ubaldo to Ulysses and Polyphemos of U by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Ulrica, alias Martha, mother of Bertha the betrothed of Hereward.—Sir W. Scott: Count Robert of Paris (time, Rufus).

Ulrica, daughter of the late thane of Torquilstone; alias Dame Urfried, an old sibyl at Torquilstone Castle.—Sir W. Scott: Ivanhoe (time, Richard I.).

Ulster (The kings of). The kings of Ulster were called O’Neil; those of Munster, O’Brien; of Connaught, O’Connor; of Leinster, MacMorrough; and of Meath, O’Melaghlin.

Ultima Thule, the extremity of the world; the most northern point known to the ancient Romans. Pliny and others say it is Iceland; Camden says it is one of the Shetland Islands. It is the Gothic tiule (“the most remote land”).

Tibi serviat ultima Thulê.
   —Virgil: Georgics, i. 30.

Ultimus Romanorum, Horace Walpole (1717–1797).

Ulvfagre, the fierce Dane, who massacred the Culdee s of Iona, and having bound Aodh in iron, carried him to the church, demanding of him where he had concealed the church treasures. At that moment a mysterious gigantic figure in white appeared, and, taking Ulvfagre by the arm, led him to the statue of St. Columb, which instantly fell on him and killed him.

The tottering image was dashed
Down from its lofty pedestal;
On Ulvfagre’s helm it crashed.
Helmet, and skull, and flesh, and brain,
It crushed as millstones crush the grain.
   —Campbell: Reullura (1811).

Ulysses, a corrupt form of Odusseus [O-dus-suce], the king of Ithaca. He is one of the chief heroes in Homer’s Iliad, and the chief hero of the Odyssey. Homer represents him as being craftily wise and full of devices. Virgil ascribes to him the invention of the Wooden Horse.

N.B.—Ulysses was very unwilling to join the expedition to Troy, and pretended to be mad. Thus, when Palamedês came to summon him to the war, he was sowing salt instead of barley.

Ulysses’s Bow. Only Ulysses could draw this bow, and he could shoot an arrow from it through twelve rings.

William the Conqueror had a bow which no arm but his own could bend.

Robin Hood’s bow could be bent by no hand but his own.

Statius says that no one but Kapaneus [Kap-a-nuce] could poise his spear—

His cypress spear with steel encircled shone,
Not to be poised but by his hand alone.
   —Thebaid, v.

Ulysses’s Dog, Argus, which recognized his master after an absence of twenty years. (See Theron, king Roderick’s dog, p. 1094.)

(Rowe wrote, in 1706, the tragedy of Ulysses, founded on the old mythic story. And Tennyson wrote his poem of Ulysses in 1842.)

Ulysses and Polyphemos.

Ulysses and his crew, having reached the island of Sicily, strayed into the cave of Polyphemos, the giant Cyclops. Soon as the monster returned and saw the strangers, he seized two of them, and, having dashed out their brains, made his supper off them, “nor entrails left, nor yet their marrowy bones;” then stretched he his huge carcase on the floor, and went to sleep. Next morning, he caught up two others, devoured them for his breakfast, then stalked forth into the open air, driving his flocks before him. At sundown