"Circean" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Circean promontory in Italy seems to have been named Tit-On; for, the bay below is by Lycophron styled Titonian. [Greek: Titonion te cheuma]. v. 1275. Rivers and seas were often denominated from places ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant
... wild living, inabstinence^, self- indulgence; voluptuousness &c adj.; epicurism, epicureanism; sybaritism; drug habit. dissipation; licentiousness &c adj.; debauchery; crapulence^. revels, revelry; debauch, carousal, jollification, drinking bout, wassail, saturnalia, orgies; excess, too much. Circean cup. [drugs of abuse: list] bhang, hashish, marijuana, pot [Coll.], hemp [Coll.], grass [Coll.]; opium, cocaine, morphine, heroin; LSD, lysergic acid diethylamide [Chem]; phencyclidine, angel dust, PCP; barbiturates; amphetamines, speed [Coll.]. V. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... of punch—the identical bowl from which a bygone Bishop of London, good easy man, had baptised this Judge's grandfather, now clinking round the rim with silver ladles, and hung with scrolls of lemon-peel—instead, I say, of stumping and clambering up the great staircase to the cavern of his Circean enchantment, he stood with his big nose flattened against the window-pane, watching the progress of the feeble old man, who clung stiffly to the iron rail as he got down, step by ...
— Green Tea; Mr. Justice Harbottle • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... was in the green reception-room at the end of the hall. She wore black velvet and a few diamonds, and looked impressively null. Tiny and Ila arrived almost immediately. They looked, the one an angel with a sense of humour, the other Circean with an eye to the conventions, both as smart as Paris could make them. It was nearly ten o'clock, and there ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... is so I have heard." His glance lingered still upon Philip's face in subtle inquiry. Bending its Circean head, Temptation laughed lightly in Philip Poynter's eyes. The girl in the caravan was winding away by dusty roads—out of his life perhaps. And singular as the mission ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... over the face of Europe at this present hour to get the sting and Pythian poison of this planetary irony. It is like a Circean philtre of sweet sunbrewed wine, sparkling with rainbow bubbles and gleaming with the mockery of the deathless gods. Once for all in this scandalous and beautiful book, the lying optimism of the preachers receives its crushing blow. ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... present who did not approve this change was Lady Tinemouth. At every dissolving smile of her Circean ladyship, she thought she beheld the intoxicating cup at the lips of Thaddeus, and dreaded its effect. Euphemia was too busily employed repeating some new poems, and too intensely dreaming of what her tutor might say on the verses and medallion in ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... adequate events are as necessary as the vates sacer to record them. Jaalam stood always modestly ready, but circumstances made no fitting response to her generous intentions. Now, however, she assumes her place on the historick roll. I have hitherto been a zealous opponent of the Circean herb, but I shall now ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... shalt behold her, Hermes, thou alone, 110 If thou wilt, as thou swearest, grant my boon!" Then, once again, the charmed God began An oath, and through the serpent's ears it ran Warm, tremulous, devout, psalterian. Ravish'd, she lifted her Circean head, Blush'd a live damask, and swift-lisping said, "I was a woman, let me have once more A woman's shape, and charming as before. I love a youth of Corinth—O the bliss! Give me my woman's form, and place me where he ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... blouse seemed to narcotize all his senses with its irresistible sweetness, "you will be true to me, won't you? You won't love other women now? Say you never wanted to kiss any of them so much as— Oh!" Drunk with her Circean cup, Hyde was more than willing to convince her, but in a fashion of his own. Isabel gave a little sigh and faded out of his clasp: he tried to seize her but she was gone, leaving only the scent of ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... described and illustrated my intellectual torpor in terms that apply more or less to every part of the four years during which I was under the Circean spells of opium. But for misery and suffering, I might indeed be said to have existed in a dormant state. I seldom could prevail on myself to write a letter; an answer of a few words to any that I received was the utmost that I could ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... Not the Circean wine Most perilous is for pain: Grapes of the heavens' star-loaden vine, Whereto the lofty-placed Thoughts of fair souls attain, Tempt with a more retributive delight, And do disrelish all life's sober taste. 'Tis to have drunk too well The drink ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson
... its fading death with merriment, and the wind that shakes it with music. Here, however, there is some beauty, even in the morbid passage; but take an instance in Homer and Pope. Without the knowledge of Ulysses, Elpenor, his youngest follower, has fallen from an upper chamber in the Circean palace, and has been left dead, unmissed by his leader or companions, in the haste of their departure. They cross the sea to the Cimmerian land; and Ulysses summons the shades from Tartarus. The first which appears is that of the lost Elpenor. Ulysses, ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin |
