his sword, the tried Excalibor,
The bigness and the length of Rone his noble spear,
With Pridwin his great shield.

Drayton, _Polyolbion_, iv. (1612).

=Ronald= (_Lord_), in love with Lady Clare, to whom he gave a lily-white
doe. The day before the wedding nurse Alice told Lady Clare she was not
"Lady Clare" at all, but her own child. On hearing this, she dressed
herself as a peasant girl, and went to Lord Ronald to release him from
his engagement. Lord Ronald replied, "If you are not the heiress born,
we will be married to-morrow, and you shall still be Lady
Clare."--Tennyson, _Lady Clare_.

=Ronaldson= (_Neil_), the old ranzelman of Jarlshof (ch. vii.).--Sir W.
Scott, _The Pirate_ (time William III.).

=Rondib'ilis=, the physician consulted by Panurge, on the knotty question,
"whether he ought to marry, or let it alone."--Rabelais, _Pantagruel_
(1545).

[Asterism] This question, which Panurge was perpetually asking every
one, of course refers to the celibacy of the clergy.

=Rondo= (_The Father of the_), Jean Baptiste Davaux.

=Rope of Ocnus= (_A_), profitless labor. Ocnus was always twisting a rope
with unwearied diligence, but an ass ate it as fast as it was twisted.

[Asterism] This allegory means that Ocnus worked hard to earn money,
which his wife squandered by her extravagance.

The work of Penelop[^e]'s web was "never ending, still beginning," because
Penelop[^e] pulled out at night all that she had spun during the day. Her
object was to defer doing what she abhorred but knew not how to avoid.

=Roper= (_Margaret_), was buried with the head of her father, Sir Thomas
More, between her hands.

Her who clasped in her last trance
Her murdered father's head.

Tennyson.

=Roque= (1 _syl._), a blunt, kind-hearted old servitor to Donna
Floranthe.--Colman, _The Mountaineers_ (1793).

=Roque Guinart=, a freebooter, whose real name was Pedro Rocha Guinarda.
He is introduced by Cervant[^e]s in _Don Quixote_.

=Rosa=, a village beauty, patronized by Lady Dedlock. She marries Mrs.
Rouncewell's grandson.--C. Dickens, _Bleak House_ (1853).

=Rosabelle= (3 _syl._), the lady's-maid of Lady Geraldine. Rosabelle
promised to marry L'Eclair, the orderly of Chevalier Florian.--W.
Dimond, _The Foundling of the Forest_.

=Rosalind= (_i.e._ Rose Daniel), the shepherd lass who rejected Colin
Clout (the poet Spenser) for Menalcas (John Florio, the lexicographer,
1579).