"Bowstring" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... head is thrown up. The other fleets and other arrangements threaten the enemy's solar plexus and stomach. Somewhere in relation to the Grand Fleet lies the "blockading" cordon which examines neutral traffic. It could be drawn as tight as a Turkish bowstring, but for reasons which we may arrive at after the war, it does not seem to have been so drawn up ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... apparatus, constructed out of the leather of some ancient breechin. His mouth was open as far as it could; his lips curled up in rage—a sort of terrible grin; his teeth gleaming, ready, from out the darkness, the strap across his mouth tense as a bowstring; his whole frame stiff with indignation and surprise; his roar asking us all round, "Did you ever see the like of this?" He looked a statue of anger and astonishment, done ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... A nock is the groove at either end of a bow for holding the bowstring or the notch in the end of an arrow that ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... pitying the sad death Of Hyacinthus, when the cruel breath Of Zephyr slew him,—Zephyr penitent, Who now, ere Phoebus mounts the firmament, 330 Fondles the flower amid the sobbing rain. The archers too, upon a wider plain, Beside the feathery whizzing of the shaft, And the dull twanging bowstring, and the raft Branch down sweeping from a tall ash top, Call'd up a thousand thoughts to envelope Those who would watch. Perhaps, the trembling knee And frantic gape of lonely Niobe, Poor, lonely Niobe! when her lovely young Were dead and gone, and her caressing tongue 340 Lay a lost thing upon ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... their seed from among the children of men. For they intended evil against Thee, They imagined a mischievous device, Which they could not execute. For Thou wilt make them turn their back, Thou wilt make ready Thy bowstring against their faces. Be Thou exalted Jehovah in Thine own strength; We will sing and ...
— The Lord of Glory - Meditations on the person, the work and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ • Arno Gaebelein
... sort of acquiescence, and then asked me for the loan of a white tie. I should have loved to give him a bowstring instead, with somebody who knew how to operate it. He was a fluff, that fellow—a ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... son of Kunti, with one hundred moons, and thousands and ten thousands of stars! And then none could ascertain whether it was day or night, or distinguish the points of the horizon. And, becoming bewildered, I fixed on my bowstring the weapon called Pragnastra. And, O son of Kunti, the weapon went like unto flakes of pure cotton blown away by the winds! And a great fight took place, calculated to make the down on one's body stand ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... Sultan Amurath, forcing him to order the amputation of his head six several times (that is, once in every one of his six parts) during the first act. In reality, the sultan, though otherwise a decent man, was too bloody. What by the bowstring, and what by the cimeter, he had so thinned the population with which he commenced business, that scarcely any of the characters remained alive at the end of act the first. Sultan Amurath found himself in an awkward situation. Large arrears of work remained, and hardly any body to do it but the ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... the town-ward port of the castle (to which a steep ascent led up from a narrow vennel), where presently the outer guard soon crowded about him, listening to his story and already fingering bowstring and examining rope-matches preparatory to the expected march ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... them together, are to the spoken words, or, rather than that, it should be said, to the thoughts and emotions of which those articulate sounds are but the winged symbols, as to the barbed and feathered arrows are the bowstring. How essential every external of this kind is, as affording some medium of communication between a speaker and his auditors, may be illustrated upon the instant by the rough and ready argument of the reductio ad absurdum. Without insisting, for example, upon the impossibility of having a speech ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... umpire in wrestling-matches was vested in his family, that the "Driving Wind" might for future generations preside over athletic sports. In ancient days, the prizes for the three champion wrestlers were a bow, a bowstring, and an arrow: these are still brought into the ring, and, at the end of the bout, the successful competitors go through a variety ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... was darted; the stricken whale flew forward; with igniting velocity the line ran through the grooves;—ran foul. Ahab stooped to clear it; he did clear it; but the flying turn caught him round the neck, and voicelessly as Turkish mutes bowstring their victim, he was shot out of the boat, ere the crew knew he was gone. Next instant, the heavy eye-splice in the rope's final end flew out of the stark-empty tub, knocked down an oarsman, and smiting the sea, disappeared ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... counterpart, addressed to McClernand at Springfield, Illinois. On the 29th of December, Sherman met with the bloody repulse of Chickasaw Bluffs. On the 2d of January he returned to the mouth of the Yazoo, and there found McClernand armed with the bowstring ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... six. He, this wicked little middy,[13] caused the greatest affliction to Sultan Amurath, forcing him to order the amputation of his head six several times (that is, once in every one of his six parts), during the first act. In reality, the sultan, though a decent man, was too bloody. What by the bowstring, and what by the scimetar, he had so thinned the population with which he commenced business, that scarcely any of the characters remained alive at the end of act the first. Sultan Amurath found himself in an awkward situation. Large arrears of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... thou bringer once of bitter pangs, My precious jewel now,—my chiefest treasure— A mark I'll set thee, which the cry of grief Could never penetrate,—but thou shalt pierce it,— And thou, my trusty bowstring, that so oft For sport has served me faithfully and well, Desert me not in this dread hour of need,— Only be true this once, my own good cord, That hast so often wing'd the biting shaft:— For shouldst thou fly successless from ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... Neck is stained with Blue.(257) The mighty Sire their wishes knew, And he whose lips are ever true Caused the two Gods to meet as foes. Then fierce the rage of battle rose: Bristled in dread each starting hair As Siva strove with Vishnu there. But Vishnu raised his voice amain. And Siva's bowstring twanged in vain; Its master of the Three bright Eyes Stood fixt in fury and surprise. Then all the dwellers in the sky, Minstrel, and saint, and God drew nigh, And prayed them that the strife might cease, ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... tole me that if I tole anybody whar he was gwine, he'd bowstring me and feed mah ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... become insurance agents, or generals transformed into salesmen for some wine house; Cuban chiefs half shot to pieces by the Spaniards; Cretes exiled by the Turks; great personages from Constantinople, escaped from the Sultan's silken bowstring, and displaying proudly their red fez in Paris, where the opera permitted them to continue their habits of polygamy; Americans, whose gold-mines or petroleum-wells made them billionaires for a winter, only to go to pieces and make them paupers the following summer; politicians out ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... Who knows, ere this important morrow rise, But fear or mutiny may taint the Greeks? Who knows, if Mahomet's awaking anger May spare the fatal bowstring till to-morrow? ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... a bowstring a bowstring was out of the question; and Racine, with triumphant art, has managed to introduce the periphrasis in such a way that it exactly expresses the state of mind of the Sultana. She begins with revenge and rage, until she reaches the extremity of virulent ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... can judge from the representations, it would seem that the feathers were glued to the wood exactly as they are with ourselves. The notch was somewhat large, projecting beyond the line of the shaft—a construction rendered necessary by the thickness of the bowstring., which was seldom less than of the arrow it-self. [PLATE CV., ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... personality), it must yet be admitted that he habitually speaks out of that primitive silence and solitude in which only the heroic soul dwells. Certainly not in contemporary British literature is there another writer whose bowstring ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... 19 deg., conquering the tribes, Nubian and Cushite, as he proceeded, and from time to time distinguishing himself in personal combats with his enemies. On one occasion, we are told, "his majesty became more furious than a panther," and placing an arrow on his bowstring, directed it against the Nubian chief so surely that it struck him, and remained fixed in his knee, whereupon the chief "fell fainting down before the royal diadem." He was at once seized and made a prisoner; his followers were ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... was written by himself in a manly strain, soothed the audience, and the play went off tolerably, till it came to the conclusion, when Mrs. Pritchard, the heroine of the piece, was to be strangled upon the stage, and was to speak two lines with the bowstring round her neck. The audience cried out "Murder! Murder!" She several times attempted to speak; but in vain. At last she was obliged to go off the stage alive.' This passage was afterwards struck out, and ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... the reputation of those who offend him. A black-vizarded ruffian (whom we will unmask), who signs the forged name of Trefoil, is at present one of the chief bravoes and bullies in our contemporary's establishment. He is the eunuch who brings the bowstring, and strangles at the order of the Day. We can convict this cowardly slave, and propose to do so. The charge which he has brought against Lord Bangbanagher, because he is a Liberal Irish peer, and ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... stuck in a sheath; he has often also a quiver of poisoned arrows and a bamboo* [The bamboo, of which the quiver is made, is thin and light: it is brought from Assam, and called Tulda, or Dulwa, by the Bengalees.] bow across his back. On his right wrist is a curious wooden guard for the bowstring; and a little pouch, containing aconite poison and a few common implements, is suspended to his girdle. A hat he seldom wears, and when he does, it is often extravagantly broad and flat-brimmed, with a small hemispherical crown. It is made of leaves ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... plumage. To meet our contentions Sir Edward cites our own seizures and our own court decisions. It remains to be seen whether out of strands plucked from the mane and tail of the British lion we can fashion a bowstring which will give effective momentum to a counterbolt launched in the general ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... from the rest, stood the captain, with the fatal bowstring hanging carelessly on his arm, and his eyes intent to catch the slightest gesture of the king. "Behold!" said ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book II. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... slaves, sitting heavily on the dune until he regained his breath after the stalk. Then after cocking the crossbow again he stalked over to the beast and with his knife cut out the quarrel, notching it against the bowstring still dripping with blood. ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... given no sign of her suffering and her terror, though her eyes were ringed with sleeplessness and her mouth had grown stiff with its effort to command. The tension was torture. Her heart strings were drawn to the snapping point; her mind was a bowstring never relaxed, till every fiber of her resistant body ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... the kind, the wayward one is "tossed." Tossing is not the sort of pastime any fellow would choose for fun, not if he were the party to be tossed, though it is a beanfeast for the onlookers. They manage it this way. A hide, freshly stripped from a bullock, smoking, bloody, and limber as a bowstring, is requisitioned; the hairy side is turned downwards, two strong men get hold of each corner, cutting holes in the green hide for their hands to have a good grip; they allow the hide to sag until it forms a sort ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... thong; Loud twangs the steel, the golden arrow flies, 240 Trails a long line of lustre through the skies; "'Tis done!" he shouts, "the mighty Monarch feels!" And with loud laughter shakes the silver wheels; Bends o'er the car, and whirling, as it moves, His loosen'd bowstring, drives the rising doves. 245 —Pierced on his throne the slarting Thunderer turns, Melts with soft sighs, with kindling rapture burns; Clasps her fair hand, and eyes in fond amaze The bright Intruder with enamour'd gaze. "And leaves my Goddess, like a blooming bride, 250 "The fanes of Argos ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... son, that thou pullest not the long bow ere the bowstring be twisted, or ever the arrow be at hand—send not in thy bill ere the customer have ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Bowstring never sped arrow from itself that ran so swift a course through the air, as a very little boat which I saw coming through the water toward us at that instant, under the direction of a single ferryman, who was crying out, "Art thou ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... The fatal bowstring was not in his thought, When, breaking truce, he so unjustly fought; Made the world tremble with a numerous host, And of undoubted victory ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... the Albany, Piccadilly, with THAT for your pillow, young man!' Thereupon, the little dressmaker again dabbed out his eyes separately, and making a loop in the air of her thread and deftly catching it into a knot with her needle, seemed to bowstring ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... my dear Sir, must transport, man-handle, murder, wheedle, bowstring, drown, and permanently lose Josephine, Countess St. Auban,—herself late back from Missouri, formerly of God knows where. I promise you, this country is only a tinder box, waiting for that sort of spark. To-morrow—but you ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... this double disappearance, there was picked up in the Tiber, a little below the Castle Sant' Angelo, the body of a beautiful young woman, her hands bound together behind her back, and also the corpse of a handsome youth with the bowstring he had been strangled with tied round his neck. The girl was Caracciuolo's bride, the young man ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... soon expired. Considerable execution was also done by the Turkish arrows, with which portions of the masts and spars bristled. Several of these missiles came from the bow of the Pacha himself, who was probably the last commander-in-chief who ever drew a bowstring in European battle. But on the whole the fire of the Christians was greatly superior to that of the Turks. Twice the deck of Ali was swept clear of defenders, and twice the Spaniards rushed on board and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... little boys! My kind true wife! I will Protect them from thee, Landvogt! When I drew That bowstring, and my hand was quiv'ring, And with devilish joy thou mad'st me point it At the child, and I in fainting anguish Entreated thee in vain; then with a grim Irrevocable oath, deep in my soul, I vow'd to God in Heav'n, that the next aim I took should be thy heart. The vow I made In that despairing ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... about," he answered. "I heard the twang of a bowstring and the swish of an arrow over my head. Some one aimed—Ah, there ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... cries rang out exultant as the horses dashed by the tunnel. The light in the tent wavered, went out. There was a shout of surprise and dismay, a twang like the snapping of a mighty bowstring and then came the whoops of the trio from the Three Star as they realized what the attempt had been and ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... she, on the thousand-and-second night, (I quote the language of the "Isitsoornot" at this point, verbatim) "my dear sister," said she, "now that all this little difficulty about the bowstring has blown over, and that this odious tax is so happily repealed, I feel that I have been guilty of great indiscretion in withholding from you and the king (who I am sorry to say, snores—a thing no gentleman would do) the full ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... but when that he Gat hold of it, full fast it stack, So fuming, down he laid his sack, And with both hands pulled lustily, But as he strained, he cast his eye Back to the dais; there he saw The bowman image 'gin to draw The mighty bowstring to his ear, So, shrieking out aloud for fear, Of that rich stone he loosed his hold And catching up his bag of gold, Gat to his feet: but ere he stood The evil thing of brass and wood Up to his ear the notches drew; And clanging, forth the arrow flew, And midmost of the ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... an inch from the pointed end. When the thread is carried through the cloth, which may be done to the distance of about three-fourths of an inch the thread will be stretched above the curved needle, something like a bowstring, leaving a small open space between the two. A small shuttle, carrying a bobbin, filled with thread, is then made to pass entirely through this open space, between the needle and the thread which it carries; and when ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... husband!" Oh, the vow of a man! Surely thou knowest, thou god of love, that unnumbered saints and sages have surrendered the merits of their life-long penance at the feet of a woman. I broke my bow in two and burnt my arrows in the fire. I hated my strong, lithe arm, scored by drawing the bowstring. O Love, god Love, thou hast laid low in the dust the vain pride of my manlike strength; and all my man's training lies crushed under thy feet. Now teach me thy lessons; give me the power of the weak and the ...
— Chitra - A Play in One Act • Rabindranath Tagore
... bowstring twanged to the fore and a young girl stumbled across Jack Battle's feet with a scream that rings, and rings, and rings in memory like the tocsin of a horrible dream. She was wounded in the shoulder. Getting to her knees she threw her arms round Jack with such a terrified look of helpless pleading ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... 'an' you better look out an' obey your orders, else de bowstring bery soon go round your pritty little neck. But tell me, Angelica, who ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... situated on the Rainy River, about 20 miles from the head of Rainy River. It stands on a point of land where the Missachappa or Bowstring River and the Rainy River join. There is a dense forest covering the river bank where the mound is found. The owner of the land has made a small clearing, which now shows the mound to some extent to one standing on the deck of ...
— The Mound Builders • George Bryce
... a holder for the missile, and it (not the missile) is driven by the bowstring. When the holder stops, the ...
— Procopius - History of the Wars, Books V. and VI. • Procopius |
