"Cerberus" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his friend Pirithous, he accompanied him in his journey to Epirus, in order to steal away the king of the Molossians' daughter. The king, his own name being Aidoneus, or Pluto, called his wife Proserpina, and his daughter Cora, and a great dog which he kept Cerberus, with whom he ordered all that came as suitors to his daughter to fight, and promised her to him that should overcome the beast. But having been informed that the design of Pirithous and his companion was not to ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... Hercules when he set about bringing up Cerberus from below, and all the work done by Apollo in the years when he ground corn, are but a little matter compared with the attempt to master botany. Great minds have been at it these two thousand years, and yet we are still only nibbling at the edge of the leaf, as the ploughboys bite the young hawthorn ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... the author of this character, which was printed again in 1681, and in 1704 with the following title, "The Assembly-man. Written in the Year 1647; but proves the true character of (Cerberus) the observator, MDCCIV." It was also reprinted in the Harleian Miscellany, v. 93. For an account of the author, see the Biographia Britannica, edit. Kippis, ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... lesson done than Pike, whose rod was ready upon the lawn, dashed away always for the river, rushing headlong down the hill, and away to the left through a private yard, where "no thoroughfare" was put up, and a big dog stationed to enforce it. But Cerberus himself could not have stopped John Pike; his conscience backed him up in trespass the most sinful when his heart was inditing of a trout upon ...
— Crocker's Hole - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... enter into the soul of their creation any more than the limitations of counterpoint and rhythm laid their incubus on the lyre of Apollo. The porches where Callicrates, Hermogenes, and Callimachus walked were guarded by no such Cerberus as the disciples of Plato encountered at the entrance of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... preceding ones, increased the probability of the fiction; and thus to arrive at Tartarus or Elysium, souls were obliged to cross the rivers Styx and Acheron, in the boat of Charon the ferryman, and to pass through the doors of horn and ivory, which were guarded by the mastiff Cerberus. At length a civil usage was joined to all these inventions, and ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... ecclesiastical authorities. The Lyncean was founded by Prince Frederic Cesi at Rome; its device plainly indicated its intention: a lynx, with its eyes turned upward toward heaven, tearing a triple-headed Cerberus with its claws. The Accademia del Cimento, established at Florence, 1657, held its meetings in the ducal palace. It lasted ten years, and was then suppressed at the instance of the papal government; as an equivalent, the brother of the grand-duke was made a cardinal. It numbered many great ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... in the course of which Sardanapalus had suffered from a distressing nightmare. He took Mr Buskin's card out of his pocket, and, hurrying out as fast as he could manage, stumped his way round to the stage door. Cerberus would fain have stopped him, but Austin flourished his card in passing, and enquired of the first civil-looking man he met where the manager was to be found. He was piloted through devious ways and under strange scaffoldings, to the foot of a steep ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... of Cratinus—passable: Aristophanes—racy: Plato—exquisite—not your Plato, but Plato the comic poet; your Plato would have turned the stomach of Cerberus—faugh! Then let me see! there were Naevius, and Andronicus, and Plautus, and Terentius. Then there were Lucilius, and Catullus, and Naso, and Quintus Flaccus,—dear Quinty! as I called him when he sung a seculare for my amusement, while I toasted him, in pure good humor, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... the latter, who by his saving strength delivered the earth from its Augean impurities, and, arrayed in celestial panoply, subdued the monsters of the earth, and at last, descending to Hades, slew the three-headed Cerberus and took away from men much of the fear of death. Such was the train of the Eleusinian Dionysus. If Demeter was the wanderer, he was the conqueror and ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... of his peers as to whom he should appoint his viceroy in Britain. Cerberus, first of all, offers the service of Tobacco; then Mammon speaks in praise of Gold and Apolyon tells what Pride can do; Asmodai, the demon of Lust, Belphegor. the demon of Sloth, and Satan, devil of Delusion, each pleads ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... Cerberus and blackest midnight born, In Stygian Cave forlorn 'Mongst horrid shapes, and shreiks, and sights unholy. Find out som uncouth cell, Where brooding darknes spreads his jealous wings, And the night-Raven sings; There, under Ebon shades, ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... behold only a living and a human figure, whose accents you may listen to with perfect security. If this alarms you, what would you say if you should have seen the Stygian lakes, and the shores burning with sulphur unconsumed, if the Furies stood before you, and Cerberus with his mane of vipers, and the Giants chained in eternal adamant? Yet all these you might have witnessed unharmed; for all these would quail at the ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... often thought that, by the particular description of Cerberus, the porter of hell, in the 6th Aeneid, Virgil might possibly intend to satirize the porters of the great men in his time; the picture, at least, resembles those who have the honour to attend at the doors of our great men. The porter in his lodge answers exactly to Cerberus in his den, and, ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... Bushnell to destroy the British frigate "Cerberus," lying at anchor off the Connecticut coast. A torpedo, with the usual percussion apparatus, was drawn along the side of the frigate by a long line, but fouled with a schooner lying astern. The explosion occurred with frightful ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... we find at last, That death has overset him with a blast. Our Boat is now sail'd to the Stygian ferry, There to supply old Charon's leaky wherry; Charon in him will ferry souls to Hell; A trade our Boat[5] has practised here so well: And Cerberus has ready in his paws Both pitch and brimstone, to fill up his flaws. Yet, spite of death and fate, I here maintain We may place Boat in his old post again. The way is thus: and well deserves your thanks: Take the three ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... one of the bright young fellows who manage other young fellows, who control debating societies, who are prominent in mysterious associations, the secret of which is at once guarded and represented by a Cerberus ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... brother. But the doctor says this sleep is the beneficial result of his treatment, and that when the Electoral Prince awakes he will be quite restored to health. He has ordered that no one else be admitted to see the Prince, and Dietrich watches over him like a Cerberus." ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... Merrywell, "let us see what they are made of; are either of you known? for Cerberus, who keeps the door, is d——d particular, in consequence of some rows they have recently had, and the devil is careful to ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... Majesty was still vexing his nobles by the favour he showed to foreigners. At this time he demanded a subsidy of one-thirtieth of all the property in the kingdom, which they were by no means inclined to give him. As a sop to Cerberus, the King promised thenceforth to abide by the advice of his native nobility, and the subsidy was voted. But his next step was to invite his father-in-law, the Count of Provence, and to shower upon him the gold so unwillingly ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... loathed Melancholy, Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born In Stygian cave forlorn 'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy! Find out some uncouth cell Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings And the night-raven sings; There, ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... produce with each issue. This ill-favored individual, owner of a yellow countenance covered with red excrescences, to which he owed his nickname of "Coloquinte," indicated a personage behind the lattice as the Cerberus of the paper. This was an elderly officer with a medal on his chest and a silk skull-cap on his head; his nose was almost hidden by a pair of grizzled moustaches, and his person was hidden as completely ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... three mouths, as that obdurate guardian of the infernal regions had? Do not shrug your shoulders, my dear comte: I put the question to you with an excellent reason, since poets pretend that, in order to soften Monsieur Cerberus, the visitor must take something enticing with him—a cake, for instance. Therefore, I, who view the matter in a prosaic light, that is to say in the light of reality, I say: one cake is very little for three mouths. If your jealous husband ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... mastiff that he has to lead by the nose, he can make an empty show, very safely, by giving his single voice, and suffering his light squadron to file off to the other side. And when a question of humanity is agitated, he may dip a sop in the milk of human kindness, to silence Cerberus, and talk of the interest which his heart takes in an attempt to make the earth no longer cry for vengeance as it sucks in its children's blood, though his cold hand may at the very moment rivet their chains, by sanctioning the abominable traffick. ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... be one of the monsters who are said to be growing up in Rome—Apollos ravenous as Cerberus. Does he ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... Greek and Roman boys was set to do the most difficult things not for himself but for others. He destroyed lions, hydras, wild boars, birds with brazen beaks and wings, mad bulls, many-headed monsters, horses which fed on human flesh, dragons, he mastered the three-headed dog Cerberus, he tore asunder the rocks at the Strait of Gibraltar which bear his name to open a channel between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. He fought the Centaur and brought back Alcestis, the wife of Admetus, from the pale regions of death where she had gone to save her husband's life. In all these ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... of Cerberus here filleth all the place, As huge he lieth in a den that hath them full in face: But when the adders she beheld upon his crest upborne, A sleepy morsel honey-steeped, and blent of wizards' corn, 420 She cast him: ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... applause, advice, derision. Glaucon heard the derisive hootings, "pretty girl," "pretty pullet," from the serried host of the Laconians along the left side of the stadium; but an answering salvo, "Dog of Cerberus!" bawled by the Athenian crowds opposite, and winged at Lycon, returned the taunts with usury. As the champions approached the judges' stand a procession of full twenty pipers, attended by as many fair boys in flowing white, marched from the farther end of ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... (Minos) sees what place in Hell is for it, and with his tail makes as many circles round himself as the degrees he will have it descend." (Inf., V, 2.) In the circle of Gluttony, the sin is symbolized by the three-headed monster Cerberus, "who clutches the spirits, flays and ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... This is not my view—I do not believe that it is anybody's view,—but it is attributed to those who, like myself, advocate scientific education. I therefore dwell strongly upon the point, and I beg you to believe that the words I have just now read were by no means intended by me as a sop to the Cerberus of culture. I have not been in the habit of offering sops to any kind of Cerberus; but it was an expression of profound conviction on my own part—a conviction forced upon me not only by my mental constitution, but by the lessons of what is now becoming ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... cousin, you force me to open my door to you in spite of my husband and my stepfather, and in the face of this Cerberus of a ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... Pour I'Irlande. It purports to have been written by a "Canadian priest" living at Lurgan in Ireland, and to be a reply to M. de Mandat Grancey's volume, Chez Paddy. It is adorned with a frontispiece representing a monster of the Cerberus type on a monument, with three heads and three collars labelled respectively "Flattery," "Famine," and "Coercion." On the pedestal is the inscription—"1800 to 1887. Erected by the grateful Irish to the English Government." The text is in keeping with ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... is most dangerous! Not any wrinkle creaming in their faces, 315 When in their hearts are Scylla and Caribdis, Which still are hid in dark and standing foggs, Where never day shines, nothing ever growes But weeds and poysons that no states-man knowes; Nor Cerberus ever saw the damned nookes 320 Hid with the veiles of womens vertuous lookes. But what a cloud of sulphur have I drawne Up to my bosome in this dangerous secret! Which if my hast with any spark should light Ere D'Ambois ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... petitioned Emmanuel, but the messenger could have no admittance. The Lusts of the Flesh came out of their dens. They held a meeting in the room of Mr. Mischief, and wrote to invite Diabolus to return. Mr. Profane carried their letter to Hell Gate. Cerberus opened it, and a cry of joy ran through the prison. Beelzebub, Lucifer, Apollyon, and the rest of the devils came crowding to hear the news. Deadman's bell was rung. Diabolus addressed the assembly, putting them ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... that cursed dark spell. When I came below, two or three minutes before, we were heading into The Race, west-nor'west, having left Cerberus Shoal whistling buoy to port about fifteen minutes earlier. Get her back on that course, if you please, Mr. Swain, and proceed at half-speed. Don't neglect your soundings. I'll join you as soon ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... a hale man to be buried with the king of Fiji on every occasion of a royal decease. It was quite necessary that the man should be hale and hearty, for it was his business to grapple with the Fijian Cerberus in the other world, while his majesty slipped past ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer |
