"Scimitar" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... will you kill your brother? Now, by the burning tapers of the sky, That shone so brightly when this boy was got, He dies upon my scimitar's sharp point That touches this my first-born son and heir! I tell you, younglings, not Enceladus, With all his threatening band of Typhon's brood, Nor great Alcides, nor the god of war, Shall seize this prey out of his father's hands. What, what, ye sanguine, shallow-hearted ...
— The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... boys do? Three midshipmen,—armed only with their tiny dirks,—what chance would they have among so many? There were scores of these sinewy sons of the Desert,—without counting the shrewish women,—each armed with gun and scimitar, any one of whom ought to have been more than a match for a "mid." It would have been sheer folly to have attempted a rescue. Despair only could have sanctioned ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... statesman of Great Britain, pointed out the fallacy of this policy. He called it, "Worshipping the scimitar" and predicted that it would invite war instead of preventing it. But the din of the munition factories drowned the voice of protest and the civilized world—yes, the Christian world—went into a prepared war, each nation protesting ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... lean-flanked Marwari or Cabul horses as though they waited to swing into a parade, the march past. The sowars Barlow had seen in the town were in front of him, riding four abreast, and at a command from their leader, opened up and formed a scimitar-shaped band, their horses' noses toward the river. As he came close Barlow saw Kassim in a group of officers, and Hunsa, a soldier on either side of him, was standing free and unshackled in front of the Commander. Save for the clanking of a bit, or the clang of ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... scimitar is shown in Fig. 2. The handle of this sword is oval and covered with plaited cord. In making this scimitar, follow the directions as for Fig. 1, except that the handle has to be covered with a round black cord. If it is found difficult to plait the cord on the ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... spot in the desert, Gleaming like an emerald star, Where a palm-tree, in lone silence, Yearning for its mate afar, Droops above a silver runnel, Slender as a scimitar, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... other girls thrown down and bound. Then said Sherkan to himself, "To every fortune there is a cause. Sleep fell not on me nor did the steed bear me hither but for my good fortune; for of a surety this damsel and what is with her shall be my prize." So he turned back and mounted and drew his scimitar; then he gave his horse the spur and he started off with him, like an arrow from a bow, whilst he brandished his naked blade and cried out, "God is Most Great!" When the damsel saw him, she sprang to her feet and running to the bank of the river, ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... dainty, blue-eyed, a girl still and three years a widow, flits homeward through a spring landscape of grey and green and the smile of a milky sky, being herself the dominant of the chord, with her bough of slipt olive and her jagged scimitar, with her pretty blue fal-lals smocked and puffed, and her yellow curls floating over her shoulders. On her slim feet are the sandals that ravished his eyes; all her maiden bravery is dancing and fluttering like harebells in the wind. Behind her plods the slave girl folded in an orange ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... moved; and when Al-Muli was about to approach them to see what was the matter with them, his scimitar dropped from his hand, and he fell on ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others
... I am dead, cover us with the same cloak." And the nurse entreated and besought her, but she could not move her, and when she saw that she did but vex her mistress, she sat down and wept in silence. Then Pantheia took the scimitar, that had been ready for her so long, and drew it across her throat, and dropped her head upon her husband's breast and died. And the nurse cried bitterly, but she covered the two with one cloak as her mistress had ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... pledges of good faith. After this they met, and Syennesis gave Cyrus large sums in aid of his army; while Cyrus presented him with the customary royal gifts—to wit, a horse with a gold bit, a necklace of gold, a gold bracelet, and a gold scimitar, a Persian dress, and lastly, the exemption of his territory from further pillage, with the privilege of taking back the slaves that had been seized, wherever they might chance to ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... strength this world itself could not enclose, Nor Space with infinite immensity! But there no matter why, love is to be While men and women both are what they are, While eyes can wander unrestrainedly, And light on dimpled cheeks unknown to Ma, Or eyes that glisten like a polished scimitar. ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott
... the Royal Guard, and still wore their blue cloaks. The excessively whimsical get-up of the officers put the finishing touch to this motley show. Most of them had adopted the Mameluke dress—white turbans, huge trousers, yellow boots, a sun embroidered on their backs, and a scimitar. After the Zouaves I saw the squadron of "Chasseurs Algeriens," the nucleus of the future "Chasseurs d'Afrique," march past. They wore Turkish dress and turbans too, all but their commanding officer, a big bearded artillery captain, who wore a ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... religious observance was the worship of the naked sword. The country was parcelled out into districts, and in every district was a huge pile of brushwood, serving as a temple to the neighborhood, at the top of which was planted an antique sword or scimitar. On a stated day in each year solemn sacrifices, human and animal, were offered at these shrines; and the warm blood of the victims was carried up from below and poured upon the weapon. The human victims—prisoners taken in war—were hewn to pieces at the foot of the mound, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... between the boat and the struggling swimmer. Not a shark was to be seen on the water, nor beneath it—no fish of any kind—nothing whatever in the sea. Only, in the sky above, a large bird, whose long scimitar-shaped wings and grand curving beak told them what it was—an albatross. It was the great albatross of the Indian seas, with an extent of wing beyond that of the largest eagle, and almost equalling the spread of the South ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... the matter here?" he cited, wielding his staff as if it had been the scimitar of the Moor. "Hold, for your lives! For Christian shame put by this ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... on his feet again, purple with rage. With uplifted scimitar he sprang toward our host. The old man stepped between. Ja-khaz, with wanton cruelty, brought his steel upon the ancient head, and stretched him upon the floor. For an instant the younger one stood horror-stricken, then ...
— The Last American - A Fragment from The Journal of KHAN-LI, Prince of - Dimph-Yoo-Chur and Admiral in the Persian Navy • J. A. Mitchell
... rocks all grey, and then, as I watched, the rim of the sun rose over the horizon and the sea held it as a scimitar of fire. The white disc rose, a miracle; it looked very large, as if it had grown bigger in the night. It paused a moment in the sea and then suddenly seemed to bound up from it: it flooded the world with light. Then, as if from his hands angels ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... Sel[i]m had just conquered Egypt, and Algiers formed an important western extension of his African dominion. The sage Corsair was immediately appointed Beglerbeg, or Governor-General, of Algiers (1519), and invested with the insignia of office, the horse and scimitar and horsetail-banner. Not only this, but the Sultan sent a guard of two thousand Janissaries to his viceroy's aid, and offered special inducements to such of his subjects as would pass westward to Algiers and help to ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... of Muza was a gaunt swarthy veteran, scarred with wounds; a very Arab, whose great delight was roving and desperate enterprise; and who cared for nothing beyond his steed, his lance, and his scimitar. He was a native of Damascus; his name was Taric ben Zeyad; but, from having lost an eye, he was known among the Spaniards by the appellation of Taric el Tuerto, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... to include certain poems which were first published in Reflections; Chipmunk; Scimitar and Song: Whispers; Calaveras Californian; Calaveras Prospect; Sunshine and Rain; Brown Plumes; Tulsa Tribune; Sonnets from Americanese: Fireside Chatter; Song and Story; The Arc; United We Sing; The Authors of ...
— Clear Crystals • Clara M. Beede
... be overrun with nettles. She knows nothing of politics, and no wonder talks nonsense about them. It is silly to wish three nations had but one neck; but it is ten times more absurd to act as if it was so, which the government has done;—ay, and forgetting, too, that it has not a scimitar large enough to sever that neck, which they have in effect made one. It is past the time, Madam, of making Conjectures. How can one guess whither France and Spain will direct a blow that is in their option? ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... first one column made Its sanguinary way good—then another; The reeking bayonet and the flashing blade Clashed 'gainst the scimitar, and babe and mother With distant shrieks were heard Heaven to upbraid:— Still closer sulphury clouds began to smother The breath of morn and man, where foot by foot The maddened Turks their city ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... with hand on scimitar, Gave, like Sempronius, still their voice for war— "The saber of the Sultaun in its sheath Too long has slept, nor own'd the work of death, Let the Tambourgi bid his signal rattle, Bang the loud gong, ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... sate cross-legged upon the white deck with his scimitar lying beside him in its jewelled scabbard, and the sailors toiled to spread the nimble sails to bring the ship into the central stream of Yann, and all the while sang ancient soothing songs. And the wind of the evening descending cool from the snowfields of some mountainous abode of distant ...
— Tales of Three Hemispheres • Lord Dunsany
... side spread the empty blue of the South Pacific; the tenuous snowdrift of the reef, far out, and the horizon. On the starboard hand, beyond the little space of the anchorage, curved the beach, a pink-white scimitar laid flat. Then the scattering of thatched and stilted huts, the red, corrugated-iron store, residence and godowns of the Dutch trader, the endless Indian-file of coco palms, the abrupt green wall ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... while engaged on military service. A Sikh writer states of Guru Govind, the founder of the militant Sikh confederacy: "He appeared as the tenth Avatar (incarnation of Vishnu). He established the Khalsa, his own sect, and by exhibiting singular energy, leaving the hair on his head, and seizing the scimitar, he smote every wicked person." [302] As is well known, no Sikh may cut his hair, and one of the five marks of the Sikh is the kanga or comb, which he must always carry in order to keep his hair in proper order. A proverb states that 'The origin of a Sikh is in his hair.' ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... shade, and the irregular, contorted, honeycombed surface which produces it; craggy, scarred, indented mountains, "like an old lion's cheek-teeth";[79] old towns with huddled roofs and towers picked out "black and crooked," like "fretwork," or "Turkish verse along a scimitar"; old walls, creviced and crannied, intertwined with creepers, and tenanted by crossing swarms of ever-busy flies,—such things are the familiar commonplace of Browning's sculpturesque fancy. His metrical movements are full of the same joy in "fretwork" effects—verse-rhythm and ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... had just risen above a tope of tamarind trees, and its silvern radiance revealed every detail of the scene. A Rajput chief occupied the place of central prominence, cushions arranged for his convenience, on one of which rested his scimitar, the emblem of his soldierly profession. Not far from him, in a half-reclining posture, was a general of the Afghans, also of the bodyguard of the Emperor. A hakeem, or physician, and an astrologer, both in the Moslem style of dress, were seated close together, legs crossed beneath ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... every fortune there is a cause. Sleep fell not on me, nor did the steed bear me hither but for my good fortune; for of a surety this damsel and what is with her shall be my prize." So he turned back and mounted, and drew his scimitar; then he gave his horse the spur and he started off with him like an arrow from a bow, whilst he brandished his naked blade and cried out, "God is most great!" When the damsel saw him she sprang to her feet, and running to the bank of the river, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... to do next when a body of some twoscore horsemen swept down upon them. The leader might have been either Turk or Frank. He was as dark as a Saracen and wore the chain-mail, scimitar and light helmet of the heathen, but he spoke Levantine rather too well for a Moor, and with ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... washed their bloodstained arms in the sea; the tents were closed; the beasts of burden were feeding; and in the distance the scythes of the chariots, which were all ranged in a semicircle, looked like a silver scimitar lying at the base of the mountains. Schahabarim's talk recurred to her memory. She was waiting for Narr' Havas, her betrothed. In spite of her hatred she would have liked to see Matho again. Of all the Carthaginians she was perhaps the only one who would ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... safe from spurning— Can't we respect your loveless learning? Let us at least give learning honour! What laurels had we showered upon her, Girding her loins up to perturb Our theory of the Middle Verb; Or Turk-like brandishing a scimitar O'er anapasts in comic-trimeter; Or curing the halt and maimed 'Iketides,' [Footnote: "The Suppliants," a fragment of a play by Aeschylus.] While we lounged on at our indebted ease: Instead of which, a tricksy demon Sets her at Titus ...
— Christmas Eve • Robert Browning
... that head. At the instant the sharp crack of the rifle rang out the frightful object vanished, and the long body broke into fierce writhings. Jack had clipped off the head as neatly as if with the blow of a scimitar, the bullet shattering the neck just below, and at its ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... and turned to him. Beyond them the lane opened into a field and a clear lake of crocus sky cast a dim light into the shadow where they stood. Above it was a new moon, like a gleaming silver scimitar. Sara saw it was over her left shoulder, and she saw Lige's face above her, tender ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... here was in the capable hands of the Woman's Council and a fine audience greeted them at the Young Men's Hebrew Association Hall. They were introduced by their hostess, Mrs. Lide Meriwether, president of the Equal Suffrage Club, and cordially received. The Appeal, Avalanche and Scimitar gave long and interesting reports. The next morning Miss Anthony and Mrs. Catt were handsomely entertained by the ladies of the Nineteenth Century Club. In the afternoon Mrs. Mary Jameson Judah, president ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... nearly long enough to brush flies off his nostrils, with such an ingrowing concavity of under jaw and convexity of face as would have enabled his head to supply the third of a nine-foot circle, a face curved as a scimitar and nearly as sharp. Both in shape and dimensions it was the grossest possible caricature of a Roman-nosed equine head ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... white-throated species by the fact that the lower part only of its throat is white, the chin being red. The red-headed laughing-thrush has no white at all in the under parts. The next member of the family of the Crateropodidae that demands our attention is the rusty-cheeked scimitar-babbler (Pomatorhinus erythrogenys). ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar
... has brought a million for himself, two diamond drops worth twelve thousand pounds for the Queen, a scimitar dagger, and other matters, covered with brilliants, for the King, and worth twenty-four thousand more. These baubles are presents from the deposed and imprisoned Mogul, whose poverty can still afford to give such bribes. Lord Clive refused some overplus, and gave it to some widows ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... the aldermen received these accoutrements from the slaves. Brinnaria noticed that one of the other aldermen held the broad, gold-mounted, jeweled scabbard containing the great scimitar with which the King of the Grove kept girt, waking or sleeping. She even noted how its belt trailed from his hands and the shine of its gloss-leather in ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... wait the result of a deadlier aim; he turned; yet, in the instinct of his fierce nature, not from, but against, the foe; his drawn scimitar in his hand, the half-suppressed cry of wrath trembling on his lips, he sprang forward in the direction the javelin had sped. With eyes accustomed to the ambuscades of Moorish warfare, he searched eagerly, yet warily through the dark and sighing foliage. No sign of ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... thousands felt the yoke of war, Redemption rose up in the Attic Muse, Her voice their only ransom from afar; See! as they chant the tragic hymn, the car Of the o'ermastered victor stops: the reins Fall from his hands—his idle scimitar Starts from its belt—he rends his captives' chains, And bids them thank the bard for freedom and ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous
... being stronger men and better armed, and Gilbert was ever the first to strike; and one day, as the fiercest of a band of Seljuks rode at him, whirling a crooked sword and shouting the cry, Gilbert cut off his arm at one stroke and it fell to the ground with the fist still grasping the scimitar; whereat Gilbert laughed fiercely and mocked ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... Afterwards, when they had met, Syennesis gave Cyrus a large sum of money for the support of his army, and Cyrus in return presented him with such gifts as are held in estimation by a king, a horse with a golden bit, a golden chain and bracelets, and a golden scimitar and Persian robe. He also engaged that his country should no more be plundered, and that he should receive back the captured slaves, if they anywhere ...
— The First Four Books of Xenophon's Anabasis • Xenophon
... HASSAN: Ibrahim's scimitar Drew with its gleam swift victory from Heaven, To burn before him in the night of battle— 365 A light and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... rather distressing habit when handed a bundle of notes by the bank-clerk who, with his co-workers, had never tired of gazing at the gigantic creature in white shorts, crimson tunic, huge turban and rattling scimitar. ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... with a great scimitar in his hand, bawled as loud as he could to his wife, "Come down instantly, ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... left of where she stood curved the coast, glistening like a scimitar, and the strip of yellow beach which divided the narrow bay from the open sea; to the right, thrust out into the sheen of silver, lay the spit of sand narrowing the inlet, its edges scalloped with lace foam, its extreme point ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... of the Shining One. There it shone in all its unearthly grandeur, on each side of the Cyclopean pillars, as though a mountain should stretch up arms raising between them a fairy banner of auroral glories. Beneath it was the curved, scimitar sweep of the pier with its ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... conquest. It has been noticed that there are resemblances between the story of Shahryar and that of Ahasuerus as recorded in Esther. In both narratives the King is offended with his Queen and chooses a new wife daily. Shahryar has recourse to the scimitar, Ahasuerus consigns wife after wife to the seclusion of his harem. Shahryar finds a model consort in Shahrazad, Ahasuerus in Esther. Each queen saves a multitude from death, each king lies awake half ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... behind the other, foaming over the hidden rocks, splashing wildly against the grim wall of granite that stood sharp-edged to withstand them. It was curved like a scimitar, that rock, and within its curve there slept, when the tide was low, a pool. When the tide rose the waters raged and thundered all around the rock, but when it sank again the still, deep pool remained, unruffled as a mountain tarn and as ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... chieftain, 'Shall an insect struggle ninety and nine times until it succeeds, while I, a man, and the descendant of heroes, give up all hope after a single battle?' He sprang from the ground, and found a troop of his followers outside, who had been looking for him through the wilderness. Scimitar in hand, he threw himself on his pursuers, swelled his troop into an army, his army into myriads, and finished by being the terror of Europe, the conqueror of Asia, and the wonder of the world." The letter finished with general ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... side The pistol and the scimitar, And in my maiden flower and pride Am come to share the tasks of war. And yonder stands my fiery steed, That paws the ground and neighs to go, My charger of the Arab breed,— I took him ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant
... apparatus consists of two scimitar-shaped lancets, placed in a common sheath, with which it slices out a place beneath the skin, large enough to bury it entirely, anchors itself firmly with its hooked proboscis, and in a day or two dies. The abdominal section, however, still lives, absorbing nutritive material through its walls, ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... silent, snow-smothered hills round the small mountain village of Lenox, fast asleep in their embrace, and from thence to the solemn sky rising above them like a huge iron vault hung with thousands of glittering steel weapons, from which, every now and then, a shining scimitar fell flashing earthward; it was a cruel looking sky, in ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... such just strength, that the arrow finding its way through his cuirass, stuck in his ribs under the breast. This stroke was so violent, that it made him give back, and set one knee to the ground, upon which the man ran up with his drawn scimitar, thinking to dispatch him, and had done it, if Peucestes and Limnaeus had not interposed, who were both wounded, Limnaeus mortally, but Peucestes stood his ground, while Alexander killed the barbarian. But this did not free ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... have I ever seen anything so orientally military before. They are dressed in green garments, edged with gold, and red turbans, tied under the chin, like the old Mahratta soldiers; their arms are match-lock, lance, scimitar, and pistols, and they appear to be excellent and practical riders. They are quite an independent corps, each man finding his own horse, arms, accoutrements, &c., and they take good care to be excellently mounted. They have a few European officers ...
— Campaign of the Indus • T.W.E. Holdsworth
... of this good cheer and my lady's little pearl necklace, there was the family basket-hilt sword, the great Turkish scimitar, the old blunderbuss, a good bag of bullets, and a ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne
... 25,000 Negroes,[25] that is, one fifth of all the slaves, and a little more than half as many as its entire white population. At the evacuation of Charleston 241 Negroes and their families were taken off to St. Lucia in one transport, the Scimitar."[26] Yet in Georgia it is believed that the loss of Negroes was much greater, probably three fourths or seven eighths of all in the State. There the British were more successful in organizing and making use of Negroes. One third of the 600 men by whom Fort Cornwallis ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... At length Pelistes seemed to summon up all his remaining strength to make a signal blow; it was skilfully parried and he fell prostrate upon the ground. The renegado ran up, and, putting his foot upon his sword, and the point of his scimitar to his throat, called upon him to ask his life; but Pelistes lay without sense, and as one dead. Magued then unlaced the helmet of his vanquished enemy and seated himself on a rock beside him, to recover breath. In this situation ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... transformations at her hands—emerged, clad in chintz and muslin, as sofas and toilet-tables. She hung her curtains on strings, and herself sewed the seams of the parlour carpet, squatting Turk-fashion on the floor, and working away, with a great needle shaped like a scimitar, till the perspiration ran down her face. It was also she who, standing on the kitchen-table, put up the only two pictures they possessed, Ned and Jerry giving opinions on the straightness of her eye, from below: a fancy picture of the Battle of ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... At last the widow fell fairly asleep, and dreamed that she was married to the Blue Beard of nursery annals, and that on his return from his memorable journey he had caught her in the act of displaying the mysterious cupboard to Miss Letitia. As he waved his scimitar over her head, he seemed unaccountably to assume the form and features of the tutor. In her agitation the poor woman could think of no plea against his severity, except that the cupboard was already crammed with the corpses of his previous wives, and there was no room for her. She was ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... best," Ralph said shortly; "but there was small credit in that when we were fighting for our lives. The most cowardly beast will fight under such circumstances. When you see a Moslem rushing at you, scimitar in hand, and know that if you do not cut him down he will cut you down, you naturally strike as hard and as quickly as you can. You have never liked Gervaise, Rivers. I am sure I don't know why, but ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... log on an old pine burning, for that was precisely what it looked like. We glanced at it casually through our glasses. It was a sable buck lying down right out in the open. He was black and sleek, and we could make out his sweeping scimitar horns. ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... genii of fire shall ride forth, clothed in flame, and lead on the giants to the storming of Asgard. Heimdall sounds his trumpet, which echoes through all worlds; the gods fly to arms; Odin appears in his golden casque, his resplendent cuirass, with his vast scimitar in his hand, and marshals his heroes in battle array. The great ash tree is shaken to its roots, heaven and earth are full of horror and affright, and gods, giants, and heroes are at length buried in one common ruin. Then comes forth the mighty one, ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... the difficulty and danger of an abduction, which an Ottoman scimitar might any day during this memorable siege render unnecessary, we shall restrict ourselves to declaring positively that the correspondence of Saint-Mars from 1669 to 1680 gives us no ground for supposing that the governor of Pignerol ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... walk into this valley, which seems to have been made by the flashing scimitar of the river that cuts through the mountain. Ah! you in England, and in Belgium still less, do not know what scenery is, what Nature is when she is natural. You could as soon guess at a tiger from the cat on the hearthstone. You do not know; but, being a poet, you can dream. ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... imparted to the dissolving panorama by strange visitants from Tartary and Kurdistan, Korea and Aderbeijan, Armenia, Persia, and the Hedjaz—men with patriarchal beards and scimitar-shaped noses, and others from desert and oasis, from Samarkand and Bokhara. Turbans and fezzes, sugar-loaf hats and headgear resembling episcopal miters, old military uniforms devised for the embryonic armies of new states on the eve of perpetual peace, snowy-white burnooses, flowing mantles, ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... that department. As critics they incline to satire. No one who read them at the time will ever forget Mrs. Runkle's review of "St. Elmo," or Gail Hamilton's criticism of "The Story of Avis," while Mrs. Rollins, in the Critic, often uses a scimitar instead of a quill, though a smile always tempers the severity. She thus beheads a poetaster who tells the public ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... directly to her apartment. There, to his extreme grief, he found her in the company of a slave whom she plainly loved better than himself. Yielding to the first outburst of his indignation, the unfortunate monarch drew his scimitar, and with one rapid stroke slew ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... their burnished swords and bright shoulder epaulets flash in the sun as they 'chivvy' the crowd out of danger. In the officers' enclosure there are many strange types. Abdul Achmed Yussef is there with a scimitar in one hand like the Sultan of Turkey, and a huge white umbrella in the other hand, and on his head he wears a red tarbush. Iskanderianabedian is there with his fat wife, and two fat daughters, all the latter in black silk gowns and white silk stockings, and if the girls' ankles aren't as thick ...
— Through Palestine with the 20th Machine Gun Squadron • Unknown
... scimitar edge sunk behind Nine-Mile Point he arose with a beating heart. Making his blankets into a bundle, he took his way once more around the strip of beach, his moccasined feet falling ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... all green things upon the earth and tatter the tents and weary all the travellers. As each of the hours does the work of Time, Time smites him with his nimble sword as soon as his work is done, and the hour falls severed to the dust with his bright wings scattered, as a locust cut asunder by the scimitar ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... singular room are hanging all sorts of singular weapons, and many other things which the Captain has picked up in his travels. There is a Turkish scimitar, a Moorish gun, an Italian stiletto, a Japanese "happy despatch," a Norman battle-axe, besides spears and lances and swords of shapes and kinds too numerous to mention. In one corner, on a bracket, there is a model of a ship, ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes
... after his defeat, pale Reschid speaks. Among the dead we mourned a thousand Greeks. Lone from the field the Pasha fled afar, And, musing, wiped his reeking scimitar; His two dead steeds upon the sands were flung, And on their sides ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... sagittiform^; arrowheaded^; arrowy^, barbed, spurred. acinaciform; apiculate^, apiculated^; aristate^, awned, awny^, bearded, calamiform^, cone-shaped, coniform^, crestate^, echinate^, gladiate^; lanceolate^, lanciform; awl, awl-shaped, lance-shaped, awl- shaped, scimitar-shaped, sword-shaped; setarious^, spinuliferous^, subulate^, tetrahedral, xiphoid^. cutting; sharp edged, knife edged; sharp as a razor, keen as a razor; sharp as a needle, sharp as a tack; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... eat the unclean beast, their worship of gold and science has become a real idolatry. Another prophet has arisen for their destruction, and Asia and Africa shall, ere another generation has come and gone, be swept clean of the Infidel. Swept clean! Swept clean! With the scimitar for ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... within easy reach of his hand. Constant companions, they are beloved, and proper names of endearment given them. Being venerated, they are well-nigh worshiped. The Father of History has recorded as a curious piece of information that the Scythians sacrificed to an iron scimitar. Many a temple and many a family in Japan hoards a sword as an object of adoration. Even the commonest dirk has due respect paid to it. Any insult to it is tantamount to personal affront. Woe to him who carelessly steps over a weapon lying on ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... until the hour of eating came, and the few words that were uttered turned on horses, dogs, and arms. The mirakhor drew from his girdle a long pistol, mounted in silver, which was shown around to all the company as a real English pistol. Another man exhibited his scimitar, which was assured to be a black Khorassani blade of the first water; and my father produced a long straight sword, sharp on both edges, which he had taken from the son of the Arab Sheikh whom ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... the 7th of September, a great battle was fought. Saladin and his brother had almost defeated the two Religious Orders, and the gallant French knight, Jacques d'Avesne, after losing his leg by a stroke from a scimitar, fought bravely on, calling on the English King, until he fell overpowered by numbers. Coeur de Lion and Guillaume des Barres retrieved the day, hewed down the enemy on all sides, and remained masters of the field. It is even said that ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... of Mars, Herodotus tells us, the ancient Scythian erected an old scimitar at the summit of a huge brush heap. To this, as a symbol of the great god of war, he offered not only the produce of the land but also human life in sacrifice. We shudder as we picture the priest standing over his ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... detachment of soldiers were posted to restrain the Spaniards, stationed beneath the gallows on which the servants had been hanged. The heads of the burghers almost touched the feet of these martyrs. Thirty feet from this group was a block, and on it glittered a scimitar. An executioner was present in case Juanito refused his obedience at the ...
— El Verdugo • Honore de Balzac
... the wedded rivers. One long bar Of purple cloud, on which the evening star Shone like a jewel on a scimitar, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... sloop Lively having captured a smuggling craft (the Admiral Hood) off the Goodwin Sands. He attended the examination of the smugglers before the magistrates at Rochester, attired in a fancy costume, and having a small scimitar suspended from his neck, by a massive gold chain. He defended one of the men, who, despite his advocacy, was convicted. He then offered himself as a witness, swore that he had seen the whole transaction, that there was no smuggling, and that the Lively was to blame. This the ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... curiosity was roused, and he was about to return on deck when Peter the Great suddenly leaped into the cabin and took hurriedly from the opposite locker a brace of highly ornamented pistols and a scimitar. ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... America, Asia, and Europe. From this overwhelming disaster I managed to save my son; and as my sole fortune I brought away with me the large jewels of Andronicus, his ivory and sapphire sceptre, his scimitar of Lemnos, and his ancient gold crown, which once encircled ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... a narrow room as red as blood. A flaming lamp hung from the ceiling above. The young man stood as though turned to stone, for there stood a gigantic Black Demon with a napkin wrapped around his loins and a scimitar in his right hand, the blade of which gleamed like lightning in the flame of the lamp. Before him lay a basket filled ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle
... the midst of the excited Four. His hair was parted precisely, and he had induced a monocle to remain in his eye long enough to examine the Scimitar, his nose at the critical elevation. This unruffled exterior made a deep impression on the Four. Was the Celebrity not undergoing the crucial test of a true sport? He was an example ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... down as the Char of Persia, I think he called it—a sort of Eastern King it was. He had the big paper knife in his hand, and 'Mind, Dorcas,' he says, 'you'll have to be very respectful. This is my specially sharpened scimitar, and it's off with your head if I'm at all displeased with you!' Miss Cynthia, she was what they call an Apache, or some such name—a Frenchified sort of cut-throat, I take it to be. A real sight she looked. You'd never have believed a pretty ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie
... skilful imitation, of the spoils of the chase, being in reality a surcoat composed of strong shaggy silk, so woven as to exhibit, at a little distance, no inaccurate representation of a bear's hide. A light crooked sword, or scimitar, sheathed in a scabbard of gold and ivory, hung by the left side of the stranger, the ornamented hilt of which appeared much too small for the large-jointed hand of the young Hercules who was thus gaily attired. A dress, purple in colour, and setting ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... her hands clenched, and her eyes wide open with a mixture of fear and expectation. The bricks were removed, the book unwrapped, but alas! everything was the same, even to the rough woodcut of Bluebeard himself, in the act of sharpening his scimitar. There was no change, except that the volume was rather the worse for damp. It was thrown down with a murmur of disappointment, but seized immediately by the little Fraeulein, who flung herself upon it in a passion of tears and embraces. Hers was the only faithful affection; the charm ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... extracted eggs from the Sultan's arms, legs, and whiskers. Having obtained some dozen eggs by this means, Herr VON POPOFF borrowed a turban from the Prime Minister, and breaking the eggs into his improvised saucepan, mixed the mess into a compact mass with the assistance of a scimitar kindly lent for the occasion by ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 20, 1892 • Various
... red as a Turkish scimitar, led the persecution, stopping ever and anon to make sweeping imperious gestures over the heads of the others with a great scythe. Pallid, bare-headed, he held the van, in the name of San Pantaleone. More than thirty men ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Italian • Various
... sultan of discretion was driven from his post, and confusion had taken possession of the garrison. The noise awakened the master of the mansion, who was first overwhelmed with surprise, but soon recollecting himself, he seized his trusty scimitar, and expeditiously roused his servants, who forthwith attacked the sons of disorder, and with very little pains or risk extended them on the pavement ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... about the cutlery (I tried my scimitar with the common officers’ swords belonging to our fellows at Malta, and they cut it like the leaf of a novel). Well (to the dragoman), tell the Pasha I am exceedingly gratified to find that he entertains such a high opinion ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... we owe to the fears of the Middle Ages the strange pictures claiming to present the actual aspect of some of the larger comets. Halley's comet did not escape. It was compared to a straight sword at one visit, to a curved scimitar in 1456, and even at its last return in 1835 there were some who recognised in the comet a resemblance to a misty head. Other comets have been compared to swords of fire, bloody crosses, flaming daggers, ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... men of leather, the leaders of iron or copper, while many in addition wore coats of mail. Each carried a sword, a battle-axe, and a bow and arrows. Some of the swords were short and curled like a scimitar; others were long and straight, and were wielded with both hands. They wore their hair long and hanging down their shoulders, and for the most part shaved their cheeks and chins, but wore ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... You have nought to do, except confess and die. The priest is robed, the scimitar is bare, And both await without.—But, above all, Think not to speak unto the people; they 550 Are now by thousands swarming at the gates, But these are closed: the Ten, the Avogadori, The Giunta, and the chief men of the Forty, Alone will ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... this kind. But his father had thoughtfully taken an armful of lares and penates; and the accommodating nature of his son was, therefore, more conspicuous. If I might venture to suggest that you take up my shield and scimitar—" ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... the enraged Shah and, drawing his scimitar, he began hacking right and left among the flowers. The beautiful blooms fell to the ground in great showers until the garden was so littered with the red petals that it seemed flooded with a pool of blood. At last only one tree remained, and as the Shah raised ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... broad scimitar, Ridley is riding his fleet-footed grey, Hedley and Howard there, Wandale and Windermere,— Lock the door, Lariston, hold them at bay. Why dost thou smile, noble Elliot of Lariston? Why do the joy-candles gleam in thine eye? Thou bold Border ranger Beware of thy danger— Thy ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... was read over to the emperor he directed me, although in very gentle terms, to deliver up the several particulars. He first called for my scimitar, which I took out, scabbard and all. In the meantime he ordered three thousand of his choicest troops (who then attended him) to surround me at a distance, with their bows and arrows just ready to discharge; but I did not observe it, for mine eyes were wholly fixed upon his majesty. He ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... and only just allowed the fifteen days' "notice to quit" to expire, before he showed Russia and the world that the Turks had a general, and that with a general they were still soldiers, as when the blazing scimitar of Orchan first flashed upon Europe, or Byzantium shook before the thunder of the artillery of Mohammed II. They were still worthy of their father, Osman, the "Bone-breaker;" and, in hand-to-hand combat, an overmatch for the boors of Russia, both in courage and strength. It must be ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... the night, it seemed, he fled, Upon a white steed like a star, Across a field of endless dead, Beneath a blood-red scimitar. ...
— Myth and Romance - Being a Book of Verses • Madison Cawein
... over the lip of the fall, twenty feet above us, in a curve like a scimitar, passed in one sheet the spot where we stood, and dived into a sunless pool thirty feet below with a thunderous boom. What it may have been in full phases of the stream, I know not; yet even now it was sufficiently magnificent to give pause to a dying soul eager ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... fiercely Jewish. There is a touch of Judith, of Jael, of Deborah in it,—no quarter, no delay, no mercy for the enemies of the Most High; 'He smote.' And when for variety's sake the scimitar-phrase is transferred from orchestra to voices, it is admirable to see how the same character of the falchion—of hip-and-thigh warfare, of victory predominant—is sustained in the music till the last bar. If we have from Handel a scorn-chorus in the 'Messiah,' ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... so short a period as that gained by the first adherents of Islam. Like the fiery wind of the desert, they had broken from their retreats, animated by the promises of the Prophet, and spread the new doctrine far and wide. In 653 the scimitar of the Saracens enclosed an area as large as the Roman Empire under the Caesars. Barely forty years elapsed after the death of the Prophet when the armies of Islam reached the Atlantic. Okba, the wild and gallant ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... see why support did not arrive, and saw that there were already thirty feet of water between the two vessels. He was about to spring overboard, when the Moors made a desperate rush, his guard was beaten down, a blow from a Moorish scimitar fell on his head, ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... short, thick-set figure, he possesses that gigantic strength which Homer so loved in his heroes, and which inspires such respect among barbarous nations. To strike off the head of a bull with a blow of his scimitar—to execute, like Peter the Great, his victims with his own hand—to fall, dead drunk, amid the broken wrecks of champagne bottles, are three diversions of his. But latterly his manners, from his intercourse ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli
... a secret, wonderful knowledge came to her—the knowledge of lovely spiritual ecstasies, the realization of rich human delights. Sorrow and cruel loss might be on their way, but Joy was hers now. She feigned that Karl was waiting for her a little way on in the warm darkness—on, around that scimitar-shaped bend of the beach. She chose to believe that he was running to meet her, his eyes aflame, his great arms outstretched; she thrilled to the rain of his kisses; she thought those stars might hear the voice with which ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... hidden by myrtle leaves. And of the antique votive offerings worthy of record, is a folding-chair, the work of Daedalus, and spoils taken from the Persians—as a coat of mail of Masistius, who commanded the cavalry at Plataea, and a scimitar said to have belonged to Mardonius. Masistius we know was killed by the Athenian cavalry; but as Mardonius fought against the Lacedaemonians and was killed by a Spartan, they could not have got it at first hand; nor is it likely that the Lacedaemonians ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... it strains the mind by the very limitations it imposes on its outlook! How mysterious is this very sharp, and well-defined separation from all mystery! How giddy is this path that leads always so close over the unknowable! Giddy as that bridge of steel, framed like a scimitar, and as fine, which the faithful Moslem, by the aid of his Prophet, will pass with triumph on his way to Paradise. But of our bridge, it cannot be said that it has one foot on earth and one in heaven. Apparently, it has ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... company for one weary of the Great Good Game around and about us, the game of deceit, treachery, politics, love, social intercourse, religion, and commerce. Laforgue's Hamlet sees through the hole in the mundane millstone and his every phrase is like the flash of a scimitar. ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... the earth, was covered with flowers wrought in golden tissue. Instead of the Spartan hat, the high Median cap or tiara crowned his perfumed and lustrous hair, while (what of all was most hateful to Grecian eyes) he wore, though otherwise unarmed, the curved scimitar and short dirk that were the national weapons of the Barbarian. And as it was not customary, nor indeed legitimate, for the Greeks to wear weapons on peaceful occasions and with their ordinary costume, so this departure ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... scraped the iron floor for his last two shovelfuls of coal-dust and the train wheezed wearily into the dark station, Grim began to busy himself in mysterious ways. Part of his own costume consisted of a short, curved scimitar attached to an embroidered belt— the sort of thing that Arabs wear for ornament rather than use. He took it off and, groping in the dark, helped Mabel put it on, without a ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... of Caesarea, Kusan Oghlou, a Turcoman chief, numbers 20,000 armed horsemen, rules despotically over a large district, and has often successfully resisted the Sultan's arms. These people lead a nomad life, are always engaged in petty warfare, are well mounted, and armed with pistol, scimitar, spear, or gun, and would always be ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... began to cut us down and drive us toward the fore-part of the ship, while we, on our side, fought bravely enough with what weapons we could lay our hands on. But at last our gallant captain fell dead, cut down by the scimitar of a gigantic blackamoor, and the rest of us—very few by that time, I can assure you,—seeing this, threw down our arms and surrendered to the corsairs. There were then but seventeen of us left, all told, and not one of us but had ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... sail—all sail that she can bear, And out across the little frightened bar Into the fearless seas alone with her, The great sail humming to the straining spar, Curved as Love's breast, and white as nenuphar, The spring wind singing like a happy fife, The keen prow cutting like a scimitar: O how I long to run away ...
— A Jongleur Strayed - Verses on Love and Other Matters Sacred and Profane • Richard Le Gallienne
... the Slaty-headed Scimitar Babbler, Dr. Jerdon says:—"A nest made of moss and some fibres, and with four pure white eggs, was brought to me at Darjeeling ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... that thus the number of the followers of Buddha might increase. The gods attended to this petition, and ordered Menjoo Dev’ to evacuate the waters by making a cut through the mountains. This he performed with one blow of his scimitar, and ever since, the waters of the Vagmati have flowed through the gap, which he then formed. The spirit who had presided over the lake was a large serpent, who, finding his water become scanty, and the dry land ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... who would more of Spain and Spaniards know, Go, read whate'er is writ of bloodiest strife: Whate'er keen Vengeance urged on foreign foe Can act, is acting there against man's life: From flashing scimitar to secret knife, War mouldeth there each weapon to his need - So may he guard the sister and the wife, So may he make each curst oppressor bleed, So may such foes deserve the ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... had an existence. Here he fed, with daily oblations of human blood, two devouring serpents, which had become, according to the poets, a part of himself, and to sustain whom he levied a tax of daily human sacrifices, till the exhausted patience of his subjects caused some to raise up the scimitar of resistance, like the valiant Blacksmith and the victorious Feridoun, by whom the tyrant was at length dethroned, and imprisoned for ever in the dismal caverns of the mountain Damavend. But ere that deliverance ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... anything of the kind before, the very fear itself terrified him. As the sun sank, it rose like the shadow of the world, and grew deeper and darker. He could not even think what it might be, so utterly did it enfeeble him. When the last flaming scimitar-edge of the sun went out like a lamp, his horror seemed to blossom into very madness. Like the closing lids of an eye—for there was no twilight, and this night no moon—the terror and the darkness rushed together, and ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... not flinch when t'ward the Christian west The fell invasion of the Saracen Headed its course with crimson scimitar; Supplanting the mild precepts of the Cross With those of lust, ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... paused near a great bush of azaleas in full bloom. Almost over their heads the silver crescent of the new moon hung poised like a fairy scimitar. It was exquisite and unreal. Nancy felt somehow out of place in the lovely picture, while the young Japanese, standing intense and rigid beside her, was as much a part of the Oriental garden as the stone lantern and the fragrant spice bush near the path. Even his blue serge European suit ...
— The Motor Maids in Fair Japan • Katherine Stokes
... voice of a man. "What!" said he, "poring over the faces of dead men, when you should be foremost among the living? All Jerusalem in arms, and yet you scorn your time to gain laurels?" I sprang up, and drew my scimitar, for the man was—Roman. ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... empty, one edge of it licked by the yellow light of some not far distant deck-lamp. With his eye fastened upon this scimitar of golden light, Peter was soon to witness an unusual eclipse, a phenomenon which sent a shiver, an icy shiver, of genuine consternation up ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts |
