Ucalegon. sb. [< L Ucalegon < Gk Oukalegon < ouk 'not, un-' + alegô 'to have a care, mind, heed'] 1. A neighbor whose house is burning. 2. Proper name: a Trojan elder in the Iliad 3.147 who sat at the Scæan gates.

Quotations

1. "Who at cool Præneste, or at Volsinii amid its leafy hills, was ever afraid of his house tumbling down? Who in modest Gabii, or on the sloping heights of Tivoli? But here we inhabit a city supported for the most part by slender props: for that is how the bailiff holds up the tottering house, patches up gaping cracks in the old wall, bidding the inmates sleep at ease under a roof ready to tumble about their ears. No, no, I must live where there are no fires, no nightly alarms. Ucalegon below is already shouting for water and shifting his chattels; smoke is pouring out of your third-floor attic, but you know nothing of it; for if the alarm begins in the ground-floor, the last man to burn will be he who has nothing to shelter him from the rain but the tiles, where the gentle doves lay their eggs. Codrus possessed a bed too small for the dwarf Procula, a sideboard adorned by six pipkins, with a small drinking cup, and a recumbent Chiron below, and an old chest containing Greek books whose divine lays were being gnawed by unlettered mice. Poor Codrus had nothing, it is true: but he lost that nothing, which was his all; and the last straw in his heap of misery is this, that though he is destitute and begging for a bite, no one will help him with a meal, no one offer him lodging or shelter." [Juvenal. Satira 3.199]

2. The shepherd climbs the cliff, and sees from far
The wasteful ravage of the wat'ry war.
Then Hector's faith was manifestly clear'd,
And Grecian frauds in open light appear'd.
The palace of Deiphobus ascends
In smoky flames, and catches on his friends.
Ucalegon burns next: the seas are bright
With splendor not their own, and shine with Trojan light.
[Vergilius Maro. Æneid 2.311, ed. John Dryden]

3. THERE be two men of all mankind
That I should like to know about;
But search and question where I will,
I cannot ever find them out.

Melchizedek, he praised the Lord,
And gave some wine to Abraham;
But who can tell what else he did
Must be more learned than I am.

Ucalegon, he lost his house
When Agamemnon came to Troy;
But who can tell me who he was--
I’ll pray the gods to give him joy.

There be two men of all mankind
That I’m forever thinking on:
They chase me everywhere I go,--
Melchizedek, Ucalegon.
[Edwin Arlington Robinson. The Collected Poems "Children of the Night: Two Men"]