"Alcaeus" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... because even poetry is now affected by the division of labour. We do not look to the poet for a large share in the practical activities of existence: we do not expect him, like AEschylus and Sophocles, Theognis and Alcaeus, to take a conspicuous part in politics and war; or even, as in the Age of Anne, to shine among wits and in society. Life has become, perhaps, too specialised for such multifarious activities. Indeed, even in ancient days, as a Celtic proverb and as the picture ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... chin in water, with every kind of fruit within reach: yet hungry as he was and thirsty, he could never attain to what he wanted; every thing which he caught at eluding his efforts. But from the account given above by [877]Pindar, as well as by [878]Alcaeus, Aleman, and other writers, his punishment consisted in having a stone hanging over his head; which kept him in perpetual fear. What is styled [Greek: lithos], was I make no doubt originally Petros; which has been misinterpreted a stone. Tantalus is termed by Euripides [Greek: akolastos ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant
... cheerful circle, the book read aloud, the newspaper through which we look out into the unquiet world, are painted by the writer with a heartfelt enjoyment, which infects the reader. These are not the joys of a hero, nor are they the joys of an Alcaeus "singing amidst the clash of arms, or when he had moored on the wet shore his storm-tost barque." But they are pure joys, and they present themselves in competition with those of Ranelagh and the Basset Table, which are not ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... together any letters that come next to hand. It is farther very pleasant when these coxcombs employ their pens in writing congratulatory episdes, poems, and panegyricks, upon each other, wherein one shall be complimented with the title of Alcaeus, another shall be charactered for the incomparable Callimachus; this shall be commended for a completer orator than Tully himself; a fourth shall be told by his fellow-fool that the divine Plato comes short of him for a philosophic soul. Sometime again they take up ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... ancient liberty by the favour of Pomnpey; and was afterwards much embellished by Trajan, who added to it the splendour of his own name. This was the country of Pittacus, one of the seven wise men of Greece, as well as of Alcaeus and Sappho. The natives showed a particular taste for poetry, and had, as Plutarch informs us, stated times for the celebration ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... any violence or force, dissolve the humors, and warm and cherish the brain itself, which is naturally cold. And upon this account, they call those little posies they hang about their necks [Greek omitted], and anointed their breasts with the oils that were squeezed from them; and of this Alcaeus is a witness, when ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... to judge of the character of Alcaeus, the countryman and rival of Sappho, because scarce any fragment of his writings has reached the present times. He is celebrated by the Ancients as a spirited Author, whose poems abounded with examples of the ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie
... believed to give a stormy and mysterious character. The Greater Asclepiad was a term used for a line in which the wild music was prolonged by the introduction of a supplementary choriambus. This was much employed by Sappho and by Alcaeus, as well as in Alexandrian times by Callimachus and Theocritus. Among the Latins, Horace, in imitation of Alcaeus, made constant use of choriambic verse. Metrical experts distinguish six varieties of it in his Odes. This is an example of his greater ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... excellencies and graces, and youth ought to be taught wherein (which the matter ought chiefly to determine) the one hath place, and where the other. Now since the hymns of David, Moses, and other divine poets, intermixt with them, (infinitely excelling those of Callimachus, Alcaeus, Sappho, Anacreon, and all others,) abound in both these virtues, and both your poets are acknowledged to be very happy in paraphrasing them, it is my opinion, both of them, without giving the least preference to ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... famous for its excellent wine. I say nothing of Tenes, from whom it was called; but naming Mytilene, where we passed next, I cannot forbear mentioning Lesbos, where Sappho sung, and Pittacus reigned, famous for the birth of Alcaeus, Theophrastus and Arion, those masters in poetry, philosophy, and music. This was one of the last islands that remained in the Christian dominion after the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks. But need I talk to you of ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... marshall's truncheon, the ceremony that to great ones 'longs," are not to be found here. The author tramples on the pride of art with greater pride. The Ode and Epode, the Strophe and the Antistrophe, he laughs to scorn. The harp of Homer, the trump of Pindar and of Alcaeus are still. The decencies of costume, the decorations of vanity are stripped off without mercy as barbarous, idle, and Gothic. The jewels in the crisped hair, the diadem on the polished brow are thought meretricious, ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt |
