"Theseus" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Greek temple, with a Gothic cathedral on one hand, and a Turkish mosque and all sorts of fantastic pagodas and conventicles about him. You may call Shakspeare and Milton pyramids, if you please; but I prefer the Temple of Theseus, or the Parthenon, to a mountain ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... the city of Athens, apart from the mythological lore which ascribes its name to Athene, the goddess, is credited by the Greeks to Sais, a native of Egypt. The real founder of Athens, the one who made it a city and kingdom, was Theseus; an unacknowledged illegitimate child. The usual myth surrounds ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... my father, I knew the Ariadne of mythology, and so the sight of the patent log-line trailing in the creamy turmoil of our wake used always to suggest imaginings to me, as I leaned gazing over our poop rail, of a modern Theseus being rescued by this line of ours from the labyrinthine caverns of ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... to find that after all his lofty, heroic, and endless attempts to further his own pleasure he has obtained but little; and contrary to his expectation, he finds that he is no happier than he was before. He discovers that he has been the dupe of the will of the species. Therefore, as a rule, a Theseus who has been made happy will desert his Ariadne. If Petrarch's passion had been gratified his song would have become silent from that moment, as that of the birds as soon as the eggs ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... problematically desirable. Statue and temple-front were criticised, not sculptor and architect—surely not sculpture and architecture in the abstract. Not sculptors and architects, that is, when the question was of their works. The men came in for their share of criticism, but on a different count. Theseus and Athene were judged as works of art, not as lame though interesting revelations of Phidias's soul. And be sure no faintest sin of the chisel was excused on the plea that Phidias meant more than he could express, and so bungled in the expression. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... Nestor's years and wisdom vain. A godlike race of heroes once I knew, Such as no more these aged eyes shall view! Lives there a chief to match Pirithous' fame, Dryas the bold, or Ceneus' deathless name; Theseus, endued with more than mortal might, Or Polyphemus, like the gods in fight? With these of old, to toils of battle bred, In early youth my hardy days I led; Fired with the thirst which virtuous envy breeds, And smit with love of honourable deeds, Strongest of men, they ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... manner of delight, pomp, and pleasure. I withal do really believe that the dwelling-place of the so famous and renowned Hecate was just such another petty cell as this is, when she made a feast therein to the valiant Theseus; and that of no other better structure was the cot or cabin of Hyreus, or Oenopion, wherein Jupiter, Neptune, and Mercury were not ashamed, all three together, to harbour and sojourn a whole night, and ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... of a type such as that of Ingemund and Ioknl (see "Landnamaboc") told by Saxo of highwaymen; and an incident of the kind that occurs in the Theseus story (the Bent-tree, which sprung back and slew the wretch bound to it) is given. The romantic trick of the mechanic bed, by which a steel-shod beam is let fall on the sleeping traveller, also occurs. Slain highwaymen are ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... but the fifth panel of ancient paintings at Herculaneum represents to us this allegorical monster with a body entirely human; and, to take away all vestige of doubt, he lies crushed at the feet of Theseus. Now, my dear madame, why should we not ask Mythology to come and rescue us from that hypocrisy which is gaining ground with us and hinders us from laughing as our fathers laughed? And thus, since in ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... a sneer, "you have not taken your seat yet. I suppose Lord Dawton's representative, whose place you are to supply, is like Theseus, sedet eternumque sedebit. A thousand pities you can't come in before next week; we shall then have fiery motions in the Lower House, as the ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... interminable shade, all the unfortunate of the human race. If we are not this day wanting in our duty to our country, the names of the American legislators of '76 will be placed by posterity at the side of those of Theseus, of Lycurgus, of Romulus, of Numa, of the three Williams of Nassau, and of all those whose memory has been, and forever will be dear to virtuous men ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... each eye, 100 Sways brown, broad-shouldered PILLSBURY, Who tears up words like trees by the roots, A Theseus in stout cow-hide boots, The wager of eternal war Against that loathsome Minotaur To whom we sacrifice each year The best blood of our Athens here, (Dear M., pray brush up your Lempriere.) A terrible denouncer he, Old Sinai burns unquenchably 110 Upon his lips; he well might be a Hot-blazing ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... generation fatless. Thus only might war cease, justice prevail, love reign, humanity rise, and a golden age come back again to a world-wide Arcadia. Fat and Anti-Fat! Eros and Anteros, Strophe and Antistrophe. Or, better, the old primeval tale,—Jove and the Titans, Theseus and the Centaurs, Bellerophon and the Chimaera, Thor and the Giants, Ormuzd and Ahriman, Good and Evil, Water and Fire, Light and Darkness. The world has told it over from ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... sculptor, had died. Antonio Canova was born in 1757 at Passaguo near Treviso. He was first an apprentice to a statuary in Bassano, from whom he went to the Academy of Venice, where he had a brilliant career. In 1779 he was sent by the Senate of Venice to Rome, and there produced his Theseus and the Slain Minotaur. In 1783, Canova undertook the execution of the tomb of Pope Clement XIV., a work similar to the tomb of Pope Clement XIII. His fame rapidly increased. He established a school for ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... daysye Ther was Grisildes Innocence And al her mekenes and pacience There was eke Isode & many other moo And al the torment and the cruel woo That she had for tristram al her lyue And how that Tisbe her hert dyde ryue Wit[h] thilk swerd of sir Piramus And al the maner hou that Theseus The mynotaure slow amyd the hous That was forwrynked by crafte of dedalus Whan he was in pryson shit in Crete And how that philles felte of loues hete The grete fyre of demephon allas And for his falshed and for his trespas Vpon the walles depeynt men might see ...
— The Temple of Glass • John Lydgate
... the robbers of ancient days, the Diomedes, Corvnetes, Synnes, Scyrons, Procrustes, whom it required demigods to bring to what was miscalled justice, and whose compeers and fellows will remain masters of the continent and isles of Greece, until Hercules and Theseus shall again appear upon earth. Nevertheless, shoot not, my valiant Sebastes—draw not the bow, my invaluable Mitylenian; you may wound and not kill." "I am little wont to do so," said Sebastes, again repeating the hoarse, chuckling, discordant laugh, which ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... their methods of attaining satisfaction from the women they loved. The most common method was abduction and the women always submitted to this without a murmur of any sort. Helen was carried off by Theseus, after having also been abducted by Paris. The wife of Atreus was abducted by Thyestus, and from that arose the implacable hatred between the two families. Rape was no less common. Goddesses themselves and the favorites of the Gods were at the risk of falling prey ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... Hear ye my order, O ye Attic people, In act to judge your first great murder-cause. And henceforth shall the host of Aegeus' race For ever own this council-hall of judges: And for this Ares' hill, the Amazons' seat And camp when they, enraged with Theseus, came In hostile march, and built as counterwork This citadel high-reared, a city new, And sacrificed to Ares, whence 'tis named As Ares' hill and fortress: in this, I say, The reverent awe its citizens shall own, And fear, awe's kindred, ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... Philopappus, etc., etc.—are in themselves poetical, and would be so if the name of Athens, of Athenians, and her very ruins, were swept from the earth. But am I to be told that the "nature" of Attica would be more poetical without the "art" of the Acropolis? of the temple of Theseus? and of the still all Greek and glorious monuments of her exquisitely artificial genius? Ask the traveler what strikes him as most poetical—the Parthenon, or the rock on which it stands? The columns of Cape Colonna,[35] or the cape itself? The rocks at the foot ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... reverse proportion to the ability to carry it out in expression. But the true allegory that appeals to all is the presentment of noble natures and of noble deeds. Where, for most people at any rate, is the "allegory" in the Theseus or the Venus of Milo? Yet is not the whole race of man the better ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... that Solon, the Athenian lawgiver, first established particular regulations for its government. Attic legends, however, gratefully refer the earliest rules of the gymnasium to Theseus, as to one of the mightiest of the mythical heroes,—the emulator of Hercules, slayer of the Minotaur, and conqueror of the Amazons. Hermes was the presiding deity, which may appear strange to us, as he was as noted for an unworthy cunning as for his dexterity. Generous ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... Quixote in the Duchesse's park; biographies of Appius and Virginia, of Caesar, of Nero, of Holophernes, of Hugolino in the tower of hunger, taken from Roman history, the Bible and Dante; adventures of chivalry, in which figures Theseus, duke of Athens, where blood flows profusely, with all the digressions and all the embellishments which still continued to please great men and great ladies, and that is why the story is told by the knight, and Chaucer retains purposely all the faults of that particular ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... first, as a specimen, changed a ram into a lamb, by stratagem she kills him. Passing through many places made remarkable by various transformations, and having slain her children, she marries AEgeus, when Theseus returns home, and narrowly escapes being poisoned by her magic potions. Minos interrupts the joy of AEgeus on the return of his son, and wages war against him; having collected troops from all parts, even from Paros, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... times this had been more the case with the Athenians than with others. Under Cecrops and the first kings, down to the reign of Theseus, Attica had always consisted of a number of independent townships, each with its own town hall and magistrates. Except in times of danger the king at Athens was not consulted; in ordinary seasons they carried on their government ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... admired for the mildness of her slave laws, the door of freedom was opened widely. The abused slaves might fly to the Temple of Theseus, whence no one had a right to take them, except for the purpose of publicly investigating their wrongs. If their complaints were well founded, they were either enfranchised, or ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... Star was hurt. Belle went at once to the stable and there she found the Preacher on his knees, in an armless old undershirt, rubbing linament on to some slight bump on Blazing Star's nigh hock. A sculptor would have paused to gaze at the great splendid arms—clean and white and muscled like Theseus—massive, supple, and quick. Hartigan was ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... Europe, or of Assyria or Asia Minor, ever killed lions or wolves by this means. They looked to the King or chief, or some champion, to kill these monsters for them. It was not the sport but the duty of. Kings, and was in itself a title to be a ruler of men. Theseus, who cleared the roads of beasts and robbers; Hercules, the lion killer; St. George, the dragon-slayer, and all the rest of their class owed to this their everlasting fame. From the story of the Tsavo River we can appreciate their services to man even at this distance of time. When the jungle ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... to start, their playfellow Theseus came running to join them. He loved Europa very much, and longed to search for her too. So the five set off together: the Queen, and Cadmus, and Phoenix, and Cilix, and Theseus, and the last they heard was King Agenor's angry voice saying, "Remember this, never may you come up these steps again, ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... combine so a hero to humble! I fancied that Bull-headed Minotaur—BUMBLE, Would fall to my hand like Pasiphae's monster To Theseus. But oh! every step that I on stir Bemuddles me more. I did think myself clever, But fear from the Centre I'm farther than ever, Oh, this is a Labyrinth! Worse than the Cretan! Yet shall the new Theseus admit himself beaten? Forbid it, great Progress! ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 25, 1891 • Various
... how the crown which Ariadne wove Upon her ivory forehead that same day, That Theseus her unto his bridal bore, (When the bold Centaurs made that bloody fray, With the fierce Lapithes, that did them dismay) Being now placed in the firmament, Through the bright heaven doth her beams display, ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... graced the whip; while, on the other hand, Lady St. Jerome rather loved to try the paces of an ambling nag, because her figure was of the sublime; and she looked not unlike an Amazonian queen, particularly when Lord Mildmay was her Theseus. ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... was sacred to the Eumenides, or avenging goddesses, and it was therefore a sanctuary where no foot might tread; but near it the exiled king was allowed to take up his abode, and was protected by the great Athenian King, Theseus. There his other daughter, Ismene, joined him, and, after a time, ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... too absurd in itself to mix well with the courtliness, learning, and elaborate wit of the rest of the Play? Note Berowne's defence of it (V, ii, 569-571) and his rebuke to the King for despising it? The Princess's defence of it and its correspondence with that of Theseus for the show of the "base mechanicals" in the "Midsommer Nights Dreame." How does Berowne's humility in accepting the parallel with their own wit-overthrown mask agree with his boisterous jeering at the mask of the ...
— Shakespeare Study Programs; The Comedies • Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke
... time and skill to unriddle. The first table was almost full. At the upper end sat Hercules, leaning an arm upon his club; on his right hand were Achilles and Ulysses, and between them AEneas; on his left were Hector, Theseus, and Jason: the lower end had Orpheus, AEsop, Phalaris, and Musaeus. The ushers seemed at a loss for a twelfth man, when, methought, to my great joy and surprise, I heard some at the lower end of the table ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... remarked, of his adroitness, not only in laying claim to all waifs of wit, "ubi non apparebat dominus," but in stealing the wit himself, wherever he could find it. This happy application of the fable of Hercules and Theseus to the Ministry had been first made by Gilbert Wakefield, in a Letter to Mr. Fox, which the latter read to Sheridan a few days before the Debate; and the only remark that Sheridan made, on hearing it, was, "What an odd pedantic fancy!" ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... my bag was stor'd,— Now I must play with Elgin's lord,— With Theseus for a taw! My playful horse has slipt his string. Forgotten all his capering, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 281, November 3, 1827 • Various
... them is Crophi, and of the other, Mophi. Midway between them are the fountains of the Nile." (Herod., II., chapter 28.) And see "Paradise Regained," IV., 70: — "Syene, and where the shadow both way falls, "Meroe, Nilotick isle;..." (32) Baetis is the Guadalquivir. (33) Theseus, on returning from his successful exploit in Crete, hoisted by mistake black sails instead of white, thus spreading false intelligence of disaster. (34) It seems that the Euripus was bridged over. (Mr. Haskins' ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... wishing awhile ago that the grace of your protegee might be observed by some other eyes than old withered ones behind spectacles. Your wishes have been fulfilled in a most unexpected manner, and a voice cries out to you as to the imprudent Theseus, ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... with disdain on tiny foes, Conflicting birds and men, and war's unnumbered woes! The wars and woes of heroes six feet long Have oft resounded in Pierian song. Who has not heard of Colchos' golden fleece, And Argo, manned with all the flower of Greece? Of Thebes' fell brethren, Theseus, stern of face, And Peleus' son, unrivalled in the race, AEneas, founder of the Roman line, And William, glorious on the banks of Boyne? Who has not learned to weep at Pompey's woes, And over Blackmore's epic page to doze? 'Tis I, who dare attempt ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... breeding of hounds, is said to have been careful not only that they should be fleet, but also 'well-tongued and consonous;' the same care in Elizabeth's time is, in the passage quoted by the 'Spectator', attributed by Shakespeare to Duke Theseus; and the paper itself shows that care was taken to match the voices of a pack in the reign also of Queen Anne. This has now been for some time absolutely disregarded. In many important respects the pattern harrier of the ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... you like, to see if they'll bear shaking; but do let me put them well and plainly into your possession. Attach them to three works of art which you all have either seen or continually heard of. There's the (so-called) "Theseus" of the Elgin marbles. That represents the whole end and aim of the Athenian school—the natural form of the human body. All their conventional architecture—their graceful shaping and painting of pottery—whatsoever ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... wrytyth a story longe and ample Of Lelius and of worthy Cipio. Whiche of trewe loue hath left vs great example For they neuer left in doloure wele nor wo I rede in thystory of Theseus also: Howe he (as the Poetes fables doth tell) Folowyd his felawe perothus ...
— The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 • Sebastian Brandt
... served, as he was proud to say, in the last of our ships which had been chased out of the Mediterranean in '97, and in the first which had re-entered it in '98. He was under Miller, as third lieutenant of the Theseus, when our fleet, like a pack of eager fox hounds in a covert, was dashing from Sicily to Syria and back again to Naples, trying to pick up the lost scent. With the same good fighting man he served at the Nile, where the men of his command sponged and rammed and trained until, when ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and strong man, dressed in rich garments, came down to meet Theseus. On his arms were golden bracelets, and round his neck a collar of jewels; and he came forward, bowing courteously, and held out both his ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... but the negligence was at once detected by the master of Pont-Noir, and his weekly allowance of cologne-water was summarily reduced. Upon the ceiling, over the bath, were frescoed, in Titianelli's richest style, the most graceful legends of mythology. Here Theseus toyed with Ariadne; here the infant Mercury furtively enticed the Grecian Short-horns; here Triton blew his seaweed-tangled horn, and troops of ocean-nymphs threw the surface of the deep into 'sparkling commotions of splendor;' here Venus allured Anchises, by sweetly calling him to the leafy ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... of the bench, and the sons of the wave, Are not quite so easy to "size up" all round To that comfortless bed where you'd have them all bound, As the travellers luckless who fell in the way Of the old Attic highwayman THESEUS did slay. Though your voice may sound loud and your thews look immense, You may fall to the THESEUS—of Free Common Sense! As BURT says—and his eloquence moves but beguiles not— On short cuts to Millennium Providence ...
— Punch, Volume 101, September 19, 1891 • Francis Burnand
... suppose, with Dr. Schofield, an influence of British legend on the Volsung story. The points in which the story of Sigmund resembles that of Arthur and differs from that of Theseus prove nothing in the face of equally strong points of correspondence between Arthur and Theseus which are absent from ...
— The Edda, Vol. 2 - The Heroic Mythology of the North, Popular Studies in Mythology, - Romance, and Folklore, No. 13 • Winifred Faraday
... critics from whom the commonwealth of learning has in all ages received such immense benefits, that the gratitude of their admirers placed their origin in heaven, among those of Hercules, Theseus, Perseus, and other great deservers of mankind. But heroic virtue itself hath not been exempt from the obloquy of evil tongues. For it hath been objected that those ancient heroes, famous for their combating so many giants, and dragons, and robbers, were in their own persons ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... now removed to the Theseus, and was employed in the blockade of Cadiz, where he went through the most perilous action in which he was ever engaged. Making a night attack upon the Spanish gunboats, his barge, carrying twelve men, was attacked by an armed launch carrying twenty-six men; the admiral was only saved ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... Athenian reveller to ask that the sofa might be pushed back. The scene was now the palace of Theseus, and Mhor, as the Prologue, was addressing an imaginary audience with—"Gentles, perchance you wonder at ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... have already been provided, but not before. And this is the reason why the names of the ancients have been preserved to us and not their actions. This I infer because Solon said that the priests in their narrative of that war mentioned most of the names which are recorded prior to the time of Theseus, such as Cecrops, and Erechtheus, and Erichthonius, and Erysichthon, and the names of the women in like manner. Moreover, since military pursuits were then common to men and women, the men of those days in accordance with the custom of the time set up a figure and image of the ...
— Critias • Plato
... nature. That combination of nature and repose which I had felt was so much wanting for high art was here displayed to midday conviction. My heart beat. If I had seen nothing else, I had beheld sufficient to help me to nature for the rest of my life. But when I turned to the Theseus, and saw that every form was altered by action or repose-when I saw that the two sides of his back varied as he rested on his elbow; and again, when in the figure of the fighting metope, I saw the muscle shown under one armpit in that instantaneous action of darting out, and left out ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... last being persuaded with great difficulty, he sent two or three of his boon companions to treat of peace; but instead of making any reasonable proposals, the men began to make a pompous harangue about Theseus and Eumolpus, and the Persian wars, on which Sulla said, "Be gone, my good fellows, with your fine talk. I was not sent to Athens by the Romans to learn a lesson, but ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... THESEUS. From Kingsley's "Heroes." How Theseus lifted the stone. How Theseus slew the Corynetes. How Theseus slew Sinis. How Theseus slew Kerkyon and Procrustes. How Theseus slew the Medea and was acknowledged the son of Aegeus. How Theseus slew the Minotaur. ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... you, yet among them I never was slighted. Never their like did I see, nor shall look on their equals hereafter— Such as Perithoeus was, or as Dryas the shepherd of people, Kaineus, Exadius too—the compeer of the bless'd, Polyphemus; AEgeus' glorious son, as a God in his countenance, Theseus. These of a truth were in might the supreme of the children of mankind; Mightiest they upon earth and with mightiest foes they contended, Centaurs nurs'd in the hills, whom in terrible ruin they trampled. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... his lips. But he kept it back. As a prudent diplomat, he knew that it is often more politic to destroy a thing by ignoring it, than to enter into an open contest with it. The feelings are like the dragons' teeth of Theseus. If you contend with them, they always grow again anew, and with renewed energy, out of the soil. Lord Douglas, therefore, was very careful not to notice his daughter's confusion. "Pardon me, my daughter, if, in my zeal and my tender care for you, I go too far. I know that ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... the swift ounce, or lay the leopard low, Neglected homage to another god: Whence Aphrodite, by no midnight smoke Of tapers lulled, in jealousy despatched 20 A noisome lust that, as the gad bee stings, Possessed his stepdame Phaidra for himself The son of Theseus her great absent spouse. Hippolutos exclaiming in his rage Against the fury of the Queen, she judged Life insupportable; and, pricked at heart An Amazonian stranger's race should dare To scorn her, perished by the murderous cord: Yet, ere she perished, blasted in a scroll The fame of him her swerving ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... to the grandchildren, and when the grandchildren became grannies they repeated the same old tales to the new generation. Homer knew the stories and made up the 'Odyssey' out of half a dozen of them. All the history of Greece till about 800 B.C. is a string of the fairy tales, all about Theseus and Heracles and Oedipus and Minos and Perseus is a Cabinet des Fees, a collection of fairy tales. Shakespeare took them and put bits of them into 'King Lear' and other plays; he could not have made them up himself, great as he was. ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... the theme of one of the dramatic entertainments wherewith it is proposed to celebrate Theseus's marriage. In Spenser's 'Teares of the Muses' each of the Nine laments in turn her declining influence on the literary and dramatic effort of the age. Theseus dismisses the suggestion with ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... influence of fairy-lore if he lives through a winter among believing dalesmen. Let him look on the long silvery glimmer of a sea-voe, and hear the natives tell of trows chasing the ebbing Neptune down there on the dim sea-strand in a night of haze, before he says (with Theseus, in ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... of your heir. When once, Torquatus, you shall be dead, and Minos shall have made his awful decisions concerning you; not your family, not you eloquence, not your piety shall restore you. For neither can Diana free the chaste Hippolytus from infernal darkness; nor is Theseus able to break off the Lethaean fetters from ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... High School, the third plate, is a superb building, and merits especial notice, in association with the intellectual character of the city. The Temple of Theseus, at Athens, has furnished models for its beautiful columns. "The Regent Road, forming the new and noble entrance to Edinburgh, serves as a terrace in its front." Here again the indistinctness of the Old Town aids the fine effect of the new buildings. This plate is for the most part ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 487 - Vol. 17, No. 487. Saturday, April 30, 1831 • Various
... between the islands of Andros and Achaia, now Libadia, we saw the promontory of Lunium, now called Cape Colonna, where are yet standing the vast pillars of a temple of Minerva. This venerable sight made me think, with double regret, on a beautiful temple of Theseus, which, I am assured, was almost entire at Athens, till the last campaign in the Morea, that the Turks filled it with powder, and it was accidentally blown up. You may believe I had a great mind to land on the fam'd Peloponnesus, ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... justice I have arranged the 2nd class in sections, according to the number of steps. The two Kings are fearfully deliberate! I suppose walking quick, or taking short cuts, is inconsistent with kingly dignity: but really, in reading THESEUS' solution, one almost fancied he was "marking time," and making no advance at all! The other King will, I hope, pardon me for having altered "Coal" into "Cole." King Coilus, or Coil, seems to have reigned soon after Arthur's time. Henry of Huntingdon ...
— A Tangled Tale • Lewis Carroll
... to keep its watch over old Athens, as it had kept it for twenty-three hundred years, and went and stood outside the walls of the citadel. In the distance was the ancient, but still almost perfect Temple of Theseus, and close by, looking to the west, was the Bema, from whence Demosthenes thundered his philippics and fired the wavering patriotism of his countrymen. To the right was Mars Hill, where the Areopagus sat in ancient times and where St. Paul defined his ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... board. I had never seen one of the passengers or the crew. I did not know the consignees, nor the name of the vessel. I had shipped no adventure, nor risked any insurance, nor made any bet, but my eyes clung to her as Ariadne's to the fading sail of Theseus. The ship was freighted with more than appeared upon her papers, yet she was not a smuggler. She bore all there was of that nameless lading, yet the next ship would carry as much. She was freighted ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... through these pathless wilds the sun is to them what Ariadne's clue was to Theseus. When he is on the meridian they generally sit down, and rove onwards again as soon as he has sufficiently declined to the west; they require no other compass. When in chase, they break a twig on the bushes as they pass by, every three ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... to them, "What! do you depart, children of Danaos? do you return to the land I shall never behold again, and leave my tomb without any offerings?" Already the principal Greek chieftains pressed to the foot of the pile. Acamas, the son of Theseus, old Nestor, Agamemnon, bearing a sceptre and with a fillet on his brow, gazed at the prodigy. Pyrrhus, the young son of Achilles, was prostrate in the dust. Ulysses, recognisable by the cap which covered his curly hair, showed by his gestures that he acquiesced in the demand of the hero's shade. ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... struggle against two of the oldest glories of the French army, made a shiver, half enthusiasm, half terror, run through them. In fact, those four names—D'Artagnan, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis—were venerated among all who wore a sword: as, in antiquity, the names of Hercules, Theseus, Castor, ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... Isaac, Jacob, Judah, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Samuel, Phineas, Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, and the God-bearing Virgin of whom he prophesied, David, Hezekiah, Josiah, John the Baptist, Peter and Paul; there also Hercules, Theseus, Socrates, Aristides, Antigonus, Numa, Camillus, the Catos and the Scipios; there Louis the Pious, and thy forefathers, the Louises, Philips, Pepins, as many of whom as walked by faith. In fine, never has there been ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... there Is sick and turns from worship.—Hearken where The ancient River waileth with a voice Of many women, portioned by the choice Of war amid new lords, as the lots leap For Thessaly, or Argos, or the steep Of Theseus' Rock. And others yet there are, High women, chosen from the waste of war For the great kings, behind these portals hid; And with them that Laconian Tyndarid[4], Helen, like them a prisoner and a prize. And this unhappy one—would ...
— The Trojan women of Euripides • Euripides
... eagerness, and against his conventional unconventionality to give anything so obvious as flowers. He had picked up a trifle, he said, which was rather a curiosity, it was an ancient Greek dagger of the Mycenaean Epoch, and might well have been worn in the time of Theseus and Hippolyta. It was made of brass like all the Heroic weapons, but, oddly enough, sharp enough to prick anyone still. He had really been attracted to it by the leaf-like shape; it was as perfect as a Greek vase. If it was of any interest to Miss Rome or could come in anywhere ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... perceiving ear may catch strains of long remembered melodies ("those songs without words") which only the finest souls may know. Yet here were three men who, in their modern Ago, were returning from their search of the golden fleece. Jason, Hercules and Theseus could have experienced no greater joy in object won, than these three "heroes" of the lake returning in the resin-scented twilight with their long-sought prize of bass! A nickel up on each black bass and not one red cent on the placid lake and the ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... peninsula, lay somewhat outside the tide of migrations and heroic exploits. Her population and that of all Attica remained comparatively unchanged; her kings are kings of the stationary, law-abiding, state-reforming type; Cecrops, Erechtheus, Theseus, are not splendid, flashing, all-conquering figures like Achilles and Agamemnon. Athens might, it would seem, but for the coming of Homer, have lain stagnant in a backwater of conservatism, content to go on chanting her traditional Spring Songs year by year. It is a wonderful thing ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... to sin; And Sisyphus an huge round stone did reele Against an hill, ne might from labour lin; 310 There thirsty Tantalus hong by the chin; And Tityus fed a vulture on his maw; Typhoeus joynts were stretched on a gin, Theseus condemnd to endlesse slouth by law, And fifty sisters water in leake vessels ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... was placed the Minotaur, and no one who entered could find his way out again, but became the prey of the monster. Seven youths and seven maidens were sent regularly by the Athenians, and were duly devoured, until Theseus slew the monster and escaped from the maze by aid of the clue of thread provided by Ariadne; which accounts for our using to-day the expression "threading ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... learning his name they are horror- striken and order him to quit the land. He appeals to the world-famed hospitality of Athens and hints at the blessings that his coming will confer on the State. They agree to await the decision of King Theseus. From Theseus Oedipus craves protection in life and burial in Attic soil; the benefits that will accrue shall be told later. Theseus departs having promised to aid and befriend him. No sooner has he gone than Creon ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... washed up by these waves! Poseidon! Sirens and Tritons had disported themselves in this sea, the bluest and the beautifullest, the one sea that mattered, more important than all the oceans; the oceans might dry up to-morrow for all he cared so long as this sea remained; and with the story of Theseus and "lonely Ariadne on the wharf at Naxos" ringing in his ears he looked to the north-east, whither lay the Cyclades and Propontis. Medea, too, had been deserted—"Medea deadlier than the sea." Helen! All the stories of the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" had been lived about ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... nations, who shall name, That guest-like, there assembled came? From Theseus' town, from Aulis' strand— From Phocis, from the Spartans' land— From Asia's wave-divided clime, The Isles that gem the AEgean Sea, To hearken on that Stage Sublime, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... once, as old stories tell, a certain Duke Theseus, lord and governor of Athens. The same was a great warrior and conqueror of realms. He defeated the Amazons, and wedded the queen of that country, Hypolita. After his marriage, the duke, his wife, and his sister ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... To accomplish that emprize, but them the son[46] Of radiant-hair'd Latona and of Jove Slew both, ere yet the down of blooming youth Thick-sprung, their cheeks or chins had tufted o'er. Phaedra I also there, and Procris saw, And Ariadne for her beauty praised, Whose sire was all-wise Minos. Theseus her From Crete toward the fruitful region bore 390 Of sacred Athens, but enjoy'd not there, For, first, she perish'd by Diana's shafts In Dia, Bacchus witnessing her crime.[47] Maera and Clymene I saw beside, And odious Eriphyle, who received The price in gold of her ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... but note how the dream abides with us after the play is over. The spell of the enchanted forest is broken when the crowd invades its solitude; the witchery of moonlight fades into the light of common day; and then comes Theseus with his dogs to drive not the foxes but the fairies out of the landscape. As Chesterton points out, this masterful man, who has seen no fairies, proceeds to arrange matters in a practical way, with a wedding, a feast and a pantomime, as if these were the chief things of life. So, he thinks, the ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... he lived and had his being. But triviality is frequently paradoxical and always relative. If Dundee had not raised an arm to urge his troopers on at Killiekrankie the world would know a different England. A single thread it was that solved for Theseus the mystery of ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... shall be no sky, the sea no sea, the earth no earth, if thou do prove inconstant; but if you will not take me with you, these tender hands of mine shall hang upon your horse's bridle, till my body, like Theseus's son, be dashed against the hard flint stones; yet, hard as they are, not harder than I ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston
... them being with griefe separated from their deare sonnes, when they sawe the saules hoysed, and the shippes departing out of the hauen, for very anguish cast themselues headlong into the water: as Sabellicus witnesseth. Egus doth testifie this, who when he sawe the shippe of his sonne Theseus, returning out of Creete with blacke sayles, thinking that his sonne had perished, ended his life in the next waters: Sabell lib. 3. cap 4. Gordianus the elder, Proconsul of Affrica, doth testifie this, who likewise, vpon rumours of the death of his sonne, hanged ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... slacken our fire. We also wanted shot; and an order of the day fixed a price to be given for all balls, according to their calibre, which might be picked up after being fired from the fortress or the two ships of the line, the 'Tiger' and 'Theseus', which were stationed on each side of the harbour: These two vessels embarrassed the communication, between the camp and the trenches; but though they made much noise, they did little harm. A ball ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... a little of that same sagacity, which was employed so successfully in reducing the play of Pyramus and Thisbe to the tragical capacities of Duke Theseus' court, had been put in requisition here, instead of that dead historical silence, which the world complains of so much, we might have been treated to some very lively historical details in this case, corresponding to other details which the literary history of the time exhibits, in the ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... only as admit excess, Brave, bounteous acts, regal magnificence, All-seeing prudence, magnanimity That knows no bound, and that heroic virtue For which antiquity hath left no name, But patterns only, such as Hercules, Achilles, Theseus. Back to thy loath'd cell; And when thou seest the new enlightened sphere, Study to know but what those ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... the children of Eternity: they played around Theseus and the beauteous Amazon; they gave to Pallas the bloom of Venus, and to Venus the animation of Pallas. Is it not better to enjoy by the hour their soft, salubrious influence, than to catch by ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... all of it to the region of fable—we mean "the divine tale of Troy." Many who relinquish without effort the Argonautic expedition, and as an historical problem are glad to be rid of it,—who resign all attempt to extract a prosaic truth out of the exploits of Theseus or the labours of Hercules, and who smile at mention of the race of Amazons—a race so well accredited in ancient times that neither the sceptical Arrian nor Julius Caesar himself ventured to doubt of their existence—would yet shrink from surrendering the tale of Troy, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... this, what I have before taken notice of, the great absurdity of making the Grecian Argo the first ship which sailed upon the seas: Illa rudem cursu prima imbuit Amphitriten: when the poet, at the same instant, is describing Theseus, previous to the Argo, in a ship, and attended with fleet ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant
... fountain, and around it are antique fragments of statues, columns, and statuettes found in many places. The famous Ludovisi collection of antique statuary is now permanently placed in this museum,—a collection that includes the "Ludovisi Mars;" "Hercules," with a cornucopia; the "Hermes of Theseus," the "Discobolus Hermes;" the "Venus of Gnidus" as copied by Praxiteles; the "Dying Medusa;" the "Ludovisi Juno," which Winckelmann declares to be the finest head of Juno extant, a Greek work of the fourth century; a "Cupid and Psyche;" the two "Muses ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... jealousy and strife into the mouth of his Knight, he was living in the golden age of chivalry; and he simply transferred its setting to this chivalrous story of ancient Greece. The arms, the lists, the combat, the whole environment are those of the England of Edward III, not the Athens of Theseus. Dryden has left this unchanged, realizing the charm of its mediaeval simplicity. As Dryden gives it to us the poem is an example of narrative verse, brisk in its movement, dramatic in its action, and interspersed with descriptive passages ...
— Palamon and Arcite • John Dryden
... voice of my despair. He burns my being up, who left me here No wife, no maiden, in my misery. Turn, magic wheel, draw homeward him I love. Thrice I pour out; speak thrice, sweet mistress, thus: "What face soe'er hangs o'er him be forgot Clean as, in Dia, Theseus (legends say) Forgat his Ariadne's locks of love." Turn, magic, wheel, draw homeward him I love. The coltsfoot grows in Arcady, the weed That drives the mountain-colts and swift mares wild. Like them may Delphis rave: so, maniac-wise, Race from his ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... it; and hence, if a work of art be not a god, it must be a man, or a mere image of one; and that the faith of the Pagan is the foolishness of the Christian. Nor does he utter unreason; for, notwithstanding their perfect forms, their gods are not gods to us, but only perfect forms: Apollo, Theseus, the Ilissus, Aphrodite, Artemis, Psyche, and Eros, are only shapeful manhood, womanhood, virginhood, and youth, and move us only by the exact amount of humanity they possess in common with ourselves. Homer and aeschylus, and Sophocles, and Phidias, live not by the sacred in them, but by the human: ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... hunting, who with her nymphs and hounds nightly roamed the fields and woods. The monsters, the Sphinx, the Minotaur, the Cyclops, the Centaurs, symbols of a yet unhuman or half human power of nature, were overcome by the Greek heroes, Perseus, Hercules, Jason, Theseus, OEdipus, the types of human strength and valor. The religious festivals were enlivened by trials of men's strength and skill in games, and the historian and poet offered to the gods the products of human genius. In the religion ...
— A Comparative View of Religions • Johannes Henricus Scholten
... suppose that the model is to represent the Temple of Theseus at Athens, which was built by Cimon, the son of Miltiades. In the first place we must obtain the necessary dimensions, and then, reducing the number of feet to fractional parts of an inch, form ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... supports her quivering breasts. All that slips from her body into the salt foam which ripples round her feet. But little she cares for her coif or for her apparel carried away by the tide! Lost, bewildered, with all her heart and all her soul, she is clinging to thee, O Theseus. ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... Olympian—in or after B.C. 594. It was celebrated by the Corinthians at their isthmus, in honor of Poseidon, and if we may draw any inference from the legends respecting its foundation, which is ascribed sometimes to Theseus, the Athenians appear to have identified it with the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... Occasionally I would find myself on the tip of a promontory, the sides of which were precipices perhaps several yards high. These were footed in jungle, which sometimes was quite impenetrable. However, like Theseus, I eventually managed; to win through, although no kind Ariadne came to my assistance. But I had hopelessly ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... example. The Athenians had been forced by the Cretan king Minos to deliver up to him every eight years seven boys and seven girls. These were thrown as food to a terrible monster, the Minotaur. When the mournful tribute was to be paid for the third time, the king's son Theseus accompanied it to Crete. On his arrival there, Ariadne, the daughter of Minos interested herself in him. The Minotaur dwelt in the labyrinth, a maze from which no one could extricate himself who ...
— Christianity As A Mystical Fact - And The Mysteries of Antiquity • Rudolf Steiner
... the feelings of the many are stained with vanity. Each wishes to be lord in a little world, to be superior at least over one; and he does not feel strong enough to retain a life-long ascendency over a strong nature. Only a Theseus could conquer before he wed the Amazonian queen. Hercules wished rather to rest with Dejanira, and received the poisoned robe as a fit guerdon. The tale should be interpreted to all those who ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... enter into more particular details, and thus confer a still livelier interest upon bygone days. For instance, with reference to ancient history, you should read some of the more remarkable of Plutarch's Lives, those of Alexander, Caesar, Theseus, Themistocles, &c.; the Travels of Anacharsis, the worthy results of thirty years' hard labour of an eminent scholar:[80] the Travels of Cyrus, Telemachus, Belisarius, and Numa Pompilius, are also, though in very different degrees, useful and interesting. The plays ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... said. What then, shall we suffer those rhetoricians to be thought to have hit the mark when they bring arguments only from probabilities and conjectures? And can we produce nothing from history to club to this discourse? Lately, I remember, reading in the Attic annals, I found that Theseus first instituted games in Delos, and tore off a branch from the sacred palm-tree, which was called spadix (from ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... the TSAR, and are obliged to occupy rooms on different floors of the Poulains' hotel. Next morning Mrs. Dampier awakes to find herself in the awkward predicament of Ariadne on the beach of Naxos, with the aggravation (spared to Theseus' bride) that the hotel people absolutely deny that she came with a husband at all. A punctilious if sceptical American senator (refreshingly guiltless of accent) and his enthusiastic son and daughter take pity on her, and the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, May 20, 1914 • Various
... something sublime about railway engineers. But what shall we say of the pioneer of this almost superhuman profession? The world would give much to know what Vulcan, Hercules, Theseus, and other celebrities of that sort, really did in their mortal lives to win the places they now occupy in our classical dictionaries, and what sort of people they really were. But whatever they did, manifestly somebody, within a generation or two, has done something ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... of Troezene, at the foot of a lofty mountain, there lived, a very long time ago, a little boy named Theseus. His grandfather, King Pittheus, was the sovereign of that country, and was reckoned a very wise man; so that Theseus, being brought up in the royal palace, and being naturally a bright lad, could hardly fail of profiting by the old king's ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... adherence; at all events, he exhumed Paine's body and took the bones home with him in 1819, with the avowed intention of erecting a magnificent monument to his memory by subscription. In the same manner, about two thousand two hundred and fifty years ago, the bones of Theseus, the mythical hero of Democracy, were brought from Skyros to Athens by some Attic [Greek: Kobbetaes]. The description of the arrival in England we quote from a Liverpool journal of the day:—"When his last trunk was opened at the Custom-House, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... exploits resemble and rival those of Hercules. The most famous of them was the killing of the Minotaur. Theseus was the national hero ...
— Ritchie's Fabulae Faciles - A First Latin Reader • John Kirtland, ed.
... Gorgon-like monster denounces her, recounting all the ruin that by her fatal beauty she had wrought, interweaving into the story the various legends connected with her past life—those mysterious legends that connect Helen not only with Paris and Menelaus but with Theseus and Achilles and with Egypt—legends of a second phantom-Helen, the 'double' of that Helen whom Menelaus has carried home from Troy—until alarmed and distracted, doubting her own identity, overwhelmed by anxiety about the future and by ...
— The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' • H. B. Cotterill
... arranged in neat wire cases, of the best authors in prose and verse, which the English, French, and Italian languages boast. Over them hung the portraits in miniature, and some in larger ovals, of the favored friends of these celebrated votaries to the sentiment which exalted the characters of Theseus and Peirithous, of ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... the time to cultivate their minds and to exercise their limbs, with no other concern that that of having the most beautiful city, the most beautiful processions, the most beautiful ideas, and the most beautiful men. In this respect, a statue like the "Meleager" or the "Theseus" of the Parthenon, or again a sight of the blue and lustrous Mediterranean, resembling a silken tunic out of which islands arise like marble bodies, together with a dozen choice phrases selected from the works of ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... discoveries without being guided by any analogies or indications from past facts, he would deserve the name of seer or prophet, but not of philosopher. The wonder that some of our modern discoveries would excite in the savage inhabitants of Europe in the times of Theseus and Achilles, proves but little. Persons almost entirely unacquainted with the powers of a machine cannot be expected to guess at its effects. I am far from saying, that we are at present by any means fully acquainted with the powers of the human mind; but we certainly know more of ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus
... the desert all ringing with the mad symbols of his followers, made lucid with the presence and new offers of a god,—as if unconscious of Bacchus, or but idly casting her eyes as upon some unconcerning pageant—her soul undistracted from Theseus—Ariadne is still pacing the solitary shore, in as much heart-silence, and in almost the same local solitude, with which she awoke at daybreak to catch the forlorn last glances of the sail that ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... THESEUS. From Kingsley's "Heroes." How Theseus lifted the stone. How Theseus slew the Corynetes. How Theseus slew Sinis. How Theseus slew Kerkyon and Procrustes. How Theseus slew the Medea and was acknowledged the son of Aegeus. How Theseus slew the Minotaur. To ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... task which requires some courage; for he is rather a mythical than a historical person. Rival nations and hostile sects have agreed in canonising him. England is proud of his name. A great commonwealth beyond the Atlantic regards him with a reverence similar to that which the Athenians felt for Theseus, and the Romans for Quirinus. The respectable society of which he was a member honours him as an apostle. By pious men of other persuasions he is generally regarded as a bright pattern of Christian virtue. Meanwhile ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... lady!" cried Guy, whose excitement had taken on the form of an exalted gayety. "Who rides with thee rides safe, my love—e'en as Theseus of old did ride, scathless 'neath the spell ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... irreparable than a fragment of a carved column in a weed-grown field. You dream that you can restore him? Daedalus never wound so inextricable an error round Minotaur, as madness has woven about his imprisoned reason. Nor you, nor any other Theseus, can thread the labyrinth, to which perhaps some unkind ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... Arcite (2 syl.), two young Theban knights, who fell into the hands of Duke Theseus (2 syl.), and were by him confined in a dungeon at Athens. Here they saw the duke's sister-in-law, Emily, with whom both fell in love. When released from captivity, the two knights told to the duke their tale of love; and the duke promised ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... Phillis entwyte Demophon / that his father Theseus vn- curteysly and trayterously lefte his loue Ariadna alone in the desert yle of Naxus / & contrary to his promise stale from her by nyght / addynge Heredem patria perfide frau- dis agis. That is to saye / vntrew and false forsworne man / thou playest kyndely ...
— The Art or Crafte of Rhetoryke • Leonard Cox
... We also wanted shot; and an order of the day fixed a price to be given for all balls, according to their calibre, which might be picked up after being fired from the fortress or the two ships of the line, the 'Tiger' and 'Theseus', which were stationed on each side of the harbour: These two vessels embarrassed the communication, between the camp and the trenches; but though they made much noise, they did little harm. A ball from one of them; killed an officer on the evening ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... seconds—but she was released all too soon. He left her as he had come, on silent feet. The light was turned up; everything looked as it had been, but everything was not. She was not. She found herself an Ariadne, in a drawing-room, still lax from Theseus' arms. Yes, but Theseus was next door, and would come ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... because they did excel and eclipse his glory, as he thought; the Romans exile Coriolanus, confine Camillus, murder Scipio; the Greeks by ostracism to expel Aristides, Nicias, Alcibiades, imprison Theseus, make away Phocion, &c. When Richard I. and Philip of France were fellow soldiers together, at the siege of Acon in the Holy Land, and Richard had approved himself to be the more valiant man, insomuch that all men's eyes were upon him, it so galled Philip, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... you've lost your way,—you, whom people so cosset and praise Sir. You won't be hurried, and you can't be flurried, and you're always as cool as a cucumber. Can a little 'un like me, your own child, don't you see, such a smart pioneer as are you cumber? You, the modern Theseus? Where's your Ariadne? Oh, I know you are cool, and clever. Yet I feel a doubt. When shall we get out?—which I can't go ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 23, 1891 • Various
... prince: Hippolytus, son of Theseus and Hippolyta, with whom his step-mother Phaedra fell in love. On his rejection of her advances, she accused him to Theseus, at whose prayer Poseidon caused his destruction, by frightening his horses, when he was driving along the seacoast, and overturning his chariot. Afterwards, on the discovery ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... both than I. Of old days held I converse with better men even than you, and never did they make light of me. Yea, I never beheld such warriors, nor shall behold, as were Peirithoos and Dryas shepherd of the host and Kaineus and Exadios and godlike Polyphemos [and Theseus son of Aigeus, like to the Immortals]. Mightiest of growth were they of all men upon the earth; mightiest they were and with the mightiest fought they, even the wild tribes of the Mountain caves, and destroyed them utterly. And with these held I converse, being come from Pylos, from a distant ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... people call an archaeologist, fond of grubbing up old stones and skeletons, and digging like an old mole amongst ruins—continually talking all day long about Marathon and Hymettus, the Parthenon and Chersonese, the Acropolis, and Theseus and Odysseus and all the rest of them, bothering our lives out with questions about Homer and the Iliad, and all such stuff; so, I put it to you candidly, whether it wasn't almost as bad as being back again at school, making a fellow feel small who was ...
— Tom Finch's Monkey - and How he Dined with the Admiral • John C. Hutcheson
... bell tolling through the silence and the gloom. Intending contributors to the cause of Greece turned back when they heard the tidings, that seemed to them to mean she was headless. Her cities contended for the body, as of old for the birth of a poet. Athens wished him to rest in the Temple of Theseus. The funeral service was performed at Mesolonghi. But on the 2nd of May the embalmed remains left Zante, and on the 29th arrived in the Downs. His relatives applied for permission to have them interred in Westminster Abbey, ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... amusing by-standers with his "nos poma natamus." For the person who writes Rimini, to admire the Excursion, is just as impossible as it would be for a Chinese polisher of cherry-stones, or gilder of tea-cups, to burst into tears at the sight of the Theseus ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... but, gloating over his prey, doomed them to lingering destruction. He rotted their flesh with the scurvy, racked their minds with intolerable suspense, burned their bodies with the slow fire of famine, and delighted in each separate pang, until they sank beneath the fearful accumulation. Theseus [Sherman. D.W.]—the deliverer—was coming. His terrible sword could be seen gleaming as it rose and fell on the banks of the James, and in the mountains beyond Atlanta, where he was hewing his way towards them and the heart of the Southern Confederacy. But he came ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... recognized as Tom-Jim-Jack burst out laughing. "Why not a king? Indeed, you are right. An actor plays every part. You'll tell me next that you are Theseus, Duke of Athens." ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... political—are shown in his second book, [Sidenote: 1512] an account of the relations between the Swiss and French, and in The Labyrinth, [Sidenote: 1516] an allegorical poem. The various nations appear again as animals, but the hero, Theseus, is a patriot guided by the Ariadne thread of reason, while he is vanquishing the monsters of sin, shame, and vice. Zwingli's natural interest in politics was nourished by his experiences as field chaplain of the Swiss forces ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... my boy with virtue be endued, What harm will beauty do him?' Nay, what good? Say, what avail'd, of old, to Theseus' son, The stern resolve? what to Bellerophon?— O, then did Phaedra redden, then her pride Took fire to be so steadfastly denied! Then, too, did Sthenobaea glow with shame, And both ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... startled. All came on her so suddenly. A moment since, she was alone on this island. Theseus had left her. Her lover had crept from her couch as she lay sleeping, and had sailed away with his comrades, noiselessly, before the sun ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... have happened but for British help. Captain Miller, of H.M.S. "Theseus," thus reported on the condition of Acre ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... and Arcite by Chaucer, and the love of Athenian Theseus for the Amazonian Queen Hippolyta, as told by Plutarch, gave William his first idea of composing a play where the acts of fairies and human beings would assimilate ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... here again fair Ariadne lies, And to the deaf winds of false Theseus plains. And of the air and slumber's treacheries; Trembling with fear even as a reed that strain. And quivers by the mere 'neath breezy skies: Her very speechless attitude complains— No beast there is so cruel as thou art, No beast less loyal to my ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... both of thoughts and words is to be found in Catullus in the complaint of Ariadne when she was left by Theseus:- ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... peremptory, insolent, sly, cunning, modest, and casual. The warriors of the Sultana, holding in one hand the spear, the bow, and sheaf or musket, embraced with the other their respective friends, like so many models of Nisus and Euryalus, Theseus and Pirithous, Damon and Pythias, or Achilles and Patroclus, to whom they confidentially related their divers opinions upon my dress and colour. The words "Musungu kuba" had as much charm for these people as the music of the Pied Piper ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... trace the last of the Ptolemies in his travels through Greece and Asia Minor by the inscriptions remaining to his honour. The citizens of Xanthus in Lycia set up a monument to him; and at Athens his statue was placed beside that of Philadelphus in the gymnasium of Ptolemy, near the temple of Theseus, where he was honoured as of founder's kin. He was put to death by Caligula. Drusilla, another grandchild of Cleopatra and Antony, married Antonius Felix, the procurator of Judaea, after the death of his first wife, who was also named Drusilla. These are the last notices that ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... first fearsome glance from under her half-lifted veil, was no daughter of Minos. The daughter of heathenesse and the early church she was; doomed to torturing visions and scourgings, and the wrangling of soul with flesh. The venerable Theseus might have been victorious Charlemagne, and Phaedra's maidens belonged rather in the train of Blanche of Castile than at the Cretan court. In the earlier studies Hippolytus had been done with a more pagan suggestion; but in each ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... that like a golden cup From lip to lip of heroes I must go, And be but as a banner lifted up, To beckon where the winds of war may blow? Have I not seen fair Athens in her woe, And all her homes aflame from sea to sea, When my fierce brothers wrought her overthrow Because Athenian Theseus ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
... angry gods, never have Juno, Neptune, M. de Rambuteau, or the Prefect of Police, opposed to Jason, Theseus, or walkers in Paris, more obstacles, monsters, ruins, dragons, demolitions, than these two unfortunate ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... the lower floor given up to the Barye bronzes, while the upper rooms are devoted to the "Angelus" and the paintings by Millet and other contemporaries of the great French sculptor. Passing on the left of the entrance the superb, large bronze of "Theseus battling with the Centaur," one is fronted by the great cast of the "Lion and Serpent," which from the centre of the gallery dominates the surrounding exhibits. Both of these are the property of the Metropolitan ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various
... my reading gave me great pleasure. "It was good," he said, "from beginning to end; but you are Theseus." Oddly enough, a similar compliment was paid me in the same words at the end of a reading that I gave for the Working Men's Institute in Brighton, when my friend, Mr. R——, kindly complimenting me on the performance, said, "It was all delightful: ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... team, following the shadow of Night round the earth. Strangely must have sounded the horns of the Northern Elfland, "faintly blowing" in the woods of Hellas, as Oberon and his grotesque court glanced along, "with bit and bridle ringing," to bless the nuptials of Theseus with the bouncing Amazon. Strangely must have looked the elfin footprints in the Attic green. Across this Shakspearean plank, laid between Olympus and Asgard, or more strictly Alfheim, we gladly pass from ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... Which served me as fit, by all men's judgements, As if the garment had been made for me: Therefore I know she is about my height. 160 And at that time I made her weep agood, For I did play a lamentable part: Madam, 'twas Ariadne passioning For Theseus' perjury and unjust flight; Which I so lively acted with my tears, 165 That my poor mistress, moved therewithal, Wept bitterly; and, would I might be dead, If I in thought felt ...
— Two Gentlemen of Verona - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... walks away at once in silence, leaning on the arm of Theseus, and when at last the watchers dare to look, they see Theseus afar off, alone, screening his eyes with his hand, as if some sight too dreadful for mortal eyes had passed before him; but OEdipus is gone, and not with lamentation, but in hope and ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... quadrangle, thus II, the area being not far from equal, and forming a clear space of about 250 feet in diameter. The central entrance is a portico of two orders of architecture in height; the lower is the Doric, copied from the temple of Theseus at Athens; the upper is the Corinthian, resembling that style in the Pantheon at Rome. This portico is so contrived, that upon the ground carriages can drive through it; while above, there is an open and spacious gallery, covered by ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 278, Supplementary Number (1828) • Various
... even at a later date when the purity of his motives was questioned. Afterwards he speaks of youth as being used to conceive a fervent affection for certain comrades. Moreover, the classic examples of friends, Orestes and Pylades, Damon and Pythias, Theseus and Pirithous, as also David and Jonathan, were ever present before his mind's eye. A young and very tender heart, marked by many feminine traits, replete with all the sentiment and with all the imaginings of classic literature, ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga |
