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Despoil   Listen
noun
despoil  n.  Spoil. (Obs.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Despoil" Quotes from Famous Books



... keen sense of humor, I think. The way she modeled some of these hills proves that she loves her little jokes. I have seen where she cut deep, fearsome gashes, with sides precipitous, as though she had some priceless treasure hidden away in the deep, where man cannot despoil it. And if you plot and plan, and try very hard, you may reach the bottom at last and find the treasure—nothing. Or, perhaps, a tiny little stream, as jealously guarded as though each ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower

... If the Mongols, for instance, should despoil China of all its moveable property with the exception of its buried money, its immovable property would become productive only from the time that that money would be used to secure other moveable articles. In any case, the production would be proportioned only to the borrowed seed, cattle, ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher

... the mob was marching upon them to despoil and murder and put them into the wilderness. But now God had nerved and strengthened them to defend the walls of Zion, even against a mighty nation. And as a token of His favour and His wish, here was a ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson

... earnest,' it is not at all hard for me to go without the coffee and the tobacco and the loaf. Above all, I do not lose my self-respect or touch my pride when I go without the coffee and the tobacco and the loaf. And now, mademoiselle, since it is our scheme to rout my lady enemy in the morning, we will despoil her of her triumph now by not caring for her or it, and by snapping ...
— The Romance Of Giovanni Calvotti - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray

... vandalism than private property. Some people will mar the walls of public buildings, or make their floors filthy with expectoration, when they would not think of doing so in private buildings. They will break shrubbery in public parks, or despoil public flower beds, when they would not think of entering private premises for such purpose. There seems to be a feeling that public property belongs to no one, or else that, since it is public, any one is at liberty to do as ...
— Community Civics and Rural Life • Arthur W. Dunn

... Edward's wife, Who, in conjunction with that harlot Shore, And other like confed'rate midnight hags, By force of potent spells, of bloody characters, And conjurations horrible to hear, Call fiends and spectres from the yawning deep, And set the ministers of hell at work, To torture and despoil ...
— Jane Shore - A Tragedy • Nicholas Rowe

... but in heart a deer! When wert thou known in ambush'd fights to dare, Or nobly face the horrid front of war? 'Tis ours, the chance of fighting fields to try; Thine to look on, and bid the valiant die: So much 'tis safer through the camp to go, And rob a subject, than despoil a foe. Scourge of thy people, violent and base! Sent in Jove's anger on a slavish race; Who, lost to sense of generous freedom past, Are tamed to wrongs;—or this had been thy last. Now by this sacred sceptre hear me swear, Which never more shall leaves or blossoms bear, Which sever'd ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer

... us give them the points of our lances; for one whom we run through, three will jump out of their saddles; and Ramon Berenguer will then see whom he has overtaken to-day in the pine-forest of Tebar, thinking to despoil him of the booty which I have won from the enemies of God and ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various

... of comparative depression, Assyria once more started forward, and Babylonia was among the first of her neighbors whom she proceeded to chastise and despoil. About the year B.C. 880 Asshur-izir-pal led an expedition to the south-east and recovered the territory which, had been occupied by the Babylonians during the period of weakness. Thirty years later, his son, the Black-Obelisk king, made the power ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson

... about to take an inspiration, he is sure to make a (previous) expiration; when he is going to weaken another, he will first strengthen him; when he is going to overthrow another, he will first have raised him up; when he is going to despoil another, he will first have made gifts to him:—this is called 'Hiding ...
— Tao Teh King • Lao-Tze

... race, the state, and the family run the gravest danger. Yet this problem to-day, in the unmeasured exhilaration with which riches and power intoxicate the European-American civilization, is considered with the superficial frivolity and the voluble dilettantism that despoil or confuse all the great problems of esthetics, philosophy, statesmanship, and morality. We live in the midst of what might be called the Saturnalia of the world's history; and in the midst of the ...
— The Women of the Caesars • Guglielmo Ferrero

... manion wherein the Prince and Mubarak abode; and he, when he heard of their lavish gifts and alms deeds, and honourable report, smitten by envy and malice and hatred, fell to devising how he might draw them into some calamity that might despoil the goods they enjoyed and destroy their lives, for it is the wont of envy to fall not save upon the fortunate. So one day of the days, as he lingered in the Mosque after mid-afternoon prayer, he came forwards amidst the folk and cried, "O ye, my brethren of the Faith which is true and who ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... and I hear the screaming of the robins, I seize my gun and rush out to protect them, but am not always successful, as the mischief is often done before I get within reach; I am not sure but that the robins think—if they think at all—that I am in league with the crows to despoil them. I was not in time to save the eggs of the wood thrush the other morning, when I heard the alarm calls of the birds, but I had the satisfaction of seeing the black marauder go limping over the ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs

... pleasure of recognising several fields of glory with which I became well acquainted a year or two ago as Crimean battles, now doing duty as Mexican victories. The change was neatly effected by some extra smoking of the Russians, and by permitting the camp followers free range in the foreground to despoil the enemy of their uniforms. As no British troops had ever happened to be within sight when the artist took his original sketches, it followed fortunately that none were ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... hard to keep plodding along the narrow path, when fields of wealth and power stretch away on either side, but, happily for us, these are about all fenced in, even the great Sahara desert is fenced in. We cannot be tyrants if we would, nor can we despoil our fellows for they are as poor as we. Our road is made smooth before us. God has not led us into temptation. We ought then to come nearer than other peoples to a Christian life, to that better community, where one half ...
— A Comparative Study of the Negro Problem - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 4 • Charles C. Cook

... pretensions only, without being of the true ministry. The other, only having duties to fulfill without expectations and almost without income. . . can be recruited only from the lowest ranks of civil society," while the parasites who despoil the laborers "affect to subjugate them and to degrade them more and more." "I pity," said Voltaire, "the lot of a country curate, obliged to contend for a sheaf of wheat with his unfortunate parishioner, to plead against him, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... by the help of a crutch, were hanged in this same Bloomsbury Square. As the cart was about to glide from under them, it was observed that they stood with their faces from, not to, the house they had assisted to despoil; and their misery was protracted that this omission might be remedied. Another boy was hanged in Bow Street; other young lads in various quarters of the town. Four wretched women, too, were put to death. ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... territory of the Empire was also guaranteed. These flat contradictions indicate something like panic on both sides, and duplicity at least on one and probably on both, for Thugut's correspondence indicates his firm purpose to despoil and destroy Venice. In any case Austria obtained the longed-for mainland of Venice as far as the river Oglio, together with Istria and Dalmatia, the Venetian dependencies beyond the Adriatic, while Venice herself was to be nominally indemnified by the receipt of the three papal ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... a traitor in your dream, foretells you will have enemies working to despoil you. If some one calls you one, or if you imagine yourself one, there will be unfavorable ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... and, although many of these men have betrayed the interests of their order to gain popularity, there reigns among them a connection so much the more intimate as they almost all of them dread the efforts of the people to despoil them of their possessions, and, moreover, they are creditors, and therefore interested in strengthening the government, and watching over ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand

... it, there is no form of property that inspires a sense of ownership so jealous as solitude. Rob my orchard if you will, but beware how you despoil me of my silence. The average noisy person can have no conception what a brutal form of trespass his coarsely cheerful voice may be in the exquisite spiritual hush of the woods, or what shattering discomfort his ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne

... revenues. But they, being more religious, perhaps, than Charles Martel, or more impressed with the importance of humoring the priestly power, were more vexed and more anxious about the necessity under which they found themselves of continuing to despoil the churches and of persisting in a system which was putting the finishing stroke to the ruin of all ecclesiastical discipline. They were more eager to mitigate the evil and to offer the Church compensation for their share in this ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various

... now they only wait some fair pretext For setting loose their savage warrior hordes, To scourge and ravage this devoted land, To lord it o'er us with the victor's rights, And, 'neath the show of lawful chastisement, Despoil us of our ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller

... sold, either to Mahometans or Gentiles; that the pearl fishing should only be in the hands of Christians, and that nothing should be taken from them, without paying them the due value; that the king of Cochin should not be suffered to despoil or oppress the baptized Indians; and, last of all, that if Sosa had not already revenged the murder of the Christians in Manar, who were massacred by the king of Jafanatapan's command, Castro, who succeeded in his place, should not fail ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden

... and the traitor, The wolfcub and the snake, The robber, swindler, hater, Are in your homes—awake! Nor let the cunning foeman Despoil your liberty; Yield weapon up to no man, While ye can strike and see, Awake, each gallant yeoman, If still ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... calculated the utmost that he could earn, he assumed certain advances, he added up and with the help of his optimism he swelled his prospective receipts, yet not sufficiently to satisfy his creditors. He groaned, for he did not wish to sell at a loss what he had acquired with such difficulty, despoil himself, strip himself bare like a St. John;—then his energy reawoke and his self-confidence enabled him to accept the hard test. He consented to give up his horses,—for whose feed he was still owing, since he could not feed them on poetry, as he humorously wrote to Mme. de Girardin,—and ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet

... the hill, the fires of the King's army shone with red light, and some way off on the other side twinkled those of the Parliamentary forces. Glimmering lanterns or torches moved about the battlefield, those of the savage plunderers who crept about to despoil the dead. Whether the battle were won or lost, the father and son knew not, and the guard who watched them knew as little. Lord Lindsay himself murmured, 'If it please God I should survive, I never will fight in the same field with boys ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge

... "crib" in their study of the original tongue. Some readers will watch their opportunity, and mutilate a book by cutting out plates or a map, to please their fancy, or perhaps to make up a defective copy of the same work. Those consulting bound files of newspapers will ruthlessly despoil them by cutting out articles or correspondence, or advertisements, and carrying off the stolen extracts, to save themselves the trouble of copying. Others, bolder still, if not more unscrupulous, will deliberately ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford

... different allowances of 15,000 pounds and of 10,000 pounds were moved for Mr. Gibbon; but, on the question being put, it was carried without a division for the smaller sum. On these ruins, with the skill and credit, of which parliament had not been able to despoil him, my grandfather at a mature age erected the edifice of a new fortune: the labours of sixteen years were amply rewarded; and I have reason to believe that the second structure was not much inferior to the first. He had realized ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon

... enemy is spoil of war, and it is always allowable to confiscate it if possible. However, in the old days there was not much plunder. Before the coming of the white man, there was in fact little temptation or opportunity to despoil the enemy; but in modern times the practice of "stealing horses" from hostile tribes has become common, and is ...
— The Soul of the Indian - An Interpretation • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... 20 years at the galleys. I think this a very improbable derivation, and unnecessary withal. Aristotle of old, as before stated, ranked gamesters 'with thieves and plunderers, who for the sake of gain do not scruple to despoil their best friends.' We afterwards find them bearing just as bad a character among the Romans. ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... put out our light!— Our brilliant and duplicate light! What did FERGUSSON say, blandly beaming Upon the tired House t'other night? He said he would make it all right. Ah, we safely may trust to his scheming— Be sure he will lead us aright— He won't let the damsel there dreaming Despoil us of what is our right— The monopoly ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, April 2, 1892 • Various

... Indeed, it rested entirely with him to say whether there should be any such thing as mercy at all—and until he chose to utter the restraining word the rout of the vanquished would go on with multiplying terrors and ruin. He could crush and torture and despoil his enemies until he was tired. The responsibility of having to decide when he would stop grinding their faces might come to weigh upon him later on, but he would not give it room in ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic

... eating grass on the burn-side in the moonlight. Christian and Sercombe had stalked him day after day, but without success. And now, with one poor remaining hope, the latter had determined to stalk him at night. To despoil him of his life, his glorious rush over the mountain side, his plunge into the valley, and fierce strain up the opposing hill; to see that ideal of strength, suppleness, and joyous flight, lie nerveless and flaccid ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald

... exalted virtues. He was the most successful and the most admired of all the monarchs who reigned at Jerusalem. He was one of the greatest and best men who ever lived in any nation or at any period. "When, before or since, has there lived an outlaw who did not despoil his country?" Where has there reigned a king whose head was less giddy on a throne, or who retained more humility in the midst of riches and glories, unless it were Marcus Aurelius or Alfred the Great? David had an inborn aptitude for government, and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord

... in view. The success of it depends upon the fact that every one is not so capable of rising, that the rank and file must be in the background, forming the material out of which the successful man makes his combinations, and whom he contrives to despoil. ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson

... at bottom an illiterate peasant with the old roots of serfdom still clinging to him, has seldom any bowels for his neighbor and none at all for his employer. "God Himself commands us to despoil such gentry," is one of his sayings. He is in a hurry to enrich himself, and he cares about nothing else. Nor can he realize that to beggar his neighbors is to impoverish himself. Hence he always takes and ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... coast, and had erected forts and factories wherever it seemed advisable for the purpose of defense and trade. The Dutch merchants and sailors turned their dangerous situation into an opportunity to despoil the weakened Portuguese of their forts ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various

... Groa, Bess proceeded and learnt that the road was beset by two robbers. These he slew simply by charging them as they rushed covetously forth to despoil him. This done, loth to seem to have done any service to the soil of an enemy, he put timbers under the carcases of the slain, fastened them thereto, and stretched them so as to counterfeit an upright ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... flowers, tempted her brother's languid appetite; and, waking the soft notes of her lute, she soothed his desponding spirit with music's gentlest sound. Fondly trusting that Francesco might be won to prize the simple enjoyments of which fortune could not despoil him, and to find his dearest happiness in an approving conscience, the light hearted girl indulged in delusive hopes of future felicity. But these expectations were soon damped; as Francesco's ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 264, July 14, 1827 • Various

... were the attacks of Vitovt of Lithuania, Vassili's father-in-law, who marched three times against Moscow. Both Vitovt and Vassili were indisposed to risk a decisive battle, fearing that, if defeated, their enemies would despoil them. In 1408 a treaty was signed whereby the Ouger was made the frontier between them. This gave Smolensk to ...
— The Story of Russia • R. Van Bergen

... confidence in female virtue or capacity. And woman lost all her fascination when age had destroyed her beauty. Even her very virtues were distasteful to her self-indulgent husband. And whenever she gained the ascendency by her charms, she was tyrannical. Her relations incited her to despoil her husband. She lived amid incessant broils. She had no care for the future, and exceeded men in prodigality. "The government of her house is no more merciful," says Juvenal, "than the court of a Sicilian ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... he; "those brutes whom I have guided are fighting to give me leisure to despoil the sands of some of that precious gold. Who is to prevent me presently, when daylight appears, from picking up as much as I can carry without betraying my secret? This time, it will not be as when along with ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid

... said the Grand Master, "I tell thee it is better to be bedridden, than to accept the benefit of unbelievers' medicine that thou mayest arise and walk; better to despoil infidels of their treasure by the strong hand, than to accept of them benevolent gifts, or do them service for wages. Go thou, and do as I ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... Let him gloat over his diamonds while yet he had opportunity. He would not despoil him of his treasures, but he could not give up his scheme of vengeance. It should be brought about ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask

... Commission on the New Orleans Riots, Charles W. Gibbons testified that when the war broke out, the Confederacy called on all free people to do something for the seceding States, and if they did not a committee was appointed to look after them, to rob, kill, and despoil their property. Gibbons himself was advised by a policeman to enlist on the Confederate side or be lynched. This accounts for the seeming disloyalty of these free men of color.[94] The first victories of the South made their leaders ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... field!" Siddartha said, "Who turn your tender faces to the sun— Glad of the light, and grateful with sweet breath Of fragrance and these robes of reverence donned Silver and gold and purple—none of ye Miss perfect living, none of ye despoil Your happy beauty. O, ye palms, which rise Eager to pierce the sky and drink the wind Blown from Malaya and the cool blue seas, What secret know ye that ye grow content, From time of tender shoot to time of fruit, Murmuring such sun-songs from your feathered crowns? ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold

... rose from a successful plunge, with a plump captive writhing in his grasp, all appearance of indifference would vanish, and some dark-plumaged pirate of the lagoon, pouncing down like lightning upon his unwarlike neighbour, would ruthlessly despoil him of his hard-earned prize. One of these piratical gentry suffered before our eyes a fate worthy of his rapacity. A gannet had seized upon a fish much larger than his strength enabled him to manage, and ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer

... into three classes: the sporting fraternity, whose business it was to despoil and betray; the business men, drawn more or less into the vortex of dissipation; the miners from the creeks, the Man with the Poke, here to-day, gone, to-morrow, and of them all the most worthy of respect. He was the prop and mainstay ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service

... the proposed plan, or anything in the nature of that plan, simply license for the materially unsuccessful to despoil ...
— War Taxation - Some Comments and Letters • Otto H. Kahn

... him? The heretic Lord James may take on him to dispone upon the goods and lands of the Halidome at his pleasure, because, doubtless, but for the protection of God, and the baronage which yet remain faithful to their creed, he may despoil us of them by force; but while they are the property of the Community, we may not take steadings from ancient and faithful vassals, to gratify the covetousness of those who serve God only from the ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... judged let him be brought To judgement! blood for blood cries from the soil 2000 On which his crimes have deep pollution wrought! Shall Othman only unavenged despoil? Shall they who by the stress of grinding toil Wrest from the unwilling earth his luxuries, Perish for crime, while his foul blood may boil, 2005 Or creep within his veins at will?—Arise! And to high ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... won a triumph, but the battlefield was still spread out before him. There were thousands of enemies lurking in his path, ready to fall upon and despoil him of his priceless ...
— Try Again - or, the Trials and Triumphs of Harry West. A Story for Young Folks • Oliver Optic

... The Harrowing of Hell was the mediaeval belief in the descent of Christ to hell to redeem the souls of Old Testament saints, and to despoil the powers of darkness. It is the subject ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser

... about with the smoking torches cleared the scene of the vicious little insects, those not stupefied by the smoke beating a hasty retreat back to their home in the hollow log which bruin had tried to despoil. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... 'To despoil thee,' replied the bishop, 'for it is I who cast the charm over thy lands, to avenge Gwawl the son of Clud my friend. And it was I who threw the spell upon Pryderi to avenge Gwawl for the trick that had been played on him in the game of Badger in the ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang

... almost certain to be held up. Mr. Isaac Walton, it is true, was a considerable rambler a century earlier than this, and in his Derbyshire hills must have passed many lonely gullies; but footpads were more likely to ambush the main roads. It would be a hardhearted bandit who would despoil the gentle angler of his basket of trouts. Goldsmith, too, was a lusty walker, and tramped it over the Continent for two years (1754-6) with little more baggage than a flute: he might have written ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley

... reliance on foreign protection, wanting no foreign guaranty of our liberties, resolving to maintain our national independence against every attempt to despoil us of this inestimable treasure, we confide under Providence in the patriotism and energies of the people of these United States for defeating the hostile enterprises of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 4) of Volume 1: John Adams • Edited by James D. Richardson

... how inward purity and honor may preserve a woman from bewilderment and danger, and secure her a genuine independence. Whoever aims at this is still considered, by unthinking or prejudiced minds, as wishing to despoil the female character of its natural and peculiar loveliness. It is supposed that delicacy must imply weakness, and that only an Amazon can stand upright, and have sufficient command of her faculties to confront the shock of adversity, or resist the allurements of tenderness. ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... however, at length able to locate the spot where the cavern had been, and he took such elaborate and complete bearings of it that he felt sure he would one day, when things had quieted down a little, be able to get at the chests again and despoil them of their contents. But for the moment he had as much money as he actually needed; so, returning from Coroico, he bought an estate in a lovely spot near Quinteros Bay, and settled down comfortably there, with Jose ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood

... will do so, for Sir Eustace, belonging as he does, and as his fathers have done before him, to the English party, neither of the others will feel any good-will towards him, and some of his neighbours may well be glad to take advantage of this troubled time to endeavour to despoil him ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty

... starting on an expedition of a somewhat remarkable character. A pair of golden eagles, it appeared, had made a neighboring valley the scene of their frequent ravages and depredations among the cattle and game, and Hansel was about to organize an expedition to search for, and if possible despoil, the eyrie. Of late years these birds have become very rare. Switzerland is nearly, if not quite, cleared of them, while the Tyrol, affording greater solitude and a larger stock of game, can boast of eight or at the most ten couples. They are, as is well known, the largest ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various

... court here find them aggrieved; but they never found themselves aggrieved. Their being turned out of house and home, and having all their land given to farmers of revenue for five years to riot in and despoil them of all they had, is what fills them with rapture. They are the only people, I believe, upon the face of the earth, that have no complaints to make of their government, in any instance whatever. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke

... of the matter involving the Washab and Roria railway and chimney-pot Liz, but he obtained proof, through a clerk in the solicitor's office, and a stain in a sheet of paper, and a half-finished signature, that the will by which Mr Lockhart intended to despoil Colonel Brentwood was a curiously-contrived forgery. As men in search of the true and beautiful frequently stumble by accident on truths for which they did not search, and beauties of which they had formed no conception, ...
— The Garret and the Garden • R.M. Ballantyne

... bark! new waves will force you back To sea. O, haste to make the haven yours! E'en now, a helpless wrack, You drift, despoil'd of oars; The Afric gale has dealt your mast a wound; Your sailyards groan, nor can your keel sustain, Till lash'd with cables round, A more imperious main. Your canvass hangs in ribbons, rent and torn; No gods are left to pray to in fresh need. A pine of Pontus born Of noble ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace

... consequences of such a measure; and therefore it would not be looked on favorably by these six and one-half millions of Catholics. These people are fully convinced that theirs is the only true religion, and the only one by which they can be saved. If any government should endeavor to despoil them of that religion—which is their most precious jewel, and the richest inheritance which they have received from their ancestors—even should it be no more than permitting the Protestant or heterodox propaganda publicly ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various

... Miller," which gives an account of a clergyman who, seeing all his congregation rise from their seats at the joyous cry of, "A wreck! a wreck!" called them to order with an irresistible voice of thunder, and deliberately commencing to despoil himself of his surplice, added, "Gentlemen, a fair start, if ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray

... believed that like a great deal more of the monastic property of the Northern districts these valuables were appropriated by high-placed persons of the neighbourhood who employed their underlings, marked and disguised, to waylay and despoil the messengers entrusted to carry them Southward. N. B.—These foregoing remarks apply to the plate and jewels which appertained to the adjacent Priory of Mellerton, which ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher

... the nations have understood that God is a monstrous fable, and that hell, heaven, immortality, and all the other devilish things are states created by rascals to despoil ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto

... upon the magician, despoil him of his baggage, and of his magician's vestments, to fasten him to the foot of a tree with liane knots that the Davenports themselves could not have untied, to paint his body, taking the sorcerer's for a model, ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne

... the gods, I shall certainly not pursue them; nor shall any one say, that as long as a man remains with me, I make use of his services, but that, when he desires to leave me, I seize and ill-treat his person, and despoil him of his property. But let them go, with the consciousness that they have acted a worse part towards us than we towards them. I have, indeed, their children and wives under guard at Tralles; but not even of them shall they be deprived, but shall receive them back in consideration ...
— The First Four Books of Xenophon's Anabasis • Xenophon

... Germans it seemed a revolt against a foreign power—the Italian Papacy. To men of pious mind it offered the attractions of a simple faith which took the Bible as the rule of life. Worldly-minded princes saw in it an opportunity to despoil the Church of lands and revenues. For these reasons Luther's teachings found ready acceptance. Priests married, Luther himself setting the example, monks left their monasteries, and the "Reformed Religion" took the place of Roman Catholicism in most parts of northern ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... peaceful citizens. Rabble as these soldiers were, and poltroons as they generally proved themselves in every encounter with the Indians, they were accustomed to boast of being the country's protectors, for this "protection" assumed a sort of right to despoil ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid

... to brighter flame—the star behind which lay the throne. And Death followed them, shadowy, indistinct, like a spirit wrapt in mist. And Life mocked at Death, crying: "Behold the envious strumpet doth follow, to despoil me of mine own! Faugh! How uncanny and how cold! What lover would hang upon those ashen lips? Her bosom is marble, and in her stony heart there flames no fire. With her Ambition perishes and the Star of Hope forever fades. Her house ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... gloomily. "The encounter will take place on the plain of Gilboa at the third hour of the third division. And may Saturn help us if thy might fails. Friend Nelson! For then surely will the hordes of Jarmuth despoil us and there will come a desolation and a darkness upon the ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various

... my past labor, I am again seated under my vine and fig-tree, and I wish I could add that there are none to make us afraid; but those whom we have been accustomed to call our friends and allies are endeavoring, if not to make us afraid, yet to despoil us of our property, and are provoking us to acts of self-defence which may lead to war. What will be the result of such measures, time, that faithful expositor of all things, must disclose. My wish ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... pillage, ravage, depredate, despoil devastate, sack; corrupt, vitiate, debase, mar, demoralize, deprave, sophisticate, infect, defile, contaminate; disfigure, deface, damage; decay, addle, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... learned successors, and must not be imputed to ignorance. His argument is that the real nation consisted of the mass of men enjoying no privilege, and that they had a claim for compensation and reprisal against those who had been privileged to oppress and to despoil them. The Third Estate was equal to the three Estates together, for the others had no right to be represented. As power exercised otherwise than by consent, power that does not emanate from those for whose use it exists, is a usurpation, the ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... "but you may be sure that Robin, whom you drew out of the salting-tub, has made an arrangement with the Lombards of Pont-Vieux and the Jews of the Ghetto to despoil you, and that he is retaining the lion's ...
— The Miracle Of The Great St. Nicolas - 1920 • Anatole France

... of that sleep which, closing our eyes on earth, reopens them in heaven, beneath the general warmth of the sun of righteousness. These flowers were sacred in the eyes of the villagers, and their children were charged not to despoil them; and too deep was their reverence for their minister, and too sacred was that little spot of earth, even to their uncultured eyes, for those commands ever to be disobeyed. But it was not to Mr. Myrvin's care alone that part of the churchyard owed its beauty. It had ever been distinguished from ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar

... persuaded that the balance is much more likely to be disturbed by the preponderancy of the last than of the first scale. We have seen, in all the examples of ancient and modern confederacies, the strongest tendency continually betraying itself in the members, to despoil the general government of its authorities, with a very ineffectual capacity in the latter to defend itself against the encroachments. Although, in most of these examples, the system has been so dissimilar from that under consideration as greatly to weaken any inference concerning the ...
— The Federalist Papers

... You would have patience, but without the rude Occasions that require its exercise; You would despise the world, but in such fashion The world should not despise you in return; Would clothe the soul with all the Christian graces, Yet not despoil the body of its gauds; Would feed the soul with spiritual food, Yet not deprive the body of its feasts; Would seem angelic in the sight of God, Yet not too saint-like in the eyes of men; In short, would lead a holy Christian life ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... anon put of Their woodland temper, and, by frequent tilth, To whatso craft thou summon them, make speed To follow. So likewise will the barren shaft That from the stock-root issueth, if it be Set out with clear space amid open fields: Now the tree-mother's towering leaves and boughs Darken, despoil of increase as it grows, And blast it in the bearing. Lastly, that Which from shed seed ariseth, upward wins But slowly, yielding promise of its shade To late-born generations; apples wane Forgetful of their former ...
— The Georgics • Virgil

... devils, and that his divine virtue shone forth in nothing more conspicuous than in expelling them. I am very far from having the least intention to undermine the foundations of the christian doctrine, or to endeavour, by a perverse interpretation of the sacred oracles, to despoil the Son of God of his divinity, which he has demonstrated by so many and great works performed contrary to the laws of nature. Truth stands no more in need of the patronage of error, than does a natural good complexion of paint. And it is certain, that the opinion which has been prevalent ...
— Medica Sacra - or a Commentary on on the Most Remarkable Diseases Mentioned - in the Holy Scriptures • Richard Mead

... all that year, fivescore or more good stout yeomen gathered about Robin Hood, and chose him to be their leader and chief. Then they vowed that even as they themselves had been despoiled they would despoil their oppressors, whether baron, abbot, knight, or squire, and that from each they would take that which had been wrung from the poor by unjust taxes, or land rents, or in wrongful fines. But to the poor folk they would give a helping hand in need ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle

... discussion of the clergy reserve question, and insisted that it should be settled. But nothing was farther from the thoughts of Dr. Strachan and Sir George Arthur. They contended that the mooting of the question at such a time was evidence of disloyalty on the part of those who were endeavouring to despoil the Church of its lawful rights. The Editor of the Guardian (Dr. Ryerson) was threatened with personal violence, with prosecution, and banishment. Yet the Guardian kept on the even tenor of its way; and in proportion to the fury of the monopolists, did the Editor increase his exertions to wrest ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... The embassy returned, after so heavy expenses, without those barbarians having been willing to receive it. It sailed very late, since it gave the Dutch opportunity to believe, and to give that emperor to understand, that your Majesty's vassals were entering under pretense of religion to despoil them ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXII, 1625-29 • Various

... object, first," said Dino, lifting his face from his crossed arms, "of seeing him and asking him whether he was resolved to despoil himself of his name and fortune. I would not have raised a hand to do either, but, if he himself did it, I thought that I might pick up what he threw away. Not for myself, but for the Church to which I belong. The Church should have ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... to be an empire-race? 'Is this what is asked by true friends of liberty, those who only seek that reason and right should have empire over men? What provinces, conquered by a French general, will he despoil to buy our suffrages? Will he promise our soldiers, as the consuls promised the citizens of Rome, the pillage of Spain or of Syria? No, assuredly; it is because we cannot be an empire-nation that we shall remain a free nation.'[26] ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 3: Condorcet • John Morley

... you that sighs, Celestial lights! which lend a charm to life, And make me bless what else I should not prize! Ah! why, so seldom why Afford what ne'er can cause satiety? More often to your sight Why not bring Love, who holds me constant strife? And why so soon of joys despoil me quite, Which ever and anon ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... heard of their bounty and generosity and of the goodliness of their repute, envy get hold upon him and jealousy of them, and he fell to bethinking himself how he should do, so he might bring some calamity upon them and despoil them of that their fair fortune, for it is of the wont of envy that it falleth not but upon the rich. So, one day of the days, as he stood in the mosque, after the mid-afternoon prayer, he came forward into the midst of the folk and said, "O my brethren, O ye of the True ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne

... tribe into subjection. Thus began a new era in the history of the Indian, inaugurating a kind of warfare that was cruel, relentless, and demoralizing, since it was based upon the desire to conquer and to despoil the conquered of his possessions—a motive unknown ...
— The Indian Today - The Past and Future of the First American • Charles A. Eastman

... her the means of fighting the wolf, hunger, from their doors a little longer. But if she had known that a more cruel enemy would despoil her home in her absence, she would ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe

... of supposing that the restless adversaries and designing conspirators against whom patriots had to contend were all in England; on the contrary, the most persistent enemies of Liberty were Americans residing in the midst of the people whom they sought to despoil. One might believe that in England "the general inclination is to wish that we may preserve our liberties; and perhaps even the ministry could for some reasons find it in their hearts to be willing that we should be restored to the ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker

... below the tapestry, went, each night, waggons heavily laden with baskets packed into crates. Far beyond the frame of pines was a small group of houses, whither the workers went with their armfuls of purple, returning presently to despoil the hillside further. ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed

... woman from the intellectual control of the priesthood and plunges her into the midst of the doubts and questionings of sceptical man, is of course plain enough. We feel no particular surprise when the attendance of girls at the public classes of a Professor is denounced as tending to "despoil woman of her native modesty, to drag her before the public, to turn her from domestic life and duties, to puff her up with vain and false science." It is the adhesion of woman to this view of the case which puzzles ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous

... mechanic round of toil Life's morning charm can quite despoil; And youth and beauty, hand in hand, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... like the one, and writing like the other, but had failed in both. The Clever Woman had no marketable or available talent. She knew very well that nothing would induce her mother and sister to let her despoil herself, but to have injured them would be even more intolerable; and more than all was the sickening uncertainty, whether any harm had been done, or what would be ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge

... general principle that every country has the Jews it deserves. If you oppress them, trample them in the mud as was customary in pre-war Russia, they will turn and rend you when their turn comes round; this is happening in Russia at present. If you despoil a Jew by violence, he will do the same to you by guile, and you may or may not be left with your full complement of cuticle. If you treat the Jew as one entitled to equal rights with equal responsibilities, you will find him ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker

... yez doin' in here?" Phelan's eye swept the room for some evidence of an attempt to despoil. Though he saw none he did not relinquish his attitude of suspicion. The Jap seemed about to speak and then stopped. As Phelan continued to glower at him, he ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie

... confess that Joshua's remarks nettled me, "and ask him whether the Jews did not despoil the Egyptians of their ornaments of gold in the old days, and whether Solomon, whom he claims as a forefather, did not trade in gold to Ophir, and lastly whether he knows that most of his kindred in other lands make a ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard

... as not to compel immigrants to be the unwilling witnesses to so much vice and misery; and, second, legislation to protect them upon their arrival at our seaports from the knaves who are ever ready to despoil them of the little all which they are able to bring with them. Such legislation will be in the interests of humanity, and seems to be fully justifiable. The immigrant is not a citizen of any State or Territory upon his arrival, but comes here to become a citizen of a great Republic, free to change ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson

... know—that it is counted a virtue in a Gypsy to deceive a Georgio—well, I am fancying myself a Gypsy. In the Mohammedan it is a virtue to deceive the Christian, and I am a Mohammedan for the moment. In the Christian it was counted for centuries a mark of special grace if he despoil the Jew, until generations of oppression showed the wanderer the real God held sacred by his foes—money, my child, which he proceeded to garner that he might purchase the privileges of other races. So, with my Jewish name as a foundation, I have created an imaginary Jewish ancestor whose ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan

... prejudice. pervert, prostitute, demoralize, brutalize; render vicious &c. 945. embitter, acerbate, exacerbate, aggravate. injure, impair, labefy[obs3], damage, harm, hurt, shend|, scath|, scathe, spoil, mar, despoil, dilapidate, waste; overrun; ravage; pillage &c. 791. wound, stab, pierce, maim, lame, surbate|, cripple, hough[obs3], hamstring, hit between wind and water, scotch, mangle, mutilate, disfigure, blemish, deface, warp. blight, rot; corrode, erode; wear away, wear out; gnaw, gnaw at the root of; sap, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... a strong impression on the minds of Hassan's soldiers, who, fearing besides that Ali's men would despoil them of the booty they already looked upon as their own, determined to put all to the hazard of battle. Suddenly they fell upon Ali's men with such vehemence that, although the latter were the stronger party, they soon thinned their numbers considerably; the survivors, ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... I die. For[thwith] with great pain his varlet brought him to the castle, and there Sir Hemison fell down dead. When Morgan le Fay saw him dead she made great sorrow out of reason; and then she let despoil him unto his shirt, and so she let him put into a tomb. And about the tomb she let write: Here lieth Sir Hemison, slain by the hands ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory

... nor sloth her strength despoil: Her peaceful farmers till, With patient thrift, th' outlying soil, Her trained mechanics deftly toil, Her merchants ply ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... are discovered by their virtues; (18) they are a laborious upwards-striving race; whilst the base are in evil plight (19) and are discovered by their demerits. (20) Since in proportion as they rob the private citizen of his means and despoil the state (21) they are less serviceable with a view to the public safety than any private citizen; (22) and what can be worse or more disgraceful for purposes of war than the bodily form of people so incapable of ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon

... say that they are no longer despoiled? By no means; they are robbed as much as ever, and, what is more, they despoil one another. The agent alone is changed; it is no longer by violence, but by stratagem, that the public wealth is ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat

... striking of the passages in the Cid's legendary history is that wherein he is represented as forcing the new king to swear that he had no part in his brother's death; but there was cause enough without this for Alphonso's animosity against the man who had helped to despoil him of his patrimony. For a time the Cid, already renowned throughout Spain for his prowess in war, was even advanced by the king's favour and entrusted with high commissions of state. In 1074 the Cid was wedded to Ximena, daughter ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... patriotism? What services have they not rendered to the public cause by their example and their sacrifices! Have they not themselves abjured all their titles for one only—that of citizen? and yet you propose to despoil them of it! When you suppressed the title of prince, what happened? The fugitive princes formed a league against the country; the others ranged themselves with you. If to-day the title of prince is re-established, we concede ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... Far East marked the clashing of the dreams, for the Slav, too, is dreaming greatly. Granting that the Japanese can hurl back the Slav and that the two great branches of the Anglo-Saxon race do not despoil him of his spoils, the Japanese dream takes on substantiality. Japan's population is no larger because her people have continually pressed against the means of subsistence. But given poor, empty Korea for a breeding colony and Manchuria for a granary, ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London

... and useful to the world, so, on the contrary, the wickedness of envy deserves a proportionately greater meed of blame and vituperation, when, being unable to endure the honour and esteem of others, it sets to work to deprive of life those whom it cannot despoil of glory; as did that miserable Andrea dal Castagno, who was truly great and excellent in painting and design, but even more notable for the rancour and envy that he bore towards other painters, insomuch that ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 3 (of 10), Filarete and Simone to Mantegna • Giorgio Vasari

... a great heap of dolls, and were set upon them to pluck them to pieces and despoil them for your own advantage, you would pick out the richest and gayest. Say! Would ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens

... Their bounded walks the rugged cliffs along, And all their prospect but the wintry main. With sparing temperance, at the needful time, They drain the scented spring; or, hunger-prest, Along the Atlantic rock, undreading climb, 165 And of its eggs despoil the solan's[50] nest. Thus, blest in primal innocence, they live Sufficed, and happy with that frugal fare Which tasteful toil and hourly danger give. Hard is their shallow soil, and bleak and bare; 170 Nor ever vernal bee was heard to ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins

... compassion for his fellow-creatures. His sympathy was excited by the misery with which the world is burning. He witnessed the sufferings of the poor, and was aware of the evils of ignorance. He desired to induce every rich man to despoil himself of superfluity, and to create a brotherhood of property and service, and was ready to be the first to lay down the advantages of his birth. He was of too uncompromising a disposition to join any party. He did not in his youth look forward to ...
— Notes to the Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley • Mary W. Shelley

... considering him the leader and representative of your opinions when he comes forward, at your invitation, to express to you what that program is. The Conservative party are accused of having no program of policy. If by a program is meant a plan to despoil churches and plunder landlords, I admit we have no program. If by a program is meant a policy which assails or menaces every institution and every interest, every class and every calling in the country, I admit we have no program. But if to have a policy with ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... it had begun to be doubted whether he was the greatest Italian poet since Dante. A still later critic finds Leopardi's style, "without relief, without lyric flight, without the great art of contrasts, without poetic leaven," hard to read. "Despoil those verses of their masterly polish," he says, "reduce those thoughts to prose, and you will see how little ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells

... not resist the opportunity to play double. Here was a property he could sell to England at a stiff price. Why not despoil the enemy, put the money in pocket, then return, steal the paper anew for the use of Germany, and collect the stipulated reward from that source? But he reckoned without Blensop's avarice, there; he showed Blensop too plainly the way to profit through ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph

... the poor country priest; the archbishops, who are great lords, scorn them and do not listen to them. Therefore, let us pray for the lord of this place. We will pray for Antoine de Touilly, that he may be converted and granted the grace that he may not wrong the poor and despoil the orphans." His lordship, who was present at this mortifying supplication, brought new complaints before the same archbishop, who ordered the curate Meslier to come to Donchery, where he ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier

... which appeareth to them most iniquitous and of which they missay all day, as of their itch to plunder us, seeing this, will rise up in riot and cry out, "These Lombard dogs, whom the church refuseth to receive, are to be suffered here no longer";—and they will run to our houses and despoil us not only of our good, but may be of our lives, to boot; wherefore in any case it will go ill with us, if ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio

... vain that I'm the first star here To shine upon this Thespian hemisphere. And only hope that when I say "Adieu!" You'll grant the same I wish to you— May rich success reward your daily toil, Nor men nor measures present peace despoil, And may I nightly see your pleasant faces With these fair ladies, ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham

... attended by a man laden with Christmas toys and presents. Then the shouting and the struggling, and the onslaught that was made on the defenceless porter! The scaling him with chairs for ladders to dive into his pockets, despoil him of brown-paper parcels, hold on tight by his cravat, hug him around the neck, pommel his back, and kick his legs in irrepressible affection! The shouts of wonder and delight with which the development ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester

... under command Of his will, "All your fears in a storm of this kind. There is something uncanny and weird in the wind; Intangible, viewless, it speeds on its course, And forests and oceans must yield to its force. What art has constructed with patience and toil, The wind in one second of time can despoil. It carries destruction and death and despair, Yet no man can follow it into its lair And bind it or stay it—this thing without form. Ah! there comes the rain! we are caught in the storm. Put my coat on your shoulders and come with me where Yon rock makes a shelter—I ...
— Three Women • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... do that at all events?" asked the Macdonald. "Man, Montagu, but you whiles have unco queer notions for so wise a lad. It's as natural for a Hielander to despoil a Southron as for a goose to gang barefit. What would Lochiel think gin we fashed wi' his clansmen at their ploy? Na, na! I wad be sweir to be sae upsitten (impertinent). It wadna be tellin' a Macdonald, ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine

... wise. None can open the door and come in, unless we give consent; always provided that we keep watch and ward. If we leave wide open the doors of our houses, or neglect to fasten them in the night season, thieves and robbers will enter and despoil us at will. So if we leave the heart, unguarded, enemies will come in. But if we open the door only to good affections—which are guests—then we shall dwell in peace and safety. We have all opened the door for enemies; or let them ...
— All's for the Best • T. S. Arthur

... him in his shirt, and stopped him and apprehended him; and little indeed did it avail him to tell them who he was, and how the matter stood. For up came Fortarrigo with a wrathful air, and:—"I know not," quoth he, "why I spare to kill thee on the spot, traitor, thief that thou art, thus to despoil me and give me the slip!" And then, turning to the peasants:—"You see, gentlemen," quoth he, "in what a trim he left me in the inn, after gambling away all that he had with him and on him. Well indeed may I say that under God 'tis to you I owe it that I ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio

... fools is seen engaged in ridiculous occupations, such as pouring water into wells; bearing the world on their shoulders; measuring the globe; or weighing heaven and earth in the balance. Still others despoil their fellows. Wine merchants introducing salt-petre, bones, mustard, and sulphur into barrels, the horse-dealer padding the foot of a lame horse, men selling inferior skins for good fur, and other cheats with false weights, short measure, and light ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various

... hiccoughed, with an assumption of drunken gravity, uplifting my disengaged arm as if in priestly benediction of the impious crew. "Tempt me not to turn aside from the solemn path of duty by offerings of that foul fiend which doth so corrupt and despoil men. Know you, I am now on my way to perform the sweet offices of our most holy religion, and need greatly to permit my mind to dwell in peace upon more soulful things than that which lieth in the wine pot. ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish

... my grandfather relate how great caravans of wealthy merchants would assemble for mutual protection, because of the audacious outlaws, often headed by some powerful baron, who lay in wait for them to despoil them of their merchandise, and often to carry them off prisoners and extort heavy ransom. My grandfather would tell hew long files of mules, laden with rich silks, cloths, serges, camlets, and furs, from Montpelier, from Narbonne, from Toulouse, from Carcassonne, and ...
— Jacques Bonneval • Anne Manning

... Whoso cometh to our city and Allah vouchsafeth him competence to enter it, let him take of the treasure all he can, but touch not aught that is on my body, for it is the covering of my shame[FN150] and the outfit for the last journey; wherefore let him fear Allah and despoil naught thereof; else will he destroy his own self. This have I set forth to him for a warning from me and a solemn trust to be; wherewith, peace be with ye and I pray Allah to keep you from sickness and calamity." And Shahrazad perceived the dawn ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... its tithes and landed property, soon aroused heated feelings in this country, though on a subject of a wholly different kind. The result was that, while Dissenters peacefully agitated for permission to act as citizens, they were represented as endeavouring to despoil the Church, after the fashion of Talleyrand and Mirabeau. A work by a Manchester merchant, Thomas Walker, reveals the influence of this question on the political activities of the time. The Nonconformists of that town and county hoped to ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... that Bullard was playing with him. And in view of the promise to his master he could do nothing to prevent the crime, the desecration as he felt it to be. He could do nothing but look on in silence while they searched, until they found—But stay! he might as well despoil the spoilers when he had ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell

... freemen the inheritance of their lands, and they were not able to sell them until the act QUIA EMPTORES of Edward I. was passed. The tendency of persons to spend the representative value of their lands and sell them was checked by the Mosaic law, which did not allow any man to despoil his children of their inheritance. The possessor could only mortgage them until the year of jubilee—the fiftieth year. In Switzerland and Belgium, where the nobles did not entirely get rid of the FREEMEN, the lands ...
— Landholding In England • Joseph Fisher

... opportunity for delivering them all a good lesson, which they should remember all their lives. He quoted Virgil and Cicero; he made many scientific allusions and ran his discourse to such a length that the little wretches were able to get all over the garden and despoil it ...
— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine

... what it is profanation to speak, nor let there be hereof any so dire example, if you despoil of its hair the head of any most transcendent and perfectly beautiful woman, and present her face thus denuded of its native loveliness, though it were even she, the descended from heaven, the born of the sea, ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock

... married Col. Roger Morris. Tradition tells how, amid the splendors of the wedding feast, a tall Indian, wrapped in his scarlet blanket, suddenly appeared in the doorway and solemnly predicted that the family possessions should pass from its control "When the eagle shall despoil the lion of his mane." The mystery was explained later when the property was confiscated because of the royalist leanings of ...
— The New York and Albany Post Road • Charles Gilbert Hine

... egg was only an appetizer. She reached in again. She did not wish to despoil the meritorious hen unnecessarily, so she held the egg up in her inclosing fingers and looked through it, as she had often seen the cook do at home. She was not sure, but the inside seemed muddy. She laid it to one side, tried another. It was clear and she ate it as she had ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... Caesar's demand in the strongest light—had roused her husband's wrath. He had expressed his dissatisfaction in strong terms, and again pointed out to her the danger in which such a daring demonstration might involve them; but this time there was no moving the lady; she would not despoil herself of a single rose. After she had solemnly declared that she would appear in the Circus either as she thought fit or not at all, her husband had left her ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... the Greeks rushed forward, hoping to slay the fallen warrior, and despoil him of his armor. But his comrades, Æneas and A-geʹnor and Sarpedon and many others, crowded around him, and protected him with their shields. He was then carried to the bank of the Xanthus and bathed in its waters, which revived ...
— The Story of Troy • Michael Clarke

... legitimate to despoil the enemy's house and to bear away such few valuables as may be found. The house, or houses, are then burnt, and the victors, leaving the slain where they fell, hasten back with their captives to cheer ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan

... alleged violation of their legislative rights. The executive government pretends not to argue the case with Georgia, and is left no alternative but either to annul its conditional treaty with that state, or to cancel thirteen distinct treaties entered into with the Indians, despoil them of their lands, and rob them of their independence. Jackson's message says, "It is too late to inquire whether it was just in the United States to include them and their territory within bounds of new states, whose limits they could control. That step cannot be retracted. A state cannot ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall

... of incompetence; and we see the moral clumsily forced into every hole and corner of the story, or thrown externally over it like a carpet over a railing. Now the moral significance, with Hugo, is of the essence of the romance; it is the organising principle. If you could somehow despoil "Les Miserables" or "Les Travailleurs" of their distinctive lesson, you would find that the story had lost its interest and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... suck the very life blood of your mother country under the guise of the development of her resources, are working in harmony with the rich brigands north of the border to plunder you further, and to despoil the fair land you have helped to win from ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower

... by name, he taught him the arts of the Chaldees, how to be a soothsayer and practice magic according to signs in the heavens. When, in time, a son was born to Nahor, Mastema sent ravens and other birds to despoil the earth and rob men of the proceeds of their work. As soon as they had dropped the seed in the furrows, and before they could cover it over with earth, the birds picked it up from the surface of the ground, and ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... throng then call'd of the king's thanes 3120 A seven together, the best to be gotten, And himself went the eighth in under the foe-roof; One man of the battlers in hand there he bare A gleam of the fire, of the first went he inward. It was nowise allotted who that hoard should despoil, Sithence without warden some deal that there was The men now beheld in the hall there a-wonning, Lying there fleeting; little mourn'd any, That they in all haste outward should ferry The dear treasures. But forthwith the drake did they shove, 3130 The Worm, o'er ...
— The Tale of Beowulf - Sometime King of the Folk of the Weder Geats • Anonymous

... my king! I implore! do not despoil your child. Do not deprive him of the crown he is to wear one day. Remember that it is not yours alone; it comes from afar, from God himself, who gave it six hundred years ago to the house of Illyria. God has chosen me to be a king, father. It is my inheritance, my treasure; you have no right ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... from there we got a large quantity of plunder; but in the Indian camp was nothing left but the lodges, and these we carted into the fort, although they would be of little value to us. It was satisfying to despoil Thayendanega's snakes, even though only to a ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis

... present happiness, she loses herself in the new caresses of her Beloved, and thinking no more of her past miseries, she glories and rests in these caresses, and thereby compels the Bridegroom to be angry again, and to despoil her anew. ...
— Spiritual Torrents • Jeanne Marie Bouvires de la Mot Guyon

... fortunes and put the weaker into the absolute power of the most unscrupulous. It is to the honour of Rhodes that, however he might have been tempted, he never listened to the advice which was given to him to do what the others did, and to despoil the men whose property he might have desired to acquire. He never gave way to the excesses of his daily companions, nor accepted their methods of enriching themselves at top speed so as soon to be able to return ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill

... the councils of Thark. But one day the chance was lost forever, in so far as it could come in time to save his loved ones, for he was ordered away upon a long expedition to the ice-clad south, to make war upon the natives there and despoil them of their furs, for such is the manner of the green Barsoomian; he does not labor for what he can ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... grew perceptibly when Anguish brought him to feel that she needed his protection from the man who had once sought to despoil and who might reasonably be expected to persevere. He agreed to linger in Edelweiss, knowing that each day would add pain to the torture he was already suffering, his sole object being, he convinced himself, to frustrate ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... First. It was for this that they had supported Charles the Second in his hard contest with the Whig opposition. It was for this that they had stood in the front of the battle against those who sought to despoil James of his birthright. To their fidelity alone their oppressor owed the power which he was now employing to their ruin. They had long been in the habit of recounting in acrimonious language all that they had suffered at the hand of the Puritan in the day of his power. Yet for the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay



Words linked to "Despoil" :   rifle, despoilment, despoiler, take, despoliation, ransack, ruin, spoil, strip, displume, foray, violate, reave, loot, rape, pillage, plunder, destroy, deplume



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