g Parthen'ia (_maidenly chastity_), but "the
martial maid" slew him with her spear. (Greek, _porneia_,
"fornication.").

In maids his joy; now by a maid defied,
His life he lost and all his former pride.
With women would he live, now by a woman died.

Phineas Fletcher, _The Purple Island_, xi. (1633).

=Porphyrius=, in Dryden's drama of _Tyrannic Love_.

Valeria, daughter of Maximin, having killed herself for the love of
Porphyrus, was on one occasion being carried off by the bearers,
when she started up and boxed one of the bearers on the ears,
saying to him:

Hold! are you mad, you damned confounded dog?
I am to rise and speak the epilogue.

W. C. Russell, _Representative Actors_, 456.

=Porphyro-Genitus= ("_born in the Porphyra_"), the title given to the
kings of the Eastern empire, from the apartments called Porphyra, set
apart for the empresses during confinement.

There he found Irene, the empress, in travail, in a house anciently
appointed for the empresses during childbirth. They call that house
"Porphyra," whence the name of the Porphyro-geniti came into the
world.--See Selden, _Titles of Honor_, v. 61 (1614).

=Porrex=, younger son of Gorboduc, a legendary king of Britain. He drove
his elder brother, Ferrex, from the kingdom, and, when Ferrex returned
with a large army, defeated and slew him. Porrex was murdered while
"slumbering on his careful bed," by his own mother, who stabbed[TN-104]
him to the heart with a knife."--Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville,
_Gorboduc_ (a tragedy, 1561-2).

=Por'sena=, a legendary king of Etruria, who made war on Rome to restore
Tarquin to the throne.

Lord Macaulay has made this the subject of one of his _Lays of Ancient
Rome_ (1842).

=Port'amour=, Cupid's sheriff's officer, who summoned offending lovers to
"Love's Judgment Hall."--Spenser, _Fa[:e]ry Queen_, vi. 7 (1596).

=Porteous= (_Captain John_), an officer of the city guard. He is hanged by
the mob (1736).

_Mrs. Porteous_, wife of the captain.--Sir W. Scott, _The Heart of
Midlothian_ (time, George II.)

=Porter= (_Sir Joseph_), K. C. B. The admiral who "stuck close to his
desk, and never went to sea." His reward was the appointment as "ruler
of the Queen's navee."--W. S. Gilbert, _Pinafore_.

=Portia=, the wife of Pontius Pilate, in Klopstock's _Messiah_.

_Portia_, wife of Marcus Brutus. Valerius Maximus say