"Caitiff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Caesar fell a-laughing, and parted the fray. "Alas," said she, "O Caesar, is not this a great shame and reproach, that thou having vouchsafed to take the pains to come unto me, and hast done me this honour, poor wretch, and caitiff creature, brought into this pitiful and miserable estate: and that mine own servants should come now to accuse me, though it may be I have reserved some jewels and trifles meet for women, but not for me (poor soul) to set out myself withal, but meaning to give some pretty presents ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... these considerate days Has patience carried her submissive ways; Wisdom has taught us to be calm and meek, To take one blow, and turn the other cheek; It is not written what a man shall do, If the rude caitiff ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... proportion to the whiteness of the skin. If Mason's bill passes, I might have some miserable postmaster from Texas or the District of Columbia, some purchased agent of Messrs. Bruin & Hill, the great slave-dealers of the Capital, have him here in Boston, take Ellen Craft before the caitiff, and on his decision hurry her off to bondage as cheerless, as hopeless, and ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... men and Gods—in vain! His cries no blest deliverer gain; Feebler and fainter grows the sound, And still the deaf life slumbers round— "In the far land I fall forsaken, Unwept and unregarded, here; By death from caitiff hands o'ertaken, Nor ev'n one ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... brother / the valiant Dankwart: "In truth this royal journey / doth sorely grieve my heart. We passed for good knights one time: / what caitiff's death, if we Here in far-off country / a woman's game are doomed ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... it might be thought, in great assurance, a king on his side;" {p.254} and now, "notwithstanding all his authority and defence, debased from a high estate unto a low degree—of a councillor become a caitiff, and set in so wretched estate that the poorest wretch would not change ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... a man's second choice. It is entered upon, more often than not, as the safest form of intrigue. The caitiff yields quickest; the man who loves danger and adventure holds out longest. Behind it one frequently finds, not that lofty romantic passion which poets hymn, but a mere yearning for peace and security. The abominable hazards ...
— Damn! - A Book of Calumny • Henry Louis Mencken
... thou wretch, Though hast within thee undivulged crimes, Unwhipped of justice: hide thee, thou bloody hand; Thou perjured, and thou simular man of virtue, Thou art incestuous: caitiff, to pieces shake, That under covert and convenient seeming Hast practised on man's life: close pent-up guilts, Rive your concealing continents, and cry These ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... some diseases have been found Only to seize upon the sound. He that gets her by heart, must say her The back way, like a witch's prayer. Mean while the Knight had no small task 345 To compass what he durst not ask. He loves, but dares not make the motion; Her ignorance is his devotion: Like caitiff vile, that, for misdeed, Rides with his face to rump of steed, 350 Or rowing scull, he's fain to love, Look one way, and another move; Or like a tumbler, that does play His game, and look another way, Until he seize upon the cony; 355 Just so he ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... To aid the damsel and destroy the caitiff; Opposing singly the united strong, From foreign yoke to free the helpless native:— Alas! must noblest views, like an old song, Be for mere Fancy's sport a theme creative, A jest, a riddle, Fame through thin and thick sought! And Socrates ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... There is a Castles, and a Canning, A Cobbett, and a Castlereagh; All sorts of caitiff corpses planning All sorts of cozening for trepanning 155 Corpses less corrupt ...
— Peter Bell the Third • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... "Ha! caitiff wretch, beware!" declaimed Worthington nobly. "Only across my prostrate corse shall you reach your innocent victims. Say, Charlie boy," he added in a hurried aside, "I didn't poke you in the eye by mistake ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... ho, ho! he cried, The caitiff hither bring! We'll have a quick deliverance, Betwixt him ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... 'Sir Marmion, she shall be thy bride, If she were sworn a nun.' One way remained—the King's command Sent Marmion to the Scottish land: I lingered here, and rescue planned For Clara and for me: This caitiff monk, for gold, did swear, He would to Whitby's shrine repair, And, by his drugs, my rival fair A saint in heaven should be. But ill the dastard kept his oath, Whose cowardice has ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... bidden her forty times o'er to have these maids well ordered, and mine house as like to an holy convent as might be compassed; and here is she none knows whither—taking her pleasure, I reckon—and these caitiff hildings making the very walls for to ring with their wicked foolish laughter!—Agatha! bring me hither the rod. I will see if a good whipping bring not down your ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... free, Bacri," retorted Francisco hotly, "I would teach thee that which would prove anything but a blessing to thy carcase, thou huge caitiff! I had thought better of thee than thou didst deserve.—Go, thy bulky ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... have been affected to see a wicked caitiff or [335]"fool, a very idiot, a funge, a golden ass, a monster of men, to have many good men, wise, men, learned men to attend upon him with all submission, as an appendix to his riches, for that respect alone, because he hath more wealth and money," ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... and hallooing that I see the truants sneaking round to the back door, panting and smoking, with their tails knitted up between their legs, and their long dripping tongues depending from their watery mouths—he the most bare-faced caitiff of the whole. In general, however, he will have nothing to say to the canine species, for notwithstanding the classification of Buffon, he considers he has a prescriptive right to associate with man. He is, in fact, rather cross with other dogs; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various
... make way!" She cried, and raised the pistol. "No, you don't Fool us by tricks like that!" the foremost said: "And so, my lady—" But before the word Was out there was a little puff of smoke, With an explosion, not encouraging,— And on the turf the frightened caitiff lay. Her road now clear, reckless of torn alpaca, Over the scattered branches Linda rushed, Till she drew near the leader of the gang, Who, stopping, drew a pistol with one hand, While with the other he held Rachel fast, Placing her as ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... under the water together, to the great consternation of the anxious beholders. Up we came together again, but I continued to grasp him firmly with my left hand by the throat, and I, for a short time, exhibited the caitiff in this state, with his mouth open and his tongue out; to shew how completely I had subdued him, I gave him one more ducking under water and let him go: I then continued my course without further interruption towards the stag, who had, meanwhile, drifted twenty ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... you set too high a price upon it, Colonel Tarleton. If, for the mere swapping of a rope for a bullet, I could be the poor caitiff your offer implies, hanging would ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... the imposing style of a cockney sportsman. He has been puffing 'Sir Danapalus (the Bart.)' in public, and taking all the odds he can get against him in private. Watchorn knows that it is easier to make a horse lose than win. The restless-looking, lynx-eyed caitiff, in the dirty green shawl, with his hands stuffed into the front pockets of the brown tarriar coat, is their jockey, the renowned Captain Hangallows; he answers to the name of Sam Slick in Mr. Spavin the horse-dealer's yard in Oxford Street, when not in the country on similar ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... them, "Here is my neck, and here is my head." There is a tradition, of considerable trustworthiness, that Sciarra Colonna would have killed him, and did with his mailed hand strike him in the face. Nogaret, however, prevented the murder, and confined himself to saying, "Thou caitiff pope, confess, and behold the goodness of my lord, the King of France, who, though so far away from thee in his own kingdom, both watcheth over and defendeth thee by my hand." "Thou art of heretic family," answered the pope: "at thy hands I look ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Tell him, I pray you, that the elusive Pimpernel whom he knows so well never assumes a fanciful disguise. He discovered the real Paul Mole first, studied him, learned his personality, until his own became a perfect replica of the miserable caitiff. It was the false Paul Mole who induced Jeannette Marechal to introduce him originally into the household of citizen Marat. It was he who gained the confidence of his employer; he, for a consideration, borrowed the identity papers of his real prototype. ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... expressed himself in controversial argument like a Tory, possessed a high independent spirit, and appears to have been a friend to the rights of man. His definition of the word Caitiff, in his Dictionary, may throw some light on this part of his character. "Caitiff. [cattivo, Ital. a slave; whence it came to signify a bad man, with some implication of meanness; as knave in English, and fur in Latin; so certainly does ...
— A Poetical Review of the Literary and Moral Character of the late Samuel Johnson (1786) • John Courtenay
... how fierce the fire, it fills my veins. Spare me, Apollo, god of Lycia, spare. Yon lioness that, since her royal mate Departed, with a caitiff wolf has lain, Will slay me, and as one that poison brews Will in the caldron cast her jealousy, And while she whets the knife to slay her lord Say she takes vengeance for his lawless love. Why do I bear on me these mockeries, This prophet's ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... was that she had not heard of this marriage long since, and when I told her that folks for the most part had feared to speak the name of Master Ulman Pernhart in her presence, she again suddenly started up and cried in my face that in truth she forbade any mention of that villain and caitiff who had taken foul advantage of her son's youth and innocence to turn his heart from his parents and bring ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... pessoribus orti [Lat.]; bourgeois gentilhomme [Fr.], novus homo [Lat.], snob, gent, mushroom, no one knows who, adventurer; man of straw. beggar, gaberlunzie^, muckworm^, mudlark^, sans culotte, raff^, tatterdemalion, caitiff, ragamuffin, Pariah, outcast of society, tramp, vagabond, bezonian^, panhandler [Slang], sundowner^, chiffonnier, Cinderella, cinderwench^, scrub, jade; gossoon^. Goth, Vandal, Hottentot, Zulu, savage, barbarian, Yahoo; unlicked cub^, rough diamond^. barbarousness, barbarism; boeotia. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... hast outdone thy seed? I did not mark, Through all the gloomy circles of the' abyss, Spirit, that swell'd so proudly 'gainst his God, Not him, who headlong fell from Thebes. He fled, Nor utter'd more; and after him there came A centaur full of fury, shouting, "Where Where is the caitiff?" On Maremma's marsh Swarm not the serpent tribe, as on his haunch They swarm'd, to where the human face begins. Behind his head upon the shoulders lay, With open wings, a dragon breathing fire On whomsoe'er he met. To me my guide: "Cacus is this, who underneath the rock Of Aventine spread ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... a man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said; I'll have to smoke, or I'll be dead? If so, then let the caitiff dread! My wrath shall fall upon his head. 'Tis plain he ne'er the Plant hath read; But "goody" trash, perchance, instead. Dear ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... proclaims Th' audacious felon. Foot by foot he marks His winding way. Over the watery ford, Dry sandy heaths, and stony barren hills, Unerring he pursues, till at the cot Arrived, and seizing by his guilty throat The caitiff vile, redeems ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... rhythm and music that clothes his luckless plunge, was but a caitiff knight to some of our submarine adventurers. A diver during the bay-fight in Mobile harbor had reason to apprehend a more desperate encounter. A huge cuttle-fish, the marine monster of Pliny and Victor Hugo, had ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... but I had been aware the last few miles of the sound of a trot behind me, whose pace was marvellous like mine own. If I stayed a moment, the rider behind likewise stayed; if I went at a gallop, he galloped also. It gave me some concern to be followed by a caitiff, watching for my purse, as I had only a sheath-knife with ...
— The Fall Of The Grand Sarrasin • William J. Ferrar
... "'Caitiff!' she cries to your butler," his majesty went on; "'perjured knave, thou liest in thy throat! Gluckstein is a hundred leagues from here, and how say est thou that thou slewest the molester, and earnest ...
— Prince Prigio - From "His Own Fairy Book" • Andrew Lang
... of him there rose up all at once in their recollection that scene upon the Shell Road; the Texan vividly recalling how he had ducked the caitiff in the ditch, as how he looked after crawling out upon the bank—mud bedraggled and covered with the viscous scum,—in strange contrast to his splendid appearance now! And Kearney well remembered the same, noting in addition a scar on Santander's ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... thy lying tongue for saying so!" replied Henry furiously. "I have a mind to pluck it from thy throat, and cast it to the dogs. What ho! guards, take this caitiff to the summit of the highest tower of the castle—the Curfew Tower—and hang him from it, so that all my loyal subjects in Windsor may see how ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... reasonings. O'er the watery ford, Dry sandy heaths, and stony barren hill, 330 O'er beaten paths, with men and beasts distained, Unerring he pursues; till at the cot Arrived, and seizing by his guilty throat The caitiff' vile, redeems the captive prey: So exquisitely delicate his sense! Should some more curious sportsman here inquire, Whence this sagacity, this wondrous power Of tracing step by step, or ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... him one of the most disagreeable fellows I had ever seen. His features were ugly, and, moreover, as dark as pepper; and, besides being dark, his skin was dirty. As for his dress, it was torn and sordid. His chest was broad, and his arms seemed powerful; but, upon the whole, he looked a very caitiff. "I am sorry that man has lost his wife," thought I; "for I am sure he will never get another." What surprises me is, that he ever found a woman disposed to unite her ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... with the serpents upon him, followed by a Centaur, who came madly galloping up, crying, "Where is the caitiff?" It was the monster-thief Cacus, whose den upon earth often had a pond of blood before it, and to whom Hercules, in his rage, when he slew him, gave a whole hundred blows with his club, though the wretch perceived nothing after the ninth. He was ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... spear if there be by the gift of the Gods everlasting, Do they uphold him for that in the measureless railing of insult?" Him, with a sidelong glance, thus answer'd the noble Achilleus:— "Worthless I well might be call'd, of a surety, and cowardly caitiff, Yielded I all at a word whensoever it pleas'd thee to dictate. Such be thy lording with others, but not as to me, Agamemnon! Waste not thy masterful signs: they shall never command my obedience. This will I tell thee at once, let my fixt resolution be ponder'd— ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... his hand CITATIO FISCALIS, and said"—said at first nothing, Plotho avers; merely mumbled, looked like some poor caitiff, come with Law-papers on a trifling Suit we happen to have in the Courts here;—and only by degrees said (let us abridge; SCENE, Aprill and Plotho, Anteroom in Regensburg, first-floor and ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... God! Thou knowest if this heart of flesh Quivers like broken entrails, when the wheel Rolleth some dog in middle street, or fresh Fruit when ye tear it bleeding from the peel; If my soul cries the uncomprehended cry When the red agony oozed on Olivet! Yet not for this, a caitiff, falter I, Beloved whom I must lose, nor thence regret The doubly-vouched and twin allegiance owed To you in Heaven, and Heaven in you, Lady. How could you hope, loose dealer with my God, That I should keep for you my fealty? For still 'tis thus:-because ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson
... dead! The rouge has left a trace On that thin cheek where shone, perchance, a tear, Even while the people laughed that held him dear But yesterday. He died,—and not in grace, And many a black-robed caitiff starts apace To slander him whose Tartuffe made them fear, And gold must win a passage for his bier, And bribe the crowd that guards ...
— Ballads in Blue China and Verses and Translations • Andrew Lang
... Be heard amid this hall; once more befits The patriot, whose prophetic eye so oft 5 Has pierced thro' faction's veil, to flash on crimes Of deadliest import. Mouldering in the grave Sleeps Capet's caitiff corse; my daring hand Levelled to earth his blood-cemented throne, My voice declared his guilt, and stirred up France 10 To call for vengeance. I too dug the grave Where sleep the Girondists, detested band! Long with the shew of freedom they ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... swoon awakens Marsilies, And has him borne his vaulted roof beneath; Many colours were painted there to see, And Bramimunde laments for him, the queen, Tearing her hair; caitiff herself she clepes; Also these words cries very loud and clear: "Ah! Sarraguce, henceforth forlorn thou'lt be Of the fair king that had thee in his keep! All those our gods have wrought great felony, Who in battle this morning failed at need. That admiral will shew his cowardice, Unless he fight ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... voice; and the poor invisible caitiff called on him by name, and poured forth out of the darkness an endless, garrulous appeal for mercy. A sense of danger, of daring, had alone nerved Carthew to enter the forecastle; and here was the enemy ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... felt their pulses lag With the slow beat that doubts and then despairs; Some, caitiff, would have struck the starry flag That knits us with our past, and makes us heirs Of deeds high-hearted as were ever done 'Neath the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... where is the caitiff miscreant? Has he thrown himself into the river? Drowning is too good for such a dog as he!" shouted angry voices on the river's bank, and through the still air the sound of trampling footsteps could be heard up ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... troops that follow'd thee? Decline all this, and see what now thou art: For happy wife, a most distressed widow; For joyful mother, one that wails the name; For one being su'd to, one that humbly sues; For queen, a very caitiff crown'd with care; For she that scorn'd at me, now scorn'd of me; For she being fear'd of all, now fearing one; For she commanding all, obey'd of none. Thus hath the course of justice wheel'd about And left ...
— The Life and Death of King Richard III • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... members. One of these is well known by the name of Ferret, an old, rancorous, incorrigible instrument of sedition. Happy it is for him that he has never fallen in my way; for, notwithstanding the maxims of forbearance which I have adopted, the indignation which the character of that caitiff inspires, would probably impel me to some act of violence, and I should crush him like an ungrateful viper, that gnawed the bosom ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... suffices. Late in our own experience too late for glory, we made the discovery that all dogs have a mysterious reverence for a trundling stone. It calls off attention from the human object, and strikes alarm into the caitiff's mind. He thinks the stone alive. Upon this hint we thought it possible to improve: stooping down, we 'made believe' to launch a stone, when, in fact, we had none; and the effect generally followed. So well is ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey |
