"Helicon" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... said he, "many are they who have been seduced by poetry; for, the instant a man has composed a verse in feet, and has woven a more delicate meaning into it by means of circumlocutions, he straightway concludes that he has scaled Helicon! Take those who are worn out by the distressing detail of the legal profession, for example: they often seek sanctuary in the tranquillity of poetry, as a more sheltered haven, believing themselves able ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... whom he assigns "an apartment and attendants, near the summit of snowy Olympus[31]." These Ladies, he tells us, "came to pay him a visit, and complimented him with a scepter and a branch of laurel, when he was feeding his flock on the mountain of Helicon[32]." Some tale of this kind it was usual with the Poets to invent, that the vulgar in those ages of fiction and ignorance might consider their persons as sacred, and that the offspring of their imaginations might be regarded as the ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie
... great eater and a fine drinker, he found himself obliged to do penance at St. Monnica's rather frugal table. But when the fever of inspiration took hold of him, he forgot eating and drinking, and in his poetical thirst he would would have drained—so his master says—all the fountains of Helicon. Licentius had a passion for versifying: "He is an almost perfect poet," wrote Augustin to Romanianus. The former rhetorician knew the world, and the way to talk to the father of a wealthy pupil, especially ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... Augustan age. Public fame gave it at first to Scaliger because he was considered as the greatest poet of that time. The celebrated Peyresc[40] hinted it to that learned man, who made answer, he was too old not to be the aversion of the Virgins of Helicon; and that the verses were not written by him, but by Grotius, a most accomplished youth. Notwithstanding this declaration, Mathieu, in the Life of Henry IV. ascribes them to Scaliger. They were thought so excellent, several men of learning set about ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... wit and whimsicality, founded by Johnson himself in conjunction with Sir J. Reynolds, was the Helicon of London Letters, and the temple which the greatest talker of his age had built for himself, and in which he took care to be duly worshipped. It met at the Turk's Head in Gerrard Street, Soho, every ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... schools; and at the corner of Gracechurch Street a masterpiece had been prepared of the pseudo-classic art, then so fashionable, by the merchants of the Styll Yard. A Mount Parnassus had been constructed, and a Helicon fountain upon it playing into a basin with four jets of Rhenish wine. On the top of the mountain sat Apollo with Calliope at his feet, and on either side the remaining Muses, holding lutes or harps, and singing each of them some "posy" or ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... and narrow stairway that led to a modern Helicon; there I have seen the gentle creature that loved nature for her beauty—beauty that was to him apparent, although he sat hemmed in by bare and tattered walls; yet there he had seen bright fountains sparkle and the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... always thus, a hired butcher, a savage chief of savage men. My father was a reverent man, who feared great Jupiter, and brought the rural deities his offerings of fruits ad flowers. He dwelt among the vine-clad rocks and olive groves at the foot of Helicon. My early life ran quiet as the brook by which I sported. I was taught to prune the vine, to tend the flock; and then, at noon, I gathered my sheep beneath the shade, and played upon the shepherd's flute. I had a friend, the son ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... proceeded to Gracechurch corner, where was erected a very magnificent pageant, at the expense of the company of Anseatic merchants, in which was represented mount Parnassus, with the fountain of Helicon, of white marble, out of which arose four springs, about four feet high, centering at the top in a small globe, from whence issued plenty of Rhenish wine till night. On the mount sat Apollo, at his feet was Calliope, and beneath ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... "withering scorn," no heart "blighted" ere it has safely got into its teens, none of the drawing-room sansculottism which Byron had brought into vogue. All is limpid and serene, with a pleasant dash of the Greek Helicon in it. The melody of the whole, too, is remarkable. It is not of that kind which can be demonstrated arithmetically upon the tips of the fingers. It is of that finer sort which the inner ear alone can estimate. It seems simple, like a Greek column, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... the Departing Year, and I applied it, con amore, to the objects before me. That valley was to me (in a manner) the cradle of a new existence: in the river that winds through it, my spirit was baptized in the waters of Helicon! ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... the mighty labor is begun Ye Muses, open all your Helicon. Sing you the chiefs that sway'd th' Ausonian land, Their arms, and armies under their command; What warriors in our ancient clime were bred; What soldiers follow'd, and what heroes led. For well you know, and can record alone, What fame to future times conveys but darkly down. ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... Helicon, collected by John Bodenham, with copious additions, and an index in MS. by Mr. Steevens, 4to. russia, ib. printed by J.R. ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... ripe corn adds its fuel to the blaze. Why mourn we trifles? Mighty cities fall; Their walls protect them not; their dwellers sink To ashes with them. Woods on mountains flame;— Athos, Cilician Taurus, Tmolus, burn; Oete, and Ide, her pleasant fountains dry; With virgin Helicon, and Haemus high, OEagrius since. Now with redoubled flames Fierce Etna blazes;—Eryx, Othrys too; Cynthus, and fam'd Parnassus' double top, And Rhodope, at length of snow depriv'd: Dindyma, Mimas, and the sacred hill Cythaeron nam'd, and lofty Mycale: Nor aid their snows the Scythians: Ossa ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... Green, and dey said he was a powerful mean sort of man. I never did know whar it was dey lived when Daddy was borned. Mammy's marster was a lawyer dat dey called Slickhead Mitchell, and he had a plantation at Helicon Springs. Mammy was a house gal and she said dey treated her right good. Now Daddy, he done field work. You know what field work is, hoein', plowin', and things lak dat. When you was a slave you had to do anything and evvything ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... of privilege of poets to be egotists; but they should 'use it as not abusing it;' and particularly one who piques himself (though indeed at the ripe age of nineteen), of being 'an infant bard,'—('The artless Helicon I boast is youth;')—should either not know, or should seem not to know, so much about his own ancestry. Besides a poem above cited on the family seat of the Byrons, we have another of eleven pages, on the self-same subject, introduced ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... a voice behind the children; whereat Tilda turned about with a start. It was the voice of Mr. Mortimer, who had strolled across from the lock bank, and stood conning the wagon and team. "Henley-in-Arden? O Helicon! If you'll excuse the ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... full of wit, And must be emptied, or must split, In name of president APOLLO, And other gentle folks, that follow: Such as URANIA and CLIO, To whom my fame poetic I owe; With the whole drove of rhyming sisters, For whom my heart with rapture blisters; Who swim in HELICON uncertain Whether a petticoat or shirt on, From vulgar ken their charms do cover, From every eye but Muses' lover; In name of every ugly GOD; Whose beauty scarce outshines a toad; In name of PROSERPINE and PLUTO, Who board in hell's sublimest grotto; In ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... climb the Helicon, You should read Anacreon, Ovid's Metamorphoses, Likewise Aristophanes, And the works of Juvenal: These are worth attention, all; But, if you will be advised, You will get ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... their feet, rose Mount Helicon, 1,520 feet high, and round about the left rose moderate elevations, enclosing a small portion of the "Sea of Rains," under the name of the Gulf of Iris. The terrestrial atmosphere would have to be one hundred and seventy times more transparent than it is, to allow astronomers to make ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... yonder close-curled wild thyme are laid before the maidens of Helicon, and the dark-leaved laurels before thee, Pythian Healer, since the Delphic rock made this thine ornament; and this white-horned he-goat shall stain your altar, who nibbles the ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... my anxious heart repine That Wealth and Power can ne'er be mine, And Love has flown— That Friendship changes as the breeze? Mine is a joy unknown to these; In Song's bright zone, To sit by Helicon serene, And hear the waves ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... him by the king of the Citieans, and was of an admirable temper and lightness. The belt which he also wore in all engagements, was of much richer workmanship than the rest of his armor. It was the work of the ancient Helicon, and had been presented to him by the Rhodians, as a mark of their respect to him. So long as he was engaged in drawing up his men, or riding about to give orders or directions, or to view them, he spared Bucephalas, who was now growing old, and made use of another horse; but ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... And give to rapture all thy trembling strings. From Helicon's harmonious springs A thousand rills their mazy progress take: The laughing flowers that round them blow, 5 Drink life and fragrance as they flow. Now the rich stream of music winds along, Deep, majestic, smooth, and strong, Thro' verdant vales, and Ceres' ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... Helicon, in Central Greece,—beautiful mountains clad with trees and vines and filled with fountains,—were believed to be the favorite haunts of the Muses. Near Athens are Hymettus, praised for its honey, and Pentelicus, renowned for ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... gift of rain from heaven, filling its heart with food and gladness; and all the more when that gift becomes gentle and perennial in the flowing of springs. It literally is not possible that any fruitful power of the Muses should be put forth upon a people which disdains their Helicon; still less is it possible that any Christian nation should grow up "tanquam lignum quod plantatum est secus decursus aquarum," which cannot recognise the lesson meant in their being told of the places where Rebekah was met;—where Rachel,—where Zipporah,—and she ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... simple and unsublimed taste now, like my own, would prefer a jet d'eau at Versailles to this cascade, with all its accompaniments of rock and roar; but this is Flora's Parnassus, Captain Waverley, and that fountain her Helicon. It would be greatly for the benefit of my cellar if she could teach her coadjutor, Mac-Murrough, the value of its influence: he has just drunk a pint of usquebaugh to correct, he said, the coldness of the claret. Let me try its virtues.' ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... what hero, Clio sweet, On harp or flute wilt thou proclaim? What god shall echo's voice repeat In mocking game To Helicon's sequester'd shade, Or Pindus, or on Haemus chill, Where once the hurrying woods obey'd The minstrel's will, Who, by his mother's gift of song, Held the fleet stream, the rapid breeze, And led with blandishment along The listening trees? Whom praise we first? the Sire on ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace |
