ire by King Claudius, when Laert[^e]s and Hamlet
"play" with rapiers in "friendly" combat.--Shakespeare, _Hamlet_ (1596).

=Osse'o=, son of the Evening Star, whose wife was O'weenee. In the
Northland there were once ten sisters of surpassing beauty; nine married
beautiful young husbands, but the youngest, named Oweenee, fixed her
affections on Osseo, who was "old, poor and ugly," but "most beautiful
within." All being invited to a feast, the nine set upon their youngest
sister, taunting her for having married Osseo; but forthwith Osseo
leaped into a fallen oak, and was transformed into a most handsome young
man, his wife to a very old woman, "wrinkled and ugly," but his love
changed not. Soon another change occurred; Oweenee resumed her former
beauty, and all the sisters and their husbands were changed to birds,
who were kept in cages about Osseo's wigwam. In due time a son was born,
and one day he shot an arrow at one of the caged birds, and forthwith
the nine, with their husbands, were changed to pygmies.

From the story of Osseo
Let [_us_] learn the fate of jesters.

Longfellow, _Hiawatha_, xii. (1855).

=Ossian=, the warrior-bard. He was son of Fingal (king of Morven) and his
first wife, Ros-crana (daughter of Cormac, king of Ireland).

His wife was Evir-Allen, daughter of Branno (a native of Ireland); and
his son was Oscar.

=Oswald=, steward to Goneril, daughter of King Lear.--Shakespeare, _King
Lear_ (1605).

_Oswald_, the cup-bearer to Cedric, the Saxon, of Rotherwood.--Sir W.
Scott, _Ivanhoe_ (time, Richard I.).

_Oswald_ (_Prince_), being jealous of Gondibert, his rival for the love
of Rhodalind (the heiress of Aribert, king of Lombardy), headed a
faction against him. A battle was imminent, but it was determined to
decide the quarrel by four combatants on each side. In this combat
Oswald was slain by Grondibert.[TN-54]--Sir W. Davenant, _Gondibert_, i.
(died 1668).

=Othel'lo=, the Moor, commander of the Venetian army. Iago was his ensign
or ancient. Desdemona, the daughter of Brabantio, the senator, fell in
love with the Moor, and he married her; but Iago, by his artful
villainy, insinuated to him such a tissue of circumstantial evidence of
Desdemona's love for Cassio, that Othello's jealousy being aroused, he
smothered her with a pillow, and then killed himself.--Shakespeare,
_Othello_ (1611).

[Asterism] The story of this tragedy is taken from the novelletti of
Giovanni Gira