'Parse the given fontconfig *pattern* and return a dictionary
of key/value pairs useful for initializing a
:class:`font_manager.FontProperties` object.'

def parse(self, pattern):

    props = self._properties = {}
    try:
        self._parser.parseString(pattern)
    except self.ParseException as e:
        raise ValueError((u"Could    not    parse    font    string:    '%s'\n%s" % (pattern, e)))
    self._properties = None
    self._parser.resetCache()
    return props
