"Concubine" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Ferdinand and Isabella against the machinations of the Pope, whose ways he described as "loathsome"; in this he was referring, not to his political actions, but to his personal conduct. Giulia Farnese, whom Infessura noticed among the wedding guests and described as "the Pope's concubine," caused endless gossip about herself and his Holiness. This young woman surrendered herself to an old man of sixty-two whom she was also compelled to honor as the head of the Church. There is no doubt whatever about her years of adultery, but ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... the Persian monarch noted and resented the interference with territories which he had some right to consider his own; whether he took any steps to revenge himself is doubtful. According to some, he required Amasis to send him one of his daughters as a concubine, an insult which the Egyptian king escaped by finesse while he appeared to ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... were reckoned hers. She remained mistress of her maid and might degrade her to slavery again for insolence, but could not sell her if she had borne her husband children. If the wife did this, the Code did not allow the husband to take a concubine. If she would not, he could do so. The concubine was a wife, though not of the same rank; the first wife had no power over her. A concubine was a free woman, was often dowered for marriage and her children were legitimate. She could only be divorced ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... Yet did I see him and Apame the king's concubine, the daughter of the admirable Bartacus, sitting at the right hand of ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous
... attention of the reader, at least enslaves it, holding it captive with a chain of iron. Amongst his other adventures, the hero falls in with a Gypsy encampment, is enrolled amongst the fraternity, and is allotted a 'mort,' or concubine; a barbarous festival ensues, at the conclusion of which an epithalamium is sung in the Gypsy language, as it is called in the work in question. Neither the epithalamium, however, nor the vocabulary, are written in the language of the English Gypsies, but in the 'Cant,' or allegorical robber dialect, ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... to prosecute literature. Lord Lyttelton became his patron, although he did him so little service in a secular point of view, that Mickle was fain to accept the situation of corrector to the Clarendon Press at Oxford. Here he published his 'Pollio,' his 'Concubine,' —a poem in the manner of Spenser, very sweetly and musically written, which became popular,—and in 1771 the first canto of a translation of the 'Lusiad' of Camoens. This translation, which he completed in 1775, was published by subscription, and at once increased ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... of Yoshitomo by his wife, he had also three sons by a concubine named Tokiwa. She was a woman of great beauty, and for that reason as well as because she was the mother of the romantic hero Yoshitsune, she has often been chosen by Japanese artists as the subject of their pictures. Tokiwa and her three children, of whom Yoshitsune was ...
— Japan • David Murray
... he determined carefully to conceal his design from all except the two or three intimate friends and advisers who originally counseled him to adopt it. He intended to take with him his concubine Afrosinia, and also a number of domestic servants and other attendants, but he did not allow any of them to know where he was going. He gave them to understand that he was going to Copenhagen to join his father. He was afraid that, if any of those persons were to know his real ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott
... was fourteen and Commodus attained to absolute power when Marcus died. Subsequently, Commodus became the epitome of all that was basest and worst in a ruler. He was murdered by the treachery of Marcia, his favorite concubine, and the Senate decreed that "his body should be dragged with a hook into the stripping room of the gladiators, to satiate the public fury." [Footnote: Decline ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... so natural somehow, to be journeying out to an unknown bourne in this primitive fashion. I wonder if, in another existence, I was one of the wives or handmaidens in Abraham's caravanserai? Perhaps I was his favourite concubine!... How interesting!... I'm sure I've journeyed like this into a far ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... Emperor, a plot was concocted by eight members of the extreme anti-foreign party at Court, who claimed to have been appointed Regents, to make away with the Empress Dowager, the concubine mother, known as the Western Empress, of the five-year-old child just proclaimed under the title of Chi Hsiang (good omen), and also the late Emperor's three brothers, thus securing to themselves complete control of the administration. Prince Kung, ...
— China and the Manchus • Herbert A. Giles
... years in the discarnate state for an opportunity to reincarnate as the son of an over-servant. In his next reincarnation, he was the son of a technician, and received a technical education; he became a physics researcher. For his next reincarnation, he chose the son of a nobleman by a concubine as his vehicle; in his present reincarnation, he is a member of a wealthy manufacturing family, and married into a family of the nobility. In five reincarnations, he has climbed from the lowest to the next-to-highest rung of the social ladder. Few individuals of the class from whence he began ...
— Last Enemy • Henry Beam Piper
... have given her a young fellow to win bread for her in wedlock. What is this to you? Take you some king's daughter or some count's. Moreover, what were you profited, think you, had you made her your concubine, or taken her to live with you? Mighty little had you got by that, seeing that your soul would be in Hell for ever and ever, for to ...
— Aucassin and Nicolette - translated from the Old French • Anonymous
... then that in an embassy sent by the king of Terrenate, the most warlike and powerful king known, his ambassador lost [due] respect for the house of the Dapitan princes—then represented by Dailisan and Pagbuaya, who were brothers—by making advances to a concubine. They punished the crime more by the laws of offended and irritated fury than by those of reason, with hideous and indeed cruel demonstrations of contempt, by cutting off the noses and ears of the ambassador and his men. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... to every species of wickedness, except such as are punished by temporal laws. While this son William was a child, he left him, without any provision, to the care of his mother, and accompanied by a concubine whom he had long convened with, shipped himself for the island of Jamaica, carrying with him a good quantity of goods proper for that climate, intending to live there as pleasantly as the place would give him leave. His head being well turned, both for ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... a little danger in his water, gaue him a gentle confortatiue for the stomack, and desired those neere about him to perswade his holynes to take some rest, and hee doubted not but he would be forthwith well. Who should receiue this mild phisicke of him but the concubine Iuliana his vtter enimie, shee beeing not vnprouided of strong poison at that instant, in the popes outward chamber so mingled it, that when his grande sublimitie taster came to relish it, he sunke downe starke dead on the pauement. Herewith the pope cald Iuliana, ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash
... Italy, Germany, and elsewhere, in the tenth and eleventh centuries. Of course the Church refused to sanction the marriage of its officials and called the wife of a clergyman, however virtuous and faithful she might be, by the opprobrious name of "concubine." ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... I was seized with a strange distemper, which neither my friends nor physicians could comprehend, and it confined me to my chamber for many days; but I knew, myself, that I was bewitched, and suspected my father's reputed concubine of the deed. I told my fears to my reverend protector, who hesitated concerning them, but I knew by his words and looks that he was conscious I was right. I generally conceived myself to be two people. When I lay in bed, I ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... brought with them their merchandise but their wives and children. Some of them appeared to be people of the worst description: there was one in particular, a burly savage-looking fellow, of about forty, whose conduct was atrocious; he sat with his wife, or perhaps concubine, at the door of a room which opened upon the court: he was continually venting horrible and obscene oaths, both in Spanish and Catalan. The woman was remarkably handsome, but robust and seemingly as savage ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... to all her sex; full of pertness, gaiety, and pride; not without some agreeable accomplishments, but far from being either beautiful or genteel;... happy in the thoughts of being reported Swift's concubine, but still aiming and intending to ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... more unlike still to the Oriental harem: that of an elderly childless man, his days menaced, dwelling alone amid a bevy of women of all ages, ranks, and relationships,—the mother, the sister, the cousin, the legitimate wife, the concubine, the favourite, the eldest born, and she of yesterday; he, in their midst, the only master, the only male, the sole dispenser of honours, clothes, and luxuries, the sole mark of multitudinous ambitions and desires. I doubt if you could find a man in Europe so bold as to attempt ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Trojans crawl About Scamander, over walls, pursued Or else pursuing, and the funeral pyres And sacred hecatombs, and first because Of Helen who with Paris fled to Troy As soul-mate; and the wrath of Peleus, son, Decreed to lose Chryseis, lovely spoil Of war, and dearest concubine. Say first, Thou son of night, called Momus, from whose eyes No secret hides, and Thalia, smiling one, What bred 'twixt Thomas Rhodes and John Cabanis The deadly strife? His daughter Flossie, she, Returning from her wandering with a troop Of strolling players, ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters
... condemn it; But I detest all fiction even in song, And so must tell the truth, howe'er you blame it. Her reason being weak, her passions strong, She thought that her lord's heart (even could she claim it) Was scarce enough; for he had fifty-nine Years, and a fifteen-hundredth concubine. ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... the noblest blood of Rome; he perished as soon as he was dreaded by his own domestics. A cup of drugged wine, delivered by his favourite concubine, plunged him in a deep sleep. At the instigation of Laetus, his Praetorian prefect, a robust youth was admitted into his chamber, and strangled him without resistance. With secrecy and celerity the conspirators sought out Pertinax, the prefect of the city, an ancient senator of consular rank, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... Ask a Lycian who he is, and he answers by giving you his own name, the name of his mother, and so on in the female line. Aye, if a free-born woman marries a slave, her children are citizens, but if a free man marries a stranger, or takes a concubine, even if he be the highest person in the State, his children forfeit all ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... money; he does not give twenty francs a year to his grandchildren. As for borrowing the money, I should have to get his signature, and he would refuse it. I have not even attempted to speak to your brother, who lives with a concubine, to whom he is a slave. It is pitiable to see how the poor man is treated in his own home, when he might have a sister and nephews to take ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... free by deserting his wife and his own children and leaving them in slavery (Ex. xxi. 1-6). It was under these circumstances that God taught that a man might sell his daughter to be a "maid servant" (the translator's euphemism for concubine), and that, "if she please not her master" she may be bought back again, or if he "take him another" (translator supplying "wife" as throwing an air of respectability over the transaction) she may go free (Ibid. 7-11). It was under these circumstances that God taught that if a man ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... Paris, the ardent apostle of frequent communion, arrived at Paris with the intention of soliciting, in public, the administration of the sacrament to the King, and secretly retarding it as much as possible. The ceremony could not take place without the previous and public expulsion of the, concubine, according to the canons of the Church and the Jesuitical party, of which Christopher was the leader. This party, which had made use of Madame du Barry to suppress the Parliaments, to support the Duc d'Aiguillon, and ruin the Choiseul faction, could not willingly consent to ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... The concubine was usually a slave who had been bought by the bridegroom. Occasionally, by agreement with the parents, the wife herself was in much the same position. Thus Dagil-ili, who married the daughter of a lady ...
— Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs • Rev. A. H. Sayce
... sum of money to establish himself at Brescia, and has not seen his wife for these two years past. General Gourion, who was last spring in Italy, has assured me that he read the advertisement of a curate after his concubine, who had eloped with another curate; and that the Police Minister at Milan openly licensed women to be the ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... chapters on war and proposed a test of Sun's military skills. Ho asked if the rules applied to women. When the answer was yes, the king challenged Sun Tzu to turn the royal concubines into a marching troop. The concubines merely laughed at Sun Tzu until he had the head cut off the head concubine. The ladies still could not bring themselves to take the master's orders seriously. So, Sun Tzu had the head cut off a second concubine. From that point on, so the story goes, the ladies learned to march with the precision of a ...
— Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance • Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade
... vol. i. p. 354*.) "He escaped punishment, (says Pitscottie,) by means of John Hamilton, Bishop of St. Andrews, brother to the Governor, who entertained the Lady Stenhouse, commonly called Lady Gilton, daughter to this Robert Lord Semple, as his concubine." From the date of the remission, it must have been her brother who had committed this murder. Buchanan and other authorities likewise attribute his acquittal to the same influence; and one compiler says of the Archbishop, in very plain terms, "Amangis many utheris his harlottis, he interteayned ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... second son, died a natural death;[19] so also did his only son; and so also Daniyal, the fourth son of the Emperor.[20] Nur Jahan's daughter by Sher Afgan had married Shahryar, a young son of the Emperor by a concubine; and, just before his death he (the Emperor), at the instigation of Nur Jahan, named this son as his successor in his will. He was placed upon the throne, and put in possession of the treasury, and at the head of a respectable army;[21] but the Empress's ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... families. A wife's sister may also not be married during the wife's lifetime. The Muhammadan Bhils permit a man to marry his maternal uncle's daughter, and though he cannot marry his wife's sister he may keep her as a concubine. Marriages may be infant or adult, but the former practice is becoming prevalent and girls are often wedded before they are eleven. Matches are arranged by the parents of the parties in consultation with the caste panchayat; ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... sweet Grace, and dinna be so fashed," cried a silver-tongued madam, the which my grandfather afterwards found, as I shall have to rehearse, was his concubine, the Mrs Kilspinnie. "What does ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... events. Come! I may not marry you, either. I don't know. I suppose you thought you'd keep the money, if I did! Ha, ha, ha! nonsense! I have no sense of shame left. I tell you I have been Totski's concubine. Prince, you must marry Aglaya Ivanovna, not Nastasia Philipovna, or this fellow Ferdishenko will always be pointing the finger of scorn at you. You aren't afraid, I know; but I should always be afraid that I had ruined you, and that ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... France, led for some time a very dissolute life, but was touched by an extraordinary grace upon the birth of his son Sigebert {335} and from that time entirely converted to God. Bagnetrude, our saint's mother, is only styled the concubine of Dagobert, though he was publicly married to her. The father desiring to have his son baptized by the most holy prelate of his dominions, recalled St. Amand, bishop of Masstricht, whom he had banished for his ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... of Joash went and dwelt in his own house. And Gideon had threescore and ten sons of his body begotten: for he had many wives. And his concubine that was in Sechem, she also bare him a son, and he called his name Abimelech. And Gideon the son of Joash died in a good old age, and was buried in the sepulchre of Joash his father, in ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various
... James effectually, his intentions were obstructed by the disputes of his ministry. Louvois possessed the chief credit in council; but Seignelai enjoyed a greater share of personal favour, both with the king and madame de Maintenon, the favourite concubine. To this nobleman, as secretary for marine affairs, James made his chief application; and he had promised the command of the troops destined for his service to Latisun, whom Louvois hated. For these reasons this minister thwarted ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... immorality are the greatest enemies of the liberty and happiness of peoples; as a fact, after misappropriating the public revenues and wasting in debauchery a noticeable part of the people's patrimony, the person in question connived with his former concubine, the woman Rochemaure, to enter into correspondence with the emigres and traitorously keep the faction of the foreigner informed of the state of our finances, the movements of our troops, the fluctuations ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France |
