"Distaff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to be withstood By feeble human flesh and blood. 'Twas he that brought upon his knees The hect'ring kil-cow Hercules; Transform'd his leaguer-lion's skin T' a petticoat, and made him spin; Seiz'd on his club, and made it dwindle T' a feeble distaff and a spindle. ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... shone on the strings of maize and bunches of dried vegetables that hung from the roof and on the copper kettles and saucepans ranged along the wall. The wind raged against the shutters of the unglazed windows, and the maid-servants, distaff in hand, crowded closer to the blaze, listening to the songs of some wandering fiddler or to the stories of a ruddy-nosed Capuchin monk who was being regaled, by the steward's orders, on a supper of tripe and mulled wine. The ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... In the corresponding period of Grecian and Roman history, we find Penelope and Lucretia at the loom, Nausicaa, a laundress, the daughter of the king of the Lestrigons, fetching water from the spring, Odysseus, a carpenter, a queen of Macedonia as a cook, and finally the distaff of Tanaquil.(348) In the highlands of Scotland, in 1797, there were a great many peasants all of whose clothing was home-made, with the exception of their caps; nothing coming from abroad except the tailor, his needles ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... song, such as was of yore raised on the field of battle by the scalds of the yet heathen Saxons. Her long dishevelled gray hair flew back from her uncovered head; the inebriating delight of gratified vengeance contended in her eyes with the fire of insanity; and she brandished the distaff which she held in her hand, as if she had been one of the Fatal Sisters who spin and abridge the thread ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... Catheron Royals," she said, "and a fine baby no doubt, as babies go. I don't pretend to be a judge. He is very bald and very flabby, and very fat just at present. Whom does he resemble? Not you, Victor. O, no doubt the distaff side of the house. What do you call him, nurse? Not christened yet? But of course the heir of the house is always christened at Catheron Royals. Victor, no doubt you'll follow the habit of your ancestors, and ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... for a few crowns, and set out with those they had so laughed at a few hours before. In most cases the laugh was turned against them; for when it became known that a man was hesitating, his more zealous neighbours sent him a present of a knitting-needle or a distaff, to shew their contempt of him. There was no resisting this; so that the fear of ridicule contributed its fair contingent to the armies ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... welcomed them kindly, and meat was set before them, and wine in cups of gold. While they were talking, Helen came forth from her fragrant chamber, like a Goddess, her maidens following her, and carrying for her an ivory distaff with violet-coloured wool, which she span as she sat, and heard Paris tell how far he had travelled to see her who was so famous for her beauty even in ...
— Tales of Troy: Ulysses the Sacker of Cities • Andrew Lang
... wretched curs which barked after the heels of his horse, Edward might have supposed them meant to serve as kennels—save, that is, for the ragged urchins who sprawled in the mud of the road and the old women who, distaff in hand, dashed out to rescue them from being trampled upon by ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... peasant woman, and when a little girl she had tended the sheep in the mountains of Auvergne, wearing the picturesque peasant-costume and carrying her distaff with her. She now had two children of her own, and every morning early before they were up she would kiss them good-bye, leaving them in her sister's charge while she went to take care of the little American boy, of whom ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... shuddering reverence; I was much impressed with the idea of your strength. Yet now I understand that you and your cord and your threats all depend from a mere cobweb. It seems to me Clotho should be the one to boast: she has you dangling from her distaff, like a sprat at the end ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... Homeric age. Story-telling is much appreciated by all classes. There are wandering minstrels who gain their livelihood by going from house to house to recite the stories in prose and poetry which they have learned by heart. Spindle and distaff are used in spinning the wool into yarn, which is then knit or woven into ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... miles farther, we come to Mr. Waldron's, and find him nestled quietly under a hill in his double log-house, with a view of the lake on the west, and with comforts all around him. We find Aunt Polly too, and she lays down her distaff, welcomes us in, tells us a story of the backwoods, and gives us a taste of her ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... refused to put her to death, she became a slave of the crown. The Ripuarian law condemned the female delinquent to slavery; but the woman had the alternative of killing her base-born husband. She was offered a distaff and a sword. If she chose the distaff she became a slave; if a sword she struck it to the heart of her paramour and emancipated herself from ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... through a wide-opened door, was seen another chamber, where a troop of domestics were busy at their tasks. Some were grinding the yellow grain in hand-mills, others were walking to and fro at the loom, and others sat plying distaff and spindle, nodding their heads like poplars waving in the wind. Very choice was the fabric woven in that chamber, for the women of Phaeacia were famed beyond all others for their skill in weaving, even as the men surpassed all the ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... love. Yet, willing to try her longer, he replied—"Sweet Princess, not content that I have risked my life to preserve yours, would you have me sacrifice my honour, give over the chase of dazzling glory, lay all my warlike trophies in a woman's lap, and change my truncheon for a distaff? No, Sabra, George of England was born in a country where true chivalry is nourished, and hath sworn to see the world, as far as the lamp of heaven can lend him light, before he is fettered in the golden chains of wedlock. ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston
... very interesting to notice that in the early representations of Athena, while she is very warlike in her bearing and raises her lance in her right hand, she also carries in her left the distaff and the spindle and the lamp of knowledge. In the later art of Phidias she is still stern and severe, but her face also expresses dignity and grandeur of thought and character. Later still, her warlike attributes are made less prominent: the shield rests ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students - Painting, Sculpture, Architecture • Clara Erskine Clement
... sake of France was in her bed deserted. One o'er the cradle kept her studious watch, And in her lullaby the language used That first delights the fathers and the mothers; Another, drawing tresses from her distaff, Told o'er among her family the tales Of Trojans and of Fesole and Rome. As great a marvel then would have been held A Lapo Salterello, a Cianghella, As Cincinnatus or Cornelia now. To such a quiet, such a beautiful Life of the citizen, to such a safe Community, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... aboriginal strain has proved itself stronger than the Frisian, and the Danish type does not appear at all. There are English names among us, of course, such as Gurd, which is Gurth as pronounced by a Norman; but it is understood that we are neolithic chiefly on the distaff side. The theory that each successive wave of invasion demolished the existing inhabitants is absurd. Not even the Germans do that; nor have the Turks succeeded in obliterating the Armenian nation. No—in turn ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... at once!' she cried, in a haughty tone. 'Clothe me more beautifully than mortal maid was ever clad before, so that I may find favour in the prince's sight and become the bride of the castle. I would that I were done for ever with the spindle and the distaff.' ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... class will leave the country, and seek a home where they will not be ashamed to work for their subsistence. We were forcibly reminded of the oft alleged objection to emancipation in the United States, that it would impoverish many excellent families in the South, and drive delicate females to the distaff and the wash-tub, whose hands have never been used to any thing—rougher than the cowhide. Much sympathy has been awakened in the North by such appeals, and vast numbers have been led by them to conclude that ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... brought you thus upon the viretote: By Saint Neot, ye wot well what I mean." This Absolon he raughte* not a bean *recked, cared Of all his play; no word again he gaf*, *spoke For he had more tow on his distaff Than Gerveis knew, and saide; "Friend so dear, That hote culter in the chimney here Lend it to me, I have therewith to don*: *do I will it bring again to thee full soon." Gerveis answered; "Certes, were it gold, Or in a poke* nobles all untold, *purse Thou shouldst it have, as I am a true smith. ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... their garments were made of the wool from their own flocks. First the wool had to be spun into yarn. They did not even have spinning wheels in those days, so a spinner took a handful of wool on the end of a stick called a distaff, which she held in her left hand. With her right hand she hooked into the wool a spindle. This was a round, pointed piece of wood about ten inches long with a hook at the pointed end, and with a small piece of stone fastened to the other to give momentum ...
— Hebrew Life and Times • Harold B. Hunting
... could possess. I engaged and dismissed the servants, and was the stewardess of the estate. The spare hours that were left from the management of the farm I spent with the needle, the lace cushion, and the distaff, or else I would read some good hook or ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... most of them resembling blackberries, though white in colour, and others similar to huckleberries. In this region the women were employed in beating and preparing the inner rind of the juniper bark, to which they gave the appearance of flax, and others were spinning with a distaff; again, others were weaving robes of this fibrous thread, intermixed with strips of sea-otter skin. The men were fishing on the river with drag nets between two canoes, thus intercepting the salmon coming up ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... to "get in" as a "Daughter" and wear a distaff pin in her shirtwaist, who discovered the revolutionary ancestor. She unearthed him, or rather ran him to earth, in the graveyard of the Presbyterian church at Bordentown. He was no less a person than General Hiram ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... mines. In 1765 James Watt made the real beginning of the application of steam to industry by patenting his steam engine; in 1760 Wedgwood established the pottery industry in England; in 1767 Hargreaves devised the spinning-jenny, which banished the spindle and distaff and the old spinning-wheel; in 1769 Arkwright evolved his spinning-frame; and in 1785 Cartwright completed the process by inventing the power loom for weaving. In 1784 a great improvement in the smelting of iron ores ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... for this stick is Distaff, a word which is derived from the Low German—diesse, the bunch of flax on a distaff, and staff. Originally it would be the staff on which the tow or flax was fastened, and from which the thread was drawn. The modern representative of the spindle with the twisted thread wound on it is the "cop," and the ...
— The Story of the Cotton Plant • Frederick Wilkinson
... incumbent, we have just intimated, is his Father-in-law; but it is not on that ground that he looks to inherit. He is Nephew of old Anton Ulrich, Son of a younger Brother (who was also "Bevern" in Anton's time); and is the evident Heir-male; old Anton being already fallen into the distaff, with nothing but three Grand-daughters. Anton's heir will now be this Nephew; Nephew has wedded one of the Grand-daughters, youngest of the Three, youngest Daughter of Ludwig Rudolf, Sovereign Duke that now is; which Lady, by the family she brought him, if no otherwise, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... understood to be a Pole in exile, though his title to that distinction could only have been on the side of the distaff, since his father's descent from a ducal family of Venice was not denied; but neither nationality nor expatriation was very obvious upon him. At first sight you would have supposed him a sallow Englishman, spare of flesh and ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... there are in Barbary. But what am I saying, miserable being that I am? Am I not he that has been conquered? Am I not he that has been overthrown? Am I not he who must not take up arms for a year? Then what am I making professions for; what am I bragging about; when it is fitter for me to handle the distaff than ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... walking on cracked ice, to a dark recess, used for depositing wood, and instructed him to ensconce himself behind the fagots. She herself lighted her lamp once more at the kitchen fire, and took her distaff and spindle, that she might not seem to be unemployed, in case any one ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... Portuguese seamen in port, who ridiculed them to such an extent that Grant did not think it necessary to punish them further. Grant describes the natives of Port Praya as resembling negroes, and remarks that the females seemed to spend their time in spinning cotton from a distaff with a spindle. The ship's keels were examined here and one found to be broken, but the repairs, owing to the assistance given by the Governor, were finished in ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... very careful and discreet. If they told the Princess a story, they had to keep the word "spinning" out of it; and if they showed her a book they had to take pains to see it did not contain a picture of a spinning-wheel, or any reference to a distaff or spindle, lest she should ask what they were. The King's Customs officers, on the boundaries of the kingdom, had to examine every waggon-load of merchandise that came into the country for fear it should contain a spinning-wheel; and if anybody ...
— The Sleeping Beauty • C. S. Evans
... one shoulder, sat piping on a stone while his goats skipped among the rocks or lay at his feet. Meek, mouse-colored donkeys, laden with panniers of freshly cut grass passed by, with a pretty girl in a capaline sitting between the green piles, or an old woman spinning with a distaff as she went. Brown, soft-eyed children ran out from the quaint stone hovels to offer nosegays, or bunches of oranges still on the bough. Gnarled olive trees covered the hills with their dusky foliage, fruit hung golden in the orchard, ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... very blood, and in a dubious faintness she was conscious of his lips. He hardly heard the words he uttered, so loud was the clatter of his thoughts, and he seemed to see the trail of his destiny unwinding itself from the distaff in the hands of Fate. He was frightened, and an impulse strove to force him to his feet, and hence, with a rapid good-bye, to the door. But instead, he leaned forth his hands, he sought her, but she shrank away, and turning her ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... returns. Of course, the girl left alone would be an easy prey to every fortune hunter in India, should anything happen!" There was a ferocious, wild gleam in Alan Hawke's eyes as the aide grasped his hat and stick. "I wish to probe the family records and find out what I can of the 'distaff side of the line,' as Mr. Guy Livingstone would say. I have some really valuable presents, and I am on honor to the Viceroy in this, for, of course, a baronetcy must not be given into sullied hands. Johnstone will probably ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... head, and she was leading a horse by means of a bridle hung over her arm. Her hands, being thus not required either for the horse or for the vessel, were employed in spinning, as she walked along, by means of a distaff and spindle. ...
— Darius the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... elegant, but unsteady circle. Pickles, hemp, chickens, curds and whey, butter; washing the clothes, minding the children, seeing to the meals of the household: say that and you have summed up the strenuous woman's round of ideas. On her left side, the distaff, with its load of flax; in her right hand, the spindle turning under a quick twist of her thumb, moistened at intervals with her tongue: so she went through life, unwearied, attending to the order and the welfare of the house. ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... of unpaved street, where children, almost in a primitive state of nakedness, lay sprawling, as if to be crushed by the hoofs of the first passing horse. Occasionally, indeed, when such a consummation seemed inevitable, a watchful old grandam, with her close cap, distaff, and spindle, rushed like a sibyl in frenzy out of one of these miserable cells, dashed into the middle of the path, and snatching up her own charge from among the sunburnt loiterers, saluted him with a sound cuff, and transported him back to his dungeon, the little white-headed varlet ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... him more than the Master does?" asked Winfried; "and will you take the wood that is fit for a bow to make a distaff?" ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... written different things and rubbed them out again, when I exclaimed impatiently, "It will not do!"—"So much the better," said the dear girl in a grave tone: "I wished that it might not do! You should not meddle in such matters." She arose from the distaff, and, stepping towards the table, gave me a severe lecture, with a great deal of good sense and kindliness. "The thing seems an innocent jest: it is a jest, but it is not innocent. I have already lived to see several cases, in which our young people, ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... and Phillis, nor leads beneath shady arcades to a vine-clad cottage, wherein is love and rich cream and homemade butter. The three sisters, the dread Moirae, in their darksome cavern, spinning the golden thread of destiny, reel from their distaff no bright soft film of wedded happiness. The polished metal, many times refined, would never show half its qualities were it not subject to unwonted tests. We suffer according to our powers of endurance, and are tried according to our gifts. Else why are the powers ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... from a rude tripod; this they swung to and fro to the tune of a weird Kurdish song. Behind one of the tents, on a primitive weaving-machine, some of them were making tent-roofing and matting. Others still were walking about with a ball of wool in one hand and a distaff in the other, spinning yarn. The flocks stood round about, bleating and lowing, or chewing their cud in quiet contentment. All seemed very domestic and peaceful except the Kurdish dogs, which set upon us with loud, ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... Melas the Spartan, sat upon a stool in the court of her house, with her wool-basket beside her, spinning. She was a tall, strong-looking young woman with golden hair and blue eyes, and as she twirled her distaff and twisted the white wool between her fingers she sang a little song to herself that sounded like the humming of bees ...
— The Spartan Twins • Lucy (Fitch) Perkins
... others. Nevertheless he came to be the Restorer, so called, of Danish independence; sole remaining representative of Knut (or Knut's sister), of Fork-beard, Blue-tooth, and Old Gorm; and ancestor of all the subsequent kings of Denmark for some 400 years; himself coming, as we see, only by the Distaff side, all of the Sword or male side having died so soon. Early death, it has been observed, was the Great Knut's allotment, and all his posterity's as well;—fatal limit (had there been no others, which we see there were) to his becoming "Charlemagne of the North" in any considerable degree! Jarl ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle
... you, as the female dancer will come upon the stage, with a distaff, twirling it, or with a pail to draw water; or with a spade for digging. Your companion will come next perhaps driving a wheel-barrow, or with a sickle to mow corn, or with a pipe a-smoaking; and though the scene should be ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... little private flock was being tended by a girl, one spinning with a distaff, another seated on a wall and intently making lace. This last, when we addressed her, leaped up in a panic and put out her arms, like a person swimming, to keep us at a distance, and it was some seconds before we could persuade her of the honesty of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the remainder. Drawing from these premises certain corollaries, he resolved to ask her favours as a simple woman. Then he determined to kill everybody—the husband, the wife, or himself—rather than lose the distaff whereon to spin one hour of joy. Indeed, he was so mad with love, that he believed life to be but a small stake in the game of love, since one single day of it ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... quite a different thing, a cylindrical block of basalt nine feet across and three feet high: and Humboldt considers it to be the stone described by early Spanish writers, and called temalacatl (spindle-stone) from its circular shape, something like a distaff-head. Upon this the captive chiefs stood in the gladiatorial fights which took place within the space surrounding the great teocalli. Slightly armed, they stood upon this raised platform in the midst of the crowd of spectators; and six ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... exceedingly industrious, and took great delight in making her family comfortable, and, in fact, supplying the wants of every living thing about her, even to the cat and the dog. "She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff. She riseth also while it is yet dark, and giveth meat to her household, and a ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless
... marked the very street-boys in wide, inexpensive straw hats of various and astonishing colours. Woman he would have found in beautiful shades of blue, in such light garments "woven wind" as Theocritus speaks of when he presents the wife of his doctor with a new ivory distaff. ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... what his wife had seen: and one winter evening beside the peat-fire, as Annette was busy with her distaff, and he sat smoking and watching the glowing embers, he told her her mother's story. She and Paul's father, the elder Paul Gignol, had been betrothed in their youth; but his fishing-smack had struck on the rocks ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall
... his wife, had issue seven sons—viz., Bickerstaff, Longstaff, Wagstaff, Quarterstaff, Whitestaff, Falstaff, and Tipstaff. He also had a younger brother, who was twice married, and had five sons—viz., Distaff, Pikestaff, Mopstaff, Broomstaff, and Raggedstaff. As for the branch from whence you spring, I shall say very little of it, only that it is the chief of the Staffs, and called Bickerstaff, quasi Biggerstaff; as much as to ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... proudly. She saw that her son was now indeed a man. Penelope spoke no word to him, for a new thought had come into her mind. She turned round on the stairs and went back with her hand-maids to the chamber where her loom and her distaff were. And as she went up the stairway and away from them her wooers muttered one to the other that she would soon have to choose one of them ...
— The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy • Padriac Colum
... of the campaign carried out four years earlier on the same territory, had been ended by a mockery. In France, reduced almost to imbecility by the absence of a guiding brain during a long minority, fallen under the distaff of a dowager both weak and wicked, distracted by the intrigues and quarrels of a swarm of self-seeking grandees, and with all its offices, from highest to lowest, of court, state, jurisprudence, and magistracy, sold as openly and as cynically as the commonest wares, there ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... interest, except in that which concerned his religious profession, made his presence rather add to than diminish the gloom which hung over the Castle of Avenel. To superintend the tasks of numerous female domestics, was the principal part of the Lady's daily employment; her spindle and distaff, her Bible, and a solitary walk upon the battlements of the castle, or upon the causeway, or occasionally, but more seldom, upon the banks of the little lake, consumed the rest of the day. But so great was the insecurity of the period, ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... "to my wife, Onega de la Noue de Sainte Marie, chatelaine by right of marriage to this seigneury, and also to the Chateau d'Andelys in Normandy, and to the estate of Varennes in Provence, while retaining in her own right the hereditary chieftainship on the distaff side of the nation of the Onondagas. My angel, I have been endeavouring to persuade our friends to remain with us at Sainte Marie instead of journeying on ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a distaff, denotes frugality, with pleasant surroundings. It also signifies that a devotional spirit will be cultivated ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... Council, to the prelates and nobles of England. When she first arose (as afterwards I heard say) were there some murmurs that a woman should so speak; and divers up and down the hall rowned [whispered] one the other in the ear that it had been more seemly had she kept to her distaff. But when she ended, so great was the witchery of her fair face, and the gramary [magic] of her silver voice, that scarce man was in the hall but was ready to live and die with her. Ha, chetife! how she witched the world! yet never did ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... Beauty," "The Fairy," "Little Red Riding Hood," "Blue Beard," "Puss in Boots" "Riquet with the Tuft," "Cinderella," and "Little Thumb"; eight stories in all. On the cover of the book was depicted an old lady holding in her hand a distaff and surrounded by a group of children listening eagerly. Mr. Andrew Lang has edited a beautiful English edition of this work ...
— Mother Goose in Prose • L. Frank Baum
... wild beast, Of each wild beast which came in view, Whether on four legs or on two, Degenerate, delights to prove His force on the parade of Love, Disclaims the joys which camps afford, And for the distaff quits the sword; Who fond of women would appear To public eye and public ear, 500 But, when in private, lets them know How little they can trust to show; Who sports a woman, as of course, Just as a jockey ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... repairing the ravages of tear and wear upon that useful though humble garment. The two young ladies spun, as used to do the great ladies of the court of King Alfred, and as Hercules himself is said to have done when he changed his club and lion's skin for a spindle and distaff with the Queen of Lybia; Jack was apparently sketching, Fritz had a collection of hunting apparatus before him, and the other two young men, each with a book, were deeply ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... be silent, at least, under our censure. I say, my lord, that my grandfather and my father, in their wisdom, debarred the nobles of this civilized land from travelling with such disorderly retinues; and think you, that because I wear a coif, their sceptre has in my hand been changed into a distaff? I tell you, no king in Christendom will less brook his court to be cumbered, his people oppressed, and his kingdom's peace disturbed, by the arrogance of overgrown power, than she who now speaks with ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... gave me a spindle and about four pounds of hemp upon a distaff, and sent me out to keep the sheep, assuring me that there could not be a pleasanter occupation, and that I could take my ease as much as I pleased. I was forced to set out, very unwillingly, as you may imagine, but I ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... of washing over. Dorcas had nearly finished her "stent" on the little wheel. As she sat by the open door, diligently trotting her foot, and softly pulling the last flax from her distaff, her glance went hastily and often towards the setting sun. She could see beyond the sloping orchard, no longer loaded with fruit, the Great Meadows, extending along the banks of the Connecticut. She could see on the eastern side great white mountains, that went modestly by the name of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... without in the least marring the flat surface requisite in a mural panel. This panel of "Useful Arts" does honor to skilled labor. Men and women are shown busy with the spinning-wheel, the anvil, the forge and other implements of skilled craft. Satisfying figures in the niches, the Woman with the Distaff and the Man with the Sledge-Hammer, continue the same idea. Mr. Young's place in art is unique in that he has won distinguished consideration in three branches - painting, etching and sculpture. In the Palace of Fine Arts he exhibits twelve etchings and ...
— The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition • Stella G. S. Perry
... could not obtain even a handful of corn. Reaching, however, a humble hut at which an old motherly-looking woman sat spinning cotton, he made signs that he was hungry. She immediately laid down her distaff, and desired him in Arabic to come in, setting before him a dish of kous-kous. In return he gave her one of his pocket-handkerchiefs, and asked for a little corn for his horse, which she readily ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... Poet, So plain that all Men sure must know it, That of this Tree the Club was made, With which he overcame ('tis said) Thespius' Daughters, all grown wild, And fifty Mad-Women made mild; Which very Club—(it makes one Laugh) Omphale turn'd into a Distaff. Nay, the Hesperian Tree was this, As shew the Poma Veneris; These Apples doubtless were the Fruit That 'twixt the Queens rais'd such Dispute, To make 'em all stark-naked stand, While Paris held it in his Hand, And chuck'd it into Venus' Mouth, 'Cause ...
— The Ladies Delight • Anonymous
... to her growing family, whilst toddlers of any age from two to seven, unkempt but bright-eyed and engaging, play around the door-step, watched over by their grandmother, or may be their great-grandam, who with her wizened face enfolded in her yellow kerchief, her skinny neck, and her distaff in the bony fingers, looks as if she had stepped out of some Renaissance painting of the Three Fates in a Florentine gallery. Crimson carnations in earthenware pots stand on the steps of the outside staircase, giving a touch of refinement to the squalid home, and from the balcony overhead ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... in its track, till the lily, the symbol of purity, becomes a very cess-pool. When the leaves have been browsed, the stem next loses its cuticle, thanks to the nibbling of the grub, and is reduced to a ragged distaff. The flowers even, which have opened by now, are not spared: their beautiful ivory chalices ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... other Literatures;—once more, as in the old time of the Leitourgia, a most waste imbroglio, and world-wide jungle and jumble; waiting terribly to be 'well-edited' and 'well-burnt'! Arachne started with forefinger and thumb, and had not even a distaff; yet thou seest Manchester, and Cotton Cloth, which will shelter naked ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... Queen Amalasontha's,—Domum servavit, lanam fecit. In Boeotia, brides were conducted home in vehicles whose wheels were burned at the door, in token that they were never to leave the house again. Pythagoras instituted at Crotona an annual festival for the distaff; Confucius, in China, did the same for the spindle; and these celebrated not the freedom, but ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... with anemones of all colours, hyacinths, strange primulas and gentians, without having to make talk to Mr. White. But his journey was without result. He did find an exceedingly old woman keeping sheep and spinning wool with a distaff, who owned to the name of Cecca Benista. She once had a brother. Yes, Gian was his name, but he went away, as they all did. He had a voice bellissima, si bellissima; and some one told her long, long ago, ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... look after. So, wouldn't it be better to spare these arms of ours, now that they are growing old? You will always find something to occupy your time about the house;—there'll be no lack of furniture and things to mend, and I'll be more than ever beside you with my distaff and ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... the window upon old Ursela, as she sat in the warmth with her distaff in her hands while Otto lay close to her feet upon a bear skin, silently thinking over the strange story of a brave knight and a fiery dragon that she had just told him. Suddenly Ursela broke ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle
... their tongues out; behind the cart the man pushed. It contained a disorderly freight: a large feather-bed, a copper cauldron, a bird-cage, a mattock, a clock curiously carved, a spinning-wheel with a distaff impoverished of flax, and some kitchen utensils, which, as the woman stumbled and ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... cut off the hand of the daughter-in-law of Geirada. A party detached to avenge this wrong, by putting Oddo to death, returned deceived by the skill of his mother. They had found only Katla, they said, spinning flax from a large distaff. "Fools," said Geirada, "that distaff was the man you sought." They returned, seized the distaff, and burnt it. But this second time, the witch disguised her son under the appearance of a tame kid. A third time he was a hog, which grovelled among the ashes. The party returned yet again; ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... bore the character of being a cold and dispassionate woman. And this was the more remarkable because on the distaff-side she was of Spanish descent, and might reasonably have been supposed to have inherited the instincts of that passionate and hot-tempered nation. She never quarrelled as the brothers had done, but her eyes narrowed ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... the woods, found himself amidst cultivated fields and vineyards to which his footstep had not before wandered; and there stood, by the skirts of a green lane that reminded him of verdant England, a modest house,—half cottage, half farm. The door was open, and he saw a girl at work with her distaff. She looked up, uttered a slight cry, and, tripping gayly into the lane to his side, he recognised the ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... if I can love? be this the proof How much I have loved—that I love not thee! In this vile garb, the distaff, web, and woof, Were fitter for me: Love is for the free! I am not dazzled by this splendid roof; Whate'er thy power, and great it seems to be, Heads bow, knees bend, eyes watch around a throne, And hands obey—our ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... said the old woman; "and a kennel be your burying-place! May the evil demon Zernebock tear me limb from limb, if I leave my own cell ere I have spun out the hemp on my distaff!" ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... taught, tatted while she watched the potatoes boiling for dinner. Some even asserted that they had seen her tat on horseback with all the diligence attributed to Bertha the beautiful queen of old Helvetia, who spun from a distaff fastened to the saddle ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase
... which clamber the hillside with glimpses of the upper daylight, here and there letting one see crowds of children with aureoles of hair, baskets of brilliant fruit, a woman coming down the road, her water-pot on her head and her distaff on her arm. Then at a corner of the street, the blue sparkle of the waves and the immensity ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... and out, in and out, she was a twentieth century version of any one of the Fates, with the Klinger darner and mender substituted for distaff and spindle. There was something almost humanly intelligent in the workings of Martha's machine. Under its glittering needle she would shove a sock whose heel bore a great, jagged, gaping wound. Your home ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... to the victory, was one of the first to enter the city, and repaired straightway to the House of the Musicians, where dwelt the beautiful Mirande, whom he had not seen since his departure for the war. He found her in her bower, plying her distaff, and fell upon her with such impetuosity that the young lady lost her innocence without, so to speak, realizing that she had done so. And when, having recovered from her surprise, she exclaimed: "Is it you, Seigneur Maxime? What are you doing here?" ...
— The Miracle Of The Great St. Nicolas - 1920 • Anatole France
... brightness of thy lovely hue, Hidest grave thoughts, ripe wit, and wisdom old, More skill than I, in all mine arts untrue, To thee my purpose great I must unfold, This enterprise thy cunning must pursue, Weave thou to end this web which I begin, I will the distaff ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... I am personally interested in the exclusiveness of the Order, my connection with the Brooks of Brookcotes being on the distaff side. My mother was Sir Robert's only sister. My father was a military man—3rd Buffs—died when I was twelve or thirteen years of age. Sir Robert was a confirmed bachelor, and I was his only nephew. ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... son to heal the evil (mentioned in the MS. I have cited) is humourously alluded to in the Tatler (No. 11.). I subjoin the passage, which occurs in a letter signed "D. Distaff." ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 69, February 22, 1851 • Various
... Let her escape unmangled, it will pass in the record that she did once publicly run, and some old dogs will persist in thinking her cunninger than the virtuous, which never put themselves in such positions, but ply the distaff at home. Never should reputation of woman trail a scent! How true! and true also that the women of waxwork never do; and that the women of happy marriages do not; nor the women of holy nunneries; nor the women lucky in ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... moment Mariotte came in to light the lamp, which she placed on a square table in front of the fire; then she fetched her distaff, her ball of thread, and a small stool, on which she seated herself in the recess of a window and began as usual to spin. Gasselin was still busy about the offices; he looked to the horses of the baron and Calyste, saw that the stable was in order for the night, ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... sister take the crown? A text of Scripture reads: 'The lilies spin not, and yet Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these.' This evidently signifies that the kingdom of the lilies shall not fall under the sway of a distaff. In the fourteenth century this was a reason. There were others: it was not to be desired that a foreigner should acquire France by a marriage; and the States-General, applying to the Crown the rule of succession formerly established for the Salic domains, excluded the daughter ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... are the old spinning wheel, the clock reel, the linen wheel with its distaff, your grandfather's knapsack and cartridge-box and Continental coat, your great-aunt's Leghorn bonnet and side-saddle, or pillion, great files of the village newspapers—the "Morning Cry" and "Midnight Yell," besides worn out trunks and boxes without number. In the ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... once striking and effective. A table stood in the centre of the little room, and on it burned a candle, casting a pale and shadowy light over and giving clearer outline to each figure. There was the old loom, with its harnesses, its reed, and its shuttles; the flax-wheel and the distaff, forming a quaint setting, but representing a past age and the primitive habits of the people ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... Owt of Gods blessing into the warme sune. At eve[r]y dogges barke to awake A lone day My self can tell best where my shoe wringes me A cloke for the Rayne To leap owt of the frieng pan into the fyre Now toe on her distaff then she can spynne To byte and whyne The world runs on wheeles He would haue better bread than can be made of whea[t] ...
— Bacon is Shake-Speare • Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence
... said. "Give my dutiful thanks to your master. Tell him my husband's mother, old widow Malmayns, fancies herself attacked by the plague, and if he will be kind enough to visit her, she lodges in the upper attic of a baker's house, at the sign of the Wheatsheaf, in Little Distaff-lane, hard by." ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the King, set about carding the flax, preparing and putting it on the distaff, twirling her spindle, reeling it and working away without ceasing; so that on Saturday evening her thread was all done. But Renzolla, thinking she was still the same as in the fairy's house, not having looked at herself in the glass, threw ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... excuse the blind boast of inherited wings. When the soul, on the impulse of anguish, hath pass'd Beyond anguish, and risen into rapture at last; When she traverses nature and space, till she stands In the Chamber of Fate; where, through tremulous hands, Hum the threads from an old-fashion'd distaff uncurl'd, And those three blind old women sit spinning ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... the much-confused knight, recognizing, step by step, the path of the night before. The turf hut was before him—the door was open—and in the doorway sat the maiden herself, spinning, the distaff by her side, the spindle dancing on the ground, and the pilgrim's hat no longer hiding her beauteous brow and wealth of dark braided hair. But, intolerable sight, seven or eight of last night's ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... woodblock engravings some curious illustrations are met with showing Englishwomen using the distaff. St. Distaff's Day was formerly the 7th of January, for it was then that the women resumed work after the Christmas festivities were over. The distaff and the spindle belonged to an age little understood now, and the occupations of the women of that date are almost forgotten. ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... us to spin and weave a goodly amount of plain cloth. Perhaps, Mr. Walden, you may have noticed the spinning-school building in Long Acre,[23] near the Common—a large brick building with the figure of a woman holding a distaff." ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... death certificate, or what part it could play in the life of Essie Tisdale, the belle of the still smaller frontier town of Crowheart, in a distant State, who at the moment was cleaning her white slippers with gasoline, only the Fate Lachesis spinning the thread of human life from Clotho's distaff could foresee. ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... minutely described by classical writers. It was hypaethral, that is, without a roof, so that the sky could be seen by the worshippers of the "Genius of heavenly light." The oath me-Dius Fidius could not be taken except in the open air. The chapel contained relics of the kingly period, the wool, distaff, spindle, and slippers of Tanaquil, and brass clypea or medallions, made of money confiscated ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... goddess of the Libyan people; but her worship was firmly implanted by them in Egypt. She was a goddess of hunting and of weaving, the two arts of a nomadic people. Her emblem was a distaff with two crossed arrows, and her name was written with a figure of a weaver's shuttle. She was adored in the first dynasty, when the name Merneit, 'loved by Neit,' occurs; and her priesthood was one of the ...
— The Religion of Ancient Egypt • W. M. Flinders Petrie
... thread was snapped; her head was bowed; Life dropt the distaff through his hands serene; And loving neighbors smoothed her careful shroud, While Death and Winter ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... discreet, are heard from all sides, and loud above all rings the regular Io Talasse—whatever that may have meant, for no man now knows, and almost certainly no one knew then. In the midst of the procession Marcia, followed by bearers of her spindle and distaff, is being led by two pretty boys, while a third carries a torch; Silius meanwhile is scattering nuts or walnuts, or confetti made like them, to the crowd. Arrived on the Caelian, the bride is once more seized and ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... chamber the three unerring Fates who spin the destinies of men. White-robed and garlanded, they stood beside the babe, and with unwearied fingers drew out the lines of his untried life. Clotho held the golden distaff in her hand, and twirled and twisted the delicate thread. Lachesis, now sad, now hopeful, with her long white fingers held the hour-glass, and framed her lips to say, 'It is enough.' And Atropos, blind and unpitying as the future always is, stood ready, with cruel shears, ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin
... kings, take the next head of human arts—Weaving; the art of queens, honoured of all noble Heathen women, in the person of their virgin goddess—honoured of all Hebrew women, by the word of their wisest king—"She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff; she stretcheth out her hand to the poor. She is not afraid of the snow for her household, for all her household are clothed with scarlet. She maketh herself covering of tapestry; her clothing is silk and purple. She maketh fine linen, and selleth it, and delivereth girdles to the merchant." What ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... partly play You must on St. Distaff's Day; Give St. Distaff all the right, Then give ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... were a fire burning in her hand, which, however, did not hurt her, for it was the jewel she was bringing to her father. When she awoke she thought for a moment that she still held the stone, but she only grasped the knob of her distaff. ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... lives In ev'ry other star or sun, or world; If kings could be my subjects, and that I Could call such pow'r and such a world my own, I would not take it from a woman's hand. Fame is my mistress, madam, and my sword The only friend I ever wooed her with. I hate all honours smelling of the distaff, And, by this light, would as lief wear a spindle Hung round my neck, as thank a lady's hand For any favour greater than ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 539 - 24 Mar 1832 • Various
... months; but they were the earl's utter undoing: for when Christina heard of it, she persecuted him to death. Sophia the empress, Justinian's wife, broke a bitter jest upon Narsetes the eunuch, a famous captain then disquieted for an overthrow which he lately had: that he was fitter for a distaff and to keep women company, than to wield a sword, or to be general of an army: but it cost her dear, for he so far distasted it, that he went forthwith to the adverse part, much troubled in his thoughts, caused ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... ceased to operate, and there were, just then, evident motives for speech. There was no hope that Catharine would have a son, and the secret that a queen may reign by her own right, that the nation may be ruled by the distaff, had not been divulged in England. In foreign policy and in home policy alike, there were interests which favoured a new marriage, if its ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... wife of Polybus, who dwelt in Thebes of Egypt, where is the chiefest store of wealth in the houses. He gave two silver baths to Menelaus, and tripods twain, and ten talents of gold. And besides all this, his wife bestowed on Helen lovely gifts; a golden distaff did she give, and a silver basket with wheels beneath, and the rims thereof were finished with gold. This it was that the handmaid Phylo bare and set beside her, filled with dressed yarn, and across it was laid a distaff charged with wool ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
... afternoon was wearing on, beguiled by the young girls as best it might be, with the spindle and distaff, and incessant chatter and laugh, save when they joined their voices in some popular chant. Signora Martina was delivering fresh flax to the spinners; Marietta, the maid, was busy about the fire, in provident forethought for supper; and Beppo, a barefooted, weather-beaten individual, was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... old ladies sitting somewhere, and thinking about you just at this very minute; one has a distaff in her hands, and is spinning a thread; she has come to a knot in it, and is puzzled what to do with it. Her sister has a great pair of scissors in her hands, and wants—as she always does, when any difficulty arises in ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... was used for holding the bunch of wool, flax, or other fibers. It was a short stick on one end of which was loosely wound the raw material. The other end of the distaff was held in the hand, under the arm or thrust in the girdle of the spinner. When held thus, one hand was left free for drawing out ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson
... half house-servant, half farm-servant, wholly friend; she had lived at the Terra Vergine all her life; big, gaunt, and very strong, she could do the work of a man, although she was over seventy years of age; burnt black by the sun, and with a pile of grey hair like the hank of flax on her distaff, she was feared by the whole district for her penetrating glance and her untiring energy. When Gianna was satisfied the stars had changed their courses, said the people, so rare was the event; therefore, that this little wanderer ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... with a beautiful red flower named Bolcamaria. The markets or sleeping-places are well supplied with provisions by great numbers of women, every one of whom is seen spinning cotton with a spindle and distaff, exactly like those which were in use among the ancient Egyptians. A woman is scarcely ever seen going to the fields, though with a pot on her head, a child on her back, and the hoe over her shoulder, but she is employed ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... time of day to be shooting at hawks and buzzards, with eighteen open mouths to feed. Look at the bee, and at the beaver, my good man, and learn to be a provider. Why, Ishmael! I believe my soul," she continued, dropping the tow she was twisting on a distaff, "the man is in that tent ag'in! More than half his time is spent about the ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... croupier. Besides, he is so much in London, and you so much here. You sit with the distaff; he throws the dice." ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... a fair gift, but fairer still would be that other gift of an army for which she was asking. As she kept saying this to every thing which was given, at last Euelthon sent out to her a present of a golden spindle and distaff, with wool also upon it: and when Pheretime uttered again the same saying about this present, Euelthon said that such things as this were given as gifts to women and not ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... seated himself on the garden-wall, with his portfolio by his side, and seemed busily sketching and retouching some of his ideas. Agnes wound some silvery-white flax round her distaff, and seated herself near him under an orange-tree; and while her small fingers were twisting the flax, her large, thoughtful eyes were wandering off on the deep blue sea, pondering over and over the strange events of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... says, 'I am he, who measures out the long year, who beholds all things, {and} through whom the earth sees all things; the eye, {in fact}, of the universe. Believe me, thou art pleasing to me.' She is affrighted; and in her alarm, both her distaff and her spindle fall from her relaxed fingers. Her very fear becomes her; and, he, no longer delaying, returns to his true shape, and his wonted beauty. But the maiden, although startled at the unexpected sight, overcome by the beauty of the God,[39] {and} ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... left the inn, a wedding procession which could not have been much smaller, and the singing of an old woman, who sat with her distaff in front of her house, was the wedding march. Nino seemed in no great haste, I thought, and I let them walk as they would, while I kept soberly in the middle of the road, a ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... discovery really did bewilder Johnny, and make him believe that fairy tales might be true, after all, for how could he know that the strange woman was an Italian servant, in her native dress, with a distaff in her hand? After pausing a moment, to rub his eyes, he took another look, and made fresh discoveries by twisting his head about. A basket of oranges stood near the Princess, a striped curtain hung from a limb of the tree to keep the wind off, and several ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... doubtless it is too little; and this second paper, which you have kept in order to proceed by degrees, probably contains some demand more difficult to grant than that of yielding to a child scarcely a year old a crown which belongs to me by birthright, and to abandon my sceptre to take a distaff." ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... in this book was, that if a woman, on leaving off work on Saturday night, left her distaff loaded, she might be sure that the thread she would obtain from it during the following week would only produce linen of bad quality, which could not be bleached; this was considered to be proved by the fact that the Germans wore dark-brown coloured shirts, and it ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... masters, could hardly write them at all. In Greek poetry of the great ages I only remember one piece which can be called a model—the AEolic verses that Theocritus wrote to accompany the gift of the ivory distaff. It was a present, you remember, to the wife of his friend Nicias, the physician of Miletus. The Greeks of that age kept their women in almost Oriental reserve. One may doubt whether Nicias would have liked it if Theocritus had sent, instead of a distaff, a fan or a jewel. But there is safety ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang
... chariots and cars fair-wrought with bronze. And she teaches to tender maidens in the halls all goodly arts, breathing skill into their minds. Nor ever doth laughter-loving Aphrodite conquer in desire Artemis of the Golden Distaff, rejoicing in the sound of the chase, for the bow and arrow are her delight, and slaughter of the wild beasts on the hills: the lyre, the dance, the clear hunting halloo, and shadowy glens, and cities ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang
... Distaff of light is in her hand, From which she spins the lily, and The sendal robes of field and forest, With ...
— Song-waves • Theodore H. Rand
... have been sent from Portugal, a country which is near Spain, and very like it in all respects. It is a very fine country, famous for wine, and oil; and the sheep are much prized for their superior wool. The ladies of rank still spin flax from a distaff, to show their industry. The peasantry are not very well off; their only luxury is tobacco, and their usual fare is bread, made of Indian corn, with a salted pilchard, or a head of garlic, to give it a relish. They are polite and hospitable; ...
— The World's Fair • Anonymous
... The Sirens are not pleasures, but Desires: in the Odyssey they are the phantoms of vain desire; but in Plato's Vision of Destiny, phantoms of divine desire; singing each a different note on the circles of the distaff of Necessity, but forming one harmony, to which the three great Fates put words. Dante, however, adopted the Homeric conception of them, which was that they were demons of the Imagination, not carnal; (desire ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... guilty of my death, as indeed thou wilt be." But, for all she said, Tofano wavered not a jot in his foolish purpose. So at last:—"Lo, now," quoth the lady, "I can no more abide thy surly humour: God forgive thee: I leave thee my distaff here, which be careful to bestow in a safe place." So saying, away she hied her to the well, and, the night being so dark that wayfarers could scarce see one another as they passed, she took up a huge stone that was by the well, and ejaculating, "God ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... tailor, and worked for some years with his relation, Mr. Austerbury, of Friday Street, Cheapside; but love, which works so many changes, and which has ere now transformed blacksmiths into painters, and which induced Hercules to exchange his club for the distaff, caused this Knight of the Steel Bar to relinquish the shop-board and patch up his fortune by the patty-pan. He married his landlady, a widow, who resided in Turnmill Street, Clerkenwell. He had ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... predestinating, determining force, instead of being qualified by any play of free-will, or any feasible plan of ultimate and superabounding good, has been a real fatalism, changeless, hopeless, remorseless. That the distaff of the Fates, and the ruthless sceptre of the Erinnys, entered in full force into all the religions of the Greeks and Romans, scarcely needs to be affirmed. They controlled all human affairs, and even the gods were subject to them. The Sagas of the Northmen also were full of fatalism, ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... "A distaff was made of a small pine top. They peeled off the bark, and when it was dry, tied down the ends, and put the other end onto the standard of the wheel. Then they would commence and wind on the flax. A hand of flax would fill ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. 1, Issue 1. - A Massachusetts Magazine of Literature, History, - Biography, And State Progress • Various
... time which nothing could induce her to change. Off she went at once with long strides, the keys jingling on the great silver key-ring fastened to her belt, her plate in her hand, held in equilibrium by the distaff which she held under her arm as if ready for battle, for she spun all day long, and did not stop even to eat her chestnuts. A glance, as she passed, at the stable, still dark, where the horses were sluggishly moving about, at the stifling cow-shed, filled with heads impatiently stretched toward ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... the corruption of Pausanias, he is not one who will allow us to feel contempt. Through all the voluptuous softness acquired by intercourse with these Barbarians, the strong nature of the descendant of the demigod still breaks forth. Even at the distaff I recognize Alcides, whether for evil or for good. Pausanias is one on whom our most anxious gaze must be duly bent. But in this change of his I rejoice; the gods are at work for Athens. See you not that, day after day, ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... is a little more tightly closed than a civilian society, particularly in posts, camps and stations. For that reason the pressure from the distaff side is usually a little heavier. Wives get together more frequently, know one another better, and take a more direct interest in their husbands' careers than is common elsewhere. That has its advantages, but also its headaches. ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... fairy dog, slew the water monster. On the following night a bigger monster, "the father", came ashore, and he also was slain. But the most powerful enemy had yet to be dealt with. "The next night a Big Hag came ashore, and the tooth in the front of her mouth would make a distaff. 'You killed my husband and son,' she said." Finn acknowledged that he did, and they began to fight. After a prolonged struggle, in which Finn was almost overcome, the Hag fell and ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... this tough, impracticable, heart, Is govern'd by a dainty-finger'd girl; Such flaws are found in the most worthy natures; A laughing, toying, wheedling, whimpering, she, Shall make him amble on a gossip's message, And take the distaff with a hand as patient ...
— Jane Shore - A Tragedy • Nicholas Rowe
... and husband quarrelling. She has dropped her distaff (Amiens wool manufacture, see ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... a cross, divided the garden into four parts. The vegetables were contained in wide beds, where, at different spots, arose dwarf cypresses and trees cut in distaff fashion. On one side, an arbour just touched an artificial hillock; while, on the other, the espaliers were supported against a wall; and at the end, a railed opening gave a glimpse of the country outside. Beyond the wall there was ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... soon divin'd Thy close retirements, and monastic mind; Perhaps some nymph had been to visit, or The beauteous churl was to be waited for, And like the Greek, ere you the sport would miss, You stay'd, and strok'd the distaff for a kiss. But in this age, when thy cool, settled blood Is ti'd t'one flesh, and thou almost grown good, I know not how to reach the strange device, Except—Domitian-like—thou murder'st flies. Or is't thy piety? for who ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... Cockburn. Truly, I do intend to weed thy pretty arbours, Maudge; and, peradventure, I may even essay to sing a bass to thy sweet ballad of "Lustye May, with Flora Queen;" and such a domesticated creature shall I be that, like Hercules, you may see me, ere long, ply the distaff—a pretty sight ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... only covering was strings of beads round the waist, neck, ankles, and wrists: an elder girl of about ten years had a small cloth about her loins. We saw no furniture in their huts except a few bowls and calabashes, a rude distaff for spinning cotton, and the usual bed-hurdle covered with mats. The ladies were very garrulous and inquisitive, narrowly inspecting our skin and dress, and asking many questions about European females. They wondered how a rich man could do with ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal Vol. XVII. No. 418. New Series. - January 3, 1852. • William and Robert Chambers
... and trimmed, Agnes took it on her arm. Elsie raised and poised on her head the great square basket that contained her merchandise, and began walking erect and straight down the narrow rocky stairs that led into the gorge, holding her distaff with its white flax in her hands, and stepping as easily as if she bore ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... (4) griffin devouring human leg; (5) owl; (6) mermaid with mirror and hair-brush; (7) two pigs dancing to bagpipe played by a third; (8) Jonah thrown to the whale; (9) man wheeling another who holds a reed and a bag; (10) fox caught carrying off goose by dog and by woman with distaff; (11) winged animal; (12) hart, gorged and chained; (13) pelican feeding young; (14) Jonah emerging from the whale; (15) Samson carrying the gates; (16) head (modern)[100]; (17) (BISHOP'S THRONE) Caleb and Joshua carrying the grapes and ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ripon - A Short History of the Church and a Description of Its Fabric • Cecil Walter Charles Hallett
... angry women. The "rep-silver," the commutation for that old service of reaping in the abbot's fields, had ceased to be exacted from the richer burgesses. At last the poorer sort refused to pay. Then the cellarer's men came seizing gate and stool by way of distress till the women turning out, distaff in hand, put them ignominiously to flight. Sampson had his own thoughts about the matter, saw perhaps that the days of inequality were over, that in the England that was coming there would be one law for rich and poor. At any rate he quietly compromised ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green |
