Shoulders able to bear a great weight, like those of Atlas, which, according to heathen mythology, supported the whole world.
“Sage he stood,
With Atlantean shoulders fit to bear
The weight of mightiest monarchies.”
Milton: Paradise Lost, book ii. 305–7.
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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.
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