"Proserpine" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... goddesses,"—a woman's oath, which recurs constantly in this play; the two goddesses are always Demeter and Proserpine. ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... life of another day, Beheld her wondering, for the goddess lay With half-shut eyes upon her golden bed, And when she entered scarcely turned her head, But smiling spake, "The gods are good to thee, Nor shalt thou always be mine enemy; But one more task I charge thee with to-day, Now unto Proserpine take thou thy way, And give this golden casket to her hands, And pray the fair Queen of the gloomy lands To fill the void shell with that beauty rare That long ago as queen did set her there; Nor needest thou ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... Appeal to Horace. In the secular ode, Lucina is used as one of the names of Diana, and the beauty of Diana is extolled by all the most orthodox doctors of the ancient mythology, from Homer in his Odyssey, to Claudian in his Rape of Proserpine. In another ode, Horace describes Diana as the goddess who assists the "laborantes utero puellas." But we are ashamed to detain our readers ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... St. Peter must hang upon the cross in the Pincian gardens, as a real Laureolus upon the stage. A Christian boy must be the Icarus, and a Christian man the Scaevola or the Hercules or the Orpheus of the amphitheatre; and Christian women, modest maidens, holy matrons, must be the Danaids or the Proserpine or worse, and play their parts as priestesses of Saturn and Ceres, and in blood-stained dramas of the dead. No wonder that Nero became to Christian imagination the very incarnation of evil; the antichrist; the Wild ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... children, stay. Poor things! I do remember me, How I did seek Proserpine. We must not leave her thus forlorn: Auroral grace in her is born, And, rarer else, the finest sense Of feeling and intelligence. Mortals of such ethereal grain Are quickened both for joy and pain; Theirs is the affluence of joy, And pain that sorely doth annoy. And, therefore, if ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... new earth—a multitude of gems, swallowed by an earthquake, and scattered through a world of baser matter. The soul of the reader now faints with excess of beauty, now shudders at the terrible and the revolting. the young poet's muse at times goes like Proserpine to gather flowers, but straightway is seized by the lord of the infernal regions, and disappears in flame and darkness. The entire volume is a poetical Archipelago—isles of loveliness sprinkling a dead sea of ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... at Kelmscott), and it ‘goes on’ (to quote the words of one of his letters) ‘like a house on fire. This is the only kind of picture one ought to do—just copying the materials, and no more: all others are too much trouble.’ It is not difficult to understand that the painter of a ‘Proserpine’ and a ‘Ghirlandata’ would occasionally feel the luxury of a mood intellectually lazy, and would be minded to give voice to it—as in this instance—in terms wilfully extreme; keeping his mental eye none the ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... womanly beauty here described is characteristic; it is the type familiar to all in "Pandora," "Proserpine," "La Ghirlandata," "The Day Dream," "Our Lady of Pity," and the other life-size, half-length figure paintings in oil which were the masterpieces of his maturer style. The languid pose, the tragic eyes with their mystic, brooding intensity in contrast with the full ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... sparks, achieving a certain grandeur which fills his work with a powerful breath. In the Occidental Empire tottering more and more in the perpetual menace of the Barbarians now pressing in hordes at the Empire's yielding gates, he revives antiquity, sings of the abduction of Proserpine, lays on his vibrant colors and passes with all his torches alight, into the obscurity that was then engulfing ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... fragrant thyme, and all the unsown beauty Which in moist grounds the verdant meadows bear; The ox-eye, the sweet-smelling flower of love, The chalca, and the much-sung hyacinth, And the low-growing violet, to which Dark Proserpine a ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... member of the Labiatae, is a very hardy perennial, native to Mediterranean countries. Its generic name is derived from the mythological origin ascribed to it. Poets declared that Proserpine became jealous of Cocytus's daughter, Minthe, whom she transformed into the plant. The specific name means green, hence the common name, green mint, often applied to it. The old Jewish law did not require that tithes of "mint, ...
— Culinary Herbs: Their Cultivation Harvesting Curing and Uses • M. G. Kains
... though my flying song flies after, O sweet strange elder singer, thy more fleet Singing, and footprints of thy fleeter feet, Some dim derision of mysterious laughter From the blind tongueless warders of the dead, Some gainless glimpse of Proserpine's veiled head, Some little sound of unregarded tears Wept by effaced unprofitable eyes, And from pale mouths some cadence of dead sighs— These only, these the hearkening spirit hears, ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Furies were wet with tears, and the restless shades that came and went in the darkness, like dead autumn leaves driven by a winter gale, stood still to gaze and listen. Before the throne where Pluto and his queen Proserpine were seated, sable-clad and stern, the relentless Fates at their feet, Orpheus still played on. And to Proserpine then came the living remembrance of all the joys of her girlhood by the blue AEgean Sea in the fair island of Sicily. Again ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... Munich, Vienna, Madrid, and Paris. The ladies alone would repel one by their gaunt ugliness, their flesh being apparently composed of the article on which the pictures are painted, leather. The only picture not by "Titian" in this room is a Rubens, - "the Rape of Proserpine" - to see which is well worth the half-crown charged for the sight of ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... Goddesses, was to shadow out the blessings which the nation enjoyed, under the peaceful reign of King James I. By Juno was represented Power; by Pallas Wisdom and Defence; by Venus, Love and Amity; by Vesta, Religion; by Diana, Chastity; by Proserpine, Riches; by Macaria, Felicity; by Concordia, the Union of Hearts; by Astraea, Justice; by Flora, the Beauties of the Earth; by Ceres, Plenty; and by ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... been a current term to express the character or the ways of "the too deferential man." "Flatterers be the Devil's chaplains, that sing aye Placebo."—"Parson's Tale."), or with the fantastic machinery in which Pluto and Proserpine anticipate the part played by Oberon and Titania in "A Midsummer Night's Dream." On the other hand, Chaucer is capable of using goods manifestly borrowed or stolen for a purpose never intended in their original employment. ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... in Troy." King John of France, once prisoner in England, came to visit his old friends again, crossing the seas; but the truth is, his coming was to see the Countess of Salisbury, the nonpareil of those times, and his dear mistress. That infernal God Pluto came from hell itself, to steal Proserpine; Achilles left all his friends for Polixena's sake, his enemy's daughter; and all the [4867]Graecian gods forsook their heavenly mansions for that fair lady, Philo Dioneus daughter's sake, the paragon of Greece in those days; ea enim venustate fuit, ut eam certatim ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... what a sight! What a miracle! What a transformation in my whole destiny! I had already begun to look upon myself as a vassal of Proserpine, a bondsman of Hades, and now I could only gasp in impotent amazement at the suddenness of the change; words fail me to express fittingly the astounding metamorphosis. For the bodies of my butchered victims ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... chance to come where the blessed spirits, as ther's a sight now—we maids that have our Lyvers perish'd, crakt to peeces with Love, we shall come there, and doe nothing all day long but picke flowers with Proserpine; then will I make Palamon a Nosegay; ...
— The Two Noble Kinsmen • William Shakespeare and John Fletcher [Apocrypha]
... seated, and Veranilda, not without betraying a slight trouble of surprise, took the chair to which he pointed. But he himself did not sit down. In the middle of the room stood a great bronze candelabrum, many-branched for the suspension of lamps, at its base three figures, Pluto, Neptune, and Proserpine. It was the only work of any value which the villa now contained, and Marcian associated it with the memories of his earliest years. As a little child he had often gazed at those three faces, awed by their noble gravity, and, with a child's ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... my spirits, and I had left Bois le Duc a good way in arrears before I was thoroughly convinced of my existence; when I looked through the blinds of the carriage, and saw nothing but barren plains and mournful willows, banks clad with rushes, and heifers so black and dismal that Proserpine herself would have given them up to Hecate. I was near believing myself in the neighbourhood of a certain evil place, where I should be punished for all my croakings. We travelled at this rate, I dare say, fifteen miles, without seeing a single shed: at last, one or two miserable cottages ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... Boston critic denominates Powers "a sublime mechanic," as if there were only physical imitation in his busts, and no expression in his figures. The insinuation is unjust. By exquisite finish and patient labor he makes of such subjects as the Fisher-boy, the Proserpine, and Il Penseroso charming creations,—in attitude and feature true to the moment and the mood delineated, and not less true in each detail; their popularity is justified by scientific and tasteful canons; and his portrait ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... Lacedaemon, and there she found a hole leading to the Underworld. A ghostly ferryman rowed her over the River of Death, and took one of her copper coins. Then a monstrous dog with three heads sprang out, but Psyche fed him with one of her honey-cakes, and entered the hall of Proserpine, the queen of the dead. Proserpine filled the casket, and by means of the last honey-cake and the last copper coin, Psyche returned ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... world a dreary green monotony of spring all over France, Provence, Italy, Spain, Germany, England; spring, spring, nothing but spring even in the mysterious countries governed by the Grail King, by the Fairy Morgana, by Queen Proserpine, by Prester John; nay, in the new Jerusalem, in the kingdom of Heaven itself, nothing but spring; till one longs for a bare twig, for a yellow leaf, for a frozen gutter, as for a draught of water in the desert. The green fields and meadows enamelled with painted flowers, how one detests ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... creatures, the purple shell-fish, was also known as "the maiden". By Pliny it is called Pelogia, in Greek [Greek: porphyra]; and [Greek: porphyromata] was the term applied to the flesh of swine that had been sacrificed to Ceres and Proserpine (Hesych.). In fact, the purple-shell was "the maiden" and also "the sow": in other words it was Aphrodite. The use of the term "maiden" for the Pterocera suggests a similar identification. To ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... effort, yet not without a pang of shame at sinning on the edge of the grave, she drags herself to the spot. She is troubled by the savage look of a place all rough with yews and thorns, by the rude, dark beauty of that relentless Proserpine. Prostrate, trembling, grovelling on the ground, the poor old woman weeps and prays. Answer there is none. But when she dares to lift herself up a little, she sees that Hell itself ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... knapping; some drinking, some winking; some kissing, some pissing; some reeling, some stealing) urged my curiosity to enquire for what it was possible those noble sports might be ordained, and was soon satisfied it was the Anniversary Feast of their Great Lady Proserpine's birth-day. But these things that I took to be diverting, so elevated the spleen of my Puritan companion, that he began loudly to exclaim against those prophane exercises: he said, they were impure, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... face to the sun, full and rank, and a tall dull red flower, Eupatorium purpureum, or trumpet-weed, formed the rear rank of the fluvial array. The bright blue flowers of the soap-wort gentian were sprinkled here and there in the adjacent meadows, like flowers which Proserpine had dropped, and still farther in the fields or higher on the bank were seen the purple Gerardia, the Virginian rhexia, and drooping neottia or ladies'-tresses; while from the more distant waysides which we occasionally passed, and banks where ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... a servant-maid of Metanira, wife of Celeus, king of Eleusis, who tried to exhilarate Ceres when she travelled over Attica in quest of her daughter Proserpine. From the jokes and stories which she made use of, free and satirical verses have been called iambics.—Apollod, i.c. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Volume 12, No. 329, Saturday, August 30, 1828 • Various
... applaud us! Eh, but you are young, very young. I should not wonder to hear you were born after I left the stage. And you are pretty, but not old enough to be Orfeo yet. I must wait—I must wait, though I wait till I doubt if I am not changed to Proserpine with her cracked voice. ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... Sibyl who guards the sacred wood of Avernus, and I discerned the fair Proserpine's beautiful golden twig amongst the tufted boughs of the tree to which her ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... the Phoenician or Egyptian systems, perhaps with both. Hence the old Cabeiric powers were soon made to answer to the corresponding popular divinities; and the lower triad was called by the uninitiated, Ceres, Vulcan or Pluto, and Proserpine, and the 'Cadmilos' became Mercury. It is not without ground that I direct your attention, under these circumstances, to the probable derivation of some portion of this most remarkable system from patriarchal tradition, ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... and the Greeks at this same period held their feast of lights in honour of Ceres. Pope Innocent explains the origin of this feast of Candlemass. He states that "The heathens dedicated this month to the infernal gods. At its beginning Pluto stole away Proserpine, and her mother Ceres sought for her in the night with lighted torches. In the beginning of this month the idolaters walked about the city with lighted candles, and as some of the holy fathers could not extirpate such a custom, they ordained that Christians should carry about ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... flooded Jehane, whose breath also became a trouble. By a quick movement she drew her veil about her, lest he should see her unquiet breast. So the mother of Proserpine might have been startled into new maidenhood when, in her wanderings, some herd had claimed her in love. Her husband watched her keenly, not unkindly. Jehane's trouble increased; he left her alone to fight it. So at last she did; then touched ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... S. Peter's. The decorative framework represents a multitude of living creatures—snails, snakes, lizards, mice, butterflies, and birds—half hidden in foliage, together with the best known among Greek myths, the Rape of Proserpine, Diana and Actaeon, Europa and the Bull, the Labours of Hercules, &c. Such fables as the Fox and the Stork, the Fox and the Crow, and old stories like that of the death of AEschylus, are included in this medley. ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... of night] Alluding to the triple character of Proserpine, Cynthia, and Diana, given by some mythologists to the same Goddess, and comprised ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... Odin, the sun or summer, and the consequent desolation of Frigga, the earth, is merely a different version of the myths of Proserpine and Adonis. When Proserpine and Adonis have gone, the earth (Ceres or Venus) bitterly mourns their absence, and refuses all consolation. It is only when they return from their exile that she casts off her mourning garments and gloom, and again decks herself in all her jewels. So Frigga and ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... now only on the verdureless banks of the Styx. When Proserpine, who was gathering flowers, was carried away to the dark Avernus, all the other blossoms which she had woven in her garland withered and died, but the Poppy; and that the goddess planted in the land of darkness and gloom, and called it the ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... above set forth is probably impossible in English; even now it will be observed that Mr Swinburne, the greatest master of double and treble rhymes that we have ever had, rarely succeeds in giving even the former with a full spondaic effect of vowel such as is easy in Provencal. In "The Garden of Proserpine" itself, as in the double rhymes, where they occur, of "The Triumph of Time" (the greatest thing ever written in the Provencal manner, and greater than anything in Provencal), the second vowels of the rhymes are never full. ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... chaste Daphne wreathed, Yon stone was mournful Niobe's mute cell, Low through yon sedges pastoral Syrinx breathed, And through those groves wail'd the sweet Philomel; The tears of Ceres swell'd in yonder rill— Tears shed for Proserpine to Hades borne; And, for her lost Adonis, yonder ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... beauty, nor sweet nature's face, Yet, I say, never morn broke clear as those On the dim clustered isles in the blue sea, The deep groves and white temples and wet caves; And nothing ever will surprise me now— Who stood beside the naked Swift-footed, Who bound my forehead with Proserpine's hair. ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... want to know what I have discovered. Alas! dear Donna Evelina, I have discovered, I fear, that there is nothing to discover; that Apollo was never in Styria; that Chaucer, when he called the Queen of the Fairies Proserpine, meant nothing more than an eighteenth century poet when he called Dolly or Betty Cynthia or Amaryllis; that the lady who damned poor Tannhaeuser was not Venus, but a mere little Suabian mountain sprite; in fact, that poetry is only the invention of poets, and that that rogue, Heinrich Heine, ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... worthy of our trust), with love's own beam Dost warm thee," thus to her my speech I fram'd: "Ah! please thee hither towards the streamlet bend Thy steps so near, that I may list thy song. Beholding thee and this fair place, methinks, I call to mind where wander'd and how look'd Proserpine, in that season, when her child The mother lost, and she the bloomy spring." As when a lady, turning in the dance, Doth foot it featly, and advances scarce One step before the other to the ground; Over the yellow and vermilion flowers Thus turn'd she at my suit, most ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante |
