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Carol (1843), whose parsimony and lack of charity are most apparent at Christmas. On the night of Christmas Eve he is visited by the ghost of his late partner, Marley, and sees three spirits, the Ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas Present, and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. These three ghosts allow Scrooge to revisit his childhood and to discover how he is now perceived by other people and the uncharitable response to his own death that the future holds. The experience shocks him into generous behaviour on Christmas Day. His name has come to denote any mean or tight-fisted person.

Our genetic makeup permits a wide range of behaviours—from Ebenezer Scrooge before to Ebenezer Scrooge after. I do not believe that the miser hoards through opportunistic genes or that the philanthropist gives because nature endowed him with more than the normal complement of altruist genes.

STEPHEN JAY COULD Ever Since Darwin, 1978

When, earlier this year, I decided finally to put my foot down and to ban party bags from my younger son's fifth birthday, there was a certain amount of agonising in the household over whether or not I would go down in local lore as the Scrooge of the reception class.

The Independent, 1996

Shylock Shylock is the Jewish moneylender in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice (1600). He lends the sum of 3,000 ducats to the merchant, Antonio, on condition that if the sum is not repaid by the agreed date, Antonio will forfeit a pound of his flesh. When the time to pay falls due, Antonio is unable to refund Shylock, who insists on being paid his pound offlesh.Portia, the wife of Bassanio for whom Antonio has borrowed the money, disguises herself as a lawyer and conducts Bassanio's defence. When a plea for mercy fails, she outwits Shylock by insisting that, although he can take his pound of flesh, he must not spill a drop of blood in the process, since the bond allows only for flesh, not blood. Someone demanding or extorting repayment can be described as a Shylock.

'You want paying, that's what you want,' she said quietly, 'I know.' She produced her purse from somewhere and opened it. 'How much do you want, you little Shylock?' L. p. HARTLEY The Go-Between, 1953

Modernity

These allusions can all be used to describe an ultra-modern, futuristic office or other environment. • See also Outdatedness, Past

James Bond James Bond is the secret agent hero of the novels by Ian Fleming. Many of the films based on Fleming's novels include a scene in the villain's vast, often subterranean, high-tech headquarters or control room.

In the far distance, stand large buildings where, presumably, workers in white space

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suits wander around in rooms that look like something out of a James Bond film. BILL BRYSON The Lost Continent, 1989

Nautilus Jules Verne's adventure classic Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

(1869) describes the adventures on board the Nautilus, a giant submarine commanded by the mysterious Captain Nemo. The ship contains a library, drawing-room and dining-room, all elegantly furnished, and the captain's room, in which hang all manner of instruments for navigating the ship, including thermometers, barometers, hygrometers, chronometers, and manometers.

Cwyn stepped into his study. . . . Here the two cultures, Gwyn believed, were attractively reconciled: the bright flame of human inquiry, plus lots of gadgets. Give Gwyn a palatinate smoking-jacket, as opposed to a pair of tailored jeans and a lumberjack shirt, and he could be Gaptain Nemo, taking his seat at the futuristic bridge of the sumptuous Nautilus.

MARTIN AMIS 777e Information, 1995

Starship Enterprise In the TV science fiction series Star Trek, and the subsequent films, the Starship USS Enterprise is the spaceship captained by Captains Kirk and Picard. The bridge is dominated by computer monitors and other futuristic technology.

Christ, the office will look like the Starship Enterprise by the time you've finished with it. Didn't we leaver Maher and Malcolm to escape the tyranny of computers? MARTIN EDWARDS Yesterday's Papers, 1994

Monsters

The quotations at MINOTAUR illustrate the writers' precision in their choice of allusion: both references exploit the details of the legend. Although the monsters grouped here mainly originate in folklore, legend, and gothic literature, some have become more widely known through their cinematic incarnations. • See 0/50 Evil, Fear, Horror, Large Size

Baba Yaga Baba Yaga is a witch in Russian folklore who lives in a house that stands on chicken legs, flies about in a mortar using a pestle for an oar, and eats children.

Dracula The famous Count Dracula, created by Bram Stoker in his 1879 novel Dracula, is a vampire, one of the Un-dead, who lies in his coffin by day and comes out at night to suck blood from the necks of his victims. He can only be destroyed by having a stake driven through his heart while he is resting.

I knew I'd gone as white as a piece of chalk since coming in as if I'd been got at by a Dracula-vampire.

ALAN siLLiTOE The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, 1959

'I know some people believed that, coming from a family as old as ours, he should

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have chosen a British girl. I've never been of that narrow way of thinking. We should always be ready to welcome new blood of the right kind! I just stopped myself saying Count Dracula would agree with her.

GILLIAN LINSCOTT Stage Fright, 1994

Frankenstein Baron Victor Frankenstein is a character in Mary Shelley's gothic novel Frankenstein (1818). He is a scientist who creates a grotesque manlike monster out of corpses and brings it to life. The monster, unnamed in the novel but itself often now referred to as Frankenstein, eventually turns on its creator and brings about his ruin. A Frankenstein's monster (or a Frankenstein) is a creation that goes out of control so that it becomes frightening to, or destroys, its creator.

Senator McDull contended that the government could not carry such a debt and remain a democratic nation, so he campaigned tirelessly and zealously against it. 'It will destroy the very foundations of the government which we are fighting to preserve,' he argued, like a Frankenstein monster it would turn upon us and destroy us.'

CHESTER HIMES A Modern Fable, 1939

Godzilla Godzilla is a huge dinosaur-like monster who was aroused from the sea-bed by an atomic explosion and threatened to destroy Tokyo. He first appeared in a 1955 film, and later in several sequels.

I should have realised something unusual was up when my cat Hortense shot in from the garden with a tail like a flue-brush and disappeared into the cupboard in the upstairs loo. This was uncharacteristic of a cat who is second cousin to Godzilla.

MICHÈLE BAILEY Haycastle's Cricket, 1996

Grendel The Old English poem Beowulf tells of the adventures of the Geatish hero Beowulf, and how he fights and destroys the monster Grendel, who has been terrorizing the court of the Danish king Hrothgar, and then Grendel's mother, who comes after him to avenge her son's death.

The nest was like Grendel's lair: a bed of penguin feathers, broken eggshells, dried egg membranes, tufts of moss, decaying food, a few bones, excrement.

D. c. CAMPBELL Crystal Desert, 1992

Minotaur In Greek mythology, the Minotaur was the creature with a bull's head and a man's body that was the offspring of Pasiphae (wife of King Minos of Crete) and a bull with which she fell in love. The Minotaur, confined in the Labyrinth built by Daedalus, devoured human flesh. Seven youths and seven girls from Athens were sacrificed to the Minotaur annually, until it was eventually killed by Theseus, with the aid of Ariadne.

They sat opposite each other, on either side of the fire—the monumental		matron
. . .	and the young, slim girl, so fresh, so virginal, so ignorant, with all the	pathos of
an	unsuspecting victim about to be sacrificed to the minotaur of Time.

ARNOLD BENNETT The Old Wives' Tale, 1908

She remembered the sadness she had earlier noticed in his eyes. He was a man who had known both good and evil. She was sure of it now. His mind was a dark labyrinth, intricate and convoluted, with a Minotaur of some kind crouching at the core. There was something frightening as well as fascinating about him.

JOHN SPENCER HILL The Last Castrato, 1995

2 6 4 MOSES AND THE BOOK OF EXODUS

Moses and the Book of Exodus

Exodus is the second book of the Bible, relating the departure of the Israelites under the leadership of Moses from their slavery in Egypt and their journey towards the promised land of Canaan.

Moses was born in Egypt at a time when Pharaoh had decreed that all male Hebrew children were to be killed at birth. After hiding the infant Moses for three months, his mother placed him in a basket made out of bulrushes amid the reeds of the Nile. He was discovered by Pharaoh's daughter, who took pity on him and decided to raise him as her own child, using the child's own mother for a nurse. So Moses was brought up at the court of Pharaoh.

When a grown man, he killed an Egyptian overseer whom he had seen beating a Hebrew, and was forced to flee to the land of Midian. Here Moses lived as a shepherd in the desert, until after forty years he was called by God, who appeared in the form of a bush that was in flames but was not consumed by them. God told him to return to Egypt and demand that Pharaoh set his people free.

Moses was accompanied by his brother Aaron, who acted as his spokesman. Together they confronted Pharaoh with God's demand 'Let my people go'. When Pharaoh persisted in refusing to allow Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, God sent ten plagues to afflict the Egyptians: turning the Nile to blood; frogs; gnats; flies; death of cattle; boils; hail; locusts; darkness; and death of the Egyptian first-born. Pharaoh finally freed the Israelites from bondage and Moses led them out of Egypt. Changing his mind, Pharaoh sent his army in pursuit. The Israelites passed through the Red Sea, which God caused to part for them, but the pursuing Egyptians were drowned when the waters closed on them.

After three months the Israelites reached Mount Sinai. They camped at the foot of the mountain and it was at the top that God gave Moses the Ten Commandments. Led by Moses, the Israelites wandered through the Sinai desert for another forty years until they finally reached the borders of Canaan. Moses did not enter the Promised Land himself, but was allowed a glimpse of it from Mount Pisgah before he died, at the age of 120.

Throughout this book there are references to Moses and to the events described in the Book of Exodus.

> See ARK OF T H E COVENANT at Importance

BURNING BUSH at Appearing

CANAAN at Idyllic Places

DAN TO BEERSHEBA at Distance

EXODUS at Departure and Movement