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Pottage   Listen
noun
Pottage  n.  (Written also potage)  A kind of food made by boiling vegetables or meat, or both together, in water, until soft; a thick soup or porridge. "Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentils."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Pottage" Quotes from Famous Books



... which should secure the privileges and pre-eminence of the first-born. The hunter went into the fields, and Rebekah recollected that Jacob had purchased the birthright of his brother for a mess of pottage one day when he came in from the chase faint with hunger and exhaustion. She determined by a stroke of management to secure the patriarchal benediction. She sent him to the flocks after two kids, ...
— Half Hours in Bible Lands, Volume 2 - Patriarchs, Kings, and Kingdoms • Rev. P. C. Headley

... brown, leaf-strewn brooks of November. But let it come to a man when it will, and that man renounces, in spite of himself, his little leaden gods of prosperity, and in his heart, beneath the woven garment of custom, he exchanges his birthright of respectability for a mess of Romany pottage. Under the luminous sweep and rush of this vision, Abel laughed suddenly at the thought of his marriage to Judy. Obstacles which had appeared insurmountable at sunrise, showed now as unsubstantial ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow

... neglect, if indeed he heard at all, the enumeration of plants, herbs, and shrubs which his reverend conductor pointed out to him, of which this was choice, because of prime use in medicine, and that more choice for yielding a rare flavour to pottage, and a third, choicest of all, because possessed of no merit but its extreme scarcity. Still it was necessary to preserve some semblance at least of attention, which the youth found so difficult, that he fairly wished at the devil the officious naturalist and the whole ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott

... usury of money, usury of victuals, usury of anything that is lent upon usury"; but he evidently was not my brother, for he demanded seventy per cent. I put my signature to certain indentures, received my pottage, ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London

... we go together, and at good housewives' fires we warm and dress our fairy children. If we find clean water and clean towels, we leave them money, either in their basins or in their shoes; but if we find no clean water in their houses, we wash our children in their pottage, milk, or beer, or whate'er we find: for the sluts that leave not such things fitting, we wash their faces and hands with a gilded child's clout, or else carry them to some river, and duck them over head ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick

... think of a rag-picker's wife as dining sparingly out of a bag—not with her head inside like a horse, but thrusting her scrawny arm elbow deep to stir the pottage, and sprinkling salt and pepper on for nicer flavor. Following such preparation she will fork it out like macaroni, with her head thrown back to present the wider orifice. If her husband's route lies along the richer streets she will have by ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks

... and a thief a thief for his own profit; and there is something honorable and philosophical in being a rascal for one's own sake: that is doing things upon principle—upon a grand scale. But a pimp is a thing that defiles itself for another—a pipkin that is put on the fire for another man's pottage! a napkin, that every guest wipes his hands upon! and the scullion says, "by your leave" too. A pimp! I would rather he had called me parricide! But the man was drunk, and did not know what he said; and, besides, I disguised myself. Had he seen it had been Sosia who addressed him, it would ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... wooden spoon. But Abu Hanna, you will see, prefers to eat without a spoon. After the blessing is asked in Arabic, Abu Hanna says, "tefudduloo," which means help yourselves. Here is kibby, and camel stew, and Esau's pottage, and olives, and rice, and figs cooked in dibbs, and chicken boiled to pieces, and white fresh cheese, and ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup

... Honourable B. B. Bomberton, was well on into his oration by the time they arrived. He was at the moment engaged in dilating upon the peril through which the country had recently passed, and thanking God that Canada had loyally stood by the Empire and had refused to sell her heritage for a mess of pottage. ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor

... majesty shall think expedient, and, in the mean time decline this your judgment simpliciter now as before, and appeal to the ordinary assembly of the church, for reasons before produced in write. Pity yourselves for the Lord's sake; lose not your own dear souls, I beseech you for Esau's pottage: Remember Balaam, who was cast away by the deceit of the wages of unrighteousness; forget not how miserable Judas was, who lost himself for a trifle of money, that never did him good. Better be pined to death ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... "he has sold his birthright for a mess of pottage! Don't touch that paper, Crewe, or you ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace

... Romans; one is made of parsley, pennyroyal, cheese, pine-tops, honey, brine, eggs, cucumbers, onions, and hen livers; the other is much the same as the soup-maigre of this country. Then there is a loin of veal boiled with fennel and caraway-seed, on a pottage composed of pickle, oil, honey, and flour, and a curious hachis of the lights, liver, and blood of a hare, together with a dish of roasted pigeons. Monsieur le baron, shall I help you to a plate of this soup?" ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... Tattlesnivel, sir, remembering that our forefathers contended with the Norman at Hastings, and bled at a variety of other places that will readily occur to you, demands that its birthright shall not be bartered away for a mess of pottage. Have a care, sir, have a care! Or Tattlesnivel (its idle Rifles piled in its scouted streets) may be seen ere long, advancing with its Bleater to the foot of the Throne, and demanding redress for this conspiracy, from the orbed and ...
— Contributions to All The Year Round • Charles Dickens

... they beat their corne to powder; then they make paste of it, and of the paste, cakes or wreathes, then they lay them on a broad and hote stone, and then couer it with hote stones, and so they bake their bread in stead of Ouens. (M135) They make also sundry sorts of pottage with the said corne and also of pease and of beanes, whereof they haue great store, as also with other fruits, as Muske-Millions, and very great Cowcumbers. They haue also in their houses certaine vessels as bigge as ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt

... other day the two Southwestern representatives put up at the Grand Union, Copah's tar-paper-covered simulacrum of a hotel; and during that day Ford contrived to sell his birthright for what he, himself, valued at the moment as a mess of pottage. ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde

... keep your good morrow to cool your Worships pottage; a couple of the worlds fools met together to raise up dirt ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher - Vol. 2 of 10: Introduction to The Elder Brother • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... accomplished. The first thing was to provide plenty of meat for a sacrifice, and with this view the best hunters were dispatched to the forest, in quest of those animals supposed to be most acceptable to the mighty guest. The women were directed to prepare tasmanane and pottage in the best manner. All the idols were brought out, examined, and put in order. As a grand dance was always supposed to be an agreeable entertainment to the Great Spirit, one was ordered, not only for his gratification, but that it might, ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... my platter of this pottage, and though it tasted of nothing in my experience—a kind of sweet, cloying meat—I was so tired of the fruits to which enterprise had as yet condemned me, I ate of it hungrily and heartily. Yet not so fast as that the young "Gulliver" had not finished his before me, and sat at ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare

... that she was beautiful beyond all beautiful things, from this love and beauty there sprang up the feeling of jealousy, which is a tempest in the sea of love, a piece of soot that falls into the pottage of the bliss of lovers—which is a serpent that bites, a worm that gnaws, a gall that poisons, a frost that kills, making life always restless, the mind unstable, the heart ever suspicious. So, calling the fairy, he said to her, "I am obliged, my heart, to be away from home for two or three ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile

... come down on a special mission from some great chief to his brethren on the Otonabee, and the squaws have cooked some in honour of the guests. That pot that sends up such a savoury steam is venison-pottage, or soup, or stew, or any name you choose to give the Indian mess that is concocted of venison, wild rice, and herbs. Those tired hounds that lie stretched before the fire have been out, and now they enjoy the privilege of the fire, some praise from the hunters, and ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill

... average man, comes into the world still-born. It has nothing to say; its hearers know it all, and the exact value of it all, already. And in their heart of hearts, many even of those who have stooped to a lower ideal, and sold their birthright of hopes beyond the passing hour, for a mess of pottage in the form of material success and easy enjoyment, have a lurking contempt for the preachers of what they practise; as many a slaveholder in America probably had for the clerical defenders ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall

... recently walked through a French street of licensed vice, where strong young fellows were tossing away their birthright for a mess of pottage. He passed on the main street of the city two young Americans from a medical unit who were reeling along in the possession of two harpies. They were shouting to all the passers by, trying to hold up the carriages, and ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy

... have left us a priceless heritage. Is there to be found among us now one who would so dishonor the memory of these sainted dead; one so lost to love of country and loyalty to his race, as to offer to sell our birthright for a mess of pottage? When we were slaves, Garrison labored to make us free; when our manhood was denied, he proclaimed it. Shall we in the day of freedom be less loyal to our country and true to ourselves than were the friends who stood for us in our night of woe? Many ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various

... so well; why could she not be like other people? Certainly once in a while she could have the things she "loved." It was only a small mess of pottage—some chops, a cup of real coffee, some after-dinner mints. The doctor had proscribed them all, but "Once won't hurt." Her conscience did prick, but days passed; there was no spell, no chill, no headache. "It didn't hurt me" ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll

... "elegant desires"—one who does not agnize a prompt alacrity in carrying burdens—one, rather, who recognizes a moral and physical unfitness for such, and indeed all other dorsal and manual operations—one who has been born a Briton, and would not, therefore, sell his birthright for a mess of pottage; but, on the contrary, holds that his birthright entitles him to as many messes of pottage as there may be days to his mortal span, though time's fingers stretched beyond the distance allotted to extreme ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... table, and Kraka's son and stepson were about to eat together, she put before them a small dish containing a piebald mess, part looking pitchy, but spotted with specks of yellow, while part was whitish: the pottage having taken a different hue answering to the different appearance of the snakes. And when each had tasted a single morsel, Erik, judging the feast not by the colours but by the inward strengthening effected, ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... cook them. Then must thou fetch water in barrels and fill the four fountains; after which thou must take three hundred and threescore and six wooden platters and crumble the cracknels therein and pour of the lentil pottage over each and carry every monk and patriarch his platter.' 'Take me back to the King and let him kill me,' said Alaeddin; 'it were easier to me than this service.' 'If thou do the service that is due from thee,' replied the old woman, 'thou shalt escape ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous

... kind, and loved to sit In the low hut or garnished cottage, And praise the farmer's homely wit, And share the widow's homelier pottage. At his approach complaint grew mild, And when his hand unbarred the shutter, The clammy lips of Fever smiled The welcome ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various

... earliest place where we get some of our familiar articles of diet—beef, mutton, pork, veal—under their modern names; and about the same time such terms present themselves as "a broth," "a browis," "a pottage," "a mess." ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt

... Louise, speaking under her breath, and huddling her words so thick upon each other that Catharine could hardly catch the sense. "I was seeking for flowers to dress your pottage, because you said you loved them yesterday; my poor little dog, thrusting himself into a thicket of yew and holly bushes that grow out of some old ruins close to the castle wall, came back whining and howling. ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... fashion of them to wear cloaks when they go abroad, but especially on Sundays. They have neither good bread, cheese nor drink. They cannot make them, nor will they learn. Their butter is very indifferent, and one would wonder how they could contrive to make it so bad. They use much pottage made of coal-wort, which they call kail, sometimes broth of decorticated barley. The ordinary country-houses are pitiful cots, built of stone and covered with turfs, having in them but one room, many of ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage, for I am faint; therefore was ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... not sell her birthright for a mess of pottage. She had fought too long for freedom to be bribed to the support of slavery. She had at last a free vote, and rejected the Lecompton Constitution, land grant and all, by a majority of more than ten thousand. The struggle ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... broth. "Kail through the reek," to give one a severe reproof. Kail-brose, pottage of meal made with the scum of broth. Kale-yard, a vegetable garden. Ken, to know. Kend, knew. Kenna, kensna, know not. Kittle, ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... Carlsruhe was very different from what it was at home. The hours were later, the coffee was weaker in the morning, the pottage was weaker, the boiled beef less relieved by other diet, the dresses finer, the evening engagements constant. I did not find these visits pleasant. We might not knit, which would have relieved the tedium a little; but we sat in a circle, talking together, only interrupted ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell

... women get a fad for you they'll work you like a galley-slave. You'll have to do your round of 'copy' every morning. What becomes of inspiration then? How are you going to loaf and invite the soul? Don't barter your birthright for a mess of pottage! Oh, I understand the temptation—I know the taste of money and success. But look at me, Stanwell. You know how long I had to wait for recognition. Well, now it's come to me I don't mean to let it knock me off my feet. I don't ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton

... he emphasised, his eyes on hers. "I know—and you know—what that means. You have not yet bartered away your magical influence for a mess of pottage. Because of one Indian woman—supreme for me; and now ... because of another, they all have a special claim on my heart. If India has not gone too far down the wrong road, it is by the true Swadeshi spirit of her women she may yet be saved. They, at any rate, don't ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... Prior in a quivering voice, his eyes glistening and his cheeks red with anger, "dost thou prate to my very beard, sirrah? By Saint Hubert, thou hadst best save thy breath to cool thy pottage, else it ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle

... were being rescued from barbarism and from the grasp of strangers, and when the perpetual struggle for existence, depriving men of all interest and understanding in politics, has made them eager to sell their birthright for a mess of pottage, and ignorant of the treasure they resigned. At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities, that have prevailed by associating themselves with auxiliaries whose objects often differed from their own; and this association, which is always ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... or rost Beef, a few stew'd Prunes, a race of green Ginger, a Flap-jack, a Kan of fresh water brewed with a little Cynamon and Sugar be not better than a little poor John, or salt fish, with Oil and Mustard, or Bisket, Butter, Cheese, or Oatmeal-pottage on Fish-dayes, or on Flesh-dayes, Salt, Beef, Pork and Pease, with six shillings beer, this is your ordinary ship's allowance, and good for them are well if well conditioned [not such bad diet for a healthy ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield

... of public appreciation is raised to a high quality only when the artist refuses to sell his soul for a mess of pottage. He may, to be sure, need the pottage, but the price is too great. Rather will he find his attitude expressed in ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting

... that sort might fitly know. The family was not so rich as it was old and noble, and Don Ippolito was paid from its purse rather than its pride. But the slender salary was a help; these patricians were very good to him; many a time he dined with them, and so spared the cost of his own pottage at home; they always gave him coffee when he came, and that was a saving; at the proper seasons little presents from them were not wanting. In a word, his condition was not privation. He did his duty as a teacher faithfully, and the only ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells

... intense and widespread; the British flag was hoisted half-mast; other excited citizens flew American flags; everywhere there was burning indignation over this proposal to sell our birthright for a mess of pottage.[40] The resolute attitude of those interested elicited from Mr H. Labouchere, then Colonial Secretary, the welcome expression ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead

... much as possible even the appearance of laying him under pecuniary obligation. When his first pause of joy and astonishment was over, his thoughts turned to the unworthy heir-male, who, he pronounced, had sold his birthright, like Esau, for a mess o' pottage. ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... mention that Nature requires very large and chargeable provisions to be made for accomplishing the pleasures of the body; nor can the height of delicacy be had in black bread and lentil pottage. But voluptuous and sensual appetites expect costly dishes, Thasian wines, perfumed unguents, and ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... Italy may perhaps be permitted to state his personal view of her action. While the negotiations lasted, her position was scarcely a dignified one. It seemed that she was willing, not, indeed, to sell her birthright for a mess of pottage, but to buy her birthright at the cost of complicity in monstrous crime. Neither Italy nor Europe would have profited in the long run by the substitution of "Belgia Irredenta" for "Italia Irredenta." But now that she has repudiated the sops offered to her honor and conscience, her position ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various

... fit whilst I live; and when I die, thou knowest I have left thee all!" Phansy Father talking like that! Were I not so provoked, I could laugh. And he to sell his Children's Birthright for a Mess of Pottage, who, instead of loving savoury Meat, like blind Isaac, was, in fact, the most temperate of Men! who cared not what he ate, so 'twas sweet and clean; who might have said with godly Mr. Ball of Whitmore, that he had two Dishes of ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning

... boundless. Their behaviour in the church was any thing but reverential or edifying. Most of them affected a cynical contempt for all that was only held sacred by human sanction—the church was to these men but a steeple-house, the clergyman, an ordinary person; her ordinances, dry bran and sapless pottage unfitted for the spiritualized palates of the saints, and the prayer, an address to Heaven, to which each acceded or not as in his too critical ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... change its opposition from the tyrannical to the insidious; it can know no other change. Yet do I meet persons who call themselves Americans,—miserable, thoughtless Esaus, unworthy their high birthright,—who think that a mess of pottage can satisfy the wants of man, and that the Viennese listening to Strauss's waltzes, the Lombard peasant supping full of his polenta, is happy enough. Alas: I have the more reason to be ashamed of my countrymen that it is not among ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... truth, they are worthy of encouragement. I will keep them near me till I have occasion to try them; when, if they prove their abilities, I will promote them; but if not, I will put them to death." He then allotted them an apartment, with an allowance of three cakes of bread and a mess of pottage daily; but placed spies over them, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.

... typical Protestant nation; but the misfortune of German Protestantism has been that it has never "protested." Through the fusion and confusion of Church and State the Germans have sold their spiritual birthright for a mess of pottage. Their spiritual life has been almost entirely divorced from action. It has been centred in the intellect and in the emotions. It has moved in a world of abstraction ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea

... under penalty of finding some fine morning a white cock's head—sign of all supernatural plagues—in their garden path, the beak pointing to their door; or an Obeah bottle under their doorstep; and either Brinvilliers in their pottage, or such an expectation of it, and of plague and ruin to them and all their worldly belongings, in their foolish souls, as would be likely enough to kill them, in a few months, of simple ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley

... at Frejus, the next in Paris. There, they all adore him; but he summons the government. 'What have you done with my children, the soldiers?' he says to the lawyers. 'You're a mob of rascally scribblers; you are making France a mess of pottage, and snapping your fingers at what people think of you. It won't do; and I speak the opinion of everybody.' So, on that, they wanted to battle with him and kill him—click! he had 'em locked up in barracks, or flying out of windows, or drafted among his followers, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... caressing tenderness. "Think how easy it would be for me, dear friend," she cried, with a catch in her voice, "to do as other women do; to accept the HONORABLE MARRIAGE you offer me, as other women would call it; to be false to my sex, a traitor to my convictions; to sell my kind for a mess of pottage, a name and a home, or even for thirty pieces of silver, to be some rich man's wife, as other women have sold it. But, Alan, I can't. My conscience won't let me. I know what marriage is, from what vile slavery it has sprung; on what unseen ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen

... worth his mess of pottage wish him such a wish as that, master Heywood! What would mistress Dorothy say to hear thee? I warrant me she findeth no fault with the breadth of ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald

... chief and most trusty servant. They enter into a new compact, and portion the flocks between them. Laban retains the white ones, as most numerous: Jacob has to put up with the spotted ones, as the mere refuse. But he is able here, too, to secure his own advantage: and as by a paltry mess (/of pottage/) he had procured the birthright, and, by a disguise, his father's blessing, he manages by art and sympathy to appropriate to himself the best and largest part of the herds; and on this side also he becomes the truly worthy progenitor of the people of Israel, ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... done? Friends of the slave, the question is not whether by our efforts we can abolish Slavery, speedily or remotely—for duty is ours, the result is with God; but whether we will go with the multitude to do evil, sell our birthright for a mess of pottage, cease to cry aloud and spare not, and remain in Babylon when the command of God is, "Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues." Let us stand in our lot, "and having ...
— No Compromise with Slavery - An Address Delivered to the Broadway Tabernacle, New York • William Lloyd Garrison

... tied on the tops of their heads with red, green, and blue ribbons. One teacher asked a row of eight children, "Where does rice grow?" The whole eight opened their mouths wide, filled as they were with the pottage, and replied in concert, in a sing-song, "It grows in the water." Then the teacher gave the order, "Hands up!" and it was pretty to see all those little arms fly up, which a few months ago were all in swaddling-clothes, and all those little hands flourishing, which looked like so many white ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis

... just yet," said Marker slowly, "but that is not your fault. You British have sold your souls for something less than the conventional mess of pottage. You are ruled in the first place by money-bags, and the faddists whom they support to blind your eyes. If I were a young man in your country with my future to make, do you know what I would do? I would slave ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan

... legislate. Oh, Catharine, beware of this old king, who clings to you to support his own tottering royalty, and to obstruct your schemes of conquest. But he will not succeed with you as he has done by me. You have no mother to thrust you aside, while she barters away your rights for a mess of pottage! I see your eagle glance—it turns toward the south, where roll the stormy waves of the Black Sea! I see this fair white hand as it points to mosques of Constantinople, where the crescent is being lowered and ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... Forbidding and stolid as her father's face was, yet the girl listened readily. She repeated the prayers after him yawning, but on the other hand, when he, hesitating and trying to express himself elaborately, began telling her stories, she was all attention. Esau's pottage, the punishment of Sodom, and the troubles of the boy Joseph made her turn pale and open ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... the mess of pottage," the young man answered gloomily. "It is the cause of my sadness: for that miserable money, and more that is to come, I ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick

... world of good-breeding and taste—these were made for woman; they are her equitable portion. Let her keep near them if they are a part of life to her, and if she will. She is no traitor to herself, as Esau was; for she keeps he birthright and the pottage she earns is ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry

... and even the silent Lida Bowman, wife of Dick, came from her fastness and for once in a year met her old friends who knew her in the town's early days before she went to South Harvey to share the red pottage of the ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... thinker or reflecting man. He is a volcano rather than a sun, a destroyer more than a creator; and our sympathy is mingled with little of that which we feel for the martyr; who dies rather than sell his birthright, heaven, for any mess of earth's pottage, or for him who spends his life in the search for truth, and in speaking it to mankind, taking no heed for himself what he shall eat and wherewithal he shall be clad. No! the feeling is far more akin to that which we have for a ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various

... embodied in various adages, such, as, "The weeds o'ergrow the corn," while the tenacity with which evil holds its ground is further expressed in such sayings as this—"The frost hurts not weeds." The poisonous effects, again, of evil is exemplified thus—"One ill-bred mars a whole pot of pottage," and the rapidity with which it spreads has, amongst other proverbs, been thus described, "Evil weeds grow apace." Speaking of weeds in their metaphorical sense, we may quote one further adage ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer

... same things, cultivate similar tastes, have corresponding aspirations? If they differed in thought and life and expression, let them differ—it was of no consequence. She found her husband's exactions tiresome. He had her birthright, she had his pottage; let the matter end there, ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland

... very ignorant indeed, he sold himself into bondage for a mess of pottage, and was thrall for weary years. He got exactly what he paid for. And life was ashes upon his head and wormwood in his mouth, and his heart was empty in his breast, because he snatched at shadows. ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler

... know instances of brilliant lawyers and powerful men who have thus sold their birthrights for messes of pottage. No matter how much you need money, never accept a retainer or fee of any kind from any corporation, person, or "interest" which really does not want your active service, but in that manner is ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge

... distended belly, a mellow thrill from cheap wine, a certainty about the repetition of regular meals and drinks, with enough clothes and shelter to maintain relative positions with the neighbors—this year, next year, and twenty years from now ... these things are the mess of pottage for which the Esaus of the kingdoms and principalities sell their birthrights and ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard

... and buttered pease, sometimes buttered bag pudding, made with currants and raisins, sometimes drinked pottage of beer and oatmeal, and ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell

... Martial Law period. These act constitute a complete series of continuing wrongs against India which if India has any sense of honour, she must right at the sacrifice of all the material wealth she possesses. If she does not, she will have bartered her soul for a 'mess of pottage.' ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi

... that all the flesh and fish we had brought from Spain was consumed, and owing to the heat and moisture of the atmosphere, the biscuit was become so full of maggots that many of the people waited till night before they could eat the pottage made of it, that they might not see the maggots; but others were so used to eat them that they were not curious to throw them away, lest they might ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr

... Ellis pocketed the purse with nonchalance. He stood leaning on his boar-spear, and looked round upon the rest. They, in various attitudes, took greedily of the venison pottage, and liberally washed it down with ale. This was a good day; they were in luck; but business pressed, and they were speedy in their eating. The first-comers had by this time even despatched their dinner. Some lay down upon the grass and fell instantly asleep, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... ever fit to receive three or four besides my family, without any trouble; and whatever their fare was, they were sure to have a hearty welcome. Twice a week, a certain number of old people, widows and indigent persons, were served at my gates with bread and good pottage made of beef, which I mention that those which succeed may follow the example.' Not content with merely benefiting the aged folk of his town, Sir Hugh took great pains to extend the piers, and in 1632 went ...
— Yorkshire—Coast & Moorland Scenes • Gordon Home

... in Jewry a prophet, called Habbacuc, who had made pottage, and had broken bread in a bowl, and was going into the field, for to bring it to ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous

... pullet: The victuals of the under servants were weighed out in ounces, by the Don himself; with so much garlic in the other scale: A thin slice of bacon went through the family a week together; for it was daily put into the pot for pottage; was served in the midst of the dish at dinners, and taken out and weighed by the steward, at the end of every meal, to see how much it lost; till, at length, looking at it against the sun, it appeared transparent, and then ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden

... this shrewd proverb to mind when we are tempted to take a part at the risk of the whole; to receive this world at the loss of the next world; or, as our Lord has it, to gain the whole world and to lose our own soul. Lot's choice of Sodom and Gomorrah, and Esau's purchase of the mess of pottage in the Old Testament; and then Judas's thirty pieces of silver, and Ananias and Sapphira's part of the price in the New Testament, are all so many well-known instances of getting in the hundred and losing in the shire. And not Esau's and Lot's only, but our own lives also have been ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte

... youngest son, that three years was of age, Unto him said: "Father, why do ye weep? When will the gaoler bring us our pottage? Is there no morsel bread that ye do keep? I am so hungry that I cannot sleep. Now woulde God that I might sleep for ever! Then should not hunger in my belly creep. There is no thing save bread ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward

... rubefacient effects serve instead of those produced externally by mustard. If a teaspoonful is sprinkled within the palms and its volatile vapours are inhaled through the mouth and nose, this [22] will dispel an incipient catarrh. The name Pulsatilla is a diminutive of the Latin puls, a pottage, as made from pulse, and used at sacrificial feasts. The title Anemone signifies "wind-flower." Pliny says this flower never opens but when the wind is blowing. The title has been misapprehended as "an emony." Turner says gardeners ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... connection with himself. Though he had always had a certain admiration for his successful uncle, Norman Lloyd, yet he had always had along with the admiration a recollection of the old tale of the birthright and the mess of pottage. He had expected to follow the law, like his father, but when he had finished college, about two years after his father's death, he had to face the unexpected. The stocks in which the greater part of the elder Lloyd's money had been invested had ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... horticulture, nearly concludes a very pleasing work, by enumerating (with slight historical notices) the several plants cultivated in our gardens. He thus concludes his account of one:—"Queen Elizabeth, in her last illness, eat little but Succory Pottage." Mr. Loudon says it is used "as a fodder for cattle." The French call it Chicoree sauvage. Her taste must have been something like her heart. Poor Mary eat no supper the night previous to her last illness. ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton

... canopy, Ere this misshapen thing, the world, be rolled And sphered to perfect freedom, ere the old Incrusted statutes that our God defy Be crushed in its rotation, and those die That lived defiance through them. Then man's gold No more shall manhood buy, or men be sold For pottage messes. We may not be nigh To see the glory, but if true and bold Our hands may haste what others ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... fire to boil their pottage, Two poor old dames, as I have known, Will often live in one small cottage, But she, poor woman, dwelt alone. 'Twas well enough when summer came, The long, warm, lightsome summer-day, Then at her door the canty dame Would sit, as ...
— Lyrical Ballads 1798 • Wordsworth and Coleridge

... breast should be exhausted. Then, in an adjoining lodging, came the poignant spectacle of three beings, half clad in shreds, apparently sexless and ageless, who, amidst the dire bareness of their room, were gluttonously eating from the same earthen pan some pottage which even dogs would have refused. They barely raised their heads to growl, and did not answer ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... distinction, but not bread. He will get invitations to all sorts of dinners and conversaziones, but not enough income to pay his cab fare. A man of science in these times is like an Esau who sells his birthright for a mess of pottage. Again, if one turns to practice, it is still the old story—wait; and only after years of working like a galley-slave and intriguing like a courtier is there any chance of getting a decent livelihood. I am not at all sure if...it would be the most prudent thing ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley

... second year of Darius, this word of Jehovah came by Haggai the prophet: Thus saith Jehovah of hosts: 'Ask of the priests a decision, saying, "If one bear holy flesh in the skirt of his garment, and with his skirt touch bread, or pottage, or wine, or oil, or any food, shall it become holy?"' And the priests answered and said, No. Then said Haggai, If one that is unclean by reason of a dead body touch any of these, shall it be unclean? And the priests answered ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent

... said. "I can guess what that feeling must be; the perfect emptiness and despair of having a great work done. I suspect there aren't many great masterpieces that one couldn't have bought cheap by offering the mess of pottage at the right moment. Oh, no, I didn't mean a sneer when I said cheap. I really understand. That very next morning out in the orchard, thinking over it, I managed to be glad you'd gone—alone. Your own way, rather than back with ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster

... contented, but thankful. More than that we ought not to look for, and less than that heaven has not yet suffered us to want. He that would sell his birthright for a little salt, is as worthless as he who sold it for pottage without salt; and he that would part with it for a gay coat, or a plain coat, ought for ever to be a slave in buff. What are salt, sugar and finery, to the inestimable blessings of "Liberty and Safety!" Or what are the inconveniences of a few months to the tributary bondage of ages? The meanest ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... hunting, nearly starved, and finding his younger brother cooking some lentils, begged a portion of it for himself. Jacob seized the chance to make a sharp bargain. He offered his brother the food—which is called in the quaint Bible language a "mess of pottage"—making him promise in return that he would let their father give his blessing to the younger instead of the older son. Esau was a careless fellow, too hungry to think what he was saying, ...
— Rembrandt - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll

... said lunatic is accommodated with a room, proper physic and diet, gratis. The diet is very good and wholesome, being commonly boiled beef, mutton, or veal, and broth, with bread, for dinners on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, the other days bread, cheese, and butter, or on Saturdays pease-pottage, rice-milk, furmity, or other pottage, and for supper they have usually broth or milk pottage, always with bread. And there is farther care taken, that some of the committee go on a Saturday weekly to the said hospital to see the provisions weighed, and that ...
— London in 1731 • Don Manoel Gonzales

... afterwards, in the reign of Edward the First, 1299. But at that time, what were the wages of the labourer? The ploughman's wages were about five shillings a-year, fifteen shillings by the present scale; a maid for making "pottage" ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 331, September 13, 1828 • Various

... [Sidenote: Abraham appears bare-headed before his guests.] e burne to be bare-heued buske[gh] hy{m} e{n}ne, [Sidenote: He casts a clean cloth on the green, and sets before them cakes, butter, milk, and pottage.] Cleche[gh] to a clene cloe & keste[gh] on e grene, rwe ryftyly {er}-on o re erue kake[gh], & bry{n}ge[gh] butt{er} wyth-al, & by e bred sette[gh] 636 Mete; messe[gh] of mylke he merkke[gh] bytwene, Sye{n} potage & polment i{n} plater honest; As sewer i{n} a god assyse he serued ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various

... though by slow degrees, to realize that the Faith may be still more sacred. For the rest of us, the issue was formulated by Gladstone sixty years ago: "You have our decision: take your own; choose between the mess of pottage and the birthright of the Bride ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell

... the table, the display being proportioned to the wealth and condition of the host and the consideration to be paid to the guests. The head cook and his assistants entered in procession, bearing the dishes in regular order, and deposited them on the table with due solemnity. The pottage was first served, and when this course was eaten, the vessels and spoons were removed. The carver performed his office on the meats, holding the joint, according to the traditions of his order, carefully with the thumb and first two fingers of his left hand, whilst he carved. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various

... modern languages are taught because they will be useful in later life, while Latin and Greek are omitted because they have no practical use, although their educational value may be greater, you will be bartering away the boy's rightful heritage of knowledge for a mess of pottage." ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various

... one whom you've had threatened with arrest because he harangued too freely on the street corner." He paused to finish impressively: "I see now that the man who throws away his spiritual birthright for a mess of pottage hates the one who keeps his in ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake

... Soul! how glad am I to find thee in my Arms again— and well— When left you Paris? Paris, that City of Pottage and Crab-Wine, swarming with Lacquies and Philies, whose Government is carried on by most Hands, not most Voices— And prithee how does Belvile ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn

... same fire to boil their pottage, Two poor old Dames, as I have known, Will often live in one small cottage; But she, poor woman! housed alone. 'Twas well enough when summer came, The long, warm, lightsome summer day, Then at her door the canty dame Would ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various

... is made. I sold my birthright for a mess of pottage. Whatever regrets or grief I may have are just. To contemplate a girl like Judith having any interest in me, is ghastly. Judith is yours, whether she realizes it or not. Will you ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie

... Saint Martine; Thy dinner is redy, as thou me bad, And time it were that thou shouldst dine, And thou wilt not, I will go to mine.' 'I bid thee (said he) vere up the pot.' 'A ha! (she said) I trow thou dote,' Up she goeth for fear, at last, No question mooved where it should stand Upon his hed the pottage she cast, And heeld the pot stil in her hand. Said and swore, he might her trust, She would with the pottage do ...
— Shakespeare Jest-Books; - Reprints of the Early and Very Rare Jest-Books Supposed - to Have Been Used by Shakespeare • Unknown

... Red Pottage, niece of that lovable Reginald Cholmondeley, and herself an old friend, sent greetings and urgent invitations. ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... hot pottage and a warm cake for thee, Naomi. Eat all of it," she commanded. "And talk not to me of robbers. In truth, there are as many robbers in the khan at Bethlehem as upon the length of Jerusalem highway. The caravan ...
— Christmas Light • Ethel Calvert Phillips

... base, whilst, despite all their toil, the water often finds its way in. The sixteen houses look well; they are substantial bungalows, built country fashion, with timber and matting; they have large and shady verandahs, and a series of inner rooms. Each house has a well- kept pottage plot, inferior, ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... agree to it," answers Floyd, in a tone not to be mistaken, since it implies the young man would dispose of his birthright any day for a mess of pottage. ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... dispense with the Classics than the Classics can today afford to dispense with Romance: French, Italian, and Spanish are the Latin—and one might add the Greek—of today. But to return to our theme: to deny our interest in the past is to throw away our heritage, to sell our mess of pottage to the lowest bidder. If the Romance languages have one function in our American colleges, it is this: To keep alive the old humanistic lesson: nihil humani a me alienum puto; to the end that the modern college graduate may continue to say with Montaigne: ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper

... face fell, and he cried, "No trifling! I can't wait, beside! 175 I've promised to visit by dinner time Bagdat, and accept the prime Of the Head-Cook's pottage, all he's rich in, For having left, in the Caliph's kitchen, Of a nest of scorpions no survivor; 180 With him I proved no bargain-driver, With you, don't think I'll bate a stiver! And folks who put me in a passion May find me pipe ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning

... Kansas-Nebraska Bill or seriously contemplated its effects. In Congress Chase, Sumner, Seward, and even moderates like Edward Everett denounced the ambitious politician from Illinois who had dared to "sell the birthright of the free States for a mess of pottage." It was a revival of the sectional hatred, as well as of the fears of the aggressive planters who had enticed Douglas to go one step farther than he ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd

... probably the case; but a cold roast loin is an excellent summer dish. The back-ribs are divided into two, and used for very different purposes. The fore-part, the neck, is boiled and makes sweet barley-broth, and the meat, when well boiled, or rather the whole pottage simmered for a considerable time beside the fire, eats tenderly. The back-ribs make an excellent roast; indeed, there is not a sweeter or more varied one in the carcass, having both ribs and shoulder. The shoulder-blade ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various

... prospect of breezy brown stream deeply encased in bright green forest. The draught caused by flowing water keeps the clearing clean of sand-flies, the pest of the inner settlements, and European employes will find the place healthy. The up-sloping ground behind the house could be laid out in a pottage-garden; and, as Bahama-grass grows fast, there will be no difficulty about disposing of ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron

... Davis, is a considerable sum of money, but it is a small mess of pottage compared with what awaits you in the hands of the Washington Trust Company. Let me see how much the ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick

... Of prophane Sanedrims has driven you thence. A Prince his Faith to such low Slaves reveal! 'Twas Treason though to God to bid You kneel. And what though senseless barking Murmurers scold, } And with a Rage too blasphemously bold, } Say Israels Crown's for Esau's Pottage sold. } Let 'em rayl on; and to strike Envy dumb; May the Slaves live till that great Day shall come, When their husht Rage shall your keen Vengeance fly, And silenc'd with your Royal Thunder dye. Nay, to outsoar your weak Fore-fathers Wings, ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.

... heel—at the flies he did oftentimes yawn, and ran very heartily after the butterflies, the empire whereof belonged to his father. He pissed in his shoes, shit in his shirt, and wiped his nose on his sleeve—he did let his snot and snivel fall in his pottage, and dabbled, paddled, and slobbered everywhere—he would drink in his slipper, and ordinarily rub his belly against a pannier. He sharpened his teeth with a top, washed his hands with his broth, and combed his head with a bowl. He would sit down betwixt two stools, and his arse to the ground —would ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... and instantly turning the box, read to his astonishment, Mrs. Norton, Summerfield pottage, Wicklow, and then looked at Dandy for an explanation. The latter nodded with his usual easy confidence, and proceeded, "It's all right, sir—she was in France—own maid to Lady Cullamore—came home and got married—first to a Mr. Norton, and next ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... on the ear for thus conspiring with the King against his comfort, and then ordered the boots to be chopped into little pieces, stewed and seasoned. Then sending for the culprit shoemaker, he ordered him to eat his own boots, thus converted into a pottage; and with this punishment the unfortunate mechanic, who had thought his life forfeited, was ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... our parents pawned a glorious inheritance for a taste of forbidden fruit, and Esau exchanged a legitimate birth-right for a mere mess of pottage. ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris

... comrades were as competent to press on, or to journey homeward without him as under his leadership. So he argued with himself and even as he argued, yielded to a great temptation, and like Esau, sold his honour for a mess of pottage. ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... which says, "Buy the truth and sell it not." "He who buys the truth," said he, "makes a good bargain. Can any of you recollect any instance of a bad bargain, mentioned in Scripture?" "I do," replied one of his scholars:—"Esau made a bad bargain, when he sold his birth-right for a mess of pottage." Another said, "Judas made a bad bargain, when he sold his Lord for thirty pieces of silver." A third observed, "Our Lord tells us that he makes a bad bargain, who, to gain the whole world, loses his own soul." Alas! how many such bad bargains are ...
— Anecdotes for Boys • Harvey Newcomb

... and fellow-men!' said Slackbridge then, shaking his head with violent scorn, 'I do not wonder that you, the prostrate sons of labour, are incredulous of the existence of such a man. But he who sold his birthright for a mess of pottage existed, and Judas Iscariot existed, and Castlereagh existed, ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*

... see the honest, industrious tradesman loaded with new taxes and impositions, disappointed of the equivalents, drinking water in place of ale, eating his saltless pottage, petitioning for encouragement to his manufactories, ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... but euery man goeth to his bench to take his afternoones sleepe, which is as ordinary with them as their nights rest. When they exceede, and haue varietie of dishes, the first are their baked meates (for roste meates they vse little) and then their broathes or pottage. Their common drinke is Mead, the poorer sort vse water and a third drinke called Quasse, which is nothing else (as we say) but water turned out of his wits, with a litle branne meashed ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation v. 4 • Richard Hakluyt

... At night it slept by Juon's side and made itself cosey by burying its snout in his bosom. When meal-time came, the bear sat down beside Juon, for he knew that every second slice of cheese would be his. He also fetched fire-wood to put under the pot in which the maize-pottage was boiling. Then, too, he explored the woods in search of wild honey and brought back his booty to share it with Juon. When it was very hot he carried his pelisse after him, a pelt more or less made very little difference to him. Juon had nobody to speak to but the bear, ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai

... Will and Rupert, spruce enow with nosegays and ribbons, rowed us up to Putney. We had a brave ramble through Fulham meadows, father discoursing of the virtues of plants, and how many a poor knave's pottage would be improved if he were skilled in the properties of burdock and old ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various

... beside Mrs. Graham into the music-room. A wave of contempt was sweeping over her, as she reviewed the dinner, its gilding, its gluttony, and its unspeakable dulness, and she felt that she had sold her birthright of self-respect for a mess of pottage. ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin

... to sell our birthright for so poor a mess of pottage as this petty jealousy offers. A teachable spirit in matters of which we are ignorant, is usually as profitable and respectable as abundant self-conceit, and rendering to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, quite ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French

... still. But one must work in obedience to certain definite laws. Doctor Jones, his physician, tells me that in point of fact he has had for the past ten years an unbroken series of favorites, proteges, heirs presumptive; but that each, in turn, by some fatally false movement, has spilled his pottage. The doctor declares, moreover, that they were mostly very common people. Gradually the old man seems to have developed a preference for two or three strictly exquisite intimates, over a throng of your vulgar pensioners. His tardy literary schemes, too—fruit of his all but sapless senility—have ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various

... corresponding wine-presses; now the master keeps flocks of peacocks, and causes his doors to be inlaid with African cypress-wood.—Formerly the housewife turned the spindle with the hand and kept at the same time the pot on the hearth in her eye, that the pottage might not be singed; now," it is said in another satire, "the daughter begs her father for a pound of precious stones, and the wife her husband for a bushel of pearls.—Formerly a newly-married husband was silent and bashful; now the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... method of prayer was employed by the early Christians, until the splendid vision of the Christ became obscured and finally lost to the Church by its bargaining with Constantine for a mess of pottage, namely, temporal power. Then began to rise that great worldly institution, the so-called Holy Church. In the first half of the sixth century Justinian closed the schools of philosophy at Athens. For a while Judaizing Christianity continued its conflict with Gnosticism. And then both ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... and he cried, "No trifling! I can't wait! beside, I've promised to visit by dinner time Bagdat, and accept the prime Of the Head Cook's pottage, all he's rich in, For having left, in the Caliph's kitchen, Of a nest of scorpions no survivor: With him I proved no bargain-driver; With you, don't think I'll bate a stiver! And folks who put me in a passion May find me ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various

... these things, I would rather have been the hunter Esau, with birthright filched away, bankrupt in the promise, rich only in fleet foot and keen spear; for he carried into the wilds with him an essentially noble nature—no brother with his mess of pottage could mulct him of that. And he had a fine revenge; for when Jacob, on his journey, heard that his brother was near with four hundred men, and made division of his flocks and herds, his man-servants and maid-servants, impetuous as a swollen hill-torrent, the fierce ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith

... fascinatingly, notorious. But now I was hail-fellow-well-met with him, a bird of his own feather, a rogue of his own kidney, to whom he threw open the gates of his bediamonded and befrilled Alsatia. A pestilential fellow! As if I would mortgage my birthright for such a mess of pottage. ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke

... in the doorway and spoke bitterly. "This is to be got for no mess of pottage, if ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... thistledown natures are entirely at its mercy. They cannot take deep root, even where they would. For them the near triumphs over the far. Like Esau, they will sell their birthright cheerfully for a mess of pottage; and they are the raw material of half the tragedies in ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver

... present disgrace to Las Palomas. I ought to have known that a good honest boy like John would be putty in the hands of a fellow like Theodore. But it's just like a fool boy to throw away his chances in life. They still sell their birthright for a mess of pottage. And there stands the empty cottage to remind me that I have something to learn. Old as I am, my temper will sometimes get away from me. Tom, you are my next hope, and I am almost afraid some unseen obstacle will arise as this one did. Does Frances know the facts?" ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams

... speak without malice of this individual; we regret only that he gets so little out of the great American tradition. The raiment becomes him badly. Speaking in slang and following the baseball scores does not make an American. If he sells his birthright let it be for something more than a mess of pottage. Even if he should succeed in assimilating himself with the other races, whether it be by the accumulation of wealth or baptism or successful denial of his origin, yet we doubt whether he can become really happy—for he is neither fish nor flesh nor fowl. Again, what can he receive ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various

... too severely blamed for selling his birthright for a mess of pottage. The lot of the firstborn is not necessarily to be envied. The firstborn of a well-to-do patriarch, like Isaac, or of a Rothschild of to-day, inherits, with his father's flocks and slaves and coffers, a troop of cares and responsibilities; ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin

... are a bell, a flask, a spoon to eat pottage with, and a cape. Trowle the servant has nought to offer but a pair of his wife's old hose; four boys follow with presents of a bottle, a hood, a pipe, and a nut-hook. Quaint are the words of the last ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles

... tradition that every human being is afflicted by some besetting sin that crouches at the door of the soul, lying in ambush to destroy it, then my own 'Dweller of the Threshold,' is love of mine ease. Time was when I would have bartered my eternal heritage for a good-sized mess of earthly pottage, provided only it was well spiced and garnished; but to-day I have no inclination to be swindled like Esau. Idleness has well-nigh ruined me, so I shall take industry by the horns, and laying thereon all my sins of indolence, drive it before me ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... feeling into their crying of special editions when I reached the streets again; but I was not inclined to waste further pence upon the Sunday News' moralizings over the evolution of canards. I took a mess of some adulterated pottage at a foreign restaurant in Notting Hill, as I had no wish to return to Bloomsbury before the Demonstration. The waiter—either a Swiss ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson

... tragedies mingled ever with the grander passion of seeing life as a ruined thing; her birthright to aspiring cleanness sold for a mess of quick-lunch pottage. And as she walked in a mist of agony, a dumb, blind creature heroically distraught, she could scarce distinguish between sordidness and the great betrayals, so chill and thick was ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis

... the food they eat, Beans and pottage-herbs their meat; After such a banquet, think, Water is their ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various

... him, by a submission to assumed authority;—a voluntary blindness, that excludes him from the observation of nature, and through indolence and credulity render his noblest faculties feeble, assenting, and lethargic; and delude him to barter the inheritance of his intellect for a mess of pottage.—Dr. Haslam.—Lancet. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 286, December 8, 1827 • Various

... through the land buying horses, and lending their stout hearts and ready rifles to every effort for freedom which the Texans made. For though the Americans were few in number and much scattered, they were like the salt in a pottage, and men caught fire and the idea ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various

... not that late in years Sorrow shall fade and the world be brighter, Life be freed of tremor and tears, Heads be wiser and hearts be lighter. Ah! but the dream that all endears, The dream we sell for your pottage of truth— Give us again the passion of youth, Sorrow shall fade ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt

... Rebecca; and Debora, an old nurse. Esau and his servant Ragau set forth together on a hunt. While they are gone, Rebecca urges Jacob to secure his brother's birthright. Esau returns with a raging appetite, and Jacob demands his birthright as the condition of relieving him with a mess of rice pottage; he consents, and Ragau laughs at his stupidity, while Jacob, Rebecca, and Abra sing a psalm of thanksgiving. These things occupy the first two Acts; in the third, Esau and his man take another hunt. The blessing of Jacob takes place in the fourth Act; Rebecca tasking ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... not sure about bribery and corruption. It may be a bad thing, but many seem to think otherwise. Much may be said on both sides of the question. Oh! don't tell me of a worm selling his birthright for a mess of pottage: I never read of such worms in Buffon, or even in Pliny. But if they do exist in the human form, the baseness consists in the sale, not in the quid pro quo. A mess of pottage in itself is a very ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 455 - Volume 18, New Series, September 18, 1852 • Various

... "For the mess of pottage we give, the money he squanders on libertine pleasures, England is buying freedom. Yet why, in the name of common sense, maintain this phantom King, this Court which shocks and outrages every decent Englishman's sense of right, and maintains ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... which in Dutch is called 'Melden'. Some of those that I describe it vnto, take it to be a kinde of Orage; it groweth about foure or fiue foote high: of the seede thereof they make a thicke broth, and pottage of a very good taste: of the stalke by burning into ashes they make a kinde of salt earth, wherewithall many vse sometimes to season their brothes; other salte they knowe not. Wee our selues, vsed the leaues also ...
— A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land Of Virginia • Thomas Hariot

... which were then unknown and unprophesied, might result in unbearable evils. Necessary as it might be at the start to give away valuable properties to meet present needs, one generation or its representatives has no conceivable right to sell for a mess of pottage the heritage of all succeeding ones. The fact is, then, that the natural title to all gifts of Nature is vested in the public at large; and while it is in duty bound to observe the contracts which it makes with private parties, it is also not to be thought that the dishonesty ...
— Monopolies and the People • Charles Whiting Baker

... my garments are dried, my hunger is appeased, thou art both wet and fasting." So saying, he gathered together, and brought to a flame, the decaying brands which lay scattered on the ample hearth; took from the larger board a mess of pottage and seethed kid, placed it upon the small table at which he had himself supped, and, without waiting the Jew's thanks, went to the other side of the hall;—whether from unwillingness to hold more close communication with the object of his benevolence, ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... life is centred round our flesh-pots. On the altar of the flesh-pot we sacrifice our leisure, our peace of mind. For a mess of pottage we sell ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome

... than is given in other cases:—viz. of the decoction, five ounces, of common oil, three ounces, of sugar, two ounces, and of cassia fistula, one ounce. But if she will not take a clyster, one or two yolks of new laid eggs, or a little peas-pottage warm, a little salt and sugar, and supped a little before meat, will be very convenient. But if her belly be distended and stretched with wind a little fennel seed and aniseed reduced to a powder and mixed with ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous

... truth and plain-speaking? Ah, where are they found? As scarce in these days as is genuine freedom! They all prate of Honour, yet Honour all round They'll sell for the first mess of pottage from Edom. Well, Madame, Punch wishes you luck with your lantern, And up, soon or late, may a true ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 22, 1890 • Various

... experience. It had been rendered worthless, perhaps rather contemptible by a later one—that of falling in love with Rachel, and the astonishing discovery that he was in love for the first time. He had sold his birthright for a mess of red pottage, as surely as any man or woman who marries for money or liking. He had not believed in his birthright, and holding it to be worthless, had given it to the first person who had offered ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley

... good enough for one of the battalion cooks. No man can do justice to a mess of pottage by lying on his belly at a distance and frowning at it. After many movements to and fro, he eventually said be damned to guns and "Stand clears;" stood on the top of his cooker (there was nowhere else to stand), and, holding a dixie lid in his hand and bestowing on the contents ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 7, 1917. • Various

... and My law in the day of thy prosperity, and I will now set as light by thee in the day of thy adversity. Read Prov. i., 24, to the end. Thou that, as Esau, didst sell thy birthright for a mess of pottage, shalt then find no place for repentance, tho thou seek it with tears. Do you think that Christ shed His blood to save them that continue to make light of it? and to save them, that value a cup of ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser

... big enough," Fischer replied drily. "England would sell her soul, but not for a mess of pottage. To proceed, however, Japan has practically kept out of the war. She is enjoying a prosperity never known before, and for every million pounds' worth of munitions she exports to Russia, she puts calmly on one side twenty-five per cent, to accumulate for her ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim



Words linked to "Pottage" :   mess of pottage, potage, soup, stew



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