Poros

“ Further, to add a sense of mystery to the nativity of the god of love, Spenser refers to the myth of Penia and Poros, and also in the manner of the Platonist tries to reconcile two contrary assertions about the mysterious nature of love’s birth. In Diotima’s account of “the lesser mysteries of love,” she says that love is the offspring of the god Poros or Plenty, and of Penia or Poverty. (“Symposium,” 203.) In Phædrus’s oration on love he began by affirming that “Love is a mighty god, and wonderful among gods and men, but especially wonderful in his birth. For he is the eldest of the gods.” ”

“ It was many days since she had sent the S O S which had recalled him from earth to Poros. Whatever she had feared must have happened by now. It was possible that he would never be able to effect a return to Cupia. Why not then accept the inevitable, settle down permanently among the Vairkings, and solace himself as best he could?
Even an ordinarily stalwart soul would have done his best and have been satisfied with that. But Myles Standish Cabot possessed that indomitable will which had given rise to the Porovian proverb: “You cannot kill a Minorian.” ”

“ The town very much resembles Amalfi, and is protected by two forts, one of which mounts twelve, and the other sixteen, guns. From the proximity of either shore, the entrance to the harbour is singularly beautiful; and the surrounding country, though barren, is very bold and picturesque. Passing Poros in the distance, we now entered the Gulf of Egina, the prospect hourly increasing in richness and beauty. The Russian fleet lay at anchor in Poros, and we plainly descried the admiral's flag flying on shore. ”

“ As Myles held close the warm girlish form of his beloved, his tense troubles dropped from him, and a perfect peace descended upon his soul. Lilla pressed limply against him, home at last in the haven of his embrace.
Thus they replighted their love. Thus they stood in the subterranean cellars of the Kuana Palace, oblivious of time and space; Cabot, the earth man, dirty, long-haired, bearded, and disheveled; and Lilla, Princess of Poros, lovely, dainty, and immaculate. Beauty and the beast, indeed! But they adored each other, with a love unequaled on two planets. ”

“ The ancient Calauria, with which Poros is identified, was given, according to the myth, by Apollo to Poseidon in exchange for Delos; and it became in historic times famous for a temple of the sea-god, which formed the centre of an amphictyony of seven maritime states—Hermione, Epidaurus, Aegina, Athens, Prasiae, Nauplia, and Orchomenus. ”

“ Porgy, Porgie, por′ji, n. a fish of the genus Pagrus.
Porifera, pō-rif′e-ra, n.pl. sponges:—sing. Por′ifer.—adjs. Porif′eral, Porif′erous. [L. porus, a pore, ferre, to bear.]
Porism, por′ism, n. a proposition affirming the possibility of finding such conditions as will render a certain problem capable of innumerable solutions.—adjs. Porismat′ic, -al; Poris′tic, -al, reducing a determinate problem to an indeterminate. [Gr. porizein, to procure—poros, a way.]
Pork, pōrk, n. the flesh of swine: (Milt.) a stupid fellow.—ns. Pork′-butch′er, one who kills pigs; Pork′-chop, a slice from a pig's rib ”

“ Mattina tried to tell her; but talking about Poros was like relating a dream which has seemed so long and which one still feels so full and varied, but which somehow can only be told in the fewest and barest of words. [45]
“Is that all?” exclaimed Antigone, “just trees, and rocks, and sea, and fisher folk, and boatmen? It would say nothing to me! But each one to his taste. Why do you not go back to it and work there?”
“I cannot; each one works for himself on the island; there are no houses in which to serve, there is no money to earn.” ”

“ The next morning, as the invisible sun rose over Poros, there rose also the serried ranks of the orange and black air navy of the bees, led by Myles Cabot, mounted on the back of Portheris, the striped King of the Hymernians. Each bee carried a Cupian sharpshooter, armed with a rifle and a basket of bombs. The whole formation flew over the hills and ravines which housed the gathering armies of Cupia, then out across the broad valley which divided the two contending forces. ”

“ Mattina, with never a look at the two women, who went on talking, ran out of the passage to the open street door. All the music she had ever heard in her life had been the harsh tuneless tunes which men sang sometimes in Poros at the tavern after they had been drinking, or at best the little folk songs which the officers of the Naval School sang to the accompaniment of a guitar on moonlight nights. ”

“ The night was warm and moist and fragrant, as are all nights on Poros, but it afforded no balm for the aching head of Myles Cabot.
Among the dead Cupians in the barricade were many bodies of the ant-men, still grappling with their adversaries, even in death. Myles counted the bodies of the Cupian slain and was reassured to find that they represented but a mere negligible fraction of those who had stormed the redoubt. Of course, it was just as hard on the dead to be dead, regardless of proportions; so Cabot did not have the heart to rejoice at the fewness of the slain. ”

“ But now Myles Cabot seized his pad and stylus and wrote:
“Have you ever known me to fail in any undertaking on the planet Poros?”
“No,” the ant-man wrote in reply.
“Have you ever known me to be untrue to a principle, a cause, or a friend?”
“No,” Doggo replied.
“Then,” Myles wrote, “let us make your daughter queen in fact as well as in name.”
“It is treason,” Doggo wrote in reply, but this time he did not tear up the correspondence.
“Treason?” Myles asked. If he had spoken the word, he would have spoken it with scorn and derision. “Treason? Is it treason to support your own queen? ”

“ In despair the earth-man sat beside his beached airship, as the velvet blackness crept out of the east and enveloped the planet. So near, and yet so far! He had successfully transmitted himself through millions of miles of space from the earth to Poros. He had escaped the clutches of the Formians and the Roies.
He had built a complete radio set out of nothing, and had talked with Cupia across the boiling seas. He had traversed those seas once without accident. He had eluded the machinations of the Whoomangs, with their moth grub “souls”. ”

“ There Portheris, the leader of the whistling bees, joined them.
“First,” Myles Cabot asserted from the head of the table, “let me lay down the principle that the mistake of the last war must not be repeated. We must ask no quarter, and give none. We must go on until there is not a single Formian left living on the face of all Poros. For there is no room on any given planet for more than one race of intelligent beings. What do you say?”
Hah Babbuh, his chief of staff, answered: “I agree with you. And I believe that the rabble have learned their lesson. But it all depends on Count Kamel. ”

“ Why did not the eastern interior cross-wall likewise have a bed for it cut in the rock, especially since its foundation was so shallow, only two or three courses of poros, and not eight as in the case of the eastern wall? The only bit of outside wall which does not rest in cuttings in the rock is that at the southwest corner, but there the few courses below the lintel of the door rested on an object of cult of some sort which made impossible the normal foundation, while the weight above the lintel rested on the heavy block in the west wall and the firmly founded wall just east of the door. ”

“ Well! Life to you! It is a dirty world! With whom do you live now?”
“I serve at a house.”
“You have no one in Athens?”
“I have my uncle Anastasi the baker, and my Aunt Demetroula, but they live far from here near the Kolonaki.”16
“Ah, Anastasi Mazelli, your mother’s brother; I know him. A good man! When you see him give him my salutations. Say they are from Capetan Thanassi Nika of Poros, and he will know.”
“I will say it to him,” answered Mattina.
“Well, the good hour be with you, little compatriot!”
Mattina walked back to the house very slowly, with her eyes fixed on the pavement. ”

“ Yuri halted. Then, to Cabot’s surprise, he grinned.
“What was it that you quoted from Poblath a while ago?” he said, with seeming irrelevance. “Oh, I know. ‘The saddest thing about a fool, is that he doesn’t realize he is one.’ That revolver which you now hold, and which terrorized you into bearing me in safety through your lines, is empty, wholly empty! Better throw it away, you poor fool.”
And he gave a mocking laugh. Myles flushed with shame and humiliation. Bluffed again by the arch-trickster of Poros! So he started to throw the weapon to one side. ”

“ But Mattina was different; Mattina was a big strong girl of more than eleven years of age, and she was going to Athens to be a servant. It had all been arranged some time ago. Her mother had said to her:—
“When I am dead, you must go to Athens, [8] and your uncle Anastasi there, and his wife, who is a good woman, will find a house in which you may serve and earn money. Afterwards when you can, you will come back to Poros and take care of Zacharia; he is not a strong child; how should he be, the unfortunate one! But you are a strong girl and you must be a good sister and look after him.” ”

“ And how good it was the next morning to awake at sea, with the sun high above the horizon on a blue September day, to feel safe and free, to lean over the side of the boat, munching the hunk of bread and the piece of “touloumi”29 cheese which one of the sailors had [94] given her, while she watched the swish and sparkle of the water as the tall prow of the caique divided it, and listened to Capetan Thanassi’s loud orders to his men, as they tacked round by the lighthouse.
Ah! and how good it was, as soon as they turned the corner, to see in the distance the white houses of Poros! ”

“ Porose areas nearly circular; shield of both sexes pale yellowish, with some silvery streaks and marks, and some reddish spots; shield of female as broad as long. A. cajennense (= mixtum) .
jj. Porose areas elongate, shield brown, in the female with an apical silvery mark, in the male with two small and two or four other silvery spots; shield of the female longer than broad (fig 158 e) . A. americanum.
cc. Hypostome small, without teeth, venter without furrows; body often with coriaceous shields, posterior margin of the body never crenulate (i.e. without festoons) ; no eyes. GAMASOIDEA. ”

“ Napoli is near Argos. I visited all three in 1810-11; and, in the course of journeying through the country from my first arrival in 1809, I crossed the Isthmus eight times in my way from Attica to the Morea, over the mountains; or in the other direction, when passing from the Gulf of Athens to that of Lepanto. Both the routes are picturesque and beautiful, though very different: that by sea has more sameness; but the voyage, being always within sight of land, and often very near it, presents many attractive views of the islands Salamis, Ægina, Poros, etc., and the coast of the Continent. ”

“ Without a word, Kennedy drew from his pocket a print of the photograph of the smudge on Schloss’ door.
“It is possible,” he said, half to himself, “to identify a person by means of the arrangement of the sweat glands or pores. Poroscopy, Dr. Edmond Locard, director of the Police Laboratory at Lyons, calls it. The shape, arrangement, number per square centimeter, all vary in different individuals. ”

“ The colour also varies; specimens of T. porosa (Pl. 10, fig. 1 a to 1 f) being dark purple, or even inky black, white, pale pinkish-purple, and green: as far as I have seen, the pinkish varieties of T. porosa are confined to the eastern half of the world. Even the ridges and crests on the under side of the scutum vary in some degree; and the tergum in T. porosa varies considerably, and in some of the other species, slightly, in general shape: I believe that the tergum becomes narrow and elongated, when the shell is steeply conical, with the orifice of small diameter. ”

“ The Mendis, however, not being Mohammedans, do not often indulge in this special kind of charm. The Poro society is [30] not entirely a good one; for instance, the Human Leopard Society, of which the object is the murder of persons who are undesirable to the society, is an offshoot of Poro. Boys of twelve to fourteen are circumcised by Poro, and these are the youngest members of the organization. Every village has a portion of bush in the vicinity allotted as the Poro Bush, and kept sacred for the rites of the society. Anyone who penetrates it is killed without mercy. ”

“ From the roof of the arsenal we enjoyed a beautiful view of the harbor. The town, as seen at a little distance, has rather an inviting aspect. On a nearer view, it offers little to detain the traveller. We passed along the quay, looking at the groups of men, occupied with coffee or the narghilé, and soon regained our boat and steamer. The Greeks, we are told, give Porus a nickname which signifies "Pig-city," just as our Cincinnati is sometimes called "Porkopolis." But the pigs in Porus are human. ”

“ The Poro is for men only, and it begins by training the youth of the country. Boys between 7 and 20 are taken into the Poro bush for several months. “The meetings of the fraternity for initiation of new members always take place in the dry season, from November to April, as they are held in the Big Bush, a part of which is sufficiently cleared and the ground cleaned. The opening to the Big Bush is rudely constructed of palm leaves, the entrance being through leafy bowers, and the aperture serving for a doorway hung with country mats. ”