Word: pyrrhus
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When the Greek general Pyrrhus knocked the Romans around way back when, he soon became a discouraged man, despite his victories...
...bitter, unqualified truth in communiqué or other public utterance. One of the frankest admissions of modern times was Lieut. General ("Vinegar Joe") Stilwell's after retreating from Burma: "I claim we got a hell of a beating." Classic example of the frank general is the Greek Pyrrhus. Upon receiving congratulations on his costly victory over the Romans at Asculum (279 B.C.), he replied: "Another such victory and we are undone...
Hermione is shocked. Hermione wants to marry her cousin Orestes. Helen does not like the straight-laced young fellow and would prefer her to marry Pyrrhus, the daredevil son of Achilles. Then there is the rumor that Eteoneus, the gatekeeper, brings to Menelaus: "Your sister-in-law Clytemnestra-your double sister-in-law, I might say; your wife's sister and your brother's wife-has been living with Aegisthus ever since Agamemnon went to Troy...
Helen nags Menelaus to have Pyrrhus come on a visit but he recalls to her that he had admitted one good looking young man to the house with no good result. Insulted, Helen ejaculates, "I left this house once, and I can do it again. . . . I'll stay on the one condition, that you insult me no more. Do you wish me to stay...
...does, and he shortly looks with more favor on Pyrrhus as a possible son-in-law, for Orestes' father, Agamemnon, comes home and is murdered by Clytemnestra, who is in turn killed by Orestes. Surely it would not do to make an alliance with such a family. But Orestes meets Pyrrhus on the road and kills him after a quarrel, and Hermione elopes with Orestes...