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Achilles   /əkˈɪliz/   Listen
Achilles

noun
1.
A mythical Greek hero of the Iliad; a foremost Greek warrior at the siege of Troy; when he was a baby his mother tried to make him immortal by bathing him in a magical river but the heel by which she held him remained vulnerable--his 'Achilles' heel'.



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"Achilles" Quotes from Famous Books



... sense of English faults he was, as Cardinal Newman has said, "an Englishman to the backbone"; and he was, further, a fastidious, high-tempered English gentleman, in spite of his declaiming about "pampered aristocrats" and the "gentleman heresy." His friends thought of him as of the "young Achilles," with his high courage, and noble form, and "eagle eye," made for such great things, but appointed so soon to die. "Who can refrain from tears at the thought of that bright and beautiful Froude?" is the expression of one of them shortly before his death, and when it was quite certain that ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church

... (And I moreover tell you, and do you meditate well upon it, that) you yourself are not destined to live long, for even now death is drawing nigh unto you, and a violent fate awaits you,—about to be slain in fight by the hands of Achilles, the irreproachable son ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 38, Saturday, July 20, 1850 • Various

... strong and admirable men worthy to stand beside the strong and admirable men of the Iliad—Gunnar of Lithend and Skarphedinn, Njal and Kari, Helgi and Kolskegg, beside Telamonian Aias and Patroclus, Achilles and Hector, Ulysses and Idomeneus. In two respects these Icelanders win more of our sympathy than the Greeks and Trojans; for they, like ourselves, are of Northern blood, and in their mighty strivings ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous

... George and M. Clemenceau, who scouted the idea for a while as calculated to impair the value of both charters. There was also a moment when the two were reported to have had a serious disagreement and Mr. Lloyd George, having suddenly quitted Paris for rustic seclusion, was likened to Achilles sulking in his tent. But one of the two always gave way at the last moment, just as both had given way to M. Clemenceau at the outset. When the difference between Japan and China cropped up, for example, the other delegates made Mr. Wilson their ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... worked by future commentators, nor do I despair of seeing the tobacco-box, and the "parcel-gilt goblet" which I have thus brought to light the subject of future engravings, and almost as fruitful of voluminous dissertations and disputes as the shield of Achilles or ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving

... woes unnumbered, heavenly goddess, sing! That wrath which hurled to Pluto's dark domain The souls of mighty chiefs in battle slain; Whose limbs, unburied on the fatal shore, Devouring dogs and hungry vultures tore; Since great Achilles and Atrides strove, Such was the sovereign doom and ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... its back; but a heap of cast skins, or of shed armor, is alike unworthy of all regard or imitation. We owe much true sublimity, and more of delightful picturesqueness, to the introduction of armor both in painting and sculpture: in poetry it is better still,—Homer's undressed Achilles is less grand than his crested and shielded Achilles, though Phidias would rather have had him naked; in all mediaeval painting, arms, like all other parts of costume, are treated with exquisite ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin

... at Christ by professed unbelievers we need give but little heed. They rain harmless as Parthian shafts on the shield of Achilles. Never was atheistical book written, never was infidel argument penned that touched the core of any religion, Christian or Pagan. They but serve as driving sand of the desert to scour the eating rust from the Christian armor. Seldom indeed does the avowed infidel cast a stone ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... existed, and when he had advanced so far that nothing but sky and rolling billows could be seen from the uppermost benches of the triremes, he offered sacrifices to Poseidon, the god of the sea, to the Nereids, and to the silver-footed sea-goddess Thetis, the mother of Achilles, father of his race. And he besought the favour of all the gods in the great enterprise which had brought him to the mouth of the Indus, and their protection for his fleet on its dangerous voyage to the Euphrates; and when his prayer ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin

... navigable for the length of a forty days' voyage, it is so altered by the water of this scanty stream as to become tainted and unlike itself, and flows thus tainted into the sea between the Greek towns of Callipidae and Hypanis. At its mouth there is an island named Achilles. Between these two rivers is a vast land filled ...
— The Origin and Deeds of the Goths • Jordanes

... differs not much from Plato's military dance. The invention of it is most generally attributed to Pirrhus, son of Achilles; at least this opinion is countenanced by Lucian, in his treatise upon dancing; though it is most probably derived from the Memphitic dance of Egypt. The manner of it was to dance armed to the sound of instruments. Xenophon ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini

... of Homer the poetical object is to kindle, nourish, sustain and allay the anger of Achilles. This end is constantly kept in view; and the action proper to attain it is conducted with wonderful judgment thro a long series of incidents, which elevate the mind of the reader, and excite not only a veneration for the creative powers of the poet, ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow

... as token of dedication to any particular object or deity was of common occurrence. Achilles' hair was dedicated as an offering to the river Spercheios in case of his safe return.(98) Knowing that this is impossible, in his grief at the death of Patroklos, with apologies to the god he cuts his flowing locks and lays them in the hand ...
— On The Structure of Greek Tribal Society: An Essay • Hugh E. Seebohm

... of Attica lies the island of Aegina, famous in legend as the home of Aeacus, grandfather of Achilles, and distinguished for its school of sculpture, and for its mighty breed of athletes, whose feats are celebrated in the laureate strains of Pindar. The Aeginetans had obtained the first prize for valour displayed in the battle of Salamis, and for many years they had pressed the Athenians hard in ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell

... mention, Charles, is the Crimea, which possesses a most delicious climate, although lying contiguous to the Putrid Sea, which bounds it on the north. There is an island in the Euxine,—the Island Leuce, or Isle of Achilles, also called the Isle of Serpents. It is asserted by the ancients to have been presented to Achilles by his mother Thetis. In the Gulf of Perecop there is also another island, called Taman, which contains springs ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne

... Romans; not whether holiness should be preferred to all things and in all cases should be pursued, but whether it is holy to eat pig's flesh or not holy. You will find this dispute also between Agamemnon and Achilles; for call them forth. What do you say, Agamemnon? ought not that to be done which is proper and right? "Certainly." Well, what do you say, Achilles? do you not admit that what is good ought to be done? "I do most certainly." Adapt your praecognitions then ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus

... fighting; then, as now, their minds ran chiefly on the "hot bread and sweet cakes"; and the fur and lumber trade is an old story to Asia and Europe. I doubt if men ever made a trade of heroism. In the days of Achilles, even, they delighted in big barns, and perchance in pressed hay, and he who possessed the most valuable team ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various

... pictures, of comic and domestic interest by the same artist; among which will be Waiting for the Times, (purchased by the Marquess of Stafford;) The First Child, very like papa about the eyes, and mamma about the nose; Reading the Scriptures; Falstaff and Pistol; Achilles playing the Lyre; and others, which with a variety of studies, will make ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, No. - 537, March 10, 1832 • Various

... and jeer, my lad. Salute him, rather, and, believe, Achilles he, of Iliad That Homer's self could ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier

... speech Rustem recounts the services which he had performed for Kaus. He speaks of his conquests in Egypt, China, Hamaveran, Rum, Suk-sar, and Mazinderan. Thus Achilles boasts of his unrequited achievements in ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... that time he and Lillyston became more and more closely united. They were constantly together, and never tired of each other's society; and at last, when their tutor, observing and thoroughly approving of the friendship, put them both in the same room, the school began in fun to call them Achilles and Patroclus, Damon and Pythias, Orestes and Pylades, David and Jonathan, Theseus and Pirithous, and as many other names of paria amicorum as they ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar

... hears, that clear cold voice. In the courtyard below, the son of Priam is buckling on his brazen cuirass. The white arms of Andromache are around his neck. He sets his helmet on the ground, lest their babe should be frightened. Behind the embroidered curtains of his pavilion sits Achilles, in perfumed raiment, while in harness of gilt and silver the friend of his soul arrays himself to go forth to the fight. From a curiously carven chest that his mother Thetis had brought to his ship-side, the Lord of the Myrmidons takes out that mystic ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde

... that went to the Trojan war, the great chiefs who commanded, especially Achilles, whose shield they have seen, with its Gorgons, and Sphinxes, and Hermes in flight, and other wondrous figures—suddenly at the end connects itself with the subject of the play by the thought: it was the Prince who commanded heroes like ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton

... Achilles Statue she turned round. There was pity in her eyes that became laughter on her lips. She shook her head at him. "You are foolish, Jim, utterly foolish; a bad-tempered boy, that is all. How can you say such horrible things? You don't know what you are talking about. You are ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde

... things are full of errors. Achilles drags Hector, tied to his chariot; he thinks, I suppose, he tears his flesh, and that Hector feels the pain of it; therefore, he avenges himself on him, as he imagines. But Hecuba bewails this as a ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... the following note on this line:—"Prince Memnon's sister; that is, an Ethiopian princess, or sable beauty. Memnon, king of Ethiopia, being an auxiliary of the Trojans, was slain by Achilles. (See Virg. Aen. I. 489., 'Nigri Memnonis arma.') It does not, however, appear that Memnon had any sister. Tithonus, according to Hesiod, had by Aurora only two sons, Memnon and Emathion, Theog. 984. This lady is a creation ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 217, December 24, 1853 • Various

... touched his lyre, he drained the golden beaker in the halls of men like those on whom he was conferring immortality. And thus, although no Agamemnon, king of men, ever led a Grecian fleet to Ilium; though no Priam sought the midnight tent of Achilles; though Ulysses and Diomed and Nestor were but names, and Helen but a dream, yet, through Homer's power of representing men and women, those old Greeks will still stand out from amidst the darkness of the ancient world with a sharpness ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph

... not won my wish—not all of it. They say there is a weak spot in every man's armour; there is always an Achilles' heel. I am no exception. Well, the gods ordained that I, James Sefton, a man who thought himself made wholly of steel, should fall in love with a piece of pink-and-white girlhood. What a ridiculous ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... would fain have Napoleon born as a god or Titan. Premature pangs seize the mother at church. She hurries home, barely reaching her apartment when the heroic babe is delivered, without an accoucheur, on a piece of tapestry inwrought with an effigy of Achilles! This probably occurred. It was the ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various

... keeps to his subject-matter he will not be tedious, but that he will bore his readers to distraction if he starts dragging in extraneous matter to make weight. Observe the length with which Homer describes the arms of Achilles, and Virgil the arms of Aeneas—yet in both cases the description seems short, because the author only carries out what he intended to. Observe how Aratus hunts up and brings together even the tiniest stars—yet he does not exceed ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger

... smooth, without a scratch, in Alcaics, and Cheviot heard Wilmot saving, 'twas no mere task, but had poetry, and all that sort of thing in it. But I don't know whether that would have done, if he had not come out so strong in the recitation; they put him on in Priam's speech to Achilles, and he said it—Oh it was too bad papa did not hear him! Every one held their ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... town, Which ten long years withstood the Grecian host, Now lies in ruins, ne'er to rise again; Yet many a hero's grave will oft recall Our sad remembrance to that barbarous shore; There lies Achilles and his noble friend. ...
— Iphigenia in Tauris • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... not the quarrel of Richard and Philip in "The Talisman" remind one irresistibly of Achilles and Agamemnon in ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... with Chiron the king-centaur. He made them more swift of foot than any other of the children of men. He made them stronger and more ready with the spear and bow. Jason was trained by Chiron as Heracles just before him had been trained, and as Achilles ...
— The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles • Padraic Colum

... "Hush, Achilles!" she cried. "Hush, all of you! Stop your racket this instant! They are excited at being together again," explained she to Walter who had approached. "The Belgian and Airedales have been boarded out during the winter and have ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett

... were not to be found. The whole adowara seemed to be deserted except by a few frightened women and children, and Victorine and her Irish swain had no doubt been driven off into the woods by Eyoub—no Achilles certainly, but equally unwilling with the great Pelides to resign Briseis as a substitute ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge

... of Homer's Iliad, wondering the while what my tutor, Mr. Josias How, of Trinity College, would think to hear me so use his teaching. By-and-bye, as I warm'd to the tale, Joan forgot her new smartness; and at length, when Hector was running from Achilles round the walls, clapp'd her hands for excitement, crying, "Church an' King, lad! Oh, ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch

... without food, almost without clothing, bitterly repenting their advance into France, demoralised by the conviction that few of their number will be again in their homes. We are treated every day, too, to the details of deeds of heroism on the part of Mobiles and Nationaux, which would make Achilles himself jealous. There is, we are told, a wonderful artilleryman in the fort before St. Denis, the perfection of whose aim carries death and destruction ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere

... in his exile; but he forbore to speak on this subject until his own fate should be decided. They then talked of Glennaquoich, for whom the Baron expressed great anxiety, although, he observed, he was 'the very Achilles of ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott

... ancient Greece and the central figure of Homer's Iliad. He was said to have been the son of Peleus, king of the Myrmidones of Phthia in Thessaly, by Thetis, one of the Nereids. His grandfather Aeacus was, according to the legend, the son of Zeus himself. The story of the childhood of Achilles in Homer differs from that given by later writers. According to Homer, he was brought up by his mother at Phthia with his cousin and intimate friend Patroclus, and learned the arts of war and eloquence from Phoenix, while the Centaur Chiron taught him music and medicine. When summoned ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... Pursues you, all aglow; Him, as the stag forgets to graze for fright, Seeing the wolf at distance in the glade, And flies, high panting, you shall fly, despite Boasts to your leman made. What though Achilles' wrathful fleet postpone The day of doom to Troy and Troy's proud dames, Her towers shall fall, the number'd winters flown, Wrapp'd ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace

... none can furnish to my gaster wherewith to make a pint of chyle, I shall retire to my tent—like Achilles! ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand

... was sold as slave to Omphale, who restored him to freedom. Their passion was mutual. The story has a likeness to a similar episode of Achilles. ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp

... him with its ugly head stretched out like a serpent's; while his owner, who was probably not so unkind as we thought him, stood enjoying the fun of it all. Reckoning upon the big boy's assistance, I scrambled out of the water, and sped, like Achilles of the swift foot, for the boat. I jumped in and seized the oars, intending to row across, and get the big boy to throw the clothes of the party into the boat. But I had never handled an oar in my life, and in the middle passage—how ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald

... Forth from the town advanc'd; but soon as the sun has descended Flame with beacons the dense, huge turrets; upwards the blazes Flaring, struggling ascend to be seen by friends and by neighbours, If with assistance in war o'er the sea in ships they are coming— So from Achilles's head uptower'd the blazes to heaven; Striding from out the wall, he stood o'er the trench, but he mingled Not with the Greeks, for he heeded his mother's solemn injunction; Standing, he shouted there, conjointly Pallas ...
— Targum • George Borrow

... collection: "The Duke of Sussex had a wonderful collection of these, the values attached to some of them being almost fabulous. One example from the work-shop of Vienna—long celebrated for this description of art,—represented the combat of Hector and Achilles, the cover of the pipe being a golden hemlet cristatus of the Grecian type." Swiss and Tyrolean artists also produce exquisite carving, but use wood as a material; and in the famous collection of Baron de Watteville will be found a marvelous piece of carving representing Bellerophon overturning ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings

... request, that Cratylus will give some account of his theory. Hermogenes and himself are mere sciolists, but Cratylus has reflected on these matters, and has had teachers. Cratylus replies in the words of Achilles: '"Illustrious Ajax, you have spoken in all things much to my mind," whether Euthyphro, or some Muse inhabiting your own breast, was the inspirer.' Socrates replies, that he is afraid of being self-deceived, and ...
— Cratylus • Plato

... She felt that she needed all her strength. They drove on to the Achilles statue, where he dismissed the taxicab. The man stared at the coin which he was offered, and looked ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... As you would not educate a soul to be an aristocrat, so do not to be a woman. A general regard to her usual sphere is dictated in the economy of nature. You need never enforce these provisions rigorously. Achilles had long plied the distaff as a princess, yet, at first sight of a sword, he seized it. So with woman, one hour of love would teach her more of her proper relations, than all your formulas and conventions. Express ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... kind of cutting, which may be called a comic section, are recorded in history, both ancient and modern. Even Hector cut his stick (with Achilles after him) at the siege of Troy. The Persians cut their stick at Marathon. Pompey cut his stick at Pharsalia, and so did Antony at Actium. Napoleon Bonaparte cut his ...
— The Comic Latin Grammar - A new and facetious introduction to the Latin tongue • Percival Leigh

... no forgetfulness nor ever can; For yet cold eyes upon her frailty bend, For yet the world waits in the victor's tent Daily, and sees an old man honourable, His white head bowed, surprise to passionate tears Awestruck Achilles; sighing, 'I have endured, The like whereof no soul hath yet endured, To kiss the hand of ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow

... company, perceiving A. W. standing behind in a corner neare the dore, they haled him in among them, and play forsooth he must against him: whereupon, he being not able to avoid it, took up a violin, and behaved himself as poor Troylus did against Achilles." Wood consoled himself for his failure by the honour he acquired from being asked to play with the Master, of whom he maliciously remarks that "he was given to excessive ...
— The Life and Times of John Wilkins • Patrick A. Wright-Henderson

... propensity of my mind which will not be happy unless I am doing something in which you are concerned. This may seem a very idle disposition in a philosopher and a soldier, but I can plead illustrious examples in my justification. Achilles liked to have sacrificed Greece and his glory to a female captive, and Anthony lost a world for a woman. I am very sorry times are so changed as to oblige me to go to antiquity for my apology, but I confess, to the disgrace of ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... society, including among its members names and persons of illustrious and noble title, whose whole life and pleasure in life appears to "rest upon the hazard of a die." The modern Greek, though he cannot boast much resemblance to Achilles, Ajax, Patroclus, or Nestor, is, nevertheless, a close imitator of the equally renowned chief of Ithaca. To describe his person, habits, pursuits, and manners, would be to sketch the portrait of one or more finished roues, who are ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... wrong Some traces, bidding tempt the deep with ships, Gird towns with walls, with furrows cleave the earth. Therewith a second Tiphys shall there be, Her hero-freight a second Argo bear; New wars too shall arise, and once again Some great Achilles to some Troy be sent. Then, when the mellowing years have made thee man, No more shall mariner sail, nor pine-tree bark Ply traffic on the sea, but every land Shall all things bear alike: the glebe no more Shall feel the harrow's grip, nor vine the hook; The sturdy ploughman ...
— The Bucolics and Eclogues • Virgil

... Homer's description, for I cannot understand how any one who compares together the description of the Shield of Achilles in the Iliad and that of the Shield of Hercules in the fragmentary form in which we have it, can doubt for a moment that both descriptions came from the same hand. (The theory that Hesiod composed the latter poem can scarcely be entertained by any scholar.) ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor

... is related here essentially as found in the Nibelungen Lied. It is quite differently told in the older versions. Siegfried's invulnerability save in one spot reminds us of Achilles, who also was made invulnerable by a bath, and who could be wounded only ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin

... work was there; Conceit deceitful, so compact, so kind, That for Achilles' image stood his spear Grasped in an armed hand; himself behind Was left unseen, save to the eye ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... made five thousand prisoners, and killed at least six thousand of the enemy. Adieu, my adorable Josephine. Think of me often. When you cease to love your Achilles, when your heart grows cool towards him, you wilt be very cruel, very unjust. But I am sure you will always continue my faithful mistress, as I shall ever remain your fond lover ('tendre amie'). Death alone can break the union which sympathy, love, and sentiment have formed. ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... imaginations, clubbed together. Each of us furnished his legend. Rheims is one of the most impossible towns in the geography of story. Pagan lords have lived there, one of whom gave as a dower to his daughter the strips of land in Borysthenes called the "race-courses of Achilles." The Duke de Guyenne, in the fabliaux, passes through Rheims on his way to besiege Babylon; Babylon, moreover, which is very worthy of Rheims, is the capital of the Admiral Gaudissius. It is at Rheims that the deputation sent ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo

... animal, attacks the tenderest parts of man and beast, cuts them off, and retires contented: buffaloes are often castrated by him. Men who know it, squat down, and kill him with knife or gun. The Zibu or mbuide flies at the tendon Achilles; it is ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone

... rule multitudes, Which dar'st not, no nor canst not rule a Traitor. That Head of thine doth not become a Crowne: Thy Hand is made to graspe a Palmers staffe, And not to grace an awefull Princely Scepter. That Gold, must round engirt these browes of mine, Whose Smile and Frowne, like to Achilles Speare Is able with the change, to kill and cure. Heere is hand to hold a Scepter vp, And with the same to acte controlling Lawes: Giue place: by heauen thou shalt rule no more O're him, whom ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... in the unfaltering pursuit of its being's end against all odds, when once that end is manifest. This ideal element, this formative principle, underlies the Hellenic conception of war throughout its history, from its first glorification in Achilles to the last combats of the Achaean League—from the divine beauty of the youthful Achilles, dazzling as the lightning and like the lightning pitiless, yet redeemed to pathos by the certainty of the quick ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb

... tender-hearted in victory and cheerful in defeat (as we had soon to learn, alas!), even his enemies confessed this young Stuart a worthy leader of men. Usually suffused with a gentle pensiveness not unbecoming, the ardour of his welcome had given him on this occasion the martial bearing of a heroic young Achilles. With flushed cheek and sparkling eye he ascended ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine

... aversation to this voyage, When first my brother mov'd it, and have found That native power in me was never vaine; 10 Yet now neglected it. I wonder much At my inconstancie in these decrees I every houre set downe to guide my life. When Homer made Achilles passionate, Wrathfull, revengefull, and insatiate 15 In his affections, what man will denie He did compose it all of industrie To let men see that men of most renowne, Strong'st, noblest, fairest, if they set not ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman

... my incipient vanity to the earth at once, by inquiring whether I had ever made any calculation as to the value of the rental of all the retail shops in London. Had he asked of me, what song the Sirens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, I might, with Sir Thomas Browne, have hazarded a "wide solution."[1] My companion saw my embarrassment, and, the almshouses beyond Shoreditch just coming in view, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... Bankes, a throng Worthy of those even numbers which he sung, Appeared, and though those Ancient Laureates strive When dead themselves, whose raptures should survive, For his Temples all their owne bayes allowes, Not sham'd to see him crown'd with naked browes; Homer his beautifull Achilles nam'd, Urging his braine with Joves might well be fam'd, Since it brought forth one full of beauties charmes, As was his Pallas, and as bold in Armes; [-King and no King.-] But when he the brave Arbases saw, one That saved his peoples ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher in Ten Volumes - Volume I. • Beaumont and Fletcher

... through the mists of time, Valhalla, its towers and battlements, uplift themselves, and from their places the phantoms of the mighty heroes of all ages rise to greet these English youths who enter smiling, the blood yet trickling from their wounds! Behold, Achilles turns, unbending from his deep disdain; Rustum, Timoleon, Hannibal, and those of later days who fell at Brunanburh, Senlac, and Trafalgar, turn to welcome the dead whom we have sent thither as the avant-garde of our faith, that in this cause is our destiny ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb

... constitute the whole ordinary revenue, the whole of the emoluments which, except, perhaps, upon some very extraordinary emergencies, he derives from his dominion over them. When Agamemnon, in Homer, offers to Achilles, for his friendship, the sovereignty of seven Greek cities, the sole advantage which he mentions as likely to be derived from it was, that the people would honour him with presents. As long as such presents, as long ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... and other barbaric retainers; they pass their lives in the midst of serfs; their views about the position and rights of women—especially the women of the "lower orders"—are frankly African. They share the sentiments of Achilles as to the individuality of ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen

... representing himself as a poor wandering boy. Various means were vainly tried to elicit this information; until at length—like the wily Ulysses, who mixed with his peddler's budget of female ornaments and attire a few arms, by way of tempting Achilles to a self-detection in the court of Lycomedes—one gentleman counselled the mayor to send for a Greek Testament. This was done; the Testament was presented open at St. John's Gospel to my brother, and he was requested to say ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... he, wrenching himself violently away from the benign influence, "it was not to sympathize with Hector, but to conquer with Achilles, that Alexander of Macedon kept Homer under his pillow. Such should be the use of books to him who has the practical world to subdue; let parsons and women construe it ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various

... Achilles to Priam, a suppliant before him. Take that incomparable line and a half ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... still preserved among the negroes of Africa, obtained also among the antients, Greeks as well as Romans. I could never, without horror and indignation, read that passage in the twenty-third book of the Iliad, which describes twelve valiant Trojan captives sacrificed by the inhuman Achilles at the ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... irony of fate, The last and greatest martyr of his cause; Slain like Achilles at the Scaean gate, He saw the end, ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various

... her freedom and confidence as any wild winged thing of the land or sea. The summer loved her; the winter strengthened her. Her first baptism in the salt waters had made her a free creature of the earth and skies; had fortified her, Achilles-like, against all hardship, cold, and nakedness to come; had delivered her from the bonds of habit and custom, and shown in her what earth and air of themselves can do, to make the lowest, most ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 3 • George MacDonald

... their own verses: "Homer literally sang the wrath of Achilles, and the woes of Greece;" would it were so in England. Then, my poetical public, we should have Anacreon Moore singing his "Rich and rare were the gems she wore," in some such place as the Quadrant, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 330, September 6, 1828 • Various

... be raised to the status of Godling," Venus said. "You remember Hercules and Achilles, ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett

... find him at the Basilica of Saint Neree and Saint Achilles," added the Trappist; "it is the fete of those two saints, and at five o'clock there will be a procession in their catacombs.... It is a fifteen minutes' ride from here, near the tower Marancia, on the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... Achilles, Horses of Action Ahura-Mazda Aix, Good News to Alexander Allah Among the Noblest Ancient Mariner Animals and Human Speech Animals, Feeling for Animals, Happiness Animals, Innocent Animals, Products Animals, Suffering Another's ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth

... stomach by the intestines Accident and emergencies Achilles, Tendon of Air, made impure by breathing Foul, effect of, on health Alcohol, Effect of, on bones Effect of, on muscles Effect of, on muscular tissue Effect of, on physical culture Nature of Effects of, on human system and digestion Effect of, on the stomach and the gastric juice ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell

... of Wellington is so called sometimes, and is represented by a statue of Achilles of gigantic size in Hyde Park, London, close ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... received from another, with his person and character, that they can never afterwards forget or forgive. They are hence disposed to all the intemperance of hatred and revenge; to the chronic malice of a Jago, or the acute pangs of an Achilles. Homer, in his speech of Achilles to Agamemnon's mediating ambassadors, has drawn a strong and natural picture of the progress of anger. It is worth studying as a lesson in metaphysics. Whenever association suggests to the mind of Achilles the injury he has received, ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth

... any of us, More fast than a gent at the top of a "bus," More fast than the coming of "Per col. sus." Which Shakespeare says comes galloping, (I take his word for anything) This Helenus had a cure of souls— He had cured the souls of several Greeks, Achilles sole or heel,—the rolls Of fame (not French) say Paris:—speaks Anatomist Quain thereof. Who seeks May read the story from z to a; He has handled and argued it every way;— A subject on which there's a good deal to say. His work was ever the best, and still ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various

... suppressed passage of the 'Religio Medici,' 'if I say that I am the happiest man alive. I have that in me that can convert poverty into riches, adversity into prosperity, and I am more invulnerable than Achilles; fortune hath not one place to hit me.' Perhaps on second thoughts, Sir Thomas felt that the phrase savoured of that presumption which is supposed to provoke the wrath of Nemesis; and at any rate, he, of all men, is the last to be taken too literally at his word. He is a humorist to the ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... Aurelia on the third evening was recalled, there was a ring of refreshment in the voice. It was still melancholy, but the dejection was lessened, and though it was only of Achilles and Patroclus that they talked, she was convinced that the pressure of the heavy burthen of grief and remorse ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... rightness of the secondary passion depends on its being grafted on those two primary instincts, the love of order and of kindness, so that indignation itself is against the wounding of love. Do you think the menis Achileos came of a hard heart in Achilles, or the "Pallas te hoc vulnere, Pallas," of a hard ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin

... world an enlarged description of that noble country, I shall say, "fortem ad fortia misi," and demand the armour; that is, I shall lay claim to a certain portion of the honours he will receive, upon the plea that I was the first mover of his discoveries; for, as Ulysses sent Achilles to Troy, so I sent him to Guiana. I intended to have written much more at length; but days and months and years have passed away, and nothing has been done. Thinking it very probable that I shall never have patience enough to sit down and write a full account of all I saw ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton

... Reft of those maids, who know the mightiest's will. The cycle of the years, it flags not yet; In many a chariot many a steed shall sweat: And one, to manhood grown, my lays shall claim, Whose deeds shall rival great Achilles' fame, Who from stout Aias might have won the prize On Simois' plain, where Phrygian Ilus lies. Now, in their sunset home on Libya's heel, Phoenicia's sons unwonted chillness feel: Now, with his targe of willow at his breast, The Syracusan bears his spear in rest, Amongst these Hiero arms him ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus

... Yanokie or Yankee race, it is ten chances to one but I offend the morbid sensibilities of certain of their unreasonable descendants, who may fly out and raise such a buzzing about this unlucky head of mine, that I shall need the tough hide of an Achilles, or an Orlando Furioso, to protect ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... conducted by the chiefs; but all freemen, gentle and simple, have a right to speak in it. There is no voting, only a declaration, by shouts, of the general feeling. Though the head of the nation has been usually the person who convokes it, a magnate lower in rank might always, like Achilles in the Iliad, have it summoned when a fitting occasion arose. And it was generally preceded by a consultation among the leading men, though I could not discover that there was any regular council of chiefs.[68] In all these points the resemblance to the ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce

... no heed to the sun. He who for ten years had been the most energetic man of the desert had overnight become the most nonchalant. Like Achilles, he sulked ...
— The Turquoise Cup, and, The Desert • Arthur Cosslett Smith

... and judgement giv'n, 10 That brought into this World a world of woe, Sinne and her shadow Death, and Miserie Deaths Harbinger: Sad task, yet argument Not less but more Heroic then the wrauth Of stern Achilles on his Foe pursu'd Thrice Fugitive about Troy Wall; or rage Of Turnus for Lavinia disespous'd, Or Neptun's ire or Juno's, that so long Perplex'd the Greek and Cytherea's Son; If answerable style I can obtaine 20 Of my Celestial Patroness, who deignes Her nightly ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... mighty pewter dish, big as Achilles' shield, sustaining a pyramid of smoking sausages. This stood at one end; midway was a similar dish, heavily laden with farmers' slices of head-cheese; and at the opposite end, a congregation of beef-steaks, piled tier over tier. Scattered at intervals between, ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville

... text-book and "second reader" the Homeric poems are! What characters to imitate: the high-minded, passionate, yet withal loyal and lovable Achilles who would rather fight gloriously before Troy (though death in the campaign is certain) than live a long life in ignoble ease at home at Phthia; or Oysseus, the "hero of many devices," who endures a thousand ills and surmounts them all; who lets not even the goddess Calypso ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis

... Ungnad-Gressmann, Das Gilgamesch-Epos, p. 100 seq. touches upon this motif, but fails to see the main point that the companions are also twins or at least brothers. Hence such examples as Abraham and Lot, David and Jonathan, Achilles and Patroclus, Eteokles and Polyneikes, are not parallels to Gilgamesh-Enkidu, but belong to the enlargement of the motif so as to include companions who are not ...
— An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh Epic • Anonymous

... like at a banquet in the "Iliad." But the Achilles of this extensive repast was Manin, the rough Manin who, according to those that were next to him, consumed no less than eleven calabashes of wine. Certainly Manin deserved being called, if not a Sueve, as that would offend Saleta, at least a Lombard. He talked and halloed ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds

... of the railing beneath the statue of Achilles was full of parasols and waistcoats; chains and bangles; of ladies and gentlemen, lounging elegantly, ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf

... pamphlet, with elegies on the Earls of Bedford and Manchester. The pages of LUCASTA bear testimony to the acquaintance of the author with Anthony Hodges of New College, Oxford, translator of CLITOPHON AND LEUCIPPE from the Greek of Achilles Tatius (or rather probably from a Latin version of the original), and with other ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace

... remembrance in his majesty, which his many avocations of business have caused him, I fear, to lay aside; and, as himself and his royal brother are the heroes of the poem, to represent to them the images of their warlike predecessors; as Achilles is said to be roused to glory, with the sight of the combat before the ships. For my own part, I am satisfied to have offered the design, and it may be to the advantage of my reputation ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden



Words linked to "Achilles" :   Achilles tendon, tendon of Achilles, mythical being



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