"Pyrrhic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... life in the midst of a nation which he aimed at saving. Enchanted with the bravery of the Souliots, and their manners, which recalled to him the simplicity of Homeric times, he assisted at their banquets, extended upon the turf; he learnt their pyrrhic dance, and he sang in unison the airs of Riga, harmonizing his steps to the sound of their national mandolin. Alas! he carried too far his benevolent condescension. Towards the beginning of April he went to hunt in the marshes of Missolonghi. He entered ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 336 Saturday, October 18, 1828 • Various
... Greeks was a sort of military Pantomime. The Greeks had several kinds of Pyrrhic dances, the names of which varied with ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... well understood by the initiated, and, as it were, by hieroglyphic action, their historical events, their projected enterprises, their hunting, their ambuscades, and their battles, resembling in some respects the Pyrrhic dances of the ancients."—Washington Irving's Columbus, ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... dance as yet; Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone? Of two such lessons, why forget The nobler and the manlier one? You have the letters Cadmus gave— Think ye he ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... afore-mentioned taf, fun, mus, to which we may now add fafah, 'i'iy, 'u'uw, form a Sabab khafif, corresponding to the classical long quantity (-). Two moved letters in succession, like mute, 'ala, constitute a Sabab sakil, for which the classical name would be Pyrrhic (U U). As in Latin and Greek, they are equal in weight and can frequently interchange, that is to say, the Sabab khafif can be evolved into a sakil by moving its second Harf, or the latter contracted into the former, by ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... 280, the accounts of the Passion, the death and the resurrection of Jesus, are said to be "peu historiques"; at p. 283, "La valeur historique du troisieme Evangile est surement moindre que celles des deux premiers." A Pyrrhic sort of victory for orthodoxy, this "surrender"! And, all the while, the scientific student of theology knows that, the more reason there may be to believe that Luke was the companion of Paul, the more doubtful becomes his credibility if he ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... turned aside into a private narrow passage, in order to go to the place for bathing, as also in order to take a view of the boys that came out of Asia, who were sent thence, partly to sing hymns in these mysteries which were now celebrated, and partly to dance in the Pyrrhic way of dancing upon the theatres. So Cherea met him, and asked him for the watchword; upon Caius's giving him one of his ridiculous words, he immediately reproached him, and drew his sword, and gave him a terrible stroke with it, yet was not ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... most remarkable. It was of Phrygian origin and of a mixed religious, military, and mimetic character; the performers were armed, and bounded about, springing and clashing their arms and shields to imitate the Corybantes endeavouring to stifle the cries of the infant Zeus, in Crete. The Pyrrhic (fig. 13), a war dance of Doric origin, was a rapid dance to the double flute, and made to resemble an action in battle; the Hoplites of Homer is thought to have been of this kind. The Dorians were very partial to this dance and considered their success in battle ...
— The Dance (by An Antiquary) - Historic Illustrations of Dancing from 3300 B.C. to 1911 A.D. • Anonymous
... it must be allowed to be somewhat less barbarous than ten paces' distance, and standing still! If the exhibition should appear somewhat ludicrous, both parties would have the additional "satisfaction" that their morning exercise had given a keener zest to their breakfast. It would be a sort of Pyrrhic dance. ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean
... price for the smallest gain of ground. If the Germans are ready to give 100,000 men for a hill or part of a hill they may have it. If they will give a million men they may perhaps have Verdun itself. But so far their Pyrrhic victories have stopped short of this limit, and Verdun, like Ypres, battered, ruined and evacuated by civilians, remains a symbol of Allied tenacity and ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... on the Panaro had achieved a Pyrrhic victory over Traun at Campo Santo (February 8, 1743), but the next six months were wasted in inaction, and Lobkowitz, joining Traun with reinforcements from Germany, drove back the enemy to Rimini. The Spanish-Piedmontese war in the Alps continued without much result, the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... Rosslyn Castle, the first of the Army Corps transports, brought a gleam of brightness. She was a little late, as she had been warned to go out of her course after leaving Las Palmas, to avoid a suspicious vessel. But Methuen's first engagements seemed to him to be Pyrrhic victories. It was "the old story of charging positions from which the enemy simply clears, after having shot a lot of our men." On December 5th "alarming rumours came pouring in from all over the Colony," and two days later Lord Milner telegraphed to warn the Secretary of State that ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold |
