"Harpy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... eye to see him if he should slip and be dashed to atoms on the unconscious rocks—this thought almost overmastered him, unmanned him, filled him with a weird sense of indescribable horror. He battled against it with all his might, but it came on him like a foul harpy again and again, sickening his whole soul, making his forehead glisten with the damp dews of anticipated death. At last he came to a stunted willow which had twisted its dry roots into the thin soil, and, clinging ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... that Medenham might regard with disdain, yet he would be shocked out of his well-fed cynicism by the notion that his son was gallivanting round the country as the chauffeur of an unconventional American girl and a middle-aged harpy like ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... agreeable REUNION, that Britons in the dog-days here seek to imitate it? After being rammed to a jelly in a door-way (where you feel your feet going through Lady Barbara Macbeth's lace flounces, and get a look from that haggard and painted old harpy, compared to which the gaze of Ugolino is quite cheerful); after withdrawing your elbow out of poor gasping Bob Guttleton's white waistcoat, from which cushion it was impossible to remove it, though you knew you were squeezing poor Bob into ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... on to describe her ecstasy, but Marie Louise broke in: "It's Fraeulein's work, is it? I might have known that! Oh, the fiend, the harpy!" ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... old harpy!" I exclaimed, being now in a sort of rage, and quite familiar with him. "Where is the money? Where is ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and the lamb together," said one harpy. "The lion must buy a rose to give to the lamb. Sir Lion, the rose is but a poor half-crown." And she tendered him a battered flower, leering at him from beneath her draggled, dusty bonnet as she put forth her ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... hymn-books and cushions, like a bee among flowers, whilst the organ echoed away. This continued for some weeks. Then the charwoman worked herself up into a frenzy of rage, to dare to attack Brangwen, and one day descended on him like a harpy. He wilted away, and wanted to break ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... Olympus. The modern legends of Tusayan are replete with references to such bird-like beings which play important roles and which bear evidence of archaic origins. There is, however, one fragment of a food bowl which is adorned with a pictograph so realistic and so true to modern legends of a harpy that I have not hesitated to affix to it the name current in modern Tusayan folklore. This fragment is ...
— Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 • Jesse Walter Fewkes
... the Cape were a French 40-gun frigate, an East India ship, and a brig, of the same nation: likewise two other French ships with slaves from the coast of Mozambique bound to the West Indies: a Dutch packet from Europe, after a four months passage: and the Harpy, a South Sea Whaler with 500 barrels of spermaceti, and 400 of seal and other oils. There is a standing order from the Dutch East India Company that no person who takes a passage from Batavia for Europe in any of their ships shall be allowed to leave ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... rank-breaking Achilles, he most honoured, because he was most faithful to him in battle, to stand the charge. Wherefore Automedon yoked the fleet horses, Xanthus and Balius, which kept pace with the winds. Them the Harpy Podarge bore to Zephyrus, the wind, while feeding in the meadows by the stream of Oceanus. And in the outer harness he fastened illustrious Pedasus, whom Achilles led away long since, having sacked the city of Eetion; and which [steed], though being mortal, accompanied immortal steeds. But Achilles, ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... from earth, shall say what was due to justice. I am led to think this by seeing how low, how unworthy, the judgments of this world are; and I would not that what I so much respect, love, and revere should be placed within reach of its harpy claw, which pollutes what it touches. The day will yet come which will bring to light every hidden thing. "There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, neither hid that shall not be known;" and so justice will ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... changed with marvellous rapidity. Now the picture glowed with the wealth and gorgeousness of the torrid zone; now the ice-fields of the North rose into view; anon a pine-forest; then a wild seashore; but always the same three flying figures; always the horrible three-formed harpy pursuing the enchanter, and beside her the evil spirit with the dragonfly wings. At last this succession of images ceased, and I beheld a desolate region, in the midst of which sat the woman with the enchanter ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... herself secure, O'ercast with dim and darksome coverture. And now she lets him whisper in her ear, Flatter, entreat, promise, protest, and swear: Yet ever, as he greedily assay'd To touch those dainties, she the harpy play'd, And every limb did, as a soldier stout, Defend the fort, and keep the foeman out; For though the rising ivory mount he scal'd, Which is with azure circling lines empal'd. Much like a globe (a globe may I term this, By which Love sails to regions full of bliss,) ...
— Hero and Leander and Other Poems • Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman
... strange things he had caused them to see and hear. When fatigued with wandering about, and famished for want of food, he had suddenly set before them a delicious banquet, and then, just as they were going to eat, he appeared visible before them in the shape of a harpy, a voracious monster with wings, and the feast vanished away. Then, to their utter amazement, this seeming harpy spoke to them, reminding them of their cruelty in driving Prospero from his dukedom, and leaving him and ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... flew to the palace. When he failed to find her he flew into a terrible rage, and hastened home to consult his books, by which means he discovered that it was his son who had deprived him of this precious treasure. Immediately he took the shape of a harpy, and, filled with rage, was determined to devour his son, and even the Princess too, if only ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... "What a little harpy that woman from Hampshire is, Clump," Squills remarked, "that has seized upon old Tilly Crawley. ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... firm ground pressure, or dexterity and tact in motion. And as the actions of the foot and the hand in man are made by every great painter perfectly expressive of the character of mind, so the expressions of rapacity, cruelty, or force of seizure, in the harpy, the gryphon, and the hooked and clawed evil spirits of early religious art, can only be felt by extreme attention to the ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... Have I pursued thee many a weary hour; But thou nor swell'st the victor's pomp, nor ever Didst breathe thy soul in forms of human power! Alike from all, howe'er they praise thee, (Nor prayer nor boastful name delays thee) From Superstition's harpy minions And factious Blasphemy's obscener slaves, Thou speedest on thy cherub pinions, The guide of homeless winds and playmate ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... gentleman sold the fair slave to Gurdoin Choicewest; in addition to which he had apartments at Lady Tuttlewell's most fashionable house, where the little doll-like thing used to be so sprightly in waiting at table. The quick eye of this harpy, as may readily be supposed, was not long in detecting the person of Annette the slave in our fair mother; which grand discovery he as soon communicated to Montague, pluming himself a generous fellow for being first to ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... You must (like Oberon) be dwelling! Your notion's lovely, winning, grand, The fiscal cat most bravely belling; Guileless NATHANIEL, too, affects World-hardened hearts—almost to weeping, Volunteer taxes who expects To draw from Mammon's harpy keeping. Go, lure the tomtit from the twig, Go, coax the tiger from his quarry, The toper from his thirsty swig, The swindler from his schemings sorry: "Persuade" the Sweater to be just, The 'cute Monopolist to be kindly; Tempt hunger to resign ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 30, 1891 • Various
... those outbursts and tears and rhapsodies of Khalid did mean somewhat. They did mean, even when we first approached his cell, that something was going on in him—a revolution, a coup d'etat, so to speak, of the spirit. For a Prince in Rags, but not in Debts and Dishonour, will throttle the Harpy which has hitherto ruled ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... you can devise to send me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the farthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John's foot; fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard; do you any embassage to the Pygmies,—rather than hold three words' conference with this harpy: You ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Knight edition]
... A harpy with a painted leer and predacious eyes pounced upon him, tore away his hat and coat, gave him a numbered slip of pasteboard by presenting which he would be permitted to ransom his ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... significance out of the dreadful expression. If salvation be the cure of the sickness, perishing is the fatal end of the unchecked disease. If salvation be the deliverance from the outstretched claws of the harpy evils that crowd about the trembling soul, then perishing is the fixing of their poisoned talons into their prey, and their ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... Evil, for when on being drawn into it we sin, instead of the hoped-for delight we soon find satiety; instead of exhilaration, fatigue; instead of contentment, disillusion; instead of satisfaction, dust; instead of romance, the greedy claws of the harpy; and the further we go in response to this glamour the more pitiable our outlook; for the sweets and possibilities of Evil are extraordinarily limited. Can any man devise a new sin? No, but ever pursues the same old ...
— The Romance of the Soul • Lilian Staveley
... manuscript, I was caught by the name Charpillon, which every reader of the Memoirs will remember as the name of the harpy by whom Casanova suffered so much in London, in 1763-4. This manuscript begins by saying: 'I have been in London for six months and have been to see them (that is, the mother and daughter) in their own ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... the property, and a disfranchisement of the members of the East India Company; all the several articles of whose effects were transferred by violence to strangers. Imagination was at a loss to guess at the most insignificant trifle that had escaped the harpy jaws of a ravenous coalition. The power was pretended, indeed, to be given in trust for the benefit of the proprietors; but, in case of the grossest abuses of trust, to whom was the appeal? To the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... said of those harpy-defilers of knowledge known as juvenile books. A limited use of the works of Abbott, Edgeworth, Sedgwick, and a very few others may certainly be permitted. But the common practice of removing every occasion for effort from the path of the young—of boning and spicing the mental aliment of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... I became a harpy, a Moloch, a Jonah, a vampire, to my acquaintances. Anxious, haggard, greedy, I stood among them like a veritable killjoy. Let a bright saying, a witty comparison, a piquant phrase fall from their lips and I was after it like a hound ...
— Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry
... interview. He had spoken of the widow in friendly terms,—declaring that she was simply mistaken in her ideas as to the duration of her interest in the Scotch property, and mistaken again about the diamonds;—whereas in truth he regarded her as a dishonest, lying, evil-minded harpy. Had Lord Fawn consulted him simply as a client, and not have come to him an engaged lover, he would have expressed his opinion quite frankly; but it is not the business of a lawyer to tell his client evil things of the lady whom that client is engaged to ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... hand-waled curse keep hard in chase The harpy, hoodock, purse-proud race, Wha count on poortith as disgrace; Their tuneless hearts, May fireside discords jar a ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... he, following lightly on his feet, cast the first apple [1713]: and, swiftly as a Harpy, she turned back and snatched it. Then he cast the second to the ground with his hand. And now fair, swift-footed Atalanta had two apples and was near the goal; but Hippomenes cast the third apple to the ground, and ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... Gaeta. After they had buried her they found a grove, where they sat down on the grass to eat, using large round cakes or biscuits to put their meat on. Presently they came to eating up the cakes. Little Ascanius cried out, "We are eating our very tables," and AEneas, remembering the harpy's words, knew ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... sun of Thebes and the bull Apis; on others are figures copied from Assyrian originals; on others are Herakles fighting the lion, Herakles stealing the tripod of Apollo and discovered by the latter; Ajax and Cassandra, a Harpy, etc. Some of these have been found in tombs and other places with the color changed to an opaque white by the action of fire. These have been burned with the body of their owner when ...
— Scarabs • Isaac Myer
... "carpe, carpe!" To-morrow sees another race as gay And transient, and devour'd by the same harpy. "Life's a poor player,"—then ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... are surprised to encounter strange monsters, and to be enveloped in dense mists, through which they hear the flapping of bat-like wings and catch glimpses of harpy-like creatures. Knowing monsters and mists are mere delusions, Sir Guyon pays little heed to them, and the palmer soon disperses them by a touch from his magic staff. Still bearing the steel net and iron chains, this faithful henchman follows Sir Guyon into the enchanted bower of Acrasia, ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... did Ariel play them. Once he set a banquet before them, and just as they were going to fall to, he appeared to them amid thunder and lightning in the form of a harpy, and immediately the banquet disappeared. Then Ariel upbraided them with ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit
... had been enough for several dates with Sylvia. Out of the office she wasn't quite the protective harpy about Paul Cleary that she had been in the office, although the thought was ...
— The Trouble with Telstar • John Berryman
... speaking to the dogs: "Ah, my friends, ah, my dears! I know you every one. Jo Portugais is here. I know your bark, you, Harpy, and you, Lazybones, and you, Cloud and London! I know you every one. I heard you as I came from Mass, beauty dears. Ah, you know me, sweethearts? Ah, God bless you for coming! You have come to bring us home; you have come to fetch us home—father and me." The paws of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... HESIOD drew The legendary Harpy crew, The "Spoilers" of old fable; Maidens, yet monsters, woman-faced, With iron hearts that had disgraced The slaughterer ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 14, 1892 • Various
... dollar, or a bright cent, in which he could see his own brazen face; who regarded even the wild ducks which settled in it as trespassers; his fingers grown into crooked and bony talons from the long habit of grasping harpy-like;—so it is not named for me. I go not there to see him nor to hear of him; who never saw it, who never bathed in it, who never loved it, who never protected it, who never spoke a good word for it, nor thanked God ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... of the continent are too much affected by the depreciation of our currency; scarce an officer, civil or military, but feels something of a desire to be concerned in mercantile speculation, from finding that his salary is inadequate to the harpy demands, which are made upon him for the necessaries of life, and from observing, that but little skill is necessary to constitute one of the merchants of these days. We are almost a continental tribe of Jews; but I hope heaven has ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... went, With both her hands she made the bed a tent, And in her own mind thought herself secure, O'ercast with dim and darksome coverture. And now she lets him whisper in her ear, Flatter, entreat, promise, protest, and swear: Yet ever, as he greedily assay'd To touch those dainties, she the harpy play'd, 270 And every limb did, as a soldier stout, Defend the fort, and keep the foeman out; For though the rising ivory mount he scal'd, Which is with azure circling lines empal'd, Much like a globe (a globe may I term this, By which Love sails to regions full of bliss), Yet there with ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... unsightly Harpy, and the heroes drew together, made fearful by these awful shapes. All drew back except Zetes and Calais, the sons of the North Wind. They laid their hands upon their swords. The wings on their shoulders spread ...
— The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles • Padraic Colum
... Haldane stood a creature whose dishevelled, rusty hair, blotched and bloated features, wanton, cunning, restless eyes, combined perfectly to form the head of the mythological Harpy. It required little effort of the imagination to believe that her foul, bedraggled dress concealed the "wings and talons of the vulture." Being still unsteady from her night's debauch, she leaned against the young man, and when he shrank in loathing away, she, to ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe |
