"Pyre" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... it a little. He was conscious of an odd sense of disappointment in her. "Have you never been out to St. Cloud? No? I never go there without feeling a terrible pity for those poor prodigals who stood beside its funeral pyre and saw their folly stripped down to the starkest of skeletons while they waited. The day of glory is short, Mr. Schmidt, and the night that follows is bitterly long. They say possession is nine points of the law, but what do nine points mean to the ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... power, and she raised him to the throne by her side. As her accepted lover and lord of the festival, he remained for five days, during which the law of the goddess prevailed. Afterwards on the fifth day the god-lover was sacrificed on the pyre. The male element ...
— The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... not ambitious at the grave. He threw neither garments nor odors upon the funeral pyre, but the arms and the war-horse of the departed were burned and buried ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... mimaluse, or "death islands" of the Columbia; the Chinooks, who stretched them in canoes with paddles and fishing implements by their side; and the Kalamaths, who burned them with the maddest saturnalia of dancing, howling, and leaping through the flames of the funeral pyre. Over sixty or seventy petty tribes stretched the wild empire, welded together by the pressure of common foes and held in the grasp of the hereditary war-chief ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch
... and sacred in family ties. The noble pride of an unspotted life is painted in this majestic poetry of the Latins, this poetry, noble and severe as the masters of the world[17]. 'Yes,' says Cornelia, 'no stain has sullied my life from the nuptial bed to the funeral pyre; I have lived pure between the two torches.' What an admirable expression" cried Corinne; "What a sublime image! How worthy of envy is the lot of that woman who has been able to preserve the most perfect unity in her destiny and carries but one recollection to ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... Goddess of Reason," he said, "typified if you will by the most beautiful woman in Paris. Let us have a feast of the Goddess of Reason, let there be a pyre of all the gew-gaws which for centuries have been flaunted by overbearing priests before the eyes of starving multitudes, let the People rejoice and dance around that funeral pile, and above it all let the new Goddess tower smiling and ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... shoot a swift arrow at Menelaos, and wouldst win favour and glory before all the Trojans, and before king Alexandros most of all. Surely from him first of any wouldst thou receive glorious gifts, if perchance he see Menelaos, Atreus' warrior son, vanquished by thy dart and brought to the grievous pyre. Go to now, shoot at glorious Menelaos, and vow to Apollo, the son of light [Or, perhaps, "the Wolf-born"], the lord of archery, to sacrifice a goodly hecatomb of firstling lambs when thou art returned to thy home, in ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... therefore, to find the Etana eagle figuring as a symbol of royalty at Rome. The deified Roman Emperor's waxen image was burned on a pyre after his death, and an eagle was let loose from the great pile to carry his soul to heaven.[199] This custom was probably a relic of seasonal fire worship, which may have been introduced into Northern and Western ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... member, finds herself virtually an outcast. Her pretty clothes are taken from her, and she is required to do the menial work of the family; this is the Indian protest against the abolishing of the suttee, or the burning of widows on the funeral pyre of their husbands,—cruelties prevented by English rule, as are also the practice of child suicide and the passing of the Juggernaut car over the prostrate bodies of ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... Sardanapalus in making his palace his own funeral pyre and burning himself upon it, is also attributed to the king who was overthrown ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 82, May 24, 1851 • Various
... is not allied to the phoenix, and, once crushed, knows no resurrection; consequently she cheated herself with no vain expectation that the mighty wizard, Time, could evoke from corpse or funeral-pyre even a spark to cheer the years that were thundering ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... said Ten-Teh from the door. "Pass Upward with a tranquil mind, O stranger from the outer land. The torch which you have borne so far will not fail until his pyre is lit." ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... of song pursue, perplex me, Sitting by the fire: Just a note, and lo, the change then! Like a child, I turn and range then, Till a shadow starts to vex me— Passion's wasted pyre. So do songs pursue, perplex me, Sitting ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... of the tradition, which is deemed by some more probable. Croesus is said to have stood on a pyre, intending to offer himself in the flames, to propitiate the god Sandon, that his people might be saved from destruction; but he was prevented, it is ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... "does not satisfy love; it must be paid back in its own coin." "The platform of the altar of love," says Jane Porter, with great accuracy of metaphor, "is constructed of virtue, beauty, and affection; such is the pyre, such the offering; but the ethereal spark must come from heaven that lights the sacrifice." "This passion is," says Dr. South, "the great instrument and engine of nature, the bond and cement of society, the spring and spirit of the universe. It is the whole man wrapped up into ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... perish, but pass from one to another (ab aliis ... ad alios) after death, and by this chiefly they think to incite men to valour, the fear of death being overlooked." Later he adds, that at funerals all things which had been dear to the dead man, even living creatures, were thrown on the funeral pyre, and shortly before his time slaves and beloved clients were also consumed.[1155] Diodorus says: "Among them the doctrine of Pythagoras prevailed that the souls of men were immortal, and after completing their term of existence they live again, the soul passing into another body. Hence ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... and a half later, when the navigator gave me a spell, a black cloud on the northern horizon marked the funeral pyre of another of our victims. When I went below, the Captain had just finished playing with ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... did not wish to leave the corpses of the slain to be dug up and scalped by the savages. He therefore erected a large funeral pyre, placed the bodies upon it, and they were soon consumed to ashes. Some litters were made of long and flexible poles, attached to two horses, one at each end, and upon these the wounded were conveyed over the rough and narrow way. The ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... are, It seems the liquid memory Of time when thou didst try Thy gleaning wing through human years, And met, ay, knew the sigh Of men who pray, the tears That hide the woman's star, The brave ascending fire That is youth's beacon and too soon his pyre,— Yea, all our striving, bateless and unseeing, That builds each day our Heaven new. More deep in time's unnearing blue, Farther and ever fleeing The ...
— Path Flower and Other Verses • Olive T. Dargan
... had neither shovel nor any other appliance wherewith to dig a grave, and it was obviously impossible to do so with our bare hands alone. We at length decided to burn both the bodies, and I forthwith set about the construction of a funeral pyre. Fortunately, we had the forest close at hand; the ground beneath the trees was abundantly strewn with dry leaves, twigs, and branches, and thus I had not far to go for fuel. By the time that darkness closed in I had accumulated a goodly pile close ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... Recitative.] Hail to thee, Burgomaster! Hail to thee, benefactor! Life burns our deeds within its envious fire, But mem'ry, like a phoenix from the pyre, Rises on stalwart wing to waft ...
— Lucky Pehr • August Strindberg
... from school we had only one chicken between us. It was a wonderful chicken, for it had beaten the other, although the conquered bird had fought until it had been killed. We burned him on a funeral pyre as a dead gladiator, with much ceremony and boyish speaking. We wanted to sacrifice to his manes a hen as his wife, but finally concluded to abandon that part of the ceremony; mother kept count ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... pyre!" said Odin, at length; and four of the AEsir stooped down and lifted their ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... fire of logs and turf blazed in the hall fireplace, a funeral pyre, on which Christian cast one basketful after another of letters, papers, ball-cards, hunt cards, pamphlets, old school-room books, stray numbers of magazines, all the accumulated rubbish that life, like the leader in a paper-chase, ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... fall, the Manonoans began to dig a huge pit at a village named Maota, a mile from the scene of the battle, and as some dug, others carried an enormous quantity of dead logs of timber to the spot. By midnight the dreadful funeral pyre was completed. ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... the country and built a bonfire upon which to burn the books they hated most. Blue Bonnet had helped Annabel select a much thumbed Cicero (there had been some difficulty in choosing), longing with all her heart for the day when her own Geometry could be added to the funeral pyre. ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... stoodst before my face, my Lord, Naked I was, and men at arms prepar'd The glowing pyre whereon thy jealousy Had doomed my youthful body to be burned! Calm wast thou then; no quiver moved thy face, Untroubled by thy ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... crystal globe filled full of fire, And flashing like a color pyre, All heavened beneath the eye of morning, To sate the ...
— Song-waves • Theodore H. Rand
... suffering bride to his own house; and all the people gather round the post for the pleasure of burning it and the demon together. A great pile of firewood has meanwhile been heaped up about it, and the women run round the pyre cursing in shrill voices the wicked spirit who has wrought all this evil. The men join in with hoarser cries and animate themselves for the business in hand by deep draughts of an intoxicant which has been provided ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... of rich food and baths made sweet with perfumes, and longed for wild hills and the flocks driven by the shepherds. Then one morning he sailed away, and Dido saw his face no more; and in her grief she ordered a tall pyre to be reared of logs of sandalwood and cedar. When all was prepared she came forth with a golden circlet round her head, and a robe of scarlet falling to her feet, till men marvelled at her fairness, and laid herself down on the top of ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... back of the wagon—under the Mexican's manacled feet; and then brands and embers were thrust underneath. Pike turned sick with horror and helplessness at the sight, for he knew instantly what it meant. The wagon was to be the wretched Manuelito's funeral pyre. They meant to burn him to death by inches. Suddenly a bright flame leaped up from the bottom of the stack of fuel; broader, brighter, fiercer it grew until it lapped up over the floor of the wagon. A scream of agony rang through the Pass, answered by jeering laughter and ...
— Sunset Pass - or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land • Charles King
... Alexander left the funeral pyre, he invited many of his friends and chief officers to dinner, and offered a prize to the man who could drink most unmixed wine. Promachus, who won it, drank as much as four choes.[431] He was presented ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... birds and humble creatures Well accept her rule austere; Titan-born, to hardy natures Cold is genial and dear. As Southern wrath to Northern right Is but straw to anthracite; As in the day of sacrifice, When heroes piled the pyre, The dismal Massachusetts ice Burned more than others' fire, So Spring guards with surface cold The garnered heat of ages old. Hers to sow the seed of bread, That man and all the kinds be fed; And, when the sunlight ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... Hold off! Unhand me!—Am not I your king? And you would strangle him!— But I am breaking with an inward Fire Shall scorch you off, and wrap me on the wings Of conflagration from a kindled pyre Of lying prophecies and prophet-kings Above the extinguish'd stars—Reach me the sword He flung me—Fill me such a bowl of wine As that you ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... me in what great reverence people of this locality hold the sacred river Ganges. If one of their relatives dies, he said, and they have not the means of taking the ashes to the Ganges, they powder a piece of bone from his funeral pyre and keep it till they come across some one who, some time or other, has drunk of the Ganges. To him they administer some of this powder, hidden in the usual offering of pan[1], and thus are content to imagine that a portion of the remains of their deceased relative has gained purifying ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore
... the first, and eternal fame to the last," answered Montreal, calmly. "Rienzi will be restored; that brave phoenix will wing its way through storm and cloud to its own funereal pyre: I foresee, I compassionate, I admire.—And then," added Montreal, ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... in such station As when the pyre was charr'd, and piled the sods. And offering to the dead made, and their gods, The old mourners had, standing to make libation, I stand, and to the Gods and to the dead Do reverence without prayer or praise, ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... the fourth century ran into the epidemic frenzy of anchoritism, and impelled the Circumcellionist multitudes to extort the boon of martyrdom from reluctant tribunals, may be admitted capable even of the madness of a voluntary aspiration to the stake and pyre of the witch. Certain it is that many of the convicts boasted of their interviews with the Devil, and seemed to be, if they were not, possessed with the conviction of having actually partaken of the orgies imputed to them. ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... the red sun glowing Sinks in the west, a gorgeous flare of fire; How then you looked with the soft breeze blowing Cool through your hair, a heaving living pyre Fired by the sun for the sweet day's ending; I still shall hear the whirring harsh moor-hen, Roused from her rest among the rushes bending I ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... their way to the balcony near the blazing summit. Suddenly their retreat was cut off by a burst of fire from the base of the tower. The rope and hose parted and precipitated a number who were sliding back to the roof. Others leaped from the colossal torch. In an instant, it seemed, the whole pyre was swathed in flames. As it toppled, the last wretched form was seen to poise and plunge with it into the ...
— Official Views Of The World's Columbian Exposition • C. D. Arnold
... logic. He pushed me away from all I had esteemed reliable in the universe, till I seemed to stand on the verge of creation. There I hung with the strength of terror. Then I found poet Campbell true to nature, where he speaks of hope standing intact ''mid Nature's funeral pyre.' I insisted upon 'hoping,' in spite of all his ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... strange that this should have been understood as a wrapping of the immense pyre with the cloth. There is nothing in the text to necessitate such a version, but the contrary. Compare "Buddhist Suttas," ...
— Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms • Fa-Hien
... stables were high, cherry-hued pyres, terrible enough to the eye, with their tops crooking northward in the wind. To Dallas' ear, they were far more terrible, telling of awful suffering—hinting of direful intent. For the nearer pyre sent proof of a sacrifice. She could hear the screams of ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... hope and lost desire, No finger ever traced thy yellow page Save Time's. Thou hast not wrought to noble rage The hearts thou wouldst have stirred. Not any fire Save sad flames set to light a funeral pyre Dost thou suggest. Nay,—impotent in age, Unsought, thou holdst a corner of the stage And ceasest even dumbly ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... in readiness for me, With hoisted sail, the pyre light in the prow; In ancient fashion I shall go aboard! Behold, the evening breeze blows from the strand,— On crimson ...
— Early Plays - Catiline, The Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljekrans • Henrik Ibsen
... required some organisation. There were official formalities to fulfil, and the materials had to be assembled—the fuel, the improvised furnace, the iron bars, salt and wine and oil to pour upon the pyre. In his artless 'Records' he describes the last scene on the seashore. Shelley's body was given to the flames on a day of intense heat, when the islands lay hazy along the horizon, and in the background the marble-flecked ...
— Shelley • Sydney Waterlow
... a moment more the Great Pyramid had grown so big that it loomed over us, and ate up half the sky—a pyre of yellow flame against ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... boat is supposed to have filled to leeward, and (carry-ins: two tons of ballast) to have sunk instantaneously—all on board were drowned. The body of Shelley was washed on shore eight days afterwards, near Via Reggio, in an advanced state of decomposition, and was therefore burned on a funeral pyre in the presence of Leigh Hunt, Lord Byron, Mr. Trelawney, ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... against the fading dawn The flames' red wings soar upward duskily. This is the funeral pyre and Troy is dead That sparkled so the day I saw it first, And darkened slowly after. I am she Who loves all beauty—yet I wither it. Why have the high gods made me wreak their wrath— Forever since my maidenhood to sow Sorrow ...
— Helen of Troy and Other Poems • Sara Teasdale
... a single breath the names which belong to the ages. Abraham and Moses stand out clearly against the horizon of thirty centuries. St. Paul, from his Roman prison, in the days of the Caesars, is still an articulate and authoritative voice; Savonarola, rising from the ashes of his funeral-pyre in the streets of Florence, still pleads for civic righteousness; the sound of Martin Luther's hammer nailing his thesis to the door of his Wittenberg church continues to echo around the world; the battle-cry of Cromwell's Ironsides shouting, "The Lord of Hosts!" still causes the tyrant and ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... Tamatea threw her arms abroad, "Pyre of my son," she shouted, 'debited vengeance of God, Late, late, I behold you, yet I behold you at last, And glory, beholding! For now are the days of my agony past, The lust that famished my soul now eats and drinks its desire, And they that encompassed my son shrivel alive in the ...
— Ballads • Robert Louis Stevenson
... over the gardens of the Priory, at sunset. It was the close of one of the most exquisite days of Spring. A calm had settled over the country with the passing away of the sun-god. His attendant winds and voices had been sacrificed on his funeral pyre. ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... to execute the chieftain on the spot, in the centre of the deserted village. For this purpose a pyre was built of logs of wood laid crossways, in form of a gridiron, on which he was to be slowly broiled to death. On further consultation, however, they were induced to forego the pleasure of this horrible sacrifice. Perhaps they ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... to the general rule of natural affinity that only those are safe who pray for a heavenly hand to lead them. Because they depended on themselves and not on God there are thousands of women every year going to the slaughter. In India women leap on the funeral pyre of a dead husband. We have a worse spectacle than that in America—women innumerable leaping on the funeral pyre ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... more," rejoined the enthusiast, in a voice of thunder, "but shall perish with the fire I have kindled. No monarch on earth ever lighted a nobler funeral pyre." ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Inspir'd he seizes: these an altar raise; An hecatomb of pure, unsully'd lays That altar crowns; a folio common-place Founds the whole pile, of all his works the base: Quartos, Octavos, shape the less'ning pyre, A twisted birth-day ode completes the spire. "Then he, great tamer of all human art! First in my care, and ever at my heart; Dulness! whose good old cause I yet defend, With whom my Muse began, with whom shall end, Ere since Sir Fopling's periwig was praise, To the last honours of the Butt and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... the balcony of the city hall; the people who had sought refuge in the main church were put to the sword and their bodies mutilated; and the priest was burnt alive in the church, the furniture of the edifice constituting his funeral pyre. ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... the greedy tongues of fire, To make of those dread mounds a funeral pyre, As raging onward o'er their victims broke, The fearful conflict of the ...
— Home Lyrics • Hannah. S. Battersby
... knew and knew not, this bewildered crowd That up her streets in silence hurrying passed, What manner of death should make their anguish loud, What corpse across the funeral pyre be cast, For none had spoken it; only, gathering fast As darkness gathers at noon in the sun's eclipse, A shadow of doom enfolded them, vague and vast, And a cry was heard, unfathered of earthly lips, What of the ships, O Carthage! Carthage, what ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt
... must ever seek me. How grand that woman seemed to me, with her absolute forgetfulness of self, her religion of mercy to wounded hearts, feeble or suffering, her declared allegiance to her legal yoke. She was there, serene upon her pyre of saint and martyr. I adored her face as it shone to me in the darkness. Suddenly I fancied I perceived a meaning in her words, a mysterious significance which made her to my eyes sublime. Perhaps she longed that I should be to her what she was to the little world around ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... bird's free motion Through leagues of space to a resting place, In a vast and vapory ocean— To pass away from this life for aye With never a dear tie sundered, And a world on fire for a funeral pyre, While the ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... Phoebus rose, he had implored Propitious Heaven, and every power adored, But chiefly Love; to Love an altar built, Of twelve vast French romances, neatly gilt. There lay three garters, half a pair of gloves, And all the trophies of his former loves; With tender billets-doux he lights the pyre, And breathes three amorous sighs to raise the fire. Then prostrate falls, and begs with ardent eyes Soon to obtain, and long possess the prize. The powers gave ear, and granted half his prayer; The rest the ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... equally invariable naturalness. Pious Aeneas had not the least objection to bringing about the death of Dido, as he might have known he was doing (unless he was as great a fool as he is a prig); and he is probably never more disgusting or Pecksniffian than when he looks back on the flames of Dido's pyre and is really afraid that something unpleasant must have happened, though he can't think what the matter can be. But he, one feels sure, would never have lifted up his hand against a woman, unless she had richly deserved it on the strictest patriotic scores, as in the case of Helen, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... base lucre and pale melancholy!— In the flames of the pyre these, alas! will be vain, Mix your sage ruminations with glimpses of folly,— 'Tis delightful at times to be ...
— A Handbook for Latin Clubs • Various
... 'e was that pertic'ler I couldn't do with 'is fads, not at fancy prices, I couldn't. I 'ad to tell 'im to gow, for Mussy's syke, where 'e'd git 'is own French cook, and 'is own butler to black 'is 'arf-doz'n pyre o' boots all at once for 'im." This was the recognised fiction by which Mrs. Rogers accounted for the departure of any of her lodgers. Lest it should seem to speak badly for her willingness and for the quality of the attendance at No. 12, she invariably added, "Not ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... the Rhine maidens swimming and singing in a picturesque forest scene; the death of Siegfried, and the procession that slowly carries his body by the light of the moon up the hill; and the burning of the funeral pyre at the end, until it is put out by the rising waters of the Rhine bearing the maidens on the surface; these scenes, with the glorious music accompanying, cannot be matched by any act of any other opera. Nevertheless, ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... Francois Vase (Archaeological Museum, Florence). Consulting the Oracle at Delphi. The Discus Thrower (Lancelotti Palace, Rome). Athlete using the Strigil (Vatican Gallery, Rome). "Temple of Neptune," Paestum. Croesus on the Pyre. Persian Archers (Louvre, Paris). Gravestone of Aristion (National Museum, Athens). Greek Soldiers in Arms. The Mound at Marathon. A Themistocles Ostrakon (British Museum, London). An Athenian Trireme (Reconstruction). "Theseum". Pericles (British Museum, London). An Athenian Inscription. ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... business is the same; their ways Unlike, and their desire: Like flames that gladden wedding days, And flames upon the pyre. 16 ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... in keeping with the little touches of characterisation which we can also notice in this book. In the second line Aeneas pursues his way certus, even while he gazes at the flames of Dido's funeral pyre, not knowing what they meant. He presides at the games with the dignity of a Roman magistrate, and reproachingly consoles the beaten Dares with words which seem to reflect his late experience ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... widowed wife to burn herself on the pyre of her dead husband? And who has ever taught love to ...
— Songs of Kabir • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)
... the utterly out-of-character, blackguardly behaviour which has brought the hero to his death. Similarly the conception of the character and position of Brynhilt is entirely disfigured and rendered inane in the Nibelungenlied: of that superb demi-goddess of the Scandinavians, burnt on the pyre with her falcons and dogs and horses and slaves, by the side of the demi-god Sigurd, whom she has loved and killed, lest the door of Valhalla, swinging after him, should shut her out from his presence; of her there ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... which you read here with Monsieur Codere entitled, 'Maniere de bien penser dans les Ouvrages d'Esprit,' written by Pyre Bonhours. I wish you would read this book again at your leisure hours, for it will not only divert you, but likewise form your taste, and give you a just manner ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... snatched his body from the pyre and conveyed it to the island of Leuke, at the mouth of the Danube, where he ruled with Iphigeneia as his wife; or that he was carried to the Elysian fields, where his wife was Medea or Helen. He was worshipped in many places: at Leuke, where ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Great ships are landing warriors upon the palace roof and in the Fields of Jetan. The men of Helium and Gathol are marching through Manator. They cry aloud for the Princess of Helium and swear to leave Manator a blazing funeral pyre consuming the bodies of all our people. The skies are black with ships. They come in great processions from the east ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... and desire No sting, neither death any dart; What hadst thou to do amongst these, Thou, clothed with a burning fire, Thou, girt with sorrow of heart, Thou sprung of the seed of the seas As an ear from a seed of corn As a brand plucked forth of a pyre, As a ray shed forth of the moon For division of soul and disease, For a dart and a sting and a thorn? What ailed thee then to be born? SWINBURNE: "ATALANTA ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... from the funeral pyre, Life's ashen, light residuum Lay soft, and, spent the cleansing fire, The urn held ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier
... A funeral pyre was soon constructed with splinters of wood, Dolly ran to the kitchen for matches, and Willie turned his jacket inside out, tied Ada's sack about his neck by the sleeves, put the watering-pot on his head, and was ready to personate the priest. Ada selected ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... determines to kill him. In the ensuing struggle both Beowulf and the dragon are slain. The grief of the Geats is inexpressible. They determine, however, to leave nothing undone to honor the memory of their lord. A great funeral-pyre is built, and his body is burnt. Then a memorial-barrow is made, visible from a great distance, that sailors afar may be constantly reminded of the prowess of the ...
— Beowulf - An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem • The Heyne-Socin
... crimes which he confessed: 'We have sinned, all three of us', he said to his two companions, 'but as soon as our souls have left our bodies we shall all see God in His glory in Paradise.' He was hanged on a gibbet above a pyre, but when the fire burned through the rope the body was snatched from the flames by several ladies of his family, who prepared it for burial with their own hands, and it was then interred in the Carmelite church close by. His two associates were also ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray
... the British set on fire Yon Capital, beholding in its flames, America, robed in her deeds and fames, In death throes at the stake of England's ire? Though that was long ago and, then no pyre, The stake still stands; 'tis Anglo-Saxon claims, And Arnolds, bearing infamy's last names, Tilt schools to raise the stake ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... dragged forth and shot or tomahawked. Before the breath had left their bodies she saw the scalps torn from their heads, some of the wounded women kneeling and imploring for mercy in vain. The burning house was the funeral pyre from which the loving spirit of Mrs. Senseman took its flight to eternal rest. Gazing through the windows which the fire now illumined with a lurid glare, she saw Mrs. Senseman surrounded by flames standing with arms folded and exclaiming—"'Tis all ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... were jerked apart, and revealed what seemed to be a funeral pyre. Branches were piled on the window-seat, and on the top, wrapped in an eiderdown quilt, with a laurel wreath bound round his head, lay David. Jock, with bare legs and black boots, draped in an old-fashioned ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... fixed on the misty peals of Raja-hood, he suddenly found himself transported to a region where earthly honours and decorations are naught, and his salaam-wearied neck found everlasting repose on the funeral pyre. ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... the stronger, and its religion, the flower of hope and trust, developed the more sturdily for its icy covering. Jews were mowed down by fire and sword, but Judaism continued to live. From the ashes of every pyre sprang the Jewish Law in unfading youth—that indestructible, ineradicable mentality and hope, which opponents are wont to ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... Nine days' space did they labour, and great was the heap from the forest: But on the tenth resurrection for mortals of luminous morning, Forth did they carry, with weeping, the corse of the warrior Hector, Laid him on high on the pyre, and enkindled ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... in darkness beneath them, save for the one staring rectangle that marked a pyre. But dawn shimmered ...
— When the Sleepers Woke • Arthur Leo Zagat
... have any trouble. The Yumas moved up river a ways, where they've lived ever since. They got the corpses and buried them. That is, they dug a trench for each one and laid poles across it, with a funeral pyre on the poles. Then they put the body on top, and the women of the family cut their hair off and threw it on. After that they set fire to the outfit, and, when the poles bad burned through, the whole business ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... not wait for the answer; again he was at the window of the burning room. Too late! The flames were already devouring what the smoke had smothered; their wretched pallet was a funeral pyre. He had hardly time ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... again,— sheer nonsense! What, am I babbling about? I was thinking of that old figment of his being lost in the Bay of Spezzia, and washed ashore near Via Reggio, and burned to ashes on a funeral pyre, with wine, and spices, and frankincense; while Byron stood on the beach and beheld a flame of marvellous beauty rise heavenward from the dead poet's heart, and that his fire-purified relics were ...
— P.'s Correspondence (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the thief's body from the stake, and mounted the pyre to burn herself. But the blessed god Shiva was staying invisibly in the cemetery, and at that moment he spoke from the sky: "O faithful wife, I am pleased with your constancy to the husband of your choice. Choose whatever boon you will ...
— Twenty-two Goblins • Unknown
... at a quick pace. The strains of anything but melodious music disturb the quiet of the evening, and the noise of drums is echoed from the walls of the pagodas. The corpse is borne on a bier covered with a white sheet, and men of the caste of body-burners arrange it on the pyre, a pile of wood stacked up by the waterside. Then they set fire to the dry shavings, and the wood pile crackles. Thick clouds of smoke rise up and the smell of burned flesh is borne ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... life shall find it": so the Scripture runs. But I so hugged the fleeting self in me, So loved the lovely perishable hours, So kissed myself to death upon their lips, That on one pyre we perished in the end— A grimmer bonfire than the Church e'er lit! Yet all was well—or seemed so—till I heard That younger voice, an echo of my own, And, like a wanderer turning to his home, Who finds another on the hearth, and learns, Half-dazed, that other is his actual self ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton
... heralded by loud acclaim from the onlookers, who had by then multiplied remarkably, the barn was merely a huge pyre of glowing hay and burning timbers, only one far corner remaining erect. The piggery and adjoining buildings were ablaze in several places. The creamery roof had caught once or twice, but each time the flames had been subdued. If the engine and hose-cart and ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... little Ile aux Vaches, to-day the platform of the Pont-Neuf, in the presence of the king and all his court. A popular legend asserts that as the figure of the grand-master, Jacques de Molay, disappeared finally in the smoke and flame of his pyre, he was heard, in a solemn voice, to summon his executioners to meet him before the bar of God, the Pope within forty days and the king within the year. Certain it is that both these potentates died within the ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... the ground, which threw them into the sea, or which gave them to birds and beasts; when the practice of cremation began, or when it was disused; whether the bones of different persons were mingled in the same urn; what oblations were thrown into the pyre; or how the ashes of the body were distinguished from those of other substances. Of the uselessness of these inquiries, Browne seems not to have been ignorant; and, therefore, concludes them with an observation which can never be ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... funeral ceremonies recently solemnized in that city in honor of the deceased crown prince of Spain, Baltasar Carlos. Solemn and magnificent rites are celebrated, both civil and religious; and a funeral pyre, or chapelle ardente, is erected in the royal military chapel, the splendors of ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various
... of fairy-land, at twilight hour, or as she used to say, 'entre le loup et le chien,' in her own expressive, idiomatic language. She told me, too, stories from the Bible, before I was able to read them, of Isaac bound on the sacrificial pyre, with his father kneeling by him, ready to plunge the knife in his young heart, when the angels called to him out of heaven to stay his uplifted hand; of Joseph's wondrous history, from his coat of many colors, fatal cause of fraternal jealousy, to the royal robes and golden chain with ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... coarse and rough, Sweetest spice not sweet enough, Too impure all earthly fire For this sacred funeral-pyre; These rich relics must suffice ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... Council of Nice, in the beginning of the fourth century, and the establishment of an orthodox creed, the excommunication of the Jewish Christians, and the establishment of the Church as a state institution. Then the sword and the pyre established doctrines. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... life, I should come to be recognised by all the world as a king's son. If in your great goodness you will condescend to show me, fair goddess of beauty, by the slightest sign, that my boldness has not angered you, I shall die happy, consumed by the burning brightness of your eyes upon the funeral pyre of my love." ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... to the gods. Though no excuse could be offered for the slaying of their own clansman except the direful hold of religion, which in Tahiti, as in Europe not so long ago, put Protestant and Catholic on the pyre in the name of Christ, yet so soft-hearted were these people that they could not disturb the peace of mind of the offering, and until the moment when he was struck down from behind he was as unconcerned as any one. They never tortured as the English and French tortured Joan of Arc, and as the ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... huge beams which supported the building bend and quiver; then the whole framework collapsed, and with a sound like thunder the roof tumbled in, and the unhappy Ragnar was buried in the ruin; while the flames from his funeral pyre rose to the very heavens, and the smoke blotted the stars ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... as well have burned herself on her husband's funeral pyre, Hindoo fashion!" argued Lavendar. "A woman's life hasn't ended at two and twenty. It's hardly begun, and I fear the lady in question will arouse ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... when the two are inextricably mixed. There is a flame of religious love when the heart sacrifices itself in humble realization of the joy of its adorable love purer than the fierce fire of the hating heart that applies the torch to the martyr's pyre. We give our lives to seeking these higher refinements because they are stronger ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren
... that light The dread infinitudes of night, Mid wintry solitudes that lie Where lonely Hecla's toweling pyre Reddens an awful space of sky With Thor's eternal altar fire! Worn with the fever of unrest, And spent with years of eager quest, Beneath the vaulted heaven they stood, Pale, haggard eyed, of garb uncouth, The seekers of the Hidden ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... It's quite impossible that I should get to you in time, you realise that? But I'll tell you what I will do for you, with the greatest pleasure. When you are safely dead, I'll avenge you in style. The smoking ruins of Agpur shall be your funeral pyre, as the old fellow said to ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... through the pulseless evening as the two men gazed in moody silence at the approaching night. The sky had taken on that deep blue velvet softness of Italian beauty, and the low, red west of the dying day might have been reflected from some funeral pyre in distant, mystic India. A murmur of drowsy birds came from the darkening trees—a few hushed, plaintive notes, wistfully calling in tones ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... had been seen to issue from the body of Polycarp when he was martyred at the stake (Martyr. Polyc. c. 16). Similarly Lucian represents himself as spreading a report, which was taken up and believed by the Cynic's disciples, that a vulture was seen to rise from the pyre of Peregrinus when he consigned himself to a voluntary death by burning. It would seem that the satirist here is laughing at the credulity of these simple Christians, with whose history he appears to have had ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... were raised by the twin Aswins, the twins Nakula and Sahadeva. And (one day) Pandu, beholding Madri decked with ornaments, had his desire kindled. And, as soon as he touched her, he died. Madri ascended the funeral pyre with her lord. And she said unto Kunti, 'Let these twins of mine be brought up by thee with affection.' After some time those five Pandavas were taken by the ascetics of the woods to Hastinapura and there introduced to Bhishma and Vidura. And after introducing them, the ascetics disappeared ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... sudden blow, This stumbling, how I know not, by this stone, This horrid mouth in which my grave is shown, This cave of many shapes, Through which the melancholy mountain gapes, This mountain's self, a vast Abysmal shadow cast Suddenly on my heart, as if 't were meant To be my rustic pyre, my strange new monument, All fill my heart with wonder and with fear, What buried mysteries are hidden here That terrify me so, And make me tremble 'neath impending woe. [A solemn strain of music is heard from within.] Nay more, illusion now doth bear to me The sweetest sounds of ...
— The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria - A Drama of Early Christian Rome • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... Naxian, that shrewd girl, His fortune and his youth, yet, while she lived, Enjoyed the rich reward? He seemed like one, That trod on wind, and I remember well, How when she died in that remorseless plague, And I alone stood with him at the pyre, He shook me with his helpless passionate grief. And honest Agathon, the married man, Whose boyish fondness for his pretty wife We smiled at, and yet envied; at the close Of each day's labour how he posted home, And thence no bait, ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman
... ancient, ancient sun shone on the fresh grass and the flower, my heart opened wide as the broad, broad earth. I spread my arms out, laying them on the sward, seizing the grass, to take the fulness of the days. Could I have my own way after death I would be burned on a pyre of pine-wood, open to the air, and placed on the summit of the hills. Then let my ashes be scattered abroad—not collected urn an urn—freely sown wide and broadcast. That is the natural interment of man—of man whose Thought at least has been among the immortals; interment ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies
... it seemed as if in the wild orgy of Pack Monday Fair he had finally burnt the old garments and put on the new. That day had been the funeral pyre of his old life; and, like Sardanapalus, it had died of its own free will. A glorious end; no anti-climax. But the future was still more glorious. When he watched the morning sun flicker white on the broad Eversham road from the station to the ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... most, dear, when the sunset bright Makes of the hills a glorious funeral pyre, So die the love-light in your eyes, if die it must, And leave the wondrous, throbbing ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... they looked on the beautiful dead Narcissus, they were filled with sorrow, and when they filled the air with their lamentations, most piteously did the voice of Echo repeat each mournful cry. Even the gods were pitiful, and when the nymphs would have burned the body on a funeral pyre which their own fair hands had built for him, they sought it in vain. For the Olympians had turned Narcissus into a white flower, the flower that still bears his name ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... gypsies and that Rom or Romany is nothing more than a variant of Dom. In the ironical language of the proverbs the Dom figures as "the lord of death" because he provides the wood for the Hindu funeral pyre. He is ranked with Brahmans and goats as a creature useless in time of need. A common and peculiarly offensive form of abuse is to tell a man that he has eaten a Dom's leavings. A series of proverbs represents him as making friends with members of various ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... hand sought out his sword, and lightnings flared Across the sky in one great bloom of fire. Poised like a toppling mountain, it hung bared; Suns that were jewels glared Along its hilt. The air burnt like a pyre. ...
— Young Adventure - A Book of Poems • Stephen Vincent Benet
... his people. The old hero buckles on his rune-covered sword again, and goes forth to battle with the monster. He slays it, indeed, but is blasted by its fiery breath, and dies after the encounter. His companions light his pyre upon a lofty spit of land jutting out into the winter sea. Weapons and jewels and drinking bowls, taken from the Fire Drake's treasure, were thrown into the tomb for the use of the ghost in the other world; and a mighty ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... streets with funerals.... Alike, slaves and plebeians were suddenly taken off amidst lamentations of their wives and children, who, while they mourned the dead, were themselves seized with the disease, and, perishing, were burned on the same funeral pyre." ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... light, Fainting they sank, and died of fright. A stranger, harbor'd there, made show Of force, full soon was he laid low; In the brief space of this wild fray, From coals, that strewn around us lay, The straw caught fire; 'tis blazing free, As funeral death-pyre for ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... the middle of a public square, stripped of his finery, laid on a pile of wood, and burnt amid the cries of the multitude, who thundering out once more the song of the Carnival fling their so-called "roots" on the pyre and give themselves up without restraint to ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... quite welcome," said Kitty. "I don't know what in the world I shall do with them. There'll be boxes and bales and barrels—enough to bury me and all my troubles. I might build me a funeral pyre!" ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... iniquitous treaty, forgotten to include the ashes of those whom a happier fate had spared the sight of the ruin of Parga. Instantly they rushed to the graveyards, tore open the tombs, and collected the bones and putrefying corpses. The beautiful olive trees were felled, an enormous funeral pyre arose, and in the general excitement the orders of the English chief were defied. With naked daggers in their hands, standing in the crimson light of the flames which were consuming the bones of their ancestors, the people of Parga vowed ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... found in the will of a Lingonian Gaul who died probably in the latter part of the first century. Apparently he was a Roman citizen, and his will is drawn in strict Roman fashion. But its last clause orders the burning of all his hunting apparatus, spears and nets, &c., on his funeral pyre, and thus betrays the Gaulish habit (Bruns, p. ...
— The Romanization of Roman Britain • F. Haverfield
... Aliscans. Vivien is the son of Garin d'Ansene, one of those "children of Aimeri" who have sought fortune away from Narbonne, and one of the captives of Roncesvalles. Garin is only to be delivered at the cost of his son's life, which Vivien cheerfully offers. He is actually on the pyre, which is kindled, when the pagan hold Luiserne is stormed by a pirate king, and Vivien is rescued, but sold as a slave. An amiable paynim woman buys him and adopts him; but he is a born knight, and when grown up, with a few allies ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... the corpses lay festering in the street, their bodies torn by vagrant dogs, and not until a pestilent exhalation began to rise from them were they gathered up and hauled by cartloads to a place in the southern suburbs, where a great funeral pyre was erected and the ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris |
