"Parnassus" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... prepared for this purpose by Lelewel. From Otranto to Zeitun, his halting-places were Corfu, the Gulf of Arta, Achelous, an ancient town in AEtolia, Anatolia in Greece, on the Gulf of Patras, Patras, Lepanto, Crissa, at the foot of Mount Parnassus, Corinth, Thebes, whose two thousand Jewish inhabitants were the best makers of silk and purple in Greece, Negropont and Zeitoun. Here, according to the Spanish traveller, is the boundary-line of Wallachia; he says the Wallachians are as nimble as goats, and come ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... composer and the musician with daring will go still further if the singer will but follow. Would that some singer would have the complete courage to lead! But do not misunderstand me. The road to Parnassus is no shorter because it has been newly paved. Indeed I think it is longer. Caffarelli studied six years before he made his debut as "the greatest singer in the world" but I imagine that Waslav Nijinsky studied ten before he set ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... have hedged their author, Heine was very caustic about this royal assault upon Parnassus. Ludwig riposted by banishing him from the capital. Still, if he disapproved of this one, he added to his library the output of other bards, not necessarily German. But, while Browning was there, Tennyson had no place on his shelves. One, however, ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... laurels. If we may believe the Longinuses; and Aristotles of our newspapers, we have quite too many geniuses of the loftiest order to render a place among them at all desirable, whether for its hardness of attainment or its seclusion. The highest peak of our Parnassus is, according to these gentlemen, by far the most thickly settled portion of the country, a circumstance which must make it an uncomfortable residence for individuals of a poetical temperament, if love of solitude be, as immemorial tradition ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... unsystematic character of his own scholarly work may have been a matter of principle as well as inclination. "Dryden," he wrote, "forebore, from prudence, indolence, or a regard for the freedom of Parnassus, to erect himself into a legislator."[490] The words remind us of comments made upon Scott's own work, as for example by Professor Masson, who spoke of "the shrewdness and sagacity of some of his critical prefaces to his ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... Parnassus. Lily's Menagerie To Charlotte Love's Distresses The Musagetes Morning Lament The Visit The Magic Net The Goblet To the Grasshopper. After Anacreon From the Sorrows of Young Werther Trilogy ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... echoes languish, Mute, but to the voice of anguish! Where each old poetic mountain Inspiration breathed around; Every shade and hallow'd fountain Murmur'd deep a solemn sound: Till the sad Nine, in Greece's evil hour Left their Parnassus for the Latian plains. Alike they scorn the pomp of tyrant Power, And coward Vice, that revels in her chains. When Latium had her lofty spirit lost, They sought, O Albion! next, ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... Theogony. The gods have also a history; we are told the story of their birth, the adventures of their youth, their exploits. Apollo, for example, was born on the island of Delos to which his mother Latona had fled; he slew a monster which was desolating the country at the foot of Parnassus. Each canton of Greece had thus its tales of the gods. These are called myths; the sum of them is termed Mythology, or the ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... sang his way along, until he came unto a mountain: And I know not surely whether it was called Parnassus, But he climbed it out of sight, and still I heard the voice ...
— The White Bees • Henry Van Dyke
... whispers refrain? Will poets the pent of Parnassus attain? Will travellers' tomes touch the truth to a T? Will critics from caustic ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 350, January 3, 1829 • Various
... rather a drug on the market up here. It's just a side-line. For a living I clean shoes at the 'Elight' Barbershop—I, who have lingered on the sunny slopes of Parnassus, and quenched my soul-thirst at the Heliconian spring—gents' ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... Gassendi and Descartes. While in Fetter Lane he associated with Harvey, Selden, and Cowley. He talked and wrangled with the wise men of half Europe. He had sat at Richelieu's table and been loaded with honours by Cosmo de Medici. The laurels Hobbes won in the schools he lost on Parnassus. His translation of Homer is tasteless and contemptible. In mathematics, too, he was dismounted by Wallis and others. Personally he had weaknesses. He was afraid of apparitions, he dreaded assassination, and had a fear ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... Often the Deities' Sire, in fulgent temple a-dwelling, Whenas in festal days received he his annual worship, Looked upon hundreds of bulls felled prone on pavement before him. Full oft Liber who roamed from topmost peak of Parnassus 390 Hunted his howling host, his Thyiads with tresses dishevelled. * * * * Then with contending troops from all their city outflocking Gladly the Delphians hailed their God with smoking of altars. Often in death-full war and bravest ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... of respiration once acquired, the student has gone a considerable step on the road to Parnassus. ...
— Caruso and Tetrazzini on the Art of Singing • Enrico Caruso and Luisa Tetrazzini
... European homage paid to Boileau. As Hannay says, "He was a dignified classic figure supposed to be the model of fine taste",[15] His word was law in the realm of criticism, and for many years he was known, not alone in France, but throughout a large portion of Europe, as "The Lawgiver of Parnassus". Prof. Dowden, referring to ...
— English Satires • Various
... Parnassus! whom I view above, Not laurel-crown'd, but clad in rusty black; Not spurring Pegasus through Tempe's grove, But pacing Grub-street on a jaded hack; What reams of foolscap, while your brains ye rack, Ye mar to make again! for sure, ere long, Condemn'd to tread the bard's ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... The dearest treasure that the world contains,— Of falling on thy neck, and folding thee Within my longing arms, which have till now Met the embraces of the empty wind. Do not repulse me,—the eternal spring, Whose crystal waters from Parnassus flow, Bounds not more gaily on from rock to rock, Down to the golden vale, than from my heart The waters of affection freely gush, And round me form a circling sea of bliss. ...
— Iphigenia in Tauris • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... he would have spoken of his friendship with Dante—had that been possible—more glibly than of his friendship with the Duke. Call him a snob if you like, but not the worst kind of snob; a hanger-on, but to the skirts of Art, not Society; a climber, but in the neighbourhood of Parnassus, not Hay Hill. ...
— The Red House Mystery • A. A. Milne
... nor ring one peal In thy dark chest. Talk not of shreeves, or gaol; I fear them not. I have no land to glut Thy dirty appetite, and make thee strut Nimrod of acres; I'll no speech prepare To court the hopeful cormorant, thine heir. For there's a kingdom at thy beck if thou But kick this dross: Parnassus' flow'ry brow I'll give thee with my Tempe, and to boot That horse which struck a fountain with his foot. A bed of roses I'll provide for thee, And crystal springs shall drop thee melody. The breathing shades ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... Parnassus Deeds of men: Seekers for a city The white Pacha Midnight, January 25, 1886 Advance, Australia Colonel Burnaby Melville and Coghill Rhodocleia: To Rhodocleia—on her melancholy singing Ave: Clevedon church Twilight on ...
— Grass of Parnassus • Andrew Lang
... the literary production of Colombia has excelled that of any other Spanish-American country. Menendez y Pelayo (Ant. Poetas Hisp.-Am., III, Introd.) speaks of Bogota as the "Athens of South America," and says further: "the Colombian Parnassus to-day excels in quality, if not in quantity, that of any other region of the New World." And Juan Valera in his Cartas americanas (primera serie, p. 121 f.) says: "Of all the people of South America the Bogotanos are the most devoted to letters, sciences and arts"; and again: "In ...
— Modern Spanish Lyrics • Various
... McTurtle found himself on the front seat of a motor lorry breasting the spurs of Mt. Parnassus. The dizziness of his path was invisible to him, for in a Grecian summer you can see nothing out of motor vehicles ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 4, 1919. • Various
... from the gods were received from certain inspired persons at places called oracles. The oracle of Apollo at Delphi in Phocis enjoyed the utmost veneration. It lay within a deep cave on the rocky side of Mount Parnassus. Out of a chasm rose a volcanic vapor which had a certain intoxicating power. The Pythia, or prophetess of Apollo, sat on a tripod over the steaming cleft and inhaled the gas. The words she uttered in delirium were supposed ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... all those whose but little known work has only been familiar to men for whom French literature does not begin the day when "Malherbe came," Francois Villon has had the honor of being the most pillaged, even by the big-wigs of modern Parnassus. They threw themselves upon the poor man's field and coined glory from his humble treasure. There are ballads scribbled under a penthouse at the street corner on a cold day by the Bohemian rhapsodist, stanzas improvised in the hovel in which the "belle qui ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... have fled from Sans-Souci forever. The Muses themselves are young, and it is but natural that they should seek your majesty's protection. I am thankful through your intervention, to be admitted once more to Parnassus." ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... MOUNT, mount Parnassus, the seat of the nine Muses (l. 485), the patronesses of the arts and of learning. Sacred and profane literature are beautifully blended in the thoughts of ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... Apollo, Lord of Dawn. And round the burning sacrifice they set up a broad dancing-ring, singing, "All hail, fair god of healing, Phoebus, all hail," and with them Oeagrus' goodly son began a clear lay on his Bistonian lyre; how once beneath the rocky ridge of Parnassus he slew with his bow the monster Delphyne, he, still young and beardless, still rejoicing in his long tresses. Mayst thou be gracious! Ever, O king, be thy locks unshorn, ever unravaged; for so is it right. And none but Leto, daughter of Coeus, strokes them with ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... may judge from what he has already published, and promises to publish, concerning the same. He once had the temerity to dabble in poetry;[197] but he never could raise his head above the mists which infest the swampy ground at the foot of Parnassus. Still he loves 'the divine art' enthusiastically; and affects, forsooth, to have a taste in matters of engraving and painting! Converse with him about Guercino and Albert Durer, Berghem and Woollett, and tell him that you wish to have his opinion about the erection ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... also, the Steelyard placed its contribution to the celebration of Anne Boleyn's coronation in the painter's hands. And the result was, as Stow tells us, "a costly and marvellous cunning pageant by the merchants of the Stilyard, wherein was the Mount Parnassus, with the Fountaine of Helicon, which was of white marble; and four streams without pipe did rise an ell high and mette together in a little cup above the fountaine; which fountaine ran abundantly with Rhenish wine till night. On the mountaine sat Apollo, and at his feet sat ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue
... interesting, no doubt, to have dined with him in Paris; to have quarried lions in their African fens; to have heard archaic hymns ripple through the rushes of the Nile; to have lounged in the Academe, to have scaled Parnassus, and sailed the AEgean Sea; but, a history and an arm-chair aiding, the traveller has but to close his eyes and the past returns. Without disturbing so much as a shirt-box, he may repeat that promenade. Triremes have foundered; litters are out of date; ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... I tried to calm myself. Had I the stuff in me to win and to wear these bays, this stupendous laurel crown?—bays, laurel crown, a distinct souvenir of Parnassus, but there is no modern equivalent, I must strive to invent a new one, in the meantime let me think. True it is that Swinburne was before me with the "Romantiques." The hymn to Proserpine and Dolores are wonderful lyrical versions ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... your lips until they mix With my poor quality their richer wine: Be my Parnassus now, and grow more green Each upward step towards ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... that sacred realm Could store, shall now be matter of my song. Benign Apollo! this last labour aid, And make me such a vessel of thy worth, As thy own laurel claims of me belov'd. Thus far hath one of steep Parnassus' brows Suffic'd me; henceforth there is need of both For my remaining enterprise Do thou Enter into my bosom, and there breathe So, as when Marsyas by thy hand was dragg'd Forth from his limbs unsheath'd. O power divine! If thou to me of shine impart so ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... known, the Country Club mint originally sprang on the slopes of Parnassus and was transplanted thence to the bosky banks of Culpeper Creek, Gaines County, Ky., and thence to our own environs; while the classic distillation with which Tom mingles it to produce his chief d'oeuvre is the oft-quoted liquefied soul of a Southern moonbeam falling aslant ...
— The Ideal Bartender • Tom Bullock
... noting an essential distinction between 'Shakspere,' the actor, and 'Shakespeare,' the playwright. The name, referring to the man who was both actor and author, is spelled both 'Shakspeare' and 'Shakespeare' in the 'Returne from Parnassus' (1602).* The 'school of critics' which divides the substance of Shakespeare on the strength of the spelling of a proper name, in the casual times of great Elizabeth, ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... line of argument is worked out with wonderful subtlety of thought and beauty of poetical expression by Calderon, in one of the finest of his Autos Sacramentales, "The Sacred Parnassus". Autos Sacramentales, ...
— The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria - A Drama of Early Christian Rome • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... dealing with Tschaikowsky (the only personal and professional study of the kind in print); "Strauss and Nietzsche;" "The Greater Chopin," an inquiry into what Chopin was and was not, that has no superior; "A Liszt Etude;" "The Royal Road to Parnassus," a fluent survey of modern primitive works; and last, "A Note on ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... Parnassus alone, of all the mountains, overtopped the waves; and there Deucalion, and his wife Pyrrha, of the race of Prometheus, found refuge—he a just man, and she a faithful worshipper of the gods. Jupiter, when he saw none left alive ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... have not answered W. Scott's last letter, but I will. I regret to hear from others that he has lately been unfortunate in pecuniary involvements. He is undoubtedly the Monarch of Parnassus, and the ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... housewife turns her hay or cuts her patch of rye or wheat growing just outside her door. Now we follow the musical little river Vologne as it tosses over its stony bed amid banks golden with yellow loosestrife, or gently ripples amid fair stretches of pasture starred with the grass of Parnassus. The perpetual music of rushing, tumbling, trickling water is delightful, and even in hot weather, if it is ever indeed hot here, the mossy banks and babbling streams must give a sense of coolness. Deep down, entombed amid smiling green hills and frowning forest peaks, lies ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... the country of Phocis still raised two peaks above the surrounding waters. It was the great Mount Parnassus. Toward this floated a boat containing Deucalion, the son of Prometheus, and his wife Pyrrha. No man, no woman, had ever been found who surpassed these in righteousness and piety. When, therefore, Jupiter, ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... was the most exquisite work of art! She was the very daisy, primrose, tuberose, sweet brier, furze blossom, gilliflower, wall flower, cauliflower, auricula, and rosemary! In short, she was the bouquet of Parnassus! When expectations were so high, it was thought she would be injured by her appearance, but it was the audience who were injured: several fainted before the curtain drew up! When she came to the scene of parting ...
— English as She is Wrote - Showing Curious Ways in which the English Language may be - made to Convey Ideas or obscure them. • Anonymous
... command of his father, Deucalion built a ship, in which he and his wife took refuge during the deluge, which lasted for nine days. When the waters abated the ship rested on Mount Othrys in Thessaly, or according to some on Mount Parnassus. Deucalion and his wife now consulted the oracle of Themis as to how the human race might be restored. The answer was, that they were to cover their heads, and throw the bones of their mother behind them. For some time they were perplexed as to the meaning of the oracular command, but ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... detail, combining the recollections of the scholar with the impressions of an artist. The pediment of the Parthenon, the oleanders of the Ilissus, the stream "that runs in rain-time," the naked peak of Parnassus, the green slopes of Helicon, the blue gulf of Argus, the pine forest beside Alpheus, where the ancients worshipped "Death the Gentle"—all of them passed in recount ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... kind of challenge to the world. Other nations had till then inclined to look upon our language and literature as barbarous: and we had not been very sure ourselves that we had any right to a place on the Parnassus of the nations. Great men in Italy and France had thought those {208} languages worth the labours of a lifetime. In England before Johnson's Dictionary, nothing had been done to claim for English ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... wonder-working Lewis! monk, or bard, Who fain would make Parnassus a church-yard! Lo! wreaths of yew, not laurel, bind thy brow, Thy Muse a sprite, Apollo's sexton thou! Whether on ancient tombs thou tak'st thy stand, By gibbering spectres hail'd, thy kindred band; Or tracest chaste descriptions on thy page, To ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... Englands Parnassus: or The choysest Flowers of our Moderne Poets, with their Poeticall comparisons. Descriptions of Bewties, Personages, Castles, Pallaces, Mountaines, Groues, Seas, Springs, Riuers, &c. Whereunto are annexed other various discourses, both pleasaunt and profitable. Imprinted at London for ...
— Catalogue of the Books Presented by Edward Capell to the Library of Trinity College in Cambridge • W. W. Greg
... private life were identified with the will of the gods. But that time had passed. Pallas, the ethereal goddess of the Athenians, and the Sun god whose oracles, delivered from the temple between the twin summits of Parnassus, did so much for the Greek nationality, aided in keeping up a lofty ideal of religion; but when the enlightened men of Greece learnt to apply their keen faculty of reasoning to the system of their inherited belief, they became quickly conscious that the conceptions of the gods corrupted the ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... signifies rather "harsh," "bitter," or "painful," being applied habitually to fate, death, and in Odyssey xi. 333, to a halter; and, as expressive of general objectionableness and unpleasantness, to all high, dangerous, or peaked mountains, as the Maleian promontory (a much-dreaded one), the crest of Parnassus, the Tereian mountain, and a grim or untoward, though, by keeping off the force of the sea, protective, rock at the mouth of the Jardanus; as well as habitually to inaccessible or impregnable fortresses built ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... have seen us both have marked the likeness." So she knelt down to wash his feet, but Odysseus turned himself as much as he could from the fire, for he feared that she might see the mark of the wound which the boar's tusk had made long ago when he went to Parnassus. But he strove in vain. For presently she saw the scar, and she let go his feet, and the water was spilt upon the ground, as she cried out, "It is Odysseus, and I knew him not until I saw the print of the deadly wound which Autolykus healed by his wondrous ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... don't do it I warn you, Dear Mat, I'll raise such a clamor and cry On Parnassus the Muses will scorn you As mocker of poets and fly With bitter complaints to Apollo: "Her spirit is proud, her heart hollow, Her beauty"—they'll hardly deny, On second ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... us together," answered Odysseus. But her words filled him with alarm, and recalled to his mind an old scar, just above the knee, caused by a wound which he had received from a wild boar while hunting in his boyhood in the valleys of Parnassus, during a visit to Autolycus, Penelope's father. If his old nurse should discover the scar she would be certain to recognise him, and the consequences of the premature discovery might be fatal. However, he had now no excuse for declining ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... tender conscience," said Lord Dalgarno; "and the fico for such outcasts of Parnassus! Why, these are the very leavings of that noble banquet of pickled herrings and Rhenish, which lost London so many of her principal witmongers and bards of misrule. What would you have said had you seen Nash or Green, when you interest yourself about the poor mimes you supped with last ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... looked more closely into the matter, I could not say she was wrong. I had sometimes even ventured to recite to her, though anonymously, some of my own poems; but these fared no better than the rest of the set. And thus, in a short time, the beautiful variegated meadows at the foot of the German Parnassus, where I was fond of luxuriating, were mercilessly mowed down; and I was even compelled to toss about the drying hay myself, and to ridicule that as lifeless which, a short time before, had given ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... Greece were particularly renowned for temples from which oracles were issued. The temple of Apollo at Delphi, situated upon a lofty rock near Parnassus, and that of Jupiter in the groves of Dodona, were celebrated for the responses of the Pythia and the priests; they were held in the greatest veneration for many ages, and their oracles were consulted even in the most enlightened times by philosophers ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 11, November, 1880 • Various
... what charms in thee are found; I, who have drunk from thine ethereal rill, And tasted all the pleasures that abound Upon Parnassus' loved Aonian hill? I, through whose soul the Muse's strains aye thrill! Oh! I do feel the spell with which I'm tied; And though our annals fearful stories tell, How Savage languish'd, and how Otway died, Yet must I persevere, let whate'er ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... thoughts, obscure and far-sought expressions, not only unintelligible, but which it is even impossible to decipher, or to guess at, are all the consequences of this error; and two-thirds of the new French books which now appear are made up of those ingredients. It is the new cookery of Parnassus, in which the still is employed instead of the pot and the spit, and where quintessences and extracts ate chiefly used. N. B. The Attic ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... Old climes of historic fame explore, And gather the gems of their buried lore,— With Prophet-bards seek inspiring themes, Or muse alone by old fabled streams,— With the Poet take our enraptured flight, And woo the Muse on Parnassus' height,— Take fair Philosophy by the hand, And roam with her through her native land,— May win from the God-inspired of Earth Heavenly treasures of priceless worth,— Till the mental stores of all ages flown, And all gifted minds, we ...
— Poems of the Heart and Home • Mrs. J.C. Yule (Pamela S. Vining)
... Parnassus, Apollo's mount, has two peaks, and on these, for sixty years, from 1830 to 1890,[1] two poets sat, till their right to these lofty peaks became unchallenged. Beneath them, during these years, on the lower knolls of the mount of song, many new ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... and that "Lyrics" and "London" are not, at this moment, in plain sight on your reading-table. You must forget that you saw John's portrait in the last "Bookman." Unless you are good at make-believe, it is no fun at all. You must know nothing of the rosy glow on the peaks of Parnassus, so that you may struggle with John and Phyllis up the ...
— Old Valentines - A Love Story • Munson Aldrich Havens
... languished on the lower slopes Of sweet Parnassus in the thrice-dead years, Chanting in fathoms of the fathomless To kindred ears. (Certainly not! No ...
— The Auld Doctor and other Poems and Songs in Scots • David Rorie
... there nought else this civil war compleat, But poets raging with poetic heat, Tearing themselves and th' endlesse wreath, as though Immortal they, their wrath should be so, too? And doubly fir'd Apollo burns to see In silent Helicon a naumachie. Parnassus hears these at his first alarms; Never till now Minerva was in arms. O more then conqu'ror of the world, great Rome! Thy heros did with gentleness or'e come Thy foes themselves, but one another first, Whilst envy stript alone was ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace
... he is toiling up a steep hill, along a bad road. What with short-windedness, stones, nits, and a pervading sense of the wisdom of rest and be thankful, most of us have little enough sense of the beautiful under these circumstances. The ordinary schoolboy is precisely in this case. He finds Parnassus uncommonly steep, and there is no chance of his having much time or inclination to look about him till he gets to the top. And nine times out of ten he does not get ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... took place; but it yielded in the first instance with rare exceptions only premature or unripe fruits. The number of the "new-fashioned poets" was legion, but poetry was rare and Apollo was compelled, as always when so many throng towards Parnassus, to make very short work. The long poems never were worth anything, the short ones seldom. Even in this literary age the poetry of the day had become a public nuisance; it sometimes happened that one's friend would send home to him by way of mockery as a festal present a pile ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... no one will attribute the degradation of the modern Greeks from the high moral cultivation of their ancestors, to any alteration in the climate of their country, so let us never despair of the return of virtue, of poetry, of the arts and sciences, whilst Parnassus and Helicon still enjoy the same glorious sun, and whilst the Isles are still gilded by eternal summer. We want no proofs that patriotism still lives in Greece, and with that feeling will ever be associated the powers that are able to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 334 Saturday, October 4, 1828 • Various
... demands from nature the same scale of proportions as are suggested by the works of man. Where these are chiefly remarkable for their height, much of their effect will be destroyed by the proximity of such hills as Acrocorinthus or Lycabettus, to say nothing of Taygetus or Parnassus. ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... thirsty for the divine fruit. The initiation is, as in that of all natural knowledge, easy in appearance, difficult in reality. Benevolence is like poesy; nothing is easier than to catch the appearance of it. But here, as in Parnassus, nothing contents us but perfection. To become one to us, you must acquire a great knowledge of life. And what a life,—good God! Parisian life, which defies the sagacity of the minister of police and all his agents! We have to circumvent the perpetual conspiracy of Evil, master it in all ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... Morris's Songs than in the writings of any other American poet.' Willis also tells us, as proof of the General's popularity with those shrewd dollar-loving men, the publishers, that 'he can, at any time, obtain fifty dollars for a song unread, when the whole remainder of the American Parnassus could not sell one to the same buyer for a single shilling!' He is the best-known poet of the country by ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... Actaeian lands Lies Phocis; fruitful were the Phocian fields While fields they were, but now o'erwhelm'd, they form A region only of the wide-spread main. Here stands Parnassus with his forked top, Above the clouds high-towering to the stars. To this Deucalion with his consort driven O'er ridgy billows in his bark clung close; For all was sea beside. There bend they down; The nymphs, and mountain ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... wrote, on Jan. 15, 1775 (Letters, vi. 171):—'They [the Millers] hold a Parnassus-fair every Thursday, give out rhymes and themes, and all the flux of quality at Bath contend for the prizes. A Roman Vase, dressed with pink ribands and myrtles, receives the poetry, which is drawn out every festival: six judges of these Olympic games retire and ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... of the celebrities which are authentic, comme il faut. Among them were many marked faces, many fine heads; but, in reading the works of poets, we always fancy them about the age of Apollo himself, and I found with pain some of my favorites quite old, and very unlike the company on Parnassus, as represented by Raphael. Some, however, were venerable, even noble ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... number of dinners, the devouring of which qualify a young gentleman to address an enlightened British jury, we have no authority for deciding. He was certainly not the first, nor the last, young Templar who has quitted special pleading on a crusade to the heights of Parnassus, and he began early to try the nib of his pen and the colour of his ink in a novel. Eheu! how many a novel has issued from the dull, dirty chambers of that same Temple! The waters of the Thames just there seem to have been augmented by a mingled ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... that way from a rising ground, lo! I saw a city, and on one side of it two small hills; that which was nearer to the city being lower than the other. "That city," said he, "is called Athens, the lower hill Parnassus, and the higher Helicon. They are so called, because in the city and around it dwell the wise men who formerly lived in Greece, as Pythagoras, Socrates, Aristippus, Xenophon, with their disciples and scholars." On my asking him concerning Plato and Aristotle, he said, "They and their followers ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... adorned his satin waistcoat. On a bench in a raised part of the hall I could descry Ikonin (evidently he had contrived to enter the University somehow!), and hear him fussily proclaiming, in all the glory of blue piped trousers which completely hid his boots, that he was now seated on Parnassus. Ilinka—who had surprised me by giving me a bow not only cold, but supercilious, as though to remind me that here we were all equals—was just in front of me, with his legs resting in free and easy style ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... well as that of theology; but that, on the contrary, he elevated the creations of fancy on the one wall, to the same rank as the objects of faith upon the other; that in deliberate, balanced opposition to the Rock of the Mount Zion, he reared the rock of Parnassus, and the rock of the Acropolis; that, among the masters of poetry we find him enthroning Petrarch and Pindar, but not Isaiah nor David, and for lords over the domain of philosophy we find the masters of the school of Athens, but neither of those greater ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... Don Juan, 149 stanzas. So that there will be near three thin Albemarle, or two thick volumes of all sorts of my Muses. I mean to plunge thick, too, into the contest upon Pope, and to lay about me like a dragon till I make manure of * * * for the top of Parnassus. ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... in Vienna in 1856, we owe our best knowledge of the Persians. He has translated into German, besides the "Divan" of Hafiz, specimens of two hundred poets, who wrote during a period of five and a half centuries, from A.D. 1050 to 1600. The seven masters of the Persian Parnassus—Firdousi, Enweri, Nisami, Dschelaleddin, Saadi, Hafiz, and Dschami[D]—have ceased to be empty names; and others, like Ferideddin Attar and Omar Chiam, promise to rise in Western estimation. That ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Salaman and Absal • Omar Khayyam and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... pathetic than the way in which these dim, destitute places hug the memory of any puny whipster of a poet who may have been born within their statutory boundaries. This has its advantages, for it keeps alive in certain localities fames that would otherwise have utterly perished. Parnassus has forgotten all about poor Henry Kirke White, but the lace manufacturers of Nottingham still name him with whatever degree of reverence they may respectively consider to be the due of letters. Manchester is yet mindful of Dr. John ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... still pointed out. "A bare isolated hillock of grey stone stands at the point where our road from Daulia meets the road to Delphi and a third road that stretches to the south.... The road runs up a frowning pass between Parnassus on the right hand and the spurs of the Helicon range on the left. Away to the south a wild and desolate valley opens, running up among the waste places of Helicon, a scene of inexpressible grandeur and desolation" ...
— Oedipus King of Thebes - Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes • Sophocles
... direction of the American School of Archaeology, has ever been a place of peculiar interest to the mystic. Here are to be found all the natural features and objects which gladden the heart and stimulate the imagination of a solo-phallic worshipper. The holy Mt. Parnassus, the fountain of Kastali, the deep cave said to be Pythian, and the remnants of huge sepulchres hewn in the rocks all conspire to make of this spot a perfect abode for the god, or goddess, of fertility. Here, too, is a beautiful lake ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble
... Magnesia, east of Thessaly, on the coast, comprised within it the two ranges of Ossa and Pelion. Central Greece contained eleven states. Malis had on its eastern edge the pass of Thermopylae. In Phocis, on the southern slope of Mount Parnassus, was Delphi. Boeotia was distinguished for the number and size of its cities, the chief of which was Thebes. Attica projected from Boeotia to the south-east, its length being seventy miles, and its greatest width thirty miles. Its area was only about seven hundred and twenty square ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... plays have been thought to bear a greater or less part in the war of the theatres. Among them the most important is a college play, entitled "The Return from Parnassus," dating 1601-02. In it a much-quoted passage makes Burbage, as a character, declare: "Why here's our fellow Shakespeare puts them all down; aye and Ben Jonson, too. O that Ben Jonson is a pestilent fellow; he brought up Horace, giving the poets a pill, but our fellow ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... seem to admire a mite, unless it is magnified by a Brobdignag microscope! While he is struggling with the force of three empires, he fancies that it adds to his glory to be unbent enough to contend for laurels with the triflers of a French Parnassus! ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... by right supreme, With frosted locks adrift, and eyes a-dream, With quick short footfalls, and an arm a-swing, As to some cosmic rhythm heard to ring From Putney to Parnassus, a brief bard. (In stature, not in song!) Though passion-scarred, Porphyrogenitus at least he looks; Haughty as one who rivalry scarce brooks; Unreminiscent now of youthful rage, Almost "respectable," and well-nigh ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 22, 1892 • Various
... the bagpipe; but the spot was sacred from the old times: even its name reminded of this, for it was called Delphi! The dark solemn mountains were all covered with snow; the highest, which gleamed the longest in the red light of evening, was Parnassus; the brook which rolled from it near our house was once sacred also. Now the ass sullies it with its feet, but the stream rolls on and on, and becomes clear again. How I can remember every spot in the deep holy solitude! ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... to me, and I will find a good look-out. How would Caucasus do? Or is Parnassus higher? Olympus, perhaps, is higher than either of them. Olympus! stay, that reminds me; I have a happy thought. But there is work for two here; I ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... mortals, who, instead Of being hissed and acted, would be read: We claim your favour, if with worthy gear You'd fill the temple Phoebus holds so dear, And give poor bards the stimulus of hope To aid their progress up Parnassus' slope. Poor bards! much harm to our own cause we do (It tells against myself, but yet 'tis true), When, wanting you to read us, we intrude On times of business or of lassitude, When we lose temper if a friend thinks fit To find a fault or two with ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... encircled with the protecting dance of Curetes. Through the envious artifices of Heré, the Titans eluded the vigilance of his guardians and tore him to pieces; but Pallas restored the still palpitating heart to his father, who commanded Apollo to bury the dismembered remains upon Parnassus. ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... town built in a sort of valley, shaped like an amphitheater, on the southern side of Mount Parnassus. Mount Parnassus is north of the Peloponnesus, not very far from the shores of the Gulf of Corinth. Delphi was in a picturesque and romantic situation, with the mountain behind it, and steep, precipitous rocks descending to the level country before. These precipices answered instead ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... narrow pass of Thermopylae, between the sea and a lofty range of mountains. The district along the coast was inhabited by the EASTERN LOCRIANS, while to their west were DORIS and PHOCIS, the greater part of the latter being occupied by Mount Parnassus, the abode of the Muses, upon the slopes of which lay the town of Delphi with its celebrated oracle of Apollo. South of Phocis is Boeotia, which is a large hollow basin, enclosed on every side by mountains, which prevent the waters from flowing into the sea. Hence ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... steps to Norfolk none forbeare, I'm confident thou shalt be welcom'd there, Where that thy autor hee was bred and borne, Though to Parnassus Girles was never sworne." ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 33, June 15, 1850 • Various
... the green mountain meadows between literally verifying its name by the brilliance of their sunshiny rich grass, where "God had showered the landscape;" to a fantastic fancy, giving the idea of the quivering of the richest leaf gold on a ground of emerald. The humbler Welsh Parnassus of the painter poet, Grongar Hill, towered also in distance. We traced the pastoral yet noble river, winding away in long meanders, up-flashing silver, through a broad mountain valley, dotted with white farms, rich in various foliage, marked as a map by lines, with well-marked hedge-rows; harvest ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... he can, that "wondrous chain which links the heavens with earth—the world of beings subject to one law." In his reflections Emerson, unlike Plato, is not afraid to ride Arion's Dolphin, and to go wherever he is carried—to Parnassus or ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... may cover himself with the branches of different plants, and may hold discourse worthily with the Muses, for they are his aura or comforter, his anchor or support, and his harbour, to which he retires in times of labour, of agitation, and storm. Hence he cries: "O mountain of Parnassus, where I abide! Muses, with whom I converse! Fountain of Helicon, where I am nourished. Mountain, that affordest me a quiet dwelling-place! Muses, that inspire me with profound doctrines. Fountain, that cleanses me! Mountain, on whose ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... advantages that you possess, the walls parted and through them cavalcaded the strumpet whose name is Fame. In circumstances equally inspiring Bunyan entertained that hussy. Verlaine too. From a dungeon she lifted him to Parnassus, lifted him to the top. If I only had their luck—and yours! It is too good for you. You don't appreciate it. Besides you will be ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... in three lines, says Mr. Verrall, than for Pytho or Delphi in three hundred. As a whole, the spirit of the piece is much more Delian (Ionian) than Delphic. So Mr. Verrall regards the Cento as "a religious pasquinade against the sanctuary on Parnassus," a pasquinade emanating from Athens, under the Pisistratidae, who, being Ionian leaders, had a grudge against "the Dorian Delphi," "a comparatively modern, unlucky, and from the first unsatisfactory" institution. Athenians are interested in the "far-seen" ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang
... Muse, migrate—from Greece and Ionia, Cross out, please, those immensely overpaid accounts, That matter of Troy and Achilles' wrath, and Aeneas', Odysseus' wanderings, Placard "Removed" and "To Let" on the rocks of your snowy Parnassus, Repeat at Jerusalem, place the notice high on Jaffa's gate and on Mount Moriah, The same on the walls of your German, French and Spanish castles, and Italian collections, For know a better, fresher, busier sphere, a wide, untried domain ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... "Helicon pob ffynnon ffel, Parnassus pob bryn isel: Eu rhyfedd faner hefyd Achuba, orchfyga fyd; O Gressi'r maes hagr asw, I antur lan Waterlw: Ac y diwrnod cadarnwych Bydd y deyrnas addas wych Heb ei bath, heibio i bob Un arall o fewn Ewrob; Rheola mewn rhialyd ...
— Gwaith Alun • Alun
... of it size and kind to be seen; quite a tasteful thing, and so convenient, that he could lay himself down at the hearth, and roll out to its foot, after which he ascended it on his legs, with all the elasticity of a young poet triumphantly climbing Parnassus. ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... varnished elbows, burnished knuckles, And you'll elicit scornful chuckles From Muse and from Mechanic! Selections from the terms of trade Would put, I'm very much afraid, Parnassus ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 13, 1893 • Various
... must acknowledge that I have felt sensations which few ladies can easily believe they excite. Airs and graces I can bear as well as another; but airs without graces no man thinks himself bound to bear, and learned airs least of all. Ladies of high rank in the court of Parnassus are apt, sometimes, to claim precedency out of their own dominions, which creates much confusion, and generally ends in their being affronted. That knowledge of the world which keeps people in their proper places they will ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... who's striving Parnassus to climb With a whole bale of isms tied together with rhyme; He might get on alone, spite of brambles and boulders, But he can't with that bundle he has on his shoulders; The top of the hill he will ne'er come nigh reaching Till he learns the distinction 'twixt singing and preaching; ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... whole choir of Muses, madam, have migrated to the Court of Whitehall, no wonder if some dews of Parnassus should fertilize at times ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... Christ as perfect in beauty, in grace and refinement, as He is perfect in love and in sacrifice. The music of the past, in all its highest reaches from Gregory to Mendelssohn, celebrates His grand redemption. The most gifted poets, from Dante, pealing his threefold anthem from the topmost peak of Parnassus, to Shakespeare, with "his woodnotes wild"; from Milton, with his "sevenfold chorus of hallelujahs and harping symphonies," to Tennyson, ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... much the latest contribution to the Rosslyn Series, edited by Earl HODGSON, who is of the Peerage of Parnassus, as you won't find this Earl in Brett's Peerage. The Baron congratulates the Earl, and has also sent an order for a pound of laurels wherewith to decorate the brow of WALTER HERRIES POLLOCK. Among the many gems of his songs let me select ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Dec. 20, 1890 • Various
... [277][Greek: titthe], and [Greek: titthos], in Greek. They were so denominated from their resemblance to a woman's breast; and were particularly sacred to Orus and Osiris, the Deities of light, who by the Grecians were represented under the title of Apollo. Hence the summit of Parnassus was [278]named Tithorea, from Tith-Or: and hard by was a city, mentioned by Pausanias, of the same name; which was alike sacred to Orus and Apollo. The same author takes notice of a hill, near Epidaurus, called [279][Greek: ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant
... had compared him to Seneca and Plautus,[*] and Jonson seems to burlesque the compliment by comparing Drayton himself to every poet whom he had ever imitated, until his single person seems an epitome of all Parnassus. The poem and its companions had another edition in 1631, since which time it has been included in every edition of Drayton's works, but has never till now been published by itself. Even here it is graced ...
— The Battaile of Agincourt • Michael Drayton
... was called Anticleia: she was the daughter of King Autolycus, who lived near Parnassus, a mountain on the mainland. This King Autolycus was the most cunning of men. He was a Master Thief, and could steal a man's pillow from under his head, but he does not seem to have been thought worse of for this. The ...
— Tales of Troy: Ulysses the Sacker of Cities • Andrew Lang
... a new plant in her hand]. This is the grass of Parnassus. It makes a good hair-ointment.—Pretty is ...
— Hadda Padda • Godmunder Kamban
... shot the sparkle of the twisting water, and you might dream things half-fulfilled. Knots of fern were about, but the tops of the mounds were firm grass, evidently well rolled, and with an eye to airy feet. Olympus one eminence was called, Parnassus the other. Olympus a little overlooked Parnassus, but Parnassus was broader and altogether better adapted for the games of the Muses. Round the edges of both there was a well-trimmed bush of laurel, obscuring only the feet of the dancers from the observing gods. For on Olympus the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... her hero's sudden lapse—from Parnassus to the scullery, from love to the commonplaces of living; but she had schooled herself to bear with him, since patience is a woman's part. Yet her honest blue eyes were not adapted to concealment and, furtively taking note of her distress, Hardy fell ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... hold the steep of Parnassus, say, was it ever a bowl like this that old Chiron set before Heracles in the rocky cave of Pholus? Was it nectar like this that beguiled the shepherd to dance and foot it about his folds, the shepherd that dwelt by Anapus, on a time, the strong Polyphemus ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... Venetian picture has ever been thoroughly engraved. Of Titian's Peter Martyr, there is even no worthy memorial transcript but Le Febre's. The Cartoons have been multiplied in false readings; never in faithful ones till lately by photography. Of the Disputa and the Parnassus, what can the English public know? of the thoughtful Florentines and Milanese, of Ghirlandajo, and Luini, and their accompanying hosts—what do they yet so much ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... the sleeping senator hung his portrait, in which he was modestly represented as rising by the assistance of Minerva to the top of Parnassus, the nine Muses standing round him rejoicing. At his feet reposed a magnificent white cat, whose head rested in all the luxurious laziness of satiety on the edge of a golden saucer half filled with ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... vanity, or fixed her soul on the mere triumphs of "literary reputation". While firm to her own creed, she fully enjoyed the success of those who scramble up—where she bore the standard to the heights of Parnassus; she was never more happy than when introducing some literary "Tyro" to those who could aid or advise a future career. We can speak from experience of the warm interest she took in the Hospital for the cure of ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 7 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 12, 1850 • Various
... metaphor, or image, unsupported by a sound sense, or where the same sense might have been conveyed with equal force and dignity in plainer words [3]. Lute, harp, and lyre, Muse, Muses, and inspirations, Pegasus, Parnassus, and Hippocrene were all an abomination to him. In fancy I can almost hear him now, exclaiming "Harp? Harp? Lyre? Pen and ink, boy, you mean! Muse, boy, Muse? Your nurse's daughter, you mean! Pierian spring? Oh aye! the cloister-pump, I suppose!" ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... on one common errand bound, One common fate o'erwhelms; and so, me-seems, A fable have we of our daily round, Who in these groves of learning here are found Climbing Parnassus' slopes. Our aim is one, And one the path by which we strive to soar; Yet, truer still, or ere the prize be won, A common ruin hurls us to our doom. 'Twere best we parted, you and I; so, Fate, Baulked of her double prey, may seek in vain, And miss us both ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... of dress has always been of the gravest importance to the theatrical profession. It was a charge brought against the actors of Elizabeth's time, that they walked about the town in gaudy and expensive attire. The author of "The Return from Parnassus," first published in 1606, but held to have been written at an earlier date, specially refers to the prosperity, and the consequent arrogance of the players. He is believed to have had in ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... is any poet. Do you wish more? Well, then, Jupiter, a god who, if he were living now, would deserve to be put in jail, does not launch the thunderbolt, but the thunderbolt falls when electricity wills it. There is no Parnassus; there is no Olympus; there is no Stygian lake; nor are there any other Elysian Fields than those of Paris. There is no other descent to hell than the descents of Geology, and this traveller, every time he returns from it, declares that there are no damned ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... as "Mother Goose's Melodies" has the dignity of being already an undoubted classic among the most incipient cultivators of literature in the United States. It is a compilation taken mostly from "Gammer Gurton's Garland" or the "Nursery Parnassus," an English child's book about a century old, of which various editions have been published in London, Glasgow, and other places. It is stated in one of its late prefaces that it was originally issued at Stockton in a small twopenny brochure, ...
— Chenodia - The Classic Mother Goose • Jacob Bigelow
... future age, Who bear thy name, be blest with genius high; Be courteous, gentle, beautiful, and sage, And to the real pitch of honour fly. That to their glory the historic page They may with worthy argument supply; So that for aye Parnassus' hill and well Shall ring ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto |
