"Ribald" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cheeks burn at this light talk. It seemed to him ribald, and he was outraged that the name of a woman should be bandied about so carelessly. He raised his head and set his square jaw defiantly; then began to push his way through the group, keenly conscious of the ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... is to do?' quoth he. 'I have made an ill bargain. Oh, perverse heart, that turneth from doctrine.' So I bade him keep his breath to cool his broth, ne'er would I shame my folk with singing ribald songs. 'Then,' says he sulkily, 'the first fire we light by the wayside, clap thou on the music box! so 'twill make our pot boil for ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... on MASTERMAN, Dear DAVID'S henchman leal, Whose piety and "uplift" Make ribald Tories squeal; In every public function Displaying the conjunction Of perfect moral ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 8, 1914 • Various
... and four or five dark figures jostled noisily out and came haltingly down the street. They walked crazily, like ships without a rudder, veering from one side of the walk to the other, shouting and singing uncouth, ribald songs, hoarse laughter ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... foliage? And the greensward, and the shadows, and the sunlight, and the atmosphere, and the mistiness—isn't it like pearl-dust and gold-dust floating in the air? It's all got up to imitate the background of a Watteau. We must do our best to be frivolous and ribald, and supply a proper foreground. How big and fleecy and white the clouds are. Do you think they're made of cotton-wood? And what do you suppose they paint the sky with? There never was such a brilliant, breath-taking ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... illustrated, and seasoned pleasantly with Mr. Lincoln's stories, anecdotes, etc. And here I feel called upon to vindicate Mr. Lincoln, as far as my opportunities and observation go, from the frequent imputation of telling indelicate and ribald stories. I saw much of him during his whole Presidential term, with familiar friends and alone, when he talked without restraint; but I never heard him use a profane or indecent word, or tell a story that might not be repeated in ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... Dick, who very likely was setting the whole company laughing, would stop their jokes with a maxima debetur pueris reverentia, and once offered to lug out against another trooper called Hulking Tom, who wanted to ask Harry Esmond a ribald question. ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... view, are attended with compensations. But the future of Conservatism does not rest with them unless they change their ideas and manners. The staying power and the fitness of things are on the side of those whom, with the ribald audacity of youth, they ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... the Mayor, "d' ye think I brook Being worse treated than a Cook? Insulted by a lazy ribald With idle pipe and vesture piebald? You threaten us, fellow? Do your worst, Blow your pipe ...
— The Pied Piper of Hamelin • Robert Browning
... life of Washington, who must pass her father's house on his return from a distant settlement. The Tory knows nothing of this; but he starts whenever the men in the next room rattle the dice or break into a ribald song, and a frown of apprehension crosses his face as the foragers crunch by, half-barefoot, through the snow. The hours go on, and the noise in the next room increases; but it hushes suddenly when a knock at the door is heard. The Tory opens it, and trembles as a tall, ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... of searching out Brother Smith and Professor Petersen, and explaining to them exactly what had happened in full detail, and should they still continue their ribald jests, of punching their heads, which as a manly young fellow, he was quite capable of doing. Reflection showed him, however, that this course might not be wise, since such adventures are apt to end in the police-court, ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... be the fifty-first—the words never more sincerely accepted, even when chanted to all the perfection of choral music, in the Sistine Chapel or in St. Peter's, than when, in the ears of constant sufferers for their Christian faith, ribald voices contemptuously sang or drawled the ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... my life, have ruth on dole! For, when the fair entreats her lover foul, * Sighs rend his bosom and bespeak his soul By charms of thee and whitest cheek I swear thee, * Pity a heart for love lost all control Bend to him, be his stay 'gainst stress of love, * Nor aught accept what saith the ribald fool.'" ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... be remembered, begins with the meanest and foulest attack on his wife that ever ribald wrote, and puts it in close neighbourhood with scenes which every pure man or woman must feel to be the beastly utterances of a man who had lost all sense of decency. Such a potion was too strong to be administered even in a time when great license was allowed, and men were not over-nice. But ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... and the gentle, the ribald and rude, She took as she found them, and did them all good; It always was so with her—see what you have! She has made the grass greener even here ... ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... representing the American Anti-Slavery Society, denies that the society asks for the enfranchisement of colored men, and the Liberator apologizes for excluding the colored men of Louisiana from the ballot-box, they injure us more vitally than all the ribald jests of the whole pro-slavery press." Finally the convention insisted that any such things as the right to own real estate, to testify in courts of law, and to sue and be sued, were mere privileges so long as general political liberty was withheld, ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... in the most amiable condition of mind, and a hint of the ribald would have instantly transformed a passive anger into a blind fury. Thus, a scene hung precariously; but its potentialities became as nothing on the ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... came and passed. On the evening of it the streets were ribald with crowds gleefully shrieking! "Call me Dennis, wifie. I'm stung!" Laird had been badly beaten, running far behind Marrineal. Halloran, the ring candidate, was elected. ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... over from last night?" Afterwards she says her lauds thus: "Ha! we drank good wine yesterday." Afterwards she says thus her orisons: "My head aches, I shan't be comfortable until I have had a drink." Certes, such gluttony putteth a woman to shame, for from it she becomes a ribald, a disreputable person and a thief. The tavern is the Devil's church, where his disciples go to do him service and where he works his miracles. For when folk go there they go upright and well spoken, wise and ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... cessation of their jaw-bones' activity, they serve up the most ribald of raillery. They knock each other about, and clamor in riotous rivalry to have their say. One sees even Farfadet smiling, the frail municipal clerk who in the early days kept himself so decent and clean amongst us all that he was taken for a foreigner or a convalescent. One sees the ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... they said of Eugenie that gave me pain. It was their free speech about Aurore. I have not repeated their ribald talk in relation to her—their jesting innuendoes, their base hypotheses, and coldly brutal sneers whenever ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... A ribald and prolonged laugh greeted this brief announcement, and some twenty pairs of gentlemanly shoulders were ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... Thord, as quietly left the room, like schoolboys retiring from a class where the lessons had been more or less badly done. Paul Zouche was not very steady on his feet, and two of his comrades assisted him to walk as he stumbled off, singing somewhat of a ribald rhyme in mezza-voce. Pasquin Leroy and his two friends were the last to go. Lotys looked at ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... supporters to greater enthusiasm and greater zeal. When his fresh step began to be understood, when Lady Mildmay came with him no more, and it dawned upon Henstead that Sir Winterton would not bring her, the very supporters felt themselves offended. Were a few ribald cries and the folly of a wrong-headed old Japhet Williams to outweigh all their loyalty and devotion? Was the town to be judged by its rowdies? They could not but remember that Lady May Quisante sat ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... dead—that this sweet clay, That even from her picture breathes perfume, Was carried on a fiery wind away, Or foully locked in the worm-whispering tomb; This casket rifled, ribald fingers thrust 'Mid all her dainty ...
— The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... doors, thronged with brilliantly-dressed ladies, and watched to see if his little sister might not dash up in one of those satin-lined coaches and take him where he would be warm and safe and would sleep undisturbed by drunken, ribald songs and loathsome surroundings. There were days when he almost forgot his name, and, striving to remember, would lose his senses for a moment and drift back to the harmonious solitudes of the North and breathe the resin-scented ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie
... rest of them. The station became a sty where before it had been a kennel; the flies multiplied; the stenches increased in volume and strength, if such were possible; the windows of the littered waiting room, with their cracked half panes, were like ribald eyes winking at the living afflictions which continually trailed past them; the floors looked as though there had been ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... it now, if you please. What is this? How does he dare send his ribald jokes to me in such a matter? No, I do not suppose I ever shall like Dr. Proudie; I have never expected it. A matter of conscience with him! Well—well, well. Had I not read it myself, I could not have believed ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... too, we find, in the half-random and wholly scurrile slander of womankind, a touch of real humour, of the humour that has feeling behind it, as here, where a sufficiently ribald variation on the theme of the ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... manner something indescribably more sinister than she had felt in him on that occasion when she had saved his life. Then a debonair recklessness had been the outstanding note, but now there was something ribald ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... scandalous liver, but he would fain stifle all the voices that call for better things. Ay, you look back at yon ballad-monger! Great folk despise the like of him, never guessing at the power there may be in such ribald stuff; while they would fain silence that which might turn men from their evil ways while ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... as is customary in a camp. Verily I saw well that this was not the army of men clean confessed and of holy life who had followed the Maid from Blois to Orleans. In place of priests, here were harlots, and, for hymns, ribald songs, for men had flocked in from every quarter; soldiers of the robber companies, Bretons, Germans, Italians, Spaniards, all talking in their own speech, rude, foul, and disorderly. So we took our way, as best we knight, ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... merely laughed at him, however. Hradzka became more insistent in his manner, making signs to indicate his hunger and willingness to work. The other men in the shop left their tasks and gathered around; there was much laughter and unmistakably ribald and derogatory remarks. Hradzka was beginning to give up hope of getting employment here when one of the workmen approached the master and ...
— Flight From Tomorrow • Henry Beam Piper
... Nuncey eluded her embrace, having caught the sound of ribald laughter on the other side of the rick. Darting around, she was in time to catch Master Calvin two cuffs, right and left, upon the ears. He broke for the gate and she pursued, ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and then the legions, every spear wreathed, every head crowned with bay, so that an evergreen grove might have seemed marching through the Roman streets, but for the war songs, and the wild jests, and ribald ballads that custom allowed the soldiers to shout out, often in pretended mockery of their ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and long," said the jester. "'Tis a life of hell thou wouldst prolong him to. The jeers, the coarse and ribald laughter of the court, the scorn and teasing—aye—God! I know the life, for I too suffer as a courtier's play-thing—and yet, I have a straight body and a human face and a tongue to answer with. What canst thou offer him to compensate for all ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... yourself the trouble of looking further; I know how pathetically trivial our small concerns will seem to you, and I will not let your eye profane them. No, I keep my news; you keep your compassion. Suffice it you to know, scoffer and ribald, that the little child is old and blind, now, and once more toothless; and the rest of us are shadows, these many, many years. Yes, and your ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... remember how we three—Miss Scott, Mrs. Young, and I—remained indoors the whole day, at the charming home of our hostess, on Point Piper road. The black band of death and desolation was too apparent for us to feel that we could face the almost ribald excesses of that day. I felt the war far less keenly than did my two friends; but it was bad even for me. No one called, and the only companions of our chosen solitude were the books we all loved ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... frantic course. A party of men and women were dancing down the hall, singing and shouting. Flutes yelled, cymbals clanged, drums rattled and droned, without either time or tune. Drunken pastophori had flung open the rooms where the vestments and sacred vessels were kept, and from these treasuries the ribald mob had dragged forth panther-skins such as the priests wore when performing the sacred functions, brass cars for carrying sacrifices, wooden biers on which the images of the gods were borne in solemn processions, and other precious objects. In a large room ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... wear thin And the noise, like a garment outworn, Falls from the night, The tattered and shivering night, That thinks she is gay; When the patient silence comes back, And retires, And returns, Rebuffed by a ribald song, Wounded by vehement cries, Fleeing again to the stars— Ashamed of her sister the night; Oh, then they steal home, The blinded, the pitiful ones With their gew-gaws still in their hands, Reeling ...
— Rivers to the Sea • Sara Teasdale
... neighbours, who may esteem and respect, but will scarce unbend before men who are become masters of their most secret thoughts. They therefore betake themselves to the pot-house, and in drinking and ribald conversation, look for that amusement which, under a better state of things, the Reformed pastor is sure to find in the bosom of his own family, and among his friends. I do not mean to justify the individuals, ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... impunity to be profaned? Where there is a natural diffidence which makes you shrink from a more bold and open reproof, remember much may be done to discountenance sin, by the silent holiness of demeanor which refuses to smile at the unholy allusion or ribald jest. "A word spoken in due season, how good is it!" "Speak gently," yet speak faithfully: "be pitiful—be courteous:" yet "quit ...
— The Mind of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... the Charr on eyther hond, And alle the nobles of the lond Tofore and after with him come Ridende and broghten him to Rome, In thonk of his chivalerie And for non other flaterie. 2380 And that was schewed forth withal; Wher he sat in his Charr real, Beside him was a Ribald set, Which hadde hise wordes so beset, To themperour in al his gloire He seide, "Tak into memoire, For al this pompe and al this pride Let no justice gon aside, Bot know thiself, what so befalle. For ...
— Confessio Amantis - Tales of the Seven Deadly Sins, 1330-1408 A.D. • John Gower
... he is after, Makes the woods ring with ribald laughter; "Hee, hee, ha, ha," he says, and then "Ha, ha, hee, hee, ha, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 5, 1920 • Various
... age. She had set her mark indelibly on his speech, his manners, and his habits. When ten years old he had learned to aspirate his initial vowels; when twelve he had mastered the whole theory and practice of eating cheese with his knife; at seventeen his mind was saturated with ribald ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... his fine motive was apparent) took care to bring their ribald remarks under Burton's notice. Furny's idea evidently was to point out to Burton that his position was untenable, that it was not fitting that the same man should deal with Mr. Wrackham and with Ford Lankester. He had to keep himself clean for him. If he didn't ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... CAPT. My lord—one word—the facts are not before you The word was injudicious, I allow— But hear my explanation, I implore you, And you will be indignant too, I vow! SIR JOSEPH. I will hear of no defence, Attempt none if you're sensible. That word of evil sense Is wholly indefensible. Go, ribald, get you hence To your cabin with celerity. This is the consequence ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... of council as of the least importance. Its principal duties consisted in devising new names for streets and regulating the hours of city-hall servants. There were no perquisites, no graft. In a spirit of ribald defiance at the organization of the present session all the mayor's friends—the reformers—those who could not be trusted—had been relegated to this committee. Now it was proposed to take this ordinance ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... saltum, but 'by slow degrees;' and an irreverent ballad supports the vulgar belief that the only attorney to be found on the celestial rolls gained admittance to the blissful abode more by artifice than desert. The ribald broadside runs in the ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... the children violently struggled, and that the round hard head of one of them butted him in the stomach. He divined that sounds of ribald laughter, in the distance, proceeded from the driver of the Marychurch station fly. He knew two small figures raced whooping down the lane attended by squelchings of mud and ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... starving, to help themselves at the expense of their more fortunate, and probably—I may say certainly—more meritorious countrymen. I do not indeed go so far as to say that this woman is in collusion with those ferocious ruffians who have made these sacred precincts of justice ring with their ribald and threatening scoff's. But the persistence of these riotous interruptions, and the ease with which their perpetrators have evaded arrest, have produced a strange impression in my mind. (Very impressively.) However, gentlemen, that ...
— The Tables Turned - or, Nupkins Awakened. A Socialist Interlude • William Morris
... them all of being chased by US troops at the very commencement of his enterprise; of being severely wounded, rescued, and carried off during the flight by Buck Tom, and then—a long blank, mingled with awful dreams and scenes, and ribald songs, and curses—some of all which was real, and some the working of a ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... kindly cease that ribald screaming. David (David is Angel's proper name) get up instantly from that piano stool and face me! John, ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... of the stifling room, on a raised platform, sat two oily and fat negroes, making the place hideous with their ribald songs and the twanging of a guitar and banjo. When, a familiar air was sounded the entire gathering joined in chorus, and when such tunes as "There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight" came, the place was pandemonium. Yet through it all perfect ...
— Bohemian San Francisco - Its restaurants and their most famous recipes—The elegant art of dining. • Clarence E. Edwords
... the surviving Union and Confederate officers to give an account of the bravest act observed by each during the Civil War. Colonel Thomas W. Higginson said that at a dinner at Beaufort, S. C., where wine flowed freely and ribald jests were bandied, Dr. Miner, a slight, boyish fellow who did not drink, was told that he could not go until he had drunk a toast, told a story, or sung a song. He replied: "I cannot sing, but I will give a toast, although I must drink it in water. It is 'Our Mothers.'" ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... strolled too near the warlike ranks; for had not all the sturdy citizens of New York come down to see the hated British evacuate the city, forced out by the troops of Gen. Washington (plain Mr. Washington, the British liked to call him)? The ragged gamins scurried here and there, yelling ribald jests at the departing soldiers; and the scarlet-coated troopers had hard work keeping down their rising anger, as suggestive cries of "boiled lobsters" rose on every side. Even the staid citizens could hardly conceal their exultation, as they thought that with those soldiers departed forever ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... not wholly amiss nor unintelligible. Like all young men of quick blood he seized gaily upon the earthy basis of our humanity and found in it food for purging laughter. There was never a young poet worth bread and salt who did not scrawl ribald verses in his day; we may surmise that Brooke's peers at King's would recall many vigorous stanzas that are not included in the volume at hand. The few touches that we have in this vein show a masculine fear on Brooke's part of being ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... of his authorship—there is a singular echo in it from the opening of Jonson's "Poetaster," the furious dramatic satire which blasted for upward of two centuries the fame or the credit of the poet to whose hand this masque has been hitherto assigned. In it, after a full allowance of rough and ribald jocosity, the presence of a poet becomes manifest with the entrance of an allegoric figure whose declamatory address ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... the Carnival—where the stake had been set up, a great crowd fought for coigns of vantage—a joyous, good-humored tussle. The great fountain sent its flashing silver spirts towards a blue heaven. As the death-cart lumbered into the Piazza ribald songs from the rabble saluted the criminal's ears, and his wild, despairing eyes lighted on many a merry face that but a few hours before had followed him to testify to righteousness; and, mixed with theirs, the faces of his fellow-Jews, sinister ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... remarks among a ribald few, but on the whole everything passed off as usual. They were both general favorites, and as a matter of fact few people remarked that Flaxen's dress was not good enough. She certainly forgot all about it, so complete was her absorption in the ...
— A Little Norsk; Or, Ol' Pap's Flaxen • Hamlin Garland
... Every other man had a cigar or pipe in his mouth, and jugs of whiskey were handed round freely. The fumes of the whiskey and the dense tobacco smoke were sickening to my senses, and my mind was equally nauseated by the coarse jokes and ribald songs around me. It was a very disagreeable ride. Since that time there has been some improvement ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... sparkling beauty, of her kisses and caresses, and the delightful coolness of her thin and supple hands. His mad infatuation for her made him oblivious to the taunts and jeers of the villagers, who seldom saw him without making ribald allusion ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... his publisher? Does he write begging letters? Does he get clothes or lodgings without paying for them? Again, whilst a wanderer, does he insult helpless women on the road with loose proposals or ribald discourse? Does he take what is not his own from the hedges? Does he play on the fiddle, or make faces in public-houses, in order to obtain pence or beer? or does he call for liquor, swallow it, and then say to a widowed landlady, ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... education that the Government considered it must mobilize them all. Thus the professors found themselves enlisted in the service of the State. Unluckily—to give examples would be painful—it too often happened that the poor professor damaged irretrievably his reputation and held up the State to ribald laughter. Those who belong to an old, cultured nation are not always cognizant of the petty atmosphere, to say nothing of the petty salaries, which is to-day the common lot of Balkan professors. (A really ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... edge of the cliff and looked down upon their enemies. They were so near that everything was plainly visible, and the hum of conversation reached their ears. They could even hear the commands of the officers vainly trying to restore order, the curses of the teamsters upon their jaded animals, the ribald songs of the few whose canteens furnished them with forgetfulness of defeat, and contempt ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... lectures on the reason of state, ecclesiastical and political, which the Protestant Association have since condescended to read to us? Or were we, seven hundred peers and commoners, the only persons ignorant of the ribald invectives which occupy the place of argument in those remonstrances, which every man of common observation had heard a thousand times over, and a thousand times over had despised? All men had before heard what they dare to say, and all men at this day know what they dare to ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... this almost necessary rule, every convict has an opportunity to listen to the vilest obscenity that ever falls upon human ears. At times, when some of these convicts, who seem veritable encyclopedias of wickedness, are crowded together, the ribald jokes, obscenity and blasphemy are too horrible for description. It is a pandemonium—a miniature hell! But worse than this horrible flow of language are the horrible and revolting practices of the mines. Men, degraded to a plane lower than the brutes, are guilty of the unmentionable crimes referred ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... reclining like tailored paladins in the leather cushions. Keen-eyed youths surrounded with heaps of bags and cases on a carefully linened quest. Nervous old women, mysteriously ragged creatures, rakish silk hats, bundles of children with staring fingers, strangely mustachioed and ribald-necked gentry. ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... You're too early if you got a jane in your eye, bo," was the ribald reply. "The boss is a good guy." He sneered in the direction of the black-haired, coarse-looking man in the cashier's cage. "He hires them girls for five dollars less a week than he'd have to pay union waiters, and he asks no ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... custom, Cromwell's Government had acquiesced. Only in one particular, apart from politics, was there any disposition to interfere with the liberty of printing. This was where popular wit, humour, or poetry might pass into the ribald, profane, or indecent. Vigilance against open immorality had from the first appeared to Cromwell one of the chief duties of his Government; and he seems to have been unusually attentive to this duty in 1655-6, when he had just put the country under the military police of his Major-Generals ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... had begun to march, closely followed by the trumpeters. Behind them a bevy of Columbines in many-coloured tarlatan skirts and hair flying wildly in the breeze, giggling, pushing, exchanging ribald jokes with the men behind, and getting kissed or ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... slanderous ribald! quoth the miller, hast! A traitor false, false lying clerk, quoth he, Thou shalt be slain by heaven's dignity Who rudely dar'st disparage with foul lie My daughter, that is come of lineage high! And by the throat he Allan grasp'd amain, And caught ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... before he was heartily home-sick for Indiana. No maid-of-all-work in a cheap boarding-house was ever more harassed. Everyone conspired against him. His enemies gave him no peace. All Washington was laughing at his blunders, and ribald sheets, published on a Sunday, took delight in printing the new Chief Magistrate's sayings and doings, chronicled with outrageous humour, and placed by malicious hands where the President could not but ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... almost to a run by contusion of shoulder-blade or funny-bone; he finally became aware that two men were following him through the lots, and that with a closeness of attention indicating more than common interest. To the perception of his keenly sensitive Southern nature they at once became ribald Yankee vandals, hoping for unseemly amusement from the detection of some awkwardness in the Indian-club-play of a defeated but not conquered Southern Gentleman; and, in the haughty sectional pride of his contemptuous soul, he indignantly determined to show ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 22, August 27, 1870 • Various
... his voice against the proceeding; the "couple-beggar" smothered his objections in ribald jests. ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... below interrupted the conversation. The two youths looked down. The deck plan of the tug lay flat and empty save for the inert form of Gaskin. The noise came from inside the cabin and arose to a shouting. It was a drunken ribald sound. A ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... congregate, this subject crops up, and those who talk most freely to the others are just those with the most distorted and vicious ideas, whose discourse abounds in obscene detail and ribald jest. Your child must learn either from ignorant, unclean minds, or be taught in a clean, sacred way, which will rob sex of secrecy and obscenity; learn he will; if you will not teach your child, his ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... might have claimed a longer period of existence, as their first charter was granted by Edward IV. Their bye-laws are particularly interesting, and give minute directions with regard to their profession. They tested the skill of music and dancing masters, forbade the singing of ribald, wanton, or lascivious songs, or the playing of any instrument under any knight or gentleman's window without the company's licence. The Needlemakers existed in the time of Henry VIII., but have little history. ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... demented. The occasion was the fast-day at Tilliedrum; when its inhabitants, instead of crowding reverently to the kirk, swooped profanely down in their scores and tens of scores on our God-fearing town, intent on making a day of it. Then did the weavers rise as one man, and go forth to show the ribald crew the errors of their way. All denominations were represented, but Auld Lichts led. An Auld Licht would have taken no man's blood without the conviction that he would be the better morally for the bleeding; and if Tammas Lunan's case gave an ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... of Moliere is that he does not exaggerate; his fools are never overwitty, his buffoons too grotesque, his men of wit too anxious to display their smartness, nor his fine gentlemen too fond of immodest and ribald talk. His satire is always kept within bounds, his repartees are never out of place, his plots are but seldom intricate, and the moral of his plays is not obtruded, but follows as a natural consequence of the whole. He rarely rises to those lofty realms of poetry where Shakespeare so often ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... —from ribald lips and throats turned brazen with laughter, from singers who toss their hats aloft and roll in their seats; the chorus swells to the accompaniment ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... blackmail from monarchs, makes princes tremble, and receives smooth answers to his insults from Buonarroti. These three men, Machiavelli, Cellini, and Aretino, each in his own line, and with the proper differences that pertain to philosophic genius, artistic skill, and ribald ruffianism, sufficiently indicate the dissolution of the social bond in Italy. They mark their age as the age of adventurers, bandits, bullies, ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... freight station. Dusk settles down over the valley. An engine near by begins to throb and electric lights spring up here and there. All over the town the flames of the great bonfires leap out of the gloom. From the camps of the workmen come ribald songs and jests, The presence of death has no ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... of a cliff where the morning sun, searching and fervid, did not reach, and threw themselves to the ground, resting their backs against the foot wall, and trying patiently to await the appearance of their guides. The steady, hurried clink of glass and bottle on bar, the ribald shouts and threats of the crowd that filled the road house, the occasional burst of a maudlin song, all told the condition of the ejected placer men who had stopped here ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... whom they proclaimed a runaway slave. True to their Virginian instincts as she came near, they formed in line across the narrow bridge, and prepared to seize her. Seeing escape impossible in that quarter, she stopped suddenly, and turned upon her pursuers. On came the profane and ribald crew, faster than ever, already exulting in her capture, and threatening punishment for her flight. For a moment she looked wildly and anxiously around to see if there was no hope of escape. On either ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown
... These soldiers were the remainder of those large bodies which year after year had been quartered upon the Netherlands during the constant warfare to which they had been exposed. Living upon the substance of the country, paid out of its treasury, and as offensive by their licentious and ribald habits of life as were the enemies against whom they were enrolled, these troops had become an intolerable burthen to the people. They were now disposed in different garrisons, nominally to protect the frontier. As a firm peace, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... knew actually and intimately, though as yet he could give her no name, nor recall in what his knowledge of her consisted. The young man he knew inferentially. And Dickie was sensible of regarding him with instinctive repulsion, since his appearance presented a living and grossly ribald caricature of a figure august, worshipful, and holy. Long and closely Richard studied those two persons, studied them, forgetful of all else, straining his memory to place them. And all the while ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... A ribald face, sullen as a dean's, Buck Mulligan came forward, then blithe in motley, towards the greeting ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... things when these wild sprouts of Bohemia, "with kindly solicitude, help her on with her clothes." We can even pause to admire the experienced skill with which they put each garment in its proper place—and deftly button it. That she should have the ribald slang of the free-and-easy neighborhood at her tongue's end and be destitute of delicacy as a young cow might be expected; but we are hardly prepared to see one grown up among such surroundings so unutterably stupid as not to know when her companions are "guying" her. Trilby ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... the face of the maid, which was explained a minute later when, in accordance with her mistress's order, the visitor was shown into the drawing-room, for his presence was of an elegance so extraordinary as to attract attention anywhere—and mirth as well from ribald observers. ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... Massachusetts Bay, then called Wessagusset, now the town of Weymouth, which they had selected for their residence. They left their sick behind them, to be nursed by those Christian Pilgrims whose piety had excited their ribald abuse. ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... a frightful glitter in his eyes, an ugly ooze about his bloodless lips, a flickering effort of his shriveled fingers to adjust themselves to some ribald rhythm, Raikes began to sing, with the dry rasp and ancient husk of a ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... to the others, Casper and Barney and Evans and Hugh and Bill and Dan and Tom and Lew and Gomer and Mike and Dick—excepting Casper Herdicker, mostly Welsh and Irish, and they passed around some more or less ribald greetings. Then they all stepped upon the soft ground and stood in the light of the flickering oil torches that hung ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... climate. There was little in the character of the people around to induce me to enter much into society. The higher class of the Andalusians are probably upon the whole the most vain and foolish of human beings, with a taste for nothing but sensual amusements, foppery in dress, and ribald discourse. Their insolence is only equalled by their meanness, and their prodigality by their avarice. The lower classes are a shade or two better than their superiors in station: little, it is true, can be said for the tone of their morality; they are overreaching, quarrelsome, and revengeful, ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... was lifted from the level of the lowest farcical improvisation to a recognised position in literature, and quite incidentally became useful in education. But the coarseness remained; the dancing was grotesque and the fun ribald, and, as Professor Purser says, the plots nearly always involved "some incident of an amorous nature in which ordinary morality was set at defiance." The Roman audience of the early Empire enjoyed these things, and ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... injury. Say that, grown into man, I've known the pittance of the hospital, And, more degrading still, the patronage Of the Colonna. Of the tallest trees The roots delve deepest. Yes, I've trod thy halls, Scorned and derided midst their ribald crew, A licensed jester, save the cap and bells, I have borne this—and I have borne the death, The unavenged death, of a dear brother. I seemed, I was, a base, ignoble slave. What am I?—Peace, I say!—What ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 338, Saturday, November 1, 1828. • Various
... the cage. She seemed to glory in her triumph, and when Mahdi butted into a corner and refused to stir, she took him by one leg, and towed him twice round the cage, and the tittering the crowd swelled to yells of derisions and ribald laughter, while Professor Thunder pranced about and cursed furiously. To save his show from being ruined with ridicule, he rushed in, seized the woman, and ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... Often when Cotoner came in, he would surprise him by the serene shamelessness with which he sang some one of the licentious songs he had learned in Rome, and the painter of the Popes, smiling like a faun, joined in the chorus, applauding at the end these ribald verses ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... turned; he bared a demon face; He filled the night with ribald song; For many a league, in evil case, We danced our leaden feet along. And every rood, in that foul wine, I pledged his fate: he ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... patience of the Hind did almost fail; For well she mark'd the malice of the tale;[127] 640 Which ribald art their Church to Luther owes; In malice it began, by malice grows; He sow'd the Serpent's teeth, an iron-harvest rose. But most in Martin's character and fate, She saw her slander'd sons, the Panther's hate, The people's rage, the persecuting state: Then said, I take the advice in friendly ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... as the Boy was getting ready to throw a Life Line. He was greeted with a ribald Shout and told to ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... me. "No. I am not quite so old as that," he said. "But it's not very difficult to know facts of that kind about a historical personage. There were some ribald verses made at the time, and Louis XIV was congratulated on the possession—I really don't remember how it goes—on the ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... glanced round. Her first impulse was to speak; her second to remain silent. For the Arkansan was not looking at her. His mocking ribald ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... pervaded the atmosphere, mingled with that close sickly odor which is felt where great numbers of uncleanly human beings are closely packed together; and from some distance was heard the sounds of riotous merriment, ribald song, and hoarse, unfeeling laugh, with curses and execrations not a few. It was a time when the abominations of the prison system were at ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... of Guise's career a halo of political martyrdom which there is nothing in the original to suggest. This metamorphosis of Guise is all the more remarkable, because Monsieur, his former co-partner in villany, reappears, in the one scene where he figures, in the same ribald, blustering vein as before, and his death is reported, at the close of Act IV, as a ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... Heer Governor, "art crazy then, or would you seek to make sport of me, your governor? Thanksgiving for the breaking up of school! Out on you for a set of malapert young knaves! Do you think the world goeth but for your pleasures alone? Why, this is ribald talk! I made no Thanksgiving for your convenience, rascals, but because that the Lord in His grace hath relieved the town ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... indelibly impressed itself upon those rough, boisterous Western spirits out in front. Before her parting lips uttered a line she had thoroughly mastered them, the innate purity of her perfected womanhood, the evident innocence of her purpose, shielding her against all indecency and insult. The ribald scoffing, the insolent shuffling of feet, the half-drunken uneasiness, ceased as if by magic; and as her simple act proceeded, the stillness out in front became positively solemn, the startled faces picturing an awakening to higher things. It was a triumph ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... Sportif." The name alone was worth the money one would spend. Everything to cover the outer, and nourish the inner sportsman, was to be had. I felt that I could scarcely be lonely or sad if I possessed a stock of these friendly articles. Jack's ribald advice to buy a pelerine, and a green-loden Gemsjaeger hat with a feather, stirred me neither to smiles nor anger, for Molly and I were already deep ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... inimitable story-teller, with an eye which nothing could escape. He was ready to take men as he found them, having no yearning for the purification of a sinful world. Heroic examples of manly constancy and of womanly purity and devotion, are mingled in his pages with coarse and ribald tales; still, coarse and ribald as some of his narratives are, Chaucer never attempts to make vice attractive. He takes it rather as a matter of course, calling, not for reproof, but for laughter, whenever those who are doing evil place themselves ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... old carousal, and with eyes A hard, hot blue; her hair a frowsy flame, Bold, dowdy-bosomed, from her widow-frame She leans, her mouth all insult and all lies. Or slattern-slippered and in sluttish gown, With ribald mirth and words too vile to name, A new Doll Tearsheet, glorying in her shame, Armed with her Falstaff now she takes the town. The flaring lights of alley-way saloons, The reek of hideous gutters and black oaths Of drunkenness from vice-infested dens, Are to ...
— Weeds by the Wall - Verses • Madison J. Cawein
... shut out from the heaven of the theatre, self-condemned to a life of hideous gloom; and the Salvationist mourning over the playgoer as over a prodigal with vine leaves in his hair, careering outrageously to hell amid the popping of champagne corks and the ribald laughter of sirens! Could misunderstanding be more complete, or sympathy ...
— Bernard Shaw's Preface to Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw
... Skelton and his rough-running, irregular rhythmic rather than strictly metrical verses ... mad and ribald ... often tedious ... but with wild flashes of beauty interwoven through his poems ... the poem about his mistress's sparrow ... the elegy on its death ... where he prayed God to give it the little wren of the Virgin Mary, as a wife, ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... wholly ill of this vagrant people, from whom she had often received food and comfort; and her worst danger, as he learned with shame, had come from the girovaghi or wandering monks, who are the scourge and dishonour of Christendom; carrying their ribald idleness from one monastery to another, and leaving on their way a trail of thieving, revelry and worse. Once or twice the Wild Woman had nearly fallen into their hands; but had been saved by her own quick ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... you keep her on her present course, she's all right, but if you try and bring her up any more she begins to shake. And, by the way, Penelope wants to be called at 4.30." Bowers' 'snotty,' who is Oates, probably makes some ribald remarks, such as no midshipman should to a full lieutenant, and they both disappear below. Campbell's snotty, myself, appears about five minutes afterwards trying to look as though some important duty and not bed had kept him from making an earlier appearance. ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... down the longed-for rain on the parched earth. Stripping themselves of all their garments, they assume in their stead girdles and head-dresses of grass, or short petticoats made of the leaves of a particular sort of creeper. Thus attired, uttering peculiar cries and singing ribald songs, they go about from well to well, cleansing them of the mud and impurities which have accumulated in them. The wells, it may be said, are merely holes in the sand where a little turbid unwholesome water stagnates. Further, the women must repair ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... rest at night By ribald youth is troubled; No more your windows, fastened tight, Yield to ...
— Echoes from the Sabine Farm • Roswell Martin Field and Eugene Field
... frolicked with the Indians on May Day in 1627. As the indignant historian writes: "Unleashed pagans from the purlieus of the gross court of King James, danced about the Idoll of Merry Mount, joining hands with the lasses in beaver coats, and singing their ribald songs." ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... chamber of horrors. Nor would death itself have shielded their reputations from hatchments of dishonour. For the greatest of Englishmen reviled even the sacred name of Joan of Arc, the stainless Maid of France, to belittle a fallen foe and spice a ribald stage-play. ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... been none of the most righteous, judging from the revelations made by his unconscious lips; since more than once Robert authoritatively silenced him, when my gentler hushings were of no avail, and blasphemous wanderings or ribald camp-songs made my cheeks burn and Robert's face assume an aspect of disgust. The captain was a gentleman in the world's eye, but the contraband was the gentleman in mine;—I was a fanatic, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... tall trees bend, and green trees send A chuckle round the earth, And the soft winds croon a jeering tune, And the harsh winds shriek with mirth, And the wee small birds chirp ribald words When the Swank walks down the street; But every Glug takes off his hat, And whispers humbly, "Look at that! Hats off! Hats off to the Glug of rank! Sir Stodge, the Swank, the Lord High Swank!" Then the East wind ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis
... God knew the abysmal depths of its reality. Months piled on months there had been of it! Those voices out there that rose in a jangle of ribald mirth were the same voices that, hushed in deadlier menace, had whispered that grim slogan, "Death to the Gray Seal!" through every hidden cranny in the underworld; these men and women here around him were of the same breed as those who only last night ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... Himself. I sometimes think respecting this hue and cry about the glory of God and the sanctity of religion, I would like to see some of these saints put into the common hall with Jesus again, amongst a band of ribald, mocking, soldiers. I would like to see, then, their zeal for the glory of God, when it touched their own glory. They are wonderfully zealous when their glory and His glory go together; but, when the mob is at His heels, crying, "Away with Him!—crucify Him!—crucify ...
— Godliness • Catherine Booth
... a seat in Misery's brake, squatting on the floor with his back to the horses, thankful enough to be out of reach of the drunken savages, who were now roaring out ribald songs and startling the countryside, as they drove along, with unearthly ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... the character of a prisoner, was the signal for a great yell of ferocious delight on the part of the outlaws, immediately followed by a brisk fusillade of scurrilous, ribald jests concerning the sport that they would have with me upon their return to their mountain stronghold; and so bloodcurdling were the suggestions thrown out by some of those fiends that I confess a qualm of fear surged over me for a second ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... and terror-stricken eyes, and not stopping even for her hat, in her fear that she might be too late, left the house and made her way through the throng before the Fennell house. At sight of her pallid cheeks and set lips, the ribald jeer died on the lips even of the drunken, and the people made way for her in silence. It was not that they had ever liked her, or now sympathized with her. She had always held herself too daintily aloof from speech or contact with them for that, but they guessed her errand, and had a certain rude ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... deeply it distressed him as he walked along, larding the earth as he passed, to hear bystanders making ribald comments about the inadvisability of trying to move bank vaults through the streets in the daytime. And now that, after fifteen years of fatness, I am getting thin again—glory be!—wherein, I ask, is the impropriety in furnishing ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... lecturing to the students of the Latin Quarter. At last he decides to return to his father,—possibly the Archbishop of Paris or the Abbot of Saint-Denis,—who receives him with open arms, and gives him a new robe, which to the ribald student would mean a church living—an abbey, perhaps Saint Gildas-de-Rhuys in Brittany, or elsewhere. The fatted calf is killed, the feast is begun, and the elder son, whom the malicious student would name Bernard, appears in order to make protest. ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... dance. The moccasined feet pounded the filthy floor, and the dust gathered thick round the gums of the hard-breathing dancers. The noise of coarse laughter and ribald shoutings increased. All were pleased with themselves, but more pleased still with the fiery liquid served out by Baptiste. The scene grew more wild as time crept on, and the effect of the liquor made itself apparent. The fiddler ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... "Survey," that Walworth was the landlord of the stews on the Bank-side, which he farmed out to the Dutch vrows, and which Wat had pulled down, I am inclined to suspect that private feeling first knocked down the saucy ribald, and then thrust him through and through with his dagger; and that there was as much of personal vengeance as patriotism, which crushed the demolisher ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... derogatory to the dignity of a prince and a regent that his wife should be living an eccentric life at Blackheath with a family of singers named Sapio. Indeed, Carolines conduct during this time was as indiscreet as ever. Wherever she went she made ribald jokes about her husband, 'in such a voice that all, by-standing, might hear.' 'After dinner,' writes one of her servants, 'Her Royal Highness made a wax figure as usual, and gave it an amiable pair of large horns; ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... place where they expected to see their gallant king coming to restore them once more to freedom, they saw the implacable czar enter in triumph, followed by those heroes, the least of whom had lately made him tremble, now in chains, and exposed to the ribald mirth and derision of the gaping crowd, they lost at once their fortitude, and even all sense of expressing their grief at this misfortune:—the shock of it was so violent, it even took away the power of feeling it, and they remained for some moments rather like statues carv'd out by mortal ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... Chryste," she cried, "ne let me hear Their ribald sounds of Yuletide cheere That mock at mine and me; Graunt that my sore affliction cease And give me of the heavenly peace That comes ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... a funeral of the monarchy which was celebrated that day; and this great, heavy carriage, surrounded by soldiers, and the ribald, mocking populace—this great carriage, which now drove along the streets leading to the Tuileries, amid the thunder of cannon, and the peals of bells from towers, was the funeral car ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... it, my lad. But look here, Murray; the people are quite friendly towards us, so help me in making our lads behave themselves. I mean, there must be no ribald laughing at the poor wretches. That is not the way to appeal to their better feelings. Look at that! Poor benighted creatures. These slave-owners must keep them in a darkness ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... I realised that he was in an advanced state of intoxication. As I entered he rose unsteadily, and addressing me declared that life in the Spasso-Preobrazhensky was most pleasant, and at once began singing a ribald song. ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... a wise and ripened scholar who wastes his effort," was the dry comment. "Most of the lads of the town are coarse louts who pattern after their ribald elders, Jack. They will lead you into ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... these shows 15 Are well devised—such as I was ere yet My young heart shared a portion of the burthen, The careful weight, of this great monarchy. There, gentlemen, between the sovereign's pleasure And that which it regards, no clamour lifts 20 Its proud interposition. In Paris ribald censurers dare not move Their poisonous tongues against these sinless sports; And HIS smile Warms those who bask in it, as ours would do 25 If ... Take my heart's thanks: add them, gentlemen, To those good words which, were he King of France, My royal ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... The ribald voice that had last interrupted, again broke into the Secretary's touching words. This time the interrupter roared out a stanza or two of ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... middle hour of the night. Many, just out of banquet-hall, theatre, and circus, thronged the main thoroughfares of the capital. Cries of venders, ribald songs, shouts of revelry, the hurrying of many feet roused the good people who, wearied by other nights of dissipation, now sought repose. They turned, uneasily, reflecting that to-morrow they would ...
— Vergilius - A Tale of the Coming of Christ • Irving Bacheller
... letter lying on the ground—a letter that had dropped out of M. de Poissy's pocket—a letter from his wife, full of tender words of endearment and pretty babblings of love. This was read aloud, with coarse ribald comments on every sentence, each trying to outdo the previous speaker. When they came to some pretty words about a sweet Maurice, their little child away with its mother on some visit, they laughed at M. de la Tourelle, and told him that he would ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... pretty and mighty consoling. The fact is, the poets are the only people who score by the present arrangement; which it is therefore their interest to maintain. While we are doing all the work, these incorrigible skulkers lounge about and make ribald remarks; they write Greek tragedies on Fate, on the sublimity of Suffering, on the Petty Span, and so on; and act in a generally offensive way. And we are even weak enough to buy their books; offer them drinks, peerages, and things; and say what superlative fellows ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame
... choked Mrs. Wainwrignt. Nothing she knew of Nora could account for her stupefaction and grief. What happened glaringly to her was the duplicity of man. Coleman was a ribald deceiver. He must have known and yet he had pretended throughout that the meeting was a pure accident She turned with a nervous impulse to sympathist with her daughter, but despite the lovely tranquillity of ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... the ear of Ernest. Meantime joke followed jest, among Polydore and the rest of the gay youths, in riotous and ribald succession, which, however characteristic of the rude speakers, may as well be omitted here. Their effect was to shake in some degree the fortitude of the Saxon maiden, who had some difficulty in mustering ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... of the Union armies, were frequently brought to the attention of Parliament, as if America were in some way accountable to the judgment of England. Harsh comment came from leading British statesmen, while the most ribald defamers of the United States met with cheers from a majority of the House of Commons, and indulged in the bitterest denunciation of a friendly Government without ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... "the Court, having with shame listened to your ribald effusion, I will ask you what you had to drink upon the night you and the Lord Mayor were found wandering under extraordinary circumstances ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... great laugh, but I managed to kick him beneath the table and he turned it into a sneeze. This was fortunate, as such ribald merriment would have hurt the old man's feelings terribly. After all, also, as Leo himself had once said, surely we were not the people to mock at the theory of re-incarnation, which, by the way, is the first article of faith among nearly one ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard |
