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




Cerberus   Listen
Cerberus

noun
1.
(Greek mythology) the three-headed dog guarding the entrance to Hades; son of Typhon.  Synonym: hellhound.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Cerberus" Quotes from Famous Books



... quoted by Strauss, the epithets that the dignified Reuchlin applies to Pfefferkorn are: "A poisonous beast," "a scarecrow," "a horror," "a mad dog," "a horse," "a mule," "a hog," "a fox," "a raging wolf," "a Syrian lion," "a Cerberus," "a fury of hell." In this matter Reuchlin was finally triumphant. This triumph was loudly celebrated by his friend Hutten in another poem, in which ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan

... from a window, of "How now, Tearum, what's the matter, sir?—down, d-n ye, down!" produced no abatement of Tearum's vociferation, which in part prevented his master from bearing the sounds of alarm which his ferocious vigilance was in the act of challenging. But the mate of the two-legged Cerberus was gifted with sharper ears than her husband. She also was now at the window; "B-t ye, gae down and let loose the dog," she said, "they're sporting the door of the Custom-house, and the auld sap at ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott

... vicarious head the damnation of the world. At each side of her an adamant parent held her rigidly to the bar of judgment. An ant crawled upon her neck, but she dared not move. She lowered her eyes before the congregation—a hundred-eyed Cerberus that watched the gates through which her sins were fast thrusting her. Her soul was filled with a delirious, almost a fanatic joy. For she was out of the clutch of the tyrant, Freedom. Dogma and creed pinioned her with beneficent cruelty, as steel braces bind the feet of a crippled ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry

... if we did go to throw sugar to Cerberus, your father would step in and inherit your debts, and you will have sacrificed us both in vain. The result is the same, whether we go to Whitechapel or to the other place. You can't make it otherwise. Now, if ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill

... once; and go now, ye loved ones; cry to God for yourselves and me!—It was a hard scene, but it is over. He will not see them on the morrow. The Queen in passing through the ante-room glanced at the Cerberus Municipals; and with woman's vehemence, said through her tears, "Vous etes tous ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... Campania. Canius. Cassiodorus. categories, the ten. Catholic Church, faith; religion. Catholics. Cato. Catullus. Caucasus. Centaurs. Cerberus. Ceres. Chremes. Christ, advent of; baptism; life and death; resurrection and ascension; nature; person; divinity; humanity; Perfect Man and Perfect God. Christian faith, religion. Cicero, De diuinatione; ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius

... been bountiful to the poet, have encouraged Virgil to speak such English as I could teach him, and rewarded his interpreter for the pains he has taken in bringing him over into Britain by defraying the charges of his voyage. Even Cerberus, when he had received the sop, permitted AEneas to pass freely to Elysium. Had it been offered me and I had refused it, yet still some gratitude is due to such who were willing to oblige me. But how much more to those from whom I have received the favours ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden

... height, and leaving the enemy to conjecture whether it was caused by a bomb, a water-spout, or an earthquake. Want of resources obliged Mr. Bushnell to abandon his schemes for that time; but, in 1777, he made an attempt from a whale-boat against the Cerberus frigate, by drawing a machine against her side with a line. It accidentally became attached to a schooner and exploded, tearing the vessel in pieces. Three men were ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson

... Melancholy Of Cerberus and blackest midnight born, In Stygian Cave forlorn 'Mongst horrid shapes, and shreiks, and sights unholy. Find out som uncouth cell, Where brooding darknes spreads his jealous wings, And the night-Raven sings; There, under Ebon shades, and low-brow'd Rocks, As ragged as thy Locks, In dark Cimmerian ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... "Am I Cerberus, to be coaxed and cheated by a well-buttered sop of flattery? Return to your mutton, reverend sir, and know that I am incorruptible, and disdain to betray my cause for your thirty pieces of ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... the page, Jules, kept watch at the ladder-foot in the garden; and the true maiden, Rose, who ever sate within the chamber with the lovers during their stolen interviews, guarded the door, with ears as keen as those of Cerberus. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various

... certain extent, she looked down upon him for his obtusity. He should have been aware that Burgo was a danger to be avoided; and he should have been aware also that Mrs Marsham was a duenna not to be employed. When a woman knows that she is guarded by a watch-dog, she is bound to deceive her Cerberus, if it be possible, and is usually not ill-disposed to deceive also the owner of Cerberus. Lady Glencora felt that Mrs Marsham was her Cerberus, and she was heartily resolved that if she was to be kept in the proper line at ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope

... cursed dark spell. When I came below, two or three minutes before, we were heading into The Race, west-nor'west, having left Cerberus Shoal whistling buoy to port about fifteen minutes earlier. Get her back on that course, if you please, Mr. Swain, and proceed at half-speed. Don't neglect your soundings. I'll join you as ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance

... exquisite wardrobe and jewellery, a service of gold plate, and a number of unpaid bills, which Madam flatly refused to take upon herself, and defied the unhappy tradesmen to impose upon Rhoda. She did, however, keep the plate and jewels; and by way of a sop to Cerberus, allowed the "beggarly craftsmen," whom she so heartily despised, to sell and divide ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt

... that state of religious preparation which should precede the momentous change. Even in Hades he rescued Theseus and removed the stone of Ascalaphus, reanimated the bloodless spirits, and dragged into the light of day the monster Cerberus, justly reputed invincible because an emblem of Time itself; he burst the chains of the grave (for Busiris is the grave personified), and triumphant at the close as in the dawn of his career, was received after his labors into the repose of the heavenly mansions, living ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... sure there can be nothing of that," said Lady Susanna, feeling herself to be as energetic as Cerberus, and as ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope

... Cronus; and out of it made a particular God. From Cha-Opis they formed a king Cheops; from Cayster, the same as Ca Aster, they fancied a hero, Caystrius; from Cu-Bela, Cybele; from Cu-Baba, Cybebe. Cerberus, the dog of hell, was denominated from Kir-Abor; as ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant

... takes no heed of the strokes of the whip, nothing could move him now. The stifled groans of ruined players, as they passed out, their mute imprecations, their stupefied faces, found him impassive. He was the spirit of Play incarnate. If the young man had noticed this sorry Cerberus, perhaps he would have said, "There is only a pack of cards in that heart ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac

... girls of all ages,' containing 'A Sequel to Desdichado' (the modern development of Ivanhoe), in which a quite monumental example of the kind of art in question will be found as a leading illustration of this characteristic sentence, "See, good Cerberus," said Sir Rupert, "my hand has been struck off. You must make me a hand of iron, one with springs in it, so that I can make it grasp a dagger." The text is also, as it professes to be, instructive; being the ultimate degeneration of what I have above called the 'folly' of Ivanhoe; for ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... Charon's fare for wafting the departed soul over the Infernal River. Besides this, the corpse's mouth was furnished with a certain cake, composed of flour, honey, &c. This was designed to appease the fury of Cerberus, the infernal doorkeeper, and to procure a safe and quiet entrance. These examples are curious ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow

... imagining of an entirely new thing. All such scenes or things are compounded of objects, or parts of objects, which they have seen, and with which they are familiar. They can readily picture to themselves a centaur or a cerberus, a mermaid or a dragon,—creatures which have no existence, and which never did exist; but a little reflection will shew, that nothing which the mind conceives of these supposed animals is really new, but is merely a new combination of elements, or parts of other ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall

... Melancholy, Of Cerberus and blackest midnight born, In Stygian cave forlorn, 'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy! Find out some uncouth cell, Where brooding darkness spreads his jealous wings, And the night-raven sings; There, under ebon shades, ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous

... penny in his hand and all the boy's blandishments in his ears, retired to the "Dolphin" to digest both; and once more Heathcote, with the perspiration on his brow and his chest positively sore with the thumping of his heart, sped like a truant shade from the fangs of Cerberus. ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed

... the fierce eye of some Cerberus of a schoolmistress, about whose grounds you prowl piteously, searching for small knot-holes in the surrounding board fence, through which little souvenirs of impassioned feeling may be thrust. Sonnets are written for the town papers, full of telling phrases, ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell

... the time, but still do in a high degree. I made a point never to admit any persons without subjecting them to the rigorous investigation of the pair of eyes that providence had been pleased to place in my head. To those who pleased me not, I was little better than a Cerberus whom it was very difficult to pass; whilst to others, I was all easiness and condescension, ushering them straight to the sanctum sanctorum, in which, behind a desk covered with letters and papers, stood—for he never sat down to his desk—the respectable individual whose lawful ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... the Morrison manners and methods and doggedness in attending to the matter in hand, whatever it might be, would not limn Stewart Morrison in any clearer light than to state that old Andrew, at seventy-two, was obeying Stewart's orders as to the ten-o'clock rule and was just as consistently a Cerberus as he had been in the case of Angus and David. He was a bit more set in his impassivity—at least to all appearances—because chronic arthritis had made ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day

... said a voice as soft and musical as the vibration of a bell, "you make an admirable Cerberus. My gauntlet." The sweep of the hand fascinated him. "Are your ears like the sailors' of Ulysses, filled with wax? I am asking you to ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath

... apartments. Immediately without the portal is the porter's lodge, a small room with one or two bedrooms adjacent, for the accommodation of the concierge, or porter and his family. This is one of the most important functionaries of the hotel. He is, in fact, the Cerberus of the establishment, and no one can pass in or out without his knowledge and consent. The porte-cochere in general is fastened by a sliding bolt, from which a cord or wire passes into the porter's lodge. Whoever wishes to go out must speak to the porter, ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving

... quest, the delightful singer Orpheus took that downward way, coming in sight of old Cerberus centiceps, he astutely feigned inattention to the hostile appearances of the multiple beast, and with a wave of his plectrum over the responsive lyre, he at the stroke raised voice. This much you know. It may be communicated ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... the author of this character, which was printed again in 1681, and in 1704 with the following title, "The Assembly-man. Written in the Year 1647; but proves the true character of (Cerberus) the observator, MDCCIV." It was also reprinted in the Harleian Miscellany, v. 93. For an account of the author, see the Biographia Britannica, edit. ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle

... does he commonly rise?" said I. "Sometimes sooner, sometimes later," said he, closing the door upon me by degrees. I then told him I was come by his lordship's own appointment, to which intimation this Cerberus replied, "I have received no orders about the matter," and was upon the point of shutting me out, when I recollected myself all of a sudden, and slipping a crown into his hand, begged as a favour that he would inquire, and let ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett

... have been written by a "Canadian priest" living at Lurgan in Ireland, and to be a reply to M. de Mandat Grancey's volume, Chez Paddy. It is adorned with a frontispiece representing a monster of the Cerberus type on a monument, with three heads and three collars labelled respectively "Flattery," "Famine," and "Coercion." On the pedestal is the inscription—"1800 to 1887. Erected by the grateful Irish to the English Government." The text is in keeping with the frontispiece. In a passage devoted ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert

... this was a magnificent topaz; and here art equalled nature; it was as large as a big hazel-nut, with the head of Minerva in a style of inconceivable beauty. I remember yet another precious stone, different from these; it was a cameo, engraved with Hercules binding Cerberus of the triple throat; such was its beauty and the skill of its workmanship, that our great Michel Agnolo protested he had never seen anything so wonderful. Among many bronze medals, I obtained one upon which was a head of Jupiter. It was the largest that had ever been ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini

... astronomiae, added several new constellations to the list, viz. Canes venatici (the Greyhounds), Lacerta (the Lizard), Leo minor (Little Lion), Lynx, Sextans Uraniae, Scutum or Clypeus Sobieskii (the shield of Sobieski), Vulpecula et Anser (Fox and Goose), Cerberus, Camelopardus (Giraffe), and Monoceros (Unicorn); the last two were originally due to Jacobus Bartschius. In 1679 Augustine Royer introduced the most interesting of the constellations of the southern hemisphere, the Crux australis or Southern Cross. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various

... questions on which they differed. His Britannic Majesty was still vexing his nobles by the favour he showed to foreigners. At this time he demanded a subsidy of one-thirtieth of all the property in the kingdom, which they were by no means inclined to give him. As a sop to Cerberus, the King promised thenceforth to abide by the advice of his native nobility, and the subsidy was voted. But his next step was to invite his father-in-law, the Count of Provence, and to shower upon him the gold so unwillingly granted. The nobles were more ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt

... to have been contented in her underground kingdom, where she ruled with Pluto. It was supposed to be below the volcanic grounds in southern Italy, near Lake Avernus. The entrance to it was guarded by a three-headed dog, named Cerberus, and the way to it was barred by the River Styx. Every evening Mercury brought all the spirits of the people who had died during the day to the shore of the Styx, and if their funeral rites had been properly performed, ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born In Stygian cave forlorn 'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy! Find out some uncouth cell Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings And the night-raven sings; There, under ebon shades and low-browed rocks As ragged as ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... the enchanted realm within. Poor Annunciata's countenance fell; she pulled her seven soldi from her pocket, counted them three or four times deliberately in her hand, and cast appealing glances at the stony-hearted Cerberus. At this moment she discovered a handsome young gentleman who, with his eyes fixed on her face, was elbowing his way ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... Cargrim was admitted with certain solemnity by a sour-faced footman whose milk of human kindness had turned acid in the thunderstorms of Mrs Pansey's spite. This engaging Cerberus conducted the chaplain into a large and sepulchral drawing-room in which the good lady and Miss Norsham were partaking of afternoon tea. Mrs Pansey wore her customary skirts of solemn black, and looked more gloomy than ever; but Daisy, the elderly sylph, brightened the room with a dress ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume

... duodecim laboribus relinquebatur sed inter omnis hic erat difficillimus. Iussus est enim canem Cerberum[4] ex Orco in lucem trahere. Ex Orco autem nemo antea reverterat. Praeterea Cerberus erat monstrum maxime horribile et tria capita habebat. Hercules postquam imperia Eurysthei accepit, statim profectus est et in Orcum descendit. Ibi vero non sine summo periculo Cerberum manibus rapuit et ingenti cum labore ex Orco in ...
— Latin for Beginners • Benjamin Leonard D'Ooge

... diversion. It continued from one in the morning till half-past five, and left me pale and faint. It came on fitfully, but not so violently, several times on Thursday, and began severer threats toward night; but I took between sixty and seventy drops of laudanum, and sopped the Cerberus just as his mouth began to open. On Friday it only niggled, as if the chief had departed, as from a conquered place, and merely left a small garrison behind, or as if he had evacuated the Corsica, and a few straggling ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day

... leaving her celestial habitation, submits to go thither, so much does she give way to hatred and to anger. Soon as she has entered there, and the threshold groans, pressed by her sacred body, Cerberus raises his threefold mouth, and utters triple barkings at the same moment. She summons the Sisters,[57] begotten of Night, terrible and implacable Goddesses. They are sitting before the doors of the prison shut close with adamant, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso

... argument he forced to back, as it were, into the cosmological, and that into the ontological. After this reluctant regressus of the three into one, shutting up like a spying-glass, which (with the iron hand of Hercules forcing Cerberus up to daylight) the stern man of Koenigsberg resolutely dragged to the front of the arena, nothing remained, now that he had this pet scholastic argument driven up into a corner, than to break its neck—which ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey

... the sly fellow knew very well that it was no caricature—that is, if he peeped, as he pretends—but a tolerably correct likeness that might have satisfied Sall herself. By-the-by, I have a great mind to bestow it upon him as a 'sop for Cerberus,' should her jealousy ever be aroused by your reports of his devotion to me, or admiration rather, most unequivocally avowed, it must be acknowledged. I really had no intention of injuring Sally, and, if you think it best, will make ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... contest hitherto, that this amount of success was very grateful. Her feeling latterly had been one of intense hostility to the butler rather than to her son. Now that she had conquered that most savage Cerberus, all would be pleasant with her. But, alas! she soon found that in passing Cerberus she had made good her footing in a region as little desirable ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... down has been the problem of every religion. And the great problem of progress has been to smuggle the newly-discovered truth past Cerberus, the priest, by preparing a sop that ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard

... my great secret that the Law is the Cerberus that guards the portals of our earthly paradise against the common herd—we must not be disturbed ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 4, June 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various

... a massive gold chain, with which he toyed while watching the guileless spectators or sought with soothing voice to entice one to display his handwriting in the order-book. My friend, who was small and thin, almost succeeded in defeating the vigilance of the white-waistcoated and honey-voiced Cerberus; but at the last moment, as he was about to slip out, he was stopped, ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore

... had lost for him its interest. It had cost him dear. Everything might go to Sharp and the dogs; one thing was certain—his wife should not become a Catholic. He remained steadily at Vine Cottage, a Cerberus to guard his domain. The Missioner would leave Windsor on the morrow. Althea wrote him a brief note, which she sent by Mary, asking him what ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee

... three mouths, as that obdurate guardian of the infernal regions had? Do not shrug your shoulders, my dear comte: I put the question to you with an excellent reason, since poets pretend that, in order to soften Monsieur Cerberus, the visitor must take something enticing with him—a cake, for instance. Therefore, I, who view the matter in a prosaic light, that is to say in the light of reality, I say: one cake is very little for three mouths. If ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... hope, in spite of the metaphorists, to avoid the breath of the deadly upas tree; one may, by great good fortune, succeed in blacking the eye of the basilisk; one might even dodge the attentions of Cerberus and Argus, but no man, alive or dead, can escape the ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry

... a warm flush over her pale face, and Mrs Forbes entered, then Kate, and last of all, Alec, much against his will. Then Annie re-entered, and Bruce resumed his place as Cerberus of the pew-door. So Annie was seated next to Alec, as she had never been, in church or chapel, or even in school, before, except on that memorable day when they were both kept in for the Shorter Catechism. But Annie had no feeling of delight and awe like that with which ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... infernal regions. Over it, AEneas stands before the Cumoean Sybil, a very injured painting. Below, Orpheus in Hades plays before Pluto and Persephone to win back Eurydice, who lies bound before them. On the right Hercules rescues Theseus from Hades, and slays Cerberus, and on the left, Eurydice, following Orpheus, looks back, and is re-seized by the demons. These are all exceedingly good and dramatic paintings, and are by ...
— Luca Signorelli • Maud Cruttwell

... renders men crusty and quarrelsome when hungry, is completely pacified, silenced, and put to rest; whereupon a host of honest, good-fellow qualities and kind-hearted affections, which had lain perdue, slily peeping out of the loopholes of the heart, finding this Cerberus asleep, do pluck up their spirits, turn out one and all in their holiday suits, and gambol up and down the diaphragm—disposing their possessor to laughter, good humor, and a thousand friendly offices ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... listen to with perfect security. If this alarms you, what would you say if you should have seen the Stygian lakes, and the shores burning with sulphur unconsumed, if the Furies stood before you, and Cerberus with his mane of vipers, and the Giants chained in eternal adamant? Yet all these you might have witnessed unharmed; for all these would quail at ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various

... hall of the lord of the Underworld, Aidoneus, the brother of Zeus. Zeus gave him the Underworld to be his dominion when he shared amongst the Olympians the world that Cronos had ruled over. A fearful hound guards the hall of Aidoneus: Cerberus he is called; he has three heads. On those who go within that hall Cerberus fawns, but on those who would come out of it he springs ...
— The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles • Padraic Colum

... that the inclosed sheets belonged to the number just received, not to the preceding number. I drove immediately to the Moscow office and demanded the censor. "You can tell me what you want with him," said the ante-room Cerberus. "Send me the censor," said I. After further repetition, he retired and sent in a man who requested me to state my business. "You are not the censor," I said, after a glance at him. "Send him out, or I will go to him." Then they ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood

... labor remained—namely, to bring up the three-headed watch-dog, Cerberus, from the doors of Tartarus. Mercury and Pallas both came to attend him, and led him alive among the shades, who all fled from him, except Medusa and one brave youth. He gave them the blood of an ox to drink, and made his way to Pluto's throne, where he asked leave to take Cerberus to ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various

... Marian was of course excepted from this "detail," and, after bidding us all good-night, the huntress-maiden retired to her tent—at the entrance of which the ever-faithful and ever-watchful Wolf placed himself. There did the great dog stretch his body—a sentinel couchant—with such grim Cerberus-like resolution, that even Wingrove might not have dared to cross the threshold of that sacred precinct? As yet we had not assumed our Indian disguises. The opening scene of the travestie was reserved for the morning; and, after arranging ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... the last, Mother Cerberus, I assure you I do not acknowledge your authority to dismiss me!" retorted Capitola. "So show me to the presence ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... lest the cursed Cerberus(1) prevent us even from the nethermost hell from delivering the goddess by his furious howling, just as he did when ...
— Peace • Aristophanes

... upbraids Homer's muse, Nutricem insanae sapientiae, a nursery of madness, [453]impudent as a court lady, that blushes at nothing. Jacobus Mycillus, Gilbertus Cognatus, Erasmus, and almost all posterity admire Lucian's luxuriant wit, yet Scaliger rejects him in his censure, and calls him the Cerberus of the muses. Socrates, whom all the world so much magnified, is by Lactantius and Theodoret condemned for a fool. Plutarch extols Seneca's wit beyond all the Greeks, nulli secundus, yet [454] Seneca saith of himself, "when I would solace myself with ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... by and by," answered Pluto. "Do you see these big gates? When we pass these we are at home; and look! there is my faithful dog at the door! Cerberus; Cerberus, ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various

... almost forgotten it myself! only Miss Middleton charged me to tell you that 'son Hammond' has arrived by the P. and O. Steamer the 'Cerberus,' and that she and her father were just starting ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... spring to refresh himself, he heard a hideous noise, and presently espied a Lion and a Dragon, fighting, biting, and tearing each other. At length Guy, perceiving the Lion ready to faint, encountered the Dragon, and soon brought the ugly Cerberus roaring and yelling to the ground. The Lion, in gratitude to Guy, run by his horse's side like a true born spaniel, till lack of food made him retire ...
— Traditional Nursery Songs of England - With Pictures by Eminent Modern Artists • Various

... it appeared to offer us release from the grip of the pack. At the head of an ice-tongue that nearly closed the gap through which we might enter the open space was a wave-worn berg shaped like some curious antediluvian monster, an icy Cerberus guarding the way. It had head and eyes and rolled so heavily that it almost overturned. Its sides dipped deep in the sea, and as it rose again the water seemed to be streaming from its eyes, as though it were weeping at our escape from the clutch of the floes. This may seem ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton

... Sicilian fruitfulness. Thou though such a mist dost show us That our best friends do not know us, And for those allowed features Due to reasonable creatures, Liken'st us to feel Chimeras Monsters that, who see us, fear us; Worse than Cerberus or Geryon, Or, who first loved a cloud, Ixion. Bacchus we know, and we allow, His tipsy rites, but what art thou, That but by reflex canst show What his deity can do, As the false Egyptian spell Aped the true Hebrew miracle? Some few vapors thou may'st raise, The weak brain ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings

... not an ordinary heretic; he was a bold pantheist, and outraged the dogma of all Christian communions by saying that God, in three persons, was a Cerberus, a monster with three heads. 2. He had already been condemned to death by the Catholic doctors at Vienne in Dauphiny. 3. The affair was judged, not by Calvin, but by the magistrates of Geneva; and if it is objected that his advice must have influenced their decision, it is necessary to ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott

... blood—as little to be resisted as the impulse to eat when you are hungry, or drink when you thirst. Besides, what particular harm had been done, what particular harm could have been done with such a Cerberus of a husband? As to the outcry which had followed one special incident, nothing could have been more uncalled for, more superfluous. Aldous had demanded contrition, had said strong things with the flashing eyes, the set mouth of a Cato. And the culprit had turned obstinate—would ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... chiefly employed in going to and from America, except in the year 1782, when he was appointed to command the transports with the 97th regiment on board, destined for the relief of Gibraltar, under convoy of his Majesty's ships Cerberus and Apollo: he was not only successful in getting all the transports in safe, but he also landed the men ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip

... one by one into the street, and making their way to the ball-room in couples or alone. To find the ball in the full tide of successful operation we should arrive about half-past ten in the evening. Entering then through a long, broad passage, midway of which we deposit five sous each with the Cerberus on guard, we pass into a hall crowded with people. The hall is not larger than that of an average country-tavern ball-room in New England: the space occupied by the dancers will accommodate perhaps fifty quadrille sets. (There are no "side couples" in the quadrilles of Paris popular balls; ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various

... labor he was to undertake in the region in which his hero strength—so the impious king hoped—would not accompany him. This was a fight with the dark powers of the underworld. He was to bring forth from Hades Cerberus, the dog of Hell. This animal had three heads with frightful jaws, from which incessantly poison flowed. A dragon's tail hung from his body, and the hair of his head and of his back ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various

... over and answered;—"And how am I to know but what you have murdered that fellow-traveler of yours that you came here with last night, and are running away to save yourself? And now I remember that I saw Tartarus through a hole in the earth just at that hour, and Cerberus looking ready to ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... TRIPLET, the Cerberus of art, who had the first bark in this legend, and has since been out of hearing, ran from Lambeth to Covent Garden, on receipt of Mr. Vane's note. But ran he never so quick, he had built a full-sized castle in the air before he ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade

... not wholly fancies, master. Two gentlemen of the Palace passed to-day, and looking up at the tablet, one wagered the other on the battle to-morrow between Cerberus and the Golden Dog. I have not forgotten wholly my early lessons in ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... one. I hope to goodness she won't be gone from Wenham before it's finished and I can send her a presentation copy! Everything was green and white in the tea-house, except the dear little things to be sold there: weather-cocks, and door-stops, and old china. We bought specimens of these as sops to Cerberus—I mean, as presents for Aunt Mary—and when there was no longer a pretext for lingering we crept ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)

... to listen to his somewhat delphic compliments,—heralded by a clearing of the throat. He represented the faith as delivered to the saints, and he spoke for those in the congregation to whom it was precious. Why was it that, to Hodder, he should gradually have assumed something of the aspect of a Cerberus? Why was it that he incited a perverse ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... us see what they are made of; are either of you known? for Cerberus, who keeps the door, is d——d particular, in consequence of some rows they have recently had, and the devil is careful to pick ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... vanity; and this, like the other, is but a monument of the City's shame and dishonour, instead of its glory; come, let us take a walk in, and view its inside. Accordingly we were admitted in thro' an iron gate, within which sat a brawny Cerberus, of an Indico-colour, leaning upon a money-box; we turned in through another Iron-Barricado, where we heard such a rattling of chains, drumming of doors, ranting, hollowing, singing, and running, that I could think of nothing but Don Quevedo's Vision, ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke

... goes at it as at any objective science. His analytical and synthetic processes simply explore in his own subterranean caverns apropos of theology. He has taken over the Bible as the Kaiser has taken over Jerusalem. Wilhelm is becoming the Cerberus of Christianity—sole and surly guardian ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry

... had good training, what to do and what not to do." The Baroness flung her little sop of flattery to Cerberus with a dainty ghost of a bow for the man who had been as a second father to Leopold since the late Emperor's death. "But—we're old friends, Chancellor," (she was not to blame that they had not been more in the days before she became Baroness von Lyndal), "so tell me; ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson

... following day in the southern passage, to prevent their falling into the hands of the enemy. The vessels destroyed, in addition to those mentioned in the last chapter, were, the Juno, Lark, Orpheus, and Flora of thirty-two guns, and the Cerberus of twenty-eight. ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross

... saying, "Let me see the pretty watch." "Not necessary," I replied, putting it back in my pocket and calmly eying him, although my heart began to beat fast. I was alone in the tower with this hairy Cerberus, who, for all I knew, might be ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards

... I am not alone in my—shall I say diffidence?—toward dogs. Indeed, there is evidence from the oldest times that mankind, in its more honest moments, has confessed to a fear of dogs. In recognition of this general fear, the unmuzzled Cerberus was put at the gate of Hades. It was rightly felt that when the unhappy pilgrims got within, his fifty snapping heads were better than a bolt upon the door. It was better for them to endure the ills they had, than be nipped in the upper passage. He, also, who first spoke the ancient ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks

... probability of the fiction; and thus to arrive at Tartarus or Elysium, souls were obliged to cross the rivers Styx and Acheron, in the boat of Charon the ferryman, and to pass through the doors of horn and ivory, which were guarded by the mastiff Cerberus. At length a civil usage was joined to all these ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts

... does not apply his views to the human body, but only to an imaginary machine which, if it could be constructed, would do all that the human body does; throwing a sop to Cerberus unworthily; and uselessly, because Cerberus was by no means stupid enough ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley

... honey cake was simply that it was a friendly present to the infernal gods; later came the conceit that it was a sop to fling to the dog Cerberus, who guarded the entrance ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis

... "Standard" Work (in the Press), New Edition of Allsopp's Fables. N.B.—This volume will contain two extra Fables, illustrating the proverb of "Allsopps to Cerberus," and "There's many a slip between the mug and the Hind-lip." Many novel pints ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 1, 1890 • Various

... yourself—and very well for that! The articles are those six ball-and-claw-foot chairs with violin backs. I will pay fifty dollars apiece for those. Remember—it is the voice of Cohen. The chairs are worth more—some day they'll fetch twice that; but, really, I must throw a sop to that collector-Cerberus within me. He's entitled to something. He had the wit to ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson

... nerves and mind. The sudden apparition of her in a rose-bud print, to wait upon the Raymounts the next morning at breakfast, startled them all with a sweet surprise. Every time she left the room the talk about her broke out afresh, and Hester's information concerning her was a welcome sop to the Cerberus of their astonishment. A more striking contrast than that between her and her two aunts could hardly have been found in the whole island. She was like a star between two gray clouds of twilight. But she had not so much share in her own cheerfulness as her poor aunts had ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... Parthenius.) Coasting past (the latter), they reached Heraclea (2), a Hellenic city and a colony of the Megarians, situated in the territory of the Mariandynians. So they came to anchorage off the Acherusian Chersonese, where Heracles (3) is said to have descended to bring up the dog Cerberus, at a point where they still show the marks of his descent, a deep cleft more than two furlongs down. Here the Heracleots sent the Hellenes, as gifts of hospitality, three thousand measures of barley ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon

... stopcock, tap; rammer[obs3]; ram, ramrod; piston; stop-gap; wadding, stuffing, padding, stopping, dossil[obs3], pledget[obs3], tompion[obs3], tourniquet. cover &c. 223; valve, vent peg, spigot, slide valve. janitor, doorkeeper, porter, warder, beadle, cerberus, ostiary[obs3]. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... newspaper to produce with each issue. This ill-favored individual, owner of a yellow countenance covered with red excrescences, to which he owed his nickname of "Coloquinte," indicated a personage behind the lattice as the Cerberus of the paper. This was an elderly officer with a medal on his chest and a silk skull-cap on his head; his nose was almost hidden by a pair of grizzled moustaches, and his person was hidden as completely in an ample ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac

... Jupiter slew the Lion, and destroyed the many-headed Hydra; was able to kill the fleet man-eating birds, and brought up from hades the three-headed dog, Cerberus; effectually cleansed the Augean stable from its refuse; killed the bulls and stag whose nostrils breathed fire; slew the poisonous serpent and killed Ach-e-lo-us. The guest-slaying Bu-si-ris was delighted with ...
— The Christian Foundation, April, 1880

... from her to me, and he would tell me little secret things that he had overheard her say that made me throb with joy and swear at him for repeating his mistress' conversation. But best of all, Jube was a perfect Cerberus, and no one on earth could have been more effective in keeping away or deluding the other young fellows who visited the Dalys. He would tell me of it afterwards, chuckling softly to himself. 'An,' Doctah, I say to Mistah Hemp Stevens, "'Scuse us, Mistah Stevens, but Miss Annie, she des gone ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... vast and rapid rivers, whose peculiar qualities strike horror into mortals. Cocytus falls with an impetuous roaring; Phlegethon rages with a torrent of flames; the Acharusian fen is dreadful for its stench and filth: nor does Charon, the ferryman, who wafts souls over, occasion any less horror; Cerberus, the triple-headed dog, stands ready with open mouths to receive them; and the Furies shake at ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway

... wostow what I thee beseche? 855 Lat be thy wo and turning to the grounde; For who-so list have helping of his leche, To him bihoveth first unwrye his wounde. To Cerberus in helle ay be I bounde, Were it for my suster, al thy sorwe, 860 By my wil, she sholde al be thyn to-morwe. 'Loke up, I seye, and tel me what she is Anoon, that I may goon aboute thy nede; Knowe ich hir ...
— Troilus and Criseyde • Geoffrey Chaucer

... Styx, past the dread Cerberus, Aeneas and the Sibyl went, through the abode of babes and those who died for deeds they did not do, and into the mourning fields, where the disappointed in love were hedged in with myrtle sprays. Here Aeneas ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb

... hearing full confession of their actions whilst on earth, pronounced the sentence of happiness or misery to which their deeds had entitled them. This tribunal was guarded by the terrible triple-headed dog Cerberus, who, with his three necks bristling with snakes, lay at full length on the ground;—a formidable sentinel, who permitted all shades to enter, ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens

... been made. She had told the Cerberus below that she would be out all the evening; and she had procured a considerable stock of charcoal. She wrote two letters,—one to her father, the ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau

... the course of which Sardanapalus had suffered from a distressing nightmare. He took Mr Buskin's card out of his pocket, and, hurrying out as fast as he could manage, stumped his way round to the stage door. Cerberus would fain have stopped him, but Austin flourished his card in passing, and enquired of the first civil-looking man he met where the manager was to be found. He was piloted through devious ways and under strange scaffoldings, to the foot of a steep and ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour

... Lieutenant Walden conducted Captain Nutting and ten sentinels to the ferry landing. They were but a little distance from the frigate Somerset at anchor in the stream. Farther up, towards Lechmere's Point, were the Glasgow, Cerberus, and Symetry. Down the river, off Moulton's Point, lay the Lively ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin

... Of Cerberus, and blackest midnight born, In Stygian Cave forlorn 'Mongst horrid shapes, and shreiks, and sights unholy, Find out som uncouth cell, Where brooding darknes spreads his jealous wings, And the night-Raven sings; There under Ebon shades and low-brow'd Rocks, As ragged as ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... ought your loyal peers Accomplish may, to ease your lingering grief, I, in the name of all, protest to you, That we will boldly enterprise the same, Were it to enter to black Tartarus, Where triple Cerberus with his venomous throat, Scarreth the ghosts with high resounding noise. We'll either rent the bowels of the earth, Searching the entrails of the brutish earth, Or, with his Ixion's overdaring son, Be bound in ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]

... more smoothly, and was completed according to form. This done, it became the duty of the victim to pass into her reception-room, attended by her ladies. Madame de Noailles had opened the door and stood before it like a she-cerberus waiting for her prey to pass within, when the queen, still laughing at her disordered coiffure, threw herself into a ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... visited next day by eleven gods and demigods, mostly Titans. Elenko found it trying, and was really alarmed when by and by the Furies, having made over their functions to the Devil, strolled up to take the air, and dropped in for a chat, bringing Cerberus. But they behaved exceedingly well, and took back a message from Elenko to Eurydice. Ere long she was on most intimate terms with all the dethroned divinities, ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett

... numbers groan In punishments severe. Here Juno came, Braving the region's horrors, from her throne Celestial,—so did ire and hatred goad Her bosom with their stings! Sacred she press'd The groaning threshold,—instant as she stepp'd, Fierce Cerberus his triple head uprais'd, And howl'd with triple throat. The goddess calls The night-born sisters, fierce, implacable: Before the close-barr'd adamantine gates They sit; their tresses twisting round with snakes. The ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid

... sardonically; "and will you miss this splendid opportunity of giving a sop to your Cerberus? Of conciliating your bugbear? your bete noire? your ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford

... difficult things not for himself but for others. He destroyed lions, hydras, wild boars, birds with brazen beaks and wings, mad bulls, many-headed monsters, horses which fed on human flesh, dragons, he mastered the three-headed dog Cerberus, he tore asunder the rocks at the Strait of Gibraltar which bear his name to open a channel between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. He fought the Centaur and brought back Alcestis, the wife of Admetus, ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... "that when I embarked at the time of the heavy rains that did so much damage in the old days, there weren't any dogs like that fellow Cerberus about. If I'd had to feed a lot of three-headed beasts like him the Ark would have run short of provisions inside of ...
— A House-Boat on the Styx • John Kendrick Bangs

... Cerberus, who the gate did keep, First with a sop he lays asleep, Then forward goes to th' room of State, Where on a lofty throne of jet, The grizly King of Terrors sate, Discoursing with his Proserpine On things infernally divine. To him the winged Ambassador His message tells, then ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... supplying a hale man to be buried with the king of Fiji on every occasion of a royal decease. It was quite necessary that the man should be hale and hearty, for it was his business to grapple with the Fijian Cerberus in the other world, while his majesty slipped past into ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer

... shouldn't talk that way! Should he, Mr. Moody?" she added brightly to Cerberus as she passed him. "I'm always telling him he talks too much and doesn't mean half ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston

... the arch-slaver of the Nile. The country, as usual, a dead flat: many Shillook villages on west bank all deserted, owing to Mahomed Her's plundering. This fellow now assumes a right of territory, and offers to pay tribute to the Egyptian Government, thus throwing a sop to Cerberus to prevent intervention. Course S.W. The river in clear water about seven hundred yards wide, but sedge on the east bank for a couple of ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker

... Orpheus, in search of Eurydice, entered the lower world through the rocky jaws of Taenarus, a cape in the south of Greece (see Virgil Georg. iv. 467, Taenarias fauces); here also Hercules emerged from Hell with the captive Cerberus. ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton

... their creation any more than the limitations of counterpoint and rhythm laid their incubus on the lyre of Apollo. The porches where Callicrates, Hermogenes, and Callimachus walked were guarded by no such Cerberus as the disciples of Plato encountered at the entrance of the groves ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various



Words linked to "Cerberus" :   mythical monster, mythical creature, Greek mythology



Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com