"Laocoon" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... But Capys, and the rest of sounder mind, The fatal present to the flames designed, Or to the wat'ry deep; at least to bore The hollow sides, and hidden frauds explore. The giddy vulgar, as their fancies guide, With noise say nothing, and in parts divide. Laocoon, follow'd by a num'rous crowd, Ran from the fort, and cried, from far, aloud: 'O wretched countrymen! what fury reigns? What more than madness has possess'd your brains? Think you the Grecians from your coasts are gone? And are Ulysses' arts no better known? This hollow fabric ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... are called to the Vatican, where the Apollo, Laocoon, Antinous, and Meleager, with others of less distinguished merit, suffer one to think on nothing but themselves, and of the artists who framed such models of perfection. Laocoon's agonies torment one. I was forced to recollect the observation Dr. Moore says was first made by Mr. Locke, in order ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... knocked away. On the walls were pinned and pasted all sorts of rough sketches and studies in color and crayon. In one corner lolled a despondent-looking lay-figure in a moth-eaten Spanish cloak; in another lay a heap of plaster-casts, gigantic hands and feet, broken-nosed masks of the Apollo, the Laocoon, the Hercules Farnese, and other foreigners of distinction. Upon the chimney-piece were displayed a pair of foils, a lute, a skull, an antique German drinking-mug, and several very modern empty bottles. In the middle of the room stood two large ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... Lucille over Raphael's superb frescoes in the Loggie, and in the chambers adjoining. The few pictures in the gallery are scarcely surpassed. The museum contains some of the noblest treasures of art, including the Laocoon, and Apollo Belvidere. The library is very valuable. The superb palace of ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... pesos. That is so true that when I see an Indian who is bringing something, which is always a thing of no value, or something that is of no use to them, such as ates, mangas, or belinbiles [i.e., balimbing], I repeat those words of Laocoon to the Trojans: Timeo Danaos, [et] dona ferentes (2nd AEneid). An Indian came to beg from the bishop of Troya (as was told me by his illustrious Lordship)—Don Fray Gines Barrientos, [148] a specially circumspect prelate—the loan of fifty pesos, for which he took him a couple of guavas. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... impossible, they come to the conclusion that treason must be at work, and look round for the traitor. Trochu, who is as honest and upright as a man as he is incompetent as a general, will probably share the fate of the "Man of Sedan" and the "Man of Metz," as they are called. "He is a Laocoon," says M. Felix Pyat in his newspaper, with some confusion of metaphor, "who will ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... Laocoon and elsewhere, sought to deduce the special function of an art from a consideration of the means at its disposal. He took pains to define the boundaries of poetry and upon the ends and appliances of art. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... dragged forward by his guards. Paralyzed as he was, at sight of the stage which he knew to be the scaffold, he uttered shriek after shriek of frenzied despair, and struggled like a madman to get free. But as well might Laocoon have struggled in the folds of the serpent; they pulled him on, bound him hand and foot, and held his head forcibly down ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... intermingled aristocracy? Your endeavours, my good young man, will lessen like those of the man who employed a spade to uproot a rock. It wants blasting. Your married clergy and merchandized aristocracy are coils: they are the ivy about your social tree: you would resemble Laocoon in the throes, if one could imagine you anything of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... gasped, then broke simultaneously for the door as it flew open to reveal a tableau resembling the Laocoon group sans snake and party of the third part. Back to the door and struggling valiantly to defend it stood the receptionist, Miss Thomas. Held briefly but volubly at bay was a red-thatched, buck-toothed individual—and I do mean individual!—with ...
— Lighter Than You Think • Nelson Bond
... Born 1758—Grassmarket Edinburgh—Education The Bibler's Seat The brothers Erskine Apprenticed to a coachbuilder The Trustees' Academy Huguenot artisans Alexander Runciman Copy of "The Laocoon" Assistant to Allan Ramsay Faculty of resourcefulness Begins as portrait painter Friendship with Miller of Dalswinton Miller and the first steamboat Visit to Italy Marriage to Barbara Foulis Burns the poet Edinburgh clubs Landscape beauty Abandons portrait for landscape ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... its delicately diamonded trunk, the great bread-fruit tall as a beech, and shadowy as a cave, the aoa, and the eternal cocoa-nut palm all grew here like brothers. Great ropes of wild vine twined like the snake of the laocoon from tree to tree, and all sorts of wonderful flowers, from the orchid shaped like a butterfly to the scarlet hibiscus, ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... which had been the gardens of Mecaenas. Considerable remains of them are still found among the vineyards; vaulted chambers of vast dimensions, some of which were decorated with arabesque paintings, still in good preservation. Titus appears to have erected a palace for himself adjoining; for the Laocoon, which is mentioned by Pliny as standing in this palace, was found ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... incompatible with life in the flesh: he is content to wait for the higher life and make the best he can of the lower. But if anyone declares that this quiescent attitude means indolence or sleep, his judgment is on a par with that which was once passed on the famous statue of the Laocoon. Some artist had covered the accessories of the group, and left only the contorted central figure, with nothing to explain its contortions. One man said as he looked ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... the woes of Actual Human Life— If thou could'st see the serpent strife Which the Greek Art has made divine in stone— Could'st see the writhing limbs, the livid cheek, Note every pang, and hearken every shriek Of some despairing lost Laocoon, The human nature would thyself subdue To share the human woe before thine eye— Thy cheek would pale, and all thy soul be true To ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... their tragic exhibitions, and of giving it a sort of theatrical animation, than to keep these forms of gods and heroes ever present to our fancy. The assertion may appear somewhat strange at present, but I hope in the sequel to demonstrate its justice: it is only before the groups of Niobe or Laocoon that we first enter into the spirit ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... the Tiber gave an additional embellishment to this house, which was ornamented, internally, with the most perfect elegance. The saloon was decorated with copies, in plaster, of the best statues in Italy—Niobe, Laocoon, Venus de Medicis, and the Dying Gladiator. In the apartment where Corinne received company were instruments of music, books, and furniture not more remarkable for its simplicity than for its convenience, being merely arranged so as to render the conversation easy, and ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... began, "on having dispersed an armada of head-aches hitherto invincible, on having exorcised my brain of its legionary spectres, and brushed away the swarming thoughts that used to persecute my solitude; I can now lie down as calmly as the lamb, and rise as gayly as the lark; instead of a writhing Laocoon, my just-found Harlequin's wand has changed me into infant Hercules brandishing his strangled snakes; I have mowed, for the nonce, the docks, mallows, hogweed, and wild-parsley of my rank field, and its smooth green carpet looks like a rich meadow; I am ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... the Muses. Ay, and have not our nobles had themselves painted as Apostles, have they not intruded their faces into sacred scenes, have they not understood for what this religious art was a pretext? Is not Rome full of Pagan art? Were not the Laocoon and the Cleopatra and the Venus placed in the very orange garden of ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... love, the noblest grace of the heart, to consider the case of other people, and to see, as Butler says, that we differ as much from other people as they differ from us. And it is by far the noblest use of the imagination, far nobler than carving a Laocoon, or painting a Last Judgment, or writing a "Paradiso" or a "Paradise Lost," to put ourselves into the places of other men so as to see with their eyes, and feel with their hearts, and sympathise with their principles, and even with their prejudices. Now, the inconsiderate man has so little imagination ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... if not critical." The case with me,' says Macaulay, 'is precisely the reverse. I have a strong and acute enjoyment of works of the imagination, but I have never habituated myself to dissect them. Perhaps I enjoy them the more keenly for that very reason. Such books as Lessing's "Laocoon," such passages as the criticism on "Hamlet" in "Wilhelm Meister," fill me with wonder and despair.' If we take any of Macaulay's criticisms, we shall see how truly he had gauged his own capacity. They are either random discharges of superlatives or vigorous assertions of sound ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... which the artist may set forth that part of human life which Delsarte called "the transluminous obscurities of our inmost organism." Dating from this epoch we find in sculpture less of plastic beauty and more spiritual and touching expression. Who would compare the pathos of the Laocoon to that of Canova's Magdalen? The sculptor Marcello (Mme. de Castiglione), too early removed from an artistic career, exhibited certain creations which illustrate this difference. Among them is a bust, in marble, of an Arab chief, which is after the style ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... with Mrs. Montgomery. The chancellor has sent her out a list of statues, which are to be so exactly imitated in plaster as to leave the difference of materials only. The statues are, the Apollo Belvidere, Venus de Medicis, Laocoon and his children, Antinous, and some others. The patriotic citizens of New-York are now subscribing to the importation of a set here for the good of the public. If they are really perfect imitations, they will be a great acquisition to this city. But, selon moi, ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... conscience, as he has shown it in Manfred, is his greatest achievement. The terrific fables of Marlowe and of Goethe, in their respective versions of the legend of Faustus, had disclosed the utmost writhings which remorse in the fiercest of its torments can express; but what are those Laocoon agonies to the sublime serenity of Manfred. In the power, the originality, and the genius combined, of that unexampled performance, Lord Byron has placed himself on an equality with Milton. The Satan of the Paradise Lost is animated by motives, ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... each from a careful reading of the Sonnets themselves. To me, however, their message of sadness, loneliness, and implied appeal seems as clear and certain as the portrayal of agony in the marble of Laocoon. ...
— Testimony of the Sonnets as to the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays and Poems • Jesse Johnson
... send them, well secured against bad weather, by the hand of a carrier. It is obvious that he had no thoughts of leaving Rome, and that the Pope was still eager about the monument. Early in the spring he assisted at the discovery of the Laocoon. Francesco, the son of Giuliano da San Gallo, describes how Michelangelo was almost always at his father's house; and coming there one day, he went, at the architect's invitation, down to the ruins of the Palace of Titus. "We ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... Thus saying, Laocoon hurled his spear against the side of the horse, and it sent forth a hollow sound like a deep groan. But at this moment a stranger, having the appearance of a Greek, was brought before the king. Some Trojan shepherds, finding him loitering on the river bank, had ...
— The Story of Troy • Michael Clarke
... of foliage, rank and unhealthy. In others, obstinacy plants itself like a rock, which the winds and waves of opinion cannot move. In a few, jealousy coils itself with lengthening fold, which, like the serpent that wrapped itself round Laocoon and his sons, makes parents and ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... was the fountain with its surmounting statues that caught my eye—Durfreno's arresting, vigorous group of the Laocoon—and I must draw rein and cry out in my amazement at so wonderful a piece of work, plaguing Arcolano with a score of questions concerning the identity of the main figure and how he came beset by so monstrous a reptile, and whether he had succeeded ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... ever such a person as Venus?" said Dr. O'Grady. "There wasn't. And yet every museum in Europe is half full of statues of her. Was there ever such a person as the Dying Gladiator? Was there ever a man called Laocoon, who strangled sea serpents? You know perfectly well that there weren't any such people, and yet some of the most famous statues in the world are ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... travelled, and some writers have said that he was ignorant of classic art; but the list of his collections proves that he had busts of Homer and Socrates and copies of ancient sculptures, such as the "Laocoon," a "Cupid," and so on. He also had pictures of some of the best Italian masters. After the sale of his home and all his rare objects he hired a house on the Rosengracht near the West Church. This house still stands, and has a shield dated 1652, though the artist did ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement
... Lightener—he dominated the room as the Laocoon group would dominate a ten by twelve "parlor." His size was only a minor element in that impression. True, he was as great in bulk as Bonbright and his father rolled in one, towering inches above them, and they were tall men. It was the jagged, dynamic, granite ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... right sat an army captain, who had given more thought to the possible secrets of French chaffinches than to the approaching barrage. There was also the artist, who could draw a lizard's head like a Japanese print, but preferred to depict impressionistic Laocoon roots. ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... impossible dream. You can't imagine how terrifying it is to feel the situation develop around you. Two bodies caught naked in an endless wilderness of thorns. Every movement one makes to free the other only wounds him the more. Two souls, each innocent and aspiring, bound together by serpents, like the Laocoon.... It is one of those things that are absolutely ...
— Read-Aloud Plays • Horace Holley
... to every educated man. They did not know that art cannot be good unless it expresses the character of the people who produce it; that characterless art, however accomplished, is uninteresting; that there may be more life and so more beauty in the idol of an African savage than in the Laocoon. ...
— Progress and History • Various
... spectators, a bloody Circus, and a dying Gladiator; the Pantheon; S. Nicola in Carcere, the scene of the Romana Caritas; St. Peter's "vast and wondrous dome,"—are all celebrated in due succession. Last of all, he "turns to the Vatican," to view the Laocoon and the Apollo Belvidere, the counterfeit presentments of ideal suffering and ideal beauty. His "shrine is won;" but ere he bids us farewell he climbs the Alban Mount, and as the Mediterranean once more bursts upon ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... he who presents the natural shape, the curves, the thews of men, and does not labour and seek praise for faithful reproduction of the mere moral drapery of the hour, this or another; who gives you Hercules at strife with Antaeus, Laocoon writhing in the coils of the divine serpents, the wrestle with circumstance or passion, with outward destiny or inner character, in the free outlines of nature and reality. The capacity which it possesses for this presentation, at once so varied and so direct, ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... Florence. It is the principal figure of a group supposed to have been originally arranged in the pediment of a temple. The figure of the mother clasped by the arm of her terrified child is one of the most admired of the ancient statues. It ranks with the Laocoon and the Apollo among the masterpieces of art. The following is a translation of a Greek epigram supposed to ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... hill-tops, its ruins of Empire, its cathedrals in the skill of whose exhaustless grandeurs Divinity breathes through genius. Meditate in reverence before the famous masterpieces of antiquity—the Venus of Milo—the silent agony of the Laocoon, the Hyperion Belvedere. Learn from Canova's pure marble, and Raphael's Chambers, and from Titian, and Tintoret, and the astonishing galaxies of intellect that shine in their constellations in the sky ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... or intensify his pleasures, still less to lash himself with its fiery thongs into a counterfeit inspiration, but to alleviate bodily pain. It became, gradually and reluctantly, a necessity of his life. Like the serpents around Laocoon, it confirmed its grasp, notwithstanding the wild tossings of his arms, the spasmodic resistance of every muscle, the loud shouts of protesting agony; and, when conquered, he lay like the overpowered Hatteraick in the cave, sullen, still in despair, breathing hard, but perfectly powerless. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... fancying what must have been the feeling of the inhabitants in regard to our ships—a strange sight upon this desert coast, and not a pleasing one to them, knowing that within those dark hulls were concealed the hosts of their armed invaders. Laocoon looked not with more dread upon the huge ribs of the Danaic horse than did the simple peasant of Anahuac upon this fleet of "oak leviathans" that lay within so short a distance of ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... enjoyment of sculpture. "Its essence is correctness." It fully accomplishes its purpose when it adds the "ornament of grace, dignity of character, and appropriated expression, as in the Apollo, the Venus, the Laocoon, the Moses of Michael Angelo, and many others." Sir Joshua uses expression as will be afterwards seen, in a very limited sense. It is necessary to lay down perfect correctness as its essential character; because, as in the case of the Apollo, many have asserted the beauty to arise from a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... whose countenance Is like the Laocoon's, full of pain; whose forehead Is a ploughed harvest-field, where three-score years Have sown in sorrow and have reaped in anguish; To me, the artisan, to whom all women Have been as if they were not, or at most A sudden rush of pigeons in the air, A flutter of wings, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... heard that Pheidias or Praxiteles chose Prometheus upon Caucasus for the supreme display of his artistic skill; and even the anguish expressed in the group of the Laocoon is justly thought to violate the laws of antique sculpture. Yet here was a greater than Prometheus—one who had suffered more, and on whose suffering the salvation of the human race depended, to exclude whom from the sphere of representation in art was ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... the quietude of a moment, standing and looking before one at the moss-bearded trees and the python-like loops of the lianas, one can see the struggle crystallized, just as in the still marble of the Laocoon one sees the ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... unscathed; Howe, when the idea shot through his brain that for a hundred and twenty generations the eye had been bored through the wrong end of the needle; the nameless lord of art who laid down his chisel in some old age that is forgotten, now, and gloated upon the finished Laocoon; Daguerre, when he commanded the sun, riding in the zenith, to print the landscape upon his insignificant silvered plate, and he obeyed; Columbus, in the Pinta's shrouds, when he swung his hat above a fabled sea and gazed abroad upon an unknown world! ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... gallery is a fine copy in marble of the Laocoon, by Bandinelli, one of the rivals of Michael Angelo. When it was finished, the former boasted it was better than the original, to which Michael made the apt reply: "It is foolish for those who walk in the footsteps of others, to say they go ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... made himself so master of the glories and the wrecks of Rome, that almost everything else that has been said of them seems superfluous. Hawthorne, in his Marble Fawn, comes nearest to him; but Byron's Gladiator and Apollo, if not his Laocoon, are unequalled. "The voice of Marius," says Scott, "could not sound more deep and solemn among the ruins of Carthage, than the strains of the pilgrim among the broken shrines and fallen statues of her subduer." As the third canto has a fitting close ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... but in this varied range of excellence it is difficult which to select for preference and admiration. The cameos have a beauty and finesse which far surpass that of busts and statues; they evince the skill of grouping, which, with rare exceptions, such as the Niobe and Laocoon, is seldom aimed at in the more important pieces of sculpture. Cameos, moreover, let us, as it were, into the secrets of indoor life. To these considerations we may add that these gems have had an immense influence on French modern art. The "Apotheosis of Augustus" especially, known to antiquarians ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... obvious distinction. The dramatist creates; the historian only disposes. The difference is not in the mode of execution, but in the mode of conception. Shakspeare is guided by a model which exists in his imagination; Tacitus, by a model furnished from without. Hamlet is to Tiberius what the Laocoon is to the Newton ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... could see some of the statues in Italy; the Laocoon, Niobe, and others I have seen. I think you would feel then what I felt—what I ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... morning in the gallery and I have made up my mind that if of all the treasures I have seen in Italy I were to choose one room it would be the Tribune of this gallery. It contains the Venus de' Medici, the Explorator, the Pancratist, the Dancing Faun and a fine Apollo. These more than outweigh the Laocoon and the Belvedere Apollo at Rome. It contains, besides, the St John of Raphael and many other chefs-d'oeuvre of the greatest masters in the world." It is interesting to compare Mr Pontifex's effusions with the rhapsodies of critics in our own times. Not long ago a much esteemed writer informed ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... Asiatic or Rhodian schools we have the famous groups of the Laocoon, on page 555, and of Dirce tied to a bull, commonly called the Toro Farnese. In both of these the dramatic element is predominant, and the tragic interest is not appreciated. In the Laocoon consummate skill is shown in the mastery of execution; but if the object of the artist was to create pity ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... altitude, and remained there through the whole of the fifteenth, when such bright lights shone constantly in the meridian of mind, as that Prince of the Church, Cardinal Sadoleti, great as a poet, equally great as a philosopher, whose poems on Curtius and the Curtian Lake and the Statue of Laocoon would have done honour to Virgil, while in his "De Laudibus Philosophiae" Cicero lives again in ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... source of delight than the quantity. This last sentence, of course, contains a truism, since art is no delight without high quality. If we had only preserved to us such masterpieces as the Capitoline Venus, the Dying Gaul, the Laocoon, the Dancing Faun, the so-called Narcissus, and the Resting Mercury, we should realise something of the exquisite skill in plastic art which had been attained in antiquity and has never been attained since. But we might perhaps imagine that these were altogether exceptional pieces ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... size, which had been, in a manner, overpowered by an enormous wild grape-vine. The vine had clasped its huge folds round the trunk, and from thence had wound about every branch and twig, until the mighty tree had withered in its embrace. It seemed like Laocoon struggling ineffectually in the hideous coils of the monster Python. It was the lion of trees perishing in the embraces of ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... of the variations of the beautiful, Lessing's analysis of the spheres of sculpture and poetry, in the Laocoon, was a very important contribution. But a true appreciation of these things is possible only in the light of a whole system of such art-casuistries. And it is in the criticism of painting that this truth ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... Government secretary at Breslau. He held that office for five years, and then again returned to his old work in Berlin. During the five years in Breslau, Lessing had completed his play of "Minna von Barnhelm," and the greatest of his critical works, "Laocoon," a treatise on the "Boundary Lines of Painting and Poetry." All that he might then have saved from his earnings went to the buying of books and to the relief of the burdens in the Camenz parsonage. At Berlin the ...
— Nathan the Wise • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
... adequately represented in marble. For "the Laocoon" marble is probably the best method of expression. Fear, superhuman effort, anguish, brute strength mastering human strength,—these are the thoughts to be expressed, and are brought out in marble with singular clearness and fidelity. For some things color is a necessity; ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... become angels; so many deformities laboring for our own embellishment; so many clumsy chrysalises each working painfully toward the development of the butterfly within him. Our ideal is no longer a serene beauty of soul; it is the agony of Laocoon struggling with the hydra of evil. The lot is cast irrevocably. There are no more happy whole-natured men among us, nothing but so many candidates for ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... physician, we do not pretend to state. But we repeat that the practice of Dr. Veron, according to M. Texier, was confined to these dumb yet not inexpressive personages. In feeling the pulse of the Venus de Medici, or looking at the tongue of the Laocoon, or the Apollo Belvidere, it is said the chief, if not the only practice of Dr. Louis Veron consisted. True, the doctor invented a pate pectorale, approved by all the emperors and kings in Europe, and very renowned, too, among the commonalty; but ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... in battle, built a wooden horse, in which their leaders took ambush. Their fleet sailed to Tenedos. The Trojans, but for Capys and Laocoon, had dragged the horse forthwith as a trophy into Troy (1-72). Sinon, a Greek, brought before Priam, feigns righteous indignation against Greece. The Trojans sympathise and believe his story of wrongs done him by Ulysses (73-126). "When ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... an Englishman, and that, according to that nation's creed, every Englishman is equal to five Americans and five hundred Frenchmen: consequently there would be some to spare of him. This happy thought saved me. I was let off upon solemnly promising to deliver Hingston into their arms, bound, Laocoon-like, by the serpent spells of their charms, or, like Regulus, potted and preserved in a barrel of ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 7 • Charles Farrar Browne
... safety, and they that hunt the wild-bird's egg on the sea-shaken cliff, as they swing over the frightful abyss. With the lasso the bold Matador, like the Retiarius of the ancient arena, makes the cast that is for life. Then the fine arts!—Carrara sends her block for the Laocoon by aid of thine; and what were all the galleries in Europe but a collection of gilt frames, but for thy backing and support. By thy subserviency alone (for what were panel or laminated copper for such gigantic works?) did Raffaelle bequeath so many legacies of his immortal genius. It is the strength ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... with a throng of Ilium's sons, Down from the tower Laocoon runs, And, "Wretched countrymen," he cries, "What monstrous madness blinds your eyes? Think you your enemies removed? Come presents without wrong From Danaans? have you thus approved Ulysses,* known so long? Perchance—who knows?—the bulk we see Conceals a Grecian ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... poetical certainly; but take away the "pyramids," and what is the "desert"? Take away Stonehenge from Salisbury Plain, and it is nothing more than Hounslow Heath, or any other uninclosed down. It appears to me that St. Peter's the Coliseum, the Pantheon, the Palatine, the Apollo, the Laocoon, the Venus dei Medici, the Hercules, the Dying Gladiator, the Moses of Michelangelo, and all the higher works of Canova (I have already spoken of those of ancient Greece, still extant in that country, or transported to England), are as poetical as Mont ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... not contain a single one of the few great masterpieces known to exist, such as the 'Hermes of Olympia,' the 'Venus of Medici,' the 'Borghese Gladiator,' the 'Dying Gaul.' We are told that the 'Apollo' of the Belvedere is a bad copy, and that the 'Laocoon' is no better, in spite of the signatures of the three Greek artists, one on each of the figures; that the 'Antinous' is a bad Hermes; and so on to the end of the collection, it being an easy matter ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... increased by excavations. Under Alexander VI the so-called 'Grotesques,' that is, the mural decorations of the ancients, were discovered, and the Apollo of the Belvedere was found at Porto d'Anzio. Under Julius II followed the memorable discoveries of the Laocoon, of the Venus of the Vatican, of the Torso of the Cleopatra. The palaces of the nobles and the cardinals began to be filled with ancient statues and fragments. Raphael undertook for Leo X that ideal restoration of the whole ancient city which his (or Castiglione's) celebrated ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... Smaeus, the debauchee Socratic, the, "Elenchus" Socrates, etc. —comp. to vampires —the accuser of Soldier, as ambassador Solon, laws of Son, marries mother Sophocles —mentioned —parodied —the Laocoon of Sore throat and bribery "Sows, little," obscene pun Sparta —play on word —alliance against Sperchius, the Sphettian vinegar Spintharus Sporgilus, a barber State funds, embezzled State, prosecuting the Statutes, how protected Sthenelus, an actor Sthenoboea, an amorous queen ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... suspected a treacherous design in this huge contrivance was Laocoon, a priest of Apollo, who, in company with his two young sons, had issued from the city with the Trojans in order to offer a sacrifice to the gods. With all the eloquence at his command he urged his countrymen not to place ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... avoided that distortion of features through excessive grief, which was incompatible with beauty of form. They would tone down the expression, as Lessing argues that the sculptor did in the features of Laocoon, until it became consistent with the lines of beauty. Timanthes, therefore, finding that, in order to render with fidelity the expression of Agamemnon, he must admit such a distortion of the features ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... aerial feeling of 'Eros and Psyche,'—by far the best of the drawings,—in which the figures seem literally to float in ether. 'Laocoon' is grand and dignified, and all deserve to be noticed with attention."—Graphic, ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris
... trees, reaching so eagerly upward, have an odd resemblance to the weird figures of horror in which William Blake delighted—arms, hands, hair, all stretch intensely to the zenith. They seem to be straining away from the spot to which they are rooted. It is a Laocoon grouping, a wordless concentrated struggle for the sunlight, and disagreeably impressive. The trippers longed to talk and were tongue-tied; they looked now and then over their shoulders. They were glad when the eerie influence was passed, though they ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... Loring himself came in, and showed me some of the most beautiful statues, among which were the Venus of Medici, the Minerva of the Parthenon, Diana, in her hunting costume, with her hand on the quiver and a doe by her side, and the unfortunate Laocoon and his two little sons, struggling in the fearful coils of two huge serpents, and stretching their arms to the skies with heart-rending cries. I also saw Apollo Belvidere. He had just slain the Python and was standing by a great ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... exclude passion or violent suffering from their design; and the moment which they select is not that in which a particular or transient emotion may be displayed, but in which the settled character of mind may be expressed. With the two exceptions of the Laocoon and the Fighting Gladiator, there are none of the statues in the Louvre which are not the representation of the human figure in a state of repose; and the expression which the finest possess, is invariably that permanent expression which has ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... the restoration of the works of art which Napoleon had pillaged. "The bronzed horses, brought from Corinth to Rome, again resumed their old station in the front of the Church of St. Mark; the Transfiguration was restored to the Vatican; the Apollo and the Laocoon again adorned St. Peter's; the Venus was enshrined with new beauty at Florence; and the Descent from the Cross was replaced in the Cathedral of Antwerp." By the treaty which restored peace to Europe for a generation, the old dominions of Austria, Prussia, Russia, Spain, Holland, ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... enshrined his memory in the pages of the Cortigiano. Then, again, we find him in his native city, Rome, searching for antiques in the ruins of the Eternal City, and examining the newly discovered Laocoon with Michelo Angelo, until at last the incurable malady which had long undermined his strength put an end to his life, and he died in the prime of manhood at the Santa Casa of Loreto. But his best work was done, and his happiest years were spent, in the service of Duchess Beatrice, ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... has known. How will she pace This frantic dance, and to what goal? Beginning in triumphant sport, She's tremulous now, with terror cold. The whirl so dizzies, she breathes short; The serpent spirals seem to fold Laocoon-like about her limbs. Tarantula-bitten victims so Whirl madly. Shrinks her head and swims; This is not glory's ardent glow, But fever's hectic, herald sure Of dread corruption, if unstayed. Dance on the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 7, 1893 • Various
... the fearful evidence wound itself around her consciousness, which struggled against it, like Laocoon in the fatal folds of ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... four great festivals. The same lacuna leaves it doubtful whether any collective title was prefixed to the [Greek: dithuramboi]. After the last column (39) of the MS., a good deal has probably been lost. Bacchylides seems to have written at least three other poems of this class (on Cassandra, Laocoon and Philoctetes); and these would have come, in alphabetical order, after the last ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... not made of a single piece. Thus the Aphrodite of Melos (page 249) was made of two principal pieces, the junction coming just above the drapery, while several smaller parts, including the left arm, were made separately and attached. The Laocoon group (page 265), which Pliny expressly alleges to have been made of a single block, is in reality made of six. Often the head was made separately from the body, sometimes of a finer quality of marble, and then inserted into a socket prepared ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... ourselves. Reason is a lamp which sheddeth afar a glorious and general light, but leaveth all that is around it in darkness and in gloom. We foresee and foretell the destiny of others: we march credulous and benighted to our own; and like Laocoon, from the very altars by which we stand as the soothsayer and the priest, creep forth, unsuspected and undreamt of, the serpents which are fated to ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to perpetual twilight. They were secured by the late and lamented Von Tschudi, who left the National Gallery after their purchase and retired to Munich, where he bought a great example of El Greco for the old Pinakothek, the Laocoon, a service, I fancy, not quite appreciated by the burghers of Munich. The masters who have thus fallen under the ban of official displeasure are Manet, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Sisley, and Cezanne—the latter represented by two of the most veracious fruit-pieces I ever ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... and I know what I will; but, like Laocoon in the folds of the snake, the serpent of habit coils around me, and I fear its strength is too powerful for mine. Perhaps, had my angel of to-day been my angel when first a man, I had never wooed the scorpion which is stinging ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... beautiful, because harmonious, and inducing order and self-restraint. Aristotle's single pronouncement in the sense of our question is the dictum: there is no beauty without a certain magnitude. Lessing, in his "Laocoon," really the first modern treatise in aesthetics, discusses the excellences of painting and poetry, but deals with visible beauty as if it were a fixed quality, understood when referred to, like color. This is undoubtedly ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer |
