King Cophetua

Cophetua, King

Cophetua, King, a legendary king in Africa, who cared nothing for women until he saw a beggar maid ‘all in gray’, with whom he fell in love. The tale is told in one of the ballads included in Percy's Reliques, where the maid's name is given as Penelophon. Shakespeare in Love's Labour's Lost (iv. i) gives it as Zenelophon. There are other references to the story in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (ii. i) and 2 Henry IV (v. iii), in Jonson's Every Man in his Humour (iii. iv), and in Tennyson's ‘The Beggar Maid’ (1842).

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MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Cophetua, King." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. 31 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Cophetua, King." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. (May 31, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O54-CophetuaKing.html

MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Cophetua, King." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Retrieved May 31, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O54-CophetuaKing.html

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Cophetua, King

Cophetua, King a legendary African king who fell in love with and married a beggar girl; the story is told in one of the ballads in Percy's Reliques (1765), and was the subject of one of Burne-Jones's paintings, King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid (1884).

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ELIZABETH KNOWLES. "Cophetua, King." The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 2006. Encyclopedia.com. 31 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

ELIZABETH KNOWLES. "Cophetua, King." The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 2006. Encyclopedia.com. (May 31, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O214-CophetuaKing.html

ELIZABETH KNOWLES. "Cophetua, King." The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 2006. Retrieved May 31, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O214-CophetuaKing.html

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Free newspaper and magazine articles

Burne-Jones' dreams from the back streets; Edward Burne-Jones. By Penelope...
Newspaper article from: The Birmingham Post (England); 10/10/1998
Archive: Behind many great men was a family of women; The Macdonald dynasty...
Newspaper article from: The Birmingham Post (England); 7/19/2003
Lewis Carroll and the Hatch sisters. (Evelyn Hatch and Ethel Hatch)
Magazine article from: Contemporary Review; 8/1/1993

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