"Silenus" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... blood of his poor cousin. The Maenads are dancing in one another's arms, and their tresses are coiled and crowned with tiny serpents. One of them kneels apart, sucking a great wine-skin. And yonder, that old cupster, Silenus, that horrible old favourite, wobbles along on a donkey, and would tumble off, you may be sure, were he not upheld by two fairly sober Satyrs. But the eyes of Ariadne are fixed only on the smooth-faced god. See how he smiles ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... and are nectar-bibbers; but their choicest dainties are the smoke of sacrifice ascending with rich fumes, and the blood of victims poured by their worshippers round the altars. During dinner, Apollo harped, Silenus danced his wild measures, the Muses uprose and sang to us from Hesiod's Birth of Gods, and the first of Pindar's odes. When we had our fill and had well drunken, we ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... really give it up at last. Matters are growing worse and worse, and in another week we shall positively not have enough to get up a tolerable gallopade. Look at these seven poor Muses sitting together on the sofa. Not a soul has spoken to them to-night, except that horrid Silenus, who dances nothing ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... swelled his eyes, As large as nuts, or larger; He gasped forth heavy sighs, Like music from Silenus' charger. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Mammon may chuckle, Riparian Ahabs rejoice; There's excuse in your Caliban aspect, your hoarse and ear-torturing voice, You pitiful Cockney-born Cloten, you slum-bred Silenus, 'tis you Spoil the silver-streamed Thames for Pan-lovers, and all ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 15, 1891 • Various
... the same time their greatest luxury is, instead of victuals, to suck in the fumes that rise from the victims, and the blood of the sacrifices that are offered up to them. Whilst we were at supper, Apollo played on the harp, Silenus danced a cordax, and the Muses repeated Hesiod's Theogony, and the first Ode of Pindar. When these recreations were over we all retired tolerably well ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian
... picture is that Triumph of Silenus![3] It is the very revelry of hell. Every evil passion is there that could in any way be forced into juxtaposition with joyance. Mark the lust, and, hard by, the hate. Every part is pregnant with libidinous nature without ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... replaced the crown upon his locks, then stooped and uncovered the dice, saying, with a laugh, "See, my Drusus, by the ass of Silenus, ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... umbrella room—at every Florentine gallery and museum is an official whose one object in life is to take away your umbrella—and it costs twopence-halfpenny and is worth far more. But walking downstairs is imperative, because otherwise one would miss Silenus and Bacchus, and a beautiful urgent Mars, in bronze, together ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... Pierian Maids! Within a cave Young Chromis and Mnasyllos chanced to see Silenus sleeping, flushed, as was his wont, With wine of yesterday. Not far aloof, Slipped from his head, the garlands lay, and there By its worn handle hung a ponderous cup. Approaching- for the old man many a time Had balked them both of a long hoped-for ...
— The Bucolics and Eclogues • Virgil
... a little time ago asking you an odd question about elephants, and now I am going to ask you an odder. I hope that you will not think me an intolerable bore. It is most improbable that you could get me an answer, but I ask on mere chance. Macacus silenus (455/1. Macacus silenus L., an Indian ape.) has a great mane of hair round neck, and passing into large whiskers and beard. Now what I want most especially to know is whether these monkeys, when they fight ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... indifference of one who knew himself to be the first wit in London, and a maker of men — of a great many men. A word from him went far. An invitation to his breakfast-table went farther. Behind his almost Falstaffian mask and laugh of Silenus, he carried a fine, broad, and high intelligence which no one questioned. As a young man he had written verses, which some readers thought poetry, and which were certainly not altogether prose. Later, in Parliament he made ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... man, twinkling his little black eyes like a godly Silenus, and nursing one of his fat legs with a lickerish smile, "isn't the Lord Almighty providin' for His beloved heritage jist as fast as He anyways kin? This war's a-goin' on till the biggest part o' you male Gentiles hez killed each other off, then the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... a story told of Silenus, who, when taken prisoner by Midas, is said to have made him this present for his ransom—namely, that he informed him[25] that never to have been born was by far the greatest blessing that could happen to man; and that the ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... the circle distributing viands, remarked that "the woman was a fool and would disgrace herself." But I observed that after the disposal of that bumper she worshipped the rosy god in theory only, and therefore saw no occasion to interfere. "Come, Bacchus," she said, "and come, Silenus, if thou wilt; I know that ye are hovering round the graves of your departed favourites. And ye, too, nymphs of Egeria," and she pointed to the classic grove which was all but close to us as we sat there. "In olden days ye did not always despise the abodes ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... certain occasion, found his old schoolmaster and foster-father, Silenus, missing. The old man had been drinking, and in that state had wandered away, and was found by some peasants, who carried him to their king, Midas. Midas recognized him and treated him hospitably, entertaining him for ten days and nights with an unceasing ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... load behind them plodding On the ass! Silenus he, Old and drunken, merry, nodding, Full of years and jollity; Though he goes so swayingly, Yet he laughs and quaffs alway.— Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... Biscay. I am not unacquainted with that fusiform, spiral-wound bundle of chopped stems and miscellaneous incombustibles, the cigar, so called, of the shops,—which to "draw" asks the suction-power of a nursling infant Hercules, and to relish, the leathery palate of an old Silenus. I do not advise you, young man, even if my illustration strikes your fancy, to consecrate the flower of your life to painting the bowl of a pipe, for, let me assure you, the stain of a reverie-breeding narcotic may strike deeper than you think for. I have ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... gallery. There they sit! Mr. and Mrs. Whiffle-Wit! They are now in state! They have really a capacious appearance! Were Rubens or Jordaens but here, we should have them painted in all the riches of oil colours, grinning in company with Silenus and his ass. Let the poor author beware; they are prodigious critics! Madam can write a farce, or even a solution to an enigma, with as little labour as any lady in the land; and her dear Mr. Whiffle-Wit can set them ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... in exemplary fashion, now refused to remain steadily balanced on his head; it took some first-class gymnastics to prevent it from falling to the ground. In fact, while I confined myself to the minor part of Silenus—my native role—this youngster gave a noteworthy representation ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... antique. The other print, called the Bacchanal, has no background: half-a-dozen male figures stand separate and naked as in a bas-relief. Some are leaning against a vine-wreathed tub; a satyr, with acanthus-leaves growing wondrously out of him, half man, half plant, is emptying a cup; a heavy Silenus is prone upon the ground; a faun, seated upon the vat, is supporting in his arms a beautiful sinking youth; another youth, grand, muscular and grave as a statue, stands on the further side. Is this really a bacchanal? Yes, for there is the paunchy Silenus, there are the fauns, there the ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... at the same time the cymbals and the big bass-drum a desperate accompaniment to three measures of a polka, always the same, which were murdered by a blind clarionet player; and the ringmaster, a sort of Hercules with the face of a galley-slave, a Silenus in scarlet drawers, roared out his furious appeal in a loud voice. Mixed with the crowd of loafers, soldiers, and women, I regarded the abject spectacle with disgust—the last vestige of the ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... believed in solving the insoluble; and nature had so richly dowered him in the very dawntime of discovery, that he was almost justified in this delusion. Having caught the Proteus of the world, he tried to grasp him; but the god changed shape beneath his touch. Having surprised Silenus asleep, he begged from him a song; but the song Silenus sang was so marvellous in its variety, so subtle in its modulations, that Lionardo could do no more than recall scattered phrases. His Proteus was the spirit of the Renaissance. The Silenus from whom he forced the song was the ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... who were either to have their throats cut, or be republicanized by means of singing, dancing, and revolutionary Pans and Silenus's, already beheld their property devastated by pillage or conflagration, and were in danger of a pestilence from the unburied bodies of their families.—Let the reader, who has seen Lequinio's pamphlet, compare his account of the sufferings of the Vendeans, and his project for conciliating ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... the gladiators, as he leaned against the wall of the threshold, 'the wine thou sellest us, old Silenus'—and as he spoke he slapped a portly personage on the back—'is enough to thin the best blood in ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... of it," replied Sandy, with immense gravity. "The auld Silenus has better taste. He says there's a young lass running after him, fit to break her heart aboot him,—puir thing, she must have vera little choice o' men! He hasna quite made up his mind, though he admeets she's as fine a lass as ony man need ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... I shall never be fond of unornamented and reigning terms: nor shall I labor to differ so widely from the complexion of tragedy, as to make no distinction, whether Davus be the speaker. And the bold Pythias, who gained a talent by gulling Simo; or Silenus, the guardian and attendant of his pupil-god [Bacchus]. I would so execute a fiction taken from a well-known story, that any body might entertain hopes of doing the same thing; but, on trial, should sweat and labor in vain. Such power has a ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... of constant occurrence in later works—for, alike in one of his own fragments and in Moschus' lament, Bion is represented as courting this same Galatea after she has rid herself of the suit of Polyphemus. Vergil was content with no such simple mythology as this. He must needs shake Silenus from a drunken sleep and bid him tell of Chaos and old Time, of the infancy of the world and the birth of the gods. This mixture of obsolescent theology and Epicurean philosophy probably possessed little ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... thought of the Vatican library—even though to long is all he may do? Oh no! He says mythology is a wornout dream, and insulting to a Christian age; that it's all well enough to know Jupiter and Bacchus (Silenus too?) and Venus and the head men back there, but this century wants ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... two very old fragments of knowledge which indicate at least the possibility of a Western World of which the ancients had knowledge. There is a fragment, preserved from the fourth century before Christ, of a conversation between Silenus and Midas, King of Phrygia, in which Silenus correctly describes the Old World—Europe, Asia, and Africa—as being surrounded by the sea, but also describes, far to the west of it, a huge island, which had its own civilisation and its own laws, where the animals and the ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... new inexperience, which knows not effects of liquor. Where I was to have sate for a sober, middle-aged-and-a-half gentleman, literary too, the neat-fingered artist can educe no notions but of a dissolute Silenus, lecturing natural philosophy to a jeering Chromius or a Mnasilus. Pudet. From the context gather the lost name ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... richer and more remarkable class, which attract admiration both by the beauty of the workmanship, and the whimsical variety of their designs. We may enumerate a few which occur in a work now before us, "Antiquites d'Herculanum," in which we find a Silenus, with the usual peculiarities of figure ascribed to the jolly god rather exaggerated, and an owl sitting upon his head between two huge horns, which support stands for lamps. Another represents a flower-stalk, growing out of a circular ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 581, Saturday, December 15, 1832 • Various
... SILENUS. As Bacchus was the god of good humor and fellowship, so none of the deities appeared with a more numerous or splendid retinue, in which Sil{e}nus was the principal person; of whose descent, however, we have no accounts to be relied on. Some say he was born at Malea, a city ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway
... long In tattered cloak of army pattern, And Galatea joined the throng,— A blowsy, apple-vending slattern; While old Silenus staggered out From some new-fangled lunch-house handy, And bade the piper, with a shout, To strike up Yankee ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... were the Graces, in the midst of whom came "Marital Fidelity" and presented herself to the princess. After some other minor incidents of the same kind the spectacle came to an end with a ballet in which Bacchus, Silenus, Pan and a chorus of satyrs were principal figures. This lively and comic dance, says Chalco, "brought to an end the most splendid and astonishing spectacle ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... people. Our reception was by no means cordial, although after we had talked a little and explained what we were after, the mayor became cheerful and expansive. He had a jovial, rotund face, covered in large part by a bushy beard, and would have done excellently as a model for Silenus. In the town were a handful of Turkish stragglers—among them a stalwart Greek who spoke a little English. He said that he had been impressed into service by the Turks and was most anxious ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... old Silenus, shaking a green stick 105 Of lilies, and the wood-gods in a crew Came, blithe, as in the olive copses thick Cicadae are, drunk with the noonday dew: And Dryope and Faunus followed quick, Teasing the God to sing them something new; 110 Till in this cave they found the lady lone, Sitting ...
— The Witch of Atlas • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... might have at least brought a donkey, only a little donkey; that courageous beast which old Silenus loved to mount. I love those old donkeys; they are the least favored animals in creation; they are not only beaten while alive, but even after ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... Carthage, between the hill of St. Louis and the sea. They were all executed in antiquity. There are coin, types, a head of Herakles, similar to that of some silver coins attributed to Jugurtha, the fronting head of Silenus of the coins of Kyzikos, the galley of the coins of Sidon, etc., all of the purest Greek style. There are also some female heads, recalling Greek Sicilian coins; standing figures; an Athena, a Pan, a Hermes fastening his heel-pieces, a ...
— The American Journal of Archaeology, 1893-1 • Various
... also would furnish substantial matter, on which volumes might be written. The Franklin is one who keeps open table, who is the genius of eating and drinking, the Bacchus; as the Doctor of Physic is the Aesculapius, the Host is the Silenus, the Squire is the Apollo, the Miller is the Hercules, &c. Chaucer's characters are a description of the eternal Principles that exist in all ages. The Franklin is ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... the odour of the room testified. Between the book-cases, the wall-paper was dark crimson, and there were a few really good oil-paintings. The fireplace was of white marble, handsomely carved, with Bacchantes, and Silenus on his donkey—not very appropriate guardians of a sea-coal fire. On the mantel-piece was a massive bronze clock, with a figure of Prometheus chained to a rock on the top, and the vulture digging into his ribs. And Buller, as he ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... doctor supped every evening alone with His Majesty, and poured out intoxication and forgetfulness with a liberal hand. Wieduwillst did not spare himself, but wine had little effect on his strong brain; he would have defied Bacchus and Silenus together with Charming. While the prince, by turn noisy and silent, plunged into the extremes of joy and sadness, always restless and never happy, Wieduwillst, calm and smiling, directed his thoughts, and through pure goodness of soul took upon himself ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... howling of dogs, judiciously imitated and compounded, might go a great way in this invention." The dose, we confess, is pretty potent, and skilfully enough prepared. But what shall we say to the ass of Silenus, who, if we may trust to classic lore, by his own proper sounds, without thanks to cat or screech-owl, dismayed and put to rout a whole army of giants? Here was anti-music with a vengeance,—a whole Pan-Dis-Harmonicon in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... called Cadmus's grandson. An orphan at first, he was brought up by the nymphs and Mercury, and then became a great conqueror, going to India, and Egypt, and everywhere, carrying the vine and teaching the use of wine. He was attended by an old fat man, named Silenus, and by creatures, called Fauns and Satyrs, like men with goats' ears and legs; his crown was of ivy, and his chariot was drawn by leopards, and he was at last raised to Olympus. His feasts were called orgies; he-goats ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... ordinary life. The kordax was an ancient dance of the old comedy, with indecent gestures, in which the human figure was caricatured according to all the deformations which it underwent by vice or sensuality. All the effects of gluttony and Bacchic excess were caricatured in the figure of Silenus. The old woman fond of wine lost all modesty under the influence of wine.[2027] The leaders of the choruses, in a later time at Athens, offered reminders of primitive barbarism and of the immolation of human beings, and a representation of savage ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... Propertius. One paints a fountain, and a wood close by, with Pan, the shepherd, playing a flute amongst the ewes. Another paints a shrine with nymphs around dancing. Another draws the drunken Bacchus, surrounded by wild women, with old Silenus, half falling from an ass, who would have fallen were he not held up by a satyr who carries a leathern bottle. Even the satirical poet paints the picture of the labyrinth. Now what do the lyric poets do, or the wits of Martial, or the tragic or comic ones? What do they do but paint reasonably? ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... much that is necessary, and much that is absurd. Too good for banning, and too bad for blessing, it reminds us of a tradition of the pagan mythology, in any attempt to settle its character. "I overheard Jove,[453] one day," said Silenus,[454] "talking of destroying the earth; he said, it had failed; they were all rogues and vixens, who went from bad to worse, as fast as the days succeeded each other. Minerva said, she hoped not; they were only ridiculous little creatures, with this odd circumstance, that they had a blur, or indeterminate ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... are one or two violets and a paper with Titianus written on it. The bit of music on the grass has Greek letters. Dancing figures are in the middle of the picture. The fauns stagger under the dark trees, carrying great sumptuous vases of agate and gold. Silenus is asleep on a sunny hill at a distance, and the white sails of the ship with Theseus gleam on the deep-blue sea. There is another called an Offering to Fecundity. It is a crowd of most lovely baby boys, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... the figure of the Roman God Silenus. He was the son of Pan, and the oldest of the satyrs, who were supposed to be half goat. Can you find the goat's horns among his curls? He was a rollicking old satyr, very fond of wine, always getting into mischief. The grape design at the base of the little statue, and the snake supporting ...
— Buried Cities: Pompeii, Olympia, Mycenae • Jennie Hall
... bark mottled so as to look like the body of one of those great snakes of old that used to frighten armies, always the mark of lovers' knives, as in the days of Musidora and her swain,—the yellow birch, rough as the breast of Silenus in old marbles,—the wild cherry, its little bitter fruit lying unheeded at its foot,—and, soaring over all, the huge, coarse-barked, splintery-limbed, dark-mantled hemlock, in the depth of whose aerial solitudes the crow brooded on her nest unscared, and the gray squirrel lived unharmed till ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... that "the woman was a fool, and would disgrace herself." But I observed that after the disposal of that bumper she worshipped the rosy god in theory only, and therefore saw no occasion to interfere. "Come, Bacchus," she said; "and come, Silenus, if thou wilt; I know that ye are hovering round the graves of your departed favourites. And ye, too, nymphs of Egeria," and she pointed to the classic grove which was all but close to us as we sat there. "In olden days ye did not always ...
— Mrs. General Talboys • Anthony Trollope
... was fat, but loose and sprawling, seemingly without the will to hold itself together; in truth the man appeared to be almost in a semi-stupor, and, contrasted with this powdered Silenus, even the woman beside him gained something of human dignity. At least, she was thoroughly alive, bold, predatory, and in spite of the gross embon-point that threatened her, still savagely graceful. ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... and the axe-bearing Lycurgus,[13] sacrilegious {mortals}; thou didst hurl the bodies of the Etrurians into the sea. Thou controllest the neck of the lynxes yoked to thy chariot, graced with the painted reins. The Bacchanals and the Satyrs follow {thee}; the drunken old man, too, {Silenus}, who supports his reeling limbs with a staff, and sticks by no means very fast to his bending ass. And wherever thou goest, the shouts of youths, and together the voices of women, and tambourines beaten ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... numskull was he. Thereupon, hearing this, Chiquon determined to do well by his uncle, and puzzled his understanding to appear better; but as he had a behind shaped like a pair of pumpkins, was broad shouldered, large limbed, and far from sharp, he more resembled old Silenus than a gentle Zephyr. In fact, the poor shepherd, a simple man, could not reform himself, so he remained big and fat, awaiting his ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... disasters, and your Dapple will now be able to supply the want of Rozinante and carry me hence to some castle where I may be healed of my wounds. Nor shall I esteem such riding a dishonour, for I remember to have read that old Silenus, tutor and guide of the merry god of Laughter, when he entered the city of a hundred gates, rode very pleasantly, mounted ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... picture-gallery, and the dining-room,—preparing for the reception of his philosophical and dilettanti visitors. His myrmidon on this occasion was a little red-nosed butler, whom nature seemed to have cast in the genuine mould of an antique Silenus, and who waddled about the house after his master, wiping his forehead and panting for breath, while the latter bounced from room to room like a cracker, and was indefatigable in his requisitions for the proximity of his vinous Achates, whose ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock
... Philosophy herself became young, and catching the mad music of Pleasure, wearing, one might fancy, her wine-stained robe and wreath of ivy, danced like a Bacchante over the hills of life, and mocked the slow Silenus for being sober. Facts fled before her like frightened forest things. Her white feet trod the huge press at which wise Omar sits, till the seething grape-juice rose round her bare limbs in waves of purple bubbles, or crawled in ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... disbelieved in her pretensions, but many more believed in them, so that when a male child was born of her, it was cared for and educated at the charge of many eminent persons. The child, for some reason or other, was given the name of Silenus. Lysander, starting with these materials, constructed the rest of the story out of his own imagination. He was assisted in his scheme by many persons of the highest respectability, who unsuspiciously propagated the fable about the ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... Euripides, the only specimen extant, we have feasting and wine drinking, the chorus tells Polyphemus he may swallow any milk he pleases so that he does not swallow them—which the Cyclops says he would not do because they might be dancing in his stomach—and Silenus recommends the Cyclops to eat Ulysses' tongue, as it will make him ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... Satyr, and sleeping Cupid; a boy riding a goat and another fallen down, over the chimney: this was the best part of the performance, says Vertue: Saturn devouring a Child, Mercury, Minerva, Diana, Apollo; and Bacchus, Venus, and Ceres embracing; a young Silenus fallen down, and holding a goblet, into which a boy was pouring wine; the Scarons, between the windows, and on the ceiling two angels supporting a mitre, in a large circle." The execution of all this must have kept Fuller for quite a long time ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... of highest Jove Irreverent, and by mad presumption fired Their own discordant raptures to advance With hostile emulation. Down they rush 290 From Nysa's vine-empurpled cliff, the dames Of Thrace, the Satyrs, and the unruly Fauns, With old Silenus, reeling through the crowd Which gambols round him, in convulsions wild Tossing their limbs, and brandishing in air The ivy-mantled thyrsus, or the torch Through black smoke flaming, to the Phrygian pipe's [DD] Shrill voice, and to the clashing ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... respect to the peregrinations of the consecrated skeletons, I examined their shrine; and was rather surprised to find it not only enriched with barbaric gold and pearl, but covered with cameos and intaglios of the best antique sculpture. Many an impious emperor and gross Silenus, many a wanton nymph and frantic bacchanal, figure in the same range with the statues of saints and evangelists. How St. Helena could tolerate such a mixed assembly (for the shrine was formed under her auspices) ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... words and phrases trite and too well known, Nor, stooping from the tragic height, drop down To the low level of buffoon and clown, As though pert Davus, or the saucy jade Who sacks the gold and jeers the gull she made, Were like Silenus, who, though quaint and odd, Is yet the guide and tutor of a god. A hackneyed subject I would take and treat So deftly, all should hope to do the feat, Then, having strained and struggled, should concede To do the feat were difficult indeed. So much ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... stone such as a little man can sit on, on which they say Silenus rested, when Dionysus came to the land. Silenus is the name they give to all old Satyrs. About the Satyrs I have conversed with many, wishing to know all about them. And Euphemus, a Carian, told me that sailing once ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... The Father of the Worlds permits its chains to be broken, and has provided in the course of Nature the means of its escape. It was a doctrine of immemorial antiquity, shared alike by Egyptians, Pythagoreans, the Orphici, and by that characteristic Bacchic Sage, "the Preceptor of the Soul," Silenus, that death is far better than life; that the real death belongs to those who on earth are immersed in the Lethe of its passions and fascinations, and that the true life commences only when the soul is emancipated ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... pieces by the Thracian women; on which, a serpent, which attacks his face, is changed into stone. The women are transformed into trees by Bacchus, who deserts Thrace, and betakes himself to Phrygia; where Midas, for his care of Silenus, receives the power of making gold. He loathes this gift; and bathing in the river Pactolus, its sands become golden. For his stupidity, his ears are changed by Apollo into those of an ass. After this, that God goes to Troy, and aids Laomedon in building its walls. Hercules rescues ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... that low, swarthy, short-nosed, round-eyed satyr, With the wide nostrils and Silenus' aspect, The splay feet and low stature![214] I had better 220 Remain ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron |
