|
Search over 100 encyclopedias and dictionaries: |
Research categories | Follow us on Twitter |
Research categories
View all topics in the newsView all reference sources at Encyclopedia.com |
|||
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).
|
|
|
Cite this article
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 |
|
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).
|
|
|
Cite this article
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 |
|