"Delphic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with food, and when he was reduced to the last extremity, brought him out to die. But though his death occurred outside the temple, this did not save them from the sin of sacrilege, and a public reprimand by the Delphic God. ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... subject of the dispute there is little difference of opinion. The Greek commentator, Eustathius (died about 1200 A.D.) cites the following legend in reference to it: "Agamemnon, having consulted the Delphic Oracle about the result of the Trojan War, received the answer that Troy would be taken when the best men of the Greeks would begin to quarrel. At a feast a dispute arose between Achilles and Ulysses, the former maintaining that Ilion ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... phenomena there: Though madmen and the wits, philosophers and fools, With all that factious or enthusiastic dotards dream, And all the incoherent jargon of the schools; Though all the fumes of fear, hope, love, and shame, Contrive to shock your minds with many a senseless doubt; Doubts where the Delphic God would grope in ignorance and night, The God of learning and of light Would want a God himself to help ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... mind employed on such subjects, and which night and day contemplates them, contains in itself that precept of the Delphic God, so as to "know itself," and to perceive its connection with the divine reason, from whence it is filled with an insatiable joy. For reflections on the power and nature of the Gods raise in us a desire of imitating their eternity. Nor does the mind, that sees the necessary dependences ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... poet's "tripartite design" (p. 7, line 10) or to the Triple Alliance of England, Holland, and Sweden against France (1677/8, as in Absalom and Achitophel, line 175) but either to a treatise which had occasioned some stir in the scientific world some twenty years previously: "the Delphic problem" proposed by Hobbes to the Royal Society on the duplication of the cube, which might have come to the ears of Buckingham as well as to those of the court,[3] or perhaps to the triple confederacy of Essex, Halifax, and Sunderland.[4] But to the Restoration reader ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... perhaps, the best ichthyologist in the Union. He is a well-read zoologist, an intelligent botanist and a general physiologist, and has been for a long series of years the focus of the diffusion of knowledge on a great variety of subjects. Gov. Clinton has well called him the "Delphic Oracle" in one of his Letters of Hibernicus, because every one who has a scientific question to ask comes ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... the fleet, and though thought to be peculiarly English, was used by the Delphic oracle, when applied to by the Athenians on the Persian invasion: ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... pierced, and put it out in a wood to die; but it was found by a shepherd, and brought to Corinth, where the queen named it OEdipus, or Swollen Feet, and bred it up as her own child. Many years later OEdipus set out for the Delphic oracle, to ask who he was; but all the answer he received was that he must shun his native land, for he would be the slayer of his own father. He therefore resolved not to return to Corinth, but on his journey he met in a narrow pass with a chariot going to Delphi. A quarrel ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sentences inscribed upon the Delphic oracle, hugely accommodated to the usages of man's life: "Know thyself,"[736-1] and "Nothing too much;" and upon these ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... gift may reside in a certain family, and may be attached to a certain spot, where a regular oracle is open for consultation. At Dodona we read that the Selloi or Helloi, a band or family of priests of ascetic habits, interpret the rustling of the sacred oak, and Agamemnon consults the Pythia, the Delphic priestess, before the ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... sort. Such questions are at present of no interest to me. And yet the fact that they do not interest me, were enough to prove me in as false and despicable a position as ever man found himself occupying—as arrant a hypocrite and deceiver as any god-personating priest in the Delphic temple.—I had rather a man despised than excused me, Mr. Polwarth, for I am at issue with myself, ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... to attend the great games which Hellas counts her pride, to join the Delphic contests. There he heard the herald's voice, with loud and clear command, proclaim, as coming first, the chariot race, and so he entered, radiant, every eye admiring as he passed. And in the race he equaled all the promise of his form in those his rounds, and so with noblest prize of conquest ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... Delphic oracle foretold That the first Greek who touched the Trojan strand Should die; but me the threat could not withhold: A generous cause a victim did demand; And forth I leapt upon the sanely plain; A self-devoted chief—by ...
— The Story of Troy • Michael Clarke
... stool at the fireside, and Heinrich plied him with a multitude of questions: Where did he come from? whom had he last served? how did he like Aladdin? and did he think they should get on well? To all these queries the Genie returned evasive answers; he was Delphic to the verge of unintelligibility. He would only nod mysteriously, muttering beneath his breath in some unknown tongue, probably Arabic—in which, however, his master thought he could distinguish the words "roast" and "boiled" with significant frequency. ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... he had ever been known to produce in days of yore. He was still in possession of his aldermanic seat, but a little uncertain whether it was a throne or a stool of repentance. Still Billy talked loudly of the things he meant to do; and, as usual in his troubles, went to consult the delphic Mr. Murdock; and Mr. Murdock went to see Mr. Early; and Mr. Early, after very much demur, went to see Mr. Percival. Sebastian did not like to mix himself publicly in politics, and ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... find it difficult to keep up his reputation for discretion; for knowing nothing, and beginning himself to be perplexed at the protracted silence, he took refuge in oracular mystery, and delivered himself of certain Delphic sentences which adroitly satisfied those who consulted him while they ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... and Miss Watson very well, and with the power of singing difficult part music at sight, they did so for the same reason that the lark sings, and chiefly under the same gentle tuition—that of nature, glad almighty nature, breathing inspiration from her Delphic tripod of happiness, and health, and hope. Mrs. Schreiber pretended to no intellectual gifts whatever; and yet, practically, she was wiser than many who have the greatest. First of all other tasks which she imposed upon her wards, was that of daily exercise, and exercise carried to excess. She ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... verifies the pictures of Minerva, Juno, or Polymnia; and by the firmness with which she treads her upward path, she convinces the coarsest calculators that another road exists than that which their feet know. But besides those who make good in our imagination the place of muses and of Delphic Sibyls, are there not women who fill our vase with wine and roses to the brim, so that the wine runs over and fills the house with perfume; who inspire us with courtesy; who unloose our tongues and we speak; who anoint our eyes and ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... two dirty little rooms—knowing what is fit for him. The patriarch's house? Its antipodes, my young friend—that is, if such beings have a cosmic existence, on which point Hypatia has her doubts. This is the temple of art and beauty; the Delphic tripod of poetic inspiration; the solace of the earthworn drudge; in a word, the theatre; which your patriarch, if he could, would convert to-morrow into a—but the philosopher must not revile. ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... all the common occurrences of life. Odd as this position may seem, it is founded in fact. I have seen the method successfully practised by more than one person, where a weak mind, on the governed side, has been so prudently set off as to appear the sole director; like the statue of the Delphic god, which was thought to give forth its own oracles, whilst the humble priest, who lent his voice, was by the shrine concealed, nor sought a higher glory than a supposed obedience to the power he would be thought ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... can tell? Some people believe that the gods make their will known to man through the Delphic Oracle." ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... bodies, will sometimes have their leaders; and it may happen that a single individual will be the prime cause of a decision to overturn the deliberate act of a whole State or of the United States; yet we are admonished to receive their opinions as the ancients did the responses of the Delphic oracle, or the Jews, with more propriety, the communications from Heaven delivered by Urim and Thummim to the High Priest of God's ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... analogy to this old Attic custom. After the Persian war, when the dress and manners of the Ionians had undergone a change, it became the custom to cut off the long hair of the boys on their attaining the age of epheboi, and devote it as an offering to a god, for instance, to the Delphic Apollo or some local river-god. Attic citizens, however, by no means wore their hair cropped short, like their slaves, but used to let it grow according to their own taste or the common fashion. Only dandies, as, for ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... people, I, exalted from a low degree, shall be acknowledged as having originally adapted the Aeolic verse to Italian measures. Melpomene, assume that pride which your merits have acquired, and willingly crown my hair with the Delphic laurel. ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... keep to something vague that can be construed two ways, like the Delphic Oracle or Old ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... to get some advice from the town clerk," she said. To these poor people, the town clerk was what the Delphic oracle was to ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... say he looked up to her would be too mild. As the Cockney tourist in Chamounix peers at the summit of Mont Blanc, he peered at Mrs. Greyne. And when, finally, she bought the lease of the mansion in Belgrave Square, he knew her Delphic. ...
— The Mission Of Mr. Eustace Greyne - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... molestation.—Something we would have given to see the little philosophical figure, with its steeple-hat and loose flowing skirts, and eyes in a fine frenzy, "pacing and repacing in austerest thought" that foolish Street; which to him was a true Delphic avenue, and supernatural Whispering-gallery, where the "Ghosts of Life" rounded strange secrets in his ear. O thou philosophic Teufelsdrockh, that listenest while others only gabble, and with thy quick ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... the Present what is small and what is great. Slow of faith how weak an arm may turn the iron helm of fate, But the soul is still oracular; amid the market's din. List the ominous stern whisper from the Delphic cave within,— 'They enslave their children's children who make ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... must be remembered, a sort of Delphic oracle of the marine genus, who invariably keeps his mystic intentions locked within the secret recesses of his own breast and only gives them utterance, when the occasion arrives for him to speak, through the lips of ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... place prodigiously, and everybody near and far seems quite "angelic," as Julian would say. . . . Last Sunday Mrs. Emerson and her three children came to make a call. The Study is the pet room, the temple of the Muses and the Delphic Shrine. The beautiful carpet lays the foundation of its charms, and the oak woodwork harmonizes with the tint in which Endymion is painted. At last I have Endymion where I always wanted it—in my husband's Study, and it occupies ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... of the Bellamys left Arthur in very low spirits. His sensations were similar to those which one can well imagine an ancient Greek might have experienced who, having sent to consult the Delphic oracle, had got for his pains a very unsatisfactory reply, foreshadowing evils but not actually defining them. Lady Bellamy was in some way connected with the idea of an oracle in his mind. She looked oracular. Her dark face and inscrutable eyes, the stamp of power upon her brow, all suggested ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... doubly a Delphic oracle for vagueness to me," said Mrs. Orton Beg, "because Colonel Colquhoun's name ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... career. His literary fate was what might have been expected. After the Persian war, the reputation of his verses rapidly decayed. Wits arose in Athens, who laughed so furiously at his style and his metre, in the Delphic oracles, that at length some echoes of their scoffing began to reach Delphi; upon which the god and his inspired ministers became sulky, and finally took refuge in prose, as the only shelter they could think of from the caustic venom ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... Shakspeare and his anachronisms. The learned scorn of Johnson and some of his brotherhood of commentators, and the eloquent defence of Schlegel, seem in this case superfluous. If he chose to make the Delphic oracle and Julio Romano contemporary—what does it signify? he committed no anachronisms of character. He has not metamorphosed Cleopatra into a turtle-dove, nor Katherine of Arragon into a sentimental ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... vain or shallow thought His awful Jove young Phidias brought; Never from lips of cunning fell The thrilling Delphic oracle: Out from the heart of nature rolled The burdens of the Bible old; The litanies of nations came, Like the volcano's tongue of flame, Up from the burning core below,— The canticles of love and ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... converse with them, as friends would speak with friends. One by one the questions prepared by Mr. Harrison were read, and Mr. Godbe and Mr. Harrison, with pencil and paper, took down the answers as they heard them given by the spirits."* The instruction which they thus received was Delphic in its clearness—that which was true in Mormonism should be preserved and the rest ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... sent to consult the oracle of Delphi concerning this apparition; the Delphic oracle told them to follow the counsel which Aristeus had given them, and it would be well for them; in fact, they did erect a statue to Apollo, which was still to be seen there in the time of Herodotus;[457] and at the same time, another statue to Aristeus, which stood in a small plantation ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... laughing at these Delphic utterances, but she went downstairs thoughtfully. She knew Suzanne's practical spirit. Till now the maid had never shown any capacity of imagination. Beni-Mora was certainly beginning to mould her nature into a slightly different shape. And Domini ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... bigness of a rolling-pin, and puffs the smoke thereof into the face of each warrior, from the eldest to the youngest; while they, putting their hands funnel-wise round their mouths, draw into the sinuosities of the brain that more than Delphic vapor of prophecy; which boy presently falls down in a swoon, and being dragged out by the heels and laid by to sober, enter another to puff at the sacred cigarro, till he is dragged out likewise, and so on till the Tobacco is finished, and the seed of wisdom has sprouted in every soul into the ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... loved, Where Danaus scant of streams beneath him bowed The rustic tribes, from dimness he waxed bright, First of his race to wed the Aeolian lay To notes of Italy." Put glory on, My own Melpomene, by genius won, And crown me of thy grace with Delphic bay. ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... Bronson's opportunity to distinguish himself. And so, with many knowing and confident nods and hints, and with much deference to the two squires, he opened the case, affecting great indignation at Ralph's wickedness, and uttering Delphic hints about striped pants and shaven head, and the grating of ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... banner strewn upon the breeze; Each past achievement only prophesies Of triumphs more unheard of. These Are shadows yet, but time will write thy name In letters golden as the sun That blazed upon the sight of those who came To worship in the temple of the Delphic One. ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... appellation of Ouranus, or Heaven; there the impious Titans warred with the sky; there Jupiter was born and nursed; there was the celebrated shrine of Ammon, dedicated to Theban Jove, which the Greeks reverenced more highly than the Delphic Oracle; there was the birth-place and oracle of Minerva; and there, Atlas supported both the heavens and ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... another's dialects that he had been content to trust implicitly to his friend's information. The Count, indeed, had rather avoided than sought advice on the subject, and the piper, after several confidential conversations and the passage of a sum of silver into his sporran, displayed an equally Delphic tendency. ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... the remaining score of those who face it in a whole generation of men, more than half perish in mind or body; the last ten, perhaps, win through, and these are they that have understood the writing over the temple door, the great 'Know thyself,' the precept of the Delphic Oracle and of all ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... one of the happiest of Dickens's creations; stupid as an owl, he has nevertheless an oracular mode of delivering himself, and the simple-minded Cuttle places as much reliance upon this wooden-headed sailor as the ancients did on the mysterious utterance of the Delphic Apollo. That the powerful will of Macstinger should hold himself in subjugation so long as he was under the dominion of her eye was a matter of course; but that this man of wisdom should be so easily boarded ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... and profound remark of Hegel's that the riddle which the Sphinx, the Egyptian symbol of the mysteriousness of Nature, propounds to Oedipus is only another way of expressing the command of the Delphic oracle, "Know thyself." And when the answer is given the Sphinx casts herself down from her rock. When man knows himself, the mysteriousness of Nature and her ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... of Athene Parthenos in her temple at Athens. He says these votive hangings dressed the pillars that surrounded the Hecatompedon, and formed a tent over the head of the goddess. M. de Ronchaud believes that among the subjects of the Delphic embroideries, described by Euripides in the tragedy of Ion, may be recognized some derived from the designs on saffron-coloured hangings, spoken of by the poet as "the wings of ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... being sent to consult the Delphic oracle respecting the issue of the Messenian war, then raging, received ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... was then in the zenith of her reputation—the celebrated Nun of Kent—whose cell at Canterbury, for some three years, was the Delphic shrine of the Catholic oracle, from which the orders of Heaven were communicated even to the pope himself. This singular woman seems for a time to have held in her hand the balance of the fortunes of England. By ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... whenever the Federal Government from its high places of authority shall proclaim the truth in unequivocal language, will, in my firm belief, receive and approve it. But so long as we deal, like the Delphic oracle, in words of double meaning, so long as we attempt to escape from responsibility, and exhibit our fear to declare the truth by the fact that we do not act upon it, we must expect speculative theory to occupy the mind of the public, and error to increase ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... Jinny dear, and trust to the old man. Various men has various ways. Thar is ways as is common, and ways as is uncommon; ways as is easy, and ways as is oneasy. Bear up, and keep dark." With this Delphic utterance he put his finger ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... pictured ceiling of my own room. Surely that is Zaldu, my pet slave, with big drops on her black face.... And father, mother, kneeling either side. And who are you with rapt face and star-deep eyes, thick hair with Delphic wreaths, and in purple gown and golden girdle? Are ...
— The Flutter of the Goldleaf; and Other Plays • Olive Tilford Dargan and Frederick Peterson
... of disembodying themselves to the use of ointments. Antiquity furnishes no parallel to the horrors of these malignant and homicidal manias. Their analogues may be found in the fabled styes of Circe, or in the frenzied raptures of the Sybilline and Delphic priestesses; but the extent, the variety, and the hideousness of the disease in modern times, infinitely surpass all that was ever dreamt of in Pagan credulity. The points of resemblance, however, are not ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... and yonder close-curled wild thyme are laid before the maidens of Helicon, and the dark-leaved laurels before thee, Pythian Healer, since the Delphic rock made this thine ornament; and this white-horned he-goat shall stain your altar, who nibbles the tip of ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... spiritual religion of Apollo—of redemption. But the popular and inward religion of the Eleusinian mysteries, the worship of souls and ancestors, always persisted underneath. "In so far as it is possible to speak of a Delphic theology, among its more important elements must be counted the belief in the continuation of the life of souls after death in its popular forms, and in the worship of the souls of the dead."[13] There ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... pretty quarrel was on between the two allies, culminating in at least one bloody mix-up between Turkish and Bulgarian troops. In these circumstances Bulgaria appealed to Germany, but was deeply chagrined to receive from the Wilhelmstrasse a Delphic utterance which might have been interpreted as an indorsement of Turkish claims. The reason for this was that Germany was then overrunning the Ukraine preparatory to the occupation of Transcaucasia and the penetration of the middle East. ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... famous tyranny [43] of Polycrates. All manner of legends are told of the travels of Pythagoras to Egypt, Chaldaea, Phoenicia, and even to India. Others tell of a mysterious initiation at the sacred cave of Jupiter in Crete, and of a similar ceremony at the Delphic oracle. What is certain is that at some date towards the end of the sixth century B.C. he removed to Southern Italy, which was then extensively colonised by Greeks, and that there he became a great philosophic teacher, and ultimately ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... the real point at issue is clear enough. It is a question of fighting not Philip but the whole body of states who were represented at the Delphic Council, for they would fly to arms at once if Athens renounced the Peace; against such a combination she could not survive, just as the Phocians could not cope with the combined attack of Macedonia, Thessaly ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... not be vexed, Most Holy Father, if from time to time in the course of my narrative I repeat certain particulars, or allow myself some digressions. I feel myself carried away by a sort of joyous mental excitement, a kind of Delphic or Sibylline breath, when I read of these things; and I am, as it were, forced to repeat the same fact, especially when I realise to what an extent the propagation of our religion is involved. Yet amidst all these marvels and fertility, there is one point ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... all that it is necessary for man to know concerning either God or himself is so plain, that he that runs may read. In answer to such like cant, for it is nothing more,—a cant produced by the most profound ignorance, and frequently attended with the most deplorable envy, I ask, is then the Delphic precept, KNOW THYSELF, a trivial mandate? Can this be accomplished by every man? Or can any one properly know himself without knowing the rank he holds in the scale of being? And can this be effected without knowing what ...
— Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato • Thomas Taylor
... understand how to these manipulators of the pen an infinite number of passages in the Annals, which are still "posers" to the most expert classical professors in the leading Universities of Europe, must have been as dark as the Delphic Oracle,—or the Punic speech of the Carthaginian in Plautus's Comedy of Poenulus to everybody (except, of course, the great Oriental linguist, Petit, who knew all about it, for in the second book of his "Miscellaneorum Libri Novem" he explains the ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... Hyperion, o'er the Delphic dale Reigning meanwhile in glory, Ocean know Thine absence, and outstretch'd an icy veil, A marble pavement, o'er his waters blue; Past the Varangian fiord and Zembla hoar, And from Petsora north to ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... inquired of the Delphic oracle as to their rank among Greek cities, were told that they were absolute last, and not in the ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... dear!" he said, softly—"Well!—'and yet'—as I have observed, the Muse may, like the Delphic oracle, utter words without apparent signification, which only the skilled proficient at her altar may be able to unravel. Therefore,—in this precise manner, my suggestion may be wholly without ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... much better thing of it—with a couple of days' work. My head would not work in town—merely turned from side to side—never nodded (except sleepily). I send you the proofs just to show you I'm at work. I'm going to translate all the story of Delphic answer before Anabasis: and his speech ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... divorce. Since I must you forsake, would Fate permit, To my desires I might my fortune fit; 60 Troy to her ancient splendour I would raise, And where I first began, would end my days. But since the Lycian lots, and Delphic god Have destined Italy for our abode; Since you proud Carthage (fled from Tyre) enjoy, Why should not Latium us receive from Troy? As for my son, my father's angry ghost Tells me his hopes by my delays are cross'd, And mighty Jove's ambassador appear'd With the same message, whom ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... thy son Thy guerdon proud to wear, And Delphic laurels, duly won. Bind thou upon ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... could not boast of one remaining tooth; one eye distilled a large quantity of rheum, by virtue of the fiery edge that surrounded it; the other was altogether extinguished, and she had lost her nose in the course of her ministration. The Delphic sibyl was but a type of this hoary matron, who, by her figure, might have been mistaken for the consort of Chaos, or mother of Time. Yet there was something meritorious in her appearance, as it denoted her an indefatigable minister to the ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... opening he assumes a tone of authority which might better suit some veteran Bard than a raw candidate for the Delphic bays: for, before he proceeds to the regular process of Invocation, he clears the way, by driving from his presence (with sundry hard names; and bitter reproaches on her father, mother, and all the family) a venerable Personage, whose age at least and staid matron-like appearance, ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... tree Come to the foot, and crown myself with leaves; For to that honour thou, and my high theme Will fit me. If but seldom, mighty Sire! To grace his triumph gathers thence a wreath Caesar or bard (more shame for human wills Deprav'd) joy to the Delphic god must spring From the Pierian foliage, when one breast Is with such thirst inspir'd. From a small spark Great flame hath risen: after me perchance Others with better voice may pray, and gain From the Cirrhaean city answer kind. Through diver ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... Petrarch and the senators of Rome were ignorant that the laurel was not the Capitoline, but the Delphic crown, (Plin. Hist. Natur p. 39. Hist. Critique de la Republique des Lettres, tom. i. p. 150—220.) The victors in the Capitol were crowned with a garland of oak eaves, (Martial, l. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... what snows are shed Upon thy laurelled head, Hurtled by many cares and many wrongs! Malignity lets none Approach the Delphic throne; A hundred lane-fed curs bark down Fame's hundred ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... hear this young man from the country, De Castro?' said he. 'You seem to be the Oraculum of the hay-fields, sir,' he continued, turning to me with a delightfully humorous expression on his face. 'Have you any other Delphic utterance?' ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... quite differently engaged. He has devoted his life to a mission to his fellow men, and especially to his fellow citizens. If we may so far trust Plato's Apology, the occasion of that was the answer received from the Delphic oracle by Chaerephon, whom we know from Aristophanes as one of the leading disciples of Socrates in the earlier part of his life. Chaerephon asked the god of Delphi whether there was any one wiser than Socrates, and this of course implies that ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... Apollo, and near it erect a statue to himself, as Apollo would come to them alone of the Italian Greeks, and he would be seen following in the form of a raven. The townsmen were troubled at the apparition, and consulted the Delphic oracle, which confirmed all that Aristeas had said; and Apollo received his temple and Aristeas his statue in ...
— Greek and Roman Ghost Stories • Lacy Collison-Morley
... the Poet, who the sonnet-claim, Severest of the orders that belong Distinct and separate to the Delphic song 70 Shall reverence, nor its appropriate name Lawless assume: peculiar is its frame— From him derived, who spurn'd the city throng, And warbled sweet the rocks and woods among, Lonely Valclusa! and that heir of Fame, 75 Our ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... and that which bounds (7) The furthest east, midway Parnassus rears His double summit: to the Bromian god And Paean consecrate, to whom conjoined The Theban band leads up the Delphic feast On each third year. This mountain, when the sea Poured o'er the earth her billows, rose alone, By one high peak scarce master of the waves, Parting the crest of waters from the stars. There, to avenge his mother, from her home Chased by the angered goddess while ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... vengeance of the Erinyes. At length he took refuge with Minerva at Athens. The goddess afforded him protection, and appointed the court of Areopagus to decide his fate. The Erinyes brought forward their accusation, and Orestes made the command of the Delphic oracle his excuse. When the court voted and the voices were equally divided, Orestes was acquitted by ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... god's original name was at Delos we cannot be sure: he has very many names and 'epithets'. But he early became identified with a similar god at Delphi and adopted his name, 'Apollon', or, in the Delphic and Dorian form, 'Apellon'—presumably the Kouros projected from the Dorian gatherings called 'apellae'.[51:2] As Phoibos he is a sun-god, and from classical times onward we often find him definitely identified with the Sun, a distinction ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray
... hardly be called plausible. Indeed, so far as the mere fable is concerned, it is a house of cards which would collapse any moment at the breath of common sense. One must remember in reading the play that common sense was not one of the nine muses. The dreams take the place of the Delphic oracle, and the Greek chorus is represented by two semi-choruses, the retainers of the quarreling brothers, who speak their parts by the mouth of a leader, at one moment taking part in the action, at ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... be my portion when no trace there is of me, For I first made AEolian songs the songs of Italy. Accept I pray, Melpomene, my modest meed of praise, And crown my thinning, graying locks with wreaths of Delphic bays! ...
— Something Else Again • Franklin P. Adams
... they are for me, too—for what she considers my good. But all the same it makes an embarrassment. Happily Second Sight cannot speak as clearly as it sees, or, rather, as it understands. For the translation of the vague beliefs which it inculcates is both nebulous and uncertain—a sort of Delphic oracle which always says things which no one can make out at the time, but which can be afterwards read in any one of several ways. This is all right, for in my case it is a kind of safety; but, then, Aunt Janet is a very clever woman, and some time she herself ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... to Sparta about the period of the first Olympiad, B.C. 776, with a rich store of wisdom and knowledge. The State was full of disorders, but he instituted great reforms, aided by the authority of the Delphic oracle, and a strong party of influential men. His great object was to convert the citizens of Sparta into warriors united by the strongest bonds, and trained to the severest discipline, governed by an oligarchy under the form of the ancient monarchy. In other words, his object was ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... description of the feelings of the unfortunate pair towards each other, a presentiment of their fatal relationship. The prophecy of Nostradamus is also obviously imitated from the response of the Delphic Pythoness to ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... what Milton denominates "the sty of Epicurus." The discouraging religious condition of the present age is due to the great lack, not merely in the lower but the higher classes, of calm, clear self-intelligence. Men do not know themselves. The Delphic oracle was never less obeyed than now, in this vortex of mechanical arts and luxury. For this reason, it is desirable that the religious teacher dwell consecutively upon topics that are connected with that which is within man,—his settled motives ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... favour'd many, come to be Grac'd now, at last, or glorified by thee, Lo! I, the lyric prophet, who have set On many a head the delphic coronet, Come unto thee for laurel, having spent My wreaths on those who little gave or lent. Give me the daphne, that the world may know it, Whom they neglected thou hast crown'd a poet. A city here ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... Sandringham, which showed that the Queen had been alarmed at the possibility that my proposed Civil List inquiry might affect not only new grants, but also the Civil List arrangements made at the beginning of the reign. Chamberlain made a Delphic reply that, on the one hand, inquiry would be a farce if it did not include the existing Civil List, but that on the other hand there could be no intention to make any change in the arrangements with ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... see dimly in the Present what is small and what is great, Slow of faith, how weak an arm may turn the iron helm of fate, But the soul is still oracular; amid the market's din, List the ominous stern whisper from the Delphic cave within,— "They enslave their children's children who make ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... grace and dignity in the Madonna with action playfully suggested in the infant Christ and little S. John. That of the Bargello is simpler, more tranquil, and more stately. The one recalls the motive of the Bruges Madonna, the other almost anticipates the Delphic Sibyl. We might fancifully call them a pair of native pearls or uncut gems, lovely by reason even of their sketchiness. Whether by intention, as some critics have supposed, or for want of time to finish, as ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... reason of the holy men of old on themes whereon they were qualified to speak is rational and right. To make of their writings a new oracle whose mysterious meanings we are to guess, as the ancient Greeks puzzled over the messages of the Delphic shrine, is to revive Paganism in Christianity. "No prophecy is of any private interpretation." No passage in the Bible was written, centuries ago, with reference to your private affairs. All that is there written concerned men and affairs ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... Earth!" Dauphiness falling on her knees to Most Christian Majesty; "Princess and dearest Sister" to Most Christian Majesty's Pompadour; especially no end of Pleading to the German Reich, in a furious, Delphic-Pythoness or quasi-inspired ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Seven-Years War: First Campaign—1756-1757. • Thomas Carlyle
... Comparatively his own sex was a matter of indifference to him. Indeed he was a very normal man. Even such abstractions as Goodness and Justice had rich feminine figures in his mind, and when he sat down to write criticism at his desk, that pretty little slut of a Delphic ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... involving the personal risk of the adventurous interpreter. "The Gods themselves," it was said, "disclose their intentions to the wise, but to fools their teaching is unintelligible;" and the King of the Delphic Oracle was said not to declare, nor on the other hand to conceal; but emphatically to ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... long maintained itself. It was in memory of it, that those who were initiated into the Orphic mysteries tasted of the raw flesh of the sacrifice, and thereafter ate flesh no more; and it connected itself with that strange object in the Delphic ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... not conceive a strong affection for him. The Honourable Brush, though not given to expressing his feelings, betrayed some surprise at the volumes Mr. Crewe had contributed to the stream of bills; and Mr. Botcher, in a Delphic whisper, invited Mr. Crewe to visit him in room forty-eight of the Pelican that evening. To tell the truth, Mr. Crewe returned the feeling of his companions warmly, and he had even entertained the idea of asking them both to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... year a dolphin comes to swim near your boat, I pray you play to him on the flute the Delphic Hymn to Apollo. Do you like the sea, ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... the tender mother's knee, And gaze into her face, and want To know what magic there can be In words that urge some eyes to dance, While others as in holy trance Look up to heaven: be such my praise! Why linger? I must haste, or lose the Delphic bays. ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... dear Maurice, you are not serious, and that you do not mean this for earnest! Why, my dear boy, don't you talk of the Eleusinian Mysteries, the Delphic Oracle, of Alchemy, Astrology—of any thing, in short, of which the world, having amused itself, has, at length, grown weary? Can't you see that the Church has passed away, and these good priests have gone the same road as their predecessors. Is any acuteness wanting to ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... a short essay has been devoted, as well as to the elements of literary development which existed in Rome before the regular literature. There are many signs in tradition and early history of relations between Greece and Rome; as the decemviral legislation, the various consultations of the Delphic Oracle, the legends of Pythagoras and Numa, of Lake Regillus, and, indeed, the whole story of the Tarquins; the importation of a Greek alphabet, and of several names familiar to Greek legend—Ulysses, Poenus, Catamitus, &c.—all antecedent to the Pyrrhic war. But these are neither numerous ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... sculptured columns, Among thy secret treasures and thine altars, Ion, the Delphic priest, who lays aside The snow-white raiment of the sacrifice And takes up the wayfarer's knotty staff. I am no ministrant, nor have I held The dreadful mystic key, nor have I touched Boldly or timidly the sacred ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas
... temple of Athena near Assesos, he rebuilt two temples for the goddess at his own expense. The Milesians sustained the struggle courageously, until two reverses at Limeneion and in the plain of the Maeander at length induced them to make terms. Their tyrant, Thrasybulus, acting on the advice of the Delphic Apollo and by the mediation of Periander of Corinth, concluded a treaty with Alyattes in which the two princes, declaring themselves the guest and the ally one of the other, very probably conceded extensive commercial privileges ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... on a Monday evening that I visited this modern Delphic oracle; and, strangely enough, as is often the case, other events seemed to lead up to this one. The very lesson on Sunday evening was full of astrology. It was, I may mention, the story of the handwriting on ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... thus made the singular step of artificially producing a sort of trance, with the object of availing themselves of one of its attendant phenomena. The Thamans in Siberia do the like to this day to obtain the gift of prophecy. And it is more than probable that the Egyptian and Delphic priest habitually availed themselves of some analogous procedure. Modern mesmerism is in part an ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... of congress in this emergency has given little satisfaction. They affect to give a declaration of the national will, and are as ambiguous as the Delphic Oracle; and it is said that their half- measures, and determination not to see that public opinion is against them, and that a thorough change can alone undermine this military revolution, will contribute more than anything to ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... W., Persian, and E., W.: Solomon as a young { Delphic Sibyl. A somewhat man. E.: David as an old { far-fetched design man with an air of { borrowed from mediaeval melancholy, thinking { art. Angels from above of the Temple of which Clerestory { delivering their message. he may only get ready { Architectural background, ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of St. Paul - An Account of the Old and New Buildings with a Short Historical Sketch • Arthur Dimock
... was ennobled by fiction; and the fancy of the Syrian poets had transported the amorous tale from the banks of the Peneus to those of the Orontes. The ancient rites of Greece were imitated by the royal colony of Antioch. A stream of prophecy, which rivalled the truth and reputation of the Delphic oracle, flowed from the Castalian fountain of Daphne. [106] In the adjacent fields a stadium was built by a special privilege, [107] which had been purchased from Elis; the Olympic games were celebrated at the expense of the city; and a revenue of thirty thousand pounds sterling was ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... sometimes she thought there was such a thing as a girl's being too sweet. "I met Claire Fendall once when I went with Priscilla to a recital," Amy remarked. "And—Oh, well, I'm not one of the people who like honey for breakfast every morning of the year." But the only reply this Delphic utterance called forth from Peggy ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... less on fire With dreams impossible as wildest Arab Tale, (So thinks the boy,) With dreams that turn him red and pale, Yet less impossible and wild Than those which bashful Love, in his own way and hour, Shall duly bring to flower? O, Unknown Eros, sire of awful bliss, What portent and what Delphic word, Such as in form of snake forebodes the bird, Is this? In me life's even flood What eddies thus? What in its ruddy orbit lifts the blood, Like a perturbed moon of Uranus, Reaching to some great world ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore
... hath broke her bark, and that swift foot Which th' angry Gods had fast'ned with a root To the fix'd earth, doth now unfetter'd run To meet th' embraces of the youthful Sun. She hangs upon him, like his Delphic Lyre; Her kisses blow the old, and breath new, fire; Full of her God, she sings inspired lays, Sweet odes of love, such as deserve the Bays, Which she herself was. Next her, Laura lies In Petrarch's learned arms, drying ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... imagine, our first walk was to the shrine of the Delphic oracle, at the bottom of the cleft between the two peaks. The hewn face of the rock, with a niche, supposed to be that where the Pythia sat upon her tripod, and a secret passage under the floor of the sanctuary, are all that remain. The Castalian ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... me on the shoulder, calling me a Delphic oracle, and haled me from the premises through the garden gate, with the lightning ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... so lithe and lovely And yet thou art not ours. What Delphic saying compels thee Of kings or ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... who the Sonnet's claim, Severest of the orders that belong Distinct and separate to the Delphic Song, Shall venerate, nor its appropriate name Lawless assume. Peculiar is its frame, From him deriv'd, who shunn'd the City Throng, And warbled sweet thy rocks and streams among, Lonely Valclusa!—and that Heir of Fame, Our greater MILTON, hath, by many a lay Form'd on that ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... father pious to a crime. The restless youth searched all the world around; But how can Jove in his amours be found? When tired at length with unsuccessful toil, To shun his angry sire and native soil, 10 He goes a suppliant to the Delphic dome; There asks the god what new-appointed home Should end his wanderings and his toils relieve. The Delphic oracles this answer give: 'Behold among the fields a lonely cow, Unworn with yokes, unbroken to the plough; Mark well the place where ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... Chameleon was an old journalist, whose face was a sealed book of Confucius, and who talked to me, patronizingly, now and then, like the Delphic Oracle. His name was Watch, and he wore a prodigious pearl in his shirt-bosom. He crept up to the editorial room at nine o'clock every night, and dashed off an hour's worth of glittering generalities, at the end ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... dire: A solitary sorrow best befits Thy lips, and antheming a lonely grief. Leave them, O Muse! for thou anon wilt find Many a fallen old Divinity Wandering in vain about bewildered shores. Meantime touch piously the Delphic harp, 10 And not a wind of heaven but will breathe In aid soft warble from the Dorian flute; For lo! 'tis for the Father of all verse. Flush every thing that hath a vermeil hue, Let the rose glow intense and warm the air, And let the clouds of even and of morn Float in voluptuous fleeces ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... and more than these In bird's song, and in poet's scroll; Something underneath the whole, A music yet unbreathed.—unsung— Unwritten—incommunicable; Whispered from no mortal tongue: What seer nor prophet may rehearse In oracle, or Delphic fable, Since the old dead gods were young, And made with man their dwelling-place; But he shall hear, of all his race, The dread wherefore of life and death; He shall behold the ultimates Of fears and doubts, and scores and hates, And the sure final ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... much sacrifice of time. Do not expect details here; your fashionable stationer is the best reliance in such a case, unless you chance to know Mr. Millard, or can find the law laid down in Mrs. Sherwood's tactfully vague chapters, which, like the utterances of the Delphic oracle, are sure to hit the mark ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... estate I've won, And, with thine own dear hand the meed supplying, Bind thou about the forehead of thy celebrated son The Delphic laurel-wreath ...
— A Little Book of Western Verse • Eugene Field
... his kind Where Aufidus's rushing waters roar In the parched land where rustic Daunus reigned, And first taught Grecian numbers how to run In Latin measure. Muse! the honor gained Is thine, for I am thine till time is done. Gracious Melpomene, O hear me now, And with the Delphic ...
— Horace and His Influence • Grant Showerman
... cause. Mr. Van Buren himself was reported as having assured an intimate friend, who condoled with him on his gloomy prospects, that he "had a card to play yet which neither party dreamed of." The Attorney-General and the District Attorneys of New York and Philadelphia were as mysterious as Delphic oracles, while other Federal officers in those cities were profound and significant in their head-shakings and winks in reference to disclosures which were to be made just before the Presidential election, and which were to blow the Whigs ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... home, and sufficiently accounted for our visit to Jersey, and the temporary postponement of my last trip to England before our marriage. My mother, Johanna, and I, kept our own counsel, and answered the many questions asked us as vaguely as the Delphic oracle. ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... his day; he was going to save Athens if he could. So he went into the marketplace, the agora, and loafed about (so to say), and drew groups of young men and old about him, and talked to them. The Delphic Oracle had made pronouncement: Sophocles is wise; Euripides is wiser; but Socrates is the wisest of mankind. Sometimes, you see, the Delphic Oracle could get off a distinctly good thing. But Socrates, ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... others, it seemed he also duped himself. Moreover, and this was perhaps the secret of his continued success, his "visions" were invariably symbolic and mysterious; they possessed an adaptability of character that was truly Delphic. Indeed, his hearers were compelled to put their own interpretation upon his visions. The seer seldom pretended to understand or ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... "A Delphic utterance, if ever there was one," he said, and laughed partly in relief. She had not said that Mr. Sefton would ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... Talk of Midas, Croesus, Delphic treasures! they were all nothing to Timon and his wealth; why, the Persian King could not match it. My spade, my dearest smock-frock, you must hang, a votive offering to Pan. And now I will buy up this desert corner, and build ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... noticeable of all that had appeared previously. (For the place was not liable to diseases at other times, but especially free from them, except that which affected the teeth: on account of which they used to go up to the metropolis, in word to consult the Delphic oracle but in deed to go to Olympia, so that not a few were banished from the city both for other reasons and not least this.) As to the causes of it, then, let any one speak who is aware of them: but I will show what things happened on account ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley
... hospitality. The news is eagerly demanded, friends are inquired for, and the words which fall from his lips are attentively listened to, carefully noted, and prized as highly as the sayings of the Delphic oracles. ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... could preserve him from delusions which might turn him out of the way, could keep his mind fixed upon the end for which he ought to act and live."[475] In himself, therefore, he sought that ground of certitude which should save him from the prevailing skepticism of his times. The Delphic inscription, Gnoti seauton, "know thyself" becomes henceforth the fundamental ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... without question, very soon to die, it is hard for you in the condition you are, either to know yourselves, or what is yours, according to the delphic inscription. I, who make the laws, am of opinion, that you neither are yourselves your own, nor is that yours of which you are possessed. Both your goods and you belong to your families, as well those past as those to come; but, further, both your family and goods ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... boyhood and youth he performed various marvelous feats of strength, and on reaching manhood succeeded in delivering the Thebans from the oppression of the Minae. In a fit of madness sent upon him by Juno, he slew his own children; and on consulting the Delphic oracle as to how he should cleanse himself from this crime, he was ordered to submit himself for twelve years to Eurystheus, king of Tiryns, and to perform whatever tasks were appointed him. Hercules obeyed the oracle, and during the twelve years of his servitude accomplished twelve extraordinary ...
— Ritchie's Fabulae Faciles - A First Latin Reader • John Kirtland, ed.
... 'Like Delphic Hag of old, by Fiend possest, He swells, wild Frenzy heaves his panting breast, His bristling hairs stick up, his eyeballs glow, And from his mouth long ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... unit in favoring free coinage. Recent Republican and Democratic platforms had been phrased with Delphic genius to suit the East and West at once. The best known statesmen of both parties had "wobbled" upon the question. The Republican party contained a large element favorable to silver, while the Democratic President, at least, ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... fear, yet that danger is nigh; and who floats awe-struck under beetling precipices, through the dark and turbid waters—seeing in the distance yet stranger and ruder shapes, towards which he is irresistibly impelled. What would become of us? O for some Delphic oracle, or Pythian maid, to utter the secrets of futurity! O for some Oedipus to solve the riddle of the cruel Sphynx! Such Oedipus was I to be—not divining a word's juggle, but whose agonizing pangs, and sorrow-tainted life were to be the engines, wherewith to lay bare the secrets ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... pieces, Which being found by Satan, he began And stuck the bits together—hence the creases, The twists, the crooked botches, that we find— Sad counterfeits of Nature's perfect moulding; Hearts wrongly placed—a topsy-turvy mind— Things that deserve the scorn of all beholding. It needs no oracle in Delphic shade To name the model from which ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... The Delphic Gaberdine avails me not When Laurels fester into loathly Rot, And in his starry Shroud the Poet starves While growing Roses in a ...
— The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Jr. (The Rubiyt of Omar Khayym Jr.) • Wallace Irwin
... the phenomena of nature, and fix it on its own phenomena. "I have not leisure for physical speculations," he said, with characteristic irony, "and I will tell you why: I am not yet able, according to the Delphic inscription, to know myself, and it seems to me very ridiculous, while ignorant of myself, to inquire into what I am not concerned in." Weary of disputes about the origin of the universe, he turned to the one field in which the ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... Delphic mystery, whether brains be in it or not. It is a of sublunary wisdom—an umbrella over ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 360 - Vol. XIII. No. 360, Saturday, March 14, 1829 • Various
... One, however, is not the only type of mystic ecstasy. That intoxication of emotion which seizes upon the negro camp meeting of to-day, as it did upon the Delphic priestesses two thousand years ago, seems at first glance to have nothing in common psychologically with the blessed nothingness of Gautama and Meister Eckhart. But the loss of the feeling of personality and the sense of possession by a divine spirit are the same. How, then, is this state reached? ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... second time. Like all prophecies, it was somewhat Delphic; but he could get the general drift. In that golden script he was looking into the heart of all Thomahlia—into its greatness, its culture, its civilisation itself. It was the soul of the Blind Spot, the reason and the wherefore of ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... their decree on the hill of Mars, in which it behooveth thee to be victorious. But Hermione, to whose neck thou art holding the sword, it is destined for thee, Orestes, to wed, but Neoptolemus, who thinks to marry her, shall never marry her. For it is fated to him to die by the Delphic sword, as he is demanding of me satisfaction for his father Achilles. But to Pylades give thy sister's hand, as thou didst formerly agree, but a happy life now coming on awaits him. But, O Menelaus, suffer Orestes to reign over Argos. But depart and rule ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... the Desert Centaurs that confessed Jesus Christ; secondly, that God had communicated to the Pagans certain glimmerings of light, to the end they might be saved. Likewise the Sibyls, for instance the Cumaean, the Egyptian and the Delphic, did these not foreshadow, amid the darkness of the Gentiles, the Holy Cradle, the Rods, the Reed, the Crown of Thorns and the Cross itself? For which reason St. Augustine admitted the Erythraean Sibyl into the City ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... reading her letter over again, to make sure that all the principal expressions were indistinct, and that the composition generally, except the postscript, resembled a Delphic oracle, when there was a hasty footstep, and a tap at her door, and in ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... that history, when we look at it in small portions, may be so construed as to mean anything, that it may be interpreted in as many ways as a Delphic oracle. "The French Revolution," says one expositor, "was the effect of concession." "Not so," cries another: "The French Revolution was produced by the obstinacy of an arbitrary government." "If the French nobles," says the first, "had refused to sit with ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... and even that is highly inconclusive. His general frame of mind appears to remain constant, but he finds himself defending and rejecting very different things. The great issue may, according to the period, be a primeval taboo, the utterances of the Delphic oracle, the Athanasian creed, the Inquisition, the geocentric theory, monarchy by the grace of God, witchcraft, slavery, war, capitalism, private property, or noble isolation. All of these tend to appear ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson |
