son of
Frederick III.) for its hero. This poem was the _Orlando Furioso_ of the
Germans.

Sat the poet Melchior, singing kaiser Maximilian's praise.

Longfellow, _Nuremberg_.

=Melea'ger=, son of Althaea, who was doomed to live while a certain log
remained unconsumed. Althaea kept the log for several years, but being
one day angry with her son, she cast it on the fire, where it was
consumed. Her son died at the same moment.--Ovid, _Metam._, viii. 4.

Sir John Davies uses this to illustrate the immortality of the soul. He
says that the life of the soul does not depend on the body as Meleager's
life depended on the fatal brand.

Again, if by the body's prop she stand--
If on the body's life her life depend,
As Meleager's on the fatal brand;
The body's good she only would intend.

_Reason_, iii. (1622).

=Melesig'enes= (5 _syl._). Homer is so called from the river Mel[^e]s (2
_syl._), in Asia Minor, on the banks of which some say he was born.

... various measured verse,
AEolian charms and Dorian lyric odes,
And his who gave them breath, but higher sung,
Blind Melesig[=e]n[^e]s, thence Homer called,
Whose poem Phoebus challenged for his own.

Milton, _Paradise Regained_ (1671).

=Melema= (_Tito_). Beautiful accomplished Greek adventurer who marries and
is unfaithful to Romola. He dies by the hand of an old man who had been
the benefactor of his infancy and youth, and whom he had basely deserted
and ignored.--George Eliot, _Romola_.

=Me'li= (_Giovanni_), a Sicilian, born at Palermo; immortalized by his
eclogues and idylls. Meli is called "The Sicilian Theocritus"
(1740-1815).

Much it pleased him to peruse
The songs of the Sicilian Muse--
Bucolic songs by Meli sung.

Longfellow, _The Wayside Inn_ (prelude, 1863).

=Meliadus=, father of Sir Tristan; prince of Lyonnesse, and one of the
heroes of Arthurian romance.--_Tristan de Leonois_ (1489).

[Asterism] Tristan, in the _History of Prince Arthur_, compiled by Sir
T. Malory (1470), is called "Tristram;" but the old minnesingers of
Germany (twelfth century) called the name "Tristan."

=Mel'ibe= (3 _syl._), a rich young man married to Prudens. One day, when
Melib[^e] was in the fields, some enemies broke into his house, beat his
wife, and wounded his daughter Sophie in her feet, hands, ears, nose and
mouth. Melib[^e] was furious and vowed vengeance, but Prudens pe