"Theseus" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... strains of long remembered melodies ("those songs without words") which only the finest souls may know. Yet here were three men who, in their modern Ago, were returning from their search of the golden fleece. Jason, Hercules and Theseus could have experienced no greater joy in object won, than these three "heroes" of the lake returning in the resin-scented twilight with their long-sought prize of bass! A nickel up on each black bass and not one red cent on the placid lake and the radiant sky! ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... when Adrian was roaring under the skin, that nobody could hear, and Adrian got frightened, as well he might, and crept out from under it, screaming, and there fell the lion, collapsing flat in the middle of the place. Even Theseus—-Major Harewood, you know, who had tried to be as grave as a judge, and so polite to the actors—-could not stand that interpolation, as he called it, of "the man in the moon—- not to say the dog," came down ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was at a place in Hampshire—had the track marked out in that way. They were tiles there, but lettered just like yours, and the letters, taken in the right order, formed an inscription—what it was I forget—something about Theseus and Ariadne. I have a copy of it, as well as the plan of the maze where it was. How people can do such things! I shall never forgive you if you injure your maze. Do you know, they're becoming very ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Part 2: More Ghost Stories • Montague Rhodes James
... dongas were both wide and deep; in many instances they were quite impassable. Occasionally I would find myself on the tip of a promontory, the sides of which were precipices perhaps several yards high. These were footed in jungle, which sometimes was quite impenetrable. However, like Theseus, I eventually managed; to win through, although no kind Ariadne came to my assistance. But I ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... we may at once allow Mr. Jowett most of what he asks. We may freely grant that if the Tragedies of Sophocles had exercised the same wondrous dominion over the world which the Books of the Bible have exercised:—if Oedipus and Jocasta and Creon; if Theseus and Dejanira and Hercules; if Ajax, Ulysses and Minerva;—had done for the world what Enoch and Noah;—what Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob;—what Joseph, and Joshua, and Hannah, and Samuel, and David;—what Elijah and Elisha; what Isaiah ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... was now removed to the Theseus, and was employed in the blockade of Cadiz, where he went through the most perilous action in which he was ever engaged. Making a night attack upon the Spanish gunboats, his barge, carrying twelve men, was attacked by an armed launch carrying twenty-six men; the admiral ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... is fair, as might be expected from the swan, soft as down (she was hatched from an egg, you know), and such a lithe, graceful figure; and only think, she is so much admired, that there was a war because Theseus ran away with her; and she was a mere child then. And when she grew up, the very first men in Greece were suitors for her hand, and she was given to Menelaus, who is descended from Pelops.— Now, if you like, she shall be ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... those who, by their own ability and not through fortune, have risen to be princes, I say that Moses, Cyrus, Romulus, Theseus, and such like are the most excellent examples. And although one may not discuss Moses, he having been a mere executor of the will of God, yet he ought to be admired, if only for that favour which made him worthy to speak with God. But in considering Cyrus and others who have acquired or ...
— The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... Rosina Bently [Transcriber's Note: Bentley elsewhere] (pupil of Miss Kate Loder); violin, M. de Valadares (pupil of the Conservatoire, Paris); accompanist, Mons. Edouard Henri; conductor, Mr. F. Theseus Stevens. ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... the room is to be a side-table for persons of great fame, but dubious existence, such as Hercules, Theseus, Aeneas, Achilles, Hector, and others. But because it is apprehended, that there may be great contention about precedence, the proposer humbly desires the opinion of the learned towards his assistance in placing ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... Isle of Crete but the rock from which the father of Theseus threw himself—is still here! Also the hill upon which Paul stood and told the Athenians they were too superstitious. You can imagine my feelings at finding all of these things are true. After this I am going to the North Pole to find Santa ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... princes of the xivth century, Boccace, Chaucer. and Shakspeare, have borrowed their Theseus duke of Athens. An ignorant age transfers its own language and manners to the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... morning, and went to the Opera before the assembly! There is a vast flight of steps, and he was forced to rest two or three times. If he dies of it—and how should he not?—it will sound very silly when Hercules or Theseus ask him what he died of, to reply, "I caught my death on a damp staircase ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... doubtless of "Clavilegno," the steed of Don Quixote in the Duchesse's park; biographies of Appius and Virginia, of Caesar, of Nero, of Holophernes, of Hugolino in the tower of hunger, taken from Roman history, the Bible and Dante; adventures of chivalry, in which figures Theseus, duke of Athens, where blood flows profusely, with all the digressions and all the embellishments which still continued to please great men and great ladies, and that is why the story is told by the knight, and Chaucer retains purposely all the faults of that particular ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... elegant, and likewise the oldest of the Temples of Paestum, is that commonly known by the name of the Temple of Neptune. This building shares, together with the Temple of Theseus at Athens, the honour of being the best preserved monument of the Doric order in existence, and the impression of grandeur that it gives to the spectator rivals even the first sight of the Parthenon itself. In front of the building ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... a monster in Creete, born of Pasiphae which being inclosed in the laborinth fed on mans flesh, whome Theseus slew and got out of the laborinth by a clew of thred giuen by Ariadne king Minoes daughter, after wife to Theseus, who did forsake hir, and left hir in a disinhabited Ile, notwithstanding that ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna
... analogies or indications from past facts, he would deserve the name of seer or prophet, but not of philosopher. The wonder that some of our modern discoveries would excite in the savage inhabitants of Europe in the times of Theseus and Achilles, proves but little. Persons almost entirely unacquainted with the powers of a machine cannot be expected to guess at its effects. I am far from saying, that we are at present by any means fully acquainted ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus
... themselves to this particular school) a certain incapacity to taste the finer characters of Greek art, or to understand Titian, Tintoret, or Raphael: whereas among the Italian Gothic workmen, this capacity was never lost, and Nino Pisano and Orcagna could have understood the Theseus in an instant, and would have received from it new life. There can be no question that theirs was the greatest school, and carried out by the greatest men; and that while those who began with this school could perfectly well feel Rouen Cathedral, those who study the Northern Gothic remain ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... practise their profession with no other aid than force and open fraud. Bandits, brigands, pirates, rovers by land and sea,—these names were gloried in by the ancient heroes, who thought their profession as noble as it was lucrative. Nimrod, Theseus, Jason and his Argonauts; Jephthah, David, Cacus, Romulus, Clovis and all his Merovingian descendants; Robert Guiscard, Tancred de Hauteville, Bohemond, and most of the Norman heroes,—were brigands and robbers. The heroic character ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... of Egyptian character is there, for instance, in Cleopatra?—of Athenian in Theseus or Timon?—of old English in Imogen or Cordelia?—of old Scottish in Macbeth?—or even of mediaeval Italian in Petruchio, the Merchant of Venice, or Desdemona? And the Roman plays appear definitely Roman only because the strength of Rome was the eternal strength of the world,—pure ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin
... cities. For ages before Arcadian Evander came as a "squatter" to Mount Palatine, was there not the great road of the Hyperboreans from Ausonia to Delphi, by which, with each revolving year, the most blameless of mankind conveyed to the Dorian Sun-god their offerings? And as soon as Theseus—the organizer of men, as his name imports—had slain the wolves and bears and the biped ruffians of the Corinthian Isthmus, did he not set up a direction-post, informing the wayfarer that "this side was Peleponnesus, and that ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne
... undeflowered. The part of Emilia, the only female part in the play, was acted by a boy of fourteen, whose performance so captivated her majesty, that she made him a present of eight guineas[63]. During the exhibition, a cry of hounds belonging to Theseus was counterfeited without in the great square of the college; the young students thought it a real chase, and were seized with a sudden transport to join the hunters: at which the queen cried out from her box, "O excellent! these boys, in very troth, are ready ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... was proud to say, in the last of our ships which had been chased out of the Mediterranean in '97, and in the first which had re-entered it in '98. He was under Miller, as third lieutenant of the Theseus, when our fleet, like a pack of eager fox hounds in a covert, was dashing from Sicily to Syria and back again to Naples, trying to pick up the lost scent. With the same good fighting man he served at the Nile, where the men of his command sponged and rammed and trained until, ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... many places. The famous Ludovisi collection of antique statuary is now permanently placed in this museum,—a collection that includes the "Ludovisi Mars;" "Hercules," with a cornucopia; the "Hermes of Theseus," the "Discobolus Hermes;" the "Venus of Gnidus" as copied by Praxiteles; the "Dying Medusa;" the "Ludovisi Juno," which Winckelmann declares to be the finest head of Juno extant, a Greek work of the fourth century; a "Cupid and Psyche;" ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... over the top of her inlaid fan, is no more thrilled and rapt and tortured by the Disturber in Wings, than Biddy in the kitchen, holding tryst with her "b'y" at the sink-room window. Thousands of years ago, Theseus left Ariadne tearing the ripples of her amber-bright hair, and tossing her white arms with the tossing surf, in a vain agony of distraction and appeal: poets have sung the flirtation, painters have painted it; the story is an eternal legend of pain and passion, illuminated ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... his patron will impute to his want of judgment; for this poet's heroes are commonly such monsters as Theseus and Hercules are, renowned throughout ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... sky shall be no sky, the sea no sea, the earth no earth, if thou do prove inconstant; but if you will not take me with you, these tender hands of mine shall hang upon your horse's bridle, till my body, like Theseus's son, be dashed against the hard flint stones; yet, hard as they are, not harder than I shall ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston
... grace and delicacy. They consist of subjects chiefly from the mythology. I noticed the following in particular, viz., Chiron teaching the young Achilles to draw the bow; the discovery of Orestes; Theseus and the Minotaur (he has just slain the Minotaur and a boy is in the act of kissing his hand as if to thank him for his deliverance; the Minotaur is here represented as a monster with the body of a man and ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... dislike. There were dad and Captain Buncombe—who was what people call an archaeologist, fond of grubbing up old stones and skeletons, and digging like an old mole amongst ruins—continually talking all day long about Marathon and Hymettus, the Parthenon and Chersonese, the Acropolis, and Theseus and Odysseus and all the rest of them, bothering our lives out with questions about Homer and the Iliad, and all such stuff; so, I put it to you candidly, whether it wasn't almost as bad as being back again at school, making a fellow feel small who was shaky ...
— Tom Finch's Monkey - and How he Dined with the Admiral • John C. Hutcheson
... Ravenna as early as the sixth century. Those of the cathedral at Lucca, of S. Michele Maggiore at Pavia, of S. Savino at Piacenza, of S. Maria in Trastevere at Rome (destroyed in the restoration of 1867), are of a later date. The image of Theseus is accompanied by a legend in the ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... "Since to belief soft woman is more prone, He that deceives her, merits heavier pain; To Theseus and to Jason this is known, And him that vexed of old the Latian reign, And him that of his brother Absalon Erewhile provoked the pestilent disdain, Because of Thamar; countless is the horde Of those who left ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... was released all too soon. He left her as he had come, on silent feet. The light was turned up; everything looked as it had been, but everything was not. She was not. She found herself an Ariadne, in a drawing-room, still lax from Theseus' arms. Yes, but Theseus was next door, and would come ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... early times this had been more the case with the Athenians than with others. Under Cecrops and the first kings, down to the reign of Theseus, Attica had always consisted of a number of independent townships, each with its own town hall and magistrates. Except in times of danger the king at Athens was not consulted; in ordinary seasons they carried on their government and settled their affairs without his ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... obtained from his father the gift of living, dying, and coming to life whenever he wished, and that he had also the knowledge of all that transpired in this world as well as in the other; and that Esculapius, son of Apollo, had raised the dead, and, among others, he brought to life Hyppolites, son of Theseus, by Diana's request; and that Hercules, also, raised from the dead Alceste, wife of Admetus, King of Thessalia, to return her ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... on the outskirts of the city we left the train and followed an old guide to visit the Theseum, or Temple of Theseus, a large edifice built in simple Doric style. The plain columns and unadorned pediments express strength and simplicity rather than beauty. Notwithstanding the fact that twenty-four centuries have passed since its erection, this ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... grandeur of the splendid Roman amphitheatre at once carried me back to Italy. The memorials of antiquity in the south of France I have never heard praised as their greatness and number deserve; the so-called Maison Quar e is still standing in all its splendor, like the Theseus Temple at Athens: Rome has ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen
... never the preacher alone; but this very struggle in his soul between the powers of Light on the one hand and the powers of Darkness on the other is also the reason why he never remained the artist alone. Like the thread of Theseus in the labyrinth of Minos, the preacher's vein is seldom, if ever, absent from Tolstoy. Hence his "Morning of a Proprietor," written in 1852, at the age of twenty-four, is as faithful an account of his experience as a visitor among the poor as ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... Indian boy, or Puck's account of himself and his employments, or the Fairy Queen's exhortation to the elves to pay due attendance upon her favourite, Bottom; or Hippolita's description of a chace, or Theseus's answer? The two last are as heroical and spirited as the others are full of luscious tenderness. The reading of this play is like wandering in a grove by moonlight: the descriptions breathe a sweetness like odours thrown from beds ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... cunning, modest, and casual. The warriors of the Sultana, holding in one hand the spear, the bow, and sheaf or musket, embraced with the other their respective friends, like so many models of Nisus and Euryalus, Theseus and Pirithous, Damon and Pythias, or Achilles and Patroclus, to whom they confidentially related their divers opinions upon my dress and colour. The words "Musungu kuba" had as much charm for these people ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... epic, [130] such as were often written by the Alexandrian poets. Short as it is, it contains two plots, one within the other. The story of Peleus's marriage is made the occasion for describing the scene embroidered on the coverlet or cushion of the marriage bed. This contains the loves of Theseus and Ariadne, the Minotaur, the Labyrinth, the return of Theseus, his desertion of Ariadne, and her reception into the stars by Iacchus. The poem is unequal in execution; the finest passages are the lament of Ariadne, which Virgil has imitated in that of Dido, and the song ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... dedicated to the other river-god Spercheius; or his cruelty in dragging the body of Hector round the walls, and slaying the captives at the pyre: such a combination of meanness and cruelty in Cheiron's pupil is inconceivable. The amatory exploits of Peirithous and Theseus are equally unworthy. Either these so-called sons of gods were not the sons of gods, or they were not such as the poets imagine them, any more than the gods themselves are the authors of evil. The youth who believes ...
— The Republic • Plato
... there by scanty but significant survivals. Hawaii is the most doubtful. We find cannibalism chronicled in Hawaii, only in the history of a single war, where it seems to have been thought exception, as in the case of mountain outlaws, such as fell by the hand of Theseus. In Tahiti, a single circumstance survived, but that appears conclusive. In historic times, when human oblation was made in the marae, the eyes of the victim were formally offered to the chief: a delicacy to the leading guest. All Melanesia appears tainted. In Micronesia, in the Marshalls, with ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... almost 10 burst from their pressure; but he had stopped the bull in his tracks. And the man and the beast remained so still that the spectators thought themselves looking at a picture showing a deed of Hercules or Theseus, or a group hewn ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... on the frieze of the Mausoleum had best make haste with their bloody work, if young people's eyes can tell a true story. A type still of progress triumphant through injustice, set on improving things off the face of the earth, Theseus took occasion to attack the Amazons in their mountain home, not long after their ruinous conflict with Hercules, and hit them when they were down. That greater bully had laboured off on the world's highway, carrying with him the official girdle of Antiope, their queen, gift of Ares, and ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... cruel event obliged us to slacken our fire. We also wanted shot; and an order of the day fixed a price to be given for all balls, according to their calibre, which might be picked up after being fired from the fortress or the two ships of the line, the 'Tiger' and 'Theseus', which were stationed on each side of the harbour: These two vessels embarrassed the communication, between the camp and the trenches; but though they made much noise, they did little harm. A ball from one of them; killed an officer on the evening ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... cannot die. Mr. Creakle, the stout gentleman with a bunch of watch-chain and seals, in an armchair, with the fiery face and the thick veins in his forehead; Mr. Creakle sitting at his breakfast with the cane, and a newspaper, and the buttered toast before him, will sit on, like Theseus, for ever. For ever will last the recollection of Salem House, and of the 'daily strife and struggle' there; the recollection 'of the frosty mornings when we were rung out of bed, and the cold, cold smell of ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... the performance of all its personal sting, and most likewise of its interest. Such diversion as the spectators derived was such as Hippolyta seems to have found in listening to Wall, Lion, Moonshine and Co.; but, like Theseus, Lord Shrewsbury was very courteous, and complimented both playwright and actors, relieved and thankful, no doubt, that Queen Zenobia was so unlike his ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... divine tale of Troy." Many who relinquish without effort the Argonautic expedition, and as an historical problem are glad to be rid of it,—who resign all attempt to extract a prosaic truth out of the exploits of Theseus or the labours of Hercules, and who smile at mention of the race of Amazons—a race so well accredited in ancient times that neither the sceptical Arrian nor Julius Caesar himself ventured to doubt of their existence—would yet shrink from surrendering the tale of Troy, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... radiant-hair'd Latona and of Jove Slew both, ere yet the down of blooming youth Thick-sprung, their cheeks or chins had tufted o'er. Phaedra I also there, and Procris saw, And Ariadne for her beauty praised, Whose sire was all-wise Minos. Theseus her From Crete toward the fruitful region bore 390 Of sacred Athens, but enjoy'd not there, For, first, she perish'd by Diana's shafts In Dia, Bacchus witnessing her crime.[47] Maera and Clymene I saw beside, And odious Eriphyle, who received The price in gold of ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... hearts are set the wrong way. 'Tis a despairing, pathetic homage to the judgment of the majority, in whose faces they are flying. Punish Helen, very young, lightly. After a certain age you may select her for special chastisement. An innocent with Theseus, with Paris she ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... comforting to know That Theseus slew him long ago, We need not boast, we too could do With—well, a ...
— The Mythological Zoo • Oliver Herford
... stems thy honor, Theseus, springs; By Jove beloved, the sire supreme of kings. See rising towns, see wide-extended states, On thee dependent, ask their future fates! Hence, hence with fear! Thy favored bark shall ride Safe o'er the surges of the ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... financiers, with the alacrity with which Texas produces cotton or Missouri corn. History traces certain influential nations back to a single progenitor of unique strength of body and character. Thus Abraham, Theseus, and Cadmus seem like springs feeding great and increasing rivers. One wise and original thinker founds a tribe, shapes the destiny of a nation, and multiplies himself in the lives of future millions. In accordance with this law, tenacity reappears in every Scotchman; wit sparkles in every Irishman; ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... to me to compare the founder of the fair and famous city of Athens with him, and to contrast Theseus with the father of unconquered glorious Rome. Putting aside, then, the mythological element, let us examine his story, and wherever it obstinately defies probability, and cannot be explained by natural agency, let us beg the indulgence of our ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... Arcite by Chaucer, and the love of Athenian Theseus for the Amazonian Queen Hippolyta, as told by Plutarch, gave William his first idea of composing a play where the acts of fairies and human beings would assimilate in ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... for the mildness of her slave laws, the door of freedom was opened widely. The abused slaves might fly to the Temple of Theseus, whence no one had a right to take them, except for the purpose of publicly investigating their wrongs. If their complaints were well founded, they were either enfranchised, or delivered to more ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... to tax America], may revive and flourish, sheltering under its salubrious and interminable shade, all the unfortunate of the human race. If we are not this day wanting in our duty to our country, the names of the American legislators of '76 will be placed by posterity at the side of those of Theseus, of Lycurgus, of Romulus, of Numa, of the three Williams of Nassau, and of all those whose memory has been, and forever will be dear to virtuous men and ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... the ship, as the Athenians say, in which Theseus formerly conveyed the fourteen boys and girls to Crete and saved both them and himself. They, therefore, made a vow to Apollo on that occasion, as it is said, that if they were saved they would every year despatch a solemn ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... "Theseus, with alle joye and blys, With his Ypolite, the faire queene, And Emelye, clothed al in greene, On hontyng ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... Plautus, and with the pantomimes and the moresche which occupied the time between the acts, is so romantic that we might imagine ourselves translated to Shakespeare's Midsummer-Night's Dream, and that Duke Ercole had changed places with Theseus, Duke of Athens, and that the comedies were being performed before him ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... Phalerus of the ashen spear. Alcon his father sent him forth; yet no other sons had he to care for his old age and livelihood. But him, his well-beloved and only son, he sent forth that amid bold heroes he might shine conspicuous. But Theseus, who surpassed all the sons of Erechtheus, an unseen bond kept beneath the land of Taenarus, for he had followed that path with Peirithous; assuredly both would have lightened for all the ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... deliberation and consent, the task of framing it has not been committed to an assembly of men, but has been performed by some individual citizen of preeminent wisdom and approved integrity. Minos, we learn, was the primitive founder of the government of Crete, as Zaleucus was of that of the Locrians. Theseus first, and after him Draco and Solon, instituted the government of Athens. Lycurgus was the lawgiver of Sparta. The foundation of the original government of Rome was laid by Romulus, and the work completed by two of his elective successors, Numa and Tullius ...
— The Federalist Papers
... Destinies durst sharp[163] darts require. 10 Could I therefore her comely tresses tear? Yet was she graced with her ruffled hair. So fair she was, Atalanta she resembled, Before whose bow th' Arcadian wild beasts trembled. Such Ariadne was, when she bewails, Her perjured Theseus' flying vows and sails. So, chaste Minerva, did Cassandra fall Deflowered[164] except within thy temple wall. That I was mad, and barbarous all men cried: She nothing said; pale fear her tongue ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... to Greek mythology, the crown of Adriadne was, for her beauty and her sufferings, put among the stars. She was the daughter of Minos, King of Crete; she gave Theseus the clue by means of which he escaped from the labyrinth and she was ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... ingeniously fastened, are fragile. The Spirit of Mischief puts a happy end to the differences of the four lovers, and by his transformation of Bottom reconciles the fairy King and Queen, while he incidentally goes near to spoiling the performance of the "crew of patches" at the nuptials of Theseus by preventing due rehearsal of their interlude. It is perhaps a permissible fancy to convert Theseus' words "the lunatic, the lover, and the poet," to illustrate the triple appeal made by the three ingredients ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... heard the clamour of your cry, As by Scamander's side I set my foot Asserting right upon the land given o'er To me by those who o'er Achaia's host Held sway and leadership: no scanty part Of all they won by spear and sword, to me They gave it, land and all that grew theron, As chosen heirloom for my Theseus' clan. Thence summoned, sped I with a tireless foot,— Hummed on the wind, instead of wings, the fold Of this mine aegis, by my feet propelled, As, linked to mettled horses, speeds a car. And now, beholding here Earth's nether brood, I fear it nought, yet are mine eyes ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus
... not before. And this is the reason why the names of the ancients have been preserved to us and not their actions. This I infer because Solon said that the priests in their narrative of that war mentioned most of the names which are recorded prior to the time of Theseus, such as Cecrops, and Erechtheus, and Erichthonius, and Erysichthon, and the names of the women in like manner. Moreover, since military pursuits were then common to men and women, the men of those days in accordance with the custom of the time set up a figure and image of the goddess ...
— Critias • Plato
... effect. With the desert all ringing with the mad symbols of his followers, made lucid with the presence and new offers of a god,—as if unconscious of Bacchus, or but idly casting her eyes as upon some unconcerning pageant—her soul undistracted from Theseus—Ariadne is still pacing the solitary shore, in as much heart-silence, and in almost the same local solitude, with which she awoke at daybreak to catch the forlorn last glances of the sail that ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... go, And be but as a banner lifted up, To beckon where the winds of war may blow? Have I not seen fair Athens in her woe, And all her homes aflame from sea to sea, When my fierce brothers wrought her overthrow Because Athenian Theseus ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
... Treviso. He was first an apprentice to a statuary in Bassano, from whom he went to the Academy of Venice, where he had a brilliant career. In 1779 he was sent by the Senate of Venice to Rome, and there produced his Theseus and the Slain Minotaur. In 1783, Canova undertook the execution of the tomb of Pope Clement XIV., a work similar to the tomb of Pope Clement XIII. His fame rapidly increased. He established a school for the benefit of young Venetians, and among other works ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... cried Guy, whose excitement had taken on the form of an exalted gayety. "Who rides with thee rides safe, my love—e'en as Theseus of old did ride, scathless 'neath the spell of ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... pack. Henry II, in his breeding of hounds, is said to have been careful not only that they should be fleet, but also 'well-tongued and consonous;' the same care in Elizabeth's time is, in the passage quoted by the 'Spectator', attributed by Shakespeare to Duke Theseus; and the paper itself shows that care was taken to match the voices of a pack in the reign also of Queen Anne. This has now been for some time absolutely disregarded. In many important respects the pattern harrier of ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... the then learned. And a fragment of a pillar from St. Paul's, or a mutilated statue from Westminster, will be as valuable to them as a column from the Temple of Belus, or a broken cornice from the Temple of Theseus, is ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 279, October 20, 1827 • Various
... companions brought the people together into a community, for then the people was first divided into the four tribes, and the tribe-kings were created. Next, and first after this, having now some semblance of a constitution, was that which took place in the reign of Theseus, consisting in a slight deviation from absolute monarchy. After this came the constitution formed under Draco, when the first code of laws was drawn up. The third was that which followed the civil war, in the time of Solon; from this the democracy took its rise. The ...
— The Athenian Constitution • Aristotle
... such a moment, would have cowed even him. As a general rule, it is highly desirable that ladies should keep their temper: a woman when she storms always makes herself ugly, and usually ridiculous also. There is nothing so odious to man as a virago. Though Theseus loved an Amazon, he showed his love but roughly, and from the time of Theseus downward, no man ever wished to have his wife remarkable rather for forward prowess than retiring gentleness. A low voice "is an ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... second edition of it was printed in 1681.]—translated into English verse by the greatest wits at court, having lately been published, she wrote a letter from a shepherdess in despair, addressed to the perfidious Jermyn. She took the epistle of Ariadne to Theseus for her model. The beginning of this letter contained, word for word, the complaints and reproaches of that injured fair to the cruel man by whom she had been abandoned. All this was properly adapted to the ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... Prometheus in bringing down fire for man and his heroic endurance of vengeful tyranny as a result. The work of Hercules in slaying the many-headed serpent or in cleansing the Augean stables, the adventures of Theseus culminating in the labyrinth of the horrible Minotaur, the beautiful hospitality of Baucis and Philemon, the equally beautiful sadness of the death of Balder—all these simply hint the riches of the myth as story. This story interest ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... Cephissus about a mile to the north-west of Athens from the gate called Dipylum. It was said to have belonged to the ancient Attic hero Academus, who, when the Dioscuri invaded Attica to recover their sister Helen, carried off by Theseus, revealed the place where she was hidden. Out of gratitude the Lacedaemonians, who reverenced the Dioscuri, always spared the Academy during their invasions of the country. It was walled in by Hipparchus and was adorned with walks, groves and fountains by Cimon (Plut. Cim. 13), who bequeathed ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... how important a thing it is, the fables of the ancients abundantly intimate, in which, many and varied as they are, and traced back to the remotest antiquity, scarcely three pairs of friends are found, even if you begin as far back as Theseus, and come down to Orestes. But in one single house, and that a small one, what great crowds of friends did Epicurus collect, and how strong was the bond of affection that held them together! And this ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... figures are in the middle of the picture. The fauns stagger under the dark trees, carrying great sumptuous vases of agate and gold. Silenus is asleep on a sunny hill at a distance, and the white sails of the ship with Theseus gleam on the deep-blue sea. There is another called an Offering to Fecundity. It is a crowd of most lovely baby boys, wonderfully painted, frolicking on the green among flowers and fruits. A figure full of action and passion holds up a glass ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... to Chaucer: Theseus, as we know, had erected in the place where the tournament was to be held three oratories, dedicated to Mars, to Venus, and to Diana. On the day after their arrival, namely, on Monday, Palamon and Arcite offered their prayers to Venus and Mars respectively, and Emelie, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 69, February 22, 1851 • Various
... his knees, in an armless old undershirt, rubbing linament on to some slight bump on Blazing Star's nigh hock. A sculptor would have paused to gaze at the great splendid arms—clean and white and muscled like Theseus—massive, supple, and quick. ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... And Sisyphus an huge round stone did reele Against an hill, ne might from labour lin; 310 There thirsty Tantalus hong by the chin; And Tityus fed a vulture on his maw; Typhoeus joynts were stretched on a gin, Theseus condemnd to endlesse slouth by law, And fifty sisters water in ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... rested the point of the middle finger on the bridge of his nose, and the points of the two others on the lower part of the palm, fixed his eyes intently on the veins in the back of his left hand, and sat in this position like the immoveable Theseus, who, as is well known to many who have not been at college, and to some few who have, sedet, oeternumque sedebit.[13] We hope the admirers of the minutiae in poetry and romance will appreciate this accurate description ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... another, at the expence not only of likelihood, but of possibility. These faults Pope has endeavoured, with more zeal than judgment, to transfer to his imagined in interpolators. We need not wonder to find Hector quoting Aristotle, when we see the loves of Theseus and Hippolyta combined with the Gothic mythology of fairies. Shakespeare, indeed, was not the only violator of chronology, for in the same age Sidney, who wanted not the advantages of learning, has, in his "Arcadia", confounded the pastoral with the feudal times, the days of innocence, quiet and ...
— Preface to Shakespeare • Samuel Johnson
... shows, however, that it is essentially different, and belongs to another section of the genus. Papilio antiphus and P. diphilus, black swallow-tailed butterflies with cream-coloured spots, are so well imitated by varieties of P. theseus, that several writers have classed them as the same species. Papilio liris, found only in the island of Timor, is accompanied there by P. aenomaus, the female of which so exactly resembles it that they can hardly be separated ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... lay somewhat outside the tide of migrations and heroic exploits. Her population and that of all Attica remained comparatively unchanged; her kings are kings of the stationary, law-abiding, state-reforming type; Cecrops, Erechtheus, Theseus, are not splendid, flashing, all-conquering figures like Achilles and Agamemnon. Athens might, it would seem, but for the coming of Homer, have lain stagnant in a backwater of conservatism, content to go on chanting her traditional Spring Songs year by year. It is a wonderful thing that ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... him now In play of fists, albeit in deadly craft Of war, when Ares rusheth through the field, He was not cunning. But for strife of hands The fair prize uncontested had been won By stout Epeius—yea, he was at point To bear it thence unto the Achaean ships; But one strode forth to meet him, Theseus' son, The spearman Acamas, the mighty of heart, Bearing already on his swift hands girt The hard hide-gauntlets, which Evenor's son Agelaus on his prince's hands had drawn With courage-kindling words. The ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... said that the royal family was the issue of Pelops to whom Zeus had given a shoulder of ivory to replace the one devoured by a goddess. Thus each country had its legends and the Greeks continued to the end to relate them and to offer worship to their ancient heroes—Perseus, Bellerophon, Herakles, Theseus, Minos, Castor and Pollux, Meleager, OEdipus. The majority of the Greeks, even among the better educated, admitted, at least in part, the truth of these traditions. They accepted as historical facts the war between the two sons of OEdipus, king of Thebes, and ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... eloquence we might truly say with Theseus, 'This passion, and the death of a dear friend, would go near to make a ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... worst in the English conservatism and inequality, while discouraging all that was best in it. It is true that the ideal Englishman was too much of a squire; but it is just to add that the ideal squire was a good squire. The best squire I know in fiction is Duke Theseus in "The Midsummer Night's Dream," who is kind to his people and proud of his dogs; and would be a perfect human being if he were not just a little bit prone to be kind to both of them in the same way. But such natural and even ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... on his lips. But he kept it back. As a prudent diplomat, he knew that it is often more politic to destroy a thing by ignoring it, than to enter into an open contest with it. The feelings are like the dragons' teeth of Theseus. If you contend with them, they always grow again anew, and with renewed energy, out of the soil. Lord Douglas, therefore, was very careful not to notice his daughter's confusion. "Pardon me, my daughter, if, in my zeal and my tender care for ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... more thrilled by the history of the Lewis and Clark expedition than by the tale of Jason. John Colter, wandering three years in the wilderness and discovering the Yellowstone Park, is infinitely more heroic to me that Theseus. Alexander Harvey makes AEneas look like a degenerate. It was Harvey, you know, who fell out with the powers at Fort Union, with the result that he was ordered to report at the American Fur Company's ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... date when the purity of his motives was questioned. Afterwards he speaks of youth as being used to conceive a fervent affection for certain comrades. Moreover, the classic examples of friends, Orestes and Pylades, Damon and Pythias, Theseus and Pirithous, as also David and Jonathan, were ever present before his mind's eye. A young and very tender heart, marked by many feminine traits, replete with all the sentiment and with all the imaginings of ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... they ever had may still remain, yet this is not made more apparent by the contrast betwixt the new gloss of modern upholstery, and their tarnished, even if immortal grace. I rather think the English have given really the more hospitable reception to the maimed Theseus, and his broken-nosed, broken-legged, headless companions, because flouting them with ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... ideal of what a great man was like; and men were influenced by the ideal created, and strove to win the praise of the bards and to be recrowned by them a second time in great poetry. So we had Cuchulain and Oscar in Ireland; Hector of Troy, Theseus in Greece; Yudisthira, Rama, and Arjuna in India, all bard-created heroes molding the minds of men to their image. It is the great defect of our modern literature that it creates few such types. How hardly could one of our modern public men be made the hero of an epic. It would ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell
... methods of attaining satisfaction from the women they loved. The most common method was abduction and the women always submitted to this without a murmur of any sort. Helen was carried off by Theseus, after having also been abducted by Paris. The wife of Atreus was abducted by Thyestus, and from that arose the implacable hatred between the two families. Rape was no less common. Goddesses themselves and the favorites of the Gods were at the risk of falling prey to strong ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... observing and thoroughly approving of the friendship, put them both in the same room, the school began in fun to call them Achilles and Patroclus, Damon and Pythias, Orestes and Pylades, David and Jonathan, Theseus and Pirithous, and as many other names of paria amicorum as ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... is the ship in which, according to Athenian tradition, Theseus went to Crete when he took with him the fourteen youths, and was the saviour of them and of himself. And they were said to have vowed to Apollo at the time, that if they were saved they would send a ...
— Phaedo - The Last Hours Of Socrates • Plato
... by-standers with his "nos poma natamus." For the person who writes Rimini, to admire the Excursion, is just as impossible as it would be for a Chinese polisher of cherry-stones, or gilder of tea-cups, to burst into tears at the sight of the Theseus or the Torso. ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... maiden, the goddess of hunting, who with her nymphs and hounds nightly roamed the fields and woods. The monsters, the Sphinx, the Minotaur, the Cyclops, the Centaurs, symbols of a yet unhuman or half human power of nature, were overcome by the Greek heroes, Perseus, Hercules, Jason, Theseus, OEdipus, the types of human strength and valor. The religious festivals were enlivened by trials of men's strength and skill in games, and the historian and poet offered to the gods the products of human genius. In the religion of the Greeks, however, the moral element, although not passed ...
— A Comparative View of Religions • Johannes Henricus Scholten
... drum and the blast of the blood-stirring trumpet. Clouds of dust ever and anon excited in the distance denoted the arrival of a regiment of Cavalry. Even now one approaches; it is the Red Lancers. How gracefully their Colonel, the young Count of Eberstein, bounds on his barb! Has Theseus turned Centaur? His spur and bridle seem rather the emblems of sovereignty than the instruments of government: he neither chastises nor directs. The rider moves without motion, and the horse judges without guidance. It would seem that the man had borrowed the beast's body, and the beast the man's ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... the heroes dead? Do they thrill the soul of the years no more? Are the gleaming snows and the poppies red All that is left of the brave of yore? Are there none to fight as Theseus fought, Far in the young world's misty dawn? Or teach as gray-haired Nestor taught? Mother ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... Bonnard, you were wishing awhile ago that the grace of your protegee might be observed by some other eyes than old withered ones behind spectacles. Your wishes have been fulfilled in a most unexpected manner, and a voice cries out to you as to the imprudent Theseus, ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... proceed from the law, which regulates the whole departments of the state?"—Blair's Rhet., p. 278. "A messenger relates to Theseus the whole particulars."—Kames. El. of Crit., Vol. ii, p. 313. "There are no less than twenty dipthhongs [sic—KTH] in the English language."—Dr. Ash's Gram., p. xii. "The Redcross Knight runs through the whole steps of ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... prevail, love reign, humanity rise, and a golden age come back again to a world-wide Arcadia. Fat and Anti-Fat! Eros and Anteros, Strophe and Antistrophe. Or, better, the old primeval tale,—Jove and the Titans, Theseus and the Centaurs, Bellerophon and the Chimaera, Thor and the Giants, Ormuzd and Ahriman, Good and Evil, Water and Fire, Light and Darkness. The world has told it over from ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... tall and strong man, dressed in rich garments, came down to meet Theseus. On his arms were golden bracelets, and round his neck a collar of jewels; and he came forward, bowing courteously, and held out ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... was stor'd,— Now I must play with Elgin's lord,— With Theseus for a taw! My playful horse has slipt his string. Forgotten all his capering, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 281, November 3, 1827 • Various
... ounce, or lay the leopard low, Neglected homage to another god: Whence Aphrodite, by no midnight smoke Of tapers lulled, in jealousy despatched 20 A noisome lust that, as the gad bee stings, Possessed his stepdame Phaidra for himself The son of Theseus her great absent spouse. Hippolutos exclaiming in his rage Against the fury of the Queen, she judged Life insupportable; and, pricked at heart An Amazonian stranger's race should dare To scorn her, perished by the murderous cord: Yet, ere she perished, blasted in a scroll The fame of him ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... each eye, 100 Sways brown, broad-shouldered PILLSBURY, Who tears up words like trees by the roots, A Theseus in stout cow-hide boots, The wager of eternal war Against that loathsome Minotaur To whom we sacrifice each year The best blood of our Athens here, (Dear M., pray brush up your Lempriere.) A terrible denouncer he, Old Sinai burns unquenchably 110 Upon his lips; he well ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... and arranged in neat wire cases, of the best authors in prose and verse, which the English, French, and Italian languages boast. Over them hung the portraits in miniature, and some in larger ovals, of the favored friends of these celebrated votaries to the sentiment which exalted the characters of Theseus and ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... image of one; and that the faith of the Pagan is the foolishness of the Christian. Nor does he utter unreason; for, notwithstanding their perfect forms, their gods are not gods to us, but only perfect forms: Apollo, Theseus, the Ilissus, Aphrodite, Artemis, Psyche, and Eros, are only shapeful manhood, womanhood, virginhood, and youth, and move us only by the exact amount of humanity they possess in common with ourselves. Homer and aeschylus, and ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... you hardly any of the adventures that befell Theseus." Change cannot to can. "I have not had a moment's time to read hardly since I left school." Say, "I have hardly a ...
— Slips of Speech • John H. Bechtel
... others it was suggested that, as a tribute to the land he celebrated and died for, his remains should be deposited at Athens, in the Temple of Theseus; and the Chief Odysseus despatched an express to Missolonghi to enforce this wish. On the part of the town, too, in which he breathed his last, a similar request had been made by the citizens; and it was thought advisable so far to accede to their desires ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... she gazed on the lofty summit of the Acropolis, covered with memorials of the ancient art, and associated with the great events of Athenian history. The Parthenon, or Temple of Pallas; the Temple of Theseus; that of Olympian Jove; the Tower of the Winds, or so-called Lantern of Demosthenes; and the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates,—all these she saw, and wondered at. But they have been so frequently described, that we may pass them here with ...
— The Story of Ida Pfeiffer - and Her Travels in Many Lands • Anonymous
... precept ... but then, line upon line, is allowed by as good authority, and may I not draw my confirming black line after yours, yet not break pledge? I am most grateful to you for doing me justice—doing yourself, your own judgment, justice, since even the play-wright of Theseus and the Amazon found it one of his hardest devices to 'write me a speech, lest the lady be frightened, wherein it shall be said that I, Pyramus, am not Pyramus, but &c. &c.' God bless you—one thing more, but one—you could never have misunderstood ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... with virtue be endued, What harm will beauty do him?' Nay, what good? Say, what avail'd, of old, to Theseus' son, The stern resolve? what to Bellerophon?— O, then did Phaedra redden, then her pride Took fire to be so steadfastly denied! Then, too, did Sthenobaea glow with shame, And both ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... husband's son, giving him her first fearsome glance from under her half-lifted veil, was no daughter of Minos. The daughter of heathenesse and the early church she was; doomed to torturing visions and scourgings, and the wrangling of soul with flesh. The venerable Theseus might have been victorious Charlemagne, and Phaedra's maidens belonged rather in the train of Blanche of Castile than at the Cretan court. In the earlier studies Hippolytus had been done with a more pagan suggestion; but in each successive drawing ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... what remains to guide them in returning to the nest? The ribbon spun on the road. In the Cretan labyrinth, Theseus would have been lost but for the clue of thread with which Ariadne supplied him. The spreading maze of the pine-needles is, especially at night, as inextricable a labyrinth as that constructed for Minos. The Processionary finds ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... Don't say, Sir, pray, that you've lost your way,—you, whom people so cosset and praise Sir. You won't be hurried, and you can't be flurried, and you're always as cool as a cucumber. Can a little 'un like me, your own child, don't you see, such a smart pioneer as are you cumber? You, the modern Theseus? Where's your Ariadne? Oh, I know you are cool, and clever. Yet I feel a doubt. When shall we get out?—which I can't go on ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 23, 1891 • Various
... hard-heartedness, became a stone; and Daphne, who now discovered how she had erred in making Apollo "run so much;" and multitudes of other women; but a far greater number of men—men being worthier of punishment in offences of love, because women are proner to believe. Theseus and Jason were among them; and Amnon, the abuser of Tamar; and he that disturbed the old ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... groves of olive scattered dark and wide Where meek Cephisus pours his scanty tide; 1210 The cypress saddening by the sacred Mosque, The gleaming turret of the gay Kiosk;[228] And, dun and sombre 'mid the holy calm, Near Theseus' fane yon solitary palm, All tinged with varied hues arrest the eye— And dull were his that passed him ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... something sublime about railway engineers. But what shall we say of the pioneer of this almost superhuman profession? The world would give much to know what Vulcan, Hercules, Theseus, and other celebrities of that sort, really did in their mortal lives to win the places they now occupy in our classical dictionaries, and what sort of people they really were. But whatever they did, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... credit," says Pegge, "means easy credit, alluding to the credulity of Theseus."—Anonymiana, cent. ii. 44. Mr. Jon Bee, in his Sportsman's Slang Dictionary, gives ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 82, May 24, 1851 • Various
... is in many ways made plain to us That love must grow like any common thing, Root, bud, and leaf, ere ripe for garnering The mellow fruitage front us; even thus Must Helena encounter Theseus Ere Paris come, and every century Spawn divers queens who die with Antony But live a great while ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... was, at last, the end of Zorndorf Battle; on the third day this. Was there ever seen such a fight of Theseus and the Minotaur! Theseus, rapid, dexterous, with Heaven's lightning in his eyes, seizing the Minotaur; lassoing him by the hinder foot, then by the right horn; pouring steel and destruction into him, the very dust darkening all the air. Minotaur ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... the bones home with him in 1819, with the avowed intention of erecting a magnificent monument to his memory by subscription. In the same manner, about two thousand two hundred and fifty years ago, the bones of Theseus, the mythical hero of Democracy, were brought from Skyros to Athens by some Attic [Greek: Kobbetaes]. The description of the arrival in England we quote from a Liverpool journal of the day:—"When his last trunk was opened at the Custom-House, Cobbett observed to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... you did not probably bring me here to break my neck, open your door or call out, so that I may be guided either by the light of heaven, or by the sound of your voice; otherwise I shall be lost, neither more nor less than Theseus in the labyrinth." ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... the Minotaur. Having conceived a deep resentment against the people of Athens, where his only son had been killed in a riot, he imposed upon them an annual tribute of seven noble youths, and as many virgins to be devoured by the Minotaur. Theseus, son of the king of Athens, put an end to this disgrace. He was taught by Ariadne, the daughter of Minos, how to destroy the monster, and furnished with a clue by which afterwards to find his way out ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... example of marine signaling of which we know is recorded of the Argonautic Expedition. Theseus devised the use of colored sails to convey messages from ship to ship of the fleet, and caused the death of his father by his failure to handle the signals properly. Theseus sailed into conflict with the enemy with black sails set, a signal of battle and of death. With the battle over and himself ...
— Masters of Space - Morse, Thompson, Bell, Marconi, Carty • Walter Kellogg Towers
... with the produce of America, Asia, and Europe. From this overwhelming disaster I managed to save my son; and as my sole fortune I brought away with me the large jewels of Andronicus, his ivory and sapphire sceptre, his scimitar of Lemnos, and his ancient gold crown, which once encircled Theseus's brow. ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... magician;[532] it is also said that Apollonius of Thyana brought to life a girl they were carrying to be buried. If we may believe Apuleius,[533] Asclepiades, meeting a funeral convoy, resuscitated the body they were carrying to the pile. It is asserted that AEsculapius restored to life Hippolytus, the son of Theseus; also Glaucus, the son of Minos, and Campanes, killed at the assault of Thebes, and Admetus, King of Phera in Thessaly. Elian[534] attests that the same AEsculapius joined on again the head of a woman to her corpse, and restored her ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... Brave, bounteous acts, regal magnificence, All-seeing prudence, magnanimity That knows no bound, and that heroic virtue For which antiquity hath left no name, But patterns only, such as Hercules, Achilles, Theseus. Back to thy loath'd cell; And when thou seest the new enlightened sphere, Study to know but what those worthies were. ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... was an animal half-man, half-bull; but the fifth panel of ancient paintings at Herculaneum represents to us this allegorical monster with a body entirely human; and, to take away all vestige of doubt, he lies crushed at the feet of Theseus. Now, my dear madame, why should we not ask Mythology to come and rescue us from that hypocrisy which is gaining ground with us and hinders us from laughing as our fathers laughed? And thus, since in the world a young ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... being an Athenian reveller to ask that the sofa might be pushed back. The scene was now the palace of Theseus, and Mhor, as the Prologue, was addressing an imaginary audience with—"Gentles, perchance you wonder ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... years recalls the fortune manifold, To him heaven's highest favor seems at last a dream. But thou, so highly favored, past all bound or goal, Saw'st, in thy life-course, none but love-inflamed men, Kindled by impulse rash to boldest enterprise. Theseus by passion stirred full early seized on thee, A man of glorious form, and strong ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... commentator by his name, said. What then, shall we suffer those rhetoricians to be thought to have hit the mark when they bring arguments only from probabilities and conjectures? And can we produce nothing from history to club to this discourse? Lately, I remember, reading in the Attic annals, I found that Theseus first instituted games in Delos, and tore off a branch from the sacred palm-tree, which was called spadix (from [Greek ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... the Athenian lawgiver, first established particular regulations for its government. Attic legends, however, gratefully refer the earliest rules of the gymnasium to Theseus, as to one of the mightiest of the mythical heroes,—the emulator of Hercules, slayer of the Minotaur, and conqueror of the Amazons. Hermes was the presiding deity, which may appear strange to us, as he was as noted for an unworthy cunning as for his dexterity. Generous emulation and magnanimity ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... remarked, of his adroitness, not only in laying claim to all waifs of wit, "ubi non apparebat dominus," but in stealing the wit himself, wherever he could find it. This happy application of the fable of Hercules and Theseus to the Ministry had been first made by Gilbert Wakefield, in a Letter to Mr. Fox, which the latter read to Sheridan a few days before the Debate; and the only remark that Sheridan made, on hearing it, was, "What an odd pedantic ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... person. The love of Phedre is excusable on account of the fatality which hangs over her family and descends pitilessly upon her. In our times we should call that fatality atavism, for Phedre was the daughter of Minos and Pasiphae. As to Theseus, his verdict, against which there could be no appeal, was an arbitrary and monstrous act, and was punished by the death of that beloved son of his, who was the sole and last hope of his life. We ought never to ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... people called these caves [Greek: Kooi.] [424][Greek: Enioi koous mallon ta toiauta koilomata legesthai phasin.] Hence he very truly explains a passage in Homer. The poet, speaking of Theseus, Dryas, Polyphemus, and other heroes of the Mythic age, mentions their encountering with the mountaineers of Thessaly, whom ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant
... But, needless to say, this is antiquity for music, especially in Italy. At that time they must have had foundries for bells of tender voices, and pure, warm, light, and golden throats, precisely tuned. The hounds of Theseus had not a more just scale, tuned in a peal, than a North Italian belfry holds in leash. But it does not send them out in a mere scale, it touches them in the order of the game of a charming melody. ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... being up, who left me here No wife, no maiden, in my misery. Turn, magic wheel, draw homeward him I love. Thrice I pour out; speak thrice, sweet mistress, thus: "What face soe'er hangs o'er him be forgot Clean as, in Dia, Theseus (legends say) Forgat his Ariadne's locks of love." Turn, magic, wheel, draw homeward him I love. The coltsfoot grows in Arcady, the weed That drives the mountain-colts and swift mares wild. Like them ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... of an egg, And scarcely ten years had gone by, When Theseus beginning to beg, Decoyed the young chicken to fly. When Tyndarus heard the disaster, He crackled and thunder'd like Etna, So out gallop'd Pollux and Castor, And caught her a furlong from Gretna. Singing rattledum, Greek Romanorum, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 284, November 24, 1827 • Various
... the heroes of his own city, until eventually the Theban asserted that Hercules was the greatest hero who had ever lived on earth, and now occupied a foremost place among the gods; while the Athenian insisted that Theseus was far superior, for his fortune had been in every way supremely blessed, whereas Hercules had at one time been forced to act as a servant. And he gained his point, for he was a very glib fellow, like all Athenians; so that the Theban, who was no match for him in talking, cried at last ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... THE HEROES: HERACLES, THESEUS, AND MINOS.—The Greeks believed that their ancestors were a race of heroes of divine or semi-divine lineage. Every tribe, district, city, and village even, preserved traditions of its heroes, whose wonderful exploits were ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... this function of organizing society appear in the mythical figures of some higher religions. Among such figures may be reckoned the Babylonian Gilgamesh, the Old Testament Cainides, the Greek Heracles, Theseus, Orpheus, and others.[1068] But these personages generally take on human form and are treated as factors ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... we were in a perfect wilderness of huge trees, great jagged rocks, and thickets almost as bad as the one Theseus went through to reach Ariadne. William insisted on building a tiny fire to cook bacon, so we rustled some dry sticks and made a little one on a flat rock. I never in all my life tasted anything so good as that bacon and Hannah's sandwiches and some ice-cold water ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase
... shiver, half enthusiasm, half terror, run through them. In fact, those four names—D'Artagnan, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis—were venerated among all who wore a sword: as, in antiquity, the names of Hercules, Theseus, ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... the turn both of thoughts and words is to be found in Catullus in the complaint of Ariadne when she was left by Theseus:- ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... space permitted, it has not been possible to deal with more than a small number of myths, and the well-known stories of Herakles, of Theseus, and of the Argonauts have been purposely omitted. These have been so perfectly told by great writers that to retell them would seem absurd. The same applies to the Odyssey and the Iliad, the translations of which probably ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... Virgil and Statius and I, drawing close together, went onward along the side that rises.[6] "Be mindful," the voice was saying, "of the accursed ones,[7] formed in the clouds, who, when glutted, strove against Theseus with their double breasts; and of the Hebrews, who, at the drinking, showed themselves soft,[8] wherefore Gideon wished them not for companions, when he went down the hills ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 2, Purgatory [Purgatorio] • Dante Alighieri
... mourned him as her son, And hailed him hero: his sole, fitting tomb Were Theseus' temple or the Parthenon, Fondly she deemed. His brethren bare him home, Their exiled glory, past the guarded gate Where England's Abbey shelters England's great. Afar he rests whose very name hath shed New lustre on her with the song he sings. So Shakespeare rests who scorned to lie with kings, ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... Poecile. These porticoes were not only built in the most magnificent style of architecture, but adorned with paintings and statuary by the best masters. On the roof of the Stoa Basileios were statues of Theseus and the Day. In front of the Stoa Eleutherius was placed the divinity to whom it was dedicated; and within were allegorical paintings, celebrating the rise of "the fierce democracy." The Stoa Poecile derived its name from the celebrated paintings which adorned its walls, and ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... self-reproach for her own rashness. We don't understand girls, but we ask this question of those who do: Is it possible that Miss Sally was impressed by the splendid arm with the name tattooed on it—an arm in which every muscle told as in a Greek statue, without infringing on its roundness—the arm of Theseus or Ilissus? Or was it the tone of his voice—a musical one enough? Or merely his generally handsome face and ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... Theseus. Now faire Hippolita, our nuptiall houre Drawes on apace: foure happy daies bring in Another Moon: but oh, me thinkes, how slow This old Moon wanes; She lingers my desires Like to a Step-dame, or a Dowager, Long withering out ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... "Nay, these charms are tricks of the Devil," said he. "Holy Church lends them no countenance, for they are neither good nor fair. But how is it now with your tapestry, Lady Mary? When last I was beneath this roof you had half done in five fair colors the story of Theseus ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Isle Dieu this day, subsequent to my letter by the Thunderer; and various have been the decisions respecting withdrawing the troops from that island. On Monday, Sir John Warren sailed with the Robust, Theseus, and four frigates, with the intention of making the embarkation; but it came on to blow so strong that they were obliged to put back. I was dispensed with from that service, by having been appointed to carry on the communication with the royalists, for the purpose of conveying to them ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... the answers. In order to do them full justice I have arranged the 2nd class in sections, according to the number of steps. The two Kings are fearfully deliberate! I suppose walking quick, or taking short cuts, is inconsistent with kingly dignity: but really, in reading THESEUS' solution, one almost fancied he was "marking time," and making no advance at all! The other King will, I hope, pardon me for having altered "Coal" into "Cole." King Coilus, or Coil, seems to have reigned soon after Arthur's time. Henry of Huntingdon identifies him with the King Coel who first ...
— A Tangled Tale • Lewis Carroll
... hope is in this," said he, "that Hercules or Theseus performed deeds still more arduous; what is my personal, nearest friend, Croton, if not Hercules? Thee, worthy lord, I will not call a demigod, for thou art a full god, and in future thou wilt not forget a poor, ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... Thracian Amazons of old When Thermedon with bloody billows roll'd; Such troops as these in shining arms were seen, When Theseus met in fight their maiden queen; Such to the field Penthesilea led, From the fierce virgin when the Grecians fled. With such return'd triumphant from the war, Her maids with cries attend the lofty car; They clash with manly force their moony shields; ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... playing about this form of beauty, wove a myriad of new fancies, or disinterred from legend old beliefs untouched by Homer. Helen was the daughter of the Swan—that is, as was later explained, of Zeus in the shape of a swan. Her loveliness, even in childhood, plunged her in many adventures. Theseus carried her off; her brothers rescued her. All the princes of Achaea competed for her hand, having first taken an oath to avenge whomsoever she might choose for her husband. The choice fell on the correct and honourable, but rather inconspicuous, ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang |
