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




Damocles   /dˈæməklˌiz/   Listen
Damocles

noun
1.
The Greek courtier to Dionysius the Elder who (according to legend) was condemned to sit under a naked sword that was suspended by a hair in order to demonstrate to him that being a king was not the happy state Damocles had said it was (4th century BC).



Related search:



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 |





"Damocles" Quotes from Famous Books



... the city forbids any further plain particulars; let us only record the severe virtue of the young Damocles, surnamed, and by that surname pointed out to Demetrius, the beautiful; who, to escape importunities, avoided every place of resort, and when at last followed into a private bathing room by Demetrius, seeing none at hand to help or deliver, seized the ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... religious ceremony (III, i, 1-2), delivered with official assumption in the fine frenzy of a muse-inspired priest, their unity of purpose and of style makes them virtually a continuous poem. It lashes the vices and the short-sighted folly of society; with the Sword of Damocles above his head the rich man sits at a luxurious board (III, i, 17); sails in his bronzed galley, lolls in his lordly chariot, with black Care ever at the helm or on the box (III, i, 40). By hardihood in the field ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell

... when Mr. Nelson Chur called on Miss Editha Cinnamon and was just warming up a proposal that had held over almost as long as the wall paper, when bang! down came the overhanging brass drawing and bent itself hopelessly on Mr. Chur's skull. Mr. Chur said something that may have been Damocles. But he did not propose, and Mrs. Budlong was weeks wondering why Mrs. Cinnamon was ...
— Mrs. Budlong's Chrismas Presents • Rupert Hughes

... Excellency [Von Jagow] empower me to declare that we will enter into negotiations with the United States touching the conduct of the submarine war while the negotiations are proceeding. This would give us the advantage that the submarine war, being over Mr. Wilson's head, like the sword of Damocles, would compel him at once to take in hand the ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick

... he regret his follies, for the facts were given to a newspaper famous for its sensations, and the great litterateur was compelled literally to go down on his marrow bones to induce the editor to withhold the particulars of his seduction of the lady from publication. The sword of Damocles was suspended for weeks, during which the high-toned censor's condition was sometimes pitiable to see. His entreaties finally carried the point, and the case became one of those scandals of the existence of which the ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe

... humanity in nomadic masses whose very homes are homeless, the terrible necessity of peace and the terrible probability of war, all the loading up of our little island like a sinking ship; the wealth that may mean famine and the culture that may mean despair; the bread of Midas and the sword of Damocles. In a word, he saw what we see, but he saw it when it was not there. And some cannot see it—even when ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward

... the corner where the Psyche stood motionless on her pedestal, he noticed, as people will notice at these moments, the ironical suggestion of the torso, with the nasty Malay creese hanging over its head. Psyche and—the sword of Damocles. ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair

... am not by any means. So in case of a tussle the odds are big that you'll finish underside. And, besides, if you have a bit of a whip-hand over me, I'd have you remember that until I've got my terms, you are standing under a Damocles arrangement which may tumble on your hat at any moment. And it doesn't take much of a wizard to tell that your nerves aren't good to stand that strain ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne

... answered. But when I hurried on to the next question, "Have you fixed a date?" silence was my answer. She had dropped the receiver, and I was afraid I could guess why. She couldn't bear to discuss the sword hanging over her head. Few descendants of Damocles can! ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)

... Mediterranean and placed England and France in such danger that they saw the moment had probably come when it would be positively to their advantage to gratify Russia's ambition and allow her to seize Constantinople. The Tripolitan War suspended the sword of Damocles over the Turk's head. ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various

... them which he firmly held in his hand as he lay dying, convinced that in them he had so many cards of admission into all the nine heavens. What is the use of grounds of consolation and peacefulness over which is constantly hanging the Damocles-sword of deception? The truth, my friend, the truth alone holds good, and remains constant and faithful; it is the only solid consolation; it ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer

... Hartmut's life, but I never could ascertain what it was. He would allow no allusions to his past. I have often broached the subject, but he resented all reference to it. There seems to be a veritable sword of Damocles hanging over him, and when in some happy moment he thinks he has escaped, he looks up, and there it hangs as usual gleaming above his head. I was more impressed than ever with that idea when he last parted from me, he was so excited—almost ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner

... by a warrant which the Governorof Winchester Castle had carried three days in his pocket, were carted back to the Tower, where, not pardoned, their sentences not commuted, but simply deferred, they were tortured with a living death hanging over them, like the sword of Damocles depending ...
— Thomas Hariot • Henry Stevens

... named Damocles and nothing else," replied the Master, and, as she turned away with a look of positive hate, ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren

... the opinion of my father, should only be applied in extreme cases, but the fear of it, suspended like a sword of Damocles above their heads, would serve as a check to the murderous proclivities displayed by some criminals when they are condemned ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero

... Langeais and the Vicomtesse de Beauseant. But the world, after all, is just; it gives the homage of its interest to real feelings only. Beatrix playing comedy was judged to be a second-rate actress. There was no reason whatever for her flight; the sword of Damocles was not suspended over her head; she is neither sincere, nor loving, nor tender; if she were, would she have gone away with ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac

... quicksands; syrt|, syrtis|; Goodwin sands, sandy foundation; slippery ground; breakers, shoals, shallows, bank, shelf, flat, lee shore, ironbound coast; rock ahead, breakers ahead. precipice; maelstrom, volcano; ambush &c. 530; pitfall, trapdoor; trap &c. (snare) 545. sword of Damocles; wolf at the door, snake in the grass, death in the pot; latency &c. 526. ugly customer, dangerous person, le chat qui dort[Fr]; firebrand, hornet's nest. Phr. latet anquis in herba [Lat][Vergil]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... Percival," although diffuse, although it occasionally flowed into by-channels and lingered in stagnating pools, was informed and held together, even at ends the most twisted and broken, by that sense of rhythmic progression which is so dear to me, and which was afterwards so splendidly developed in "Damocles." Pale, painted with grey and opaline tints of morning passes the grand figure of Rachel Conway, a victim chosen for her beauty, and crowned with flowers of sacrifice. She has not forgotten the face of the maniac, ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore

... racking environments. Relentless time brings its revenges fast; but still they worked and suffered while malnutrition sapped the life-blood of the race. In the homes of the fighting men fear reigned supreme—ever the sword of Damocles suspended at the hearth. And then the death lists came and the world was wet with human tears and all the furies flew the earth—grief, hatred, revenge, love, pity and remorse, but the wail of mourning was throughout all lands in all the ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann

... the usual form. The trial of a man for a misdemeanor in levying war with Spain—a misdemeanor which, if proved, could entail only imprisonment—was an infinitely less affair than a prosecution for high treason, with the penalty of an ignominious death suspended like a sword of Damocles. The little world in Richmond felt the subsidence of excitement, realized how warm and dusty was the town, and began to think of its plantations and of country business. Witnesses and visitors of note took the homeward road. The Swan, the Eagle, the Bell, the Indian Queen, crowded all the ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston

... It hangs over my head like a sword of Damocles I have heard of—though I don't know why it was held over ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair

... of the Whispering Pines Miss Hurd. An Enigma Leavenworth Case That Affair Next Door Strange Disappearance Lost Man's Lane Sword of Damocles Agatha Webb Hand and Ring One of My Sons The Mill Mystery Defence of the Bride, Behind Closed Doors and Other Poems Cynthia Wakeham's Money Risifi's Daughter. A Drama Marked "Personal" The Golden Slipper To ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green

... destruction on an average of 400,000 tons per month) would not be more likely to achieve the desired end, and if it were not more advisable not to play our last and best card until all other means had been tried. The possibility of being able to start a ruthless U-boat warfare hung like a Damocles' sword over the heads of our adversaries, and would perhaps be a more effectual means of ending the war than the reckless use of the U-boat as a weapon of war, carrying with it the danger of an attack by the neutrals. If the effect expected by Germany was not realised, which was ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin

... He asked us if our tents had arrived, and on being informed that they had not, he ordered one of his own, of red flannel, to be pitched in the meanwhile. He remained with us about half an hour conversing on different topics; he narrated the anecdote of Damocles, asked us about our laws, quoted Scripture—in a word, jumped from one subject to the other, discoursing on topics quite foreign to his thoughts. He did his best to appear calm and amiable, but we soon detected that he was labouring under ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc

... various States together in a manner that justifies the national motto, "E pluribus unum," the question of slavery hangs fearfully over their Union; and the thread by which it is suspended is more uncertain than the fragile hair of the sword of Damocles, for it is dependent upon the angry passions of ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray

... and the Gods and Goddesses—here are the ingredients that make up this science fiction novel of suspense, intrigue, mystery and danger. For science fiction it is, with the supernatural making complete sense, and fun too, despite the Sword of Damocles hanging by ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett

... daughters all that capacity for happiness in a hovel of which Mr. Terwilliger had been so proud, and concerning which he had so eloquently spoken to Baron Bangletop's agent, and he now found himself in the position of Damocles. The hall was leased for a term, entertainment had been provided for the county with lavish hand; but success was dependent entirely upon his ability to keep a cook, his family having departed from ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs

... Rowlett's spy into that house, hating Thornton with a sincerity bred of fear, but now he had grown to hate Rowlett the more bitterly of the two. Indeed, save for that sword of Damocles which hung over him in the memory of his murderous employment and its possible consequences, he would have liked Parish, and Dorothy's kindness had awakened in the jackal's heart a bewildering sense of gratitude such as he had never ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... having no foreign education himself, he began building up a system of public schools in his province like which there is nothing else in the whole of China. Let us remember also that during ail this time there was suspended over his head, from the palace, a sword of Damocles which was liable to fall at any time. But we will explain that further on as it is the last act ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland

... imagine a position more wretched than that of the Christian world to-day, with its nations armed against one another, with its constantly increasing taxation to maintain its armies, with the hatred of the working class for the rich ever growing more intense, with the Damocles sword of war forever hanging over the heads of all, ready every instant to fall, certain to fall sooner ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy

... say and believe that it was too late. And for now more than twenty years, he had never passed a day without cursing his inexcusable folly. Never had he been able to forget that above his head a danger more terrible than the sword of Damocles hung, suspended by a thread, which the slightest ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau

... bitterly under what a sword of Damocles he was standing. Ridicule was ready to slay him! The Big Laugh was already gurgling deep in the throats of all the folks. The news of his engagement had gone ahead of him to the north country; the Big Laugh would roar along in the wake ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day

... self-evident fact. Years of crafty plotting had seamed Burroughs' face with lines that come from secret connivings—an offer here, a lure there; a sword of Damocles held low; an iron hand and a velvet glove—all these things made for age in heavy retribution. He complained of the heat, of the cold; of his breathing and of his digestion. A sense of suffocating fullness oppressed him as he climbed the steep ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman

... it for the world that this affair did not take place. An event so prodigious must have been attended with very alarming consequences. For my own part, I tremble when I think of it. Damocles, Nero, and Richard the Third, would have appeared amiable princes in comparison of me. Wherever I went I should have carried horror and devastation, sparing neither sex nor age. All, all should have been sacrificed to my relentless cruelty. Donaldson is busy printing his second volume. I ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell

... hole in the neck of the unfortunate animal, and he was then turned loose until a fresh supply of black-puddings should be required for a similar occasion. This wretched pig was never happy: how could he be so? Like Damocles of Syracuse, he lived in a state of perpetual fever; terror seized him directly he heard the cure's bell, and seeing in imagination the uplifted knife already about to glide into his bacon, he invariably took to his heels before Brigitte was half way to the ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle

... thus retarding Black's P-K5, which is still hanging over White like Damocles' sword. The move, however, ...
— Chess Strategy • Edward Lasker

... blackthorn, can harbour its singing-bird; and few are the homes in which, from nooks least suspected, there starts not a music. Is it quite true that, "non avium citharaeque cantus somnum reducent"? Would not even Damocles himself have forgotten the sword, if the lute-player had chanced on the notes ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... been those when he was between fifty-five and seventy-five, and Dr Johnson placed the pleasures of old age far higher than those of youth. True, in old age we live under the shadow of Death, which, like a sword of Damocles, may descend at any moment, but we have so long found life to be an affair of being rather frightened than hurt that we have become like the people who live under Vesuvius, and chance it ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... had become passionately fond of experimenting, and as much as his means and leisure permitted devoted his energies to electrical study and investigation. Up to this period it had been his father's intention to make a priest of him, and the idea hung over the young physicist like a very sword of Damocles. Finally he prevailed upon his worthy but reluctant sire to send him to Gratz in Austria to finish his studies at the Polytechnic School, and to prepare for work as professor of mathematics and physics. At ...
— Experiments with Alternate Currents of High Potential and High - Frequency • Nikola Tesla

... departed with the fullest confidence in the packet of them which he held in his hand at the hour of death, convinced that they were so many cards of admission to all the nine heavens. What is the use of grounds of consolation and tranquillity which are constantly overshadowed by the Damocles-sword of illusion? The truth, my dear sir, is the only safe thing; the truth alone remains steadfast and trusty; it is the only solid consolation; it is ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Religion, A Dialogue, Etc. • Arthur Schopenhauer

... activity she was suddenly struck down by disease of the heart, and her doctors announced that she might die at any moment. She resigned herself to her fate with her usual calm courage, and proceeded to draw up and print her autobiography. Strange to say, she lived for twenty years longer; the Damocles' sword suspended over her head forbore to fall, and as soon as her health was to some extent re-established she resumed her literary labours. Among her latest works, which present abundant evidence of the clearness and practical character of her intellect, we may mention a treatise on "The Factory ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams

... of this supereminent statesman, who, although in the position of Damocles all his life, with the sword of the assassin suspended over his head, surrounded with enemies, and with insecure and treacherous support even from the monarch whom he served, still not only maintained ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various

... condemned to the same political nullity of the other classes, that, in order to save their purse, the crown must be knocked off their heads, and the sword that was to shield them, must at the same time be hung over their heads as a sword of Damocles. ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx

... might have been partly fear, but I daresay it was still more long-gathering weariness of the dangers and toils of royalty. Few will pity the old monarch in his flight, yet I own he seems to me an object of pity. His sister's death shook him; years are heavy on him; the sword of Damocles has long been hanging over his head. One cannot forget that monarchs and ministers are only human, and have only human energies to sustain them; and often they are sore beset. Party spirit has no mercy; indignant Freedom seldom shows forbearance in her hour of revolt. I wish you could see the aged ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter

... to time. He felt pretty certain that the tricky boy had no intention of fulfilling the promise he had made under duress, and while a threat of exposure hung over his head, like the famous sword of Damocles, suspended by but ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson

... I could endure to live under such a threat, to walk about with the sword of Damocles over my head? You ought to know me better, Falconer. I will not live to endure the shame you can inflict on me, I will not live to tempt you by the sight of me to take your ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice

... lid of his tool chest and removed the carpenter's apron which covered something in the bottom. This something was a small box with a clockwork arrangement and a miniature uplifted hammer that hung like the sword of Damocles over a little copper cap. He threw the apron over it again, closed the lid of the chest, leaned against one of the timbers, folded ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr

... head when he was asleep, but he did not wish to remove it. He had decided that it was connected with some devilish device which would do him no good. Finally, one morning, he could endure this sword of Damocles no longer. With two boon companions, he carefully attached a string about fifteen yards long to the wire. They tiptoed gently out of the house to a discreet distance, and with a yell of triumph, the hero pulled ...
— Life in a Tank • Richard Haigh

... sound in the great, silent house she started up, quivering with apprehension and horror. Had the sword of Damocles, which she herself had suspended, already fallen over the heads of those who had shown her ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... suggests no such dilapidation. How long will the shell of that lofty twelfth century tower remain standing? To my mind it hangs over the low, one-storeyed houses at its feet, a veritable sword of Damocles, sooner or later sure to fall with crushing force. The porch shows much beautiful carving, unfortunately defaced, and the interior some perfect specimens of pure Gothic arches, the whole whitewashed and ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... advance upon Naples, and for such another as our retreat northward under the same fine law of observation and homage, the bribed consciousness could only decline to question its security. The sword of Damocles suspended over that presumption, the skeleton at the banquet of extravagant ease, would have been that even at our actual inordinate rate—leaving quite apart "improvements" to come—such savings of trouble begin to use up the world; some hard grain ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James

... had obtained the Black Book was keeping very quiet about it, and I imagined that it was being held up as a sort of sword of Damocles, dangling over his head, until such time as its possessor chose to strike the final blow. Of course, we did not and could not know what was going on behind the scenes with the Silent Boss, what drama was ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve

... classical knowledge, Jones declared that the introduction of 100 Irish members into that House must destroy the British constitution, which, like Damocles, would for ever be threatened with the sword of Dionysius suspended over ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... Voltaire's accepting once again the honours which he had surrendered, but actually went so far as to write him a letter of forgiveness and reconciliation. But the poet would not relent; there was a last week of suppers at Potsdam—'soupers de Damocles' Voltaire called them; and then, on March 26, 1753, the two ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey

... there was no subterfuge. His mind was still centered in his own happiness. He could not wipe out of his brain the conviction that if he waited for Shan Tung he was waiting just so long under the sword of Damocles, with a hair between him and doom. He hoped that Miriam Kirkstone's refusal to confide in him and her reluctance to furnish him with the smallest facts in the matter would turn Mary Josephine's sympathy into a feeling of indifference if not of actual resentment. He was disappointed. ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood

... money, he becomes again a miracle of cunctations; and staggers about for years to come, like the—Shall we say, like the White Hanover Horse amid half a dozen sieves of beans? Alas, no, like the Hanover Horse with the shadows of half a dozen Damocles'-swords dangling into the eyes of it;—enough to drive any ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... Bishop's eloquent tribute to the genial climate and the natural beauty of Ischia, it must be borne in mind that a residence on the island possesses one or two serious drawbacks. Apart from the ever-present fear of earthquakes, which hangs like the sword of Damocles above the heads of the inhabitants, there is yet another disadvantage, prosaic but very real, in the lack of pure water, every well and rivulet on Ischia being more or less impregnated with sulphur, with the result that water for drinking (and in summer even for domestic) purposes has to be ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan

... and realized their own nature it is not so much, it seems, their conscience that worries them, or even the fear of the police, as the attitude of the world. An American correspondent writes: "It is the fear of public opinion that hangs above them like the sword of Damocles. This fear is the heritage of all of us. It is not the fear of conscience and is not engendered by a feeling of wrongdoing. Rather, it is a silent submission to prejudices that meet us on every side. The true normal attitude ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... which Mahomet's followers are said to enter paradise. A terrible feeling was ever present that some evil was impending which would soon fall on my devoted head, and I would shudder as if the sword of Damocles, suspended by its single hair, was about to fall ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various

... as the pendulum of decision swung in his mind. To tell her would be to crush it, kill it utterly, the blow of the sword of Damocles falling at last—falling inevitably. He knew how she would take it; just as she had taken his advances to her on the 'bus that night. Did he think that of her? Was that all the depth of their acquaintance! Oh, she loathed him! Therefore, why let it end that way? Why not with this little ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston

... warned me not to do so—I might win out for the time being, but if she has a secret which she does not wish me to discover, she will take care not again to put herself in a situation where this can happen. I have the apprehension always hanging, like Damocles' sword, over my head, of her relinquishing her post. Besides, why should I trouble her for my own satisfaction?—However, I registered a vow then that I would find out ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn

... "Did you see Bernhardt?" were the remarks on all sides. Her head, which bore itself as if quite unaware that a suit for three hundred and fifty thousand francs damages was suspended over it like the sword of Damocles, was covered with a mass of rich auburn-colored hair. She is as changeable as a chameleon in the matter of her hair: I never see her twice with the same ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various

... declined, from their wretched apartment, and, trusting to his disguises, in which indeed he possessed a masterly art, repair to one of the better description of restaurants, and feast away his cares for the moment. William Gawtrey would not have cared three straws for the curse of Damocles. The sword over his head would never have spoiled his appetite! He had lately, too, taken to drinking much more deeply than he had been used to do—the fine intellect of the man was growing thickened and dulled; and this ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... thoughtfully. "While all were shouting, there came one voice which sounded to my ear like the song of the bird of misfortune. Believe me, Besenval, every thing is not as it ought to be. There is something in the air which fills me with anxiety and fear. I cannot drive it away; I feel that the sword of Damocles is hanging over my head, and that my hands are ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach

... already made several general confessions, are constantly urged by the pricking of their conscience, to begin afresh, in the fear that their first confessions had some serious defects. Those past confessions, instead of being a source of spiritual joy and peace, are, on the contrary, like, so many Damocles' swords, day and night suspended over their heads, filling their souls with the terrors of an eternal death! Sometimes the terror-stricken consciences of those honest and pious women tell them that they were not sufficiently ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy

... hath no charm—the sword of Damocles suspended over their heads adds to their enjoyment of anything. Of such seemed Paul and his lady. It was as if they were snatching astonishing pleasures from the very brink of some danger, none the ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn

... hanged long ago, should I—hanged for a Pirate, a Spy, and a Renegade? Well, I have escaped the bow-string in a country where hundreds die of Sore Throat every day, and I can afford to laugh at any prospect of a wych round my weasand in mine old age. Sword of Damocles, forsooth! why my life has been hanging on a cobweb any time these fifty years; and here I am at Sixty-Eight safe and sound, with a whole Liver and a stout Heart, and a bottle of wine to give a Friend, and a house of mine own in ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala



Words linked to "Damocles" :   courtier, sword of Damocles



Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com