"Caitiff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... send thee, caitiff, far beyond the seas, To the grim tyrant Echetus, who mars All he encounters; bane of human kind. Thine ears he'll lop, and pare the nose away From thy pale ghastly visage: dire to tell! The very parts, which modesty conceals, He'll tear relentless ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant
... the neck, strode away, pelted by the populace, with whom I was ever a favorite. I am come to pray for justice upon his own dishonorable and treasonous head." "To what regiment of executioners does the black-boweled caitiff belong?" asked the Mikado. "To the gallant Ninety-eight Hundred and Thirty-seventh—I know the man. His name is Sakko-Samshi." "Let him be brought before me," said the Mikado to an attendant, and a half-hour later the culprit stood in the Presence. ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... charge thee, boy, if e'er thou meet With one of Assynt's name,— Be it upon the mountain's side Or yet within the glen, Stand he in martial gear alone, Or backed by armed men,— Face him, as thou wouldst face the man Who wronged thy sire's renown; Remember of what blood thou art, And strike the caitiff down! ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... is a Castles, and a Canning, A Cobbett, and a Castlereagh; All sorts of caitiff corpses planning All sorts of cozening for trepanning 155 Corpses ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... while all the listening crowd Applaud his reasonings. O'er the watery ford, Dry sandy heaths, and stony barren hills, O'er beaten tracks, with men and beast distain'd, Unerring he pursues; till, at the cot Arrived, and seizing by his guilty throat The caitiff vile, redeems the captive prey: So ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... jealousy. Do you know, I almost wished the other boys had mobbed you a bit, so that I could have stuck by you." And Penny said: "You didn't really think I was going to throw the weight of my trade union on to the side of that foul, caitiff knave of a Carpet Slippers? Why, the man's a low fellow—the sort of person one simply doesn't know. He'd ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... been less sure of recapturing those French shares. But he was ignorant of those truths; and, with confidence bred of ignorance, he summoned Mr. Harley. He, Storri, would browbeat and bleed him; he would teach the caitiff Harley to be more careful of the favor, not to say the fortune, of a ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... men and Gods—in vain! His cries no blest deliverer gain; Feebler and fainter grows the sound, And still the deaf life slumbers round— "In the far land I fall forsaken, Unwept and unregarded, here; By death from caitiff hands o'ertaken, Nor ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... of our treasurer, Brother Brassfield, together with the public honors already and about to be conferred on him, render it fitting that this banquet be in his honor. What the devil is that racket? Oh, the boy——! Let the wandering caitiff enter! What says the recreant invader of ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... hard heart, thou vile caitiff! How hast thou tortured me, by thy designed abruption! 'tis impossible that Miss Harlowe should have ever suffered as thou hast made me suffer, and ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... that folks for the most part had feared to speak the name of Master Ulman Pernhart in her presence, she again suddenly started up and cried in my face that in truth she forbade any mention of that villain and caitiff who had taken foul advantage of her son's youth and innocence to turn his heart from his parents and bring ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Myles, with the same angry bitterness in his voice, "either the Earl is a coward that feareth to befriend me, or else he is a caitiff, ashamed of his own flesh and blood, and of me, the son ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... family use were kept; Dogs eleven with bums to make free, With a bold thirteen[10] in the treasury— (Such its numerical strength, I guess It can't be more, but it may be less). Tar-barrels new and feathers old Are ready, I trow, for the caitiff bold Who dares to invade The stormy shade Of the grim O'Grade, In ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... you would arrive at honor you must pursue it steadily, turning neither to the right nor to the left. Opposition you will meet at each step. But fresh lights may be thrown upon this difficult case. It is in vain to hope for Checkley's evidence, even should the caitiff priest be living. He is himself too ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... with murderous intent?" and he now advances in an approved offensive attitude. "Caitiff, come on, come on!" and he walks off with a tragic laugh, crying, "Ha, ha, ha, ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and virtues we express By transient urn of emptiness, With apt inscription (to its past Relating-and to his): "Prime Mess." No honour had this infidel, That doth not appertain, as well, To altered caitiff on the drop; No wit that would not likewise pass For wisdom in the famished ass Who breaks his neck a weed to crop, When tethered in the luscious grass. And now, thank God, his hateful name Shall never rescued be from shame, Though seas of venal ink be shed; ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... thy wheel unresting, trackless, all Our joys and griefs befall; In thy full sight our secret things go on; Step after step, thy wrath Follows the caitiff's path, And in his triumph breaks his vile neck bone. To all alike, thou meetest out their due, Cubit for ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... immediately ushered into Falcon's sitting-room. There she sat down; but was evidently ill at ease, restless, flushed. She could not sit quiet, and at last began to walk up and down the room, almost wildly. Her beautiful eyes glittered, and the whole woman seemed on fire. The caitiff, who was watching her, saw and gloated on all this, and enjoyed to the full her beauty and agitation, and his revenge for her "Not ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... I stood on terra dura, amongst the rocks that dip down to the water's edge. Having executed one or two throws, there comes me a voracious fish, and makes a startling dash at 'Meg with the muckle mouth.'[10] Sharply did I strike the caitiff; whereat he rolled round disdainful, making a whirl in the water of prodigious circumference; it was not exactly Charybdis, or the Maelstrom, but rather more like the wave occasioned by the sudden turning of a man-of-war's boat. Being ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... stretched out on a bench, in the heavy, apoplectic sleep of drunkenness. The death-in-life was too well portrayed. You smelt the fumy liquor that had brought on this syncope. Your only comfort lay in the forced reflection, that, real as he looked, the poor caitiff was but imaginary, a bit of painted canvass, whom no delirium tremens, nor so much as a retributive headache, ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Gillian," cried Dick; "do not demean yourself thus. The caitiff knight dares not harm me for his life; and if he should maltreat me, I shall be well avenged by my patron, Sir Jocelyn Mounchensey. I would my voice might reach him—I should not long be kept here. To the rescue! Sir Jocelyn! to the rescue!" And he shouted forth the young knight's name ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... Owen, the caitiff son of a brave father, who gave him to my care to train in knightly ways. But 'tis a puling fool, more fitting for the bowers ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... afar is now The loon, thy tiresome lord, I trow; To all a jest amidst his clan He choler deals in Cardigan. Here, nestled nigh the sounding sea, In Ifor’s bush we’ll ever be. More bliss for us our fate propounds On Taf’s green banks than Teivi’s bounds; Thy caitiff wight is scarce aware Where now we lurk, my little fair. Ah! better here, in love’s sweet thrall, To hark the cuckoo’s hearty call, Than pine through life in ...
— The Brother Avenged - and Other Ballads - - - Translator: George Borrow • Thomas J. Wise
... call for help," said the trembling caitiff, who felt at that moment all the bitterness of the mortal agony—"It was the law's act, not mine. ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... word, I may be, as Darwin says, remotely descended from a monkey, but I certainly must decline identity, or even relationship, to the wild beasts with which my good aunt has confounded me. But I did undertake to deliver a challenge from my friend Mr. Leonidas Force to that caitiff Angus Anglesea, and I did intend to be my friend's ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... cried, springing back with part of his old lightness, "I have borne a brave front before it all. I have looked the Cyclops in the face, even when he glowered the fiercest. But it all will pass. I presume Thersytes the caitiff and Agamemnon the king have the same sleep and the same dreams in Orchus. And a few years more or a few less in a man's life make little matter. But it would be sweeter to go out thinking 'I have triumphed' ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... falls a huntsman! see, his limbs The pangs of death distort! 'Lay there and rot: no caitiff's death ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... I dread me that God is greatly displeased with me, that he would suffer me to have such a shame for to hurt you that are all our leader, and all our worship; and therefore I call myself unhappy. Alas that ever such a caitiff-knight as I am should have power by unhappiness to hurt the most noblest knight of the world. Where I so shamefully set upon you and overcharged you, and where ye might have slain me, ye saved me; and so did not I, for I and your blood did to you our utterance. I marvel, said Sir Bors, ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume II (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... the cause of the quarrel! I need not ask who was in the right, when a man brings to the rivalry such odds as yon caitiff." ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... think will have scanty approval. Might in his spear if there be by the gift of the Gods everlasting, Do they uphold him for that in the measureless railing of insult?" Him, with a sidelong glance, thus answer'd the noble Achilleus:— "Worthless I well might be call'd, of a surety, and cowardly caitiff, Yielded I all at a word whensoever it pleas'd thee to dictate. Such be thy lording with others, but not as to me, Agamemnon! Waste not thy masterful signs: they shall never command my obedience. This will I tell thee at once, let my fixt resolution be ponder'd— Never a hand will I lift ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... been puffing 'Sir Danapalus (the Bart.)' in public, and taking all the odds he can get against him in private. Watchorn knows that it is easier to make a horse lose than win. The restless-looking, lynx-eyed caitiff, in the dirty green shawl, with his hands stuffed into the front pockets of the brown tarriar coat, is their jockey, the renowned Captain Hangallows; he answers to the name of Sam Slick in Mr. Spavin the horse-dealer's yard in Oxford Street, when not in the country ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... controversial argument like a Tory, possessed a high independent spirit, and appears to have been a friend to the rights of man. His definition of the word Caitiff, in his Dictionary, may throw some light on this part of his character. "Caitiff. [cattivo, Ital. a slave; whence it came to signify a bad man, with some implication of meanness; as knave in English, and fur in Latin; so ...
— A Poetical Review of the Literary and Moral Character of the late Samuel Johnson (1786) • John Courtenay
... and amphibious caitiff puts the monk upon me," said Richard to the Earl of Salisbury. "But, Longsword, we will let it pass. A punctilio must not lose Christendom the services of these experienced lances, because their victories have rendered them overweening. Lo you, here comes our valiant adversary, ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... all patience, rode at the urchin straight, wrenched him out of his saddle with all my force, and, flinging him roughly to the ground, sprang down to it myself, and administered such a correction across the young caitiff's head and shoulders with my horsewhip as might have ended in his death, had I not been restrained in time; for my passion was up, and I was in a state to do murder or any other crime. The lad was taken home and put to bed, where he ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Fool us by tricks like that!" the foremost said: "And so, my lady—" But before the word Was out there was a little puff of smoke, With an explosion, not encouraging,— And on the turf the frightened caitiff lay. Her road now clear, reckless of torn alpaca, Over the scattered branches Linda rushed, Till she drew near the leader of the gang, Who, stopping, drew a pistol with one hand, While with the ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... it down to a curious, meddlesome nature. I grew vexed, too, with Eudora, because my cousin said she did not love me. I did not reflect that I had done nothing to excite love. I had drawn perpetually on a heart overflowing and grateful,—selfish caitiff that I was! This, however, I did not then understand,—so completely were ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... hand CITATIO FISCALIS, and said"—said at first nothing, Plotho avers; merely mumbled, looked like some poor caitiff, come with Law-papers on a trifling Suit we happen to have in the Courts here;—and only by degrees said (let us abridge; SCENE, Aprill and Plotho, Anteroom in ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... of his swoon awakens Marsilies, And has him borne his vaulted roof beneath; Many colours were painted there to see, And Bramimunde laments for him, the queen, Tearing her hair; caitiff herself she clepes; Also these words cries very loud and clear: "Ah! Sarraguce, henceforth forlorn thou'lt be Of the fair king that had thee in his keep! All those our gods have wrought great felony, Who in battle this morning failed at need. That admiral will shew his cowardice, ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... of the' abyss, Spirit, that swell'd so proudly 'gainst his God, Not him, who headlong fell from Thebes. He fled, Nor utter'd more; and after him there came A centaur full of fury, shouting, "Where Where is the caitiff?" On Maremma's marsh Swarm not the serpent tribe, as on his haunch They swarm'd, to where the human face begins. Behind his head upon the shoulders lay, With open wings, a dragon breathing fire On whomsoe'er he met. To me my guide: "Cacus ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... cruel woids," demanded Axtell. "Flunker," he went on meditatively, "it hath a right knavish sound. Beshrew me, if I fling it not back in the teeth of any caitiff knight that dare put ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... the thronging troops that follow'd thee? Decline all this, and see what now thou art: For happy wife, a most distressed widow; For joyful mother, one that wails the name; For one being su'd to, one that humbly sues; For queen, a very caitiff crown'd with care; For she that scorn'd at me, now scorn'd of me; For she being fear'd of all, now fearing one; For she commanding all, obey'd of none. Thus hath the course of justice wheel'd about And left thee but a very prey to time; ...
— The Life and Death of King Richard III • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... erewhile, to head the impetuous fight, Sent'st forth, thy conquering champion. Now he feeds His spirit on lone paths, and on us brings Deep sorrow; and all his former peerless deeds Of prowess fall like unremembered things From Atreus' loveless brood, this caitiff ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... knight, contemptuously. 'This caliph is nobody, save as master of this palace and city, and the treasure they contain. By my father's soul! the caitiff wretch is rolling in wealth. May the saints grant me patience to think of it calmly! The very throne of gold on which he sits would, if coined into money, furnish forth an army, capable, under a skilful and daring leader, of conquering kingdoms. ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... the company that "time was hup" and the "coach quite ready." Then out came the purses, brown, green, and blue, with the usual inquiry, "What's dinner, waiter?" "Two and six, dinner, beer, three,—two and nine yours," replied the knock-kneed caitiff to the first inquirer, pushing a blue-and-white plate under his nose; "yours is three and six, ma'am;—two glasses of brandy-and-water, four shillings, if you please sir—a bottle of real Devonshire cider."—"You must change ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... wretch, Though hast within thee undivulged crimes, Unwhipped of justice: hide thee, thou bloody hand; Thou perjured, and thou simular man of virtue, Thou art incestuous: caitiff, to pieces shake, That under covert and convenient seeming Hast practised on man's life: close pent-up guilts, Rive your concealing continents, and cry These dreadful summoners grace. ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... sheepfolds of which in his capacity as watch-dog he might have been considered as ex officio the guardian. This vile malefactor had been ordered for execution, and the noose was already coiled for his caitiff neck, when a neighbor of his master's—a great raiser of sheep—begged for him a reprieve, kindly volunteering the use of a truculent, but valuable ram belonging to him, for the purpose of illustrating the homaeopathic theory above alluded to. At nightfall the ram was brought and turned ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... second choice. It is entered upon, more often than not, as the safest form of intrigue. The caitiff yields quickest; the man who loves danger and adventure holds out longest. Behind it one frequently finds, not that lofty romantic passion which poets hymn, but a mere yearning for peace and security. The abominable hazards of the high seas, the rough humors ...
— Damn! - A Book of Calumny • Henry Louis Mencken
... passes, I might have some miserable postmaster from Texas or the District of Columbia, some purchased agent of Messrs. Bruin & Hill, the great slave-dealers of the Capital, have him here in Boston, take Ellen Craft before the caitiff, and on his decision hurry her off to bondage as cheerless, as hopeless, and as irremediable as ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... where is the caitiff miscreant? Has he thrown himself into the river? Drowning is too good for such a dog as he!" shouted angry voices on the river's bank, and through the still air the sound of trampling footsteps could be heard up and down the little wharf ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... inspiration of terror: "This one prayer you must—must listen to! At your command let a great fire spring up. Let the summit be surrounded by fierce flames, whose tongues shall lick up and whose teeth shall devour any caitiff venturing near to the formidable place!" So is her whole soul heard to cry aloud in this prayer, as she pleads for so much more than her life, that all by which Wotan had fortified himself against her, and which had been subjected to an assault so prolonged, suddenly gives way, his weary ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... There is a tradition, of considerable trustworthiness, that Sciarra Colonna would have killed him, and did with his mailed hand strike him in the face. Nogaret, however, prevented the murder, and confined himself to saying, "Thou caitiff pope, confess, and behold the goodness of my lord, the King of France, who, though so far away from thee in his own kingdom, both watcheth over and defendeth thee by my hand." "Thou art of heretic family," answered the pope: "at thy hands I look ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... fierce the fire, it fills my veins. Spare me, Apollo, god of Lycia, spare. Yon lioness that, since her royal mate Departed, with a caitiff wolf has lain, Will slay me, and as one that poison brews Will in the caldron cast her jealousy, And while she whets the knife to slay her lord Say she takes vengeance for his lawless love. Why do ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith |
