is.

Are the peries coming down from their spheres?

W. Beckford, _Vathek_ (1786).

=Pe'richole= (_La_), the heroine of Offenbach's comic opera (_opera
bouffe_) of that name. She was originally a street-singer of Lima, the
capital of Peru, but became the mistress of the viceroy. She was not a
native of Lima and offended the Creole ladies by calling them, in her
bad Spanish, _pericholas_, "flaunting, bedizened creatures," and they,
in retaliation, called her "La P['e]richole," _i.e._, "the flaunting one
_par excellence_."

=Pericles=, the Athenian who raised himself to royal supremacy (died B.C.
429). On his death-bed he overheard his friends recalling his various
merits, and told them they had forgotten his greatest praise, viz., that
no Athenian through his administration had had to put on mourning,
_i.e._ he had caused no one to be put to death.

Per[=i]'cles was a famous man of warre ...
Yet at his death he rather did rejoice
In clemencie.... "Be still," quoth he, "you grave Athenians"
(Who whisper[`e]d and told his valiant acts);
"You have forgot my greatest glorie got:
For yet by me nor mine occasion
Was never sene a mourning garment worn."

G. Gascoigne, _The Steele Glas_ (died 1577).

=Per'icles, prince of Tyre=, a voluntary exile, in order to avert the
calamities which Anti'ochus, emperor of Greece, vowed against the
Tyrians. Pericles, in his wanderings, first came to Tarsus, which he
relieved from famine, but was obliged to quit the city to avoid the
persecution of Antiochus. He was then shipwrecked, and cast on the
shore of Pentap'olis, where he distinguished himself in the public
games, and being introduced to the king, fell in love with the Princess
Tha[:i]s'a, and married her. At the death of Antiochus, he returned to
Tyre; but his wife, supposed to be dead in giving birth to a daughter
(Marina), was thrown into the sea. Pericl[^e]s entrusted his infant
child to Cleon (governor of Tarsus), and his wife, Dionysia, who brought
her up excellently well till she became a young woman, when Dionysia
employed a man to murder her; and when Pericl[^e]s came to see her, he
was shown a splendid sepulchre which had been raised to her honor. On
his return home, the ship stopped at Metalin[^e], and Marina was
introduced to Pericl[^e]s to divert his melancholy. She told him the
tale of her life, and he discovered that she was his daughter. Marina
was now betrothed to