melancholy to joyfulness, and hatred to love." The water of Ardenne had
the opposite effects. Homer mentions the drug nepenth[^e] in his
_Odyssey_, iv. 228.

That nepenth[^e]s which the wife of Thone,
In Egypt gave to Jove-born Helena.

Milton, _Comus_, (1634).

Nepenth[^e] is a drink of sovereign grace.
Devis[`e]d by the gods for to assuage
Heart's grief, and bitter gall away to chase
Which stirs up anger and contentious rage;
Instead thereof sweet peace and quietage
It doth establish in the troubled mind ...
And such as drink, eternal happiness do find.

Spencer, _Fa[:e]ry Queen_, iv. 2 (1596).

=Nep'omuk= or =Nep'omuck= (_St. John_), canon of Prague. He was thrown
from a bridge in 1381, and drowned by order of King Wenceslaus, because
he refused to betray the secrets confided to him by the queen in the
holy rite of confession. The spot whence he was cast into the Moldau is
still marked by a cross with five stars on the parapet, indicative of
the miraculous flames seen flickering over the dead body for three days.
Nepomuk was canonized in 1729, and became the patron saint of bridges.
His statue in stone usually occupies such a position on bridges as it
does in Prague.

Like St. John Nep'omuck in stone, Looking down into the stream.
Longfellow, _The Golden Legend_ (1851).

[Asterism] The word is often accented on the second syllable.

=Neptune= (_Old Father_), the ocean or sea-god.

=Nerestan=, son of Gui Lusignan D'Outremer, king of Jerusalem, and brother
of Zara. Nerestan was sent on his parole to France, to obtain ransom for
certain Christians, who had fallen into the hands of the Saracens. When
Osman, the sultan, was informed of his relationship to Zara, he ordered
all Christian captives to be at once liberated "without money and
without price."--A. Hill, _Zara_ (adapted from Voltaire's tragedy).

=Nereus= (2 _syl._), father of the water-nymphs. A very old prophetic god
of great kindliness. The scalp, chin and breast of Nereus were covered
with seaweed instead of hair.

By hoary N[^e]reus' wrinkled look.

Milton, _Comus_, (1634).

=Neri'n[^e]=, =Doto=, and =Nys[^e]=, the three nereids who guarded the
fleet of Vasco da Gama. When the treacherous pilot had run Vasco's ship
upon a sunken rock, these three sea-nymphs lifted up the prow and turned
it round.

The lovely Nys[^e] and Nerin[^e] spring
With all the vehe