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Castor and Pollux   Listen
noun
Castor and Pollux  n.  (Naut.) See Saint Elmo's fire, under Saint.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Castor and Pollux" Quotes from Famous Books



... man's finer workmanship makes for his higher life. The mastery of self prepares man to make his answer to the world for his being. The man who has mastered himself is one with all. Castor and Pollux tell him immortal love stories; all is marvellous and lovely from the plant to the planet, because man is a lover, when he has mastered himself. All the folded treasures and open highways of the mind, its multitude of experiences and unreckonable possessions—are given over to ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort

... description, though living in a beautiful country: the manners painted are coarse and gross. Virgil has much more description, more sentiment, more of Nature, and more of art. Some of the most excellent parts of Theocritus are, where Castor and Pollux, going with the other Argonauts, land on the Bebrycian coast, and there fall into a dispute with Amycus, the King of that country; which is as well conducted as Euripides could have done it; and the ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell

... Castor and Pollux, after great achievements, received into the temples of the gods, while they were improving the world and human nature, composing fierce dissensions, settling property, building cities, lamented that the esteem which they expected was not paid ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace

... streight sleepe, I fell into a sweauen, That of my wound I tooke no keepe I dream'd I was in heauen. Where as me thought I see god Mars in armor bright, His arming sword naked holdes he in hand, ready to fight. Castor and Pollux there all complet stand him by, Least if that Mars conuinced were they might reuenged be. Then came marching along the great blacke smith Vulcan, Hauing a staffe of yron strong, and thus at last ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt

... Rome were distinguished by pillars projecting into the streets, the better to catch the eye of the passenger, as sign-posts of inns do with us now; the tavern in question was a house of ill-fame, and we are told it was the ninth column or sign-post from the Temple of Castor and Pollux. ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus

... such weather similar luminous bodies are observed skipping about the masts and yards of ships, and are called by the mariners corpusanse, a corruption of the cuerpo santo, or sacred body, of the Spaniards. The same were the Castor and Pollux of the ancients. Some writers have attempted to account for these phenomena, particularly for the ignis fatuus, by supposing it to be occasioned by successive swarms of flying glowworms, or other insects of the same nature. But, as Dr. Shaw observes, not to perceive or feel ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell

... Proserpine, the wife of Pluto. When Theseus was fifty years old, according to tradition, he carried off Helen, the daughter of Leda, who was then only nine years of age. But his territory was invaded in consequence by Castor and Pollux, the brothers of Leda; his own people rose against him, and at last, finding his affairs desperate, he withdrew to the island of Scyros, and there perished, either by a fall from the cliffs or through the treachery of Lycomedes, the king of the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various

... Manimi, Elysii, and Naharvali. [238] In the country of the latter is a grove, consecrated to religious rites of great antiquity. A priest presides over them, dressed in woman's apparel; but the gods worshipped there are said, according to the Roman interpretation, to be Castor and Pollux. Their attributes are the same; their name, Alcis. [239] No images, indeed, or vestiges of foreign superstition, appear in their worship; but they are revered under the character of young men and brothers. The Arii, fierce beyond the superiority of strength they possess over ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus

... honor are twins; and twins, too, like Castor and Pollux, of whom the one was mortal and the other was not. Fame is the undying brother of ephemeral honor. I speak, of course, of the highest kind of fame, that is, of fame in the true and genuine sense of the word; for, to be sure, there are many sorts of fame, some of which last but a day. Honor is ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life • Arthur Schopenhauer

... should have done long since, if I would then have followed your counsel." Harvey, of course, is delighted; he thanks the good angel which puts it into the heads of Sidney and Edward Dyer, "the two very diamonds of her Majesty's court," "our very Castor and Pollux," to "help forward our new famous enterprise for the exchanging of barbarous rymes for artificial verses;" and the whole subject is discussed at great length between the two friends; "Mr. Drant's" rules are compared with those of "Mr. Sidney," revised by "Mr. Immerito;" and examples, ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church

... person. Maximus of Tyre[39] says that the people of Ilium often see him bounding over the plain at dead of night in flashing armour—a truly Homeric picture. Maximus cannot, indeed, boast of having seen Hector, though he also has had his visions vouchsafed him. He had seen Castor and Pollux, like twin stars, above his ship, steering it through a storm. AEsculapius also he has seen—not in a dream, by Hercules, but with his waking eyes. But to return to Hector. Philostratus says that one day an unfortunate boy insulted him in the same way ...
— Greek and Roman Ghost Stories • Lacy Collison-Morley

... stay they went on board a ship from Alexandria, whose sign was Castor and Pollux, and a fair wind took them to Syracuse, where they tarried three days; a south wind arose at Rhegium and carried them next into Puteoli, where Paul found the brethren, who begged the centurion Julius to allow him to remain ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore

... him my paternal benediction! 'Always remember Empedocles!' I said to him. Ah! Signor, what our unhappy country needs to-day is a new Empedocles! Would you not like me to show you the way to his statue, Excellence? I will be your guide among the ruins here. I will show you the temple of Castor and Pollux, the temple of the Olympian Jupiter, the temple of the Lucinian Juno, the antique well, the tomb of Theron, and the Gate of Gold! All the professional guides are asses; but we—we shall make excavations, if you are willing—and ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France

... xxxiv.) (19) That is to say, looking towards the west; meaning that they came from the other side of the equator. (See Book IX., 630.) (20) See Book I., 117. (21) A race called Heniochi, said to be descended from the charioteer of Castor and Pollux. (22) "Effusis telis". I have so taken this difficult expression. Herodotus (7, 60) says the men were numbered in ten thousands by being packed close together and having a circle drawn round them. After the first ten thousand had been so measured a fence was put where ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan

... angels of Mons originated. I never met any one personally who saw anything nearer the supernatural than that marvellous fight itself—the pluck and endurance of our "contemptible little army." But some claimed to have seen a spirit but visible army, such as Elijah at Dothan showed to his servant, or Castor and Pollux at Lake Regillus, fighting in front of our lines. A Canadian in command of the C.A.M.C. contingent, who treated thousands of the wounded as they came back from the front, told me that early in the day he heard the rumour, and ordered his men to ask as many as possible ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... hearts of men today. It was written by Miss Bates who wrote 'America the Beautiful,' which we all sing in school, and it is called 'The Great Twin Brethren.' You remember that the Great Twin Brethren were Castor and Pollux. They were regarded as gods by the Romans. They fought for the Romans in the battle of Lake Regillus, and the high priest said about ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith

... the other dark-eyed Greeks; but two I cannot see,—Castor and Pollux,—whom one mother bore with me. Have they not followed from fair Lacedaemon, or have they indeed come in their sea-wandering ships, but now will not enter into the battle of men, fearing the shame and the ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... sight. The famous horses on Monte Cavallo, before the pope's palace, which are said to have been made in emulation, by Phidias and Praxiteles, I have seen, and likewise those in the front of the Capitol, with the statues of Castor and Pollux; but what pleased me infinitely more than all of them together, is the equestrian statue of Corinthian brass, standing in the middle of this Piazza (I mean at the Capitol) said to represent the emperor Marcus Aurelius. Others suppose it was intended for ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... Meleager resolve that he would rid the land of this monster, and called on all his friends, the heroes of Greece, to come to his aid. Theseus and his friend Pirithous came; Jason; Peleus, afterwards father of Achilles; Telamon, the father of Ajax; Nestor, then but a youth; Castor and Pollux, and Toxeus and Plexippus, the brothers of Althaea, the fair queen-mother. But there came none more fearless nor more ready to fight the monster boar of Calydon than Atalanta, the daughter of the king of Arcadia. When Atalanta was born, her father heard of her birth with anger. He desired ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang

... afford them a drop of the precious water; for we ourselves were oppressed with extreme thirst, and our stock was hourly diminishing. It was as much as we could to spare a small quantity to the dogs, Castor and Pollux. ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... colours and wrought gilding. To the extreme right of the fleet, and nearly opposite the place upon which the Athenians stood, was a vessel still more profusely ornamented than the rest. On the prow were elaborately carved the heads of the twin deities of the Laconian mariner, Castor and Pollux; in the centre of the deck was a wooden edifice or pavilion having a gilded roof and shaded by purple awnings, an imitation of the luxurious galleys of the Barbarian; while the parasemon, or flag, as it idly waved in the faint breeze of the gentle ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton

... a century "Cavalleria Rusticana" and "Pagliacci" have been the Castor and Pollux of the operatic theatres of Europe and America. Together they have joined the hunt of venturesome impresarios for that Calydonian boar, success; together they have lighted the way through seasons of tempestuous stress and storm. Of recent years at the ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... came north of the Azores, very violent storms met them; most "outrageous seas," the narrator says; and they saw little lights upon the mainyard called then by sailors "Castor and Pollux," and now "St. Elmo's Fire"; yet they had but one of these at a time, and this is thought a sign of tempest. On September 9, in the afternoon, "the general," as they called him, Sir Humphrey, was ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... when clouds are low and tension great. It is, in fact, the equivalent in nature of the brush discharge from an electric machine. The Greeks and Romans looked upon this lambent display as a sign of the presence of Castor and Pollux, 'fratres Helenae, lucida sidera,' and held that its appearance was an omen of safety, as everybody who has read the 'Lays of Ancient Rome' must surely remember. The modern name, St. Elmo's fire, is itself a curiously twisted and perversely Christianised reminiscence of the great twin ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen

... presented as an actual and specific instance of twins; likewise Castor and Pollux. Almost every child instinctively alludes to himself or herself, as either "the good little me" or the "bad little me." "O, I didn't do that; it was the bad little Dorothy," or "Harold," as the case may be, is the child-like way of ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad

... pl. Perhaps from the Slavonic word holcykouros, Greek for Castor and Pollux. Referable to ...
— Germania and Agricola • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... earth in disguise. It was dangerous to have to do with them; for any injury inflicted on them, even unconsciously, might be terribly avenged. He had discerned in Jesus something mysterious and inexplicable: what if He were the son of Jehovah, the native deity of Palestine, as Castor and Pollux were sons of Jupiter? and might not Jehovah, if He were injured, blast the man who wronged Him with a curse? Such was the terror that flashed through his mind; and, taking Jesus once more inside the palace, he asked Him, with a mixture of awe ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker

... out Ajax and Idomeneus and others, yet could not see her two brothers, Castor and Pollux; either they had not come from her home in Sparta, or they had refused to fight, fearing the shame and reproach of her name. "So she spake, yet the life-giving earth covered them there, even ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb

... of Castor and Pollux, and the anniversary of the battle of Lake Regillus, which they did so much to win. Let us remember ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson

... only one soul between them, which we will suppose to sleep and wake by turns; and the soul still thinking in the waking man, whereof the sleeping man is never conscious, has never the least perception. I ask, then, whether Castor and Pollux, thus with only one soul between them, which thinks and perceives in one what the other is never conscious of, nor is concerned for, are not two as distinct PERSONS as Castor and Hercules, or as Socrates ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke

... precious as the stuff you sell. Motor-cars for Mrs. Pommery and cakes for the little Grenos? I do not like to regard you as common humans addicted to silk hats and umbrellas and the other vices of respectability. Ye are rather beneficent demigods, Castor and Pollux of the vine, dream entities who pour from the sunset lands of Nowhere the liquid gold of ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke

... signal of his men's defeat. As he went down they hesitated and wavered. The two great negroes, taking advantage of this hesitation, burst among them with mighty blows and strange Afro-American oaths, Castor and Pollux in bronze. With a shout of "Banzai!" Kuroki rushed forward with his kris; the other defenders added weight and fury to the rally. Before the irons were on the wrists of Loge his men were routed. They leaped the rail and made off for their fleet of taxicabs, flinging away ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis

... Bacchus, "vintager;" here name of a person in the comedy of "Peace." Story of Simonides. Simonides, the lyric poet, sang an ode to his patron, Scopas, at a feast; and as he had introduced into it the praises of Castor and Pollux, Scopas declared that he would only pay his own half-share of the ode, and the Demi-gods might pay the remainder. Presently it was announced to Simonides that two youths desired to see him outside the palace; on going there ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... Soon after Christianity had achieved its triumph, the principle which had assisted it began to corrupt it. It became a new paganism. Patron saints assumed the offices of household gods. St. George took the place of Mars. St. Elmo consoled the mariner for the loss of Castor and Pollux. The Virgin Mother and Cecilia succeeded to Venus and Muses. The fascination of sex and loveliness was again joined to that of celestial dignity; and the homage of chivalry was blended with that of religion. Reformers have often made a stand against these feelings; but ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord

... has made, with the marvellous rank Roman vegetation, a sort of Forum or Palatine of the knocked-down modern houses, the empty unfinished basements behind the hoardings under my window. Driving at midnight from the station, my eye and mind were caught not merely by Castor and Pollux under the electric light, and by the endless walls of high palaces, but also by a colossal advertisement of Anzio, in English, setting forth to the traveller its merits connected with Nero, and I think Coriolanus—Nero and Coriolanus as elements ...
— The Spirit of Rome • Vernon Lee

... at the same time. The year previous (65) he had been Curule Aedile, had built a row of costly columns in front of the Capitol, and erected a temple to the Dioscuri (Castor and Pollux). But what made him especially pleasing to the populace was his lavish display at the ...
— History of Rome from the Earliest times down to 476 AD • Robert F. Pennell

... of a new population at end of regal period, also of trade and industry. New deities from abroad represent these changes: Hercules of Ara Maxima; Castor and Pollux; Minerva. Diana of the Aventine reflects a new relation with Latium. Question as to the real religious influence of these deities. The Capitoline temple of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, of Etruscan origin. Meaning of cult-titles ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler

... unintelligible.' But Yaska explains that Saranyu, daughter of Tvashtri, in the form of a mare, had twins by Vivasvat, in the shape of a stallion. Their offspring were the Asvins, who are more or less analogous in their helpful character to Castor and Pollux. Now, can it be by accident that Saranyu in the Veda is Erinnys in Greek? To this 'equation,' as we saw, Mannhardt demurred in 1877. Who was Saranyu? Yaska says 'the Night;' that was Yaska's idea. Mr. Max Muller adds, ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang

... populace at large. Nevertheless this is true. In my mind I am sure guides and tips will always be coupled, as surely as any of those standard team-word combinations of our language that are familiar to all; as firmly paired off as, for example, Castor and Pollux, or Damon and Pythias, or Fair and Warmer, or Hay and Feed. When I think of one I know I shall think of the other. Also I shall think of languages; but for that there ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... two men both had ready pens and stood side by side in many controversies, they came to be regarded by the public as a pair of Great Twin Brethren, the Castor and Pollux of many a scientific battle of Lake Regillus. Odd confusions sometimes followed. In 1876, not long after Tyndall's marriage to the daughter of Lord Claud Hamilton, Huxley was described in a newspaper paragraph as ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley

... (the "Twin Aswins" Castor and Pollux)—whose names have been deciphered by Winckler. These gods were also imported into India by the Vedic Aryans. The Mitanni tribe (the military aristocracy probably) was called "Kharri", and some philologists are of opinion that it is identical with "Arya", which was "the ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie

... strikes him, and on we go: 'Intentique ora tenebant—and intently they hold their oars,' he said, exultingly. 'Very well,' quoth I, approvingly, and continued for him, 'Inde toro pater—the waters flowed glibly farther on, ab alto—to the music of the spheres; the inseparable Castor and Pollux looking down benignantly on their namesake below.' Here I was stopped by the innocent youth's remark, that I certainly was quizzing, for he knew that Castor and Pollux were the same in Latin as in English. Whereupon, I demanded, with profound gravity, whether gemini ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May

... Castor and Pollux of purity? Do you remember the night of last Shrove Tuesday and the girl you carried off to Fat Margot's and ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... Castor and Pollux thought so too, for they tossed their heads, and quickened their pace to a fast trot, though they were far too well behaved to think of breaking ...
— Five Mice in a Mouse-trap - by the Man in the Moon. • Laura E. Richards

... [symbol for GEMINI])—A zodiacal constellation, visible in May, containing the two bright stars Castor and Pollux, the fabled sons of Leda and Jupiter, who during their lives had cleared the Hellespont and neighboring seas of pirates, and were therefore deemed the protectors of ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney

... 2. twins of Leda: Castor and Pollux, two stars in the constellation Gemini. For the myth consult Gayley's ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill

... that you are all my friends, and are so desirous to see that stately pearl of Greece, fair Helena, the wife to King Menelaus, and daughter of Tyndarus and Leda, sister to Castor and Pollux, who was the fairest lady of all Greece, I will therefore bring her into your presence personally, and in the same form and attire as she used to go when she was in her chiefest flower and choicest prime of youth. ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various

... passage of the rapid stream. Formerly the soldiers of Caesar, who encamped on the same shores, would have thought they beheld the inflexible boatman of the infernal regions conducting the friendly shades of Castor and Pollux. Christians dared not even reflect, or see a priest leading his two enemies to the scaffold; it was the first minister ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... Rome, son of Germanicus and Agrippina. He would needs pass for a god, and had the heads of the ancient statues of the gods taken off; and his own placed on in their stead; and used to stand between the statues of Castor and Pollux to be worshipped; and often bragged ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... of Theocritus there are frequent allusions to springs. It was at a spring—and a mountain spring at that—that Castor and Pollux encountered the ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

... Chesterton is merely English for Castor, and Belloc is Pollux transmuted into French. Certainly, if the philologist had also been an evangelical Protestant, he would have felt a double confidence in identifying the two authors with Castor and Pollux as the ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd

... personage is a "sea-insurer." He is accompanied by Arion on a dolphin; and in a picture a sea-haven, with a ship under sail making towards it; on the shore the figure of Fortune, and (who are, think you, the "supercargoes?") over the cargo "Castor and Pollux." In this mode of portrait-painting it would be absolutely necessary to go back to the old plan of putting the names underneath the personages; and even then, though you write under such, this is Castor, this Pollux, and this the sea-insurer, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various

... yellow morning light shone brightly upon its uppermost snows. Beside the Queen of the Alps was the huge mass of the Lyskamm, with a saddle stretching from the one to the other; next to the Lyskamm came two white, rounded mounds, smooth and pure, the Twins Castor and Pollux, and further to the right again the broad, brown flank of the Breithorn. Behind us Mont Cervin[52] gathered the clouds more thickly round him, until finally his grand obelisk was totally hidden. We went along the mountain side for a time, and ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various

... in which Theseus did not take part. Among his feats was the carrying off of Helen, the famous beauty, while still a girl. He then took part in a journey to the under-world,—the realm of ghosts,—during which Castor and Pollux, the brothers of Helen, rescued and brought her home. He was also one of the heroes of the Argonautic expedition and of an expedition against the Amazons, or nation of women warriors; he fought with and killed a series of famous robbers; and he rid the world of a number of ravaging beasts,—the ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... in putting up a large tent- like wooden building, which attracted the eye of every newcomer, and which my little boys believed (their wish, no doubt, being father to their belief,) to be a circus. It turned out, however, to be no circus for Castor and Pollux, but a temple for Apollo and the Muses. It was the place where the Eisteddfod, or Bardic Congress of Wales, was about to be held; a meeting which has for its object (I quote the words of its promoters) ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold

... colt. Two grey horses succeeded, and made pretty running; but their riders, instead of attending to business, joined hands, and rode a quarter of a mile in this amiable attitude. Rather than antagonists, one would have taken them for twin brethren, like two other famous horsemen, Castor and Pollux. To the ladies this mode of racing appeared delightful; but the remarks of our party, consisting of several English and American officers and gentlemen, were anything but complimentary. The last quarter of this heat was well run, one of the horses winning apparently ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge

... were kept in the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitol, and used only on extraordinary occasions. Official duplicates were deposited in other temples, like those of Castor and Pollux, Mars Ultor, Ops, and others, and kept at the disposal of the public, whence their name of pondera publica. Barracks and market-places were also furnished with them. The most important discovery connected with this branch of Roman administration was made at Tivoli ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani

... because of the murder, the assembly was adjourned. Caius and Fulvius went home; but that night the people thronged the Forum, expecting that some violence would be done at daybreak. Opimius was not slow to seize the opportunity. He convoked the Senate, and occupied the temple of Castor and Pollux with armed men. The body of Antyllus was placed on a bier, and with loud lamentations borne along the Forum; and as it passed by the senators came out and hypocritically expressed their anger at the deed. Then, ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley

... "Well, I never!" for which piece of vulgarity she was sharply pulled up by my Aunt Kezia. Amelia fanned herself—she always does, whatever time of year it may be—and languidly remarked, "Dear!" Angus said, "Castor and Pollux!" for which he also got rebuked. And after a sort of "Oh!" Flora said nothing, but looked very sorrowfully at us. Cec—I mean Miss Osborne—did not appear at all until tea was nearly over, and then she came in from the garden, and Mr Parmenter with her, that everlasting eyeglass stuck in his ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt

... three Albans, the purchase of the Sibylline books, the crime of Tullia, the simulated madness of Brutus, the ambiguous reply of the Delphian oracle to the Tarquins, the wrongs of Lucretia, the heroic actions of Horatius Cocles, of Scaevola, and of Cloelia, the battle of Regillus won by the aid of Castor and Pollux, the defense of Cremera, the touching story of Coriolanus, the still more touching story of Virginia, the wild legend about the draining of the Alban lake, the combat between Valerius Corvus and the gigantic Gaul, are among the many instances which ...
— Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... violence and force of arms, framed various pernicious laws, and among them that which gave to Marius the command in the Mithridatic war. The consuls accordingly declared a cessation[194] of all public business; but while they were holding a meeting of the people near the temple of Castor and Pollux, Sulpicius with his rabble attacked them, and among many others massacred the youthful son of Pompeius in the Forum; Pompeius only escaped by hiding himself. Sulla was pursued into the house of Marius, from which he was compelled to come out and repeal the edict for ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long

... is as ingenious a man as his brother Muley Moloch; as where he hints at the story of Castor and Pollux: ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... but that of artists," he declared in the Athenaeum; "artists form a higher caste; they should separate themselves, even in their way of living, from other people." Poetry and philosophy formed in his thought an inseparable unit, forever joined, "though seldom together—like Castor and Pollux." His interest is in "Humanity," that is to say, a superior type of the species, with a corresponding contempt for "commonness," especially for the common man as a mere machine of "duty." On performances he set no great store: "Those countenances are most interesting to me in which Nature ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... interesting bit of word knowledge. Spacemen and Planeteers alike had a way of using the phrase, "By Gemini!" Gemini, of course, was the constellation of the Twins, Castor and Pollux. Both were useful stars for astrogation. The Roman horse soldiers of ancient history had sworn, "By Gemini," or "By the Twins." The Romans believed the stars were the famous Greek warriors Castor and Pollux, placed in the ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage

... Half-gods; heroes. Among the Argonauts were Hercules, Castor and Pollux, Theseus, Peleus, Nestor, and ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin

... of the winter formed a strong contrast with her last experiences. But the rainy, foggy, frosty, snowy months passed away much as they had done before, fostering, amongst other hidden growths, that of Mrs Forbes' love for her semi-protegee, whom, like Castor and Pollux, she took half the year to heaven, and sent the other half to Tartarus. One notable event, however, of considerable importance in its results to the people of Howglen, took place this winter amongst the missionars ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... greatest crimes laid to his charge, say that he did not steal away Helen himself, but that Idas and Lynceus brought her to him, and committed her to his charge, and that, therefore, he refused to restore her at the demand of Castor and Pollux; or, indeed, they say her own father, Tyndarus, had sent her to be kept by him, for fear of Enarophorus, the son of Hippocoon, who would have carried her away by force when she was yet a child. But the most probable account, and that which has ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch

... greeting she seated herself beside him and pointed out the Greek heroes,—Agamemnon, ruler over wide lands, crafty Ulysses, and the mighty Ajax; but she strained her eyes in vain for a sight of her dearly loved brothers, Castor and Pollux, not knowing that they already lay dead in ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb

... upon these occasions, and they firmly believe that there can be no danger from those storms in which that phenomenon occurs. According to Pliny, when such lights appeared to the Roman sailors they were said to be Castor and Pollux, of which Seneca likewise makes mention in the beginning of his ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr

... stood much higher as a lyrist and had travelled widely, lacked the power of describing scenery, and must needs call Oreads, Dryads, Castor and Pollux to his aid. He rarely reached the simple purity of his fine sonnet An Sich, or the feeling in this: 'Dense wild wood, where even the Titan's brightest rays give no light, pity my sufferings. In my sick soul 'tis as dark as ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese

... beheld the apparitions of those beings whom their national mythology associated with such scenes. In such moments of undecided battle, amid the violence, hurry, and confusion of ideas incident to the situation, the ancients supposed that they saw their deities, Castor and Pollux, fighting in the van for their encouragement; the heathen Scandinavian beheld the Choosers of the slain; and the Catholics were no less easily led to recognize the warlike Saint George or Saint James in the very front of the strife, showing them the way to conquest. Such apparitions being ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott

... constellation of Orion stretches broad across the sky; almost overhead lucent Capella looks down. Aries droops towards the west; the Bull follows with the red Aldebaran, and the Pleiades. Behind these, Castor and Pollux, and next the cloudlike, nebulous Cancer. Largest of all, great Sirius is flaming in the south, quivering with the ebb and flow of his light, sometimes with an emerald scintillation like a dewdrop on which ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies

... we are told, wrote some severe verses on Helen, for which he was punished by Castor and Pollux with loss of sight, but on making his recantation in a palinodia, his eyes were graciously restored to him. Lucian has affronted her still more grossly by making her run away with Cinyrus; but he, we are to suppose, being not over ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian

... CASTOR AND POLLUX. Fiery balls which appear at the mast-heads, yard-arms, or sticking to the rigging of vessels in a gale at sea. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth



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