Free Translator Free Translator
Translators Dictionaries Courses Other
Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Potion   Listen
verb
Potion  v. t.  To drug. (Obs.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Potion" Quotes from Famous Books



... Duchess guessed my intentions. We were at war in our purposes before we fought with poison in our hands. We tried to tempt each other to such confidence as we could not feel, I to induce her to drink a potion, she to get posses- sion of me. She was a woman, and she won the day; for women have a snare more than we men. I fell into it—I was happy; but I awoke next day in this iron cage. All through the day I bellowed with ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac

... Stirs his ancestral potion in the gloom, And the dark wood Is stifled with the pungent fume Of charred earth burnt to the bone That takes the place of air. Then sudden I remember when and where,— The last weird lakelet foul with weedy growths And slimy viscid things the spirit loathes, Skin of ...
— Lundy's Lane and Other Poems • Duncan Campbell Scott

... must part with you; here in this now sad place, where I was so happy as first to meet you: but I shall long for the ninth of May; for then I hope again to enjoy your beloved company, at the appointed time and place. And now I wish for some somniferous potion, that might force me to sleep away the intermitted time, which will pass away with me as tediously as it does with men in sorrow; nevertheless I will make it as short as I can, by my hopes and wishes: and, my good Master, I will not forget the doctrine which ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton

... and places strewed with straw, to which they conveyed those wretches who were overwhelmed with intoxication. In these dismal caverns they lay until they recovered some use of their faculties, and then they had recourse to the same mischievous potion; thus consuming their health, and ruining their families, in hideous receptacles of the most filthy vice, resounding with riot, execration, and blasphemy. Such beastly practices too plainly denoted a total want of all policy and civil regulations, and would have reflected disgrace ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... received by their victuals and drink, which were very nourishing, disposed me to sleep. I slept about eight hours, as I was afterwards assured; and it was no wonder, for the physicians, by the emperor's order had mingled a sleepy potion in ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten

... melancholy. He was serious but perfectly composed; nay, there was even a chastened cheerfulness in his manner. He looked like one who had accepted the cup presented to him; had already exhausted most of the bitter potion, and was calmly prepared to ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various

... in drowsy ignorance, But for a thing more deadly dark than all; It came like a fierce potion, drunk by chance, Which saves a sick man from the feather'd pall For some few gasping moments; like a lance, Waking an Indian from his cloudy hall 270 With cruel pierce, and bringing him again Sense of the gnawing fire ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats

... Monte Cristo, "the secret dramas of the East begin with a love philtre and end with a death potion—begin with paradise and end with—hell. There are as many elixirs of every kind as there are caprices and peculiarities in the physical and moral nature of humanity; and I will say further—the art of these chemists is capable with ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... despatch him. Seeing this, Magny, with the most dreadful self-abasement, after dragging himself round the room on his knees from one officer to another, weeping and screaming with terror, at last desperately drank off the potion, and was a corpse in a few minutes. Thus ended this wretched ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray

... alone, without encounter or relapse and by mere quiet evasion, given his afternoon and evening to the immediate and the sensible. They formed a qualified draught of Europe, an afternoon and an evening on the banks of the Mersey, but such as it was he took his potion at least undiluted. He winced a little, truly, at the thought that Waymarsh might be already at Chester; he reflected that, should he have to describe himself there as having "got in" so early, it would be difficult to make the interval look particularly eager; but he was like a ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... potluck, table d'hote[Fr], dejeuner a la fourchette[Fr]; hearty meal, square meal, substantial meal, full meal; blowout*; light refreshment; bara[obs3], chotahazri[obs3]; bara khana[obs3]. mouthful, bolus, gobbet[obs3], morsel, sop, sippet[obs3]. drink, beverage, liquor, broth, soup; potion, dram, draught, drench, swill*; nip, sip, sup, gulp. wine, spirits, liqueur, beer, ale, malt liquor, Sir John Barleycorn, stingo[obs3], heavy wet; grog, toddy, flip, purl, punch, negus[obs3], cup, bishop, wassail; gin &c. (intoxicating ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... of the lost in the laugh with which he turned to the Governor. "That pretty little tale, sir, that I regaled you with, the day you obligingly picked me up, was pure imagination; the wetting must have disordered my reason. A potion sweeter than the honey of Hybla, which I am about to drink, hath restored me beforehand. Gentlemen all, there was mutiny aboard that ship which so providentially sank before your very eyes. For why? The crew, who were pirates, and the captain, who was yonder gentleman, ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston

... which soon breaking, "O wretched headband!" said she, "not able to help me even in this small thing!" And throwing it away she spat on it, and offered her throat to Bacchides. Berenice had prepared a potion for herself, but at her mother's entreaty, who stood by, she gave her part of it. Both drank of the potion, which prevailed over the weaker body. But Berenice, having drunk too little, was not released by it, but lingering on unable to die, was ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... to consider the constituent parts and properties of the most common things we are in the habit of daily using, and their poisonous and destructive natures, we should recoil at the deadly potion, and shrink from the loathsome draught we are about to take. That which we consider the most delicious and exhilarating portion of our common beverage, porter, contains carbonic acid gas, commonly known by the "spirit," ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII. F, No. 325, August 2, 1828. • Various

... my father was sober and industrious by habit; but habit is not uniform. There were intervals when his plodding and tame spirit gave place to the malice and fury of a demon. Liquors were not sought by him; but he could not withstand entreaty, and a potion that produced no effect upon others changed him ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown

... the seeing, but taking of a potion, that maketh it work as it should, nor is the blood of Christ a purge to this or that conscience, except received ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... man," he added as Citizen Brogard, obsequious and fussy, and with pockets stuffed with English gold, came shuffling along, "where do you hide your engaging countenance? Here! another length of rope for the gallant soldiers. Bring them in here, then give them that potion down their throats, as I have prescribed. Demm it! I wish we need not have brought them along, but that devil Santerre might have been suspicious else. They'll come to no harm, though, and can do ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... the sea, Quitting at her father's will The green isle deg. where she was bred, deg.130 And her bower in Ireland, For the surge-beat Cornish strand Where the prince whom she must wed Dwells on loud Tyntagel's hill, deg. deg.134 High above the sounding sea. 135 And that potion rare her mother Gave her, that her future lord, Gave her, that King Marc and she, Might drink it on their marriage-day, And for ever love each other— 140 Let her, as she sits on board, Ah, sweet saints, unwittingly! See it shine, and take it up, And to Tristram laughing say: "Sir Tristram, ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold

... brought him that which had lifted a load of suspense and anxiety from his mind, and he was unusually light-hearted and at ease. His head was scarcely upon his pillow when he was asleep, but not so very sound asleep, for Flagg had over-shot his mark, and the sleeping potion which he had so wickedly put into the carafe of water had given it a slightly bitter taste, so that Seabrooke had found it disagreeable and had not drank the usual quantity, and the close he had taken was not sufficient to stupefy him, but ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews

... uttered a word, she had not replied to questions—she had done nothing but glance around her and tremble. The servant had sent the gardener for a doctor. The doctor had come and had prescribed a soothing potion, but my mother had refused to say anything to him either. The gardener asserted that a few moments after the shriek had rung out from my mother's room he had seen a strange man run hastily across the ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... and hearts with her beauty; a reconciliation, entirely for money considerations, which drove another far less erring woman into a madhouse (but that was Sir Guy's fault); and a darker tale still of a certain potion prepared by her hand, which the Baronet was prevented from swallowing only by his invariable habit of contradicting his wife on all points, and which the lady herself had the effrontery to boast "would have settled all accounts." ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville

... the most licentious proposals; and she readily listened to the passion of a minister, who, even in the decline of the empire, was respected as the equal of kings. The death of a jealous lover was an easy and grateful sacrifice; and, as Helmichis issued from the bath, he received the deadly potion from the hand of his mistress. The taste of the liquor, its speedy operation, and his experience of the character of Rosamond, convinced him that he was poisoned: he pointed his dagger to her breast, compelled her to drain the remainder of the cup, and expired in a few minutes, with ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... victim held fast in the clutches of unfeeling hoggishness, fascinated or subjugated, made to serve, while serviceable; and then cast off without a shred of respectability for another. It is an ordinary occurrence for one of these victims to swallow a deadly potion on being shown her folly and left to its consequences; and the human ogre rides triumphantly ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton

... raise! Pray don't be so fastidious! She But as a leech, her hocus-pocus plays, That well with you her potion may agree. [He compels FAUST to ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... night Juliet drank off the potion. She had many misgivings lest the friar, to avoid the blame which might be imputed to him for marrying her to Romeo, had given her poison; but then he was always known for a holy man: then lest she should awake before the time that Romeo was to come for her; whether the terror of the place, ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb

... top rises to the summit of the dome. I was there buried in a manner; but was saved by the magi; and supplied with all the necessaries of life. At break of day his majesty's apothecary entered my chamber with a potion composed of a mixture of henbane, opium, hemlock, black hellebore, and aconite; and another officer went to thine with a bowstring of blue silk. Neither of us was to be found. Cador, the better to deceive the ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne

... be praised, 42 to roof and foundation may the fire ascend and to (work) evil may those seven never draw near. 43 Like a broad scimitar in a broad place bid (thine) hand rest; and 44 In circling fire by night and by day[2] on the (sick) man's head may it abide. 45 At night mingle the potion and at dawn in his hand let him raise (it). 46 In the night a precept[3] in a holy book,[4] in bed, on the sick man's head let them place.[5] 47 The hero (Merodach) unto his warriors sends: 48 Let the Fire-god seize on the incubus. 49 Those baleful seven may ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous

... light and air This year is the hundredth year, I feed my fire with a sleepless care, Watching my potion wane or wax: Elixir of Life is simmering there, ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti

... Doc," he said, "this pickney down by de debbil-trees, they got um sartain. You potion ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... advised old Peter Skirmish, the Soldier, to hurt Corporal Oath upon the Leg; and in that hurry I'll rush amongst 'em, and in stead of giving the Corporal some Cordial to comfort him, I'll power into his mouth a potion of a sleepy Nature, to make him seem as dead; for the which the old soldier being apprehended, and ready to be born to execution, I'll step in, and take upon me the cure of the dead man, upon pain of dying the ...
— The Puritain Widow • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]

... particularly obnoxious to our hero; and, in an unlucky moment, he resolved to 'pickle him,' as he facetiously termed it. Now his process of pickling consisted in mixing a portion of prussic acid in milk. Taking the precaution to call in his own pet and favorite, he placed the potion in the accustomed path of her long-whiskered suitor. Tom finding the coast clear slipped his furry body over the wall, and dropped gently as a lady's glove into the garden, and slily smelling the flower-borders, as if he were merely amusing himself ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour

... bowed low, while Coppenole, with his surly mien, had the air of one of the bears of which his majesty was speaking. The king paid no heed. He had just dipped his lips into the goblet, and he spat out the beverage, saying: "Foh! what a disagreeable potion!" The man who ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo

... over, I took the billy and replenished it at the river. Before getting into the wagon again, I emptied the contents of Mrs. Vivian's bottle into half a pannikin-full of the oxide of hydrogen, and stirred the potion thoroughly with a stick. Then returning to my patient, I raised his head, and held the pannikin to his lips. He finished the draught, unconscious of its medicinal virtues; and I refolded the old overcoat which served as a pillow, and laid him down ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... being a shrewd young rascal, he at last contrived the plan of putting them into the ice-cream which was then being frozen for the royal dinner. Then everybody would be sure to get a taste at least of the magic potion; and slipping down into the kitchen, the wicked young Prince succeeded in carrying out this evil and ...
— Prince Vance - The Story of a Prince with a Court in His Box • Eleanor Putnam

... did he see in her? Taking for granted that he saw something, Aurora attributed this unknown quality in herself to God, and thanked Him. She tightened her clasp about Gerald, the better to feel him there. The power of the sleeping-potion had overtaken him completely. Thoughts that moistened her eyes resulted from feeling her arms full of the breathing warmth of a beloved form. Those defrauded maternal arms! That other, who would have been five years old at this time, and would have been called little Dan, after Dan, her big father, ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall

... fashion to love Edward Benden that way," said Tabitha, perversely misinterpreting her father-in-law's words. "I'll mix him a potion 'll help to cleanse his disorder, you'll see. Bitters be good for sick folks; and he's grievous sick. I met Mall a-coming; she saith he snapped ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt

... aside, had not your seasonable reference to a Swatow limb-contorter struck me heavily and abruptly turned off the source of my agreement. Might not this all-water entertainment, it occurred to this one, consist in enticing him to drink a potion made unsuspectedly hot, in projecting him backwards into a vat of the same liquid, or some similar device for the pleasurable amusement of those around, which would come within the boundaries of your refined disapproval? ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah

... Mr Podsnap now inquired from his station of host, as if he were administering something in the nature of a powder or potion to the ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... all mental action, while yet it should be gradual and slow in its operations on the vital functions of the body. Locusta answered in the affirmative. Such characters were always prepared to furnish any species of medicaments that their customers might call for. She compounded a potion which she said possessed the properties which Agrippina required, and Agrippina, receiving it ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott

... it occurred to him that his steps might be audible, and he quietly removed both shoes and stockings. He had previously taken Bradley's money, with the exception of a few dollars, without in the least arousing his sleepy comrade, who, in consequence of the potion he had unsuspiciously taken, was still wrapped in ...
— The Young Explorer • Horatio Alger

... tops of crabs' claws, the bone from a stag's heart, unicorn's horn, and salt of vipers. You must take one or two drams—not more—in a glass of hot posset-drink, when you go to bed, and swallow another draught of the same potion to wash it down." ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... eternally be drawn downwards, and he cannot be pervaded, as he might have been, with the free spirit of genuine philanthropy. To be consistent, he ought continually to grow colder and colder; and the romance, which fired his youth, and made him forget the venomous potion he had swallowed, will fade away in age, rendering him careless of all but himself, and indifferent to the adversity and sufferings of all of whom he hears, and all with whom he ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin

... he had promised to leave me his heir, and I used to show my appreciation. However, it went on such a time; Tithonus was a juvenile to him; so I found a short cut to my property. I bought a potion, and agreed with the butler that next time his master called for wine (he is a pretty stiff drinker) he should have this ready in a cup and present it; and I was pledged to reward the ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata

... in the cabin, so that the eleven now in their charge were easily cared for. Of these, only three had been seriously injured. One was the German, who, however, was now sleeping soundly under the influence of the soothing potion that followed his operation. The man's calmness and iron nerve indicated that he would make a rapid recovery. Another was the young Belgian soldier picked up in the roadway near the firing line, who had been shot in the back and had not yet recovered consciousness. Dr. Gys had removed ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne

... mysteries! He's not with thee, At all less wise nor more Than human Lover is with her he deigns to adore. He finds a fair capacity, And fills it with himself, and glad would die For that sole She.' 'Know'st thou some potion me awake to keep, Lest, to the grief of that ne'er-slumbering Bliss, Disgraced I sleep, Wearied in soul by his bewildering kiss?' 'The Immortals, Psyche, moulded men from sods That Maids from them might learn the ways of Gods. Think, would ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore

... medley of persons visited this house, each seeking in her own peculiar way the elixir of life, which is beauty, or the potion of love, which is beauty's handmaiden. There were remedies plus remedies; the same skin-food was warranted to create double-chins or destroy them; the same tonic killed superfluous hair or made it grow on bald spots. A ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath

... Fritz swallowed the potion unhesitatingly, immediately sinking back on his pillow in a quiet sleep; when the girl, sitting down by the side of the bed, watched the long-drawn, quivering respirations that came from the white, parted lips of the ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson

... and was struggling violently against three men, who were striving to hold him, while a physician tried to force him to swallow a potion. ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau

... Jerusalem to purge him of blood, as he would take a physician's draught to cure him of the least of little aches. A pilgrimage is a remedy, as a prayer is a medicine. To repeat the act of contrition so and so often, or to run through a dozen rosaries of an afternoon, is a potion for the sick soul." ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford

... potion which will destroy their memory and sense of identity; they must go into the world helpless, and without a will of their own; they must draw lots for their dispositions before they go, and take them, ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler

... her munificence, he took the draught of love as from a sacred chalice, which a meaner nature would have grasped as a festal goblet. He might have grasped it thus, and the sacramental wine would have been a Circe's potion, and Lettice would have given her gift in vain. But nature does not so miscalculate her highest moods. "Spirits are not finely touched but to fine issues." Lettice's giving was an act of faith, and her faith ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... excess. Her spirits drooped, her art was laid aside, and much of the cheerfulness of home was lost to her. There was a child, but it was stillborn, and not long after this disaster, it was found that Mrs. Rossetti had taken an overdose of her accustomed sleeping potion and was lying dead in her bed. This was in 1862, and after two years only of married life. The blow was a terrible one to Rossetti, who was the first to discover what fate had reserved for him. It was some days before he seemed fully to realise the loss that had befallen him, and then ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine

... brew me a potion strong and good! One golden drop in his wine Shall charm his sense and fire his blood, And ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus

... activities which are connected with one another only by the name "Philology." It must be freely admitted that philology is to some extent borrowed from several other sciences, and is mixed together like a magic potion from the most outlandish liquors, ores, and bones. It may even be added that it likewise conceals within itself an artistic element, one which, on aesthetic and ethical grounds, may be called imperatival—an ...
— Homer and Classical Philology • Friedrich Nietzsche

... the nick of time,' said the witch; 'after sunrise to-morrow I should not be able to help you until another year had run its course. I will make you a potion, and before sunrise you must swim ashore with it, seat yourself on the beach and drink it; then your tail will divide and shrivel up to what men call beautiful legs. But it hurts; it is as if a sharp sword were running through you. All who see you will say that you are the most beautiful ...
— Stories from Hans Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... home. After the potion had been administered, the bleeding was wholly stopped; and in half an hour, his mother could express her wishes in a whisper. When the little doctor arrived, he carefully examined his patient, and then went down stairs with her son ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat

... Sandman; we must all have our heads on our shoulders to-night," said the captain, as he drank off the potion he ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic

... having given a potion, and renewed the folds of wet linen on Electra's head, Irene stole back to the window, and, turning the shutters, looked down the street. Here and there an anxious group huddled on the corners, with ears strained to catch every sound, and, while she watched, a horseman clattered at a hard gallop ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... Ireland, another Ysolde, well versed in every magic art, then brews a mighty love potion, which she intrusts to Brangeane's care, bidding her conceal it in her daughter's medicine chest, and administer it to the royal bride and groom on their wedding night, to insure their future happiness by deep ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber

... professing the exercise of these arts, were used to 'set the name of Christ before their ligatures, and enchantments, and other devices, to seduce Christians to take the venomous bait under the covert of a sweet and honey potion, that the bitter might be hid under the sweet, and make men drink it without discerning to their destruction.' The heretics of the primitive, as well as of the middle, ages were accused of working miracles, and propagating ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams

... troop gathered round the two girls. But Alizon only clasped her hands more tightly round Dorothy; while the latter, on whose brain the maddening potion still worked, laughed frantically at them. It was at this moment that Elizabeth Device, who had conceived a project of revenge, put it into execution. While near Dorothy, she stamped, spat on the ground, and then cast a little mould over her, breathing in her ear, "Thou art ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... Eustache was not Diane's only hope. That evening she sent Veronique to Rene of Milan, the court-perfumer, but also called by the malicious, l'empoisonneur de le Reine, to obtain from him the most infallible charm and love potion in his ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... between eighteen and twenty-five years of age. This, as might be expected, has been more effectual, because it interests those that are exempt to force the compliance of those who are not. Our young men here were like children with a medicine—they proposed first one form of taking this military potion, then another, and finding them all equally unpalatable, would not, but for a little salutary force, ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... daughter. Upon his return from that expedition, he sent Lychas for the vestments which he had occasion to use in a sacrifice which it was his intention to offer. Deianira, jealous on account of his passion for Iole, sent him either a philtre or love potion, which unintentionally caused his death, or else a tunic smeared on the inside with a certain kind of pitch, found near Babylon, which, when thoroughly warmed, stuck fast to his skin; and this it is, most probably, which has been termed by poets and historians, the tunic of Nessus. It seems, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso

... Utilitate, p. 347, he writes the date as September 23, but on all other occasions the date first written is used. Before he saw the light malefic influences were at work against him. His mother, urged on no doubt by the desire to conceal her shame, and persuaded by evil counsellors, drank a potion of abortive drugs in order to produce miscarriage,[11] but Nature on this occasion was not to be baulked. In recording the circumstances of his birth he writes at some length in the jargon of astrology to show how ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters

... and will join The cause of Ignorance. And now, my lords, Each to his post. The rostrum I ascend; My lord of Law, you to your courts repair; And you, my good lord Physick, to the queen; Handle her pulse, potion and ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding

... society increased day by day. An inward grace seemed to stir within him from the moment when he took the oath to go on the quest of the Holy Greal; it seemed even to triumph over the power of the magic love-potion. ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... with its poets leaning out of windows into the night hearing love songs in the rhythmic whisper of lagging feet strolling under the shade of elms. And under cover of a June night, breathing in the sensuous meaning of the time like a charmed potion, Judge Van Dorn, who personated justice to twenty-five thousand people, went forth a slinking, ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... droll creatures, and will tell many things the one to the other in the way of a ploy, and Margaret McBride made great work with old Betty's love potion, and ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars

... Taking advantage of the coldness which had for some time existed between the Taiko and Rikiu, the enemies of the latter accused him of being implicated in a conspiracy to poison the despot. It was whispered to Hideyoshi that the fatal potion was to be administered to him with a cup of the green beverage prepared by the tea-master. With Hideyoshi suspicion was sufficient ground for instant execution, and there was no appeal from the will of the angry ruler. One privilege alone ...
— The Book of Tea • Kakuzo Okakura

... job; that's where it's meant to fly," explained the convivial Mr. Thrush, preparing the potion with practised hand. Baited with a biscuit it was eventually swallowed, and a flagging giant refreshed by his surrender. It made him like his new acquaintance too well to bear the thought of detaining ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung

... Instant when he was to die, they asked him what commands he had for his Son, he answered, To forget this Injury of the Athenians. Niocles, his Friend, under the same Sentence, desired he might drink the Potion before him: Phocion said, because he never had denied him any thing he would not even this, the most difficult Request he had ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... advances and regressions, their passionate surges that finally and after all their exquisite hesitations mount and flare and unroll themselves in fullness—they, too, seem to be seeking to distill some of the same brew, the same magic drugging potion, to conjure up out of the orchestral depths some Venusberg, some Klingsor's garden full of subtle scent and ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld

... It was not possible, it was not possible, she said over mechanically. For St. George to have come with this story of a potion—a drug that had restored youth to her father, had transformed him from that mad ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale

... great distress, consults the Friar who married her to Romeo. He gives her a potion to create an apparent death in her, to the end that she may be buried in the family vault, taken thence and restored to life by himself, and then conveyed to Romeo. He writes to Romeo, telling him of the plan; but the letter miscarries. Juliet ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield

... had certainly occurred in the case of Britannicus, who had thrown off with ease the first dose administered to him by Nero. Upon which he had summoned to his presence the woman employed in the affair, and compelling her by threats to mingle a more powerful potion in his own presence, had tried it successively upon different animals, until he was satisfied with its effects; after which, immediately inviting Britannicus to a banquet, he had finally dispatched him. ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey

... in amount not trivial. How often is her spirit borne down, and her frame attenuated by the accumulation of these minor troubles. Like the patient in the restlessness of fever, she needs some composing potion to allay, and ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey

... another skilful Phaeton should drive the car of the Sun. You seek to draw a sweet potion from a dry stone. A new world, if I may so express myself, has been discovered under the auspices of the Catholic sovereigns, your uncle Ferdinand and your aunt Isabella, and you command me to describe to you this heretofore unknown world; and to that effect you sent ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt

... in) and something from the Lancet is extracted, a long article against quackery—and, as I say, this is the first and only sentence I read—'There is scarcely a peer of the realm who is not the patron of some quack pill or potion: and the literati too, are deeply tainted. We have heard of barbarians who threw quacks and their medicines into the sea: but here in England we have Browning, a prince of poets, touching the pitch which defiles ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... spirits, that, without the assistance of two or three cordials, and some restorative soup, I am confident I never could get through the morning. Now, doctor, I have such confidence in your skill, that there is no pill or potion you can order me which I will not take with pleasure, but as to a change in my diet, that is impossible.' 'That is,' answered the physician, 'you wish for health without being at the trouble of acquiring it, and imagine ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day

... He had, however, a genial auditor in the Eighteenth Century, who declared it to be a new disease, not known in her day, and deserving investigation. She was happy to compare sensations with him, but hers were not of the complex order, and a potion soon righted her. In fact, her system appeared to be a debatable ground for aliment and medicine, on which the battle was fought, and, when over, she was none the worse, as she joyfully told Hippias. Never looked ploughman on prince, or village belle on Court Beauty, with half the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... herd—these qualities, flashing strangely among his observations on Rossini and the Coliseum, his reflections on the memories of the past and his musings on the ladies of the present, certainly give a surprising foretaste of the fiery potion of Zarathustra. The creator of the Duchesse de Sanseverina had caught more than a glimpse of the transvaluation of all values. Characteristically enough, the appearance of this new potentiality was ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey

... Hawthorne's productions. The idea itself seems a failure, and the best that might have come of it would have been very much below The Scarlet Letter or The House of the Seven Gables. The appeal to our interest is not felicitously made, and the fancy of a potion, to assure eternity of existence, being made from the flowers which spring from the grave of a man whom the distiller of the potion has deprived of life, though it might figure with advantage in a short story of the pattern of the Twice-Told Tales, appears too slender ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.

... bent upon the ground was not affected this time. The physician noted with anxiety how his master's breast heaved and his eyelids quivered; but when he offered Caesar a soothing potion, he waved him away, and commanded him to cease from ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... lay, "This, madam," said I, "is not the way to rid you of your ague." "I grant it," answer'd Psyche, "but I have a Dose at hand will infallibly do it" and therefore brought me a lusty bowl of satyricon, (a love-potion) and so merrily ran over the wonderful effects of it, that I had well-nigh suck'd it all off; but because Ascyltos had slighted her courtship, she finding his back towards her, threw the ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter

... Sultan told him that he was himself the Head of the Church, and that he would make a new ordinance, bidding the Mufti swallow what was offered him, or take the consequences of disobedience. Upon this the Chief Priest drank off the potion, perhaps, after all, by no means new or unacceptable; and the Sultan, turning to a certain officer of state, who had also refused the wine on account of similar scruples, said, "Now then you may drink, seeing that the Head of the Church and the Chief ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo

... And, moreover, such love-making as had taken place did in truth seem to have been perpetrated altogether on the side of the young man. Therefore it was that Madame Staubach spoke with a gentle voice as she prescribed to Linda some pill or potion that might probably be of service, and then went ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope

... lay mortally wounded; or that Zeus swallowed the heart of Dionysus and then begat him afresh by Semele, who in the common legend figures as mother of Dionysus. Or, again, the heart was pounded up and given in a potion to ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... perforce, To County Paris:—then comes she to me, And with wild looks, bid me devise some means To rid her from this second marriage, Or in my cell there would she kill herself. Then gave I her, so tutored by my art, A sleeping potion; which so took effect As I intended, for it wrought on her The form of death: meantime I writ to Romeo That he should hither come as this dire night, To help to take her from her borrow'd grave, Being the time the potion's force should cease. But he which bore my letter, Friar John, ...
— Romeo and Juliet • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... valley; as if Jotunheim itself, where it lies in there beneath the sky, were breathing in easy well-being. Peer fills his lungs again and again with long deep draughts, drinking in the air like a saving potion. "Help me then, oh air, light, solitude! help me that I may be whole once more and fit to work, for this is the one and only religion ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer

... 'L'Elisir d'Amore' is not inferior to that of 'Don Pasquale' in sparkle and brilliancy, but the plot is tame and childish compared to the bustle and intrigue of the latter work. It turns upon a sham love potion sold by a travelling quack to Nemorino, a country lout who is in love with Adina, the local beauty. Adina is divided between the attractions of Nemorino and those of the Sergeant Belcore, who is quartered in the village. In order to get money to pay ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild

... through the vengeance of the woman who sacrifices herself with him, could be used in "Tristan," on the other hand the main subject lies in the torture of love. The two lovers become conscious of their mutual love through the drinking of the love-potion that dooms them to death. It is a death preferred to life without each other. What in "Siegfried" is but a moment of decisive vehemence appears here in psychological action of endless variety, wherein Wagner has woven the whole tragic ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl

... little baby grew dark red, or purple almost, with the uncomfortable heat in its small body. It must have been accustomed to discomfort, and have concluded it to be the condition of mortal life, else it never would have remained so quiet. Perhaps it had been quieted with a sleeping-potion. The two young women were not negligent of it; but passed it to and fro between them, each willingly putting herself to inconvenience for the sake of tending it. But I really feared it might die in some kind of a fit, so hot was the theatre, so purple with heat, yet strangely quiet, ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... prescribed embrace the use of some potion; such, for example, as sulphur, asafoetida, and castoreum, mixed with clear spring water; or hypericum, compounded with vinegar—which two potions seem to have been (and to be still) the most favoured recipes for removing the ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell

... evil? Because the wise Master did. Because he said that God was Love. Because he taught that he who loves not, knows not God. And because, oh, wonderful spiritual alchemy! because Love is the magical potion which, dropping like heavenly dew upon sinful humanity, dissolves the vice, the sorrow, the carnal passions, and transmutes the brutish mortal into the image and likeness of the ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... "I need strength, not encouragement." And filling the glass nearly to the brim he downed the huge potion ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand

... And doubled all your reaches: I am not wounded. [Flamineo riseth. The pistols held no bullets; 'twas a plot To prove your kindness to me; and I live To punish your ingratitude. I knew, One time or other, you would find a way To give a strong potion. O men, That lie upon your death-beds, and are haunted With howling wives! ne'er trust them; they 'll re-marry Ere the worm pierce your winding-sheet, ere the spider Make a thin curtain for your epitaphs. How cunning you were to discharge! do you practise at the Artillery yard? Trust a woman? ...
— The White Devil • John Webster

... to report the long process of questions and answers by which he soothed the fears of two old women who sat on each side of the fire, on which stood a large earthenware pot. Byrne thought at once of two witches watching the brewing of some deadly potion. But all the same, when one of them raising forward painfully her broken form lifted the cover of the pot, the escaping steam had an appetising smell. The other did not budge, but sat hunched up, her head ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad

... nobly at ease, I alighted and followed him. Thus we had speech by the way, but not touching his sorrow Rather his red Yesterday and his regal To-morrow, Wherein he statelily moved to the clink of his chains unregarded, Nowise abashed but contented to drink of the potion awarded. Saluting aloofly his Fate, he made swift with his story; And the words of his mouth were as slaves spreading carpets of glory Embroidered with names of the Djinns—a miraculous weaving— But the cool and perspicuous eye overbore unbelieving. So I submitted ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling

... species." Gastronomy he proclaims the chief of all sciences: "It rules life in its entirety; for the tears of the new-born infant summon the breast of its nurse, and the dying man still receives with some pleasure the final potion, which, alas, he is not destined to digest." Occasionally he affects an epic strain, invoking Gasteria, "the tenth muse, who presides over the pleasures of taste." "It is the fairest of the Muses who inspires me: I will be clearer than an oracle, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... purification of E-ninnu was completed and the way between the old temple and the new made ready, all the inhabitants of the city prostrated themselves on the ground. "The city," says Gudea, "was like the mother of a sick man who prepareth a potion for him, or like the cattle of the plain which lie down together, or like the fierce lion, the master of the plain, when he coucheth." During the day and the night before the ceremony of removal, prayers and supplications were uttered, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall

... "Give me the potion," I said. "If the worst comes to the worst it will save having my hair cut, and that, I think, is one of the most hateful duties of a civilised man. How do you take ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... innocent relations sometimes confounded with it. Its several tuberiform fleshy roots contain an especially deadly poison; nevertheless, some highly intelligent animals, beavers, rabbits, and the omnivorous small boy among others have mistaken it for sweet-cicely with fatal results. Indeed, the potion drunk by Socrates and other philosophers and criminals at Athens, is thought to have been a decoction made from the roots of this very hemlock. Many little white flowers in each cluster make up a large umbel; and many umbels to a plant attract great numbers of flies, small bees, and wasps, ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan

... fairly; but if I listen And buy thy secret and prove its truth, Hast thou the potion and magic lotion To give me also the heart of youth? With the cheek of rose and the eye of beauty, And the lustrous locks of life's lost prime, Wilt thou bring thronging each hope and longing That made the glory of ...
— The Kingdom of Love - and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... if a spell had bound me Up yonder? Is that flask a magnet to the eyes? What lovely light, so sudden, blooms around me? As when in nightly woods we hail the full-moon-rise. I greet thee, rarest phial, precious potion! As now I take thee down with deep devotion, In thee I venerate man's wit and art. Quintessence of all soporific flowers, Extract of all the finest deadly powers, Thy favor to thy master now impart! I look on thee, the sight my pain appeases, I handle ...
— Faust • Goethe

... laws of the Arcadians, both the princesses and their lovers had forfeited their lives by their indiscretions, but King Basilius was removed from the seat of judgement by drinking a potion of drugged wine, which the Queen, not without warning to the King, had prepared for Zelmane. It was left, therefore, to Philanax, the regent, to deal with the difficulties that surrounded the administration of justice—the offences of Musidorus and Pyrocles, of Philoclea and Pamela, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... exactly the same strain as Pitt and Carteret used to thunder against Walpole. He had heard Pitt denounce Carteret as "an execrable, a sole minister, who had ruined the British nation, and seemed to have drunk of the potion described in poetic fiction which made men forget their country." He had seen the policy of Walpole quietly carried out by the very men who had bellowed against Walpole, and had succeeded at last in driving him from office forever. He knew that ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... the first time since he had come into this place two months earlier he felt like a real person again. And he had wits enough to guess that the potion he had just swallowed contained some drug. Only now he did not care at all. Anything which could wipe out in moments all the shame, fear, and sick despair the Starfall had planted in him was worth swallowing. Why the other ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton

... With which soporific potion he bade her goodnight; and Faith went to her room marvelling what could have put into Mr. Linden's head just those particular words; and whether he had a quality of vision that could see through flesh and blood; and a little ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner

... their gods and lords many, there lived at Mokuleia, Waialua, two old men whose business it was to pray to Kaneaukai for a plentiful supply of fish. These men were quite poor in worldly possessions, but given to the habit of drinking a potion of awa after their evening ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various

... poor women had need stop our ears, lest in hearing we prove so foolish hardy as to believe them, and so perish in trusting much and suspecting little. Saladyne, piscator ictus sapit, he that hath been once poisoned and afterwards fears not to bowse[1] of every potion, is worthy to suffer double penance. Give me leave then to mistrust, though I do not condemn. Saladyne is now in love with Aliena, he a gentleman of great parentage, she a shepherdess of mean parents; he honorable and she poor? Can love consist of contrarieties? ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge

... me see't, and thou shalt see what I'll say to thee. [He gives him money.] Well, follow my counsel, and, I'll warrant thee, I'll give thee a love-powder for thy wench, and a kind of nux vomica in a potion shall make her come off, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various

... ways to accomplish this. I prefer to administer a powerful sleeping potion. Have you any confectionery or bon-bons ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne

... isles that stole the world's delight, And thus produce so rich a Margarite! It is the fountain whence all pleasure springs, A potion for imperial ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various

... instances, and in the midst of our sins, before they are come to the full, and sometimes in the beginning of an evil habit, be so fierce in His anger, what can we imagine it to be in that day when the wicked are to drink the dregs of that horrid potion, and count over all the particulars of their whole treasure of wrath? "This is the day of wrath, and God shall reveal, or bring forth, His righteous judgments." The expression is taken from Deut. xxxii., 34: "Is not this laid up in store with me, ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser

... the 9th of September, 1598, the two women, supping with the old man, mixed some narcotic with his wine so adroitly that, suspicious though he was, he never detected it, and having swallowed the potion, soon ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... off grumbling. She wished that Ume had shown a more natural indignation. The hot bath, however, notwithstanding Kano's five lost years of pain presumably in solution, brought her ease of body, as did the soothing potion, ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa

... until new and different impressions follow to deepen the interest at first evoked and to remove its centre of gravity altogether from the senses. In love, if the field is clear, a single glimpse may, like Tristan's potion, produce a violent and irresistible passion; but in friendship the result remains more proportionate to the incidental causes, discrimination is preserved, jealousy and exclusiveness are avoided. That vigilant, besetting, insatiable affection, so full ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... them, and by concocting a terrible mixture of false idealism and self-interest, so that simple minds quick to respond to sentiment, as well as those quick to hear the call of the beast, rally shoulder to shoulder and march to the battlegrounds under the spell of that potion. Some go with a noble sense of sacrifice, some with blood-lust in their hearts, most with the herd-instinct following the lead, little knowing that they are but the pawns of a game which is being ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... Square gave it out that there was no chance for Prince Eugen unless the natural vigour of his constitution should prove capable of throwing off the poison unaided by scientific assistance, as a drunkard can sleep off his potion. Everything had been tried, even to artificial respiration and the injection of hot coffee. Having emitted this pronouncement, the great specialist from Manchester Square left. It was one o'clock in the morning. By one of those strange ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett

... can give no notion: 'T is written in the Hebrew Chronicle, How the physicians, leaving pill and potion, Prescribed, by way of blister, a young belle, When old King David's blood grew dull in motion, And that the medicine answered very well; Perhaps 't was in a different way applied, For David ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... after the sucking in of that first smoke-breath—nature's anodyne for any of her poor creatures doomed to die by fire—I saw and heard less clearly and suffered only by anticipation. But to this day the smell of burning pine-wood is like a sleeping potion to me; and the sleep it brings is full of ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... unconsciousness; but, waking recollection assigned a natural cause, and I bowed my fevered head to the punishment of my imprudence. An old and dignified physician was summoned to my bed-side, who felt my pulse, ordered confinement to my room, and the swallowing of a horrible looking potion, which nearly filled a common-sized tumbler. A few days care, he said, would restore me, and with his own hands he mixed my dose, placed it beside me upon a table, and departed. I venerate a kind and skillful physician; but, like all the rest of the human ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various

... the figure silently rose and glided noiselessly from the room. Presently it returned with a glass containing a steaming potion. Setting it down, it bent over the bed and gazed long and earnestly at the sleeper. A look of satisfaction came over its grim and wrinkled face as it resumed its vigil ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld

... told. Old Martha nursed me back to health again, and our stern father hindered her not in her tendance of me. And this very night we made our plans, and she put a concoction of herbs into his nightly potion, which caused him to sleep too sound to awake for any sound within or without the house. Then we softly stole away without let or hindrance—she to go to the Chase, I to walk across the moorland and forest as thou hadst bidden me, to ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green

... Bermudo with a sneer. "A renegade; for thou canst not gild the bitter potion, nor will I attempt to disguise my character. I am a ruffian; but I have pledged myself to serve the Moors, and I WILL serve them faithfully, actively, to the last ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... baron as peculiar, that the bottle, when once produced, appeared nearly as big round as the goblin himself; but he was not the sort of man to stick at trifles, and he pushed forward his glass to be filled just as composedly as if the potion had been shipped and paid duty, in the ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various

... innocent? You sharpened and drew the sword: you gave the thrust by which the soul is wounded.[13] Tell me, whom does the world condemn? whom do judges punish? Those who drink the poison, or those who prepare and give the fatal draught? You have mingled the execrable cup; you have administered the potion of death: you are so much more criminal than poisoners, as the death which you cause is the more terrible; for you murder not the body, but the soul. Nor do you do this to enemies; nor compelled by necessity, nor provoked by any injury; but out of a foolish vanity ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... wisely adjusted its various inequalities, that it becomes extremely difficult to determine who possesses the most happy lot. Wherever particular advantages exist, they are balanced by proportionate evils, and the reverse: the golden cup often contains a bitter potion, while sweet is the draught and refreshing the supply, that is brought in a broken pitcher. The poor are apt to suppose, that opulence furnishes an inexhaustible fund of enjoyment; and that luxurious tables, sumptuous palaces, and a splendid retinue, confer a never-failing enjoyment; ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox

... hope yet of the Prince! no comfort of him! They keep me mew'd up here, as they mew mad folks, No company but my afflictions. This royal Devil again! strange, how he haunts me! How like a poyson'd potion his eyes fright me! Has made himself ...
— Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (2 of 10) - The Humourous Lieutenant • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... manage it, seeing that women, albeit 'tis much easier for them, do make such a noise in the hour of their labour, that I misdoubt me, if I suffered so, I should die before I was delivered." "Disquiet not thyself," said the doctor: "I will have a potion distilled for thee; of rare virtue it is, and not a little palatable, and in the course of three days 'twill purge thee of all, and leave thee in better fettle than a fish; but thou wilt do well to be careful thereafter, and ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio

... or to digest the smoke of a profitless lamp. Nevertheless it cannot be concealed from the enlightened judgment of the holy and good, to whom these discourses are specially addressed, that the pearls of salutary admonition are threaded on the cord of an elegance of language, and the bitter potion of instruction sweetened with the honey of facetiousness, that the taste of the reader may not take disgust, and himself be debarred from the pleasure of approving of them: "On our part we offered some good advice, and spent an age in bringing it to perfection. If that should ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... to fresh disappointment. Not that his potion failed in the anticipated effect, for now Karl's real sufferings began; but that such was the strength of Karl's will, and his fear of doing anything that might give a pretext for banishing him from the presence of Lilith, that he was able to conceal his feelings far too successfully for the ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald

... the laurels under the pot; Thrice I stir, thrice I chant the mystic number three. Who shall withstand the philtre Endora of Hecate brews? Simmer, ye potion! Brew, ye philtre! Spirits of Hades, draw out the essence Of fish and beasts, birds and men! Make the broth strong so the sediment worthless may be. Help ye the drawing of love by the lover From Chios who drinks of this mixture ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short

... he hides supplies of it among his clothing; arranges secretly to have it smuggled in in case of need. Even so an incompletely regenerate man still trusts in his own expedients. His money is like the sleeping potion which the chronically wakeful patient keeps beside his bed; he throws himself on God, but IF he should need the other help, there it will be also. Every one knows cases of this incomplete and ineffective desire for reform-drunkards whom, with all their self-reproaches and resolves, ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... advance, an' I'll bring it to you.' And on that understanding the bargain was made, and the time fixed for the delivery of the potion. The intervening time was filled in by the astute wizard journeying to a neighbouring town and procuring from a chemist a sleeping draught, which he paid for out of Mrs. Busker's sovereign. He turned up at Laburnum Cottage at the stipulated hour, handed ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray

... a moment Jurgen hesitated. The whole business seemed rather improbable. Still, the ties of kin are strong, and it is not often one gets the chance to aid, however slightly, one's long-dead grandfather: besides, the potion ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell

... his hiding-place pale and trembling, and wishing to recover himself a little by a potion, mistook the cups in his confusion, and drank the water of weakness, while the Kalevide took another draught ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby

... hands the Sultan his first garment, the Duelbendar who ties the shawl round his body, the Berber-Bashi who shaves his head, the Ibrikdar Aga who washes his hands, the Peshkiriji Bashi who dries them again, the Serbedji-Bashi who has a pleasant potion ready for him, and the Ternakdji who carefully pares his nails. All these grandees do obeisance to the very earth as they catch sight of the face of the Padishah making his way through innumerable richly carved doors on his way ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai

... prevailed on her to go to bed. Mrs Jones had given her night-lights, and a slight sleeping potion before she left home, upon the chance of their being wanted; and she put one of the former in the bedroom, and gave Netta the latter. She sat by her side until she fell asleep, and then returned to the sitting-room, literally ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale

... reasons not stated, to leave the country for a while, and on his return finds his lady-love married by her parents to his rival Delio. In his despair he seeks aid from the priestess of a certain temple, and receives from her a magic potion which drives from him all remembrance of his passion. This very simple and somewhat unsatisfactory story is interwoven with a multitude of episodes and incidental narratives, pastoral and chivalric, and the whole ends with the ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg

... all very well to talk of death as 'a pleasant potion of immortality', but the most of us, I suspect, are of 'queasy stomachs,' and find it none of the sweetest. {9a} The graveyard may be cloak-room to Heaven; but we must admit that it is a very ugly and offensive ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson

... triumphant Despair. But those words are false, for the wave may be dark but it is not bitter. We lie down, and close our eyes with a gentle good night, and when we wake, we are free. Come then, no more delay, thou tardy one! Behold the pleasant potion! Look, I am a spirit of good, and not a human maid that invites thee, and with winning accents, (oh, that they would win thee!) says, ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

... Siegfried is the only one able to gain Bruennhilde, Gunther should attach him to his person by giving him Gutrune as wife. This is to be achieved by a draught, which has the power of causing oblivion. Whoever drinks it forgets that ever a woman has existed beside the one, who has tended the potion. Hagen well knows of Siegfried's union with Bruennhilde, but Gunther and Gutrune ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley

... and whom he employed to entice others to join the select company of young enthusiasts, by representing the joys and pleasures of the paradise of Aloadin. When he thought proper, he caused ten or twelve of these youths to be cast into a deep sleep, by means of a potion, and then had them conveyed severally into different chambers of the garden palaces; where they were attended upon at their awaking by the beautiful damsels, and supplied with all kind of delicious meats and fruits and excellent wines, and in whose company ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr

... had bought, at the most skillful druggists' in the capital, a powerful sleeping potion, and mixed it with the wine, which made it taste very sweet. In a few minutes all the demons had dropped off asleep, and their snores sounded like the rolling ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis

... Instantly the potion worked. Calmed as if by a miracle, made drowsy to a point where speech was impossible, the white man, tortured but a moment before, tipped sleepily into Fong Wu's arms. The Chinese waited until a full effect was secured, when he lifted his limp patient ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various

... me. And, indeed, the interior came as a surprise. Imagine a spacious shop, well proportioned, perfectly contrived, and throughout fitted with woodwork copies from the best examples of old Italian carving. Seeking pill or potion, one finds oneself in a museum of art, where it would be easy to spend an hour in studying the counter, the shelves, the ceiling. The chemists (two brothers, if I remember rightly) pointed out to me ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing

... soft and healing potion to my lips At intervals he raised—now looked on high, To mark if yet the starry giant dips His zone in the dim sea—now cheeringly, 1390 Though he said little, did he speak to me. 'It is a friend beside thee—take good cheer, Poor victim, thou art now at liberty!' ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... come in. They were entertained by the rest, by Effie and Tishy, who was allowed to sit up a little, and by Mademoiselle Bourde, who besought every visitor to indicate her a remedy that was really effective against the sea—some charm, some philter, some potion or spell. 'Never mind, ma'm'selle, I've got a remedy,' said Cousin Maria, with her cheerful decision, each time; but the ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James

... yelled with excitement, and the murderer held forth his great hand for the potion. Using every art to enhance the effect of this dramatic advertisement, the Inca of Peru raised his bottle on high, and said in ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... combined with {16} extraordinary wisdom and intelligence. Grown to manhood, he determined to compel his father to restore his brothers and sisters to the light of day, and is said to have been assisted in this difficult task by the goddess Metis, who artfully persuaded Cronus to drink a potion, which caused him to give back the children he had swallowed. The stone which had counterfeited Zeus was placed at Delphi, where it was long exhibited as ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens

... Hunger, custom, faith? Surely something beyond themselves that made life seem to each one of them reasonable, desirable. Something not very different from the spirit which lay in her own soul, like a calming potion, which she could almost touch when she needed its strength. "For life is good—all of it!" ... and "Peace is the rightful ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)

... to be a little disconcerted; but, after some recollection, resumed his air of sufficiency and importance, and assured our adventurer he would do him all the service in his power; but in the meantime advised him to take the potion ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett

... vexed the Christians with taxes and corvees. He was confirmed in his hate of the Christians by the Khakam Chacham Bashi or Chief Rabbi of the Jews, who one day said to him: "The Christians allege in their books that it shall not hurt them to drink or eat any deadly thing. So I have prepared a potion that one of them shall taste at my hand: if he does not die on the spot then call me no more Chacham Bashi!" The Khalif immediately sent for His Holiness the Patriarch of Babylon, and ordered him to drink up the potion. The Patriarch just blew a little over the cup and then emptied it ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... cold. The peddler had advised Paul to partake of the hot draught also, and the landlord had not heeded his request to place a tankard of ale on the tray also: so that if either of the youths were to drink at all, it must be of the potion concocted by the peddler. ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green



Words linked to "Potion" :   love-philter, philtre, elixir, drinkable, potable, love-philtre, drink, love-potion



Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com