The Complete Plays
Page 69
Themis goddess of rights and customs, who sent an uncatchable fox to ravage Thebes in revenge for the death of the Sphinx; both the fox and the invincible hunting hound of Cephalus which pursued it were turned to stone by Zeus.
Thessaly region of Greece famous for its drugs and witches.
Thetis a sea-nymph, goddess and the mother of Achilles.
Tisiphone snake-haired Fury; perpetrators of crimes within the family were particularly vulnerable to her persecutions.
Titus Roman emperor AD 79–81, conqueror of Jerusalem (AD 70).
Trasimene battlefield near Lake Trasimeno, north of Rome, where the Carthaginian commander Hannibal conquered the Romans in 217 BC.
Trebizond town in northern Turkey (modern Trabzon).
Trier town in western Germany.
Triton sea-god, sometimes half-human and half-fish.
Tully Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BC), Roman orator and statesman.
Turnus king of Ardea in Italy, heroic antagonist in Virgil’s Aeneid; he violently opposed the prophesied marriage between his betrothed, Lavinia, and Aeneas, but the latter killed him in single combat.
Typhon (Typhoeus) formidable monster with a hundred serpentine heads; his offspring included the three-headed dog Cerberus, the Hydra, the Chimaera and the Sphinx.
Tyre city in Phoenicia.
Tyros the river Dniester, which runs through southern Russia.
Ulysses (Odysseus) wily Greek hero who assisted in the fall of Troy. His adventures in returning home to his faithful wife, Penelope, are recounted in Homer’s Odyssey.
Uz biblical homeland of Job, bordering Palestine.
Vanholt Anhalt in central Germany.
Venus goddess of erotic love, notoriously unfaithful wife of Vulcan, sometime lover of Mars, and would-be seducer of Adonis.
Verna Bulgarian seaport.
Vespasian Titus Flavius Vespasianus, Roman emperor (AD 69–79), he subdued a rebellion in Judaea, but failed to capture Jerusalem.
Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (70–19 BC), Roman poet of the Eclogues, the Georgics and the Aeneid; buried just outside Naples; he later acquired the reputation of being an adept magician.
Volga the river Volga; the maps of Ortelius which Marlowe used clearly showed its many tributaries.
Vulcan Roman god of fire and metalwork, he forged the arms of the gods. He was married to the unfaithful Venus, whom he caught in a net as she made love with Mars. He was lame.
Xanthus river near Troy.
Xerxes Persian king (d. 465 BC) who was said by Herodotus to have assembled the greatest army ever known in ancient times for his disastrous invasion of Greece in 480 BC.
Zanzibar in Ortelius’s atlas, a south-western province of Africa.
Zona Mundi (‘the girdle of the world’) mountain range in the northern regions of Tartary in central Asia.
Zula city to the north of the river Danube.
*New readers are advised that this Introduction and the Commentary make details of the plot explicit.
*Marlowe
*Alleyn
*Perkins