"Caitiff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... song, Voiced in act his whole life long, Yea, all thy sweet life long, Fair Lady. Where's he that craftily hath said, The day of chivalry is dead? I'll prove that lie upon his head, Or I will die instead, Fair Lady. Is Honor gone into his grave? Hath Faith become a caitiff knave, And Selfhood turned into a slave To work in Mammon's cave, Fair Lady? Will Truth's long blade ne'er gleam again? Hath Giant Trade in dungeons slain All great contempts of mean-got gain And hates of inward stain, Fair Lady? For aye shall name and fame ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... upon her people to go meet Cuchulain in encounter and combat [11]for the sake of the hosts.[11] "It will not be I," and "It will not be I," spake each and every one from his place. "No caitiff is due from my people. Even though one should be due, it is not I would go to oppose Cuchulain, for no easy thing is it to ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... her way Love casts a blight upon all caitiff hearts, So that their every thought doth freeze and perish. And who can bear to stay on her to look, Will noble thing become or else will die. And when one finds that he may worthy be To look on her, he ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... "Ha, caitiff!" he exclaimed; and shortening the hunting-pole in his hand, he returned the stroke with interest, but the outlaw had already prepared himself to receive the blow on his staff. For some seconds there was a rapid exchange; and all that the boy could detect in the fierce flourish of ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sell his birthright indeed, and so do many besides, and by so doing exclude themselves from the chief blessing, as also that caitiff did; but you must put a difference betwixt Esau and Little-faith, and also betwixt their estates. Esau's birthright was typical, but Little-faith's jewels were not so; Esau's belly was his god, but Little-faith's belly was not so; ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... called him, who had deserted her. She would not wear woman's dress in prison. We must remember that, as she was being tried by churchmen, she should have been, as she often prayed to be, in a prison of the church, attended by women. They set a spy on her, a caitiff priest named L'Oyseleur, who pretended to be her friend, and who betrayed her. The English soldiers were allowed to bully, threaten, and frighten away every one who gave her any advice. They took her to ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... "There, caitiff, is the lucre. Now, avaunt! begone! Thy bones are marrowless; and you have not a particle of speculation ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... comes too dear; you set too high a price upon it, Colonel Tarleton. If, for the mere swapping of a rope for a bullet, I could be the poor caitiff your offer implies, hanging would ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... Castles, and a Canning, A Cobbett, and a Castlereagh; All sorts of caitiff corpses planning All sorts of cozening for trepanning 155 ...
— Peter Bell the Third • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... 'Has the caitiff been insolent?' he exclaimed, in gallant tone, as he approached and seated himself before her. 'Has he dared to look too rebelliously upon so charming a mistress? If so, permit that I may chastise him for you. It is not fit that ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... favour!" She clasps his knees, and with the wildest inspiration of terror: "This one prayer you must—must listen to! At your command let a great fire spring up. Let the summit be surrounded by fierce flames, whose tongues shall lick up and whose teeth shall devour any caitiff venturing near to the formidable place!" So is her whole soul heard to cry aloud in this prayer, as she pleads for so much more than her life, that all by which Wotan had fortified himself against her, and which had been subjected ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... before. And if he had hesitated one moment, I really believe it would have come down; not heavily, perhaps—the lightning is not heavy. But there was no need. The towering threat and the flaming eye and the swift rush buffeted the caitiff away: he recoiled. She followed him as he went, strong, FOR A MOMENT OR TWO, as Hercules, beautiful and terrible as Michael driving Satan. He dared not, or could not stand before her: he writhed and cowered and recoiled all ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... the Citizen of the World, he exclaims against the pretensions of the critic. "If any choose to be critics, it is but saying they are critics; and from that time forward they become invested with full power and authority over every caitiff who aims at their ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... I must call for help," said the trembling caitiff, who felt at that moment all the bitterness of the mortal agony—"It was the law's act, not mine. ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... impossible But one, the wicked'st caitiff on the ground, May seem as shy, as grave, as just, as absolute As Angelo; even so may Angelo, In all his dressings, characts, titles, ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... thy lying tongue for saying so!" replied Henry furiously. "I have a mind to pluck it from thy throat, and cast it to the dogs. What ho! guards, take this caitiff to the summit of the highest tower of the castle—the Curfew Tower—and hang him from it, so that all my loyal subjects in Windsor may see how ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... ground of knowledge; but he fell upon his knees in the midst of the bridge like a man praying. On the rest of the journey to the manse, history is silent; but when they came to the door, the poor caitiff, taking the lantern from the child, looked upon her with so lost a countenance that her little courage died within her, and she fled home screaming to her parents. Not a soul would venture out; all that night the minister ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in the imposing style of a cockney sportsman. He has been puffing 'Sir Danapalus (the Bart.)' in public, and taking all the odds he can get against him in private. Watchorn knows that it is easier to make a horse lose than win. The restless-looking, lynx-eyed caitiff, in the dirty green shawl, with his hands stuffed into the front pockets of the brown tarriar coat, is their jockey, the renowned Captain Hangallows; he answers to the name of Sam Slick in Mr. Spavin the horse-dealer's yard in Oxford Street, when not in the country on similar ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... Beltane burned Garthlaxton low With lusty Giles, whose good yew bow Sped many a caitiff rogue, ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... miserable postmaster from Texas or the District of Columbia, some purchased agent of Messrs. Bruin & Hill, the great slave-dealers of the Capital, have him here in Boston, take Ellen Craft before the caitiff, and on his decision hurry her off to bondage as cheerless, as hopeless, and as ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... I'll send thee, caitiff, far beyond the seas, To the grim tyrant Echetus, who mars All he encounters; bane of human kind. Thine ears he'll lop, and pare the nose away From thy pale ghastly visage: dire to tell! The very parts, which modesty conceals, He'll tear relentless from the seat of life, ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant
... side, Or yet within the glen, Stand he in martial gear alone, Or back'd by armed men— Face him, as thou would'st face the man Who wrong'd thy sire's renown; Remember of what blood thou art, And strike the caitiff down! ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... Gaston. "Wherefore didst thou not cut the throat of the caitiff, and make in to the rescue of ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and was immediately ushered into Falcon's sitting-room. There she sat down; but was evidently ill at ease, restless, flushed. She could not sit quiet, and at last began to walk up and down the room, almost wildly. Her beautiful eyes glittered, and the whole woman seemed on fire. The caitiff, who was watching her, saw and gloated on all this, and enjoyed to the full her beauty and agitation, and his revenge for her ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... very convenient to the disappointed authorling; very effective, in the established writer; but it is mere vanity at the root, and equally contemptible in both. For my part, I confess that I came to my trial as tremblingly as any poor caitiff to the fiery ordeal, and finding myself miraculously clear of the burning ploughshares, was quite as full of wonder and thankfulness at my good fortune. For I found my purposes appreciated, and my best thoughts understood; not, it is true, without ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... a caitiff knight and no true soldier," I broke in hastily, for Jeanne was blushing furiously, and my comrade's face had lost its merriment; "but, really, things are becoming serious; more than a score of ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... hunting-field and in a large public company), that I lost all patience, rode at the urchin straight, wrenched him out of his saddle with all my force, and, flinging him roughly to the ground, sprang down to it myself, and administered such a correction across the young caitiff's head and shoulders with my horsewhip as might have ended in his death, had I not been restrained in time; for my passion was up, and I was in a state to do murder or any other crime. The lad was taken home and put ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... for all the rhythm and music that clothes his luckless plunge, was but a caitiff knight to some of our submarine adventurers. A diver during the bay-fight in Mobile harbor had reason to apprehend a more desperate encounter. A huge cuttle-fish, the marine monster of Pliny and Victor Hugo, had ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... see through the trick, caitiff! I would you spoke truth for once. All shall be sifted, ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... "Vile caitiff! I have a foreboding that you will not have your detestable wish. Away!—leave me! or you shall find, that although this head is blanched by misery, this ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... I suppose I must obey," replied Sir Henry; "but I had rather not have stained my weapons with the blood of so foul a caitiff." ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... opened the book, and read a page or two to himself. Then he said, "I see he knocked the skipper down 'cause he insulted him. Nice, spunky chap; I'd like to have had him aboard a vessel of mine. And he called the old man a 'caitiff hound'? Awful thing to call a feller, that is. I'll bet that skipper felt ashamed. Looks like a good book. I'll borrow it to-night to read ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... disappeared under the water together, to the great consternation of the anxious beholders. Up we came together again, but I continued to grasp him firmly with my left hand by the throat, and I, for a short time, exhibited the caitiff in this state, with his mouth open and his tongue out; to shew how completely I had subdued him, I gave him one more ducking under water and let him go: I then continued my course without further interruption towards the stag, who had, meanwhile, drifted twenty or thirty ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... one before. "The Count sprang back, and, drawing from his belt a richly jeweled dagger, hissed between his teeth," or, more to the purpose: "'Take this,' said Orlando, handing her the ruby-hilted poignard which had gleamed upon his thigh, 'and should the caitiff attempt thy ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... air, Diest on a more ignoble tree, (For thou shall steal thy landlord's mare,) Then, bloody caitiff! think on me." ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... pretend not to understand, do you! Vile caitiff! advance one step at your peril—try to go and complete arrangements for a matrimonial engagement at the Bower of Nature, ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... hand CITATIO FISCALIS, and said"—said at first nothing, Plotho avers; merely mumbled, looked like some poor caitiff, come with Law-papers on a trifling Suit we happen to have in the Courts here;—and only by degrees said (let us abridge; SCENE, Aprill and Plotho, Anteroom in Regensburg, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... ho, ho! he cried, The caitiff hither bring! We'll have a quick deliverance, Betwixt him ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... such arguments in favour of injustice? Add good manners, and, as the wise tell us, we shall make the best of both worlds. Who that is not a miserable caitiff will refrain from smiling at the praises of justice? Even if a man knows the better part he will not be angry with others; for he knows also that more than human virtue is needed to save a man, and that he only praises justice who ...
— The Republic • Plato
... possibly have sharpened it a little; but I felt it my duty, as a censor of morals, to mark my reprobation of her having grown fat and wrinkled in her old age. It was necessary for me to correct the flattering picture drawn of her by that caitiff Canning. You know the contempt ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... his rival beyond the walls; having fled the city, he was discovered hiding in a marsh, cast into prison, and condemned to die; to the slave sent to execute the sentence he drew himself haughtily up and exclaimed, "Caitiff, dare you slay Caius Marius?" and the executioner fled in terror of his life and left his sword behind him; Marius was allowed to escape; finding his way to Africa, he took up his quarters at Carthage, but the Roman ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... crowd Applaud his reasonings. O'er the watery ford, Dry sandy heaths, and stony barren hills, O'er beaten tracks, with men and beast distain'd, Unerring he pursues; till, at the cot Arrived, and seizing by his guilty throat The caitiff vile, redeems the captive prey: So ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... of Latin words that already existed in the language in their Norman-French form (for we must not forget that French is Latin "with the ends bitten off"— changed by being spoken peculiarly and heard imperfectly) were reintroduced in their original Latin form. Thus we had caitiff from the Normans; but we reintroduced it in the shape of captive, which comes almost unaltered from the Latin captivum. Feat we had from the Normans; but the Latin factum, which provided the word, presented ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
... alongside mine, King, close to this barricaded bridge," said the valorous boy, "and I will vow to break it down, or ye may call me caitiff and coward." ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... wretched body to be tormented, where GOD will! and of whom He will! how He will and when He will! and as long as He will! and what temporal pain He will! and death! to the praising of His name, and to the edification of His Church. And I, that am most unworthy and wretched caitiff, shall now, through the special grace of GOD, make to Him pleasant sacrifice of my ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... takes up with philosophy like that, may write fine books, and review articles and such like, but at the bottom of him he is a poor caitiff, and there is no more to be ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... hard heart, thou vile caitiff! How hast thou tortured me, by thy designed abruption! 'tis impossible that Miss Harlowe should have ever suffered as thou hast made me suffer, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... happy event in the life of our treasurer, Brother Brassfield, together with the public honors already and about to be conferred on him, render it fitting that this banquet be in his honor. What the devil is that racket? Oh, the boy——! Let the wandering caitiff enter! What says the recreant invader ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... then, was the cause of the quarrel! I need not ask who was in the right, when a man brings to the rivalry such odds as yon caitiff." ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... back way. I accused him of listening to our conversation. Of course he denies it; but it really doesn't matter, as I'm sorry to say he's much too 'fresh' (as they call it down here) to remember anything to-morrow morning. I let him have it, I can tell you. Varlet! Caitiff! But if you bolt off on the head of it, I shall go back and ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... part of a base villain," Lord Normanby said to Nicholson. "Hanging would be too good for such a caitiff. What induced you to ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... bending peers that flatter'd thee? Where be the thronging troops that follow'd thee? Decline all this, and see what now thou art: For happy wife, a most distressed widow; For joyful mother, one that wails the name; For one being su'd to, one that humbly sues; For queen, a very caitiff crown'd with care; For she that scorn'd at me, now scorn'd of me; For she being fear'd of all, now fearing one; For she commanding all, obey'd of none. Thus hath the course of justice wheel'd about And left thee but a very prey to time; Having no more but thought ...
— The Life and Death of King Richard III • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... think that I can tell you the name of yonder caitiff there, and, if I have guessed rightly, it were better for us to ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... freed! They hail an Empire saved. Where is man's god-like form? Where is that brow erect and bold— That eye that can unmov'd behold The wildest rage, the loudest storm That e'er created fury dared to raise? Avaunt! thou caitiff, servile, base, That tremblest at a despot's nod, Yet, crouching under the iron rod, Canst laud the hand that struck th' insulting blow! Art thou of man's Imperial line? Dost boast that countenance divine? Each skulking ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... did not mark, Through all the gloomy circles of the' abyss, Spirit, that swell'd so proudly 'gainst his God, Not him, who headlong fell from Thebes. He fled, Nor utter'd more; and after him there came A centaur full of fury, shouting, "Where Where is the caitiff?" On Maremma's marsh Swarm not the serpent tribe, as on his haunch They swarm'd, to where the human face begins. Behind his head upon the shoulders lay, With open wings, a dragon breathing fire On whomsoe'er he met. To me my guide: "Cacus is this, who ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... men and Gods—in vain! His cries no blest deliverer gain; Feebler and fainter grows the sound, And still the deaf life slumbers round— "In the far land I fall forsaken, Unwept and unregarded, here; By death from caitiff hands o'ertaken, Nor ev'n one late ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... skipjack[obs3]; nobody, nobody one knows; hesterni quirites[Lat], pessoribus orti[Lat]; bourgeois gentilhomme[Fr], novus homo[Lat], snob, gent, mushroom, no one knows who, adventurer; man of straw. beggar, gaberlunzie[obs3], muckworm[obs3], mudlark[obs3], sans culotte, raff[obs3], tatterdemalion, caitiff, ragamuffin, Pariah, outcast of society, tramp, vagabond, bezonian[obs3], panhandler*, sundowner[obs3], chiffonnier, Cinderella, cinderwench[obs3], scrub, jade; gossoon[obs3]. Goth, Vandal, Hottentot, Zulu, savage, barbarian, Yahoo; unlicked cub[obs3], rough diamond|!. barbarousness, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... were wont,) To some enchanted castle is convey'd, Where gates impregnable, and coercive chains, In durance strict detain him, till, in form Of money, Pallas sets the captive free. Beware, ye debtors! when ye walk, beware, Be circumspect; oft with insidious ken The caitiff eyes your steps aloof, and oft Lies perdu in a nook or gloomy cave, Prompt to enchant some inadvertent wretch With his unhallowed touch. So, (poets sing) Grimalkin, to domestic vermin sworn An everlasting foe, with watchful eye Lies nightly brooding o'er a chinky gap, Portending her ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... Balthazar Gerard, a mere hired assassin, was carried out within ten days after commission of the crime. A contemporary writer, apparently an eyewitness of his execution, speaks of Gerard as one "whose death was not of a sufficient sharpness for such a caitiff, and yet too sore for any Christian." His description of the murderer' execution ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... head the impetuous fight, Sent'st forth, thy conquering champion. Now he feeds His spirit on lone paths, and on us brings Deep sorrow; and all his former peerless deeds Of prowess fall like unremembered things From Atreus' loveless brood, this caitiff brace of kings. ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... miserable measure the wretched souls maintain of those who lived without infamy and without praise. Mingled are they with that caitiff choir of the angels, who were not rebels, nor were faithful to God, but were for themselves. The heavens chased them out in order to be not less beautiful, nor doth the depth of Hell receive them, because the damned would ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... buried, being confined in a pen without shelter, exposed to all the elements could do, to all the disease herding animals together could create, and to all the starvation and cruelty an incompetent and intense caitiff government could accomplish. From the conversation and almost from the recollection of the northern people this place has dropp' d, but not so in the gossip of the Salisbury people, nearly all of whom say that the half was never told; that such was the nature ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... heavy, apoplectic sleep of drunkenness. The death-in-life was too well portrayed. You smelt the fumy liquor that had brought on this syncope. Your only comfort lay in the forced reflection, that, real as he looked, the poor caitiff was but imaginary, a bit of painted canvass, whom no delirium tremens, nor so much as a retributive headache, awaited, on ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... I should never have parted from your neighbourhood; then had you not been in the present danger, and—much less important consequence— thou, Damian de Lacy, had not filled the grave of a forsworn and negligent caitiff!" ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... banished therefor? Hast forgot my loved and faithful Mopsa that is truly the dearest, gentlest, wisest witch that e'er witched rogue or fool? But O Mopsa, wise mother—would'st thou might plague and bewitch in very truth yon base caitiff knight, ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... commercial character—yet is it not a first condition of our being able to substitute better machinery for the ordinary rules of self-interest, that we know scientifically how those rules do and must operate? Again, in another field, it is well to cry out: 'Caitiff, we hate thee,' with a 'hatred, a hostility inexorable, unappeasable, which blasts the scoundrel, and all scoundrels ultimately, into black annihilation and disappearance from the scene of things.'[2] But this is slightly vague. It is not scientific. There are caitiffs and caitiffs. There is ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 2: Carlyle • John Morley
... contempt. He had believed in John Saltram; had fancied him nobler and grander than himself, somehow; a man who, under a careless half-scornful pretence of being worse than his fellows, concealed a nature that was far above the common herd; and yet this man had proved the merest caitiff, a weak ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... The caitiff's face underwent a kaleidoscopic change as these terrible words rant? in his ears. With the bound of of a wounded antelope he sprang to the summit of the nearest mountain, and stood there with arms erect against the sky, like a ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... thought him one of the most disagreeable fellows I had ever seen. His features were ugly, and, moreover, as dark as pepper; and, besides being dark, his skin was dirty. As for his dress, it was torn and sordid. His chest was broad, and his arms seemed powerful; but, upon the whole, he looked a very caitiff. "I am sorry that man has lost his wife," thought I; "for I am sure he will never get another." What surprises me is, that he ever found a woman disposed to unite ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... the township, and set an ambush, and on the further side of the hall he commanded to prepare a feast. Then with chariot and horses he went to bid to the feast Agamemnon, shepherd of the people; but caitiff thoughts were in his heart. He brought him up to his house, all unwitting of his doom, and when he had feasted him slew him, as one slayeth an ox at the stall. And none of the company of Atreides that were of his following were left, nor any of the men of Aegisthus, ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... of the blood which trickled freely from his fingers. "What have you to do here? By your dress you should be one of those cursed clerks who overrun the land like vile rats, poking and prying into other men's concerns, too caitiff to fight and too lazy to work. By the rood! if I had my will upon ye, I should nail you upon the abbey doors, as they hang vermin before their holes. Art neither man nor woman, young shaveling. Get thee back to thy fellows ere I lay ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Bacri," retorted Francisco hotly, "I would teach thee that which would prove anything but a blessing to thy carcase, thou huge caitiff! I had thought better of thee than thou didst deserve.—Go, thy bulky presence ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... golden spurs, Fairly dealt him a baron's blow, And hurled him dead from the saddle-bow. Buckler and mail were reft and rent, And the pennon's flaps to his heart's blood went. He saw the miscreant stretched on earth: "Caitiff, thy threats are of little worth. On, Franks! the felons before us fall; ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... far in these considerate days Has patience carried her submissive ways; Wisdom has taught us to be calm and meek, To take one blow, and turn the other cheek; It is not written what a man shall do, If the rude caitiff ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... parted the fray. "Alas," said she, "O Caesar, is not this a great shame and reproach, that thou having vouchsafed to take the pains to come unto me, and hast done me this honour, poor wretch, and caitiff creature, brought into this pitiful and miserable estate: and that mine own servants should come now to accuse me, though it may be I have reserved some jewels and trifles meet for women, but not for me (poor soul) to set out myself withal, but meaning to ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... quoth Aunt Joyce, "pray you, box my cousin's ears for me, as you sit convenient.—And what art thou thine own self, thou caitiff?" ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt
... them cruel woids," demanded Axtell. "Flunker," he went on meditatively, "it hath a right knavish sound. Beshrew me, if I fling it not back in the teeth of any caitiff knight that dare put such shame ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... purseless . . . daggerless . . . bonnetless . . . doubletless—aye, naked, but for an outlaw's generosity . . . cut by my own weapon"—he held up his hand and looked at the abraded knuckles—"and that is all the credit I have to show—the mark of a caitiff's chin. . . Methinks I am fit only for the company ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... castle yard; There Randulph, wrapt in his skins, {f:15} kept guard: "Ho! Caitiff, ho! with shield and brand, What art thou doing in this my land?" Look ...
— Romantic Ballads - translated from the Danish; and Miscellaneous Pieces • George Borrow
... everlasting, Do they uphold him for that in the measureless railing of insult?" Him, with a sidelong glance, thus answer'd the noble Achilleus:— "Worthless I well might be call'd, of a surety, and cowardly caitiff, Yielded I all at a word whensoever it pleas'd thee to dictate. Such be thy lording with others, but not as to me, Agamemnon! Waste not thy masterful signs: they shall never command my obedience. This will I tell thee at once, let my ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... will not han my lif. Thus walke I like a restless caitiff, And on the ground, which is my modres gate, I knocke with my staf, erlich and late, And say to hire, "Leve mother, let me in. Lo, how I vanish, flesh and blood and skin, Alas! when shall my bones ben at reste? Mother, with you wolde I changen my cheste, That in my chambre longe time ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... to give notice to Jones to-day. There are more ways than one of getting even with a scurvy caitiff. In this case, I take old Jones's best waitress away from him, and, praise God, he'll never find another that will stick to him for eighteen years ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... God! Thou knowest if this heart of flesh Quivers like broken entrails, when the wheel Rolleth some dog in middle street, or fresh Fruit when ye tear it bleeding from the peel; If my soul cries the uncomprehended cry When the red agony oozed on Olivet! Yet not for this, a caitiff, falter I, Beloved whom I must lose, nor thence regret The doubly-vouched and twin allegiance owed To you in Heaven, and Heaven in you, Lady. How could you hope, loose dealer with my God, That I should keep for ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson
... known! Shun men like these, I charge ye all! With solemn words they chase their prey, and in their hearts plot foul disgrace. My wife is dead.—"Ha, so that saves thee now," That is what grips thee worst, thou caitiff, thou! What oaths, what subtle words, shall stronger be Than this dead hand, to clear the guilt from thee? "She hated thee," thou sayest; "the bastard born Is ever sore and bitter as a thorn To the true brood."—A sorry bargainer In the ills and goods of life thou ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides
... performed the task, and lingered not, For he rejoiced at this catastrophe, And with a smile of fiendish satisfaction, Placed the strong bow before him—Rustem grasped The bended horn with such an eager hand, That wondering at the sight, the caitiff wretch Shuddered with terror, and behind a tree Shielded himself, but nothing could avail; The arrow pierced both tree and him, and they Were thus transfixed together—thus the hour Of death afforded one bright ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... voice; and the poor invisible caitiff called on him by name, and poured forth out of the darkness an endless, garrulous appeal for mercy. A sense of danger, of daring, had alone nerved Carthew to enter the forecastle; and here was the enemy crying and pleading like a frightened ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hill a barrow chanced to stand, Heaped there of old, and holm-oaks frowned beside Dercennus' tomb, who ruled Laurentum's land. Here, lightning swift, the lovely Nymph espied, In shining arms, and puffed with empty pride, False Aruns. "Caitiff! dost thou think to flee? Why keep aloof? Turn hitherward!" she cried, "Come here, and die! Camilla claims her fee. Must Cynthia waste her shafts ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... revenging wrong, To aid the damsel and destroy the caitiff; Opposing singly the united strong, From foreign yoke to free the helpless native:— Alas! must noblest views, like an old song, Be for mere Fancy's sport a theme creative, A jest, a riddle, Fame through thin and thick sought! And Socrates ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... generous bosom. Sorry am I to say the reverse has been the fact: fallen, proscribed, pre-judged, the cup of bitterness has been administered to him with an unsparing hand. It has almost been considered as culpable to evince toward him the least sympathy or support; and many a hollow-hearted caitiff have I seen, who basked in the sunshine of his bounty while in power, who now skulked from his side, and even mingled among the most clamorous of his enemies.... I bid him farewell with a heavy ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... him, then, for his caitiff twist. Knights make ill tradesmen, I doubt not. Poor fool, to think he could do any such thing! What ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... scimetar, ostentatiously whirled it in air, and then, tapping me lightly upon the neck, strode away, pelted by the populace, with whom I was ever a favorite. I am come to pray for justice upon his own dishonorable and treasonous head." "To what regiment of executioners does the black-boweled caitiff belong?" asked the Mikado. "To the gallant Ninety-eight Hundred and Thirty-seventh—I know the man. His name is Sakko-Samshi." "Let him be brought before me," said the Mikado to an attendant, and a half-hour later the culprit stood in the Presence. "Thou bastard son of a three-legged ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... in a sort of despair by the tree for a time that seemed to her endless, until Stephen reappeared under the gate, with a signal that all was well. She darted to meet him. "Yea, mistress, here he is, the little caitiff. He was just knocked down by this country lad's cap—happily not hurt. I told him you would give him a ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... did he make, for at the first little twinges of pain, premonishing the agonies to come, the caitiff chattered in terror promises to do all the doctor should order, and so was released. Cringing and fawning, the outlaw heard what he was required to do. He was to write a letter. In this, he was to tell of the method of his capture. He was to say he was confined in a second-story room, feet and ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... this, George?" he said. "Gentlemen, bring that fellow forward. On my life, a truculent-looking caitiff—Hark ye, friend, who are you? If an honest man, Nature has forgot to label it upon your ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... soul. It is an honourable object to see the reasons of other men wear our liveries, and their borrowed understandings do homage to the bounty of ours. It is the cheapest way of beneficence, and, like the natural charity of the sun, illuminates another without obscuring itself. To be reserved and caitiff in this part of goodness is the sordidest piece of covetous- ness, and more contemptible than the pecuniary avarice. To this (as calling myself a scholar) I am obliged by the duty of my condition. I make ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... The caitiff Marquis de Ploermel perished, as she had said, in all things frustrated; for though his vengeance was in very deed complete, he believed that it had failed, and in his very agony that failure was his latest ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... their pulses lag With the slow beat that doubts and then despairs; Some, caitiff, would have struck the starry flag That knits us with our past, and makes us heirs Of deeds high-hearted as were ever done 'Neath ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... said the good man. Sir, said he, be ye of King Arthur's court, and of the fellowship of the Round Table? Yea, forsooth, and my name is Sir Lancelot du Lake that hath been right well said of, and now my good fortune is changed, for I am the most wretched and caitiff of ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... been trembling, but her eyes blazed at me disdainfully. I felt almost like a caitiff, whatever ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... lady," he cried; "my life is at thy service, for I heard but yesterday that thy lord, caitiff that he be, hath left thee alone among rough men, in this lonely wind-swept Castle. Methinks thou art accustomed to kinder treatment and therefore am I come to beg thee to open thy gates, and allow me ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... a brake she finds a hound, 913 And asks the weary caitiff for his master, And there another licking of his wound, Gainst venom'd sores the only sovereign plaster; 916 And here she meets another sadly scowling, To whom she speaks, ...
— Venus and Adonis • William Shakespeare
... contemptuously. 'This caliph is nobody, save as master of this palace and city, and the treasure they contain. By my father's soul! the caitiff wretch is rolling in wealth. May the saints grant me patience to think of it calmly! The very throne of gold on which he sits would, if coined into money, furnish forth an army, capable, under a skilful and daring leader, of conquering ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... fellow's face grew redder every minute; but perceiving that he was observed, he lowered his voice in the detail, while he lifted it in the worst places of his colloquy. 'You infernal scoundrel, and caitiff, and villain,' says I, 'what do you mean, to insult an elderly person like myself, in a public place like this?' and then, said he, lowering his malapropos voice, 'then I shook ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... woman! useless caitiff! Why allowed you them to pass? Back, no answer! Hark, men, hither! Take his staff and ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... mischief, mischief, mischief, And a nine-times killing curse, By day and by night, to the caitiff wight, Who shakes the poor like snakes from his door, And shuts up the womb of his purse. And ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... pistol. "No, you don't Fool us by tricks like that!" the foremost said: "And so, my lady—" But before the word Was out there was a little puff of smoke, With an explosion, not encouraging,— And on the turf the frightened caitiff lay. Her road now clear, reckless of torn alpaca, Over the scattered branches Linda rushed, Till she drew near the leader of the gang, Who, stopping, drew a pistol with one hand, While with the other he held Rachel fast, Placing her as a ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... "'Caitiff!' she cries to your butler," his majesty went on; "'perjured knave, thou liest in thy throat! Gluckstein is a hundred leagues from here, and how say est thou that thou slewest the molester, and earnest hither in a few hours' ...
— Prince Prigio - From "His Own Fairy Book" • Andrew Lang
... too much of a fashion to praise (it cannot be over-praised) this exquisite story, no wise man will allow himself to be disgusted any more than he will allow himself to be attracted by fashion. This work of "the old caitiff," as the author calls himself with a rather Hibernian coaxingness, is what has been called a cantefable—that is to say, it is not only obviously written, like verse romances and fabliaux, for recitation, but it consists partly of prose, partly of verse, the music for the latter being also ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... to say Sir Roger was, only that he was Lord of Wigmore and Ludlow, and son of the Lady Margaret that was born a Fienles, and husband of the Lady Joan that was born a Geneville; and the proudest caitiff and worst man that ever was, as shall be shown ere I lay down my pen. He was man that caused the loss of himself and of other far his betters, and that should have been the loss of England herself but for God's mercy. The friend of Sathanas ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... a man-servant or two with them to protect them against wild beasts or buccaneers. He utterly refused until, at last wearied out, his wild nature yielded to one of those sudden impulses which were wont to sweep over it; and he exclaimed, "Is it that they need a man-servant, then? Let this insolent caitiff, Gosselin, be relieved of his irons and sent on shore. Let him be my niece's servant or, since a Huguenot marriage is as good as any in the presence of bears and buccaneers, let her call the hound her husband, if she ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... "Fly, caitiff, fly! my revenge shall track your secret and place you in my power. Juliet Araminta shall yet be mine." With these awful words the Remorseless Baron cleared the stairs in two bounds, and was out of ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Thereupon I gave the caitiff a toss that sent him reeling against the wall, and dashed up-stairs for the papers. All was darkness, and I nigh broke my neck over a coffin-shaped rough box made for one of the trappers, who had died in the fort. Why was the thing lying there, anyway? The man should have been put into it ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... better furtherance of my desires confide my suspicions to no one not even to my niece, but take leave of this caitiff with all ceremony as though he were indeed ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... "That caitiff, Craven Le Noir, has slandered me! Oh, the villain! He is a base slanderer! Percy, get up this moment and challenge Le Noir! I cannot breathe freely until it is ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... fences, the estray shall rather be abandoned than acknowledged. Let then this unequal work, this ill-assorted bundle of dry book-plants, this undirected parcel of literary stuff, be accounted much in the same situation as that of the wanton caitiff-colt, so likely to bait a-pound, and afterwards to be sold for payment of expenses, in true bailiff-sense of justice. And let thus much serve as discursive prolegomena to a notion, scarcely worth recording, but for the wonder, that no professed writer (at least to my small knowledge) ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... gracefully in favour of Fred," Wally said. "He looked murderous, and Sarah looked woe-begone, so it seemed the best plan. But she's mine for the next—and ill befall the caitiff that disputes ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... Myles, with the same angry bitterness in his voice, "either the Earl is a coward that feareth to befriend me, or else he is a caitiff, ashamed of his own flesh and blood, and of me, the ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... have been less sure of recapturing those French shares. But he was ignorant of those truths; and, with confidence bred of ignorance, he summoned Mr. Harley. He, Storri, would browbeat and bleed him; he would teach the caitiff Harley to be more careful of the favor, not to say the fortune, of a ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... Oberon, 'that this caitiff Huon should suffer pain for the evil that he has wrought, but if you love him so much that for his sake you shall endure to wear the shape of a fish for twenty years longer I will grant you your wish on two conditions. Carry him away from ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... "By Saint Paul! I would not be so caitiff and so thrall as to leave you, when some small deed might still be done. But I would fain send ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle |
