"Basilisk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... lay an egg! And do you know what's in that egg? A basilisk. No one can stand the sight of such a thing; people know that, and now you know it too—you know what is in me, and what a champion ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... Furrows with tail alone his sandy path; Swift Jaculus there, and Seps (25) whose poisonous juice Makes putrid flesh and frame: and there upreared His regal head, and frighted from his track With sibilant terror all the subject swam, Baneful ere darts his poison, Basilisk (26) In sands deserted king. Ye serpents too Who in all other regions harmless glide Adored as gods, and bright with golden scales, In those hot wastes are deadly; poised in air Whole herds of kine ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... the preceding night and had awakened without any fever, although still very weak. After the prince's departure, the sister immediately sent a servant for a new medicine apparently—for the "egg of a basilisk"—which she affirmed had the power to restore strength even to people in agony; as for herself, she wandered about the mansion; she was humble and was dressed in a lay dress, but similar to that worn by members ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... arrived, and was received as his successor, and Maximin was summoned to the emperor's court and promoted to the office of prefect of the praetorium, where he was as cruel as ever, having indeed greater power of inflicting injury, like a basilisk serpent. ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... reflects. Nay, it seems to leave an impress even upon the countenance. The feature, from having a dark, sinister aspect, becomes open, serene, and sunny. A countenance so impressed, has neither the vacant stare of the idiot, nor the crafty, penetrating look of the basilisk, but the clear, placid aspect of truth and goodness. The woman {94} who has such a face is beautiful. She has a beauty which changes not with the features, which fades not with years. It is beauty of expression. It is the only kind of beauty which can be relied upon for a permanent ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... quitted the carriage. No doubt his object was a sinister one, and when I saw him speak to the constable at the station, I had no doubt in my own mind that my liberty was not worth five minutes' purchase. But even so, anything seemed better than his basilisk eye in the ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... tales of adventure to relate. Even the old travelers, who saw the phoenix expire in her odoriferous nest, whence the chick soon flew forth regenerated, or who found dead lions slain by the quills of some "fretful porcupine," or who knew that the stare of the basilisk was death—even those who saw unicorns graze and who heard mermaids sing—were veracious when compared with the explorers of railroad routes across the continent. Senator Jefferson Davis did much to encourage them by having their ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... might see in his face, and even the slight shiver of his frame, the repugnance and aversion which the Christian felt for one whom he knew to be so dangerous and so criminal. It was indeed the gaze of the bird upon the basilisk—so silent was it and so prolonged. But shaking off the sudden chill that had crept over him, Olinthus extended his right arm towards Arbaces, and said, in a ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... emperor; and Justinian, planting a foot on each of their necks, contemplated above an hour the chariot-race, while the inconstant people shouted, in the words of the Psalmist, "Thou shalt trample on the asp and basilisk, and on the lion and dragon shalt thou set thy foot!" The universal defection which he had once experienced might provoke him to repeat the wish of Caligula, that the Roman people had but one head. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... sire, thanks to his fear of death, and to the five thousand francs which I offered him, and which had the same effect upon him as a basilisk's eye on the bird. These German journalists, it seems, are even more needy than ours, for they ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... not the panther's treacherous seeming, That looks so lovely to beguile its prey; Seek not to match the basilisk's false gleaming, That charms the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... his remarkable fabrications, however, had not become known to Castleton, solely because of the Englishman's obtuseness. And there was another thing much stranger than this and quite as amusing. Dorothy Coombs knew Monty was a liar; but she was so fascinated by the glittering, basilisk eyes he riveted upon her, so taken in by his horrible tales of blood, that despite her knowledge she could not ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... over a few matters. First: I must request that for the future, at balls and similar affairs, dancing spurs be worn, so as to avoid such unpleasant accidents as we had night before last. One gentleman, who shall be nameless,"—and as he said it he fixed a basilisk eye on Lieutenant von Meckelburg—"tore off with his spurs the whole edge on the robe of Frau Captain Stark. This must not occur again, gentlemen, and from now on I shall officially punish similar behavior. Furthermore, it is customary among persons of education not to ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... welcome as those features and that voice once were, now would I rather have encountered the eyes of a basilisk and the ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... inches in circumference, knotted knee-joints, and broad shoulders; his face was round, tanned, and pitted by the small-pox; his chin was straight, his lips had no curves, his teeth were white; his eyes had that calm, devouring expression which people attribute to the basilisk; his forehead, full of transverse wrinkles, was not without certain significant protuberances; his yellow-grayish hair was said to be silver and gold by certain young people who did not realize the impropriety of making a jest ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... words he presented the fatal pledge to the eyes of the astonished youth, upon whom it operated like the poisonous sight of the basilisk, for in an instant, the whole passions of his soul were in the most violent agitation. "What!" cried he, in an ecstasy of rage, "is she so abandoned to perfidy, so lost to shame, so damned to constancy, to gratitude, ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... eyes," but he sends for "twelve mighty heroes," and orders them to take iron forks and lift up the hair about his eyes, and then he gazes at the destroyer of his family. The glance of the Servian Vy is supposed to be as deadly as that of a basilisk, but the patriarch of the Russian story does not injure his captive. He merely sends him on an errand which leads to a fresh set of adventures, of which we need not ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... we shall find, under the head of the medicining of the body, some things on the subject of medicine in general, which could be better said there than here, because the wrath of professional dignitaries,—the eye of the 'basilisk,' was not perhaps quite so terrible in that quarter then, as it was in some others. For though 'the Doctors' in that department, did manage, in the dark ages, to possess themselves of certain weapons of their own, which are said to have proved, on the whole, sufficiently formidable, ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... And the most bogeyish part of the story is about such houses. Two generations back they still stood dark and empty; people avoided them as they passed by; the boldest schoolboy only shouted through the key-hole and made off; for within, it was supposed, the plague lay ambushed like a basilisk, ready to flow forth and spread blain and pustule through the city. What a terrible next-door neighbour for superstitious citizens! A rat scampering within would send a shudder through the stoutest heart. Here, if you like, was a sanitary parable, addressed by our ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the viper. 2. Chephir, a sort of aspic. 3. Acshub, the aspic. 4. Pethen, a similar reptile. 5. Tzeboa, speckled serpent. 6. Tzimmaon. 7. Tzepho, or Tzephoni, a basilisk. 8. Kippos, the acontias. 9. Shephiphon, the cerastes. 10. Shachal, the black serpent. ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... hypocrite's breast. O, the art of hell has deceived me! The Abyss sent up to me the most spotted of the spirits, the most skilful in lies, and placed him as a friend by my side. Who may withstand the power of hell? I took the basilisk to my bosom, with my heart's blood I nourished him; he sucked himself glutfull at the breasts of my love. I never harboured evil towards him; wide open did I leave the door of my thoughts; I threw ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... that back, That smatch o' the slaver blistering on your lip— By the better trick, the insult he spared Christ— Lure him the lure o' the letters, Aretine! Lick him o'er slimy-smooth with jelly-filth O' the verse-and-prose pollution in love's guise! The cockatrice is with the basilisk! There let him grapple, denizens o' the dark, Foes or friends, but indissolubly bound, In their one spot out of the ken of God Or care of man for ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... aedificavit. My friend is a kind-hearted youth and of an obliging disposition, and would willingly have done what was asked of him, but there were obstacles, first and foremost of which ranked the fact that, taking advantage of his position on the back desk (whither he thought the basilisk eye of Authority could not reach), he had substituted Bab Ballads for the words of Virgil, and was engrossed in the contents of that modern classic. The subsequent explanations lasted several hours. In fact, it is probable that the master does not understand ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... into Nature by ingenious use of scriptural texts, by research among the lives of the saints, and by the plentiful application of metaphysics. Hence even such strong men as St. Isidore of Seville treasured up accounts of the unicorn and dragons mentioned in the Scriptures and of the phoenix and basilisk in profane writings. Hence such contributions to knowledge as that the basilisk kills serpents by his breath and men by his glance, that the lion when pursued effaces his tracks with the end of his tail, that the ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... be the Devil of a Lady, for she bears Malice, and will never forgive me, that I would not let her be an Angel; but like a very Devil as she is, she endeavours to kill me at a Distance; and indeed the Poison of her Eyes, (Basilisk-like) is very strong, and she has a strange Influence upon me; but I that know her to be a Devil, strive very hard with my self to drive the Memory of her out of ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... Surrounded by a silent, curious group, he crouched over the board counter and wolfed a ravenous meal. When he had finished he rose, turned, and stared questioningly at the circle of hostile faces; his eyes still glittered with that basilisk glare of hatred and defiance. There was something huge, disconcerting, about the man. Not once had he appealed for mercy, not once had he complained, not once had he asked about his brother; he showed neither curiosity nor concern over Jim's fate, and now he betrayed ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... surgeon, 'that basilisk stare has chilled me through, my friends. I can hear bells ringing in my ears! I may take leave of you; ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... are a rascal. He that dares be false To a master, though unjust, will ne'er be true To any other. Look not for reward, Or favour from me; I will shun thy sight, As I would do a basilisk's. ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... Trimble, whose left eye was now like the left eye of a basilisk. "Y' gotta show us, Bill, so b' ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... arrows, or sword and buckler, and play at dice and draughts, and give no alms except to their dogs. 'Our places are taken by hawks and hounds, or by that strange creature, woman, from whom we taught our pupils to flee as from an asp or basilisk. This creature, ever jealous and implacable, spies us out in a corner hiding behind some ancient cabinet, and she wrinkles her forehead and laughs us to scorn, and points to us as the only rubbish in the house; and she complains ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton
... black, and such indeed he is: sometimes with a drawn sword he leapt upon him, and threatened to strike, unless he speedily turned back. At other times he assumed the shapes of all manner of beasts, roaring and making a terrible din and bellowing; or again he became a dragon, adder, or basilisk. But that fair and right noble athlete kept his soul in quietness, for he had made the Most High his refuge: and, being sober in mind, he laughed the evil one to scorn, and said, "I know thee, deceiver, who thou art, which stiffest up this trouble for me; which ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... scorn. A murmur of sympathy went through the rough crowd of men gathered before her. One or two cursed Kieff in a growling undertone. But Kieff himself remained absolutely unmoved. He was smoking a cigarette and he inhaled several deep breaths before he replied to her challenge. Then, with his basilisk eyes fixed immovably upon her, as it were clinging to her, he made his deadly answer: "I will certainly tell you what I said, madam, since you desire it. But the explanation is one which surely only you can give. I said to my friend, 'There goes the wife ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... speech with an awakening slap on the clergyman's shoulder; "and that is, that thou art an unfortunate philosopher of Laputa, who has lost his flapper in the throng.—Come along—having me once more by your side, you need fear nothing. Why, now I look at you closer, you look as if you had seen a basilisk—not that there is any such thing, otherwise I must have seen it myself, in the course of my travels—but you seem pale and frightened—What ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... escape her," he said; "those basilisk eyes will see everything—will ferret out my love for that fair young girl. Oh, Heaven, is ...
— Rosamond - or, The Youthful Error • Mary J. Holmes
... foul-eyed, hungry-taloned, flitting noiselessly in circles, that grew ever and ever narrower, sure, and unfaltering to the final triumphant swoop! Or no—Rather a coiled and quiescent father, horrible-eyed, lying in slimy rings at the foot of the tree, basilisk gaze fixed upward, while the enthralled bird fluttered hopelessly down, twig by twig, ever nearer ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... over it, and examined the ghastly countenance. The features were pale and rigid, the teeth firmly set, and the glassy eyes wide open and staring. The awful expression of those dead orbs seemed, bold as I was, to freeze my very soul as with the power of a basilisk. For a single moment I repented the deed; but that feeling soon passed, ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... and courage, a desire of masterhood, cunning, and a wish for mischief. And yet, as eyes, they were very beautiful. The eyelashes were long and perfect, and the long, steady, unabashed gaze with which she would look into the face of her admirer fascinated while it frightened him. She was a basilisk from whom an ardent lover of beauty could make no escape. Her nose and mouth and teeth and chin and neck and bust were perfect, much more so at twenty-eight than they had been at eighteen. What wonder that with such charms still glowing in her face, and with such deformity destroying her figure, ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... raved about the parishes of St. Andeol de Clerguemont and St. Frazal de Vantalon, but she addressed herself principally to recent converts, to whom she preached concerning the Eucharist that in swallowing the consecrated wafer they had swallowed a poison as venomous as the head of the basilisk, that they had bent the knee to Baal, and that no penitence on their part could be great enough to save them. These doctrines inspired such profound terror that the Rev. Father Louvreloeil himself tells us that Satan by his efforts succeeded in nearly emptying the churches, and that ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to open the door, and shortly afterward Maria Remedios, who was not now a woman but a basilisk enveloped in a mantle, entered Dona Perfecta's room. Her face, ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... occasion he listened with peculiar impatience. He sat with one arm akimbo, the other elbow on the table, the hand holding on to the small pipe he was pettishly puffing, his legs crossed, drumming with one foot on the ground, and casting every now and then the side glance of a basilisk at the prosing captain. At length the latter spoke of Kidd's having ascended the Hudson with some of his crew, to ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... before I began to feel that I was the object of very earnest scrutiny on the part of an individual or individuals nearby. Turning suddenly, I met the basilisk gaze of Pearl and Ruby. Their dreadful remark came to me with crushing force. They had begun, as they coarsely put it, 'to pick up something.' Lobster-like, finding myself in hot water, I turned several beautiful shades of red immediately. I became terror-stricken—I, ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... looked at his father-in-law at this juncture if he had had a free and untrammelled choice; but Mr. Brewster's eye drew his with something of the fascination which a snake's has for a rabbit. Mr. Brewster's eye was fiery and intimidating. A basilisk might have gone to him with advantage for a course of lessons. His gaze went right through Archie till the latter seemed to feel his back-hair curling crisply in ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... retreating figure of the prelate till the door closed behind it; then he smiled at Mollendorf, who had not the courage to return it, and who stared at the parchment in his hand as if it were possessed of basilisk eyes. ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... which the group of ladies were seated, and begged to drink their healths; he then turned to Kneebone and the others, who extended their hands towards him, and raised it to his lips. Just as he was about to drain it, he encountered the basilisk glance ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the whim caught him, he would pile it up and hedge it with great silver pins, fan-shape, such as country girls use, till it took the semblance, now of a tower, now of a wheel, now of some winged beast—sphinx or basilisk—couching on the girl's head. Then, stepping back a little, he would clasp his hands over his eyes, and with head in air sing some snatch of triumph, or laugh aloud for the very wildness of his power; and so the game ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... for gold, and to "Mount Calybe" for iron, are characteristic of monkish geographical science; the recipe for the making of Spanish gold is interesting, as affording us a clew to the meaning of the mediaeval traditions respecting the basilisk. Pliny says nothing about the hatching of this chimera from cocks' eggs, and ascribes the power of killing at sight to a different animal, the catoblepas, whose head, fortunately, was so heavy that it could not be held up. Probably the word "basiliscus" ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... except Murillo, whose St. John I should like to own. As far as my own pleasure is concerned, I could not say as much for any other picture; for I have always found an infinite weariness and disgust resulting from a picture being too frequently before my eyes. I had rather see a basilisk, for instance, than the very best of those old, familiar pictures in the Boston Athenaeum; and most of those in the National Gallery might soon affect ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... they call Sally there Port, which is not known in Room. The Tiber is a nice river, it looks yellow, but it does the same there as the Thames does here. We hired a carry-lettz and a cocky-olly, to take us to the Church of Salt Peter, which is prodigious big; in the centre of the pizarro there is a basilisk very high, on the right and left two handsome foundlings; and the farcy, as Mr. Fulmer called it, is ornamented with collateral statutes ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... smiled kindly at him. The ex-policeman was looking at him with the gaze of a baffled, but malignant basilisk. ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... succession, that the friends of the former knew not where to plant the succoring blow. It is true there were short and fleeting moments, when the fiery eyes of Magua were seen glittering, like the fabled organs of the basilisk through the dusty wreath by which he was enveloped, and he read by those short and deadly glances the fate of the combat in the presence of his enemies; ere, however, any hostile hand could descend on his devoted ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... fight: On the deck strange accents and shouting; rough furcowl'd men of the north, Genoa's brown-neck'd sons, and whom swarthy Smyrna sends forth: Freights of the south; drugs potent o'er death from the basilisk won, Odorous Phoenix-nest, and spice of a sunnier sun:— Butts of Malvasian nectar, Messene's vintage of old, Cyprian webs, damask of Arabia mazy with gold: Sendal and Samite and Tarsien, and sardstones ruddy as wine, Graved by Athenian diamond ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... where that be full cruel and full evil women of nature. And they have precious stones in their eyen. And they be of that kind, that if they behold any man with wrath, they slay him anon with the beholding, as doth the basilisk. ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown
... neither has he seen the canons. The last time they sent a deputation to the palace everybody trembled. They went to propose I know not what reform to the Primate, and they began by saying, 'My lord, the Chapter thinks—.' Don Sebastian, turned into a basilisk, interrupted them, 'The Chapter cannot think anything; the Chapter has not common sense,' and he turned his back, leaving them petrified. Afterwards, he began shouting, and thumping the furniture with his fists, saying he would fill all the vacancies in the Cathedral with ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... rest in her lap, and without any abating or concealment, fixes PIKE with a basilisk glare which continues. He is unconscious of all this, his back being three-quarters ...
— The Man from Home • Booth Tarkington and Harry Leon Wilson
... orphans; are they to be feared, shunned, hated, because helpless? Must they perish—die with me alone—struggling against our woes, poverty, wretchedness? No! I know there is a God, he is good, powerful, merciful; he will turn the hearts of some towards the widow and the orphan; and though basilisk-like words warn me to hope not, I will apply—I will attempt to win attention, work, slave, toil, toil, toil, until my poor hands shall wear to the bone, and my eyes no longer do their office—if he will only have mercy, pity for my poor, poor orphans—God bless them!" and ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... said, and nodded toward the Boule cabinet, standing in the full glare of the light, every inlay and incrustation glittering like the eyes of a basilisk. "It isn't too late to give ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... effects of the basilisk, the serpent, and the evil eye, have probably all some facts for their foundation. The effect of the human eye in arresting the attacks of savage animals is better authenticated, and its influence upon domestic animals may be more easily ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... he gave the little wooden bear a drink of ale, as if it had uttered this chunk of solid wisdom, and then treated himself to a good long pull. But the glance of triumph which shot from his black-basilisk eyes, and the joyous smile which followed these feats of philology, were absolutely irresistible. All that remained for me to do was to yield ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... him with the eyes of a basilisk, but Castro swore a great oath that, as to himself, he showed no signs of fear. He looked at the water gushing from the rock, bubbling up, sparkling, running away in a succession of tiny leaps and falls. Why should ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... disgust escaped at the same moment from the lips of the two officers, and the men started back from their charge as if a basilisk had suddenly appeared before them. Captain Erskine pursued:—"What the devil is the meaning of all ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... a glance are ophthalmia and jaundice, say the ancients; and in these cases, the fascinator loses the disease as his victim takes it A similar peculiarity is to be remarked in the superstition of the basilisk, who kills, if he sees first, but when he is seen first, dies. No animals, it is said, can bear the steady gaze of man, and there are some persons who by this means seem to exercise a wonderful power over them. Animals, however, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... goes shaking and white; He eyes me as the basilisk: I have turned, it appears, his day to ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... her, no doubt'——Merciful God!' I impulsively exclaimed, as I suddenly lifted my eyes to his. 'What is the matter?' A mortal pallor had spread over Mr Arbuthnot's before animated features, and he was glaring at the letter in his hand as if a basilisk had suddenly confronted him. Another moment, and the muscles of his frame appeared to give way suddenly, and he dropped heavily into the easy-chair from which he had risen to take the letters. I was terribly alarmed, and first loosening his neckerchief, for he seemed choking, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 438 - Volume 17, New Series, May 22, 1852 • Various
... the folds of rose paper, as though scorched by flame. Lying there on the top of the billets-doux, the elegant, graceful chirography of the "Madame Odille Orme" drew her gaze, like the loathsome fascination of a basilisk, and taking a package of notes from her pocket, she held them for a moment close to the satin envelope. Upon one the name of the popular actress; on the others—in the same peculiar beautiful characters—"Minnie Merle." She put away the latter, and a flash of scorn ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... their fairest fair, Or in part but to express That exceeding comeliness Which their fancies doth so strike, They borrow language of dislike; And, instead of Dearest Miss, Jewel, Honey, Sweetheart, Bliss, And those forms of old admiring, Call her Cockatrice and Siren, Basilisk, and all that's evil, Witch, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... the basilisk fascinating Philippa; and with a vow to keep them apart and deprive him of his chance, she relapsed upon the stiff frigidity which was not natural to her. It lasted long enough to put him on his guard under the seductions of a noble dame's condescension ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... language of Mr. Wirt on the treasonable schemes of that bold, talented, but unchastened politician. All was now ruin and devastation on the site of forsaken gardens, into the shaded recesses of which a basilisk had once entered. Some stacks of chimneys were all that was left to tell the tale. It seemed remarkable that twelve short years should have worked so complete a desolation. It would appear as if half a century had intervened, so ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... fastening his dark basilisk-like eyes on the soldier, gazed a moment, as if to read his soul; then he jerked a thumb backward, over his own shoulder, and said, ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... heaven, and see in his mirror the image of his God? What Egyptian drug have you poured into his veins, and turned the ambling fountains of the heart into black and burning pitch? Give me back my husband! Undo your basilisk spells, and give me back the man that stood with me by ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... was aware that I was liberated, the shifty spectre, whose basilisk eye had not released me, stood at ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... him profusely, and edges away with an inward vow to avoid his and the Auctioneer's eyes, as he would those of a basilisk. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 22, 1890 • Various
... that period three-deckers of sixty-four guns, and two-deckers of only thirty guns. With regard to the guns themselves, the demi-cannon was probably a 32-pounder, the cannon petro a 24-pounder, and the basilisk a 12-pounder; the whole culverin an 18-pounder, and the demi-culverin a 9-pounder; the saker a 6-pounder, and the mignon a 4-pounder. The smaller guns were called swivels, and were mounted on upright timbers, having a pivot on which the gun traversed. Guns at sea were formerly known by the ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... John! It is his mind that is more crooked than his back. He is a perilous man with women, for the Devil hath given him such a tongue and such an eye that he charms them even as the basilisk. Marriage may be in their mind, but never in his, so that I could count a dozen and more whom he has led to their undoing. It is his pride and his ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the cankered effort of a barren tree," cast back Weng over his shoulder. "Look to your own offspring, basilisk. It is given me to speak." Even as he spoke there was a great cry from the upper part of the house, the sound of many feet and much turmoil, but he went on his way ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... Matter of Contemplation. The Description of a neat Garden, where there is a Variety of Discourse concerning Herbs. Of Marjoram, Celandine, Wolfs-Bane, Hellebore. Of Beasts, Scorpions, the Chamaeleon, the Basilisk; of Sows, Indian Ants, Dolphins, and of the Gardens of Alcinous. Tables were esteemed sacred by the very Heathens themselves. Of washing Hands before Meat. A Grace before Meat out of Chrysostom. ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... order, be it what it may, high or low, great or small, sweet or bitter, honor, wealth, life, or any other object, what can shake its peace? It is true, our nature is so crafty that it worms itself through everything; a selfish sight is like the basilisk's, it destroys. ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... empire of science. Strange beings moved through the pages of natural history, which were equally at home in the 'Arabian Nights' or in poetical apologues. The griffin, the phoenix, and the dragon were not yet extinct; the salamander still sported in flames; and the basilisk slew men at a distance with his deadly glance. More commonplace animals indulged in the habits which they had learnt in fables, and of which only some feeble vestiges now remain in the eloquence of strolling showmen. The elephant had no joints, and was caught by felling the tree against which ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... account book. A certain Count of Savoy owned the beautiful Castle of Chillon, which you have perhaps seen, on the shores of the Lake of Geneva. But he could not be happy, because he and the people about him thought that in a hole in the rock under one of the cellars a basilisk lived—a very terrible dragon—and they all went in fear of it. So the Count paid a brave mason a large sum of money (and the payment is solemnly set down in his account book) to break a way into this hole and turn the basilisk out; and I have no doubt that he and his people were greatly ...
— The Book of Art for Young People • Agnes Conway
... escape from Rope and Gun; Nay, some have out liv'd the Doctor's Pill; Who takes a Woman must be undone, That Basilisk is sure to kill. The Fly that sips Treacle is lost in the Sweets, So he that tastes Woman, Woman, Woman, He that ...
— The Beggar's Opera • John Gay
... Butler, the Avenging Spirit of this great man's life, relaxed nothing of his severity. He looked on at these dinners when the bosom was not there, as he looked on at other dinners when the bosom was there; and his eye was a basilisk to Mr Merdle. He was a hard man, and would never bate an ounce of plate or a bottle of wine. He would not allow a dinner to be given, unless it was up to his mark. He set forth the table for his own ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... which is almost ever at variance with good sense: notwithstanding they may have the sanction of the law, custom, religion, public opinion, or example, they may be unworthy and may be disgraceful, provided society is in disorder; that crime abounds; that virtue shrinks beneath the basilisk eye of triumphant vice; they may then be said to resemble the UPAS, whose luxuriant yet poisonous foliage, the produce of a rank soil, becomes more baneful to those who are submitted to its vortex, in ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... an expression was that?" inquired Mrs. Winslow Teed. "I saw a stuffed basilisk in a London museum when I was abroad, but I can't seem to ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... forms of religion, which offered a very feeble, and also a very limited gamut for giving expression to the human capacities of sublimity or of horror. We read it in the fearful composition of the sphinx. The dragon, again, is the snake inoculated upon the scorpion. The basilisk unites the mysterious malice of the evil eye, unintentional on the part of the unhappy agent, with the intentional venom of some other malignant natures. But these horrid complexities of evil agency are but objectively horrid; they inflict the horror suitable to their compound nature; ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... Brewster, who had been gazing at little Theophilus Opperdyke with a basilisk glare that perturbed the bewildered Human Encyclopedia, suddenly strode across the room and placed his hand on the ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... only venture to report it because it shows that I bore no malice on my side) Miss Melbury was looking at us like the basilisk of the ancients. She owned to being on the wrong side of thirty; and she had a little money—but these were surely no reasons why she should glare at a poor governess. Had some secret understanding of the tender sort been already established between Mr. Sax and herself? She ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... delightful maps of those ages when books on geography were actually readable. Dragons will wander about the waste places, and the phoenix will soar from her nest of fire into the air. We shall lay our hands upon the basilisk, and see the jewel in the toad's head. Champing his gilded oats, the Hippogriff will stand in our stalls, and over our heads will float the Blue Bird singing of beautiful and impossible things, of things that are lovely and that never happen, of things ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... that looketh upon her eyes but he dieth presently. The like property has the basilisk. A white spot or star she carrieth on her head and setteth it out like a diadem. If she but hiss no other serpent dare ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... there seemed to possess for Eliza Hamlyn somewhat of the fascination of the basilisk; for she never stirred from the window until the ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various
... on a throne with the word agreement, as if to praise the young emperor's good feeling in following the advice of his mother Agrippina. On another the emperor is styled the young good genius, and he is represented by the sacred basilisk crowned with the double crown of Egypt. The new prefect, Balbillus, was an Asiatic Greek, and no doubt received his Roman names of Tiberius Claudius on being made a freedman of the late emperor. He governed the country mildly and justly; and the grateful inhabitants ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... more important to remark that the Professor's Wanderings, so far as his stoical and cynical envelopment admits us to clear insight, here first take their permanent character, fatuous or not. That Basilisk-glance of the Barouche-and-four seems to have withered up what little remnant of a purpose may have still lurked in him: Life has become wholly a dark labyrinth; wherein, through long years, our Friend, flying from spectres, has to stumble about at random, and naturally ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... sort of serpent hatched form the egg of a cock. The basilisk had a bad eye, and its glance was fatal. Many infidels deny this creature's existence, but Semprello Aurator saw and handled one that had been blinded by lightning as a punishment for having fatally ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... did they betray the least interest in each other. But some days after my establishment had begun to run smoothly, one of the military ladies asked me to dinner. The punkah string was pulled by a murderous-looking ex-insurrecto, who fixed me with a basilisk glance, half entreaty, half reproach. It became so painful that toward the end of dinner I asked my hostess if his expression was due to his general frame of mind or to a special aversion toward pedagogues. She replied that he was probably bracing himself ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... Someone said that he was superintending some slight alteration on the stage. It was so ordinary an occurrence for him to fail to appear at a meal that no one was surprised. Only Anne covered a deep uneasiness beneath her resolute serenity of manner. She could not forget that basilisk stare. It haunted her almost to the exclusion of everything else. She had no thought to spare for the letter regarding her husband. She could only think of Nap. What had that stare concealed? She felt that if she could have got past those baffling, challenging ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... back the padded shutters. A few minutes later, Esther, in her dressing-gown, came to breathe the air, leaning on Lucien; any one who saw them might have taken them for the originals of some pretty English vignette. Esther was the first to recognize the basilisk eyes of the Spanish priest; and the poor creature, stricken as if she had been shot, gave a ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... sorry that we were not dining "at home." At least they might have left me alone there. That he did not turn to stone as he uttered these words was not my fault; at least I fixed upon him such basilisk eyes as I was capable of. What an idea! To refuse a dinner with my P. C. uncle for his sake! Grandmother, too, discovered that I also must ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... Turks were dragged up the slopes of the Mount and got into position; and by the 24th of May fire was opened on St. Elmo with ten guns which threw balls weighing eighty pounds. Besides these there were two culverins which threw balls of sixty pounds, and a huge basilisk, the projectile from which weighed no less than one hundred and sixty pounds. A terrible fire was opened against the walls of the fort, and so destructive did it immediately become that the Bailli of Negropont, the ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... were in the Museum, Cairn," Ferrara continued, still having his basilisk eyes fixed upon the other from beneath the drooping lids, "and I called to you to join ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... discover. Some green slime rested on a portion of the surface, but the rest was all clear and pure water. My horse must have thought me mad, and any one who had seen me might have thought I had suddenly espied some basilisk, or cockatrice, or mailed saurian; for just as the horse was preparing to dip his nose in the water he so greatly wanted, I turned him away and made him gallop off after his and my companions, who were slowly passing away from this liquid prize. When I hailed, and overtook them, they could scarcely ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... made on the screw steamer Rattler and the paddle steamer Alecto, each vessel of the same model, size, and power,—each vessel being of about 800 tons burden and 200 horses power. Subsequently another set of experiments with the same object was made with the Niger screw steamer and the Basilisk paddle steamer, both vessels being of about 1000 tons burden and 400 horses power. The general results which were obtained in the course of these experiments are those which have ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne
... they experienced feelings of alarm that had never yet affected their manly bosoms in danger or in war. Their faces paled a little, but their courage stood the test, for they sat still till she came close enough to let her piercing dark eyes be seen peering at them like those of a basilisk from out the folds of the shawl that ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... ghosts are sitting on their sepulchres. That is the Duke Lorenzo. Mark him well. He meditates, his head upon his hand. What from beneath his helm-like bonnet scowls? Is it a face, or but an eyeless skull? 'Tis lost in shade; yet, like the basilisk, It fascinates, and is intolerable. His mien is noble, most majestical! Then most so, when the distant choir is heard At morn or eve—nor fail thou to attend On that thrice-hallowed day, when all are there; When all, propitiating with ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... reptile, ophidian; basilisk, cockatrice, amphisbaena. Associated Words: ophiology, ophiolatry, ophiophagous, ophiography, herpetology, ophidian, ophiologic, ophiomorphous, herpetologist, herpetotomy, herpetotomist, ophiologist, ophiomancy, echidna, echidnine, fang, uraeus, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... sight, piercing sight, penetrating sight, clear glance, sharp glance, quick glance, eagle glance, piercing glance, penetrating glance, clear eye, sharp eye, quick eye, eagle eye, piercing eye, penetrating eye; perspicacity, discernment; catopsis[obs3]. eagle, hawk; cat, lynx; Argus[obs3]. evil eye; basilisk, cockatrice [Mythical]. V. see, behold, discern, perceive, have in sight, descry, sight, make out, discover, distinguish, recognize, spy, espy, ken; get a sight of, have a sight of, catch a sight of, get a glimpse of, have a glimpse ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... walked Sophy, the English nurse, a scraggy woman, with a very cocked nose and thin, pinched lips, and an air of respectability and pertness mingled. She dropped a short courtesy, shot the glance of a basilisk at Ucatella, and said stiffly, "You are welcome home, ma'am." Then she took the little boy as one having authority. Not that Phoebe would have surrendered him; but just then Mr. Falcon strolled out, with a cigar in his mouth, and Phoebe, with her heart in HER mouth, flew to meet him. There ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... up. Furies! what an appalling rencontre! She looked as pale as the corpses which she adored; she would have shrieked, but had no more voice than a ghost; she would have fled, but was riveted as with the gaze of a basilisk. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... that your majesty hear me. For my life, my happiness, and my misery, all lie wrapped up in the heart of your majesty. No, I answer—no; the aunts of the king, the old princesses, look with the basilisk eye of envy from a false point. They have lived at the court of their father; they have seen Vice put on the trappings of Virtue; they have seen Shamelessness array itself in the garments of Innocence, and they no longer retain their faith in Virtue ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... this mystical something were as many as the properties which were assigned to it. It was called the one thing, the essence, the philosopher's stone, the stone of wisdom, the heavenly balm, the divine water, the virgin water, the carbuncle of the sun, the old dragon, the lion, the basilisk, the phoenix; and many other names were given ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir
... the wretch, that I did not possess the eyes of a basilisk, for I should certainly have blasted him on the spot. Pausing, however, one salutary moment, to confirm myself in the love of virtue, by noting how abominable a villain looks, I hasted to the general with the hateful tale; which excited in his honest bosom the ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... nor Mr. Hastings took much part in the conversation; but the eye of the latter was, during the greater portion of the evening, fixed upon the baronet, like that of a basilisk, accompanied by a hidden meaning, which it was impossible to penetrate, but which, nevertheless, had such an effect upon Whitecraft that he could ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... waiting on the platform in the great hall where Sykes and McGuire had stood, and their basilisk eyes glared unwinkingly down at the three who ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... Than Basilisk or Nenuphar more fair, Your Locks with countless glistening Pendants glare, Then as the Fountain patters to the brim A hundred ...
— The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Jr. (The Rubiyt of Omar Khayym Jr.) • Wallace Irwin
... monkeys. They had got him at last—all for a few pieces of rotten beef! That lean, hungry wolfhound would tear his tongue out by the roots if he even opened his mouth; claw wide open his vitals. And old Tutt was fixing him with the eye of a basilisk and slowly turning him to stone. Somebody sure had welshed! He had once been in a side show at Coney Island where the room simulated the motion of an ocean steamer. The courtroom began to do the same—slanting this way and that and spinning obliquely round and round. Through the ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... although hinting at some horrid and appalling crimes. No one knew what they exactly were, for the old woman had outlived her contemporaries, and the tradition was imperfect, but she had been handed down to the next generation as one to be avoided as a basilisk. ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... rose. In spite of his love for Isabel, and his natural terror of such a rival, he felt himself irresistibly drawn towards the very man he had most cause to suspect and dread. It was like the fascination of the basilisk. He held out his hand to Zicci, saying, "Well, then, if we are to be rivals, our swords must settle our rights; till then I would fain ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... purpose to find out the red marble on which Pope Alexander III. sate, and placed his foot upon the neck of the Emperor: the stone has this inscription half legible round it, Super aspidem et basiliscum ambulabis[Footnote: Thou shalt tread on the asp and the basilisk]. How does this lovely Piazza di San Marco render a newly-arrived spectator breathless with delight! while not a span of it is unoccupied by actual beauty; though the whole appears uncrowded, as in the works of nature, ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... stained in kindred blood, Hymmng his victory, or the milder snake Crushing the bones of some frail antelope Within his brazen folds—the dewy lawn, Offering sweet incense to the sunrise, smiles 380 To see a babe before his mother's door, Share with the green and golden basilisk That comes to lick ...
— The Daemon of the World • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... haunted the cabins. Marsha's snake was back. There was Lazar's dragon, which seemed to grow larger every day. There was also a basilisk, a pterodactyl, a vampire bat with a five-foot wingspread, an old-fashioned red spade-tailed demon and other ...
— Subjectivity • Norman Spinrad
... farther through that strange mill-stone, the human soul, than I can explain. Any one who has ever seen an old fortune-teller of "the people" keeping some simple-minded maiden by the hand, while she holds her by her glittering eye, like the Ancient Mariner, with a basilisk stare, will agree with me. As Scheele de Vere writes, "It must not be forgotten that the human eye has, beyond question, often a power which far transcends the ordinary purposes of sight, and approaches the boundaries ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... curtains were withdrawn; no temptation to invade it came to arouse me from the chair into which I had thrown myself. It was as if I felt myself under the spell of some invisible influence that like the eye of a basilisk, held me enchained. I remember turning my head towards a certain quarter of the wall as if I half expected to encounter there the bewildering glance of a serpent. Yet far from being apprehensive of any danger, I only wondered ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... at every one present with great earnestness, but more particularly fixed his basilisk eyes upon the akhon, who evidently could not stand the scrutiny, but exclaimed 'Allah il Allah!'—there is but one God—stroked down his face and beard, and blew first over one shoulder and then over the other, by way of keeping off the evil spirit. Some merriment ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... Turn away my face! I never yet saw enemy that looked So dreadfully, but that I thought myself As great a basilisk as he; or spake So horribly, but that I thought my tongue Bore thunder underneath, as much as his; Nor beast that I could turn from: shall I then Begin to fear sweet sounds? a lady's voice, Whom I do love? Say, you would have my life: Why, I will ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... me!" exclaimed Gertrude, veiling her eyes, in terror, from the insidious smile with which he approached her, as she would have avoided the attractive glance of a basilisk. "Oh! if you have pity in your heart, let ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... upon us, living and loving mortals, that stony stare of death,—lest we too, as smit with the basilisk, be turned into monumental stone, and all the dear grace and movement of life be ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... and hungering, Walked in the wilderness; Soft words of grace he spoke Unto lost desert-folk That listened wondering. He heard the bitterns call From ruined palace-wall, Answered them brotherly. He held communion With the she-pelican Of lonely piety. Basilisk, cockatrice, Flocked to his homilies, With mail of dread device, With monstrous barbed stings, With eager dragon-eyes; Great rats on leather wings And poor blind broken things, Foul in their miseries. And ever with him went, Of all ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... him, but felt that his sole object had been to cover his change of position. For, when he sat down again, it was where he could see my face. I therefore felt justified in plying the fan he had offered me, in such a way as to shut off his somewhat basilisk gaze. And so a dreary ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... situated near the south-east entrance to Rocky Pass, between Basilisk and Hayter Islands, and formed, in all probability, during their sojourn in these parts, the centre of their various excursions to the islands ...
— The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea • George Collingridge
... watch her perseveringly for minutes together. I have seen him give her a quarter-of-an-hour's gaze, while the class was silently composing, and he sat throned on his estrade, unoccupied. Conscious always of this basilisk attention, she would writhe under it, half-flattered, half-puzzled, and Monsieur would follow her sensations, sometimes looking appallingly acute; for in some cases, he had the terrible unerring penetration of instinct, and pierced in its hiding-place ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... and resolution, yet with a certain strange calmness, holds aloft in one hand a large knife—walks along not much back from the footlights—turns fully toward the audience his face of statuesque beauty, lit by those basilisk eyes, flashing with desperation, perhaps insanity—launches out in a firm and steady voice the words Sic semper tyrannis—and then walks with neither slow nor very rapid pace diagonally across to ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... powerful magician must be defeated, but he lives a long way from here, and nothing can touch or wound him except the sharp smiting sword that belongs to his own brother, a monster with the head and eyes of a basilisk. We must first attack ...
— Fairy Tales of the Slav Peasants and Herdsmen • Alexander Chodsko
... and abated; fie, a freezing sweat Flows forth at all my pores, my entrails burn: What should I do? Rome! Rome! O my vext soul, How might I force this to the present state? Are there no players here? no poet apes, That come with basilisk' s eyes, whose forked tongues Are steeped in venom, as their hearts in gall? Either of these would help me; they could wrest, Pervert, and poison all they hear or see, With senseless glosses, and allusions. Now, if you be good devils, fly me not. ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... shot. The following enumeration of the ancient English ordnance, from Sir William Monsons Naval Tracts, in the reigns of Elizabeth and James the First, is given in Churchills Collection, Vol. III. p. 803. I suspect the weight of the basilisk, marked 400 pounds in this list, may be a typographical ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... have struck blows against the Scots,' Katharine said. 'But the beasts of the field strike as well against the foes of their kind—the bull of the herd against lions; the Hyrcanian tiger against the troglodytes; the basilisk against many beasts. It is the province of a man to smite not only against the foes of his kind but—and how much the more?—against the foes of ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... caught of me! Make me not sighted like the basilisk: I have look'd on thousands who have sped the better By my regard, but kill'd none so. Camillo,— As you are certainly a gentleman, thereto Clerk-like, experienc'd, which no less adorns Our gentry than our parents' noble names, In whose ...
— The Winter's Tale - [Collins Edition] • William Shakespeare
... on me; forbear, I say! Their touch affrights me as a serpent's sting. Thou baleful messenger, out of my sight! Upon thy eye-balls murtherous tyranny Sits in grim majesty, to fright the world. Look not upon me, for thine eyes are wounding. Yet do not go away; come, basilisk, And kill the innocent gazer with thy sight, For in the shade of death I shall find joy, In life but double death, now ...
— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... his fellow Legionnaires a petition for the pardon and reinstatement of Corporal St. George. Not a man refused to sign, for even those who might have hesitated would not have done so long under the basilisk stare ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... hands, For they would grasp and grapple at the air, When his grey eye had fixed on heaps of gold, While his clench'd teeth, and grinning, yearning face, Were dreadful to behold. The merchants oft Would mark his eye, then start and look again, As at the eye of basilisk or snake. His eye of greyish green ne'er shed one ray Of kind benignity or holy light On aught beneath the sun. Childhood, youth, beauty, To it had all one hue. Its rays reverted Right inward, back upon the greedy heart On which the gnawing worm of avarice Preyed ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 494. • Various |
