Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Cerberus   Listen
noun
Cerberus  n.  
1.
(Class. Myth.) A monster, in the shape of a three-headed dog, guarding the entrance into the infernal regions, Hence: Any vigilant custodian or guardian, esp. if surly.
2.
(Zool.) A genus of East Indian serpents, allied to the pythons; the bokadam.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Cerberus" Quotes from Famous Books



... being taken in the same acceptation here, as in the instances above, the Deity was changed to a dog, and said to reside in the infernal regions. From hence he was supposed to have been dragged to light by Hercules of Thebes. The notion both of Cerberus and Hades being subterraneous Deities took its rise from the temples of old being situated near vast caverns, which were esteemed passages to the realms below. Such were in Messenia, in Argolis, in Bithynia, and ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant

... the contest hitherto, that this amount of success was very grateful. Her feeling latterly had been one of intense hostility to the butler rather than to her son. Now that she had conquered that most savage Cerberus, all would be pleasant with her. But, alas! she soon found that in passing Cerberus she had made good her footing in a region as ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... throwing a vast column of water to an amazing height, and leaving the enemy to conjecture whether it was caused by a bomb, a water-spout, or an earthquake. Want of resources obliged Mr. Bushnell to abandon his schemes for that time; but, in 1777, he made an attempt from a whale-boat against the Cerberus frigate, by drawing a machine against her side with a line. It accidentally became attached to a schooner and exploded, tearing the vessel in pieces. Three men were killed, ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson

... sardonically; "and will you miss this splendid opportunity of giving a sop to your Cerberus? Of conciliating your bugbear? your bete noire? your fear ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford

... Merlin knew it. Therefore, although he had not given up all hope of finding proofs of Deroulede's treason, although by the latter's attitude he remained quite convinced that such proof did exist, he was already reckoning upon the cat's paw, the sop he would offer to that Cerberus, the Committee of Public Safety, in exchange for his own ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... all times been forward in owning the Egyptians as their teachers in religion; and in the dog Cerberus, the judge Minos, the boat of Charon, and the river Styx of their mythology, we see a clear proof that it was in Egypt that the Greeks gained their faint glimpse of the immortality of the soul, a day of judgment, and a future state of rewards and punishments; and, now that ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport

... miracle preserved by foreigns long, From hence-meant treasons) did arrive to right his natives' wrong: And chiefly to Lord Stanley, and some other succours, as Did wish and work for better days, the rival welcome was. Now Richard heard that Richmond was assisted and ashore, And like unkennel'd Cerberus, the crooked tyrant swore, And all complexions act at once confusedly in him: He studieth, striketh, threats, entreats, and looketh mildly grim, Mistrustfully he trusteth, and he dreadingly did dare, And forty passions in a trice, in him consort and square. But ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... Prodromus astronomiae, added several new constellations to the list, viz. Canes venatici (the Greyhounds), Lacerta (the Lizard), Leo minor (Little Lion), Lynx, Sextans Uraniae, Scutum or Clypeus Sobieskii (the shield of Sobieski), Vulpecula et Anser (Fox and Goose), Cerberus, Camelopardus (Giraffe), and Monoceros (Unicorn); the last two were originally due to Jacobus Bartschius. In 1679 Augustine Royer introduced the most interesting of the constellations of the southern hemisphere, the Crux australis or Southern Cross. He also suggested ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various

... out, with a warm flush over her pale face, and Mrs Forbes entered, then Kate, and last of all, Alec, much against his will. Then Annie re-entered, and Bruce resumed his place as Cerberus of the pew-door. So Annie was seated next to Alec, as she had never been, in church or chapel, or even in school, before, except on that memorable day when they were both kept in for the Shorter Catechism. ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... Emmanuel, but the messenger could have no admittance. The Lusts of the Flesh came out of their dens. They held a meeting in the room of Mr. Mischief, and wrote to invite Diabolus to return. Mr. Profane carried their letter to Hell Gate. Cerberus opened it, and a cry of joy ran through the prison. Beelzebub, Lucifer, Apollyon, and the rest of the devils came crowding to hear the news. Deadman's bell was rung. Diabolus addressed the assembly, putting them in hopes of recovering ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude

... of gem; this was a magnificent topaz; and here art equalled nature; it was as large as a big hazel-nut, with the head of Minerva in a style of inconceivable beauty. I remember yet another precious stone, different from these; it was a cameo, engraved with Hercules binding Cerberus of the triple throat; such was its beauty and the skill of its workmanship, that our great Michel Agnolo protested he had never seen anything so wonderful. Among many bronze medals, I obtained one upon which was a ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini

... cork, bung, spike, spill, stopcock, tap; rammer[obs3]; ram, ramrod; piston; stop-gap; wadding, stuffing, padding, stopping, dossil[obs3], pledget[obs3], tompion[obs3], tourniquet. cover &c. 223; valve, vent peg, spigot, slide valve. janitor, doorkeeper, porter, warder, beadle, cerberus, ostiary[obs3]. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... or alone. To find the ball in the full tide of successful operation we should arrive about half-past ten in the evening. Entering then through a long, broad passage, midway of which we deposit five sous each with the Cerberus on guard, we pass into a hall crowded with people. The hall is not larger than that of an average country-tavern ball-room in New England: the space occupied by the dancers will accommodate perhaps fifty quadrille sets. (There are no "side couples" in the quadrilles of Paris popular balls; hence ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various

... ecclesiastical authorities. The Lyncean was founded by Prince Frederic Cesi at Rome; its device plainly indicated its intention: a lynx, with its eyes turned upward toward heaven, tearing a triple-headed Cerberus with its claws. The Accademia del Cimento, established at Florence, 1657, held its meetings in the ducal palace. It lasted ten years, and was then suppressed at the instance of the papal government; as ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper

... any persons without subjecting them to the rigorous investigation of the pair of eyes that providence had been pleased to place in my head. To those who pleased me not, I was little better than a Cerberus whom it was very difficult to pass; whilst to others, I was all easiness and condescension, ushering them straight to the sanctum sanctorum, in which, behind a desk covered with letters and papers, stood—for he never sat down ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... to have been written by a "Canadian priest" living at Lurgan in Ireland, and to be a reply to M. de Mandat Grancey's volume, Chez Paddy. It is adorned with a frontispiece representing a monster of the Cerberus type on a monument, with three heads and three collars labelled respectively "Flattery," "Famine," and "Coercion." On the pedestal is the inscription—"1800 to 1887. Erected by the grateful Irish to the English Government." The text is in ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert

... Notwithstanding which assurance, the cottage was visited next day by eleven gods and demigods, mostly Titans. Elenko found it trying, and was really alarmed when by and by the Furies, having made over their functions to the Devil, strolled up to take the air, and dropped in for a chat, bringing Cerberus. But they behaved exceedingly well, and took back a message from Elenko to Eurydice. Ere long she was on most intimate terms with all the dethroned divinities, celestial, ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett

... his den they found The triple porter of the Stygian sound, Grim Cerberus, who soon began to rear His crested snakes, and arm'd his bristling hair. The prudent Sibyl had before prepar'd A sop, in honey steep'd, to charm the guard; Which, mix'd with pow'rful drugs, she cast before His greedy grinning jaws, just ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil

... and for the last, Mother Cerberus, I assure you I do not acknowledge your authority to dismiss me!" retorted Capitola. "So show me to the presence ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... am sure there can be nothing of that," said Lady Susanna, feeling herself to be as energetic as Cerberus, and ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope

... resembled one of Dogberry's watch. He could not even preach hell with any vigour; for as a gentleman he recoiled from the vulgarity of the doctrine, yielding only a few feeble words on the subject as a sop to the Cerberus that watches over the dues of the Bible—quite unaware that his notion of the doctrine had been drawn from the AEneid, and not from ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald

... especially of statues, are proverbially unsatisfactory; only a vague idea can be given in words, to the unprofessional reader; otherwise we might dwell upon the eager, intent attitude of Orpheus as he seems to glide by the dozing Cerberus, shading his eyes as they peer into the mysterious labyrinth he is about to enter in search of his ravished bride;—we might expatiate on the graceful, dignified aspect of Beethoven, the concentration of his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... Woods, with Fawnes, and Nymphs; the Sea, with Tritons, and other Nymphs; every River, and Fountayn, with a Ghost of his name, and with Nymphs; every house, with it Lares, or Familiars; every man, with his Genius; Hell, with Ghosts, and spirituall Officers, as Charon, Cerberus, and the Furies; and in the night time, all places with Larvae, Lemures, Ghosts of men deceased, and a whole kingdome of Fayries, and Bugbears. They have also ascribed Divinity, and built Temples to meer Accidents, and Qualities; such as are Time, Night, Day, Peace, Concord, Love, Contention, ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes

... pilot! Little dog, if it be thy lot To essay the dismal track Where Odysseus half hung back, How wilt thou conciliate That grim mastiff by the gate? Sure, 'twill puzzle thee to fawn On his muzzles three that yawn Antrous; or to find, poor dunce, Grace in his six eyes at once— Those red eyes of Cerberus. ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... images which take a hold on eyes And smite the vision, since through body's pores They penetrate, and inwardly stir up The subtle nature of mind and smite the sense. Thus, Centaurs and the limbs of Scyllas, thus The Cerberus-visages of dogs we see, And images of people gone before— Dead men whose bones earth bosomed long ago; Because the images of every kind Are everywhere about us borne—in part Those which are gendered in ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius

... foul birds with sure darts he slew; The golden fruit he stole—in vain The dragon's watch; with triple chain From hell's depths Cerberus ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius

... latter suggestion our legal Cerberus exhibited all three of his heads at once. One could keep faith with Miss Mayfield, one could see her "onct in a wile," and one could drink at Jeff's expense. Innocent Jeff saw only generosity and kindness in the man he had half-choked, and a sense ...
— Jeff Briggs's Love Story • Bret Harte

... vainly-conceived terrors! You shall behold only a living and a human figure, whose accents you may listen to with perfect security. If this alarms you, what would you say if you should have seen the Stygian lakes, and the shores burning with sulphur unconsumed, if the Furies stood before you, and Cerberus with his mane of vipers, and the Giants chained in eternal adamant? Yet all these you might have witnessed unharmed; for all these would quail at the terror ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various

... arch-slaver of the Nile. The country, as usual, a dead flat: many Shillook villages on west bank all deserted, owing to Mahomed Her's plundering. This fellow now assumes a right of territory, and offers to pay tribute to the Egyptian Government, thus throwing a sop to Cerberus to prevent intervention. Course S.W. The river in clear water about seven hundred yards wide, but sedge on the east bank for a couple ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker

... with the triple-throated baying of vast Cerberus, couched huge in the cavern opposite; to whom the prophetess, seeing the serpents already bristling up on his neck, throws a cake made slumberous with honey and drugged grain. He, with threefold jaws gaping in ravenous hunger, catches it when thrown, ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil

... (the sail being tied round the end of the mast) and sunk down upon one knee, about four yards from the water's edge, determining to thrust it down his throat in case he gave me an opportunity. I certainly felt somewhat uncomfortable in this situation, and I thought of Cerberus on the other side of the Styx ferry. The people pulled the cayman to the surface; he plunged furiously as soon as he arrived in these upper regions, and immediately went below again on their slackening the rope. I saw enough not ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton

... tossing and mutterings which proceeded from the cabin of Esther, who was his nearest neighbour, advertised him of the wakeful situation of its inmate. Perceiving the necessity of doing something to disarm this female Cerberus, before his own purpose could be accomplished, the Doctor, reluctant as he was to encounter her tongue, found himself compelled to invite a ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper

... the well-known quest, the delightful singer Orpheus took that downward way, coming in sight of old Cerberus centiceps, he astutely feigned inattention to the hostile appearances of the multiple beast, and with a wave of his plectrum over the responsive lyre, he at the stroke raised voice. This much you know. It may be communicated to you, that there was then beheld the most singular ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... extracted from his venison pasty a similar intimation of the evil destiny of his cousin, whom he determined, if possible, to rescue from the jaws of Cerberus. ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock

... clamour subsided—The wise Dog again, Resumed his harangue, in a tedious strain;— Spoke of Theseus's hounds, of the true Spartan breed;— And the hounds of Actaeon, so famed for their speed— Of three-headed Cerberus, Guardian of Hell, Whom Orpheus subdued with his musical spell. How Hecuba changed, seeing dead Polydore, And became—Vide Ovid—(here he heard the Dogs snore) "Your patience my friends, I no longer will tire, But brief make excuses, at the earnest desire Of those friends from abroad, who ...
— The Council of Dogs • William Roscoe

... thought to be Charon's fare for wafting the departed soul over the Infernal River. Besides this, the corpse's mouth was furnished with a certain cake, composed of flour, honey, &c. This was designed to appease the fury of Cerberus, the infernal doorkeeper, and to procure a safe and quiet entrance. These examples are curious ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow

... March 10.-Lord Hertford's embassy to Paris. Warlike prospects. Progress of election trials. Lord Pomfret's collection of statues. Cerberus.-242 ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... morn, is breaking; the red is in the sky! The mist is creeping from the stream that floats in silence by; The "Lively's" hall looms through the fog, and they our works have spied, For the ruddy flash and round-shot part in thunder from her side; And the "Falcon" and the "Cerberus" make every bosom thrill, With gun and shell, and drum and bell, and boatswain's whistle shrill; But deep and wider grows the trench, as spade and mattock ply, For we have to cope with fearful odds, and the ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various

... sop to Cerberus, and in order to try and maintain my position of independence a few moments longer, I drew out the odd sixpence which Uncle George had put into my hand along with the two shillings of my tip, giving it to the old porter with the air of one with whom such trifling coins were as plentiful ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson

... park. Relieved to find that my detention was not more serious, my first thought was to comply with the conditions of entrance. I begged to leave my package in the sentry-box, to be reclaimed at departure. The amiable Cerberus, smiling and nodding, closed his eyes significantly: at this moment I recollected that my only motive for entering the park lay in that feature of my paraphernalia, and caught it up again, with a gesture of parental violence, in the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various

... interesting performance would take place on May 4th; indeed, the programme when issued was varied enough to arouse general curiosity. Asmodeus was to raise the superior two feet from the ground, and the fiends Eazas and Cerberus, in emulation of their leader, would do as much for two other nuns; while a fourth devil, named Beherit, would go farther still, and, greatly daring, would attack M. de Laubardemont himself, and, having spirited his councillor's cap from his head, would hold it ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... cork, bung, spike, spill, stopcock, tap; rammer^; ram, ramrod; piston; stop-gap; wadding, stuffing, padding, stopping, dossil^, pledget^, tompion^, tourniquet. cover &c 223; valve, vent peg, spigot, slide valve. janitor, doorkeeper, porter, warder, beadle, cerberus, ostiary^. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... considering the man have been bountiful to the poet, have encouraged Virgil to speak such English as I could teach him, and rewarded his interpreter for the pains he has taken in bringing him over into Britain by defraying the charges of his voyage. Even Cerberus, when he had received the sop, permitted AEneas to pass freely to Elysium. Had it been offered me and I had refused it, yet still some gratitude is due to such who were willing to oblige me. But how much more ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden

... "Am I Cerberus, to be coaxed and cheated by a well-buttered sop of flattery? Return to your mutton, reverend sir, and know that I am incorruptible, and disdain to betray my cause for your thirty ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... or discharge, before a more dreadful monster than ever was read of in the legends of knight-errantry. They called him Gripe-men-all. I can't tell what to compare it to better than to a Chimaera, a Sphinx, a Cerberus; or to the image of Osiris, as the Egyptians represented him, with three heads, one of a roaring lion, t'other of a fawning cur, and the last of a howling, prowling wolf, twisted about with a dragon biting his tail, surrounded with fiery rays. His hands were full of gore, his talons like ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... to the pass where Saint Peter, hearing that the royal defunct had opposed Catholic Emancipation, rises up, and, interrupting Satan's oration, declares he will change places with Cerberus sooner than let him into heaven, while ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron

... straight to the quaint old house of the Ellistons and proffer his own card, for, though his aims could seldom be called really worth while, he invariably finished the thing he set out to do. It seemed to be a sort of disease. He could not help it. To his surprise, the Cerberus who guarded the Elliston door received him with a smile and ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester

... grandeur. They were in 1871 entirely lined with costly marbles of different sorts and colours, and the result is very splendid. The staircase branches right and left, and ascends to a domed gallery. Leaving that respectable Cerberus dozy but watchful in his bee-hive chair in the vestibule, we ascend the steps. On the square pedestals which ornament the balustrade of the first flight of stairs stand four graceful marble statuettes of the seasons, by Nixon. Spring is looking ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... contented in her underground kingdom, where she ruled with Pluto. It was supposed to be below the volcanic grounds in southern Italy, near Lake Avernus. The entrance to it was guarded by a three-headed dog, named Cerberus, and the way to it was barred by the River Styx. Every evening Mercury brought all the spirits of the people who had died during the day to the shore of the Styx, and if their funeral rites had been properly performed, and they had a little ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge

... a wretched life; No gold nor jewels Damon left his wife, Which made the jailer faithful, since 'twere vain To hope, unbribed, this Cerberus to gain. ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine

... Servetus was not an ordinary heretic; he was a bold pantheist, and outraged the dogma of all Christian communions by saying that God, in three persons, was a Cerberus, a monster with three heads. 2. He had already been condemned to death by the Catholic doctors at Vienne in Dauphiny. 3. The affair was judged, not by Calvin, but by the magistrates of Geneva; and if it is objected that his advice must have influenced their ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott

... applied for initiation to Eumolpus, in order to foreshadow that state of religious preparation which should precede the momentous change. Even in Hades he rescued Theseus and removed the stone of Ascalaphus, reanimated the bloodless spirits, and dragged into the light of day the monster Cerberus, justly reputed invincible because an emblem of Time itself; he burst the chains of the grave (for Busiris is the grave personified), and triumphant at the close as in the dawn of his career, was received after his labors into the repose of the heavenly mansions, living ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... of the honey cake was simply that it was a friendly present to the infernal gods; later came the conceit that it was a sop to fling to the dog Cerberus, who guarded ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis

... cry down all the rest: applause, advice, derision. Glaucon heard the derisive hootings, "pretty girl," "pretty pullet," from the serried host of the Laconians along the left side of the stadium; but an answering salvo, "Dog of Cerberus!" bawled by the Athenian crowds opposite, and winged at Lycon, returned the taunts with usury. As the champions approached the judges' stand a procession of full twenty pipers, attended by as many fair boys in flowing white, marched from the farther end of the stadium to meet them. The boys bore ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... labour of Hercules when he set about bringing up Cerberus from below, and all the work done by Apollo in the years when he ground corn, are but a little matter compared with the attempt to master botany. Great minds have been at it these two thousand years, ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies

... in love to her, the maid with glancing eyes. So she conceived and brought forth fierce offspring; first she bare Orthus the hound of Geryones, and then again she bare a second, a monster not to be overcome and that may not be described, Cerberus who eats raw flesh, the brazen-voiced hound of Hades, fifty-headed, relentless and strong. And again she bore a third, the evil-minded Hydra of Lerna, whom the goddess, white-armed Hera nourished, being angry beyond measure with the mighty Heracles. And her Heracles, the son of Zeus, of the house ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod

... landmark," said Tisdale. "He called it Cerberus. It is all sketched in true as life on his plans. The gap there under the brute's paw is the entrance ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson

... by Bushnell to destroy the British frigate "Cerberus," lying at anchor off the Connecticut coast. A torpedo, with the usual percussion apparatus, was drawn along the side of the frigate by a long line, but fouled with a schooner lying astern. The explosion occurred with frightful force, and the schooner was wholly demolished. Three men who were ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... finished and I can send her a presentation copy! Everything was green and white in the tea-house, except the dear little things to be sold there: weather-cocks, and door-stops, and old china. We bought specimens of these as sops to Cerberus—I mean, as presents for Aunt Mary—and when there was no longer a pretext for lingering we crept reluctantly away ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)

... character representing a class must resemble some of the individuals in it, in some particulars; but if you undertook to attach to each single character one and the same living representative, you would soon find each of them, like Mrs. Malaprop's Cerberus, 'three gentlemen at once,' if not many more; and should one of your 'country readers,' anxious to 'put the right names to them,' address—not one, but five or six—of his 'town correspondents,' he would get answers about as harmonious as if he ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various

... chemical elements, anything. The Teuton specialist goes at it as at any objective science. His analytical and synthetic processes simply explore in his own subterranean caverns apropos of theology. He has taken over the Bible as the Kaiser has taken over Jerusalem. Wilhelm is becoming the Cerberus of Christianity—sole and surly guardian of ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry

... as one dog," said Boswell. "The city claimed, however, that Cerberus was more than that, and endeavored to collect on three dogs—one license for each head. This the State declined to pay, and out of this grew further complications of a distressing nature. The city sent its dog-catchers up to abscond with ...
— The Enchanted Typewriter • John Kendrick Bangs

... Rome's partisans in the Romagna—have induced doubt, fear, and disunion throughout Italy. Judging by the experience of the last eight years, I must say I saw no means of avoiding the rocks ahead save by a sop to Cerberus. But do not lose confidence in the National party—Cavour or no Cavour, Victor Emmanuel or another, that party is determined to give Italy an Italian representation. I regret that the Nizzards (who have a keen ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell

... HENCE loathed Melancholy Of Cerberus and blackest midnight born, In Stygian Cave forlorn 'Mongst horrid shapes, and shreiks, and sights unholy. Find out som uncouth cell, Where brooding darknes spreads his jealous wings, And the night-Raven sings; There, under Ebon shades, ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... not be wise," interrupted the recluse, "for Cerberus, who lies at the foot of our God, would soon pluck the fluttering wings of the airy youngster," and as he spoke he looked significantly ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... with soothing voice to entice one to display his handwriting in the order-book. My friend, who was small and thin, almost succeeded in defeating the vigilance of the white-waistcoated and honey-voiced Cerberus; but at the last moment, as he was about to slip out, he was stopped, and ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore

... it the Parthenius.) Coasting past (the latter), they reached Heraclea (2), a Hellenic city and a colony of the Megarians, situated in the territory of the Mariandynians. So they came to anchorage off the Acherusian Chersonese, where Heracles (3) is said to have descended to bring up the dog Cerberus, at a point where they still show the marks of his descent, a deep cleft more than two furlongs down. Here the Heracleots sent the Hellenes, as gifts of hospitality, three thousand measures of barley and two thousand jars of wine, twenty ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon

... up to one of the policemen who sit guarding the door of the lobby of our House of Commons, and asked for Mr. Finn. The Cerberus on the left was not sure whether Mr. Finn was in the House, but would send in a card if Mr. Slide would stand on one side. For the next quarter of an hour Mr. Slide heard no more of his message, and then applied ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... editor would be like; would almost, in the wreckage of his preconceived notions, have accepted a woman or a priest in that manifestation, when Mr. Gordon appeared and was addressed by name by the hollow-chested Cerberus. Banneker at once echoed ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... service to his friend Pirithous, he accompanied him in his journey to Epirus, in order to steal away the king of the Molossians' daughter. The king, his own name being Aidoneus, or Pluto, called his wife Proserpina, and his daughter Cora, and a great dog which he kept Cerberus, with whom he ordered all that came as suitors to his daughter to fight, and promised her to him that should overcome the beast. But having been informed that the design of Pirithous and his companion was not to court his daughter, but to force her away, ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch

... again? Why, noble Cerberus, nothing but patch-panel stuff, old gallymawfries, and cotton-candle eloquence? Out, you bawling bandog! fox-furred slave! you dried stock-fish, you, out ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various

... to house, but the setter, the collie, and the St. Bernard are choked into insensibility with a wire noose, hurled into a stuffy cage, and with the thermometer at ninety in the shade, are dragged through the blistering city, as a sop to that Cerberus of the law which demands for its citizens safety from dogs, and pays no attention to ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed

... has been the problem of every religion. And the great problem of progress has been to smuggle the newly-discovered truth past Cerberus, the priest, by preparing a sop ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard

... l. 248. Refers to the story of Orpheus' attempt to rescue his wife Eurydice from Hades. With his exquisite music he charmed Cerberus, the fierce dog who guarded hell-gates, into submission, and won Pluto's consent that he should lead Eurydice back to the upper world on one condition—that he would not look back to see that she was following. When he was almost ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats

... Keres stretch forth their nails to detain the souls; the Furies in despair twist the serpents in their locks; and Cerberus, fastened by thee with a chain, has a rattling in the throat, while he slavers from his ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert

... disparts. Howling there spread, as curs, Under the rainy deluge, with one side The other screening, oft they roll them round, A wretched, godless crew. When that great worm Descried us, savage Cerberus, he op'd His jaws, and the fangs show'd us; not a limb Of him but trembled. Then my guide, his palms Expanding on the ground, thence filled with earth Rais'd them, and cast ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... down!" produced no abatement of Tearum's vociferation, which in part prevented his master from bearing the sounds of alarm which his ferocious vigilance was in the act of challenging. But the mate of the two-legged Cerberus was gifted with sharper ears than her husband. She also was now at the window; "B-t ye, gae down and let loose the dog," she said, "they're sporting the door of the Custom-house, and the auld sap at Hazlewood House has ordered off the guard. But ye hae nae ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott

... from the grip of the pack. At the head of an ice-tongue that nearly closed the gap through which we might enter the open space was a wave-worn berg shaped like some curious antediluvian monster, an icy Cerberus guarding the way. It had head and eyes and rolled so heavily that it almost overturned. Its sides dipped deep in the sea, and as it rose again the water seemed to be streaming from its eyes, as though it were weeping at our escape from the clutch of the floes. This may ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton

... to! Very expressive! And Cerberus, by the way, was always ready to let 'em in. It was when they wanted to get out that—Good evening. I hope you ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens

... to me, what the first word from his lips would portend? It seemed as if I were going in there like one who sought some hidden treasure, knowing which door it lay behind but stricken with fear lest some unseen Cerberus might be crouching in wait for the rash seeker after happiness. Oh! Aunt Jennie! The tenseness of that moment! The feeling that, like the Snowbird a few days ago, I was moving through a fog-hidden ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick

... boy's blandishments in his ears, retired to the "Dolphin" to digest both; and once more Heathcote, with the perspiration on his brow and his chest positively sore with the thumping of his heart, sped like a truant shade from the fangs of Cerberus. ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed

... blaze. As soon as you can hear his knell This god on earth turns devil in hell; And lo! his ministers of state, Transformed to imps, his levee wait, Where, in the scenes of endless woe, They ply their former arts below; And as they sail in Charon's boat, Contrive to bribe the judge's vote; To Cerberus they give a sop, His triple-barking mouth to stop; Or in the ivory gate of dreams Project Excise and South-Sea schemes, Or hire their party pamphleteers To ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... propitiated by having kings named after him. But Rae, greater than he, could safely pass down the dim river running through that world: could pass in his golden sun-boat, guided by magic words of Thoth instead of oars or sails; and the guardian hippopotamus (whom Greeks turned into the dog Cerberus) dared not put out ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... training, what to do and what not to do." The Baroness flung her little sop of flattery to Cerberus with a dainty ghost of a bow for the man who had been as a second father to Leopold since the late Emperor's death. "But—we're old friends, Chancellor," (she was not to blame that they had not been more in the days ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson

... stretch. It took me five days—I am not a Hercules like you—and had I not managed to stammer out that I wished to enrol myself among the pupils of Dr. Frankel, the new Chief Rabbi of the city, the surly Cerberus would have slammed the gate in my face. My luck was that Frankel had come from Dessau, and had been my teacher. I remember standing on a hillock crying as he was leaving for Berlin, and he took me in his arms and said I should also go to Berlin some day. So when ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... being seated by a spring to refresh himself, he heard a hideous noise, and presently espied a Lion and a Dragon, fighting, biting, and tearing each other. At length Guy, perceiving the Lion ready to faint, encountered the Dragon, and soon brought the ugly Cerberus roaring and yelling to the ground. The Lion, in gratitude to Guy, run by his horse's side like a true born spaniel, till lack of food made him retire to his ...
— Traditional Nursery Songs of England - With Pictures by Eminent Modern Artists • Various

... Erectheus, beware of this Cerberus that enslaves freemen; he fawns upon you with his tail, when you are dining, but he is lying in wait to devour your dishes, should you turn your head an instant; at night he sneaks into the kitchen and, true dog that he is, licks up with one lap of his tongue ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... end, however, when Pius VI. was building the palace under the corner of which the statue was to find shelter, the marble representative of the tailor watched his proceedings with sharp observation. Long ago he had rebuked the nepotism of the Popes, but Pius had forgotten his epigrams. "Cerberus," he had said, "had three mouths with which he barked; but you have three, or even four, which ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... lying there in the freezing cold instead of in bed? Frederick found the right answer. Not more than three paces away was the door of Ingigerd's cabin; and he was the faithful dog in three senses, the watchdog, the Cerberus, the dog crazed with ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann

... his will. How arm himself against her—or against himself? He had been prepared for everything except this danger. A savage doorkeeper, a raging monster of a jailer—such were his expected antagonists. He looked for Cerberus; he saw Hebe. A sleeping woman! What an opponent! He closed his eyes. Too bright a dawn blinds the eyes. But through his closed eyelids there penetrated at once the woman's form—not so distinct, ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... hope, in spite of the metaphorists, to avoid the breath of the deadly upas tree; one may, by great good fortune, succeed in blacking the eye of the basilisk; one might even dodge the attentions of Cerberus and Argus, but no man, alive or dead, can escape the ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry

... of gold plate, and a number of unpaid bills, which Madam flatly refused to take upon herself, and defied the unhappy tradesmen to impose upon Rhoda. She did, however, keep the plate and jewels; and by way of a sop to Cerberus, allowed the "beggarly craftsmen," whom she so heartily despised, to sell and divide the proceeds of ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt

... a gate in the railing and beside the gate—and evidently the Cerberus of the way—was a small, thin boy sitting at a small desk, with his legs wound around his chair legs like immature ...
— A Little Miss Nobody - Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall • Amy Bell Marlowe

... county papers a minute account of the trial of a farmer, at the Northampton Sessions, for keeping dogs unconfined; where said farmer was not only fined five pounds and reprimanded by the magistrates, but sentenced to three months' imprisonment. The effect was wonderful, and the reign of Cerberus ceased in the land.'—'That accounts,' said Lord Spencer, 'for what has puzzled me and Althorp for many years. We never failed to attend the sessions at Northampton, and we never could find out how we had ...
— Heads and Tales • Various

... of forgetfulness and shadows there is the unnavigable lake Avernus, Acheron, Styx, the groaning Cocytus, and Phlegethon, with its waves of fire. There are all kinds of monsters and forms of fearful import: Cerberus, with his triple head; Charon, freighting his boat with the shades of the dead; the Fates, in their garments of ermine bordered with purple; the avenging Erinnys; Rhadamanthus, before whom every Asiatic must render his account; Aeacus, before whom every European; ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper

... for the rumbling of cart-wheels. I please myself with thinking that my Angelo has blocked a Colossus which may stand in the public square to defy all competitors. To be sure, that is its least merit,—that nobody can do the like,—yet is it a gag to Cerberus. Its better merit is that it inspires self-trust, by teaching the immense resources that are in human nature; so I sent it to be read by a brave man who is poor and decried. The doctrine is indeed true and grand which you preach as by cannonade, ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson

... to the enchanted realm within. Poor Annunciata's countenance fell; she pulled her seven soldi from her pocket, counted them three or four times deliberately in her hand, and cast appealing glances at the stony-hearted Cerberus. At this moment she discovered a handsome young gentleman who, with his eyes fixed on her face, was elbowing his way through ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... with two feet and seven heads and as many arms. Bartholinus speaks of a three-headed monster who after birth gave vent to horrible cries and expired. Borellus speaks of a three-headed dog, a veritable Cerberus. Blasius published an essay on triple monsters in 1677. Bordenave is quoted as mentioning a human monster formed of three fetuses, but his description proves clearly that it was only the union of two. Probably ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... annexation of Sicily to the Sardinian kingdom. On the other hand, Garibaldi's faith in Cavour had ceased with the cession of Nice, and he believed him to be even now contemplating the cession of the island of Sardinia as a further sop to Cerberus—a project which, if it existed nowhere else, did exist in the mind of Napoleon III. With regard to immediate annexation, he had no intention of agreeing to it, and for one sufficing reason: had he consented he could not have carried the war of liberation across ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... shoes, The royal toilet now went on more smoothly, and was completed according to form. This done, it became the duty of the victim to pass into her reception-room, attended by her ladies. Madame de Noailles had opened the door and stood before it like a she-cerberus waiting for her prey to pass within, when the queen, still laughing at her disordered coiffure, threw herself into a chair before cheval-glass, ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... requires every newspaper to produce with each issue. This ill-favored individual, owner of a yellow countenance covered with red excrescences, to which he owed his nickname of "Coloquinte," indicated a personage behind the lattice as the Cerberus of the paper. This was an elderly officer with a medal on his chest and a silk skull-cap on his head; his nose was almost hidden by a pair of grizzled moustaches, and his person was hidden as completely in an ample ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... bending his predeterminations to the call of the moment. He acted wiselier than he intended; as, for instance, three weeks after declaring he would not give a constitution to his people, he gave it,—a sop to Cerberus, indeed,—a poor vamped-up thing that will by and by have to give place to something more legitimate, but which served its purpose at the time as declaration of rights for the people. When the news of the revolution of Vienna ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli



Words linked to "Cerberus" :   hellhound, Greek mythology, mythical creature



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com