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Concubine   Listen
noun
Concubine  n.  
1.
A woman who cohabits with a man without being his wife; a paramour. Note: Concubine has been sometimes, but rarely, used of a male paramour as well as of a female.
2.
A wife of inferior condition; a lawful wife, but not united to the man by the usual ceremonies, and of inferior condition. Such were Hagar and Keturah, the concubines of Abraham; and such concubines were allowed by the Roman laws. Their children were not heirs of their father.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Concubine" Quotes from Famous Books



... religions of the world were represented. His wives, who numbered seven hundred and his concubines who numbered three hundred (1 Kgs 11:13), had a similar signification, for "wife" in the Word signifies the church and "concubine" a form of religion. Hence it may be evident why it was granted Solomon to build the temple, by which the Divine Humanity of the Lord (Jn 2:19, 21) is signified and the church, too; and why he was allowed to establish idolatrous forms of worship and to take so many wives. See Doctrine of the ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg

... with sculpture in basso-relievo at both ends. I did see such a thing more like a common grave-stone, than the tomb of an emperor. But we are informed by Suetonius, that the dead body of Nero, who slew himself at the villa of his freedman, was by the care of his two nurses and his concubine Atta, removed to the sepulchre of the Gens Domitia, immediately within the Porta del Popolo, on your left hand as you enter Rome, precisely on the spot where now stands the church of S. Maria del Popolo. His tomb was even distinguished by an epitaph, which has been preserved by Gruterus. Giacomo ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... death of the Emperor, a plot was concocted by eight members of the extreme anti-foreign party at Court, who claimed to have been appointed Regents, to make away with the Empress Dowager, the concubine mother, known as the Western Empress, of the five-year-old child just proclaimed under the title of Chi Hsiang (good omen), and also the late Emperor's three brothers, thus securing to themselves complete control of the administration. Prince Kung, however, managed to be "first ...
— China and the Manchus • Herbert A. Giles

... on his bed, where, during a short time, the Duchess of Portsmouth hung over him with the familiarity of a wife. But the alarm had been given. The Queen and the Duchess of York were hastening to the room. The favourite concubine was forced to retire to her own apartments. Those apartments had been thrice pulled down and thrice rebuilt by her lover to gratify her caprice. The very furniture of the chimney was massive silver. Several fine ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... think I should last after that? You are clever enough to rule the fools who squawk and jabber in the senate and the Forum. You are beautiful enough to start another siege of Troy! But remember: You are Caesar's concubine, not empress! Just remember that, will you! When I find a woman lovelier than you, and wiser, I will give you and your Christians a taste of Nero's policy. Now—do ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy

... he answers by giving you his own name, the name of his mother, and so on in the female line. Aye, if a free-born woman marries a slave, her children are citizens, but if a free man marries a stranger, or takes a concubine, even if he be the highest person in the State, his children ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel

... assigned him of their richest soil,[15] Commodious for the vine, or for the plow. And now his consort fair three children bore To bold Bellerophon; Isandrus one, 240 And one, Hippolochus; his youngest born Laodamia was for beauty such That she became a concubine of Jove. She bore Sarpedon of heroic note. But when Bellerophon, at last, himself 245 Had anger'd all the Gods, feeding on grief He roam'd alone the Aleian field, exiled, By choice, from every cheerful haunt of man. Mars, thirsty still ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... he contented himself with a single wife, save that a few dignitaries, from motives of policy, were permitted a larger number. On the marriage day the German offered presents to his bride—not the bracelets and golden necklaces with which the Gaul adorned his fair-haired concubine, but oxen and a bridled horse, a sword, a shield, and a spear-symbols that thenceforward she was to share his labors and to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... These people not only brought with them their merchandise, but their wives and children. Some of them appeared to be people of the worst description: there was one in particular, a burly savage-looking fellow, of about forty, whose conduct was atrocious; he sat with his wife, or perhaps concubine, at the door of a room which opened upon the court: he was continually venting horrible and obscene oaths, both in Spanish and Catalan. The woman was remarkably handsome, but robust, and seemingly as savage ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow

... his favor, whereupon Phraates became king. The transaction proved a most unhappy one. Phraates, jealous of some of his brothers, who were the sons of a princess married to Orodes, whereas his own mother was only a concubine, removed them by assassination, and when the ex-monarch ventured to express disapproval of the act added the crime of parricide to fratricide by putting to death his aged father. Thus perished Orodes, after ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson

... But to see the hatred of the Jews spread in Russian Poland, where people understand how to read and write, that must surely fill one with wonder. The great number of Jews in the old Polish Kingdom originated in the days of Casimir the Great (1309-1370), who out of love for his concubine, Esther, opened his country to the Jews and made conditions favorable for them. Since then the number has increased, as the Czars locked up all their Jewish subjects there. So they have been living separated and with a special dress like the Jews of Denmark at the time of Holberg. They have, however, ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various

... over this way of life, till his wealth was wasted and the case worsened and all his goods went from him and he bit his hands[FN284] in bitter penitence. For of a truth he had nothing left, after that which he had squandered, but a concubine, a slave-girl whom his father had bequeathed to him with the rest of his estate: and she had no equal in beauty and loveliness and brightness and liveliness and symmetric stature and perfect grace. She was past mistress in every manner of arts and accomplishments and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... disposed to assist James effectually, his intentions were obstructed by the disputes of his ministry. Louvois possessed the chief credit in council; but Seignelai enjoyed a greater share of personal favour, both with the king and madame de Maintenon, the favourite concubine. To this nobleman, as secretary for marine affairs, James made his chief application; and he had promised the command of the troops destined for his service to Latisun, whom Louvois hated. For these reasons this minister thwarted his measures, and retarded ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... of arms, took possession of the female and the baggage. The priestess, the divinity of whose patroness had been by the event of the combat sorely lessened in her eyes, was now easily induced to become the associate and concubine of the conqueror. She accompanied him to the district whither he was travelling, and there displayed the shrine of Freya, taking care to hide the injuries which the goddess had received in the brawl. The champion came in for a share of a gainful trade driven by the priestess, besides appropriating ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott

... place, he determined carefully to conceal his design from all except the two or three intimate friends and advisers who originally counseled him to adopt it. He intended to take with him his concubine Afrosinia, and also a number of domestic servants and other attendants, but he did not allow any of them to know where he was going. He gave them to understand that he was going to Copenhagen to join his father. He was afraid that, if any of those persons were to know his real design, ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott

... pretends that the duchess of York, his mother, endeavouring to dissuade him from so disproportionate an alliance, urged him with a pre-contract to one Elizabeth Lucy, who however, being pressed, confessed herself his concubine; but denied any marriage. Dr. Shaw too, the preacher, we are told by the same authority, pleaded from the pulpit the king's former marriage with Elizabeth Lucy, and the duke of Buckingham is said to have harangued the people to the same effect. But now let us see ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole

... the town; the Swedes fled; and a Russian soldier captured the deserted wife in the ruins of, the city. He passed her on to his marshal. The marshal sold her as a kind of white slave to a prince; the prince took her to Russia as his concubine. Being of a liberal disposition, he shared her capacious heart with the young czar, who happened to be married. Martha Skovronsky bore him a daughter and won his heart for keeps. He had her baptized in the Russian Church as Catherine. He divorced his czaritza ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... intolerable tyrants, Syrian flute-girls and ballet-dancers, as Aristonica, and Oenanthe with her tambourine, and Agathoclea, who have lorded it over kings' diadems.[74] Why Syrian Semiramis was only the servant and concubine of one of king Ninus's slaves, till Ninus the great king seeing and falling in love with her, she got such power over him that she thought so cheap of him, that she asked to be allowed one day to sit on the royal ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... tell the truth, howe'er you blame it. Her reason being weak, her passions strong, She thought that her Lord's heart (even could she claim it) Was scarce enough; for he had fifty-nine Years, and a fifteen-hundredth concubine. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... back to the halting-place of the night before—a distance of four parasangs, it was said. So the king and those with him fell to ravaging right and left, and amongst other spoil he captured the Phocaean woman, who was a concubine of Cyrus, witty and beautiful, if fame speaks correctly. The Milesian, who was the younger, was also seized by some of the king's men; but, letting go her outer garment, she made good her escape to the ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon

... mentioned, had two female slaves, the last remnants of the large slave-property which he had inherited from his father. One of these was a young and very comely mulatto girl, whom Wallace had made his housekeeper, and whom he sought to make also his concubine. But, as the girl already had a child by a young white man, to whom she was attached, she steadily repelled all his advances. Not succeeding by persuasion, this scion of the aristocracy of the Old Dominion—this Virginian gentleman, and marshal of the United States for the District of Columbia—shut ...
— Personal Memoir Of Daniel Drayton - For Four Years And Four Months A Prisoner (For Charity's Sake) In Washington Jail • Daniel Drayton

... T'an Ch'un remarked, as she laughed. "You make use of specious language to abuse people; but I've thought of a fine and most apposite name for you!" Whereupon addressing herself to the party, "In days gone by," she added, "an imperial concubine, Nue Ying, sprinkled her tears on the bamboo, and they became spots, so from olden times to the present spotted bamboos have been known as the 'Hsiang imperial concubine bamboo.' Now she lives in the Hsiao Hsiang ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... has become known in history. Her charms at length attracted the notice of Muley Abul Hassan, and she soon became a member of his harem. Some have spoken of her as a Christian slave whom he had made his concubine; but others, with more truth, represent her as one of his wives, and ultimately his favorite sultana; and indeed it was often the case that female captives of rank and beauty, when converted to the faith of Islam, became united to the proudest and ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving

... to him," replied the Lady Helen: "he would never look upon you entirely as his wife, he would never treat you entirely as such. You would dwell with him almost as a concubine.—Forgive me, but it must be spoken.—He would grow tired of your beauty, weary of your society; your virtues would be lost upon him, because he would see that firmness was not amongst them, and he would not respect you because you had not respected yourself. There ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James

... to the Muslim version, Solomon's temporary degradation was in punishment for his taking as a concubine the daughter of an idolatrous king whom he had vanquished in battle, and, through her influence, bowing himself to "strange gods." Before going to the bath, one day, he gave this heathen beauty his signet to take ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston

... whom he had lied and from whom he had run away, joined him; also his son Adeodatus,—the son of the woman with whom he had lived in illicit intercourse for fifteen years. But his conversion was not accomplished. He purposed marriage, sent away his concubine to Africa, and yet fell again into the mazes of another unlawful and entangling love. It was not easy to overcome the loose habits of his life. Sensuality ever robs a man of the power of will. He had a double nature,—a strong sensual body, with a lofty and inquiring ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord

... tale about a count of Westeravia, whom a deserted concubine bewitched upon his marriage, so as to preclude all hopes of his becoming a father. The spell continued to operate for three years, till one day, the count happening to meet with his former mistress, she maliciously asked him about the increase ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott

... her as one would a dreaded and ghastly concubine coming to embitter a husband's heart toward his young bride; in vain; she kept her sway over me for that night and the next day, and eight succeeding days. Afterwards, my spirits began slowly to recover their tone; my appetite returned, and in a fortnight I was ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell

... BIFFE (La), concubine of the criminal Riganson, alias Le Biffon. This woman, who was a sort of Jacques Collin in petticoats, evaded the police, thanks to her disguises. She could ape the marquise, the baronne and the comtesse to perfection. ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe

... Conquer'd both men and women's hearts; Was so o'ercome with knight and Ralph, That he could never claw it off. He never eat, nor drank, nor slept, But Hudibras still near him kept; Nor would he go to church or so, But Hudibras must with him go; Nor yet to visit concubine, Or at a city feast to dine, But Hudibras must still be there, Or all the fat was in the fire. Now after all was it not hard, That he should meet with no reward, That fitted out the knight and squire, This monarch did so much admire? ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber

... to a girl called Gyda, daughter of King Eirik of Hordaland, who was brought up as foster-child in the house of a great bonde in Valdres. The king wanted her for his concubine; for she was a remarkably handsome girl, but of high spirit withal. Now when the messengers came there, and delivered their errand to the girl, she answered, that she would not throw herself away even to take a king for her husband, ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson

... relations to men they never saw, and without their consent previously obtained, there can be no hardship in consigning them over to the arms of the prince; nor is any disgrace attached to the condition of a concubine, where every marriage is a legal prostitution. At the death of the sovereign all his women are removed to a separate building, called by a term which, divested of its metaphor, implies the Palace of Chastity, where they are doomed to reside during ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow

... comes, that will convince, And put to utter dumbness their bold tongues: See here, grave fathers, here's the ravisher, The rider on men's wives, the great impostor, The grand voluptuary! Do you not think These limbs should affect venery? or these eyes Covet a concubine? pray you mark these hands; Are they not fit to stroke a lady's breasts?— Perhaps ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson

... Dei, lib. xv, cap. XX. A little further on (lib. xvi, cap. XXV) he refers to Abraham as a man able to use women as a man should, his wife temperately, his concubine compliantly, neither immoderately. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... see the money at all events. Come! I may not marry you, either. I don't know. I suppose you thought you'd keep the money, if I did! Ha, ha, ha! nonsense! I have no sense of shame left. I tell you I have been Totski's concubine. Prince, you must marry Aglaya Ivanovna, not Nastasia Philipovna, or this fellow Ferdishenko will always be pointing the finger of scorn at you. You aren't afraid, I know; but I should always be afraid that I had ruined you, and that you would reproach me for it. As for what ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... of ours; more unlike still to the Oriental harem: that of an elderly childless man, his days menaced, dwelling alone amid a bevy of women of all ages, ranks, and relationships,—the mother, the sister, the cousin, the legitimate wife, the concubine, the favourite, the eldest born, and she of yesterday; he, in their midst, the only master, the only male, the sole dispenser of honours, clothes, and luxuries, the sole mark of multitudinous ambitions and desires. I doubt if you ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... betraying the other Mahommedan princes to him, and intrigued to secure the alliance of Alphonso against the Almoravide. It was probably during this period that he surrendered his beautiful daughter Zaida to the Christian king, who made her his concubine, and is said by some authorities to have married her after she bore him a son, Sancho. The vacillations and submissions of El Motamid did not save him from the fate which overtook his fellow-princes. Their scepticism and extortion had tired their subjects, and the mullahs gave Yusef a "fetva'' ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... the first of the wars of liberation of the northern Turks, known until then as the western Turks, against the Chinese. And with the end of Kao Tsung's reign began the decline of the T'ang regime. Most of the historians attribute it to a woman, the later empress Wu. She had been a concubine of T'ai Tsung, and after his death had become a Buddhist nun—a frequent custom of the time—until Kao Tsung fell in love with her and made her a concubine of his own. In the end he actually divorced the ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard

... older, any more than why Jacob was preferred to Esau. After Jacob had blessed the sons of Joseph, he called his other sons around his dying bed to predict the future of their descendants. Reuben the oldest was told that he would not excel, because he had loved his father's concubine and committed a grievous sin. Simeon and Levi were the most active in seeking to compass the death of Joseph, and a curse was sent upon them. Judah was exalted above them all, for he had sought to save Joseph, and was eloquent in pleading for Benjamin,—the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord

... has set his face to put away his concubine who has borne him children or his wife who has granted him children, to that woman he shall return her her marriage portion and shall give her the usufruct of field, garden, and goods, and she shall bring up her children. From the time that her children ...
— The Oldest Code of Laws in the World - The code of laws promulgated by Hammurabi, King of Babylon - B.C. 2285-2242 • Hammurabi, King of Babylon

... during the time when her royal lover was residing here.—Her death was generally attributed to poison; nor did the people hesitate in whispering that the fatal potion was administered by order of the Queen. Her son, the profligate tyrant Louis XIth, detested his father's concubine; and once, forgetting his dignity and his manhood, he struck the Dame de Beaute.—The statue placed upon the mausoleum represented Agnes kneeling and offering her heart to the virgin; but this effigy had been removed before the late troubles: a heart of white ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner

... the dam, And to repletion feeds; The crane deep in the forest cries, Nor finds the food it needs. So in my room the concubine By the great man is placed; While I with cruel banishment ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous

... is evident that the path of the virtuous woman without the independence that accompanies the possession of her own money, was in ancient days much more thorny than that of the concubine or the prostitute; and it is because of this fact that parental love, the most powerful of all levers employed by the Cosmic Law to lift love out of degradation, instituted the custom of the "dowry," and although this, too, has at various times become a source of degradation, ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad

... sons of Yoshitomo by his wife, he had also three sons by a concubine named Tokiwa. She was a woman of great beauty, and for that reason as well as because she was the mother of the romantic hero Yoshitsune, she has often been chosen by Japanese artists as the subject of their pictures. Tokiwa and her three children, of whom Yoshitsune ...
— Japan • David Murray

... name see vol. ii.61, in the Tale of Ghanim bin 'Ayyub where the Caliph's concubine is also ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton

... manifestation of covetousness, not only the appropriation of the property of others by force or fraud or trickery, but even the cruel abuse of wealth; it condemns every form of profligacy, whether with concubine, slave, divorced woman, or even one's own wife; it condemns every kind of cruelty, whether shown in blows, in ill-treatment, or in murder, not only of men, but even of animals. The law resting on force only punishes certain forms of covetousness, such as robbery and swindling, certain forms of profligacy ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy

... to legitimate a daughter he had by her: "I am of a birth," said she, "to have had lawful children by you. I have been your mistress, because I loved you. I will never suffer a decree to declare me your concubine." ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... with a kind of ferocious energy, which, if it do not charm the attention of the reader, at least enslaves it, holding it captive with a chain of iron. Amongst his other adventures, the hero falls in with a Gypsy encampment, is enrolled amongst the fraternity, and is allotted a 'mort,' or concubine; a barbarous festival ensues, at the conclusion of which an epithalamium is sung in the Gypsy language, as it is called in the work in question. Neither the epithalamium, however, nor the vocabulary, are written in the language of the English ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow

... were listening to the tale of a journey. 'Before God!' Katharine said, 'if you were not a virgin for the King, or if the King have coerced you to forswearing yourself in this matter, I would not be the King's wife, but his concubine. Only, sore is his need of me; he hath sworn it many times, and I do believe it, that I best, if anyone may, may give him rest with my converse and lead him to peace. He hath sworn that never woman save I made him so clearly to see his ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford

... Greeks and Trojans crawl About Scamander, over walls, pursued Or else pursuing, and the funeral pyres And sacred hecatombs, and first because Of Helen who with Paris fled to Troy As soul-mate; and the wrath of Peleus, son, Decreed to lose Chryseis, lovely spoil Of war, and dearest concubine. Say first, Thou son of night, called Momus, from whose eyes No secret hides, and Thalia, smiling one, What bred 'twixt Thomas Rhodes and John Cabanis The deadly strife? His daughter Flossie, she, Returning from her wandering with a troop Of strolling players, walked the village streets, ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters

... title "king of Denmark," and laid claim to Norway, too; and when she blamed him for it he had answered her disdainfully. In a letter he had used foul and abusive language, calling her "a king without breeches," and the "abbot's concubine" (abbedfrillen), on account of her particular attachment to a certain abbot of Soro, who was her spiritual director. It is, however, true, that her intimacy with this monk gave room for some suspicion that her privacies with him were not all employed about the care ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... Aten's life giving rays, leading them to this mountain, which they inhabited and in which they carved this Temple wherein to worship the God who had saved them. The lord of the galley was the first Pharaoh; the priest of the galley was called High Priest; the Pharaoh took a concubine to wife—and ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various

... itself to aid the other, should its territory be invaded. England thus sought a guaranty against France, and Prussia against Russia. She had need. Her King, Frederic the Great, had drawn upon himself an avalanche. Three women—two empresses and a concubine—controlled the forces of the three great nations, Austria, Russia, and France; and they all hated him: Elizabeth of Russia, by reason of a distrust fomented by secret intrigue and turned into gall by the biting tongue of Frederic ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... confortatiue for the stomack, and desired those neere about him to perswade his holynes to take some rest, and hee doubted not but he would be forthwith well. Who should receiue this mild phisicke of him but the concubine Iuliana his vtter enimie, shee beeing not vnprouided of strong poison at that instant, in the popes outward chamber so mingled it, that when his grande sublimitie taster came to relish it, he sunke downe starke dead ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash

... their real father, the merchant received a sum of money to establish himself at Brescia, and has not seen his wife for these two years past. General Gourion, who was last spring in Italy, has assured me that he read the advertisement of a curate after his concubine, who had eloped with another curate; and that the Police Minister at Milan openly licensed women to be the housekeepers ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... held in slavery by the Moors. But the moment a female slave becomes her master's concubine her bonds are broken, and as soon as a male slave can read the first chapter of the Koran (which contains the creed) he can no longer be held ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... enlaced the contemporary rulers in the various countries of the West in ties of relationship with himself. He had married Andefleda, sister of Clovis; he gave Theudigotha, one of his own daughters by a concubine, to Alaric of Toulouse, king of the Visigoths, and another, Ostrogotha, to Sigismund, king of the Burgundians, at Lyons. Even before he had conquered Odoacer, in 493, he was in strict alliance with the king of the Vandals in Africa, ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies

... purpose of the husband, who had been decoyed into matrimony by the cunning of his spouse, whom he had privately kept as a concubine before marriage. Conscious of her own precarious situation, she had resolved to impose upon the infirmities of Trapwell, and, feigning herself pregnant, gave him to understand she could no longer conceal her condition from the knowledge of her brother, who was an officer in ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett

... inseparable, whatever be the quality of the love afterwards, whether it be warm or cold. Hence it is that an invitation to love coming from a wife chills the whole man from the inmost principles to the outermost; whereas an invitation to love coining from a concubine has not the same effect upon the object of her love. To jealousy in regard to a wife is added the earnest desire of reputation with a view to honor; and there is no such addition to jealousy in regard to a concubine. Nevertheless both kinds of jealousy vary according to the ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg

... and messengers, the mafoos and chair coolies, the servants and blind musicians with the old songs, The Millet's in Flower and Kuan Kuan Go to the Ospreys. The side door to the women's apartments, however, opened into a retreat, where her father's concubine, he had but one, trailed like a bird of paradise, and there was the constant musical drip of a fountain in an old granite basin. There, during the years when she was lame, ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer

... dreaded 530 On hostile ground, none daring my affront. Then swoll'n with pride into the snare I fell Of fair fallacious looks, venereal trains, Softn'd with pleasure and voluptuous life; At length to lay my head and hallow'd pledge Of all my strength in the lascivious lap Of a deceitful Concubine who shore me Like a tame Weather, all my precious fleece, Then turn'd me out ridiculous, despoil'd, Shav'n, and disarm'd among my ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... It was the name of the famous concubine of Solomon to whom he entrusted his ring (vol. vi. 84), also of the mother of Mohammed who having taken her son to Al-Medinah (Yathrib) died on the return journey. I cannot understand why the Apostle of Al-Islam, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... carried a scarlet geranium in his hand. "You are welcome," he said gravely, and led the way through a long corridor, crying aloud as he went, "Make way, make way," for we were entering the house itself, and it is not seemly that a Moorish woman, whether she be wife or concubine, should look upon a stranger's face. Yet some few lights of the hareem were not disposed to be extinguished altogether by considerations of etiquette, and passed hurriedly along, as though bent upon avoiding us and uncertain of our exact direction. The women-servants ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan

... Juno, and place her in my couch, and take Lycaon for his father-in-law? But if the wrong done to your injured foster-child affects you, drive the seven Triones away from your azure waters, and expel the stars received into heaven as the reward of adultery, that a concubine may not be received into your ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso

... assists Sviatopolk to defeat Yaroslaf, 59. seizes the sister of Yaroslaf as his concubine, 59. attempt to poison, 59. forced ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott

... a certain sultan of Sind had a son by a concubine, who behaved so rudely to his sultana, that she became dispirited and lost her health, which her favourite woman observing, resolved by stratagem to get rid of the prince. She advised her mistress, when he might next insult ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... of a restless temper and addicted to every species of wickedness, except such as are punished by temporal laws. While this son William was a child, he left him, without any provision, to the care of his mother, and accompanied by a concubine whom he had long convened with, shipped himself for the island of Jamaica, carrying with him a good quantity of goods proper for that climate, intending to live there as pleasantly as the place would give him leave. His head being well turned, both ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... That thing which was to him so lief. Bot wo the while, he was a thief! For Venus, which was enemie Of thilke loves micherie, Discovereth al the pleine cas To Clymene, which thanne was Toward Phebus his concubine. And sche to lette the covine Of thilke love, dedli wroth To pleigne upon this Maide goth, 6760 And tolde hire fader hou it stod; Wherof for sorwe welnyh wod Unto hire moder thus he saide: "Lo, what it is to kepe a Maide! To Phebus dar I nothing speke, Bot upon hire I schal ...
— Confessio Amantis - Tales of the Seven Deadly Sins, 1330-1408 A.D. • John Gower

... is happy, because the devil, who tortures her without ceasing, deceives them all. Where is there another woman who has been so shamelessly robbed of her children? For is not my daughter the captive and concubine of an insane tuft-hunter? Has not my son been taken from me through the baseness that has been practised against his sister, and the lamentable spectacle afforded him by my own powerlessness? Where, I ask high Heaven, is there another woman so ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann

... Egelred, in Iulie, anno. 1017.] When king Cnute had established things, as he thought stood most for his suertie, he called to his remembrance, that he had no issue but two bastard sonnes Harold and Sweno, begotten of his concubine Alwine. Wherefore he sent ouer to Richard duke of Normandie, requiring to haue queene Emma, the widow of king Egelred in mariage, and so obteined hir, not a little to the woonder of manie, which thought ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (7 of 8) - The Seventh Boke of the Historie of England • Raphael Holinshed

... 1828, in the prime of life; and, by an intrigue in his harem, a concubine, Ranavalo, was proclaimed Queen of Madagascar. The advance had been too rapid, and, as in Japan, there was a large party of conservatives anxious to return to the old regime. The new queen dissembled for a few years, but finally expelled the missionaries in 1835. Idolatry was again resumed, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various

... ministers and his references to "stone churches," or "churches of stone and mortar," have many parallels in Boehme. Dinah of the Old Testament, for example, is "nothing else but a figure of our stone churches and our colleges with their ministers!" and Jacob's concubine, again, "signifieth nothing else but the stone churches in which God's word ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones

... his brothers wife. To be short, after the death of their husbands, the Tartars wiues vse very seldome to marrie the second time, vnlesse perhaps some man takes his brothers wife or his stepmother in marriage. They make no difference betweene the sonne of their wife and of their concubine, but the father giues what he pleaseth vnto each one: [Sidenote: Melich and Dauid two brothers.] For of late the king of Georgia hauing two sonnes, one lawfully begotten call Melich; but the other Dauid, borne in adulterie, at his death left part ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt

... by giving his own name, that of his mother, and so on in the female line. Moreover, if a free woman marry a man who is a slave, their children are free citizens; but if a free man marry a foreign woman, or cohabit with a concubine, even though he be the first person in the state, the children ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas

... century is dominated by the figure of the Dowager Empress Wu, the prototype of the celebrated lady who took charge of China's fate in our own day and, like her, superhuman in decision and unscrupulousness, yet capable of inspiring loyalty. She was a concubine of the Emperor Tai Tsung and when he died in 649 lived for a short time as a Buddhist nun. The eventful life of Wu Hou, who was at least successful in maintaining order at home and on the frontiers, belongs to the history of China rather than of ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot

... of the world; here is Lot, that lay with both his daughters; here is Abraham, that was sometime an idolater; and Jacob, that was a supplanter; and Reuben, that lay with his father's concubine; and Judah, that lay with his daughter-in-law; and Levi and Simeon, that wickedly slew the Shechemites; and Aaron, that made an idol to be worshipped, and that proclaimed a religious feast unto it. Here is also Rahab the harlot, and Bathsheba, that bare a bastard to David. Here is Solomon, that ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... serving-woman named Herkia,[90] who had been his concubine. She informed Atli that she had seen Thiodrek and Gudrun together; whereat Atli was much afflicted. ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson

... I have spoken of Erelieva as the unwedded wife of Theudemir. The Gothic historian calls her his concubine,[16] but this word of reproach hardly does justice to her position. In many of the Teutonic nations, as among the Norsemen of a later century, there seems to have been a certain laxity as to the marriage rite, which was nevertheless ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin

... pardon and safe conduct, with money for their charges. I desired them to make no one privy to their intended departure, and particularly not to let it be known to their slaves or concubines, each of them having a concubine, a child, and a slave, and to leave all their goods behind, except things of great value, such as gold coin and precious stones. They had a very fine diamond of 32 carats, reckoned to be worth 35,000 crowns; a pearl of 24 carats; 2000 rubies, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr

... well tell you," Lasse interrupted. "He called me Madam Olsen's concubine—from the Bible story, ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... all the anger of love. I ask myself, Where is he? Perhaps he is talking to other women. They smile upon him; he approaches. Oh no; no one else pleases you. There are some more beautiful, but I love you best. I know how to love best. I am your servant, your concubine! You are my king, my idol! You are good, you are beautiful, you are ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert

... progeny was primarily the cause. It is notable that although the line between nobles and commoners was strictly drawn and rigidly observed, it did not extend to marriage in one sense: a nobleman could always take a wife or a concubine from the family of an inferior. In fact, orders were commonly issued to this or that province to furnish so many ladies-in-waiting (uneme)—a term having deeper significance than it suggests—and several instances are recorded of sovereigns ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... having triumphed over the Spanish Mussulmans, had taken the sister of the Caliph of Cordova as a concubine, and had had one daughter by her, whom he brought up in the teachings of Christ. But the Caliph, feigning that he wished to become converted, made him a visit, and brought with him a numerous escort. He slaughtered the entire garrison and threw the Emperor into a dungeon, and treated him with ...
— Three short works - The Dance of Death, The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller, A Simple Soul. • Gustave Flaubert

... proud hand of Sultan, emir, cadi, prince, had this huge ruby burned? On what beloved breast or brow of princess, nautch-girl, concubine—yes, maybe of slave exalted to the ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England

... and dinna be so fashed," cried a silver-tongued madam, the which my grandfather afterwards found, as I shall have to rehearse, was his concubine, the Mrs ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... vows she had to observe them until the end of her days. If she married, as she might do to obtain the legal status of a married woman and enjoy the privileges of that position, she denied her husband conjugal rites, but provided him with a concubine who might bear him children, as Sarah did to Abraham. These nuns must not be confused with the unmoral women who were associated with the temples of Ishtar and other love goddesses of ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie

... Shang is Hsieh, who has already been mentioned. The mother of Hsieh was a daughter of the House of the ancient state of Sung, and a concubine of the ancient ruler Khu (B.C. 2435). According to Mao, she accompanied Khu, at the time of the vernal equinox, when the swallow made its appearance, to sacrifice and pray to the first match-maker, and the result was the birth of Hsieh. Sze-ma Khien and Kang make Hsieh's birth more marvellous:—The ...
— The Shih King • James Legge

... slew or slew not—thou Hast no remembrance of them left thee now. Even therefore may we stand assured of this: What lip soever lure his lip to kiss, Past question—else were he nor mine nor thine - This boy would spurn a Scythian concubine. ...
— Locrine - A Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... Chi-sun, one of the three great houses of Lu, who had grasped all power in the state. The others were Meng-sun and Shu-sun. They were all descended from Duke Huan by a concubine. ...
— The Sayings Of Confucius • Confucius

... were reckoned hers. She remained mistress of her maid and might degrade her to slavery again for insolence, but could not sell her if she had borne her husband children. If the wife did this, the Code did not allow the husband to take a concubine. If she would not, he could do so. The concubine was a wife, though not of the same rank; the first wife had no power over her. A concubine was a free woman, was often dowered for marriage and her children ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various

... only child his blessing only. And this he did in London, where his simple mind was all abroad, and he knew not church from chapel. He took his daughter for the wife of a lord, and so she took herself, poor thing! when she was but his concubine. In 1809 such tricks were easily played by villains upon young girls ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore

... smiling, "You see, Gwynplaine, to dream is to create; to desire is to summon. To build up the chimera is to provoke the reality. The all-powerful and terrible mystery will not be defied. It produces result. You are here. Do I dare to lose caste? Yes. Do I dare to be your mistress—your concubine—your slave—your chattel? Joyfully. Gwynplaine, I am woman. Woman is clay longing to become mire. I want to despise myself. That lends a zest to pride. The alloy of greatness is baseness. They combine in perfection. Despise me, you who are despised. Nothing can be better. Degradation ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... it, who cast loving eyes upon them. Awang, however, cared little for this, for, by the irony of that Fate which always directs that men should fall in love with the wrong women, and vice versa, his heart was eaten up with a fiery desire for a girl who was a jamah-jamah-an, or casual concubine of the King, and who resolutely declined to have ought to do with him. Nevertheless, the moth still fluttered around the candle, and Awang never missed an opportunity of catching a passing glimpse of the object of his longing. ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford

... many nationalities circulated in the veins of Baron Leonard. The Defterdar himself was a Turk of Roumelian origin, whose only son was the child of his Hindu concubine. He again married the daughter of a Polish countess at the court of Vienna. The wife of Baron Leonard's father was a wallachized Hungarian lady, whom he married for her wealth. It was not wonderful, therefore, if the noble baron possessed the ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai

... arrived at Paris with the intention of soliciting, in public, the administration of the sacrament to the King, and secretly retarding it as much as possible. The ceremony could not take place without the previous and public expulsion of the, concubine, according to the canons of the Church and the Jesuitical party, of which Christopher was the leader. This party, which had made use of Madame du Barry to suppress the Parliaments, to support the Duc d'Aiguillon, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... position of the wife and that of the concubine is marked. The legitimate wife is to the handmaid as a lord is to his vassal. Concubinage being a legitimate institution, the son of a handmaid is no bastard, nor is he in any way the child of shame; and yet, ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford

... country was then governed by three brothers, named Sigurd, Inge, and Eystein, sons of the late King Harrold Gille. Between the first two, a serious quarrel happened to rage. For a Norwegian nobleman having murdered the brother of Sigurd's favourite concubine, and then entered the service of Inge, the latter shielded his client against the punishment ...
— Pope Adrian IV - An Historical Sketch • Richard Raby

... every now and then they were in the habit of bringing the image forth and kissing it fervently. (102) Of such idolaters were the vain and light fellows who helped Abimelech, the son of Gideon by his concubine from Shechem, to assassinate the other sons of his father. But God is just. As Abimelech murdered his brothers upon a stone, so Abimelech himself met his death through a millstone. It was proper, then, that Jotham, in ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... of the church was accompanied with dignity. The reigns of those princes who derived their extraction from the Asiatic provinces, proved the most favorable to the Christians; the eminent persons of the sect, instead of being reduced to implore the protection of a slave or concubine, were admitted into the palace in the honorable characters of priests and philosophers; and their mysterious doctrines, which were already diffused among the people, insensibly attracted the curiosity of their sovereign. When the empress Mammaea passed through Antioch, she expressed a desire ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... himself, having divested me of old age, should promise that he would render me a blooming youth, such as I was when first I quitted fair-damed Hellas, flying the contentions of my father Amyntor, son of Ormenus; who was enraged with me on account of a fair-haired concubine whom he himself loved, but dishonoured his wife, my mother. But she continually would embrace my knees in supplication, that I should first have connection with the concubine, that she might loathe the old man. Her I obeyed, and did so; but my father immediately perceiving it, uttered many ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer

... has lived in sin with a concubine, by whom he has two children; and on this adulterous connection he has spent more than five hundred thousand francs, which ought to have been the property of his ...
— A Second Home • Honore de Balzac

... Germany, and elsewhere, in the tenth and eleventh centuries. Of course the Church refused to sanction the marriage of its officials and called the wife of a clergyman, however virtuous and faithful she might be, by the opprobrious name of "concubine." ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson

... did I see him and Apame the king's concubine, the daughter of the admirable Bartacus, sitting at the ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous

... century, i.e. the forced burying; but voluntary sepulture remained in force [Yu chi wen]. Notwithstanding this prohibition, cases of forced burying occurred again in remote parts of Manchuria; when a concubine refused to follow her deceased master, she was forcibly strangled with a bow-string [Ninguta chi]. I must observe, however, that there is no mention made in historical documents of the existence ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... sixteen fabliaux, partly historiettes of men and beasts and partly apologues proper—a subject already noticed. We have then (iii. 162) the saddening and dreary love-tale of Ali bin Bakkar, a Persian youth and the Caliph's concubine Shams al-Nahar. Here the end is made doleful enough by the deaths of the "two martyrs," who are killed off, like Romeo and Juliet,[FN288] a lesson that the course of true Love is sometimes troubled and that men as well as women can die ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton

... with impunity the noblest blood of Rome; he perished as soon as he was dreaded by his own domestics. A cup of drugged wine, delivered by his favourite concubine, plunged him in a deep sleep. At the instigation of Laetus, his Praetorian prefect, a robust youth was admitted into his chamber, and strangled him without resistance. With secrecy and celerity the conspirators sought out Pertinax, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... Abner disputed with him in vain. In the protracted feud between the houses of Saul and David, the fortunes of war declared themselves ever increasingly for the latter. Personal causes at last brought matters to a crisis. Abner, by taking to himself a concubine of Saul's called Rizpah, had roused Ishbaal's suspicions that he was aiming at the inheritance, and was challenged on the point. This proved too much for his patience, and forthwith he abandoned the cause ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen

... appreciated its practical evils, and had no scruple in recommending concubinage as a preventive, which, though scandalous in itself, might serve to prevent greater scandals." In districts it became customary to require a new parish priest to take a concubine.[494] "This was the inversion which the popular opinion had undergone in four centuries."[495] "The principles of the church led irrevocably to the conclusion, paradoxical as it may seem, that he who was ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... mind; superior, in her own opinion, to all her sex; full of pertness, gaiety, and pride; not without some agreeable accomplishments, but far from being either beautiful or genteel;... happy in the thoughts of being reported Swift's concubine, but still aiming and intending to be his ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... empire when Commodus was fourteen and Commodus attained to absolute power when Marcus died. Subsequently, Commodus became the epitome of all that was basest and worst in a ruler. He was murdered by the treachery of Marcia, his favorite concubine, and the Senate decreed that "his body should be dragged with a hook into the stripping room of the gladiators, to satiate the public fury." [Footnote: Decline and ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams

... succeeded, and reigned in the monstrous manner which has rendered his name infamous in history. In what way, however, he lost the affections of the army, has never been explained. His mother, Sooemias, the eldest daughter of Moesa, had represented herself as the concubine of Caracalla; and Heliogabalus, being thus accredited as the son of that emperor, whose memory was dear to the soldiery, had enjoyed the full benefit of that descent, nor can it be readily explained how he ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey

... the Viaticum. He compiled an introduction to the New Testament for the use of the clergy, called upon them to abandon their obligations of celibacy, and set them an example by taking as his wife a woman who had been for years his concubine. He and his followers, supported by the majority of the Grand Council, went through the city destroying altars, pictures, statues, organs, and confessionals, and erecting in place of the altars plain tables with a plate for bread and a vessel for wine. The Catholic ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey

... Danaper, which the Huns call in their own tongue the Var. Thereupon he sent a messenger of good tidings to his brother Thiudimer, and on the very day the messenger arrived he found even greater joy in the house of Thiudimer. For on that day his son Theodoric was born, of a concubine Erelieva indeed, and yet a child of ...
— The Origin and Deeds of the Goths • Jordanes

... the Barbarians had been laid low by the Hellenes at Plataia, there approached to these a woman, the concubine of Pharandates the son of Teaspis a Persian, coming over of her own free will from the enemy, who when she perceived that the Persians had been destroyed and that the Hellenes were the victors, descended from her carriage and came up to the Lacedemonians while they were yet ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus

... parts of Wessex, from Kent, from Essex, from Sussex, and they all unite in their demand that you should submit to the Church, and put away (forgive me for repeating their words) your concubine." ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... second son, died a natural death;[19] so also did his only son; and so also Daniyal, the fourth son of the Emperor.[20] Nur Jahan's daughter by Sher Afgan had married Shahryar, a young son of the Emperor by a concubine; and, just before his death he (the Emperor), at the instigation of Nur Jahan, named this son as his successor in his will. He was placed upon the throne, and put in possession of the treasury, and at the head of a respectable army;[21] but the ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... a man has determined to divorce a concubine who has borne him children, or a votary who has granted him children, he shall return to that woman her marriage-portion, and shall give her the usufruct of field, garden, and goods, to bring up her children. ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns

... Boulogne, fell to Chilperic's share, but on the death of Charibert in 567 his estates were augmented. When his brother Sigebert married Brunhilda, Chilperic also wished to make a brilliant marriage. He had already repudiated his first wife, Audovera, and had taken as his concubine a serving-woman called Fredegond. He accordingly dismissed Fredegond, and married Brunhilda's sister, Galswintha. But he soon tired of his new partner, and one morning Galswintha was found strangled in her bed. A few days ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... attorney for several other properties. In England he was a religious man, and intimately acquainted with the eccentric Irving. For a while after he came out he preached to the slaves, but having taken a black concubine, and treating those under his charge oppressively, he soon obtained a bad character among the blacks, and his meetings were deserted. He is now a most passionate and wicked man, having cast off even ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... the Persian monarch noted and resented the interference with territories which he had some right to consider his own; whether he took any steps to revenge himself is doubtful. According to some, he required Amasis to send him one of his daughters as a concubine, an insult which the Egyptian king escaped by finesse while he appeared to ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson

... years, God determining it to the length that Moses happened to live. Now Nahor had eight sons by Milcha; Uz and Buz, Kemuel, Chesed, Azau, Pheldas, Jadelph, and Bethuel. These were all the genuine sons of Nahor; for Teba, and Gaam, and Tachas, and Maaca, were born of Reuma his concubine: but Bethuel had a daughter, Rebecca, ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... only go free by deserting his wife and his own children and leaving them in slavery (Ex. xxi. 1-6). It was under these circumstances that God taught that a man might sell his daughter to be a "maid servant" (the translator's euphemism for concubine), and that, "if she please not her master" she may be bought back again, or if he "take him another" (translator supplying "wife" as throwing an air of respectability over the transaction) she may go free (Ibid. 7-11). It was under ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant

... with his money; he does not give twenty francs a year to his grandchildren. As for borrowing the money, I should have to get his signature, and he would refuse it. I have not even attempted to speak to your brother, who lives with a concubine, to whom he is a slave. It is pitiable to see how the poor man is treated in his own home, when he might have a sister and nephews to ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... more than one wife acknowledged as secondary in status or a mere concubine slave to help in domestic duties while giving pleasure to the head of the family, but there was early a social demand for one chief wife whose offspring should inherit the family power. Although even in this fixed demand there were loopholes ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer

... famous Sermon on Conscience, was really the work of Bentley; but Sterne has pilfered more freely from a divine more famous as a preacher than the great scholar whose words he appropriated on that occasion. "Then shame and grief go with her," he exclaims in his singular sermon on "The Levite and his Concubine;" "and wherever she seeks a shelter may the hand of Justice shut the door against her!" an exclamation which is taken, as, no doubt, indeed, was the whole suggestion of the somewhat strange subject, from the Contemplations of ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill

... up her abode in the family of her husband she was attended by a daughter of her brother, who was, in fact, a concubine. Her brother considered that if he did not give up his daughter for this purpose, he should fail in duty and respect towards his sister, and incur the displeasure of their household god. Failing her brother, ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner

... remarkable effect of Christianity among those who have come to think with us," Uchimura told me afterwards, "is seen most in their treatment of women. Our host, had he not been a Christian, would have been credited by public opinion with the possession of a concubine, and would not have been blamed for it." When, after the speaking, we knelt in a circle and talked less formally of how best to benefit rural people, we were joined by the women folk. Later, when a dozen ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott

... "darest thou think, Moslem, that Richard would give his kinswoman—a high-born and virtuous princess—to be, at best, the foremost concubine in the haram of a misbeliever? Know, Hakim, the meanest free Christian noble would scorn, on his child's ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... sons of Jacob to lusts unnatural fell, And into Egypt did they their brother sell. Laban to idols gave faithful reverence, Dinah was corrupt through Shechem's violence. Reuben abused his father's concubine, Judah got children of his own daughter-in-law: Yea, she in my sight went after a wicked line. His seed Onan spilt, his brother's name to withdraw. Achan lived here without all godly awe. And now the children of Israel abuse my power In ...
— Everyman and Other Old Religious Plays, with an Introduction • Anonymous

... of France, led for some time a very dissolute life, but was touched by an extraordinary grace upon the birth of his son Sigebert {335} and from that time entirely converted to God. Bagnetrude, our saint's mother, is only styled the concubine of Dagobert, though he was publicly married to her. The father desiring to have his son baptized by the most holy prelate of his dominions, recalled St. Amand, bishop of Masstricht, whom he had banished for his zeal in reproving his vices, fell at his feet at Clichi, ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... of France and of other nations; to which came Spaniards, Cyprians, and Armenians, knightly requesting ayde of the king of England against the Pagans, that invaded their confines. The 48th of Edward III., Dame Alice Perrers, or Pierce, (the king's concubine,) as lady of the Sunne, rode from the Tower of London through Cheape, accompanied of many lords and ladies, every lady leading a lord by his horse bridle, till they came into West Smithfield, and then began a great just, which endured seven daies after.—In the 14th of Richard II., ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Volume 12, No. 329, Saturday, August 30, 1828 • Various

... and hitherto trusting wife immediately rose to the dignity of outraged womanhood and insulted wifehood and compelled the polygamist to choose at once between her and the concubine. He did so, choosing the younger woman and leaving her who ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan

... the fairest of my chattels, and this be the purse on a charger of gold, and this mare is the purest in blood of my steeds together with her housings, so do thou take whatever thou desirest thereof, either the mare with all upon her or the purse of gold or the concubine," presently saying to himself, "If the young man prefer the purse, 'twill prove he loveth the world and I will slay him, also if he choose the girl, he lusteth after womankind, and I will do him die: but if he take the mare ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... tributary to the sultan of Housa, and is chosen by the inhabitants of Timbuctoo, who write to the king of Housa for his approbation. Upon the death of a sultan, his eldest son is most commonly chosen. The son of a concubine cannot inherit the throne; if the king has no lawful son (son of his wife) at his decease, the people choose his successor from among his relations. The sultan has only one lawful wife, but keeps many concubines: the wife has a separate house for herself, ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny

... harlot* and a kind; *a low fellow A better fellow should a man not find. He woulde suffer, for a quart of wine, A good fellow to have his concubine A twelvemonth, and excuse him at the full. Full privily a *finch eke could he pull*. *"fleece" a man* And if he found owhere* a good fellaw, *anywhere He woulde teache him to have none awe In such a case of the archdeacon's curse; *But if* ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... her and her children, and was living with a concubine all that time! Why should a person attempt to write biography when the simplest facts have no meaning to him? This book is littered with as crass stupidities as that one—deductions by the page which bear no ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... O, the sweetest face that ever I beheld! I know she is a courtezan by her attire: now would I give a hundred of the Jew's crowns that I had such a concubine. Well, I have deliver'd the challenge in such sort, As meet they will, and ...
— The Jew of Malta • Christopher Marlowe

... noble one. "Marriage is the union of a man and a woman and a partnership of all life; a mutual sharing of laws human and divine."[52] The power of the husband over the wife was called manus; and the wife stood in the same position as a daughter.[53] No husband was allowed to have a concubine.[54] He was bound to support his wife adequately, look out for her interests,[55] and strictly to avenge any insult or injury offered her[56]; any abusive treatment of the wife by the husband was punished by an action ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker

... David nineteen men and of them of Benjamin three hundred and sixty were slain, and thus there was long strife and contention between the house of David and the house of Ishbosheth. After this Abner took a concubine of Saul and held her, wherefore Ishbosheth reproved him of it and Abner was wroth greatly thereof; and came to David and made friendship with him. Joab was not there when Abner made his peace with David; but when he knew it he came to Abner ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells



Words linked to "Concubine" :   odalisque, doxy, kept woman, courtesan



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