PARODY 



1512 



PARRAKEET 



in October, 1891. three months after his mar- 

 riage to Mr*. O'Shea. In 1914 his widow pub- 

 lished an account of their relations from their 

 first meeting. See HOME RULE. 



Consult Moore's Parnrll and His Ireland; 

 O'Brien's Life of Charles Stewart Parnell. Mrs. 

 O'Shea's book is The O'Shea-Parnell Divorce 



PARODY, pair'odi, a comic imitation of any 

 serious writing. The subject need not be the 

 .same indeed, should not; but the manner and 

 form must suggest the original work. Parodies 

 -e are more common than those on prose, 

 though Washington Irving's Knickerbockers 

 History was originally intended as a parody, 

 and Bret Harte mimicked the style of various 

 authors in his Condensed Novels. 



Parody is very old, for the first known exam- 

 ; 1' . the Battle of the Frogs and Mice, dates 

 from at least the fifth century B. c. ; and it has 

 always flourished alongside of serious litera- 

 ture. The Acharnians of Aristophanes was a 

 parody on Euripides; Don Quixote was neither 

 more nor less than a parody on the exaggerated 

 romances of chivalry; and the nineteenth cen- 

 tury was particularly rich in such burlesques. 

 Browning, Rossetti, Wordsworth and Whitman 

 by their mannerisms especially lend themselves 

 to being parodied, and some of the imitations 

 are remarkably clever and striking. One of the 

 most popular parodies of recent years is by the 

 minor poet, Ben King, on // I Should Die To- 

 \iaht. It follows: 



If I should die to-night 



And you should come to my cold corpse and say, 



Weeping and heartsick o'er my lifeless clay 



If I should die tonight, and you should come in 



deepest grief and woe 



And say, "Here's that ten dollars that I owe," 

 I might arise in my large, white cravat, and say, 



"What's that?" 



If I should die to-night and you should come to 



my cold corpse and kneel, 



Clasping my bier to show the grief you feel 

 I say, if I should die to-night and you should 



come to me and there and then 

 Just even hint 'bout payin' me that ten, 

 I might arise the while, but I'd drop dead again. 



PAROLE, parohl', derived from the Latin 

 parabola, meaning speech or parable, is the 

 shortened form of the French phrase parole 

 d'honneur, or word of honor. The term is used 

 in a legal sense to distinguish verbal agree- 

 ments, or those not written under seal, from 

 written contracts. In criminal law it refers to 

 the release of a prisoner convicted of crime, 

 upon his word of honor. 



In a military >en>r n ivlVrs to the pledge 

 of honor given by a prisoner of war. that if 

 released he will not take up amis against his 

 captors or their allies during a certain period. 

 If freed by exchange, he is released from this 

 pledge. Although a breach of the pledge is 

 punished by death in case of recapture, the 

 soldier's agreement is evidently not thought 

 sufficient surety, for paroles are seldom granted 

 among prisoners of war. 



The term also applies to the military watch- 

 word, or countersign, used to obtain an accu- 

 rate identification of persons. In the forty- 

 fourth Article of War of the United States 

 army, it is stated that 



Any person belonging to the armies of the 

 United States who makes known the watchword 

 to any person not entitled to receive it according 

 to the rules and discipline of war, or presumes to 

 give a parole or watchword different from that 

 which he received, shall suffer death or such pun- 

 ishment as a court martial shall direct. 



PARRAKEET , pair a kcet, a division of the 

 parrot family in which the birds are distin- 

 guished by their small size, their long, gradu- 

 ated tails and the fact that the male and female 

 differ widely in color. In one species, the 



THE PARRAKEET 



male is green, and the female is a bright red. 

 Parrakeets are found in Northern Africa and in 

 India, Malaysia and Australia. The best- 

 known Indian species is the rose-ringed parra- 

 keet, which is about sixteen inches in length, 

 ten inches being the measure of the tail. A 

 small parrakeet that sleeps hanging to the 

 branch of a tree is called the bat-parrot. 



The grass parrakeet of Australia and Tas- 

 mania lives among grasses and reeds, rather 

 than in trees. A species of African parrakeets 

 that makes a great show of affection is called 

 the love bird. The beautiful Carolina parra- 

 keet, the only species found in the United 

 States, was once a familiar summer visitor in 

 the central part of the continent, but it has 

 been almost exterminated. This bird of bril- 

 liant green and orange plumage is now seen 



