Phormio, a parasite, who is “all things to all men.”—Terence: Phormio.
Phosphor, the light-bringer or morning star; also called Hesperus, and by Homer and Hesiod Heôs- phôros.
Sweet Hesper-Phosphor, double name.
—Tennyson: In Memoriam, cxxi. (1850).
Phosphorus, a knight called by Tennyson “Morning Star,” but, in the History of Prince Arthur, “sir Persaunt of India or the Blue Knight.” One of the four brothers who kept the passages to Castle Perilous.—Tennyson: Idylls of the King (“Gareth and Lynette”); sir T. Malory: History of Prince Arthur, i. 131 (1470).
It is evidently a blunder to call the Blue Knight “Morning Star” and the Green Knight “Evening Star.” In the old romance, the combat with the “Green Knight” is at dawn, and with the “Blue Knight” at nightfall. The error arose from not bearing in mind that our fore-fathers began the day with the preceding eve, and ended it at sunset.
Phraortes , a Greek admiral.—Sir W. Scott: Count Robert of Paris (time, Rufus).
Phrat, the Eu-phrat-es, now called Forat or Frat.
Phryne , an Athenian courtezan of surpassing beauty. Apellês’s celebrated picture of “Venus Anadyomenê” was drawn from Phrynê, who entered the sea with hair dishevelled for a model. The “Cnidian Venus” of Praxitelês was also taken from the same model.
(Some say Campaspê was the academy figure of the “Venus Anadyomenê.” Pope has a poem called Phryne.)
Phunky (Mr.), serjeant Snubbins’s junior in the defence of Pickwick, in the suit of Mrs. Bardell v. Pickwick.—Dickens: Pickwick Papers (1836).