"Theban" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... columns of the Ramesseum, the magnificent temple built by Ramses II, and those of Medinet Habu, the great temple built by Ramses III, were covered with pictures in relief, made in the golden days of Theban prosperity. ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... will not keep thee," she said, "against thy will. But a long journey lies before thee, even to the very ends of the earth, and not until that is past canst thou set thy sail for home. To the halls of Hades thou must go, and consult the spirit of Theban Teiresias, who alone among all the dead hath an understanding heart, while the rest are but flitting shadows. Now hearken, and I will tell thee all that thou must do. When thou leavest these shores thou shalt sail ever southward, until thou hast ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... a Thracian; some an Arcadian: others a Theban. Pausanias mentions it as an opinion among the [1025]Egyptians, that both Orpheus, and Amphion, were from their country. There is great uncertainty about his parents. He is generally supposed to have been the son ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant
... "thou know'st how Hercules Was not content to wait till folk asked aid, But sought the pests among their guarded trees; Thou know'st what name the Theban Cadmus made, And how the bull of Marathon was laid Dead on the fallows of the Athenian land, And ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... imagination of the Greeks of features taken from several of the building and conquering sovereigns of Babylon and Nineveh. So, in the case of Egypt, was forged the image of that great Sesostris who looms so large in the pages of the Greek historians and combines many Pharaohs of the chief Theban dynasties in his own person. The romantic tales of Ctesias were united by Rollin and his emulators with other statements of perhaps still more doubtful value. The book of Daniel was freely drawn upon, and yet it is certain that it was not written until the year which saw ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... feel it was getting its money's worth of enjoyment. Many donkeys and a few carriages awaited us: the whole equipment previously engaged for to-morrow! and in opaline sunshine which stained with pale rose the Theban hills and piled the shadows full of dark, dulled rubies, we started across an emerald plain, kept ever verdant by Nile water. The touch of comedy in the dream of beauty was the queer, mud-brick village of Kurna, with its tomb dwellings of the poor, and immense mud ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... well as victory to serve its mighty ends. The very implements of our warfare change less than we think. Our bullets and cannonballs have lengthened into bolts like those which whistled out of old arbalests. Our soldiers fight with weapons, such as are pictured on the walls of Theban tombs, wearing a newly invented head-gear as old as the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... with right reason to renounce wealth in order to devote oneself to the contemplation of wisdom. Even certain philosophers are said to have done this; for Jerome says (Ep. xlviii ad Paulin.): "The famous Theban, Crates, once a very wealthy man, when he was going to Athens to study philosophy, cast away a large amount of gold; for he considered that he could not possess both gold and virtue at the same time." Much more therefore is it according to right reason for a man to renounce all he has, in ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... miles the "Father of Glass" changed his name to Ab Daumah (of the "one Theban Palm"). Porphyritic trap lay on both sides of us. To the right rose the Jebel Ukbal, whose grey form (El-Ash'hab) we had seen from the heights above Umm el-Harb: the whole range of four heads, forming ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... 58: Descendant Oeclus.—Ver. 317. This was Amphiaraues, who, having the gift of prophecy, foresaw that he would not live to return from the Theban war; and, therefore, hid himself, that he might not be obliged to join in the expedition. His wife, Eriphyle, being bribed by Adrastus with a gold necklace, betrayed his hiding-place; on which, proceeding to Thebes, he was swallowed up in the earth, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... Nymph shewed me the auncient Iphianassa, and after the old father Himerinus his daughters and their drinke, and one betwixt the two Theban brothers: These with pleasant noises, sweete musicke and fine agilities, paste ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna
... their large limpid eyes! I could have declared on oath that both shots had been a success, but they sheered off with the stately movements of a clipper about to tack. When they ran they had an ungainly, dislocated motion, somewhat like the contortions of an Indian nautch or a Theban danseuse—a dreamy, undulating movement, which even the tail, with its long fringe of black hair, seemed to ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... the same motives, as the native-born. Taken as a whole, it was, even more than the Revolutionary War, a true citizens' fight, and the armies of Grant and Lee were as emphatically citizen armies as Athenian, Theban, or Spartan armies in the great age of Greece, or as a Roman army in the days ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt
... Cosmopolitanism was already a point of union between the Cynics and Cyrenaics (see p. 128). And the march of politics was always tending in the same direction. First through great leagues, such as the Spartan or Athenian or Theban, each with a predominant or tyrannical city at the head; then later through the conquest of Greece by Alexander, and the leaguing of all Greek-speaking peoples in the great invasion of Asia; then through the spread of ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... embracing, among others, the twelve wonderful labors of Hercules; the exploits of the Athenian king The'seus, and of Mi'nos, King of Crete, the founder of Grecian law and civilization; the events of the Argonautic expedition; the Theban and Argol'ic wars; the adventures of Beller'ophon, Per'seus, and many others; and concluding with the Trojan war and the supposed fall of Troy. These seem to have been the times which the archangel Michael foretold to ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... Theban! Hesiod old, Who somewhat blind, and deaf, and cold, Cared most for gods and bulls! ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... town of Herculaneum, built at its base, was named after him. So also, it is said, was the mountain itself, though in a more round-about way. Hercules, as you will doubtless learn, was feigned to have been the son of the heathen god Zeus and Alcmena, a Theban lady. Now one of the appellations of Zeus was Ves, which was applied to him as being the god of rains and dews—the wet divinity. Thus Hercules was Vesouuios, the son of Ves. How this name should have become corrupted into "Vesuvius," ...
— Wonders of Creation • Anonymous
... the legends of Troy and of Herakles niake their appearance, e. g. Talthybius (Stich. 305), Autolycus (Bacch. 275), Parthaon (Men. 745). Moreover the most general outlines must have been known in the case of the Theban and the Argonautic legends, and of the stories of Bellerophon (Bacch. 810), Pentheus (Merc. 467), Procne and Philomela (Rud. 604). Sappho and Phaon ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... on age improves: The Muse alone unequal dealt her rage, And graced with noblest pomp her earliest stage. 20 Preserved through time, the speaking scenes impart Each changeful wish of Phaedra's tortured heart; Or paint the curse that mark'd the Theban's[54] reign, A bed incestuous, and a father slain. With kind concern our pitying eyes o'erflow, 25 Trace the sad ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... delight On darling rooms, so warm and bright;[43] Chant 'I am weary' in infectious strain, And 'catch the blue-fly singing on the pane;' Though praised by critics and adored by Blues, Though Peel with pudding plumb the puling muse; Though Theban taste the Saxon purse controls, And pensions ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... spot lay in Daunia, on the coast of the Adriatic. The supplicant's offices began with the offering up of a ram, on whose skin he laid himself down, and in this situation, received the instruction he sought for.[95] Amphilocus, a contemporary soothsayer, who accompanied the Epigoni in the first Theban war, had a similar oracle at Mallos, in Cilicia, which Pausanias asserts, even at the close of the second century, to have been the most credible of his age; it is also mentioned by Dion Cassius, ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... round to me with milder lip He spake: "This of the seven kings was one, Who girt the Theban walls with siege, and held, As still he seems to hold, God in disdain, And sets his high omnipotence at nought. But, as I told him, his despiteful mood Is ornament well suits the breast that wears it. Follow me now; and ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... from "Pindar" he found the art of reaching all the obscurity of the Theban bard, however he may fall below his sublimity; he will be allowed, if he has less fire, to have more smoke. He has added nothing to English poetry, yet at least half his book deserves to be read: perhaps he valued most himself that part which ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... this, be it remembered, was the time in which Pallavicino, like Marino, declared that poetry must make men raise their eyebrows in astonishment. For Chiabrera, educated as he had been, that new world toward which he navigated was a new Hellenic style of Italian poetry; and the Theban was to guide him toward its shores. But on the voyage Chiabrera drowned: drowned for eternity in hyper-atlantic whirlpools of oblivion. Some critics, pitying so lofty, so respectable an ambition, have ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... One of the most celebrated representations of an Egyptian harp was drawn from a painting discovered in one of the caverns in the mountains of Egyptian Thebes, by some travellers: it is called the Theban harp, and has thirteen strings; its form is extremely elegant. This harp is supposed to be one of the kind in use before and at the time of Sesostris. Remains of Egyptian harps of a more simple construction, with only four strings, have likewise been discovered. Among the monuments ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... was sacred from the earliest times to the present day. It was never identified with any of the great deities, but three goddesses {26} appear in serpent form: Uazet, the Delta goddess of Buto; Mert-seger, 'the lover of silence,' the goddess of the Theban necropolis; and Rannut, the harvest goddess. The memory of great pythons of the prehistoric days appears in the serpent-necked monsters on the slate palettes at the beginning of the monarchy, and the immense serpent Apap of the underworld in the later mythology. The serpent ...
— The Religion of Ancient Egypt • W. M. Flinders Petrie
... is," said the young man, "that I shall be obliged, like Epaminondas the Theban, to stay two days at home, for I have but one doublet and trousers. But, pardon, you did me the honor to ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... and eight cities of Lombardy divided between them the joy of leveling Milan to her lowest stone. Nay, not merely in city against city, but in street against street, and house against house, the fury of the Theban dragon flamed ceaselessly, and with the same excuse upon men's lips. The sign of the shield of Polynices, Justice bringing back the exile, was to them all, in turn, the portent of death: and their history, ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... all antagonists in the Pancratium. Casting about for the best means of perpetuating his fame, he found the alternative to lie between a statuette to be erected in the temple of the hero-god, or one of the odes of the learned Theban. Choosing the latter, he proceeded to the poet's shop, cheapened the article, and would have secured it without hesitation, had not the extortionate bard demanded the sum of three drachmas,[3] nearly ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... who has been the cause of more philosophical discussions than any other man, with the exception of Simmias the Theban (Phaedrus); of Aristophanes, who disguises under comic imagery a serious purpose; of Agathon, who in later life is satirized by Aristophanes in the Thesmophoriazusae, for his effeminate manners and the feeble rhythms of his verse; of Alcibiades, who is the same strange contrast of great ...
— Symposium • Plato
... heart as quickly to return, As thou dost mine with longing her to see, Then know I well that she would not sojourn. 80 Now, blissful Lord, so cruel do not be Unto the blood of Troy, I pray of thee, As Juno was unto the Theban blood, From whence to Thebes came ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... perhaps, sees a woman grinding corn or kneading bread in exactly the same manner as her ancestress did in the days of the Pharaohs. Only the other day a native asked to be allowed to purchase from us some of the ancient millstones lying in one of the Theban temples, in order to re-use them on his farm. The traveller will notice, in some shady corner, the village barber shaving the heads and faces of his patrons, just as he is seen in the Theban tomb-paintings of thousands of years ago; and the small boys who scamper across the road will have ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... which are those of Burnet, and Woodward, and Whitehurst; regretting extremely that my time will not suffer me to give them the notice they deserve; and shall conclude with that of the renowned Dr. Darwin. This learned Theban, who is as much distinguished for rhyme as reason, and for good-natured credulity as serious research, and who has recommended himself wonderfully to the good graces of the ladies, by letting them ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... the Waterloo Road had the following announcement displayed on the front of his house: "The Acme of Stencil!" A "learned Theban" in the same line in an adjoining street, in order to outdo the "old original" stenciller, thus set forth his pretensions: "Stencilling in all its branches performed in ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... the Indians with dreadful shouts, and a horrid din of their brazen drums and bucklers; the air rung again all around, as the mosaic work well expressed it. And pray for the future don't so much admire Apelles, Aristides the Theban, and others who drew claps of thunder, lightnings, winds, words, manners, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... on the Theban hills have been visited of late years by Mr. Seton-Karr, by Prof. Schweinfurth, Mr. Allen Sturge, and Dr. Blanckenhorn, by Mr. Portch, Mr. Ayrton, and Mr. Hall. The weapons illustrated here were found by Messrs. Hall and Ayrton, and are now preserved in the British Museum. Among these ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... stabulum purgare, to subdue tyrants, as [596]he did Diomedes and Busiris: to expel thieves, as he did Cacus and Lacinius: to vindicate poor captives, as he did Hesione: to pass the torrid zone, the deserts of Libya, and purge the world of monsters and Centaurs: or another Theban Crates to reform our manners, to compose quarrels and controversies, as in his time he did, and was therefore adored for a god in Athens. "As Hercules [597]purged the world of monsters, and subdued them, so did he fight against envy, lust, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... proudly reigning o'er his rascal bands, He raves and triumphs in his large commands. A city of Egypt, famous in all lands For rites, adores the sun; his temple stands There on a hundred pillars by account, Digg'd from the quarries of the Theban mount. Here, as the custom did require—they say— His happy parent's dust down he doth lay; Then to the image of his lord he bends And to the flames his burden straight commends. Unto the altars thus he destinates His own remains; the light doth ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... the cathedral, many have seen it, and more have seen at least photographs of great accuracy, and pictures of it which, if less strict in detail, give it a more lifelike look and include some of its surroundings. The church of St. Gereon, a martyr of the Theban Legion massacred at Cologne to a man for refusing to worship the imperial ensigns, under which no one denied that they had fought like lions, is a massive Romanesque building older than the cathedral, dating from the days of Constantine and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... the harm? In London, ladies of good birth and breeding went in for 'skirt-dancing,' and no one presumed to breathe a word against their reputations; why in Cairo should not a lady go in for a Theban dance without being ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... valour in Achilles, friendship in Nisus and Euryalus, even to an ignorant man, carry not an apparent shining: and contrarily, the remorse of conscience in Odipus, the soon repenting pride of Agamemnon, the self-devouring cruelty in his father Atreus, the violence of ambition in the two Theban brothers, the sour-sweetness of revenge in Medea, and to fall lower, the Terentian Gnatho and our Chaucer's Pandar, so expressed, that we now use their names to signify their trades. And finally, all virtues, ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... and also he came to the Oracle at Abai of the Phokians; and moreover when he came for the first time to Thebes, he not only consulted the Ismenian Apollo,—there one may consult just as at Olympia with victims,—but also by payment he persuaded a stranger who was not a Theban, and induced him to lie down to sleep in the temple of Amphiaraos. In this temple no one of the Thebans is permitted to seek divination, and that for the following reason:—Amphiaraos dealing by oracles bade them choose which they ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... the early reign of Saturn, under the appellation of Ouranus, or Heaven; there the impious Titans warred with the sky; there Jupiter was born and nursed; there was the celebrated shrine of Ammon, dedicated to Theban Jove, which the Greeks reverenced more highly than the Delphic Oracle; there was the birth-place and oracle of Minerva; and there, Atlas supported both the heavens and ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child |
