Epimenʹides (5 syl.)

A philosopher of Crete, who fell asleep in a cave when a boy, and did not wake again for fifty-seven years, when he found himself endowed with miraculous wisdom. (Pliny: Natural History.) (See Rip Van Winkle.)

“Like Epimenides, I have been sleeping in a cave; and, waking, see those whom I left children are bearded men.”—Bulwer Lytton (Lord Lytton).

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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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