Monday, August 27, 2012

Cupidon

Meaning: a little cupid (a putti), possibly cupids plural, but in Dickens' Our Mutual Friend, the name for Lady Tippins' little black book, or, really, ledger, from which she is "always booking a new lover, or striking out an old lover, or putting a lover in her black list, or promoting a lover to her blue list, or adding up her lovers, or otherwise posting her book." Methinks milady would've enjoyed Facebook, or accounting.

Usefulness: 3 (flippantly or seriously of contacts or Facebook: Let me consult my cupidon!)

Logofascination: 3

In the wild:  Our Mutual Friend.

Degrees: 2

Connections: cupidon - Cupid

Which is used in: Cupid is used in G&P, 4 times, 3 of which concern lust - in Book the Third, though, XXXI, we learn of the importance of science and the arts: "Cupid, on a time being asked of his mother Venus why he did not assault and set upon the Muses, his answer was that he found them so fair, so sweet, so fine, so neat, so wise, so learned, so modest, so discreet, so courteous, so virtuous, and so continually busied and employed,--one in the speculation of the stars,--another in the supputation of numbers,--the third in the dimension of geometrical quantities,--the fourth in the composition of heroic poems,--the fifth in the jovial interludes of a comic strain,--the sixth in the stately gravity of a tragic vein,--the seventh in the melodious disposition of musical airs,--the eighth in the completest manner of writing histories and books on all sorts of subjects,--and the ninth in the mysteries, secrets, and curiosities of all sciences, faculties, disciplines, and arts whatsoever, whether liberal or mechanic,--that approaching near unto them he unbended his bow, shut his quiver, and extinguished his torch, through mere shame and fear that by mischance he might do them some hurt or prejudice. Which done, he thereafter put off the fillet wherewith his eyes were bound to look them in the face, and to hear their melody and poetic odes."

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