"Gorgon" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... three heads, and Bellerophon fighting him, mounted on Pegasus; Pandora opening the box; Hercules talking with Atlas, an enormous giant who holds the sky on his shoulders, or sailing across the sea in an immense bowl; Perseus transforming a king and all his subjects to stone, by exhibiting the Gorgon's head. No particular accuracy in costume need be aimed at. My stories will bear out the artist in any liberties he may be inclined to take. Billings would do these things well enough, though his characteristics ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... to his giving great offence at our table. Nobody could endure to pass him anything or to take anything from him, and the hideous bird-of-prey-like rattling of his right hand at any service turned many a delicate appetite away and made our Brazilian of almost Gorgon-like effect upon all new-comers. The finger-nails of his right hand were vowed to the Virgin: for two years they had been uncut, and now, like fiendish claws, extended two inches beyond the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... absorbed into her two sisters)—for as medieval devil he has no right of entree into that classical scene in which he and Faust are now to play their parts. It is therefore in the form of a Phorkyad or Gorgon that Mephisto will appear when we next ...
— The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' • H. B. Cotterill
... the great dreary house, and day succeeded day, and still she lived alone; and the blank walls looked down upon her with a vacant stare, as if they had a Gorgon-like mind to stare her ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... sold his Trojan war-ballads at three yards an obolus? "3. Show the strong presumption there is, that Nox was the god of battles. "4. State reasons for presuming that the practice of lithography may be traced back to the time of Perseus and the Gorgon's head. "5. In what way were the shades on the banks of the Styx supplied with spirits? "6. Show the probability of the College Hornpipe having been used by the students of the Academia; and give passages from Thucydides and Tennyson in ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... departure, as somebody called them. And they were built for kings and persons of spacious lives, but they have been sublet to smaller folk. Or does no one live inside? You never see a curtain stir. There is never a face at a window. Everything is stone and dead. One might think that a Gorgon had gone riding on a 'bus top, and had thrown his cold eye upon the house fronts." Flint paused. "How can one live obscurely, as these folk do, in the twilight, in so beautiful a shell? Even a crustacean sometimes shows his nose at his door. And yet what a wonderful street it ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... they fail, 'tis want of parts. Bless us! Morgan,[20] art thou there, man? Bless mine eyes! art thou the chairman? Chairman to yon damn'd committee! Yet I look on thee with pity. Dreadful sight! what, learned Morgan Metamorphosed to a Gorgon![21] For thy horrid looks, I own, Half convert me to a stone. Hast thou been so long at school, Now to turn a factious tool? Alma Mater was thy mother, Every young divine thy brother. Thou, a disobedient varlet, Treat thy mother like ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... "Gorgon—Gorgon of Poitou," he returned with enthusiasm. "They are getting as rare now as this," he declared, nodding to the cobwebbed bottle, as he rose, drew the cork, and ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... asked a female voice, and a female head at the same time was apparent. It might not be the head of a goddess—indeed a screw of curl-paper on each side the temples quite forbade that supposition—but neither was it the head of a Gorgon; yet Malone seemed to take it in the latter light. Big as he was, he shrank bashfully back into the rain at the view thereof, and saying, "I'll go to him," hurried in seeming trepidation down a short lane, across an obscure yard, towards a ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... highways trodden by the sun, Pass, till thou come unto the windy land Of daughters born to Boreas: beware Lest the strong spirit of the stormy blast Snatch thee aloft, and sweep thee to the void, On wings of raving wintry hurricane! Wend by the noisy tumult of the wave, Until thou reach the Gorgon-haunted plains Beside Cisthene. In that solitude Dwell Phorcys' daughters, beldames worn with time, Three, each swan-shapen, single-toothed, and all Peering thro' shared endowment of one eye; Never on them doth the sun shed his rays, Never falls radiance of the midnight moon. But, hard by ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... thing was a gorgon named Madame Victurnien, the guardian and door-keeper of every one's virtue. Madame Victurnien was fifty-six, and re-enforced the mask of ugliness with the mask of age. A quavering voice, a whimsical mind. This old dame had once been young—astonishing fact! ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... asked me to come to the wedding feast. I said I would come. And then, because I was young and full of the boast of youth, and because the king was now ceasing to be a terror to me, I said that I would bring to his wedding feast the head of the Gorgon. ...
— The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles • Padraic Colum
... loggia, which opposes the free and elegant span of its arches to the dead masonry of the palace; a figure supremely shapely and graceful; gentle, almost, in spite of his holding out with his light nervous arm the snaky head of the slaughtered Gorgon. His name is Perseus, and you may read his story, not in the Greek mythology, but in the memoirs of Benvenuto Cellini. Glancing from one of these fine fellows to the other, I probably uttered some irrepressible commonplace ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James
... of buff leather, covered with a plate of gold, finely chased with a Gorgon's head, set round the rim with rubies, emeralds, turquoise stones, in number ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... turned to stone every beholder, rescues the maiden from chains, and leads her away by the bands of love. Nothing could be more poetical than the life of Perseus. When he went to destroy the dreadful Gorgon, Medusa, Pluto lent him his helmet, which would make him invisible at will; Minerva loaned her buckler, impenetrable, and polished like a mirror; Mercury gave him a dagger of diamonds, and his winged sandals, which would carry him through the air. Coming to the loathsome thing, ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren
... critics, we shall not find it difficult to guess why it is that Stevenson at least found a final philosophy of some sort to live by, while Mr. Moore is always walking the world looking for a new one. Stevenson had found that the secret of life lies in laughter and humility. Self is the gorgon. Vanity sees it in the mirror of other men and lives. Pride studies it for itself and is turned ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... eye Deep flashing through the midnight of their mind, The sable bands combined, Where Fear's black banner bloats the troubled sky, Appall'd retire. Suspicion hides her head, Nor dares the obliquely gleaming eyeball raise; Despair, with gorgon-figured veil o'erspread, Speeds to dark Phlegethon's detested maze. Lo! startled at the heavenly ray, With speed unwonted Indolence upsprings, And, heaving, lifts her leaden wings, And sullen ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... are put vaguely I always want to know, them—I want to know why Medusa turned into a gorgon? What ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... lo, the bursting forth Of the barbarian sweeps on, age-wrought; Oceans are cleft and swallow Gorgon-ships, Castles of ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas
... fearing Zeus, they halted for a space, And lo, Apollo's priestess with a train Of holy maidens came into that place, And far did she outshine the rest in grace, But in her eyes such dread was frozen then As glares eternal from the Gorgon's face Wherewith Athene ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
... are afraid of Athene and the Gorgon; at least so you say, though you do not mind Zeus's thunderbolt a bit. But why do you let the Muses go scot free? do they toss their plumes ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... emperor learnt this, at first by report, but subsequently by certain intelligence, and while all were in suspense from dread of the impending danger, the dependents of the court, hammering on the same anvil day and night (as the saying is), at the prompting of the eunuchs, held up Ursicinus as a Gorgon's head before the suspicious and timid emperor, continually repeating that, because on the death of Silvanus, in a dearth of better men, he had been sent to defend the eastern districts, he had become ambitious of ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... usual response; and straightway entered a stout muscular figure, wrapped in a chlamys, fastened on the shoulder with a richly-embossed fibula. Beneath was the usual light leathern cuirass, covered with scales of shining metal; the centre, over the abdomen, ornamented with a gorgon's head and other warlike devices; a short sword being stuck in his girdle. From the lowest part hung leathern straps, or lambrequins, highly wrought and embellished. He wore breeches or drawers reaching to the ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... Perseus How Perseus and his mother came to Seriphos How Perseus vowed a Rash Vow How Perseus slew the Gorgon How Perseus came to the AEthiops How Perseus came home again The Argonauts How the Centaur trained the Heroes on Pelion How Jason lost his sandal in Anauros How they built the ship 'Argo' in Iolcos How the Argonauts sailed to Colchis How the Argonauts were driven ...
— The Heroes • Charles Kingsley
... man," he said; "what! hast thou not a word of oily compliment to me on my happy marriage?—not a word of most philosophical consolation on my disgrace at Court?—Or has my mien, as a wittol and discarded favourite, the properties of the Gorgon's head, the turbatae Palladis arma, as ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... care of them. A cruel tyrant named Polydectes wanted Danae to be his wife, and, as she would not consent, he shut her up in prison, saying that she should never come out till her son Perseus had brought him the head of the Gorgon Medusa, thinking he must be lost by the way. For the Gorgons were three terrible sisters, who lived in the far west beyond the setting sun. Two of them were immortal, and had dragon's wings and brazen claws and serpent hair, but their ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... it!" said the youth, brushing himself, and assuming all the dignity of which he was master. "Wonder who that is? Housekeeper, perhaps? Quite the Gorgon, whoever it is. Wish I ...
— Margaret Montfort • Laura E. Richards
... a woman it was, though he could see no more of her than a pale face, staring set and Gorgon-like from under the hood—did not answer at once. Then, 'Who are ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... life are grand and haughty, with the cast-bronze countenance of Roman emperors. But the old men bear rigid faces of carved basalt, gazing fixedly before them as though at some time or other in their past lives they had met Medusa: and truly Etna in eruption is a Gorgon, which their ancestors have oftentimes seen shuddering, and fled from terror-frozen. The white-haired old women, plying their spindle or distaff, or meditating in grim solitude, sit with the sinister set features of Fates by their doorways. The young ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... held high positions, acquired fame, is due to the inner sickness that night by the river. You will find that the name of many a man of my age is in men's mouths because at the outset Defeat became his trophy, the Gorgon's head, despoiled by his first sword of hiss and venom. So there, my friends, you have the rule you ask for—fail once so ignominiously that you wish to die, and you may wrest from fate a brief name and the cloak ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... mayhap, Learn the sad fate of her I loved so well. Up a stark cliff we went, then crossed the web Just as the red moon bloomed upon the hills And silvered all the Panticapean vale. The funnel of the web was in the mouth Of a vast tomb, whose outside, hewn on rock, Outlined a Gorgon's face with jaws agape— Some stern Medusa, Stheno, or Euryale, Changed to the stone that in the elder days She changed the sons of men who looked on her. We passed the funnel, entering the tomb. About ...
— Stories in Verse • Henry Abbey
... none. Oh, if he could cry to the Church for help in this hour of his need! but it was slowly dawning on him that not from the Church would help come to his cause; for a grievous thing had happened to the Church. The slave gorgon sat staring from the pews, and turning the pulpits to stone, turning also to stone ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... Miss Minerva," cried he, "is this you that I hear? Why you are warmer in your denunciation of this little wisp of a woman than you ever were of fat old Madame Gorgon, with her prodigious paste diamonds. Really, you take it too hard. And you, too, who used to skate so nimbly over the glib surface of society, and cut such coquettish figures of eight upon the characters of your friends. ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis
... the famous Lame One fashion him of gold with his hands. On his feet he had winged sandals, and his black-sheathed sword was slung across his shoulders by a cross-belt of bronze. He was flying swift as thought. The head of a dreadful monster, the Gorgon, covered the broad of his back, and a bag of silver—a marvel to see—contained it: and from the bag bright tassels of gold hung down. Upon the head of the hero lay the dread cap [1804] of Hades which had the awful gloom of ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... Ross's hole, its neck curled back against its bulk. It had wide flippers moving like planes to hold it poised. The body, sloping from a massive round of shoulders to a tapering rear, was vaguely familiar. If one provided a Terran seal with a gorgon head and scales in place of fur, the effect would be similar. But Ross was assuredly not facing ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton
... of the Evening Star, who held up the sky upon his shoulders, in the midst of the Fortunate Islands, the gardens of the daughter of the Evening Star, full of strange golden fruits; and that Perseus had turned him into stone, when he passed him with the Gorgon's Head. ...
— Madam How and Lady Why - or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for Children • Charles Kingsley
... Isis is never raised!' The world quivered under some strange anathema; a mystic malediction wreathed its thorns round the anguished heads of men; even in the midst of their festivals, when seeming to drink deep of joy from the brimming cup of life, the invisible hand of a Gorgon Fate was forever felt tracing upon their walls the decrees of a dark, inscrutable, inflexible, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... befitting a hero. When he saw his stepson develop into a noble and manly youth he endeavoured to instil into his mind a desire to signalize himself by the achievement of some great and heroic deed, and after mature deliberation it was decided that the slaying of the Gorgon, Medusa, would ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... arrayed her in her armour for dolorous battle. About her shoulders cast she the tasselled aegis terrible, whereon is Panic as a crown all round about, and Strife is therein and Valour and horrible Onslaught withal, and therein is the dreadful monster's Gorgon head, dreadful and grim, portent of aegis-bearing Zeus. Upon her head set she the two-crested golden helm with fourfold plate, bedecked with men-at-arms of a hundred cities. Upon the flaming chariot ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... swear I am something revived at this testimony of your obedience; but I cannot admit that traitor,—I fear I cannot fortify myself to support his appearance. He is as terrible to me as a Gorgon: if I see him I swear I shall turn to stone, ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... still, and whom I wish'd, I had beheld, Pirithoues 770 And Theseus, glorious progeny of Gods, But nations, first, numberless of the dead Came shrieking hideous; me pale horror seized, Lest awful Proserpine should thither send The Gorgon-head from Ades, sight abhorr'd! I, therefore, hasting to the vessel, bade My crew embark, and cast the hawsers loose. They, quick embarking, on the benches sat. Down the Oceanus[55] the current bore My galley, winning, at the first, her way 780 ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... in that graceful, slender, ultra-feminine body of Margaret Severence's, as she descended the stairs, putting fresh gloves upon her beautiful, idle hands, he would have borrowed wings of the wind and would have fled as from a gorgon. ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... high promise fraught, And guardian terrors, whose out-flashing swords Beleaguer Paradise and the holy Tree Sciential. Step by step the way is fought That leads from Darkness, through her miscreant hordes, Back to the heavens of wise, and true, and free: Minerva's Gorgon, Ammon's cyclic Asp, And the fierce flame-sword of the Cherubim, That flashed like hate across the pallid gasp Of exiled Eve and Adam, flare, and glare, And hiss venenate, round the steps of him Who thirsts for heavenly ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... the great gnarled round heads of a beech-tree. When a man possesses that particular shape of muscle he is sure to be a hard nut to crack. And so poor PATRICKSEN found him, merely getting his own wretched back broken for his trouble. GORGON GORGONSEN Was Governor of Iceland, and lived at Reykjavik, the capital, which was not only little and hungry, but was also a creeping settlement with a face turned to America. It was a poor lame place, with its wooden feet in the sea. Altogether a strange capital. In the month of Althing GORGON ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 10, 1891 • Various
... had the appearance of being past bending by any means short of powerful mechanical pressure. Her bonnet was cocked up behind in a terrific manner; and her stony reticule was as rigid as if it had been petrified by the Gorgon's head, and had got it at that moment inside. With these imposing attributes, Mr F.'s Aunt, publicly seated on the steps of the Marshal's official residence, had been for the two or three hours in question a great boon ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... being in readiness for the second attempt at laying the cable, the "Niagara" sailed from New York in March, 1858, to take on her portion of the cable at Plymouth. The "Agamemnon" was again ordered to assist in the undertaking, and the "Gorgon" was made her consort Mr. Field had hoped that the "Susquehanna" would again be the consort of the "Niagara," but a few days before the sailing of the fleet he was officially informed that he could not have the ship, as she was then in the West ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... by her brother's hounds. The "aboriginal" peoples of India retain similar convictions. Among the Hos,(13) an old sorcerer called Pusa was known to turn himself habitually into a tiger, and to eat his neighbour's goats, and even their wives. Examples of the power of sorcerers to turn, as with the Gorgon's head, their enemies into stone, are peculiarly common in America.(14) Hearne found that the Indians believed they descended from a dog, who could turn himself into a handsome ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... l. 393. Persean sword. The sword of sharpness given to Perseus by Hermes, with which he cut off the head of the Gorgon Medusa, a monster with the head of a woman, and snaky locks, the sight of whom turned those who looked on her into stone. Perseus escaped by looking only at her ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... well I wanted to marry you. But you fly off without a word and bury yourself in this benighted place with a gorgon who nags ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse
... fields, whose children, if she has them, must be as the perfectly discreet and peaceful, unravished Kore; on the other hand, we have Persephone, as the wholly terrible goddess of death, who brings to Ulysses the querulous shadows of the dead, and has the head of the gorgon Medusa in her keeping. And it is only when these two contrasted images have been [95] brought into intimate relationship, only when Kore and Persephone have been identified, that the deeper mythology of ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... for ever chaste, Wherwith she tam'd the brinded lioness And spotted mountain pard, but set at nought The frivolous bolt of Cupid, gods and men Fear'd her stern frown, and she was queen oth' Woods. What was that snaky-headed Gorgon sheild That wise Minerva wore, unconquer'd Virgin, Wherwith she freez'd her foes to congeal'd stone? But rigid looks of Chast austerity, 450 And noble grace that dash't brute violence With sudden adoration, and blank aw. ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... boy, I must be moving, or the mud will dry on me, and I shall stand here as though I were turned to stone by the Gorgon's head! So have with thee! Go on first, master hawk-tamer. What will ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... how villanously the Advocate General had deceived her. Escape was impossible; I groaned and sweated with anguish, but listen I must, and had to suffer martyrdom for an hour, when the Governor's door opened, and he himself looked out. On seeing the Gorgon he tried to withdraw, but she pounded like a tigress through the door-way, and slamming the door after her, secured an audience with his Excellency, which she took care should not be a short one. I could remain no longer, and therefore owe the ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... than to go on an errand of buying a fish Carrying along an immense. Gorgon-buckler instead the usual platter or dish? A phylarch I lately saw, mounted on horse-back, dressed for the part with long ringlets and all, Stow in his helmet the omelet bought steaming from an old woman ...
— Lysistrata • Aristophanes
... very dense. Suddenly a trumpet blared. At the gate was Pontius Pilate. On his head was a high and dazzling helmet. His tunic was short, open at the neck. His legs were bare. He was shod with shoes that left the toes exposed. From his cuirass a gorgon's head had, in deference to local prejudice, been effaced; in its stead were scrolls and thunderbolts. From the belt rows of straps, embroidered and fringed, fell nearly to the knee. He held his head in the air. His features were excellent, ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... importance are the metopes from Selinuntium, which, though much damaged, show marks of high excellence. They are of clearly different dates, though all very archaic. The oldest represent Perseus cutting off the Gorgon's head, and Hercules killing two thieves. Perseus has the calm, sleepy look of a Hindoo god,—while Gorgon's head, with goggle eyes and protruding tongue, resembles a Mexican idol. Hercules and the thieves ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... had the huntress Dian her dread bow Fair silver-shafted queen for ever chaste, Wherewith she tamed the brinded lioness And spotted mountain-pard, but set at nought The frivolous bolt of Cupid; gods and men Feared her stern frown, and she was queen o' the woods. What was that snaky-headed Gorgon shield That wise Minerva wore, unconquered virgin, Wherewith she freezed her foes to congealed stone, But rigid looks of chaste austerity, And noble grace that dashed brute violence With sudden ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton
... secondary reason why the spirit of Lew Wee has not long since been disembodied by able hands: His static Gorgon face stays the first murderous impulse; then his genial kitchen aroma overpowers their higher natures and the deed of high justice is weakly postponed. This genial kitchen aroma is warm, and composed cunningly from steaming coffee and frying ham or beef, together with eggs and ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... murmuring, cool thy bosom's fiery glow. Orestes, fondly lov'd,—canst thou not hear me? Hath the terrific Furies' grisly band Completely dried the life-blood in thy veins? Creeps there, as from the Gorgon's direful head, A petrifying charm through all thy limbs? If hollow voices, from a mother's blood, Call thee to hell, may not a sister's word With benediction pure ascend to heaven, And summon thence some gracious power ...
— Iphigenia in Tauris • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... have lately walked with about the Park in a morning; but this was far his masterpiece. On its head was engraved a nose and chin, which might have been mistaken for a pair of nutcrackers. The learned have imagined it designed to represent the Gorgon; but it was in fact copied from the face of a certain long English baronet, of infinite wit, humour, and gravity. He did intend to have engraved here many histories: as the first night of Captain B——'s play, where you would have seen critics in embroidery ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... ancient country. Among the regal descendants of Lynceus was Danae, whose son Perseus performed marvelous deeds, by the special favor of Athene, among which he brought from Libya the terrific head of the Gorgon Medusa, which had the marvelous property of turning every one to stone who looked at her. Stung with remorse for the accidental murder of his grandfather, the king, he retired from Argos, and founded the city of Mycenae, the ruins of whose massive walls are still to ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... doubt that the statue is as like Mr. Wilberforce as one pea to another, and you might fancy, that, at some ordinary moment, when he least expected it, and before he had time to smooth away his knowing complication of wrinkles, he had seen the Gorgon's head, and whitened into marble,—not only his personal self, but his coat and small-clothes, down to a button and the minutest crease of the cloth. The ludicrous result marks the impropriety of bestowing the age-long duration of marble upon small, characteristic ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... rafters, all of solid tufa stone. A low stone seat against the wall on each hand and a small hanging lamp were all the furniture of this apartment, awful in its emptiness and mystery. On every side there were dark openings into cells whence came gleams of white, indefinite forms: a great Gorgon's head gazed at us from the ceiling, and from the walls in every direction started the crested heads and necks of sculptured serpents. We entered one by one the nine small grotto-like compartments which surround the central ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... around, each shaft appearing to rise farther than the sight could penetrate, ere it gave birth to the arch from its summit. Dead crusaders lay around in stone, and strove with grim visage to draw the sword and smite the worshippers of Mohammed, as if in the very act they had been petrified by a new Gorgon's head. The steps of the intruders seemed sacrilegious, breaking the solemn stillness of the night as the father led the son into the chapel of the ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... story of The Gorgon's Head with a fourth-year class, the writer stopped at an interesting point and asked, "Do you ever stop to talk over what you read? Or do you always 'go on' and 'keep going on'?" "We always go right on," replied several. "We sometimes stop," said a few, ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... become agitated, and Buck was left wondering the more. She was stirred with strange feelings which embodied a dozen different emotions, and it was the sight of that great black crown, like the head of a Gorgon, which had inspired them. Its fascination was one of cruel attraction. Its familiarity suggested association with some part of her life. It seemed as if she belonged to it, or that it belonged to her—that ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... diminutive mote, But vortex-like that tube of tin Sucked the censorious particle in; And, truth to tell, for as willing an organ As ever listened to serpent's hiss, Nor took the viperous sound amiss, On the snaky head of an ancient Gorgon! ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... eyes blazed upon her with an instant's startled, piercing scrutiny; he set his hand on the cupboard door. And still Barbara stood paralyzed, rooted to the ground as if the unveiled horror of the Gorgon's stare had struck her ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... resistance which society, if it likes, can oppose to the individual in the assertion of his rights, is far more compact and powerful than in Russia, or even in Germany. Even where it does not employ the arm of the law, society knows how to use that quieter, but more crushing pressure, that calm, Gorgon-like look which only the bravest and stoutest hearts know how ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller
... undiscriminating times To endless sleep, with Della Cruscan rhymes; Yes, Critics, whisper thee, litigious wretches! Oblivion's hand shall finish all my Sketches. But see, my soul such bug-bears has repell'd With magnanimity unparallel'd! Take up the volumes, every care dismiss, And smile, gruff Gorgon! while I tell thee this: Not one shall lie neglected on the shelf, All shall be sold—I'll buy them ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... that same year, 1349, temporary quietus having come, Kurfurst Ludwig, weary of the matter, gave it over to his Brother: "Have not I an opulent Maultasche, Gorgon-Wife, susceptible to kindness, in the Tyrol; have not I in the Reich elsewhere resources, appliances?" thought Kurfurst Ludwig. And gave the thing over to his next Brother. Brother whose name also is LUDWIG (as their Father's also had been, three Ludwigs at ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... of Herakles, but the hero himself sits among the gods on Mount Olympos. And there came myriads of souls, making a terrible noise, which filled me with dread, lest I might look upon the Gorgon, and I hastened back to the ship. I ordered the crew to go on board, and they took their oars and rowed until we reached the open sea, where favorable winds caught by the sails wafted ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... to Illyria, together with his wife, where they are both transformed into serpents. Of those who despise Bacchus, Acrisius alone remains, the grandfather of Perseus, who, having cut off the head of the Gorgon Medusa, serpents are produced by her blood. Perseus turns Atlas into a mountain, and having liberated Andromeda, he changes sea-weed into coral, and afterwards ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... stands out as the deliverer, the destroyer of evil? Theseus ridding the land of robbers, and delivering it from the yearly tribute of boys and maidens to be devoured by the Minotaur; Perseus slaying the Gorgon, and rescuing Andromeda from the sea-beast; Heracles with his twelve famous labours against giants and monsters; and all ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... same time, is more book-learned than Don Sebastian. She plays an Hydra upon the Emperor, that is full as good as the Gorgon: ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... 30th HMS "Gorgon" arrived, towing the brig which brought out Mrs Livingstone and some ladies about to join the University mission, as well as the sections of a new iron steamer intended for the navigation of Lake Nyassa. The name of the "Lady Nyassa" was given to ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... Sutton with whom Eliphalet Duncan had fallen in love was the daughter of Mother Gorgon. But he never saw the mother, who was in 'Frisco, or Los Angeles, or Santa Fe, or somewhere out West, and he saw a great deal of the daughter, who was up in the White Mountains. She was traveling with her brother and his wife, and as they journeyed from hotel to ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... algazelle, and the addax and its young from North Africa; the sing-sing, and the koba from Western Africa; the sassaybi; the chamois of the Alps—the subject of many a stirring mountain song; the goats of North Africa; the strange Siberian ibex; the grue and gorgon from the Cape; varieties of the domestic goat, and the beautiful Cashmere goat. Here also are specimens of sheep, including the wild sheep from the Altai; the bearded sheep of North Africa; the American arguli; the nahorr and caprine antelopes from Nepal; and upon the higher ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... little I think—his life and dynasty certainly. At this moment I hear from Rome of a great dinner given by Lamoriciere to his staff, or by his staff to him (I don't know which), only that the health of Henri Cinq was suggested and drunk at it. Gorgon telegraphed the news to Paris. What then? English newspapers (even such papers as the 'Daily News') have stated that Lamoriciere was doing Napoleonic business at Rome. Perhaps this is ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... girt with steel, the foremost in the fight, Fierce Juno stands, the Scaean gates before, And, mad with fury and malignant spite, Calls up her federate forces from the shore. See, on the citadel, all grim with gore, Red-robed, and with the Gorgon shield aglow, Tritonian Pallas bids the conflict roar. E'en Jove with strength reanimates the foe, And stirs the powers of heaven to work the ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... destroy, if Lady Auriol had been a Gorgon or a basilisk or a cockatrice, then had I been a ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... desert, and as Perseus flew before them, some blood-drops fell from the severed head of Medusa, and from them bred the vipers that are found in the desert to this day. But bravely did the winged shoes of Hermes bear Perseus on, and by nightfall the Gorgon sisters had passed from sight, and Perseus found himself once more in the garden of the Hesperides. Ere he sought the nymphs, he knelt by the sea to cleanse from his hands Medusa's blood, and still does the seaweed ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... And gorgon shield,—or, power to fright Man's folly, dreadful shone, And many a blockhead (easy change!) Turn'd, instantly, ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... have no reference to my situation. Yet, unreasonable as it may appear, I confess that my feelings were not altogether so ecstatic as when I first called Mrs. Bullfrog mine. True, she was a sweet woman and an angel of a wife; but what if a Gorgon should return, amid the transports of our connubial bliss, and take the angel's place. I recollected the tale of a fairy, who half the time was a beautiful woman and half the time a hideous monster. Had I taken that very fairy to be ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... more specifically mediaeval. He then proceeds to explain the historical, moral, and three allegorical senses of the story of Perseus and the Gorgon—the highest allegory being theological. Further, to defend the allegorical senses of poetry, which conceals a pith of profit under a pleasant rind, Harington explains fully how Demosthenes, Bishop Fisher, and the Prophet Nathan enforced their arguments by allegorical stories. ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark
... somewhat too bold and hasty, and may raise good Contributions on the Public, if he does not cut himself short by Murder. Tom Tipple, a guzzling soaking Sot, who is always too drunk to stand himself, or to make others stand. A Cart is absolutely necessary for him. Robin of Bagshot, alias Gorgon, alias Bluff Bob, ...
— The Beggar's Opera • John Gay
... him, a baleful figure. He feared to employ the tenderness of tone necessary in his conversations with Chrystie, and as he listened and made out that she wanted to break her next engagement, he turned and fastened a gorgon's glance on the woman in the doorway, jerking his head in ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... to fight a gorgon fight! A cruel monster hell-born, Whose hungry maw, ignoring law, Mocks misery's tears to scorn. She may not slay the beast, but aye Her blows will badly scratch it; All praise is due the woman true, ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... Am I a Gorgon that she doth me fly, Or was I hatched in the river Nile? Or doth my Chloris stand in doubt that I With syren songs do seek her to beguile? If any one of these she can object 'Gainst me, which chaste affected love protest, Then might my fortunes by her frowns be checked, And ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Idea, by Michael Drayton; Fidessa, by Bartholomew Griffin; Chloris, by William Smith • Michael Drayton, Bartholomew Griffin, and William Smith
... ought to frighten something in the way of compensation out of the gorgon," said Nickie, vengefully. Our reprobate hero was a man who knew no ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... the sallow Frenchwoman, with the face of a Gorgon and the figure of a Juno, who posed for the ensemble. She stood against the dark crimson background, outlined pure and white like a marvel of Phidian sculpture upon which the Spirit of Life had slightly breathed. So still, so white, so coldly, purely statuesque ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... prince. That ill-omened and chaotic agglomeration of diverse forms of evil has yet a kind of anarchic order in it, and, like the fabled serpent's locks on the Gorgon head, they intertwine and sting one another, and yet they are a unity. We hear very little about 'the prince of the world' in Scripture. Mercifully the existence of such a being is not plainly revealed until the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... recollection or the apprehension of real adversaries possibly to be met with in the darkness. The fight with Grendel's mother touches on other motives; the terror is further away from human habitations, and it is accompanied with a charm and a beauty, the beauty of the Gorgon, such as is absent from the first adventure. It would have loosened the tension and broken the unity of the scene, if any such irrelevances had been admitted into the story of the fight with Grendel. The fight with Grendel's mother is fought under ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... humility with a strong sense of their wickedness. Then comes Law, with its whips and bonds, to chastise and tie up "the offending Adam"—that is, the Adam without a pocket,—and then the gentle violence of kindly Mother Church leads the poor man far from the fatal presence of his Gorgon wants, to consort him with meek-eyed Charity,—to give him glimpses of the Land of Promise,—to make him hear the rippling waters of Eternal Truth,—to feast his senses with the odours of Eternal sweets. Happy English poor! Ye are not scurfed with the vanities of the flesh! Under the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 9, 1841 • Various
... on a pedestal, leans upon her spear. The Gorgon's skin covers her breast, and a linen peplum descends in regular folds even to her toe-nails. Her grey eyes, which shine beneath her vizor, gaze intently ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... face turned back. He can make the future luxuriant and gigantic, so long as he is thinking about the past. When he tries to think about the future itself, his mind diminishes to a pin point with imbecility, which some call Nirvana. To-morrow is the Gorgon; a man must only see it mirrored in the shining shield of yesterday. If he sees it directly he is turned to stone. This has been the fate of all those who have really seen fate and futurity as clear and inevitable. ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... crimson field, And blue-eyed Pallas shook her Gorgon shield; O'er the hushed waves their mightier monarch drove, And Ida trembled to the ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... trampled underfoot! You have no heart, you have only a brain! You cannot love, you only think! Nor have you any need of love, but only of power! Applause is your vital breath, your native air! To hear your name and praise on every tongue—that is your highest ambition! Such a woman should be a gorgon of ugliness that men might not waste their hearts' wealth upon her!" exclaimed Thurston, bitterly, gazing with murky eyes, that smoldered with suppressed passion, upon the beautiful ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... this cry of battle? where must I bring my aid? where must I sow dread? who wants me to uncase my dreadful Gorgon's head?[217] ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... thy suppliant's head, Dread goddess, lay thy chastening hand! Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad, 35 Not circled with the vengeful band (As by the impious thou art seen), With thundering voice and threatening mien, With screaming Horror's funeral cry, Despair, and fell Disease, ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... What is't you say, the Life? Lenox. Meane you his Maiestie? Macd. Approch the Chamber, and destroy your sight With a new Gorgon. Doe not bid me speake: See, and then speake your selues: ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... The Gorgon cannot have looked more coldly wicked than her ladyship just then. "Have a care, my lord!" she muttered threateningly. "Oh, have a care, I do beseech you. I am not so to ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... a tonic. Ashe was positively grateful to the "old gorgon" who wrote it. He ran up-stairs, his pulses tingling in defence of Kitty. He would show Lady Grosville that she could not write to him, at any rate, in ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... looking back at the individual in black. "What a gorgon!" he continued, as his eyes travelled to the man in motley. "Gog and Magog, by Heavens!" he commented, as he surveyed ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... its publication: but I was rather curtly answered with a "Did I suppose these gnats were intended to be shrined in amber? these mere minnows to be treated with the high consideration due only to potted char and white bait? these fleeting thoughts fixed in stone before that Gorgon-head, the public? these ephemeral fancies dropped into the true elixir of immortality, printer's-ink? these——" I stopped him, for this other mighty mouthful of images betrayed the hypocrite—"Yes, I did." An involuntary smile assured me he did too, and the cause proceeded thus: first, a promise ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... And stood accoutred for the bloody fray. Her tasselled aegis round her shoulders next She threw, with terror circled all around, And on its face were figured deeds of arms And Strife and Courage high, and panic Rout. There too a Gorgon's head of monstrous size Frown'd terrible, portent of angry Jove. . . . . . . . In her hand A spear she bore, long, weighty, tough, wherewith The mighty daughter of a mighty sire Sweeps down the ranks of those ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students - Painting, Sculpture, Architecture • Clara Erskine Clement
... public-utility corporation with thousands of branch offices throughout the United States had as its purchasing agent for many years an old gorgon. He was "a holy terror" to new salesmen, but became a staunch customer when once his confidence was deservedly gained. And every employee in the office of this tartar loved him for his true kindness ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... entrance of the city of King Pluto. The shades which sadly wandered back and forth before the gates of the city took flight as soon as they caught sight of flesh and blood in the form of a living man. Only the Gorgon Medusa and the spirit of Meleager remained. The former Hercules wished to overthrow with his sword, but Mercury touched him on the arm and told him that the souls of the departed were only empty shadow pictures and could not be ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... brink of that stream?—A traitor, bringing war and pestilence into the heart of that country! No wonder that he paused! No wonder if, in his imagination, wrought upon by his conscience, he had beheld blood instead of water; and heard groans instead of murmurs. No wonder if some Gorgon horror had turned him into stone upon the spot.—But, no!—he cried, "The die is cast!" He plunged!—He crossed!—and Rome was free ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... the bank of a muddy river there was something which glittered in the pale light. He flew a little nearer; but he did not dare to look straight forward, lest he should all at once meet the gaze of a Gorgon, and be changed into stone. So he turned around, and held the shining shield before him in such a way that by looking into it he could see objects behind him ...
— Old Greek Stories • James Baldwin
... some violent gesture, perhaps by dealing a blow at that bust which stood there so placidly before him, just as the poor youth did at the British Museum, who threw a stone at the Portland vase, to prove that he also was a man, and had volition, and was not to be looked into stone by the Gorgon of society. Fortunately, however, Sir John Steventon himself came ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... another word. Long after he was out of sight the chaplain stood fixed in the same attitude of panic-stricken, helpless despondency. By my faith! even in these degenerate days, we have petrifying influences left that may match the head of the Gorgon. ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... rather be your fool and sot, always merry, ever young, and making sport for other people, than either Homer's Jupiter with his crooked counsels, terrible to everyone; or old Pan with his hubbubs; or smutty Vulcan half covered with cinders; or even Pallas herself, so dreadful with her Gorgon's head and spear and a countenance like bullbeef? Why is Cupid always portrayed like a boy, but because he is a very wag and can neither do nor so much as think of anything sober? Why Venus ever in her prime, but because of her affinity with me? ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... step in, sir?" the elderly Gorgon had returned to ask. She led Mr. Ware along the hall-way to a door near the end, and opened it for him to ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... on thy suppliant's head, Dread Goddess! lay thy chastening hand, Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad, Nor circled with the vengeful band: (As by the impious thou art seen), With thundering voice and threatening mien, With screaming Horror's funeral cry, Despair, and fell ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... there, man! Bless mine eyes! art thou the chairman! Chairman to yon damned committee! Yet I look on thee with pity. Dreadful sight! what! learned Morgan Metamorphosed to a Gorgon? For thy horrid looks I own, Half convert me to a stone, Hast thou been so long at school, Now to turn a factious tool? Alma Mater was thy mother, Every young divine thy brother. Thou a disobedient varlet, Treat thy mother like a harlot! Thou ungrateful to thy teachers, Who are ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... the pictures. There were doors to this temple of such beauty that books had been written about them. He stripped the ivory ornaments from them, and the golden balls with which they had been made splendid. He tore off from them the head of the Gorgon and carried it away, leaving them to be rude ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... Athenaic symbols: but I may note rapidly, that her aegis, the mantle with the serpent fringes, in which she often, in the best statues, is represented as folding up her left hand for better guard, and the Gorgon on her shield, are both representative mainly of the chilling horror and sadness (turning men to stone, as it were,) of the outmost and superficial spheres of knowledge—that knowledge which separates, in bitterness, hardness, and sorrow, ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... the Roman pontiff and all his adherents were odious to the people, produced a remarkable caricature, and ingenious invention—a gorgon's head! A church bell forms the helmet; the ornaments, instead of the feathers, are a wolf's head in a mitre devouring a lamb, an ass's head with spectacles reading, a goose holding a rosary: the face is ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... Loggia? where is set Cellini's godlike Perseus, bronze or gold, (How name the metal, when the statue flings Its soul so in your eyes?) with brow and sword Superbly calm, as all opposing things, Slain with the Gorgon, were no more abhorred Since ended? No, the people sought no wings From Perseus in the Loggia, nor implored An inspiration in the place beside From that dim bust of Brutus, jagged and grand, Where ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... court, had often to bivouac under tents in the open air. The people crowded in thousands to see their sovereign—a liberty which, it is well known, may not be used in Peking, where every one must hasten to hide his head as from the fabled Gorgon. The ancestral tombs at Mookden, where the imperial manes repose under care of a large garrison, were at length reached. And now Taou-Kwang became a family man, abandoning the forms of state and the pomp of ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 433 - Volume 17, New Series, April 17, 1852 • Various
... the three Furies of the Greek legends. When they beheld Dante they howled for the Gorgon, Medusa, with the snaky locks to come quickly and turn him into stone—a fate that must befall all men that gazed upon her face. But Vergil bade Dante hide his eyes, and to be sure that he might be saved he covered ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... thought, Nicias, and change a beautiful young girl into a hideous Gorgon. I am sorry for you, if you are so ignorant of the nature of the gods, of justice, and of ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... Villain, I tell thee, were that Tamburlaine As monstrous [188] as Gorgon prince of hell, The Soldan would not start a foot from him. But ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part I. • Christopher Marlowe
... the firmament bristle with shapes Of intermittent motion, aspect vague, And mystic bearings, which o'ercreep the earth, Keeping slow time with horrors in the blood;" the Gorgon's petrific Head, the Bear's frightful form, Berenice's streaming Hair, the curdling length of Ophiuchus, and the Hydra's horrid shape. The poetic eye of old religion saw gods in the planets walking their serene ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... "sin." Looked at in one way, he sees the separate acts of which he had been guilty—lust, fraud, treachery, murder: looked at in another, he sees them all knotted together, in one inextricable tangle of forked, hissing tongues, like the serpent locks that coil and twist round a Gorgon head. No sin dwells alone; the separate acts have a common root, and the whole is matted together like the green growth on a stagnant pond, so that, by whatever filament it is grasped, the whole mass is drawn towards ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... which, it is perhaps needless to note, belong to those "dismal dark subjects, neither entertaining nor ornamental," against which we have already heard the painter inveigh. Upon the ceiling, with a nice sense of decorative fitness, is Pharaoh in the Red Sea. From a sconce at the side, a Gorgon surveys the proceedings with astonishment. Hogarth has used a similar idea in the Strolling Actresses, where the same mask seems horrified at the airy freedom of the lightly-clad lady who there enacts the part ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... Senate of the Areopagus, by supplying each fighting man with eight drachmas, did good service in manning the fleet; and Kleidemus tells us that this money was obtained by an artifice of Themistokles. When the Athenians were going down to the Peiraeus, he gave out that the Gorgon's head had been lost from the statue of the goddess. Themistokles, under pretext of seeking for it, searched every man, and found great stores of money hidden in their luggage, which he confiscated, and thus was able to supply the crews of the ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... it. A measure of ignorance of ourselves is wise, because consciousness of a weakness may lead us to give it rein. Perfect strength can coexist only with perfect knowledge, but neither is attainable by man. Man should pay to be screened from himself, lest his sword fail,—lest the Gorgon's head on his breast ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... least revolutionary of European nations. Unfitted for scientific work and full of ardour, Mr. Carlyle found his mission in rushing with all his might to the annihilation of this terrible poet, who, like some gorgon, hydra, or chimera dire planted at the gate, carried off a yearly tale of youths and virgins from the city. In literature, only a revolutionist can thoroughly overpower a revolutionist. Mr. Carlyle ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 2: Carlyle • John Morley
... climbed up the wall and took from her hair the flower as she wept, in exchange for another which—which the Squire had sent her. And she whispered a word of sorrow, and he another of comfort, and came away. And the Gorgons suspected nothing; except perhaps the littlest Gorgon, and she ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... a little, and she looked anxious. Not Perseus, coming at last in sight of his Gorgon, had a heart more sick with fear than hers was ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... exclaims, "how like the Gorgon of the Arabian Nights thou art! For does not every one whom thou favorest undergo a pitiful transformation even from the first bedding with thee? Does not everything suffer from thy look, thy touch, thy breath? The rose loses ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... of gaieties, are looked forward to, as pleasures are, the wide world over; and all classes, from highest to lowest, have their modes of enjoyment marked out. Preparation follows preparation in festal succession. Sorrow hides her Gorgon head, care may betake itself to any dreary recesses, for ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... stranger, my boy. Someone here is composing, with much citation of texts, a dissertation on the Gorgon Islands: de Gorgonum insulis. Medusa, according to him, was a Libyan savage who lived near Lake Triton, our present Chott Melhrir, and it is there that Perseus ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... exclaiming, "Lord Jesus! Sir, you are not the man! and, without doubt, are under some mistake with regard to us." Before Peregrine had time to answer this salutation, the lady, hearing it, advanced to him, and, pulling off a mask, discovered a face which he had never seen before. The Gorgon's head, according to the fables of antiquity, never had a more instantaneous or petrifying effect, than that which this countenance produced upon the astonished youth. His eyes were fixed upon this unknown object, as if they had been ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... recover his senses, and to come back from the place where he had been struck by the hammer of treachery. He seemed to realize again that he was still a part of the common world, not a human being swung through the universe on his heart-strings by a Gorgon. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Gorgon's head before Polydectes's guests and turning them to stone wrought hardly more of a miracle than this calm announcement of Themistocles. Men stared at him vacantly, stunned by the tidings, then Adeimantus's frightened ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... turn and turn about, in these terms (evidently all rehearsed beforehand), my two Gorgon visitors straightened themselves in their chairs, and looked at me as much as to say, 'You may often have heard of Virtue, Miss Gwilt, but we don't believe you ever really saw it in full bloom till we came ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... a mirror and sickle, brought it away with him in a pouch, and after delivering and marrying Andromeda in his return journey, exposed the head before Polydectes and court at a banquet, which turned them all into stone, whereupon he gave the Gorgon's head to Athena to place on her shield, and set out for Argos; Acrisius hearing of his approach fled, but was afterwards killed accidentally by his grandson, who in throwing a discus had ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... more farewell,—a sad, a sweet farewell; And, if I never must behold you more, In other worlds I will not cease to tell The rosary I here have numbered o'er; And bright-haired Hope will lend a gladdened ear, And Love will free him from the grasp of Fear, And Gorgon critics, while the tale they hear, Shall dew their stony glances with a tear, If I but catch one echo from your spell:— And ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... at length upon a cobbler, Giles Gorgon by name, who produced several new grins of his own invention, having been used to cut faces for many years together over his last. At the very first grin he cast every human feature out of his countenance; at the second ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... Gorgon! If those lips could only speak!" laughed the girl. "Don't you think Gorgon's a good name for the ugly darling, Mr. Bellamy?" she said, as they went ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... reported that Mrs. Watson was in a critical condition. I understood also that legal steps were being taken to terminate my lease at Sunnyside. Louise was out of danger, but very ill, and a trained nurse guarded her like a gorgon. There was a rumor in the village, brought up by Liddy from the butcher's, that a wedding had already taken place between Louise and Doctor Walkers and this roused me for the first ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... his wife engaged in even innocent conversation with her lover, his face still calm, should produce the effect mythologically attributed to the celebrated Gorgon. ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... sat down on Miss Douglas's vacant chair, evidently with the intention of staying in the room to act Gorgon. Gwen walked to her desk in the depths of humiliation. She caught Netta's glance as she went by, and it seemed ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... admitted that her mind was a complete blank on the subject of the Eleusinian mysteries. Aphrodite's dress was admirable for summer, but in winter seemed obstinate conservatism; and why should Pallas make herself a fright with her Gorgon helmet, now that it no longer frightened anybody? Where Elenko would fain have adored she found herself tolerating, excusing, condescending. How many Elenkos are even now tenderly nursing ancient creeds, whose main virtue is the virtue ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... markedly the colouring and the physiognomy of Hellenism. Yet Cyprian artists probably executed the work. There are little departures from Greek models, which indicate the "barbarian" workman, as the introduction of trees in the backgrounds, the shape of the furniture, the recurved wings of the Gorgon, and the idea of hunting the wild bull. But the figures, the proportions, the draperies, the attitudes, the chariot, the horse, are almost pure Greek. There is a grace and ease in the modelling, an elegance, a variety, to which Asiatic art, left to itself, never attained. The style, however, ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... through the hall, thick swarming now With complicated monsters head and tail, Scorpion, and Asp, and Amphisbaena dire, Cerastes horned, Hydrus, and Elops drear, And Dipsas; (not so thick swarmed once the soil Bedropt with blood of Gorgon, or the isle Ophiusa,) but still greatest he the midst, Now Dragon grown, larger than whom the sun Ingendered in the Pythian vale or slime, Huge Python, and his power no less he seemed Above the rest still to retain; they ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... with a symbolical vase in relief; ornaments in stucco, on the front of the main building, consisting of the lotus, the sistrum, representations of gods, Harpocrates, Anubis, and other objects of Egyptian worship. The figures on one side of this temple are Perseus with the Gorgon's head; on the other side, Mars and Venus, with Cupids bearing the arms of Mars. We next observe three altars of different sizes. On one of them is said to have been found the bones of a victim unconsumed, the last sacrifice having probably been stopped by the dreadful ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford |
