"Theseus" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the mystic influence of fairy-lore if he lives through a winter among believing dalesmen. Let him look on the long silvery glimmer of a sea-voe, and hear the natives tell of trows chasing the ebbing Neptune down there on the dim sea-strand in a night of haze, before he says (with Theseus, in the ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... of Palamon and Arcite by Chaucer, and the love of Athenian Theseus for the Amazonian Queen Hippolyta, as told by Plutarch, gave William his first idea of composing a play where the acts of fairies and human beings would assimilate in their loves ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... on one side a grim crevice running narrowly to the top of the railway bridge, and ahead a shadowy opening like the front of an underground store, with a wooden partition, in the centre of which was a small square of glass. Theseus, who got through the Labyrinth, would have been puzzled with this mystic passage. We never saw such a time-worn and dumfounding road to any place, and if those who patronise it regularly had done their best to discover the essence of dinginess and intractibility, ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... task of framing it has not been committed to an assembly of men, but has been performed by some individual citizen of preeminent wisdom and approved integrity. Minos, we learn, was the primitive founder of the government of Crete, as Zaleucus was of that of the Locrians. Theseus first, and after him Draco and Solon, instituted the government of Athens. Lycurgus was the lawgiver of Sparta. The foundation of the original government of Rome was laid by Romulus, and the work completed by two of his elective successors, Numa and Tullius Hostilius. On the ...
— The Federalist Papers
... situated in the suburb of the Ceramicus on the river Cephissus about a mile to the north-west of Athens from the gate called Dipylum. It was said to have belonged to the ancient Attic hero Academus, who, when the Dioscuri invaded Attica to recover their sister Helen, carried off by Theseus, revealed the place where she was hidden. Out of gratitude the Lacedaemonians, who reverenced the Dioscuri, always spared the Academy during their invasions of the country. It was walled in by Hipparchus and was adorned with ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... who with her nymphs and hounds nightly roamed the fields and woods. The monsters, the Sphinx, the Minotaur, the Cyclops, the Centaurs, symbols of a yet unhuman or half human power of nature, were overcome by the Greek heroes, Perseus, Hercules, Jason, Theseus, OEdipus, the types of human strength and valor. The religious festivals were enlivened by trials of men's strength and skill in games, and the historian and poet offered to the gods the products of human genius. In the religion of the Greeks, however, the moral element, although not passed ...
— A Comparative View of Religions • Johannes Henricus Scholten
... "Pheidippides," and "Echetlos" celebrate Greek thought and adventure. Very important poems such as "Saul" and "Rabbi Ben Ezra," have to do with Jewish life. And unlike Shakespeare, who is not concerned with making Julius Caesar a Roman or Duke Theseus a Greek, Browning brings to the creation of each of these widely divergent characters, a detailed knowledge of the special habits of life and thought of the nation or race concerned. He represents also many kinds of human interest. We find in his ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... exploits resemble and rival those of Hercules. The most famous of them was the killing of the Minotaur. Theseus was the ...
— Ritchie's Fabulae Faciles - A First Latin Reader • John Kirtland, ed.
... him as her son, And hailed him hero: his sole, fitting tomb Were Theseus' temple or the Parthenon, Fondly she deemed. His brethren bare him home, Their exiled glory, past the guarded gate Where England's Abbey shelters England's great. Afar he rests whose very name hath shed New lustre on her with the song he sings. So Shakespeare rests who scorned to lie with kings, ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... once been queen of the Warrior Women, and had led her armies to battle. But Emelia had never fought in these battles. When she was still a child, Duke Theseus of Athens had fought with Hippolyta and conquered her. Instead of sending his royal captive to prison, Theseus married her, and took her home to Athens with him. When he took her there, he took Emelia with her. He was very kind to them both, and the castle in Athens was ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... inquire. Plutarch has gravely given us the lives and actions of several heroes who are evidently more fabulous than Capac, and of others who should be placed on the same line with him. The existence of Theseus, Romulus and Numa is more doubtful and their actions less probable than his. The character of Capac, in regard to its reality, stands on a parallel with that of the Lycurgus of Plutarch and the Cyrus of Xenophon; not purely historical nor purely ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... with a sneer, "you have not taken your seat yet. I suppose Lord Dawton's representative, whose place you are to supply, is like Theseus, sedet eternumque sedebit. A thousand pities you can't come in before next week; we shall then have fiery motions in the Lower House, as ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Quixote in the Duchesse's park; biographies of Appius and Virginia, of Caesar, of Nero, of Holophernes, of Hugolino in the tower of hunger, taken from Roman history, the Bible and Dante; adventures of chivalry, in which figures Theseus, duke of Athens, where blood flows profusely, with all the digressions and all the embellishments which still continued to please great men and great ladies, and that is why the story is told by the knight, and Chaucer retains purposely all the faults of that particular sort of story. ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... America, Asia, and Europe. From this overwhelming disaster I managed to save my son; and as my sole fortune I brought away with me the large jewels of Andronicus, his ivory and sapphire sceptre, his scimitar of Lemnos, and his ancient gold crown, which once encircled Theseus's brow. ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... neque tum mitrae neque tum fluitantis amictus Illa vicem curans toto ex te pectore, Theseu, Toto animo, tota pendebat perdita mente. 70 A misera, adsiduis quam luctibus externavit Spinosas Erycina serens in pectore curas Illa tempestate, ferox quom robore Theseus Egressus curvis e litoribus Piraei Attigit iniusti regis Gortynia tecta. 75 Nam perhibent olim crudeli peste coactam Androgeoneae poenas exolvere caedis Electos iuvenes simul et decus innuptarum Cecropiam ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... bag was stor'd,— Now I must play with Elgin's lord,— With Theseus for a taw! My playful horse has slipt his string. Forgotten all his capering, And ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 281, November 3, 1827 • Various
... HERACLES, THESEUS, AND MINOS.—The Greeks believed that their ancestors were a race of heroes of divine or semi-divine lineage. Every tribe, district, city, and village even, preserved traditions of its heroes, whose wonderful ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... second desperate but vain attempt to kill them. Viking saw that the quarrel would be incessantly renewed if his sons remained at home; so he now sent them to Halfdan, whose court they reached after a series of adventures which in many points resemble those of Theseus on his way ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... at Athens in honour of Minerva, the tutelary goddess of that city, to which she gave her name,(54) as well as to the feast of which we are speaking. Its institution was ancient, and it was called at first the Athenea; but after Theseus had united the several towns of Attica into one city, it took the name of Panathenea. These feasts were of two kinds, the great and the less, which were solemnized with almost the same ceremonies; the less annually, and the great upon the expiration ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... as a daily bath. Possibly Mr. Holmes meant something like that when he wrote his "Chambered Nautilus." At each advance from one of these compartments to another, I suppose I acquire a new suit of clothes, or, in other words, change my mind. Let's see, wasn't it Theseus whose eternal punishment in Hades was just to sit there forever? That seems somewhat heavenly to me. But here on earth I suppose I must try to keep up with the styles, and change my mental ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... this matter, that I propose to deal with it, briefly indeed, but with a little more detail than a strict attention to proportion would justify. It has often been assumed that a nation of athletes, who made heroes of Heracles and Theseus, Achilles and Hector, could have had nothing but contempt for the ascetic ideal. But in truth asceticism has a continuous history within Hellenism. Even Homer knows of the priests of chilly Dodona, the Selli, whose bare feet are ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... thereto are delineated with the utmost grace and delicacy. They consist of subjects chiefly from the mythology. I noticed the following in particular, viz., Chiron teaching the young Achilles to draw the bow; the discovery of Orestes; Theseus and the Minotaur (he has just slain the Minotaur and a boy is in the act of kissing his hand as if to thank him for his deliverance; the Minotaur is here represented as a monster with the body of ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... skill to unriddle. The first table was almost full. At the upper end sat Hercules, leaning an arm upon his club; on his right hand were Achilles and Ulysses, and between them AEneas; on his left were Hector, Theseus, and Jason: the lower end had Orpheus, AEsop, Phalaris, and Musaeus. The ushers seemed at a loss for a twelfth man, when, methought, to my great joy and surprise, I heard some at the lower end of the table mention Isaac Bickerstaff; ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... been honoured at the Duke of Dashwell's, and requested her hand for the next cotillion. Oh, Paul, fancy my triumph! The old damsel said, with a sigh, she remembered me very well, ha, ha, ha!—and I carried her off to the cotillion like another Theseus bearing away a second Ariadne. Not to be prolix on this part of my life, I went night after night to balls and routs, for admission to which half the fine gentlemen in London would have given their ears. And I improved my time so well with Lady Margaret, who was her own mistress and had L5,000,—a ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... broidery freak'd with tissue of images olden, 50 One whose curious art did blazon valour of heroes. Gazing forth from a beach of Dia the billow-resounding, Look'd on a vanish'd fleet, on Theseus quickly departing, Restless in unquell'd passion, a feverous heart, Ariadne. Scarcely her eyes yet seem their seeming clearly to vision. 55 You might guess that arous'd from slumber's drowsy betrayal, Sand-engirded, alone, then first she knew desolation. He the betrayer—his ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... sky shall be no sky, the sea no sea, the earth no earth, if thou do prove inconstant; but if you will not take me with you, these tender hands of mine shall hang upon your horse's bridle, till my body, like Theseus's son, be dashed against the hard flint stones; yet, hard as they are, not harder than I shall ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston
... centre was placed the Minotaur, and no one who entered could find his way out again, but became the prey of the monster. Seven youths and seven maidens were sent regularly by the Athenians, and were duly devoured, until Theseus slew the monster and escaped from the maze by aid of the clue of thread provided by Ariadne; which accounts for our using to-day the ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... that emprize, but them the son[46] Of radiant-hair'd Latona and of Jove Slew both, ere yet the down of blooming youth Thick-sprung, their cheeks or chins had tufted o'er. Phaedra I also there, and Procris saw, And Ariadne for her beauty praised, Whose sire was all-wise Minos. Theseus her From Crete toward the fruitful region bore 390 Of sacred Athens, but enjoy'd not there, For, first, she perish'd by Diana's shafts In Dia, Bacchus witnessing her crime.[47] Maera and Clymene I saw beside, And odious ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... by the aid of drugs; and promising the same to Pelias, having first, as a specimen, changed a ram into a lamb, by stratagem she kills him. Passing through many places made remarkable by various transformations, and having slain her children, she marries AEgeus, when Theseus returns home, and narrowly escapes being poisoned by her magic potions. Minos interrupts the joy of AEgeus on the return of his son, and wages war against him; having collected troops from all parts, even from ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... the turn both of thoughts and words is to be found in Catullus in the complaint of Ariadne when she was left by Theseus:- ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... lively haunt of its exercise, there by scanty but significant survivals. Hawaii is the most doubtful. We find cannibalism chronicled in Hawaii, only in the history of a single war, where it seems to have been thought exception, as in the case of mountain outlaws, such as fell by the hand of Theseus. In Tahiti, a single circumstance survived, but that appears conclusive. In historic times, when human oblation was made in the marae, the eyes of the victim were formally offered to the chief: a delicacy to the leading guest. All Melanesia ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... who have devoted themselves to this particular school) a certain incapacity to taste the finer characters of Greek art, or to understand Titian, Tintoret, or Raphael: whereas among the Italian Gothic workmen, this capacity was never lost, and Nino Pisano and Orcagna could have understood the Theseus in an instant, and would have received from it new life. There can be no question that theirs was the greatest school, and carried out by the greatest men; and that while those who began with this school could perfectly well ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... Hercules, thou sayest, and canst not deliver others from their iniquity—not even Theseus, to deliver the soil of Attica from its monsters? Purge away thine own, cast forth thence—from thine own mind, not robbers and monsters, but Fear, Desire, Envy, Malignity, Avarice, Effeminacy, Intemperance. And these ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... conjecture and controversy to the then learned. And a fragment of a pillar from St. Paul's, or a mutilated statue from Westminster, will be as valuable to them as a column from the Temple of Belus, or a broken cornice from the Temple of Theseus, is now ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 279, October 20, 1827 • Various
... fountains of the Nile." (Herod., II., chapter 28.) And see "Paradise Regained," IV., 70: — "Syene, and where the shadow both way falls, "Meroe, Nilotick isle;..." (32) Baetis is the Guadalquivir. (33) Theseus, on returning from his successful exploit in Crete, hoisted by mistake black sails instead of white, thus spreading false intelligence of disaster. (34) It seems that the Euripus was bridged over. (Mr. Haskins' note.) (35) ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... noises continued to be heard, and dreadful spectres were frequently seen by the neighbours. Plutarch frequently makes mention of spectres and apparitions; particularly he says, that, in the famous battle above alluded to, several soldiers saw the apparition of Theseus fighting for the Greeks and ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... not willingly let die. A rush of stirring glorious memories swept over her mind as she gazed on the lofty summit of the Acropolis, covered with memorials of the ancient art, and associated with the great events of Athenian history. The Parthenon, or Temple of Pallas; the Temple of Theseus; that of Olympian Jove; the Tower of the Winds, or so-called Lantern of Demosthenes; and the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates,—all these she saw, and wondered at. But they have been so frequently described, that we may pass them here ...
— The Story of Ida Pfeiffer - and Her Travels in Many Lands • Anonymous
... of beauty, wove a myriad of new fancies, or disinterred from legend old beliefs untouched by Homer. Helen was the daughter of the Swan—that is, as was later explained, of Zeus in the shape of a swan. Her loveliness, even in childhood, plunged her in many adventures. Theseus carried her off; her brothers rescued her. All the princes of Achaea competed for her hand, having first taken an oath to avenge whomsoever she might choose for her husband. The choice fell on the correct and honourable, but rather inconspicuous, Menelaus, and they dwelt in Sparta, beside the ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... of Troezene, at the foot of a lofty mountain, there lived, a very long time ago, a little boy named Theseus. His grandfather, King Pittheus, was the sovereign of that country, and was reckoned a very wise man; so that Theseus, being brought up in the royal palace, and being naturally a bright lad, could hardly fail of profiting by the old king's instructions. His mother's name was Aethra. ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... "means easy credit, alluding to the credulity of Theseus."—Anonymiana, cent. ii. 44. Mr. Jon Bee, in his Sportsman's Slang ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 82, May 24, 1851 • Various
... naked scymeter, and a firebrand in the other; but the history of this colossal divinity seemed to be imperfectly known, even to the votaries of Poo-sa themselves. He had in all probability been a warrior in his day, the Theseus or the Hercules of China. The cave of the Cuman Sibyl could not be better suited for dealing out the mysterious decrees of fate to the superstitious multitude, than that of the Quan-gin-shan, from whence the oracle of future destiny, in ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... Aristonicus; the great antiquity of Troy, proclaimed to be the mother of Rome; the love of home of the Lydians; the first names and settlements of the Tyrrhenians; the Sardinians and Etrurians being of the same descent; the divine origin of Tantalus and Theseus; and the Amazons being the founders of some of the cities in Asia (IV. ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... enthusiasm, half terror, run through them. In fact, those four names—D'Artagnan, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis—were venerated among all who wore a sword: as, in antiquity, the names of Hercules, Theseus, Castor, and ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... admired for the mildness of her slave laws, the door of freedom was opened widely. The abused slaves might fly to the Temple of Theseus, whence no one had a right to take them, except for the purpose of publicly investigating their wrongs. If their complaints were well founded, they were either enfranchised, or ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... of the day Moses, Cyrus, Romulus, and Theseus are led across the stage in illustration. The common attribute of all such fortunate masters of men was force of arms, while the mission of an unarmed prophet such as Savonarola was foredoomed to failure. In such politics Machiavelli is positive and ruthless: force is and must be the remedy ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... to tell you hardly any of the adventures that befell Theseus." Change cannot to can. "I have not had a moment's time to read hardly since I left school." Say, "I have hardly a ...
— Slips of Speech • John H. Bechtel
... occupied; but the negligence was at once detected by the master of Pont-Noir, and his weekly allowance of cologne-water was summarily reduced. Upon the ceiling, over the bath, were frescoed, in Titianelli's richest style, the most graceful legends of mythology. Here Theseus toyed with Ariadne; here the infant Mercury furtively enticed the Grecian Short-horns; here Triton blew his seaweed-tangled horn, and troops of ocean-nymphs threw the surface of the deep into 'sparkling commotions of splendor;' here Venus allured Anchises, by sweetly calling him ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... other Greek epics known to Aristotle. Homer had not to wait for Beowulf to serve as a foil to his excellence. That was provided in the other epic poems of Greece, in the cycle of Troy, in the epic stories of Theseus and Heracles. It seems probable that the poem of Beowulf may be at least as well knit as the Little Iliad, the Greek cyclic poem of which Aristotle names the principal incidents, contrasting its variety with the simplicity of the Iliad ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... the heroes of Attica. In this group, Miltiades was placed in the centre, between Athena, the tutelary goddess of Athens, and Apollo, the guardian of Delphi; while on each side were five Athenian heroes, Theseus and Codrus with others, arranged in a semicircle. This important work was paid for by Athens out of her share in the spoils of Marathon. Another important commission executed by Phidias was a statue of Athena made for her temple at Plataea, and paid for with the eighty talents raised by ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... of Crete but the rock from which the father of Theseus threw himself—is still here! Also the hill upon which Paul stood and told the Athenians they were too superstitious. You can imagine my feelings at finding all of these things are true. After this I am going to the North ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... if my boy with virtue be endued, What harm will beauty do him?' Nay, what good? Say, what avail'd, of old, to Theseus' son, The stern resolve? what to Bellerophon?— O, then did Phaedra redden, then her pride Took fire to be so steadfastly denied! Then, too, did Sthenobaea glow with shame, And both burst forth ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... have done as much in my place. The differences of two valiant adversaries are very apt to end in a warm mutual attachment—we were destined from the beginning to become, sooner or later, a devoted pair of friends; like Theseus and Pirithous, Nisus and Euryalus, or Damon and Pythias. But never mind about me now, and tell my sister how you were thinking of her, and longing for her, in that lonely chateau of yours; where, by the way, I made one of the best meals I ever had in my ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... Demigods, the sons of the gods of light and mortal mothers, were credited with the salvation of men from a confused, chaotic existence, and the introduction of new conditions of life, no longer based on the dictates of nature but on the moulding genius of man. "Hercules, Theseus and Perseus overthrew the ancient powers of darkness. They laid the foundations of man's great achievement, civilisation, and were the first to worship the gods of light. They delivered humanity from the gross materialism in which it had hitherto been steeped; ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... I must be thy Lady: Why art thou here? Come from the farthest steep of India? But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon, Your buskin'd mistress, and your warrior love, To Theseus must be wedded; and you come To give ...
— A Fairy Tale in Two Acts Taken from Shakespeare (1763) • William Shakespeare
... Rome are shown by the thoroughly unRoman transformation of king Romulus into the god Quirinus. Numa, the oldest and most venerable name in Roman tradition, never received the honours of a god in Rome as Theseus did in Athens. ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... Poseidon! Sirens and Tritons had disported themselves in this sea, the bluest and the beautifullest, the one sea that mattered, more important than all the oceans; the oceans might dry up to-morrow for all he cared so long as this sea remained; and with the story of Theseus and "lonely Ariadne on the wharf at Naxos" ringing in his ears he looked to the north-east, whither lay the Cyclades and Propontis. Medea, too, had been deserted—"Medea deadlier than the sea." Helen! All the stories of the "Iliad" and ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... their side, through toil and danger, against all that was unlike them, and therefore hateful to them. Who loves not the old legends, unsurpassed for beauty in the literature of any race, in which the hero stands out as the deliverer, the destroyer of evil? Theseus ridding the land of robbers, and delivering it from the yearly tribute of boys and maidens to be devoured by the Minotaur; Perseus slaying the Gorgon, and rescuing Andromeda from the sea-beast; Heracles with his twelve famous labours against giants and ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... the model is to represent the Temple of Theseus at Athens, which was built by Cimon, the son of Miltiades. In the first place we must obtain the necessary dimensions, and then, reducing the number of feet to fractional parts of an inch, form a scale suitable for carrying out the whole. A piece of wood of the necessary size ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... special kind. The play produced at the Olympic Theatre some twenty years ago, was an English version of the "Ariane" of Thomas Corneille. In the original, Ariadne, upon the discovery of the perfidy of Theseus, falls upon a sword and expires. This catastrophe was altered in the adaptation, and a startling effect produced by the leaping of the heroine from a rock, and her plunging into the sea, while the ship ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... with a Gothic cathedral on one hand, and a Turkish mosque and all sorts of fantastic pagodas and conventicles about him. You may call Shakspeare and Milton pyramids, if you please; but I prefer the Temple of Theseus, or the Parthenon, to ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... these charms are tricks of the Devil," said he. "Holy Church lends them no countenance, for they are neither good nor fair. But how is it now with your tapestry, Lady Mary? When last I was beneath this roof you had half done in five fair colors the story of Theseus and Ariadne." ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... dare say that a deal passed between Desdemona and Cassio that the honest Moor never knew of; and that Lucrece was probably very pleasant and agreeable to Tarquin, as a well-bred hostess should be; and that Helen had that little affair with Theseus before she ever thought of Paris; and that if Cleopatra died for love of Antony it was not until she had previously lived ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... godlike heroes moved and enacted their romances among 'Gorgons and Hydras and Chimeras dire.' What proportion of fact, if any, lay in the stories of Minos, the great lawgiver, and his war fleet, and his Labyrinth, with its monstrous occupant; of Theseus and Ariadne and the Minotaur; of Daedalus, the first aeronaut, and his wonderful works of art and science; or of any other of the thousand and one beautiful or tragic romances of ancient Hellas, to attempt to determine this lay utterly beyond the sphere ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie
... disciple. He gives us his philosophy through the medium of wit, and is never so pathetic as when he is humorous. To turn truth into a paradox is not difficult, but George Meredith makes all his paradoxes truths, and no Theseus can thread his labyrinth, no ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... and war he certainly makes effective and bright. But if we think of his proposal as a reinstatement of the Amazon we have in effect condemned it. For the Amazon of mythology and art is but a survival from a half-animal world, which Theseus, the embodiment of adult reason, had long ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... of that same sagacity, which was employed so successfully in reducing the play of Pyramus and Thisbe to the tragical capacities of Duke Theseus' court, had been put in requisition here, instead of that dead historical silence, which the world complains of so much, we might have been treated to some very lively historical details in this case, corresponding to other details which the literary history of the time exhibits, in the case of ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... such a woman, at such a moment, would have cowed even him. As a general rule, it is highly desirable that ladies should keep their temper: a woman when she storms always makes herself ugly, and usually ridiculous also. There is nothing so odious to man as a virago. Though Theseus loved an Amazon, he showed his love but roughly, and from the time of Theseus downward, no man ever wished to have his wife remarkable rather for forward prowess than retiring gentleness. A low voice "is an excellent ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... they were carrying to be buried. If we may believe Apuleius,[533] Asclepiades, meeting a funeral convoy, resuscitated the body they were carrying to the pile. It is asserted that AEsculapius restored to life Hippolytus, the son of Theseus; also Glaucus, the son of Minos, and Campanes, killed at the assault of Thebes, and Admetus, King of Phera in Thessaly. Elian[534] attests that the same AEsculapius joined on again the head of a woman to her corpse, and restored her ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... lions with forefeet on a pedestal, above a sun 2 Sardonyx from Elis, a goddess holding up a goat by the horns 3 Rock crystal a bearded Triton 4 Carnelian, a youth playing a trigonon 5 Chalcedony from Athens, a Bacchante 6 Sard, a woman reading a manuscript roll, before her a lyre 7 Carnelian, Theseus 8 Chalcedony, portrait head, Hellenistic Age 9 Aquamarine, portrait of Julia daughter of the emperor Titus 10 Chalcedony, portrait head, Hellenistic Age 11 Carnelian, bust portrait of the Roman emperor Decius ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... glimpse of things which are eternal and the perceiving ear may catch strains of long remembered melodies ("those songs without words") which only the finest souls may know. Yet here were three men who, in their modern Ago, were returning from their search of the golden fleece. Jason, Hercules and Theseus could have experienced no greater joy in object won, than these three "heroes" of the lake returning in the resin-scented twilight with their long-sought prize of bass! A nickel up on each black bass and not one red cent on the placid lake and the radiant sky! Columbus, when he viewed ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... nymphs from the woods; the sun was set; out of the east night was coming. In the great caves, full of coolness and mystery, the Tritons seemed to be playing with sea monsters, while from far away I thought I heard the lamentable voice of Ariadne weeping for Theseus. Ah no, they are not dead, the beautiful, fair gods. Here, in the temple of Aphrodite, on the threshold of Italy, I will lift up my heart. Though the songs we made are dead and the dances forgotten, though the statues are broken, the temples destroyed, still in ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... Plaza del Parque, to fight for the mastery of the arena. To the great delight of his Castilian countrymen, a bull of Xarama vanquished all his antagonists. The 'bull of Marathon, which ravaged the country of Tetrapolis,' says the historian of the day, 'was not more valiant; nor did Theseus, who slew and sacrificed him, gain greater glory than did our most potent sovereign. Unwilling that a beast which had behaved so bravely should go unrewarded, his majesty determined to do him the greatest favour that the animal himself could ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... unnumber'd woes! The wars and woes of heroes six feet long Have oft resounded in Pierian song. 10 Who has not heard of Colchos' golden fleece, And Argo mann'd with all the flower of Greece? Of Thebes' fell brethren; Theseus stern of face; And Peleus' son, unrivall'd in the race; Eneas, founder of the Roman line, And William, glorious on the banks of Boyne? Who has not learn'd to weep at Pompey's woes, And over Blackmore's epic page to doze? ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... some branches of the broom that is so abundant about here, and as thou goest to lay them at intervals until thou hast come out upon the plain; these will serve thee, after the fashion of the clue in the labyrinth of Theseus, as marks and signs for ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... shot; and an order of the day fixed a price to be given for all balls, according to their calibre, which might be picked up after being fired from the fortress or the two ships of the line, the 'Tiger' and 'Theseus', which were stationed on each side of the harbour: These two vessels embarrassed the communication, between the camp and the trenches; but though they made much noise, they did little harm. ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... born of an egg, And scarcely ten years had gone by, When Theseus beginning to beg, Decoyed the young chicken to fly. When Tyndarus heard the disaster, He crackled and thunder'd like Etna, So out gallop'd Pollux and Castor, And caught her a furlong from Gretna. Singing rattledum, Greek Romanorum, And ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 284, November 24, 1827 • Various
... kinglier, say, than I am? Even so, you will not sit like Theseus. You would prove a model? The Son of Priam Has yet the advantage in arms' and knees' use. You're wroth—can you slay your snake like Apollo? You're grieved—still Niobe's the grander! You live—there's the Racers' frieze to follow: You die—there's ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... the grace of your protegee might be observed by some other eyes than old withered ones behind spectacles. Your wishes have been fulfilled in a most unexpected manner, and a voice cries out to you as to the imprudent Theseus, ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... and his companions brought the people together into a community, for then the people was first divided into the four tribes, and the tribe-kings were created. Next, and first after this, having now some semblance of a constitution, was that which took place in the reign of Theseus, consisting in a slight deviation from absolute monarchy. After this came the constitution formed under Draco, when the first code of laws was drawn up. The third was that which followed the civil war, in the time of Solon; from this the ...
— The Athenian Constitution • Aristotle
... people call an archaeologist, fond of grubbing up old stones and skeletons, and digging like an old mole amongst ruins—continually talking all day long about Marathon and Hymettus, the Parthenon and Chersonese, the Acropolis, and Theseus and Odysseus and all the rest of them, bothering our lives out with questions about Homer and the Iliad, and all such stuff; so, I put it to you candidly, whether it wasn't almost as bad as being back again at school, ...
— Tom Finch's Monkey - and How he Dined with the Admiral • John C. Hutcheson
... Desolation, all God's spirit there Is sick and turns from worship.—Hearken where The ancient River waileth with a voice Of many women, portioned by the choice Of war amid new lords, as the lots leap For Thessaly, or Argos, or the steep Of Theseus' Rock. And others yet there are, High women, chosen from the waste of war For the great kings, behind these portals hid; And with them that Laconian Tyndarid[4], Helen, like them a prisoner and a prize. And this unhappy one—would any eyes Gaze now on Hecuba? Here at the Gates She lies 'mid ...
— The Trojan women of Euripides • Euripides
... feelings of the many are stained with vanity. Each wishes to be lord in a little world, to be superior at least over one; and he does not feel strong enough to retain a life-long ascendency over a strong nature. Only a Theseus could conquer before he wed the Amazonian queen. Hercules wished rather to rest with Dejanira, and received the poisoned robe as a fit guerdon. The tale should be interpreted to all those who seek repose ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... Temple of Theseus (its real dedication is doubtful) stands on a low hill just outside Athens. It is in a state of almost perfect preservation. The nails which crowded its woodwork were doubtless those on which the heads of slaughtered Greeks were fastened. Of course ...
— La Legende des Siecles • Victor Hugo
... full thirty seconds—but she was released all too soon. He left her as he had come, on silent feet. The light was turned up; everything looked as it had been, but everything was not. She was not. She found herself an Ariadne, in a drawing-room, still lax from Theseus' arms. Yes, but Theseus was next door, and ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... porticoes,—the Stoa Poecile. These porticoes were not only built in the most magnificent style of architecture, but adorned with paintings and statuary by the best masters. On the roof of the Stoa Basileios were statues of Theseus and the Day. In front of the Stoa Eleutherius was placed the divinity to whom it was dedicated; and within were allegorical paintings, celebrating the rise of "the fierce democracy." The Stoa Poecile derived its name from the celebrated paintings which adorned its walls, and which were ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... thousand doors, a thousand winding ways: Here dwells the monster, hid from human view, Not to be found, but by the faithful clew; Till the kind artist, mov'd with pious grief, Lent to the loving maid this last relief, And all those erring paths describ'd so well That Theseus conquer'd and the monster fell. Here hapless Icarus had found his part, Had not the father's grief restrain'd his art. He twice assay'd to cast his son in gold; Twice from his hands he dropp'd ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... familiar with the twins Romulus and Remus in Roman story, one of whom was fated to destroy their grandfather Amulius; with Edipus and Telephos, whose father Laios, was warned that his death would be by one of his children; with Theseus and Peirithoos, the former destined to cause the suicide of his father Aigeus; and with many more such myths. They can be traced, without room for doubt, back to simple expressions of the fact that the morning and the evening of the one day ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton
... lip to lip of heroes I must go, And be but as a banner lifted up, To beckon where the winds of war may blow? Have I not seen fair Athens in her woe, And all her homes aflame from sea to sea, When my fierce brothers wrought her overthrow Because Athenian Theseus carried me— ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
... Charlemagne, in 814, Napoleon retires to Elba. There is a witchery about Rome even to-day, and an emperor still sits imprisoned there, claiming for himself the right to rule the spiritual and intellectual world: "sedet, eternumque sedebit Infelix Theseus." ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... suppose, with Dr. Schofield, an influence of British legend on the Volsung story. The points in which the story of Sigmund resembles that of Arthur and differs from that of Theseus prove nothing in the face of equally strong points of correspondence between Arthur and Theseus which are absent ...
— The Edda, Vol. 2 - The Heroic Mythology of the North, Popular Studies in Mythology, - Romance, and Folklore, No. 13 • Winifred Faraday
... sad work with them whenever he did condescend to resort to their terms, however familiar. "This Raoul Yvard is a devil incarnate himself at this boarding work, and is said to have taken off the head of a master's mate of the Theseus with one clip of his sword when he retook that ship's prize in the affair of last winter—that which happened ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... wyse dothe Phillis entwyte Demophon / that his father Theseus vn- curteysly and trayterously lefte his loue Ariadna alone in the desert yle of Naxus / & contrary to his promise stale from her by nyght / addynge Heredem patria perfide frau- dis agis. That is to saye ...
— The Art or Crafte of Rhetoryke • Leonard Cox
... Troy." Many who relinquish without effort the Argonautic expedition, and as an historical problem are glad to be rid of it,—who resign all attempt to extract a prosaic truth out of the exploits of Theseus or the labours of Hercules, and who smile at mention of the race of Amazons—a race so well accredited in ancient times that neither the sceptical Arrian nor Julius Caesar himself ventured to doubt of their existence—would yet shrink from surrendering the tale of Troy, with all its military ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... of Cecrops and the early kings as far as Theseus, Attica was always divided among several independent cities, with their own town-halls and magistrates; and when there was no alarm of an enemy, the inhabitants did not resort for common deliberation to the King, but severally managed their own affairs and took their own counsel, ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... the swift ounce, or lay the leopard low, Neglected homage to another god: Whence Aphrodite, by no midnight smoke Of tapers lulled, in jealousy despatched 20 A noisome lust that, as the gad bee stings, Possessed his stepdame Phaidra for himself The son of Theseus her great absent spouse. Hippolutos exclaiming in his rage Against the fury of the Queen, she judged Life insupportable; and, pricked at heart An Amazonian stranger's race should dare To scorn her, perished by the murderous ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... plagiarized from that famous Roman Catholic legend of the eighth century in which our Lord Gautama is made to figure as a Christian Saint, better still, that the Vedas were written at Athens under the auspices of St. George, the tutelary successor of Theseus. ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... served, as he was proud to say, in the last of our ships which had been chased out of the Mediterranean in '97, and in the first which had re-entered it in '98. He was under Miller, as third lieutenant of the Theseus, when our fleet, like a pack of eager fox hounds in a covert, was dashing from Sicily to Syria and back again to Naples, trying to pick up the lost scent. With the same good fighting man he served at the Nile, where the men of his command sponged and rammed and trained until, when the ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... my order, O ye Attic people, In act to judge your first great murder-cause. And henceforth shall the host of Aegeus' race For ever own this council-hall of judges: And for this Ares' hill, the Amazons' seat And camp when they, enraged with Theseus, came In hostile march, and built as counterwork This citadel high-reared, a city new, And sacrificed to Ares, whence 'tis named As Ares' hill and fortress: in this, I say, The reverent awe its citizens shall own, And fear, awe's kindred, ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... that David, when yet young, was not afraid to join in combat with the lion or the bear. The Greek mythology teems with hunting exploits. Hercules overthrows the Nemaean lion, the Erymanthean boar, and the hydra of Lerna; Diana descends to the earth, and pursues the stag; whilst Aesculapius, Nestor, Theseus, Ulysses, and Achilles are all followers of the chase. Aristotle, sage as he was, advises young men to apply themselves early to it; and Plato finds in it something divine. Horace exalts it as a preparative exercise for the ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... not have very scrupulous tastes in their methods of attaining satisfaction from the women they loved. The most common method was abduction and the women always submitted to this without a murmur of any sort. Helen was carried off by Theseus, after having also been abducted by Paris. The wife of Atreus was abducted by Thyestus, and from that arose the implacable hatred between the two families. Rape was no less common. Goddesses themselves and the favorites of the Gods were at the risk of falling prey ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... for example, the practical affairs of life seem to smother its poetic dreams; but note how the dream abides with us after the play is over. The spell of the enchanted forest is broken when the crowd invades its solitude; the witchery of moonlight fades into the light of common day; and then comes Theseus with his dogs to drive not the foxes but the fairies out of the landscape. As Chesterton points out, this masterful man, who has seen no fairies, proceeds to arrange matters in a practical way, with a wedding, a ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... the Athenian lawgiver, first established particular regulations for its government. Attic legends, however, gratefully refer the earliest rules of the gymnasium to Theseus, as to one of the mightiest of the mythical heroes,—the emulator of Hercules, slayer of the Minotaur, and conqueror of the Amazons. Hermes was the presiding deity, which may appear strange to us, as he was as noted for an unworthy cunning as for his dexterity. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... For the person who writes Rimini, to admire the Excursion, is just as impossible as it would be for a Chinese polisher of cherry-stones, or gilder of tea-cups, to burst into tears at the sight of the Theseus or ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... has just spoken, especially as I do not deserve it, as by the hope that our friendship will live in eternal remembrance, and this I have the more at heart because from all ages scarce three or four pairs of friends are on record, [Footnote: Those referred to probably Theseus and Peirithous, Achilles and Patroclus, Orestes and Pylades, Damon and Phintius,—all but the last, perhaps the last also, mythical] on which list I cannot but hope that the friendship of Scipio and Laelius will be known ...
— De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream • Marcus Tullius Ciceronis
... who, by their own ability and not through fortune, have risen to be princes, I say that Moses, Cyrus, Romulus, Theseus, and such like are the most excellent examples. And although one may not discuss Moses, he having been a mere executor of the will of God, yet he ought to be admired, if only for that favour which made him worthy to ...
— The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... America], may revive and flourish, sheltering under its salubrious and interminable shade, all the unfortunate of the human race. If we are not this day wanting in our duty to our country, the names of the American legislators of '76 will be placed by posterity at the side of those of Theseus, of Lycurgus, of Romulus, of Numa, of the three Williams of Nassau, and of all those whose memory has been, and forever will be dear to virtuous ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... ship, as the Athenians say, in which Theseus formerly conveyed the fourteen boys and girls to Crete, and saved both them and himself. They, therefore, made a vow to Apollo on that occasion, as it is said, that if they were saved they would every year dispatch a solemn embassy to Delos; ...
— Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates • Plato
... the activities of beings not of this every-day, humdrum world." The first theme has a second part in E major (beginning at measure 62) of a pompous, march-like nature, which may be thought to represent the dignity of Duke Theseus and his train. The Overture being in complete Sonata-form, there occurs at this point a short transition based on the rhythm of the first theme; followed by a lovely cantabile melody—the second theme proper—that ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... the other river-god Spercheius; or his cruelty in dragging the body of Hector round the walls, and slaying the captives at the pyre: such a combination of meanness and cruelty in Cheiron's pupil is inconceivable. The amatory exploits of Peirithous and Theseus are equally unworthy. Either these so-called sons of gods were not the sons of gods, or they were not such as the poets imagine them, any more than the gods themselves are the authors of evil. The youth who believes that such things are done by those ...
— The Republic • Plato
... sons of the wave, Are not quite so easy to "size up" all round To that comfortless bed where you'd have them all bound, As the travellers luckless who fell in the way Of the old Attic highwayman THESEUS did slay. Though your voice may sound loud and your thews look immense, You may fall to the THESEUS—of Free Common Sense! As BURT says—and his eloquence moves but beguiles not— On short cuts ...
— Punch, Volume 101, September 19, 1891 • Francis Burnand
... Phaedra Miss Williams Soprano. Hippolytus Madame Vigano Contralto. The Girl Madame de Bombelles Soprano. Theseus Goretti Tenor. ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... has furnished the subject of the fourth picture," said Corinne, showing it to Lord Nelville.—"Hippolitus, in all the beauty of youth and innocence, repels the perfidious accusations of his step-mother; the hero, Theseus, still protects his guilty spouse, whom he encircles with his conquering arm. There is in the countenance of Phedre, a trouble which freezes the soul with horror; and her nurse, without remorse, encourages her in her guilt. Hippolitus in this picture is perhaps more beautiful than even in Racine; ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... should have been independently fabricated, while the points of difference are so important as to make it extremely improbable that the one was ever copied from the other. Besides which, the essential identity of such myths as those of Sigurd and Theseus, or of Helena and Sarama, carries us back historically to a time when the scattered Indo-European tribes had not yet begun to hold commercial and intellectual intercourse with each other, and consequently could not have interchanged their epic materials or their household stories. We ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... thought to have hit the mark when they bring arguments only from probabilities and conjectures? And can we produce nothing from history to club to this discourse? Lately, I remember, reading in the Attic annals, I found that Theseus first instituted games in Delos, and tore off a branch from the sacred palm-tree, which was called spadix (from ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... terms, relative as they were, as I applied them, to pleasure and pain alone. Induced by these feelings, I was of course led to admire peaceable lawgivers, Numa, Solon, and Lycurgus, in preference to Romulus and Theseus. The patriarchal lives of my protectors caused these impressions to take a firm hold on my mind; perhaps, if my first introduction to humanity had been made by a young soldier, burning for glory and slaughter, I should have ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... were often written by the Alexandrian poets. Short as it is, it contains two plots, one within the other. The story of Peleus's marriage is made the occasion for describing the scene embroidered on the coverlet or cushion of the marriage bed. This contains the loves of Theseus and Ariadne, the Minotaur, the Labyrinth, the return of Theseus, his desertion of Ariadne, and her reception into the stars by Iacchus. The poem is unequal in execution; the finest passages are the lament of Ariadne, which Virgil has imitated ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... insolent, sly, cunning, modest, and casual. The warriors of the Sultana, holding in one hand the spear, the bow, and sheaf or musket, embraced with the other their respective friends, like so many models of Nisus and Euryalus, Theseus and Pirithous, Damon and Pythias, or Achilles and Patroclus, to whom they confidentially related their divers opinions upon my dress and colour. The words "Musungu kuba" had as much charm for these people as the music of the Pied ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... way through these pathless wilds the sun is to them what Ariadne's clue was to Theseus. When he is on the meridian they generally sit down, and rove onwards again as soon as he has sufficiently declined to the west; they require no other compass. When in chase, they break a twig on the bushes as they pass by, every three or four hundred paces, and this often ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... enter into more particular details, and thus confer a still livelier interest upon bygone days. For instance, with reference to ancient history, you should read some of the more remarkable of Plutarch's Lives, those of Alexander, Caesar, Theseus, Themistocles, &c.; the Travels of Anacharsis, the worthy results of thirty years' hard labour of an eminent scholar:[80] the Travels of Cyrus, Telemachus, Belisarius, and Numa Pompilius, are also, though in very different ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... Vulcan to be sharpened, and she begs for a short respite. So you see, Scapin, I must put force upon myself and restrain my natural ardour—refrain for a time from wars, massacres, sacking of cities, stand-up fights with giants, killing of monsters and dragons, like Theseus and Hercules of glorious memory, and all the other little pastimes which usually occupy my good sword and me. I will take my ease now for a brief period, and Death may enjoy a short rest too. But to whom did my worthy prototype, Mars, the great god of war, devote HIS leisure hours? in whose sweet ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... that the skin almost 10 burst from their pressure; but he had stopped the bull in his tracks. And the man and the beast remained so still that the spectators thought themselves looking at a picture showing a deed of Hercules or Theseus, or a group hewn ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... originally a sacred fox devoured by the women of the fox totem-clan; these women call themselves Bassarides in the legend, and bassareus is one of the old names of the fox. Hippolytus in the fable is the son of Theseus who repels the advances of Phaedra, his stepmother, and was killed by his runaway horses because Theseus, deceived by Phaedra, invoked the anger of a god upon him. But Hippolytus in Greek means 'one torn to pieces by horses.' Hippolytus is himself a horse whom the worshippers ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... the differences of the four lovers, and by his transformation of Bottom reconciles the fairy King and Queen, while he incidentally goes near to spoiling the performance of the "crew of patches" at the nuptials of Theseus by preventing due rehearsal of their interlude. It is perhaps a permissible fancy to convert Theseus' words "the lunatic, the lover, and the poet," to illustrate the triple appeal made by the three ingredients the grotesque, the sentimental, ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... mekenes and pacience There was eke Isode & many other moo And al the torment and the cruel woo That she had for tristram al her lyue And how that Tisbe her hert dyde ryue Wit[h] thilk swerd of sir Piramus And al the maner hou that Theseus The mynotaure slow amyd the hous That was forwrynked by crafte of dedalus Whan he was in pryson shit in Crete And how that philles felte of loues hete The grete fyre of demephon allas And for his falshed and for his trespas Vpon the ...
— The Temple of Glass • John Lydgate
... the history of the Lewis and Clark expedition than by the tale of Jason. John Colter, wandering three years in the wilderness and discovering the Yellowstone Park, is infinitely more heroic to me that Theseus. Alexander Harvey makes AEneas look like a degenerate. It was Harvey, you know, who fell out with the powers at Fort Union, with the result that he was ordered to report at the American Fur Company's office at St. Louis before he could be reinstated in the service. This ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... still more by his life, and conduct, and actions. And how important a thing it is, the fables of the ancients abundantly intimate, in which, many and varied as they are, and traced back to the remotest antiquity, scarcely three pairs of friends are found, even if you begin as far back as Theseus, and come down to Orestes. But in one single house, and that a small one, what great crowds of friends did Epicurus collect, and how strong was the bond of affection that held them together! And this is the case even now among the Epicureans. However, let us return to our subject: it is ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... been forced by the Cretan king Minos to deliver up to him every eight years seven boys and seven girls. These were thrown as food to a terrible monster, the Minotaur. When the mournful tribute was to be paid for the third time, the king's son Theseus accompanied it to Crete. On his arrival there, Ariadne, the daughter of Minos interested herself in him. The Minotaur dwelt in the labyrinth, a maze from which no one could extricate himself who had once got in. Theseus desired to deliver his native city from the shameful tribute. ...
— Christianity As A Mystical Fact - And The Mysteries of Antiquity • Rudolf Steiner
... he dispersed them by ordering the archers to fire on them. At last being persuaded with great difficulty, he sent two or three of his boon companions to treat of peace; but instead of making any reasonable proposals, the men began to make a pompous harangue about Theseus and Eumolpus, and the Persian wars, on which Sulla said, "Be gone, my good fellows, with your fine talk. I was not sent to Athens by the Romans to learn a lesson, but to compel rebels ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... founding of the city of Athens, apart from the mythological lore which ascribes its name to Athene, the goddess, is credited by the Greeks to Sais, a native of Egypt. The real founder of Athens, the one who made it a city and kingdom, was Theseus; an unacknowledged illegitimate child. The usual myth surrounds his birth ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... of Night round the earth. Strangely must have sounded the horns of the Northern Elfland, "faintly blowing" in the woods of Hellas, as Oberon and his grotesque court glanced along, "with bit and bridle ringing," to bless the nuptials of Theseus with the bouncing Amazon. Strangely must have looked the elfin footprints in the Attic green. Across this Shakspearean plank, laid between Olympus and Asgard, or more strictly Alfheim, we gladly pass from the sunny realm of Zeus into that of his Northern counterpart, Odin, who ought to be dearer ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... people called these caves [Greek: Kooi.] [424][Greek: Enioi koous mallon ta toiauta koilomata legesthai phasin.] Hence he very truly explains a passage in Homer. The poet, speaking of Theseus, Dryas, Polyphemus, and other heroes of the Mythic age, mentions their encountering with the mountaineers of Thessaly, whom ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant
... Plautus (Pseudolus, I, iv. 7-10), "But just as the poet when he has taken up his tablets seeks what exists nowhere among men, and yet finds it, and makes that like truth which is mere fiction." We are to take this as the possible germ of Theseus's theory of the origin of ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... an Athenian reveller to ask that the sofa might be pushed back. The scene was now the palace of Theseus, and Mhor, as the Prologue, was addressing an imaginary audience with—"Gentles, perchance you ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... works by this artist, which are in the Dresden Gallery, as excellent examples of her work; they are "A Young Vestal," "A Young Sibyl," and "Ariadne Abandoned by Theseus." ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... thou e'er fly, whilst Ariadne thus slept? Only one single kiss on these lips! Oh, Theseus, now ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... their love-adventures are commonly described as having been the subjects of premature sexual development. From the beautiful Helen, who at the age of seven, according to one story, and at the age of twelve, according to another, was deflowered by Theseus, down to modern times, we find that premature sexual development is frequently adduced as a characteristic of such women. Although it is true that in many cases of the seduction of children there is no question of sexual prematurity, still, for a part of the cases, premature sexual development ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... In this labyrinth Minos shut up the Minotaur. Having conceived a deep resentment against the people of Athens, where his only son had been killed in a riot, he imposed upon them an annual tribute of seven noble youths, and as many virgins to be devoured by the Minotaur. Theseus, son of the king of Athens, put an end to this disgrace. He was taught by Ariadne, the daughter of Minos, how to destroy the monster, and furnished with a clue by which afterwards to find his way out of ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... tolerably "leeterary" Scotsman of forty-five years of age and six-feet three in height, who has full confidence in the integrity of his own virtue, the infallibility of his own opinion, and the strength of his own right arm; for Bowie, though he has a rib or two "dinged in," is mighty still as Theseus' self; and both astonished his red-bearded compatriots, and won money for his master, by his prowess in the late feat ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley |
