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Playing to the Gods

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Degrading one’s vocation ad captandum vulgus. The gods, in theatrical phrase, are the spectators in the uppermost gallery, the ignobile vulgus. The ceiling of Drury Lane theatre was at one time painted in imitation of the sky, with Cupids and other deities here and there represented. As the gallery referred to was near the ceiling, the occupants were called the gods. In French this gallery is nick-named paradis.

 

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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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Plato and the Bees
Plato’s Year
Platonic Bodies
Platonic Love
Platonic Puritan (The)
Platonism
Platter with Two Eyes (A)
Play
Play the Deuce
Played Out
Playing to the Gods
Please the Pigs
Pleased as Punch
Pleasure
Plebeians
Plebiscite
Pledge
Pleiades
Plét
Pleydell (Mr. Paulus)
Pliable