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Adonis   /ədˈɑnəs/   Listen
Adonis

noun
1.
Any handsome young man.
2.
Annual or perennial herbs.  Synonym: genus Adonis.
3.
(Greek mythology) a handsome youth loved by both Aphrodite and Persephone.



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"Adonis" Quotes from Famous Books



... nothing to conceal, while delight was wreathed all over his rosy countenance. Again and again he stopped me to make inquiries about Fidel, the new vaquero. That lucky rascal was a good-looking native, a much larger youth than the aspiring Don Blas, and I pictured him to the padre as an Adonis. To the question if he was in the ranch at present, fortune favored me, as Fidel and nearly all the regular vaqueros were cutting timbers in the encinal that day with which to build new corrals at one of the outlying tanks. As he would not return before dark, and I knew the ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams

... revelations and especially his eulogy of Biggs' personal appearance had tormented him. He knew that, in his wooing of Mrs. Pett's maid, Celestine, he was handicapped by his looks, concerning which he had no illusions. No Adonis to begin with, he had been so edited and re-edited during a long and prosperous ring career by the gloved fists of a hundred foes that in affairs of the heart he was obliged to rely exclusively on moral ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... inseparable to an European atmosphere, we as noiselessly as possible laid the charge at the door of a certain sin.' Here he would fling down his crutch. 'The Countess's carriage was forever at the door, waiting the pleasure of Mr. Secretary Bolt; he had a plate reserved at her table; he was the Adonis of her drawing-room; there was a seat for him in her opera-box. In the front of the latter, facing the stately front of her ladyship, one of her sweetest smiles forced over her hard face, sat the handsome Bolt, now playing with the tassel of her fan, then passing ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton

... of her husband in the north. The connection between Phoenicia and Egypt in this myth, as it has been handed down to us by Plutarch, is very remarkable. We consider the explanation of the close affinity between the Isis and Osiris and the Adonis myths to be in the fact, that Egyptians and Phoenicians lived together on the shores of the Delta where the latter had planted their colonies. Plutarch's story of the finding of Osiris' dead body is very charming. Isis and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... before this Adonis was quite satisfied with himself. He re-touched the paint on his shoulders several times, and modified the glare of that on his wide-mouthed, high-cheek-boned visage before he could tear himself away; but at last he ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne

... Had awed mankind, and taught the world's great lords To bow and sue for grace. But who is he Fresh as a rose-bud newly blown, and fair As opening lilies; on whom every eye With joy and admiration dwells? See, see, He reins his docile barb with manly grace. Is it Adonis for the chase arrayed? Or Britain's second hope? Hail, blooming youth![9] May all your virtues with your years improve, 390 Till in consumate worth, you shine the pride Of these our days, and to succeeding times A bright example. As his guard of mutes On the great sultan wait, ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... been Mrs. Cross's inward comment, on first hearing of the effect produced by Mr. Robert Domeny on the impressionable Mrs. Maidment; for if truth be told he was anything but an Adonis. But she wisely kept her surprise to herself, and now once more clicked her tongue ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)

... scholar, knew to have been addressed to a son of Virgil's intimate friend. Tacitus, too, has been interpolated. Seneca's ideal man is not Jesus, for Jesus is Osiris, Horus, Krishna, Mithra, Hercules, Adonis,—think of this beautiful young god's death!—Buddha. Such a mock trial and death could not have taken place under the Roman or Jewish laws. The sacraments derive from the Greeks, from the Indians—the mysteries of Ceres and Bacchus, from the ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker

... of Sarrasine and the marriage of the Count of Lanty. Desroziers gave music lessons to Marianina, daughter of the count. The musician employed his friend, who was momentarily in need of money, to undertake a copy of a statue of Adonis, which reproduced Zambinella's features. This copy he sold to M. de Lanty. [The ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe

... challenged, I believe, by the adherents of the Baconian faith. The tasks which the greatest of our poets set himself when near the age of thirty, and to which he presumably brought all the powers of which he was then conscious, were the uninspired and pitilessly prolix poems of VENUS AND ADONIS and THE RAPE OF LUCRECE, the first consisting of some 1,200 lines and the second of more than 1,800; one a calculated picture of female concupiscence and the other a still more calculated picture of female chastity: the two alike abnormally fluent, yet external, unimpassioned, endlessly descriptive, ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson

... muse; if their grief were the grief of oppression they would wish themselves kings; if their grief were poverty, wish themselves millionaires; if sin, they would wish they were saints or angels; if despised love, that they were some much-courted Adonis of county fame. Some had been known to stand and think so long with this fixed gaze downward that eventually they had allowed their poor carcases to follow that gaze; and they were discovered the next morning out of ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy

... was so good-humoured and friendly. "She's doing it beautifully," Ethel thought. But she pulled herself up. "Doing what beautifully? What do I mean? One would think we were millionaires, and Joe a perfect Adonis! Is she trying to eat us? And aren't you rather a snob, my love, to be so sure you hate the woman ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole

... by fair idolatresses, fell To idols foul. Thammuz came next behind, Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured The Syrian damsels to lament his fate In amorous ditties all a summer's day, While smooth Adonis from his native rock Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood Of Thammuz yearly wounded: the love-tale Infected Sion's daughters with like heat, Whose wanton passions in the sacred porch Ezekiel saw, when, by the vision led, His eye surveyed the dark idolatries Of alienated Judah. ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton

... was soon demonstrated that the manager's discernment was not in error. There was not only abundance but quality, and the landlord's daughter waited on the guests, thereby subjecting herself to the very open advances of the Celtic Adonis. The large table was laden with heavy crockery, old-fashioned and quaint; an enormous rotary castor occupied the center of the table, while the forks and spoons were—an ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... Lomenie, of Brienne,—who, after being secretary of state, had retired to the Oratoire,—was engaged in bringing out a better collection of Christian lyrics. To this work he pressed La Fontaine, whom he called his particular friend, to lend his name and contributions. Thus the author of "Psyche," "Adonis," and "Joconde," was led to the composition of pious hymns, and versifications of the Psalms of David. Gifted by nature with the utmost frankness of disposition, he sympathized fully with Arnauld and Pascal in the war against the Jesuits; ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine

... Black Adonis, A Garston Bigamy, The Her Husband's Friend His Foster Sister His Private Character In Stella's Shadow Love at Seventy Love Gone Astray Moulding a Maiden Naked Truth, The New Sensation, A Original Sinner, An Out of Wedlock Speaking of Ellen Stranger Than Fiction Sugar Princess, A That ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter

... effect. He may often dislike or distrust the moral aspect of the poet's impartial sensitiveness to all outward beauty,—the impartiality which makes him throw all his strength into his pictures of Acrasia's Bower of Bliss, the Garden of Adonis, and Busirane's Masque of Cupid. But there is no gainsaying the beauty which never fails and disappoints, open the poem where you will. There is no gainsaying its variety, often so unexpected and novel. Face to face with ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church

... cell, Low through yon sedges pastoral Syrinx breathed, And through those groves wailed the sweet Philomel, The tears of Ceres swelled in yonder rill— Tears shed for Proserpine to Hades borne; And, for her lost Adonis, yonder hill Heard ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... on shore were numerous. There was an old colonel, returning from a three years' furlough, the major part of which had been spent at Cheltenham. He was an Adonis of sixty, with yellow cheeks and white teeth; a man who had passed through life doing nothing; had risen in his profession without having seen service, except on one occasion, and of that circumstance he made the most. With ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat

... bare arm of the milkmaid, Adonis drew the figure down a pith toward the small lake that was on one edge of ...
— The Motor Girls • Margaret Penrose

... the Adonis of Athens, noted for his beauty, the charm of his manner, his winning personality, qualities which made all men his willing captives. He was of high birth, great wealth, and luxurious and pleasure-loving ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... philosophy. From the reading of Politian and Lorenzo dei Medici, from the sight of the Psyche of Raphael, the Europa of Veronese, the Ariadne of Tintoret, men like Greene and Dorset learned that revival of a more luscious and pictorial antique which was brought to perfection in Shakespeare's "Venus and Adonis" and Marlowe's "Sestiad." From the Platonists and Epicureans of Renaissance Italy our greatest dramatists learned that cheerful and serious love of life, that solemn and manly facing of death, that sense of the finiteness of man, the inexhaustibleness of nature, which shines ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee

... a melodramatic chronicle-history play, largely imitative of Marlowe and yet showing striking power. At the end of this period Shakspere issued two rather long narrative poems on classical subjects, 'Venus and Adonis,' and 'The Rape of Lucrece,' dedicating them both to the young Earl of Southampton, who thus appears as his patron. Both display great fluency in the most luxuriant and sensuous Renaissance manner, and though they appeal little to the taste of the present day ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher

... and touching form of this conception is seen in such myths as the change of Philemon into the oak, and of Baucis into the linden; of Myrrha into the myrtle; of Melos into the apple tree; of Attis into the pine; of Adonis into the rose tree; and in the springing of the vine and grape from the blood of the Titans, the violet from the blood of Attis, and the hyacinth from ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... had any chance of putting on the robes of the Keeper of the Seals, he may have hidden his moleskin complexion, his terrible eyes, his touzled mane, his voice like a hoarse crier's, his bony figure, like that of a starveling poet, and have assumed all the charms of Adonis. If Dinah sees Monsieur de Clagny as Attorney-General, she may see him as a handsome youth. Eloquence has great privileges.—Besides, Madame de la Baudraye is full of ambition. She does not like Sancerre, and dreams of the glories ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac

... colored man not giving way in the least, but bumping, hat, goatee, cane, cigar, and all, against our Philadelphian, who, with the greatest coolness and presence of mind, doubled up his fist and giving the colored Adonis two blows with it, (precisely on the middle brass stud which confined his frilled shirt-bosom,) laid him full ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman

... or romance of Mr. Bailly, (Lettres sur les Sciences et sur l'Atlantide, tom. i. p. 249—256, tom. ii. p. 114—139,) the phoenix of the Edda, and the annual death and revival of Adonis and Osiris, are the allegorical symbols of the absence and return of the sun in the Arctic regions. This ingenious writer is a worthy disciple of the great Buffon; nor is it easy for the coldest reason to withstand ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... into ridicule, and impeaching him with cowardice, merely because he happened to have an effeminate voice. Whenever Cher'ea came to demand the watch-word from the emperor, according to custom, he always gave him either Venus, Adonis, or some such, implying ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith

... had excited, and it made him fear lest another should approach the object of his love, and occupy a place in the heart which he had not even demanded as his own. He was positively in a hurry. What if some undergraduate should get an introduction to Eva—some gay and handsome Adonis—and should suddenly carry away ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar

... of French proclivities and republican principles (see Waters's 'Opera-Glass', pp. 133-145). A man of taste and cultivation, he produced some musical extravaganzas and ballets; 'e.g. Don Quichotte ou les Noces de Gamache, L'Elevement d'Adonis, The Rape ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero

... Philip's. Happy-Go-Lucky. A Perfect Adonis. Frank Warrington. Richard Vandermarck. Missy. Phoebe. ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson

... was something to have the manners. They at least were to the imagination a memory and a prophecy. They recalled the idyllic age when fine manners expressed fine feelings, and they foretold the return of Astraa to her ancient haunts. Here is young Adonis dreaming of a four-in-hand and a yacht, like any other gentleman. Let us hope that he knows the test of a gentleman not to be the ownership of blood-horses and a unique drag, but perfect courtesy founded upon fine human feeling—that ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis

... of Belphoebe; the story of Florimel and the Witch's son; the Gardens of Adonis, and the Bower of Bliss; the Mask of Cupid; and Colin Clout's vision, in the last book. But some people will say that all this may be very fine, but that they cannot understand it on account of the allegory. They are afraid of the allegory, as if they thought it would bite them: they look at ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt

... music in the streets, and after a time a well-to-do citizen who noticed him took him into his house and entrusted him with the task of teaching music to his sons and of playing him to sleep in the evening. Franz spent his leisure hours in composing an opera called 'The Death of Adonis,' into which he poured all the music of his soul, all his love, his sorrow, and his infinite desire. He lived for this only, and during all the hours he spent when he was not working at his opera he ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring

... Whose annual Wound in Lebanon allured The Syrian Damsels to lament his fate, In amorous Ditties all a Summers day, While smooth Adonis from his native Rock Ran purple to the Sea, supposed with Blood Of Thammuz yearly wounded: the Love tale Infected Zion's Daughters with like Heat, Whose wanton Passions in the sacred Porch Ezekiel ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... eyes—she acknowledged that the nearest approach to her ideal that she had ever seen was a handsome, lithe young Atlantic City life guard. She put such a valuation upon the courage of this sun-bronzed, red-shirted Adonis that Alexander's jealousy rose to the fuming point. There pressed upon him the notion of going to the City-by-the-Sea, either to challenge this approximate ideal to mortal combat or of emulating his choice of ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump

... the band of purple velvet inside the metal had whitened. The frame always contained the current object of Lise's affections, though the exhibits—as Janet said—were subject to change without notice. The Adonis who now reigned had black hair cut in the prevailing Hampton fashion, very long in front and hanging down over his eyes like a Scottish terrier's; very long behind, too, but ending suddenly, shaved in a careful curve ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... in initiation the cultic role of circumcision has been small. It does not appear as an element in the worship of any deity, neither in that of such gods as Osiris, Tammuz, Adonis, Attis, nor in that of any other. It is not represented in ancient records as a devotion of one's self or an assimilation of one's self or of a child to the tribal or national god. Its performance is generally a religious duty, as is true of every established ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy

... did commentators, critics, and antiquarians for long dispute; but none denied that the actor, Will Shakspere (spelled as heaven pleased), was in the main the author of most of the plays of 1623, and the sole author of Venus and Adonis, ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang

... from Captain Bradford to Miriam. My poor Adonis, that I used to ridicule so unmercifully, what misfortunes have befallen him! He writes that during the siege at Port Hudson he had the top of his ear shot off (wonder if he lost any of that beautiful golden fleece yclept his ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson

... as the day itself, dressed with taste, easy of manner—to let out the secret he was a love-child, the natural son of Lord Dudley and the famous Marquise de Vordac—was walking in the great avenue of the Tuileries. This Adonis, by name Henri de Marsay, was born in France, when Lord Dudley had just married the young lady, already Henri's mother, to an old gentleman called M. de Marsay. This faded and almost extinguished butterfly recognized the child ...
— The Girl with the Golden Eyes • Honore de Balzac

... audience—reserved seats a shilling—he may aspire to half-crowns and dress-boxes; that is, if we can hit on a name which inspires respect. Now, although the dog is big, it is not by his size that he is to become famous, or we might call him Hercules or Goliath; neither is it by his beauty, or Adonis would not be unsuitable. It is by his superior sagacity and wisdom. And there I am puzzled to find his prototype amongst mortals; for, perhaps, it may be my ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Aphrodite agreed that each should keep Adonis one-third of the year, and that he should have the odd four months to himself. Now that you are the Cordova, if you could come to some such understanding about me with Miss Donne, it would be very satisfactory. But I am afraid Margaret does ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford

... afternoon and the master had remained to show Rupert Filgee how to prepare Uncle Ben's tasks, and had given his final instructions to his youthful vicegerent, that irascible Adonis unburdened himself querulously: ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte

... leaves and the returning song-birds awakes no longer in us the astonishment which it awoke yearly among the dwellers in the old world, when the sun was a god who was sick to death each winter, and returned in spring to life and health, and glory; when the death of Adonis, at the autumnal equinox, was wept over by the Syrian women, and the death of Baldur, in the colder north, by all living things, even to the dripping trees, and the rocks furrowed by the autumn rains; when Freya, the goddess of youth and love, went forth ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley

... the earth. Standing by his side is Coresus, the high priest, crowned with ivy, enveloped in draperies, and seemingly floating in the sacerdotal whiteness of his vestments; a beardless priest, of doubtful sex, of androgynous grace, an enervated Adonis, the shadow of a man. With a backward turn of one hand he plunges the knife in his breast; with the other he has the appearance of casting his life into the heavens, whilst across his effeminate face pass the weakness of the agony and grief of violent death. Opposite the dying high-priest is the ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton

... the fashionable nigger-brown shade. Never had a day's illness. Every "Adonis" potato is inoculated for wireworm before ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 14, 1917 • Various

... interludes in the "pagan manner." Second only to those Luciferan defiances, which seem able to inspire even us poor worms with the right attitude towards Fate, I am tempted to place certain references to Astarte, Ashtoreth and Adonis. ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys

... group, with his arms folded and his feet well apart, in an attitude of easy admiration: 'The Wounded Adonis, attended by the Loves ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... difficulties, never at a loss; the Bush was his living-room, bedroom, and larder. He had already shown himself independent of what the stores could provide when a meal was wanted. Mike might have been a pink Adonis in another climate and under other conditions; his gray eyes and fair moustache were in almost ludicrous contrast with his tanned hide—he appeared to be bound ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson

... dear familiar name I must take the liberty henceforward to distinguish my Adonis by), with a smile full of meaning, took me gently by the hand, and said: "Come, my dear, I will show you a room that commands a fine prospect over some gardens"; and without waiting for an answer, in which he relieved ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland

... description; but they always leave us with the sense that purity is noble and impurity is evil. It is striking to note the tone in this respect of his successive productions. His youthful poem, "Venus and Adonis," is touched with the disease which had blighted the literature and the life of southern Europe,—the infection of the imagination by sensuality, a sort of intellectual putrescence. In the frank daylight of the early dramas this ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam

... Disdain the Paradise of opening joy Which beckons the fresh heart every where? Life has more lures than any girl For youth and strength; puts forth a share Of beauty, hinting of yet rarer store; And ever with unfathomable eyes, Which baffingly entice, Still strangely does Adonis draw. And life once over, who shall tell the rest? Life is, of all we know, God's best. What imps these eagles then, that they Fling disrespect on life by that proud way In which they ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville

... power over the preparations and the whole management of the war, it was presently decreed so. When all things were fitted for the voyage, many unlucky omens appeared. At that very time the feast of Adonis happened, in which the women were used to expose, in all parts of the city, images resembling dead men carried out to their burial, and to represent funeral solemnities by lamentations and mournful songs. The mutilation, however, of the images of ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... pure, the melancholy ashen seas slowly, slowly turning to chill ethereal meads of violets, the violet more slowly yet giving place to Adonis gardens of rose and daffodil. The forests stood dew-drenched and shadowy, solemn enough, deep and tangled woodlands that they were, under the mysterious light, in the realm of the hour whose finger is at her lips. The ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... question was filled with snags that projected in every direction; his chin was excessively retreating, and, to add to it all, his countenance was daubed with different colored paint, in such fantastic streakings that an Adonis himself would have appeared hideous. Such was the jailer of Fred, who heard him addressed once or twice by a name which sounded to him ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)

... Procuratore's Bucentaur, a great barge hung with crimson velvet. In the prow were stationed the comedians, in airy mythological dress, and as the guests stepped on board they were received by Miranda, a rosy Venus who, escorted by Mars and Adonis, recited an ode composed by Cantapresto in the Procuratessa's honour. A banquet was spread in the deck-house, which was hung with silk arras and Venetian mirrors, and, while the guests feasted, dozens of little boats hung with ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton

... Diodorus was inspired only by a myth,—for the "son of Kinyras" was no other than Adonis,—whereas the verses of Okura express for us the yearning ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn

... vigor and youth and picturesqueness, give but a very faint promise of the directness, condensation and overflowing moral of his maturer works. Perhaps, however, Shakespeare is hardly a case in point, his "Venus and Adonis" having been published, we believe, in his twenty-sixth year. Milton's Latin verses show tenderness, a fine eye for nature, and a delicate appreciation of classic models, but give no hint of the author of a new style in poetry. Pope's youthful pieces have ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... please; for I dearly love good-nature; and as you have found me out to be a comical fellow, so I have no skill in physiognomy, if you are not one of the best-natured gentlemen in the universe." Jones now walked downstairs neatly drest, and perhaps the fair Adonis was not a lovelier figure; and yet he had no charms for my landlady; for as that good woman did not resemble Venus at all in her person, so neither did she in her taste. Happy had it been for Nanny ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... his boat. He rowed all the way from Philadelphia on a bet, and if he had reached New Orleans would have won his five thousand dollars, but he died when only ninety-five miles from the city, and was buried by Adonis Le Blanc ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop

... Fashion Love in a Riddle Titus and Berenice Turnbridge Walks Biter Ladies last Stake Jane Grey Oroonoko Non Juror Tender Husb. Timon What d'ye call it Gamester Cruel Gift Double Gallant Caesar Borgia Apparition Xerxes Sophonisba Woman's Wit Rival Fools Venus and Adonis Island Princess Mithridates ...
— The Annual Catalogue (1737) - Or, A New and Compleat List of All The New Books, New - Editions of Books, Pamphlets, &c. • J. Worrall

... nimphs open the action, and, by their gestures and steps, express their endeavour to sooth the impatience of Venus on the absence of Adonis. The agitation in which she is, ought to be painted on her countenance, and expressed by the discomposure of her steps, marking her anxiety and desire ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini

... was a symmetry and elegance, as well as strength and agility, in the person of Jacob Hall, which was much admired by the ladies, who regarded him as a due composition of Hercules and Adonis. The open-hearted Duchess of Cleveland was said to have been in love with this rope-dancer and Goodman the player at the same time. The former received a salary from her grace."—Granger, vol. ii., part 2, p. 461. In reference to the connection between the duchess and the ropedancer, Mr. Pope ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... really Shakspeare's in Love's Labour Lost, and some other of the not entirely genuine plays. What he wrote in that play is of his earliest manner, having the all-pervading sweetness which he never lost, and that extreme condensation which makes the couplets fall into epigrams, as in the Venus and Adonis, and Rape of Lucrece. [1] In the drama alone, as Shakspeare soon found out, could the sublime poet and profound philosopher find the conditions of a compromise. In the Love's Labour Lost there are many ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge

... and the tamarisks wept; For him, outstretched beneath a lonely rock, Wept pine-clad Maenalus, and the flinty crags Of cold Lycaeus. The sheep too stood around- Of us they feel no shame, poet divine; Nor of the flock be thou ashamed: even fair Adonis by the rivers fed his sheep- Came shepherd too, and swine-herd footing slow, And, from the winter-acorns dripping-wet Menalcas. All with one accord exclaim: "From whence this love of thine?" Apollo came; "Gallus, art mad?" he cried, "thy bosom's care Another love is following."Therewithal Silvanus ...
— The Bucolics and Eclogues • Virgil

... of Shakespeare's first attempts at dramatic composition; but first attempts must reflect the mental condition of the author at the time they were made; and we know the mental condition of Shakespeare in his early manhood by his poem of "Venus and Adonis," which he expressly styles "the first heir of his invention." Now leaving out of view the fact that "Titus Andronicus" stamps the impression, not of youthful, but of matured depravity of taste, its execrable enormities of feeling and incident could not have proceeded from the sweet and comely ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various

... upon each of which is inscribed the magic name. The three screens carry four pictures—two long and narrow, evidently panels from a cassone; the others quite small. The best is No. 50, one of the two long narrow panels which together purport to represent the story of Adonis and Erys but do not take the duty of historian very seriously. Both are lovely, with a mellow sunset lighting the scene. Here and there in the glorious landscape occurs a nymph, the naked flesh of whom burns with the reflected ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas

... natural phenomena; and the sacraments, the festivals, and fasts of all the churches have their counterparts in the mysterious processes and manifestations of Nature? and is the contemplation of the resurrection of Adonis or Thammuz more edifying to the soul than to meditate the strange return of the spring which their legends but ecclesiastically celebrate? He who has watched and waited at the white grave of winter, and hears at last the first faint singing among ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne

... night, that hard by them in the starry darkness the divine Huntress was abroad, and about the base of AEtna she and her forest maids drove the chase with horn and hound. In the cities ladies sang the psalm of Adonis brought back from 'the stream eternal of Acheron.' Under the mystic moon love-lorn damsels did their magic rites, and knit up spells of power to bring home the men they loved. Among the vines and under the grey olives songs were singing of Daphnis all day ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley

... bellowed Mr. Trinkle, "that no young man disappears who isn't a physical Adonis, do you? No thin-shanked, stoop-shouldered, scant-haired highbrow has yet vanished. You notice that, don't you, Sayre? Open your mouth and speak! Say anything! Say pip! ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers

... Indian and Greek poetry, of Adonis and the death of Baldur in the Northern Saga. But even here, where the subject almost suggests it, there is no trace ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese

... name engraved as a talisman!... The mysterious Adonis who loved her and suffered for her sake!... All that story seems very unlikely; and I wonder whether, Lupin though you be, you did not just drop upon a pretty love-story, absolutely genuine and ... ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc

... she is the daughter of the Emperor. Her nails are stained with henna. They are like the petals of a rose. She has come here to weep for Adonis. ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde

... stock of French does not last out their cash. Next is fourteen years of the Morning Post to be sold—a bargain for a fashionable novelist, and in fact, a complete stock-in-trade for any court or town Adonis; a perfect vocabulary of fashion, detailing the rise and progress of all the fashionable arts since the peace—the gazette appointments and disappointments—and elopements and faux pas, sufficient for all the comedy-writers ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 368, May 2, 1829 • Various

... Sun-God his gracious father: who gives life by his good word, and gives light to what is obscure: who frees all lands from dissensions by just rule of a free country; who gives this his compassion from heaven, like the God Adonis, and causes all lands to rest through his mercy. This is the message of a servant to his Lord. Lo! I hear the gracious messenger of the King who reaches his servant, and the good utterance which comes ...
— Egyptian Literature

... judge; but it strikes me that the men about my own age who affect to be fast are a more languid race than the men from ten to twenty years older, whom they regard as slow. The habit of dram-drinking in the morning is a very new idea, an idea greatly in fashion at the moment. Adonis calls for a "pick-me-up" before he has strength enough to answer a billet-doux from Venus. Adonis has not the strength to get nobly drunk, but his delicate constitution requires stimulants, and ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... I thought he was the prince of cavaliers. Annabel says he dances 'like an angel,' and I know a dozen mothers couldn't keep him at home of an evening. Have you had a tiff with Adonis and so fall back on poor me?" asked Mac, coming last to the person of whom he thought first but did not mention, feeling shy about alluding to a subject ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott

... Black Adonis, A Original Sinner, An Garston Bigamy, The Out of Wedlock Her Husband's Friend Speaking of Ellen His Foster Sister Stranger than Fiction His Private Character Sugar Princess, A In Stella's Shadow That Gay Deceiver Love at Seventy Their Marriage ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine

... their psychology when they pictured the distress of mortal men beloved of goddesses: Tithonus and Aurora, Venus and Adonis, Diana and Endymion. How could aught but tragedy result from such loves as these? How could a mortal have dared to lift his eyes to such a height unbidden? The gulf between Miss Wycliffe, beautiful, rich, aristocratic, and Tom Emmet, the ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins

... mistress of all woe? Say, wilt thou bear me to another land Where thou hast other lovers? Rise and go Where dark the pine trees upon Ida stand, For there did one unloose thy girdle band; Or seek the forest where Adonis bled, Or wander, wander on the yellow sand, Where thy first ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang

... our frigid and sombre countries, absorbed my whole being. My dreams were haunted for a time by the burnt-up mountain-chain of Galaad and the peak of Safed, where the Messiah was to appear, by Carmel and its beds of anemone sown by God, by the Gulf of Aphaca whence issues the river Adonis. Strangely enough, it was at Athens, in 1865, that I first felt a strong backward impulse, the effect being that of a fresh and bracing breeze ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan

... of Papaver somniferum. Adonis aestivalis. spontaneous variability of Phaseolus multiflorus. self-fertilisation of kidney-bean. Papaver alpinum. sterility of Corydalis ...
— The Effects of Cross & Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom • Charles Darwin

... the side of the Seine, and was once surrounded by gardens, &c. As you cross the bridge of boats, and go to the race-ground, you leave it to the right; but it is not so old as St. Paul—where, Farin says, the worship of ADONIS was once performed! ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... insensible, cold, ungainly, with small voices, and not more than five feet high. Surprise artfully excited and cleverly satisfied is the grand aim of the dramatist. How completely is it here fulfilled! for when we discover that the personator of Henrico is meant for an Adonis, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 30, 1841 • Various

... her love. Lord Nidderdale was, she thought, not at all beautiful. He had a commonplace, rough face, with a turn-up nose, high cheek bones, no especial complexion, sandy-coloured whiskers, and bright laughing eyes,—not at all an Adonis such as her imagination had painted. But if he had only made love at first as he had attempted to do it now, she thought that she would have submitted herself to be cut in pieces ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... to the present size) of the country. Thus far no difficulties at all. But the morality! Aye, but that would never be accounted a part of religion. As well confound a science with religion. Aye, but the [Greek: aporrheta]. These would be viewed as the rites of Adonis, or of Ceres; you could not warn him from his preconception that these concerned only Jews. Where, therefore, lodged the offence? Why here, as personalities—for such merely were all religions—the God must be measured by his nation. So some Romans proposed to introduce Christ ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... also a fish called by lian the Adonis, or Darling of the Sea; so called, because it is a loving and innocent fish, a fish that hurts nothing that hath life, and is at peace with all the numerous inhabitants of that vast watery element; and truly, I think most Anglers are so disposed to ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton

... scattered fragments of the sculptor's work may possibly be connected with its execution. Four male figures roughly hewn, which are now wrought into the rock-work of a grotto in the Boboli Gardens, together with the young athlete trampling on a prostrate old man (called the Victory) and the Adonis of the Museo Nazionale at Florence, have all been ascribed to the sepulchre of Julius in one or other of its stages. But these attributes are doubtful, and will be criticised in their proper place and time. Suffice it now to say that Vasari reports, beside the Moses, Victory, ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds

... be so," she admitted; "but what of that? Ere this have I been wild with love for a herdsman on Phrygian hills. Aye, Adonis have I kissed in the oakwood, and bewailed his loss. And did not Selene descend to woo the neatherd Endymion? Wherefore, then, should I scorn thee? and what are the differences and degrees of mortals to such as I! Be bold; distrust your merits no longer, since I, who amongst the goddesses obtained ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey

... decorations of Pavilion G. P. R." A specimen of regency taste and sympathies stands on a pedestal in the form of the Hottentot Venus, while a statuette of the fat prince himself, habited in a red coat, white waistcoat, yellow inexpressibles, and silk stockings, is labelled the "British Adonis." The princess recommends her papa to order the officer to bring her over "a Chinaman, instead of getting her a husband among our German cousins." A variety of miscellaneous articles are strewn about the floor, among them a box containing the ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... and for some centuries before, the Mediterranean and neighboring world had been the scene of a vast number of pagan creeds and rituals. There were Temples without end dedicated to gods like Apollo or Dionysus among the Greeks, Hercules among the Romans, Mithra among the Persians, Adonis and Attis in Syria and Phrygia, Osiris and Isis and Horus in Egypt, Baal and Astarte among the Babylonians and Carthaginians, and so forth. Societies, large or small, united believers and the devout ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter

... Other Babylonian myths link with those found in Egypt, Greece, Scandinavia, Iceland, and the British Isles and Ireland. The Sargon myth, for instance, resembles closely the myth of Scyld (Sceaf), the patriarch, in the Beowulf epic, and both appear to be variations of the Tammuz-Adonis story. Tammuz also resembles in one of his phases the Celtic hero Diarmid, who was slain by the "green boar" of the Earth Mother, as was Adonis by the boar form of Ares, ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie

... tribe of the Mizraim, so were they extremely like them in their rites and religion. They held a heifer, or cow, in high veneration, agreeably with the [154]customs of Egypt. Their chief Deity was the Sun, whom they worshipped together with the Baalim, under the titles Ourchol, Adonis, Thamuz. It was a custom among the Grecians, at the celebration of their religious festivals, to crown the whole with hymns of praise, and the most joyful exclamations. But the Egyptians were of a gloomy turn of mind, which infected the whole ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant

... eloquence of Vergniaud's tongue, And Brissot's thoughtful soul unbribed and bold! Did zealot armies haste in vain to save them! What! did th' assassin's dagger aim its point Vain, as a dream of murder, at my bosom; And shall I dread the soft luxurious Tallien? Th' Adonis Tallien,—banquet-hunting Tallien,— Him, whose heart flutters at the dice-box! Him, Who ever on the harlots' downy pillow Resigns his head ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge

... favori pendant son regne. C'etoit un Servien echappe du bagne de Constantinople ou il etoit prisonnier: il parut, pour la premiere fois, en habit de hussard a la cour. Il eblouit tout le monde par sa beaute, et les vielles dames en parlent encore comme d'un Adonis." M. Waliszewski, in his Romance of an Empress (1894), devotes a chapter to "Private Life and Favouritism" (ii. 234-286), in which he graphically describes the election and inauguration of the Vremienchtchik, "the man of the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... received that the expedition would be the ruin of the city. And many were filled with consternation at the time fixed for the departure of the armament. It was during the celebration of the Adonia, or mourning for the death of Adonis, and in all parts of the city were to be seen images of Adonis carried along with funeral rites, and women beating their breasts, so that those who were superstitious enough to notice such matters became alarmed for the fate of the ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch

... of their value. Quack-medicine poets often do as well. He wrote "Adonis" for Fouquet, and had worked three years at the "Songe de Vaux," when the ruin of his patron caused him to lay it aside. It is a dull piece. Four fairies, Palatiane, Hortesie, Apellanire, and Calliopee, make long speeches ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various

... ill-noted with Government, but it was not till the end of 1812 that a grip could be got of it. Leigh Hunt's offence is in the ordinary books rather undervalued. That he (or his contributor) called the Prince Regent, as is commonly said, "a fat Adonis of fifty" (the exact words are, "this Adonis in loveliness is a corpulent man of fifty") may have been the chief sting, but was certainly not the chief legal offence. Leigh Hunt called the ruler of his country "a violator ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury

... form of even and sustained beauty, brought within the sphere of the dullest apprehensions. Shelley, we may notice, dwells upon the ART of the poem; and this perhaps, is what at first sight will strike the student most. He chose as a foundation for his work those laments of Bion for Adonis, and of Moschus for Bion, which are the most pathetic products of Greek idyllic poetry; and the transmutation of their material into the substance of highly spiritualized modern thought, reveals the potency of a Prospero's wand. ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds

... Coin Silenus Holding Bacchus Aurora, the Goddess of the Dawn Latona Jason Castor, the Horse-Tamer Pollux, the Master of the Art of Boxing Daedalus and Icarus Making Their Wings Juno and Her Peacock Athena Minerva Daphne A Sibyl Ceres Apollo Narcissus Adonis and Aphrodite Woden on the ...
— Classic Myths • Retold by Mary Catherine Judd

... poverty, he became first an actor, then a successful playwright and theater manager. Having gained not only fame but a modest fortune, he retired in 1611 to live at ease in Stratford until his death in 1616. Besides the two long poems, "Venus and Adonis" and "Lucrece," which first won popularity for him, he has written thirty-seven plays, ranging from the lightest comedy, through romance and historical narrative, to the darkest tragedy. Whatever form his verse takes,—sonnet, ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year • Various

... enchanting ladyes, To sojourn awhile, and revel In these bowers, far outshining The six heavens of Mohammed, Or the sunbright spheres of Vishnu, Or the Gardens of Adonis, Or the viewless bowers of Irim, Or the fine Mosaic mythus, Or the fair Elysian flower-land, Or the clashing halls of Odin, Or the cyclop-orbs of Brahma, Or the marble realms of Siva, ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby

... Adonis.—This poem was published in 1593 with a dedication to the Earl of Southampton, then a youth. In the dedication Shakespeare speaks of the poem as "the first heire of my invention," from which some conclude that it was the first poem ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield

... what he is pleased to call examples of Shakspere's "lack of superficial originality," whatever that may mean, and assumes that he "had certainly done years of work as a dramatic hack-writer" before the appearance of "Venus and Adonis." There is no proof, not even the doubtful authority of tradition, that he was ever a hack-writer, or ever revised or revamped ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith

... France. Another Pope, while only a cardinal, stole a book from Menage—so M. Janin reports—but we have not been able to discover Menage's own account of the larceny. The anecdotist is not so truthful that cardinals need flush a deeper scarlet, like the roses in Bion's "Lament for Adonis," on account of a scandal resting on the authority of Menage. Among Royal persons, Catherine de Medici, according to Brantome, was a biblioklept. "The Marshal Strozzi had a very fine library, and after his death the Queen-Mother seized it, promising ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang



Words linked to "Adonis" :   man, daemon, crowfoot family, magnoliid dicot genus, pheasant's-eye, adult male, Ranunculaceae, demigod, buttercup family, Greek mythology, family Ranunculaceae



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