"Caitiff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... And a nine-times killing curse, By day and by night, to the caitiff wight, Who shakes the poor like snakes from his door, And shuts up the womb of his purse. And still ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... comes too dear; you set too high a price upon it, Colonel Tarleton. If, for the mere swapping of a rope for a bullet, I could be the poor caitiff your offer implies, hanging would be ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... seed? I did not mark, Through all the gloomy circles of the' abyss, Spirit, that swell'd so proudly 'gainst his God, Not him, who headlong fell from Thebes. He fled, Nor utter'd more; and after him there came A centaur full of fury, shouting, "Where Where is the caitiff?" On Maremma's marsh Swarm not the serpent tribe, as on his haunch They swarm'd, to where the human face begins. Behind his head upon the shoulders lay, With open wings, a dragon breathing fire On whomsoe'er he met. To me my guide: "Cacus is this, ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... wretched garret to which my mother had been reduced, and pictured the days and hours of fear and suspense through which she had lived; through which she must have lived, with that caitiff's threat hanging over her grey head! I thought of her birth and her humiliation; of her frail form and patient, undying love for me; and solemnly, and before heaven, I swore that night to punish the man. My anger was too great for words, and for tears I was too old. ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... heart of flesh Quivers like broken entrails, when the wheel Rolleth some dog in middle street, or fresh Fruit when ye tear it bleeding from the peel; If my soul cries the uncomprehended cry When the red agony oozed on Olivet! Yet not for this, a caitiff, falter I, Beloved whom I must lose, nor thence regret The doubly-vouched and twin allegiance owed To you in Heaven, and Heaven in you, Lady. How could you hope, loose dealer with my God, That I should keep for you my fealty? For still 'tis thus:-because I am so true, My Fair, to ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson
... archbishop, the chief of the council, the second person of the realm: of long time, it might be thought, in great assurance, a king on his side;" {p.254} and now, "notwithstanding all his authority and defence, debased from a high estate unto a low degree—of a councillor become a caitiff, and set in so wretched estate that the poorest wretch would ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... lady, then, was the cause of the quarrel! I need not ask who was in the right, when a man brings to the rivalry such odds as yon caitiff." ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... lying tongue for saying so!" replied Henry furiously. "I have a mind to pluck it from thy throat, and cast it to the dogs. What ho! guards, take this caitiff to the summit of the highest tower of the castle—the Curfew Tower—and hang him from it, so that all my loyal subjects in Windsor may ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... and in a large public company), that I lost all patience, rode at the urchin straight, wrenched him out of his saddle with all my force, and, flinging him roughly to the ground, sprang down to it myself, and administered such a correction across the young caitiff's head and shoulders with my horsewhip as might have ended in his death, had I not been restrained in time; for my passion was up, and I was in a state to do murder or any other crime. The lad was taken home and put to bed, where he lay for a day or ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Castles, and a Canning, A Cobbett, and a Castlereagh; All sorts of caitiff corpses planning All sorts of cozening for trepanning 155 ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... deep, huge numbers lay Of caitiff wretched thralls, that wailed night and day, . . . . . . . Whose case when as the careful Dwarf had told, And made ensample of their mournful sight Unto his master, he no longer would There dwell in peril of like painful plight, But early ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... marks His winding way, while all the listening crowd Applaud his reasonings. O'er the watery ford, Dry sandy heaths, and stony barren hills, O'er beaten tracks, with men and beast distain'd, Unerring he pursues; till, at the cot Arrived, and seizing by his guilty throat The caitiff vile, redeems the captive prey: So ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... caitiff! O thou varlet! O thou wicked 165 Hannibal! I respected with her before I was married to her! If ever I was respected with her, or she with me, let not your worship think me the poor duke's officer. Prove this, thou ...
— Measure for Measure - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... always expressed himself in controversial argument like a Tory, possessed a high independent spirit, and appears to have been a friend to the rights of man. His definition of the word Caitiff, in his Dictionary, may throw some light on this part of his character. "Caitiff. [cattivo, Ital. a slave; whence it came to signify a bad man, with some implication of meanness; as knave in English, and fur in Latin; so certainly ...
— A Poetical Review of the Literary and Moral Character of the late Samuel Johnson (1786) • John Courtenay
... the thirst for blood fell at uncertain intervals, impelling him then to devastate the very sheepfolds of which in his capacity as watch-dog he might have been considered as ex officio the guardian. This vile malefactor had been ordered for execution, and the noose was already coiled for his caitiff neck, when a neighbor of his master's—a great raiser of sheep—begged for him a reprieve, kindly volunteering the use of a truculent, but valuable ram belonging to him, for the purpose of illustrating the homaeopathic ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... The caitiff's face underwent a kaleidoscopic change as these terrible words rant? in his ears. With the bound of of a wounded antelope he sprang to the summit of the nearest mountain, and stood there with arms erect against the sky, like a statue ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... this, George?" he said. "Gentlemen, bring that fellow forward. On my life, a truculent-looking caitiff—Hark ye, friend, who are you? If an honest man, Nature has forgot to label it upon your countenance.—Does none here ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... from school, 'twas ours to wage, How keenly! bloodless war— Tossing the balls in mimic rage, That left a gorgeous scar; While doublets dark were powder'd o'er, Till darkness none could find; And valorous chiefs had wounds before, And caitiff churls behind. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... rouge has left a trace On that thin cheek where shone, perchance, a tear, Even while the people laughed that held him dear But yesterday. He died,—and not in grace, And many a black-robed caitiff starts apace To slander him whose Tartuffe made them fear, And gold must win a passage for his bier, And bribe the ...
— Ballads in Blue China and Verses and Translations • Andrew Lang
... up with philosophy like that, may write fine books, and review articles and such like, but at the bottom of him he is a poor caitiff, and there is no more ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... his birthright indeed, and so do many besides, and by so doing exclude themselves from the chief blessing, as also that caitiff did; but you must put a difference betwixt Esau and Little-faith, and also betwixt their estates. Esau's birthright was typical, but Little-faith's jewels were not so; Esau's belly was his god, but Little-faith's belly was not so; Esau's want lay in his fleshly appetite, Little-faith's ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress - From this world to that which is to come. • John Bunyan
... some caitiff wretch procure To swear the pill, or drop, has wrought a cure; Thus on the stage, our play-wrights still depend For Epilogues and Prologues on some friend, Who knows each art of coaxing up the town, 5 And make full many a bitter pill go ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... thronging troops that follow'd thee? Decline all this, and see what now thou art: For happy wife, a most distressed widow; For joyful mother, one that wails the name; For one being su'd to, one that humbly sues; For queen, a very caitiff crown'd with care; For she that scorn'd at me, now scorn'd of me; For she being fear'd of all, now fearing one; For she commanding all, obey'd of none. Thus hath the course of justice wheel'd about And left ...
— The Life and Death of King Richard III • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... might have some miserable postmaster from Texas or the District of Columbia, some purchased agent of Messrs. Bruin & Hill, the great slave-dealers of the Capital, have him here in Boston, take Ellen Craft before the caitiff, and on his decision hurry her off to bondage as cheerless, as hopeless, and as irremediable as ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... Sorry am I to say the reverse has been the fact: fallen, proscribed, pre-judged, the cup of bitterness has been administered to him with an unsparing hand. It has almost been considered as culpable to evince toward him the least sympathy or support; and many a hollow-hearted caitiff have I seen, who basked in the sunshine of his bounty while in power, who now skulked from his side, and even mingled among the most clamorous of his enemies.... I bid him farewell with a heavy heart, and he expressed with peculiar warmth and feeling his sense of the interest ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... golden spurs into his steed's side! "Caitiff, thy taunts are little worth," he cried, and, pierced through shield and ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... "This miserable measure the wretched souls maintain of those who lived without infamy and without praise. Mingled are they with that caitiff choir of the angels, who were not rebels, nor were faithful to God, but were for themselves. The heavens chased them out in order to be not less beautiful, nor doth the depth of Hell receive them, because the damned would have some glory ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... upon her people to go meet Cuchulain in encounter and combat [11]for the sake of the hosts.[11] "It will not be I," and "It will not be I," spake each and every one from his place. "No caitiff is due from my people. Even though one should be due, it is not I would go to oppose Cuchulain, for no easy thing is it to do battle ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... "Ha, caitiff!" he exclaimed; and shortening the hunting-pole in his hand, he returned the stroke with interest, but the outlaw had already prepared himself to receive the blow on his staff. For some seconds there was a rapid exchange; and all that the boy could detect in the fierce flourish of ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... O gallant knight, This signet with my solemn plight To seek her presence straight, When varlets or a caitiff crew Resolved some evil deed to do— Besiege ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... swoon awakens Marsilies, And has him borne his vaulted roof beneath; Many colours were painted there to see, And Bramimunde laments for him, the queen, Tearing her hair; caitiff herself she clepes; Also these words cries very loud and clear: "Ah! Sarraguce, henceforth forlorn thou'lt be Of the fair king that had thee in his keep! All those our gods have wrought great felony, Who in battle this morning failed at need. That admiral ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... in his voice—"know that this man whom you would have betrayed is our guide, whom we lost last night. Speak, then, in your defence, if you can. Say what you have to say why justice should not be done upon you, miserable caitiff, who would have sold a man's life, as you would sell a sheep's, for ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... fellow's face grew redder every minute; but perceiving that he was observed, he lowered his voice in the detail, while he lifted it in the worst places of his colloquy. 'You infernal scoundrel, and caitiff, and villain,' says I, 'what do you mean, to insult an elderly person like myself, in a public place like this?' and then, said he, lowering his malapropos voice, 'then I ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... concluded ye to be. But now, I doubtna, it has been Rashleigh himself or some other o' your cousins—they are a' tarred wi' the same stick—rank Jacobites and papists, and wad think the government siller and government papers lawfu' prize. And the creature Morris is sic a cowardly caitiff, that to this hour he daurna say that it was Rob took the portmanteau aff him; and troth he's right, for your custom-house and excise cattle are ill liket on a' sides, and Rob might get a back-handed lick at him, before the Board, as they ca't, ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... and drove his rival beyond the walls; having fled the city, he was discovered hiding in a marsh, cast into prison, and condemned to die; to the slave sent to execute the sentence he drew himself haughtily up and exclaimed, "Caitiff, dare you slay Caius Marius?" and the executioner fled in terror of his life and left his sword behind him; Marius was allowed to escape; finding his way to Africa, he took up his quarters at Carthage, but ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... of southern politicians were buried, being confined in a pen without shelter, exposed to all the elements could do, to all the disease herding animals together could create, and to all the starvation and cruelty an incompetent and intense caitiff government could accomplish. From the conversation and almost from the recollection of the northern people this place has dropp' d, but not so in the gossip of the Salisbury people, nearly all of whom say that the half was never told; that such was the nature of habitual outrage here that when Federal ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... which trickled freely from his fingers. "What have you to do here? By your dress you should be one of those cursed clerks who overrun the land like vile rats, poking and prying into other men's concerns, too caitiff to fight and too lazy to work. By the rood! if I had my will upon ye, I should nail you upon the abbey doors, as they hang vermin before their holes. Art neither man nor woman, young shaveling. Get thee back to thy fellows ere I lay hands upon you: ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... through the smoky air Of the dark city casts a sullen glance, Rousing each caitiff to his task of care, Of sinful man the sad inheritance; Summoning revelers from the lagging dance, 5 Scaring the prowling robber to his den; Gilding on battled tower the warder's lance, And warning student pale to leave his pen, And yield his drowsy eyes ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... and never indifference to praise. It is very convenient to the disappointed authorling; very effective, in the established writer; but it is mere vanity at the root, and equally contemptible in both. For my part, I confess that I came to my trial as tremblingly as any poor caitiff to the fiery ordeal, and finding myself miraculously clear of the burning ploughshares, was quite as full of wonder and thankfulness at my good fortune. For I found my purposes appreciated, and my best thoughts understood; not, it is true, without ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... from heaven exiled, How hold'st thou her whose eyes constraint doth fear, Whom cursed do bless; whose weakness virtues arm; Who others' woes and plaints can chastely bear: In whose sweet heaven angels of high thoughts swarm? What courage strange hath caught thy caitiff heart? Fear'st not a face that oft whole hearts devours? Or art thou from above bid play this part, And so no help 'gainst envy of those powers? If thus, alas, yet while those parts have woe; So stay her tongue, that she ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... peace with him, then, for his caitiff twist. Knights make ill tradesmen, I doubt not. Poor fool, to think he could do any ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... a shaking voice; and the poor invisible caitiff called on him by name, and poured forth out of the darkness an endless, garrulous appeal for mercy. A sense of danger, of daring, had alone nerved Carthew to enter the forecastle; and here was the enemy crying and pleading like a frightened child. His obsequious "Here, sir," ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... amongst the rocks that dip down to the water's edge. Having executed one or two throws, there comes me a voracious fish, and makes a startling dash at 'Meg with the muckle mouth.'[10] Sharply did I strike the caitiff; whereat he rolled round disdainful, making a whirl in the water of prodigious circumference; it was not exactly Charybdis, or the Maelstrom, but rather more like the wave occasioned by the sudden turning of a man-of-war's boat. Being hooked, and having by this time set his nose peremptorily ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... their pulses lag With the slow beat that doubts and then despairs; Some, caitiff, would have struck the starry flag That knits us with our past, and makes us heirs Of deeds high-hearted as were ever done ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... with a frown, "Vile caitiff, come not here," Abrupt cried Death; "shall flatt'ry soothe my ear?" "Hence, or thou feel'st my dart!" the Monarch said. Wild terror seiz'd ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... daggerless . . . bonnetless . . . doubletless—aye, naked, but for an outlaw's generosity . . . cut by my own weapon"—he held up his hand and looked at the abraded knuckles—"and that is all the credit I have to show—the mark of a caitiff's chin. . . Methinks I am fit only for the company ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... wear woman's dress in prison. We must remember that, as she was being tried by churchmen, she should have been, as she often prayed to be, in a prison of the church, attended by women. They set a spy on her, a caitiff priest named L'Oyseleur, who pretended to be her friend, and who betrayed her. The English soldiers were allowed to bully, threaten, and frighten away every one who gave her any advice. They took her to the ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... these considerate days Has patience carried her submissive ways; Wisdom has taught us to be calm and meek, To take one blow, and turn the other cheek; It is not written what a man shall do, If the rude caitiff smite the other too! ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... angry to stand upon compliment. "Bury me that grinning caitiff there!" he, pointing ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... In the meantime, the caitiff minister had reached his manse, and found a ghastly loneliness awaiting him—oh, how much deeper than that of the woman he had forsaken! She had lost her repute and her baby; he had lost his God! ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... after her own self, in all the court. And Enid loved the Queen, and with true heart Adored her, as the stateliest and the best And loveliest of all women upon earth. At last, forsooth, because his princedom lay Close on the borders of a territory, Wherein were bandit earls, and caitiff knights, Assassins, and all flyers from the hand Of Justice, and whatever loathes a law: He craved a fair permission to depart, And there defend his marches; and the King Mused for a little on his plea, but, last, Allowing it, the Prince and Enid rode, And fifty knights rode with ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... give notice to Jones to-day. There are more ways than one of getting even with a scurvy caitiff. In this case, I take old Jones's best waitress away from him, and, praise God, he'll never find another that will stick to him for eighteen years ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... myself, I should never have parted from your neighbourhood; then had you not been in the present danger, and—much less important consequence— thou, Damian de Lacy, had not filled the grave of a forsworn and negligent caitiff!" ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... needs give thee up. Thou art the worst caitiff to reason withal, ever mortal man ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... moreover, as dark as pepper; and, besides being dark, his skin was dirty. As for his dress, it was torn and sordid. His chest was broad, and his arms seemed powerful; but, upon the whole, he looked a very caitiff. "I am sorry that man has lost his wife," thought I; "for I am sure he will never get another." What surprises me is, that he ever found a woman disposed to unite her ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... will and when He will! and as long as He will! and what temporal pain He will! and death! to the praising of His name, and to the edification of His Church. And I, that am most unworthy and wretched caitiff, shall now, through the special grace of GOD, make to Him pleasant sacrifice of my most sinful ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... though leaguered round By Envy and her hateful brood of hell, Be heard amid this hall; once more befits The patriot, whose prophetic eye so oft 5 Has pierced thro' faction's veil, to flash on crimes Of deadliest import. Mouldering in the grave Sleeps Capet's caitiff corse; my daring hand Levelled to earth his blood-cemented throne, My voice declared his guilt, and stirred up France 10 To call for vengeance. I too dug the grave Where sleep the Girondists, detested band! Long with the shew of freedom ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... conversation. Of course he denies it; but it really doesn't matter, as I'm sorry to say he's much too 'fresh' (as they call it down here) to remember anything to-morrow morning. I let him have it, I can tell you. Varlet! Caitiff! But if you bolt off on the head of it, I shall go back and ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... high in air, Diest on a more ignoble tree, (For thou shall steal thy landlord's mare,) Then, bloody caitiff! think ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... apoplectic sleep of drunkenness. The death-in-life was too well portrayed. You smelt the fumy liquor that had brought on this syncope. Your only comfort lay in the forced reflection, that, real as he looked, the poor caitiff was but imaginary, a bit of painted canvass, whom no delirium tremens, nor so much as a retributive ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and others (flinging wisps of rushes). Ay, go in peace, caitiff, caitiff! And that too, perjured prelate—and that, turncoat shaveling! There, ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... arguments in favour of injustice? Add good manners, and, as the wise tell us, we shall make the best of both worlds. Who that is not a miserable caitiff will refrain from smiling at the praises of justice? Even if a man knows the better part he will not be angry with others; for he knows also that more than human virtue is needed to save a man, and that he only praises justice who ...
— The Republic • Plato
... with part of his old lightness, "I have borne a brave front before it all. I have looked the Cyclops in the face, even when he glowered the fiercest. But it all will pass. I presume Thersytes the caitiff and Agamemnon the king have the same sleep and the same dreams in Orchus. And a few years more or a few less in a man's life make little matter. But it would be sweeter to go out thinking 'I have triumphed' than 'I have failed, and ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... tabard,[1] of twelve winter age, Alle torn and baudy, and full of lice creeping; But that if a louse could have leapen the better, She had not walked on the welt, so was it threadbare. 'I have been Covetise,' quoth this caitiff, 'For sometime I served Symme at style, And was his prentice plight, his profit to wait. First I learned to lie, a leef other twain Wickedly to weigh, was my first lesson: To Wye and to Winchester I went to the fair With ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... as ye can, if they direct the ray, The veriest atoms in the sunbeams play. No venial slip their quick attention 'scapes; They trace each Proteus through his hundred shapes; To Mirth's tribunal drag the caitiff train, Where Mercy sleeps, ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... crowd on Christ to touch the hem of His blessed garment, that is the power of His great mercy. Christ loveth to have folk crowd on Him to cry Him mercy. I read not that ever He complained of the crowding of the multitude. I read not that ever He turned away so much as one poor caitiff [sinner] who came unto Him. I read not that His lips plained ever of aught but that they came not—that they lacked faith. I am an old man, friends, and in all likelihood shall I never come here again; but I say unto you that I shall scan well the multitude in the ...
— Mistress Margery • Emily Sarah Holt
... fast leapt caitiff's sword, until my knight Sudden threw up his sword to his left hand, Caught it, and swung it; ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris
... of a cockney sportsman. He has been puffing 'Sir Danapalus (the Bart.)' in public, and taking all the odds he can get against him in private. Watchorn knows that it is easier to make a horse lose than win. The restless-looking, lynx-eyed caitiff, in the dirty green shawl, with his hands stuffed into the front pockets of the brown tarriar coat, is their jockey, the renowned Captain Hangallows; he answers to the name of Sam Slick in Mr. Spavin the horse-dealer's yard in Oxford Street, when not in the country ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... thou wretch, Though hast within thee undivulged crimes, Unwhipped of justice: hide thee, thou bloody hand; Thou perjured, and thou simular man of virtue, Thou art incestuous: caitiff, to pieces shake, That under covert and convenient seeming Hast practised on man's life: close pent-up guilts, Rive your concealing continents, and cry These dreadful summoners grace. ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... "Vile caitiff! I have a foreboding that you will not have your detestable wish. Away!—leave me! or you shall find, that although this head is blanched by misery, this arm has still ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the hound? where is the caitiff miscreant? Has he thrown himself into the river? Drowning is too good for such a dog as he!" shouted angry voices on the river's bank, and through the still air the sound of trampling footsteps could be heard up and down the little wharf ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... or else these caitiff rogues Had wreaked themselves on me; good cause is theirs To hate me, for my wont hath ever been To catch my thief, and then like vermin here Drown him, and with a stone about his neck; And under this wan water many of them Lie rotting, but at night let ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... or tendance: woful plight! Whom thou, erewhile, to head the impetuous fight, Sent'st forth, thy conquering champion. Now he feeds His spirit on lone paths, and on us brings Deep sorrow; and all his former peerless deeds Of prowess fall like unremembered things From Atreus' loveless brood, this caitiff brace ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... Brunig. 'Twas not my fault he bore his sight away; He who had robb'd my father of his eyes! He fled—I followed—overtook him soon, And dragg'd him to my father's feet. The sword Already quiver'd o'er the caitiff's head, When from the pity of the blind old man, He wrung the life which, craven-like, he begged. He swore URPHEDE,[*] never to return: He'll keep his oath, for ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... alongside mine, King, close to this barricaded bridge," said the valorous boy, "and I will vow to break it down, or ye may call me caitiff and coward." ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks |
