"Circe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... any prehistoric remains on the spot; I should doubt it. On another Mediterranean island, that of Ponza, I myself detected the relics of what would formerly have been described as the residence of that second Homeric witch, Circe. [30] ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... out to make a steaming bath That night in the Devil's Inn, A steaming bath of living wine Poured out for Circe and her swine, A bath of blood for a harlot To supple and sleek ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... to the country of the Phaeacians, and from thence I got home; where I found a number of suitors about my wife, revelling there at my expense. I destroyed every one of them, and was afterwards slain myself by Telegonus, a son whom I had by Circe. I still lament the pleasures which I left behind at Ogygia, and the immortality which you promised me; if I can ever find an opportunity, I will certainly make my escape from hence, ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian
... stay aloft until their long-range weapon cleared out all opposition. But how had they been able to make such a complete annihilation of the Terran force? The last report had placed the nearest Throg nest at least two systems away from Warlock. And a patrol lane had been drawn about the Circe system the minute that Survey had marked its second planet ready for colonization. Somehow the beetles had slipped through that supposedly tight cordon and would now consolidate their gains with their usual speed at rooting. First an energy attack to finish the small Terran force; then ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... make in little space the haven close hereby, Long is the wayless way that shears, and long the length of land; And first in the Trinacrian wave must bend the rower's wand. On plain of that Ausonian salt your ships must stray awhile, And thou must see the nether meres, AEaean Circe's isle, Ere thou on earth assured and safe thy city may'st set down. I show thee tokens; in thy soul store thou the tokens shown. When thou with careful heart shalt stray the secret stream anigh, And ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... of Phorcus, or Phorcys, by Ceto. Glaucus, being passionately fond of Scylla, after vainly endeavoring to gain her affections, applied to Circe, and besought her, by her art, to induce her to return his affection. On this, Circe disclosed to him her passion, but Glaucus remaining inexorable, the enchantress vowed revenge, and by her magic charms so infected ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway
... superstition, we must equally condemn all the Deities from which they proceed. Shall Ino, whom the Greeks call Leucothea, and we Matuta, be reputed a Goddess, because she was the daughter of Cadmus, and shall that title be refused to Circe and Pasiphae,[256] who had the sun for their father, and Perseis, daughter of the Ocean, for their mother? It is true, Circe has divine honors paid her by our colony of Circaeum; therefore you call her a Goddess; but what will you say of Medea, the ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... stuffed glove at the end of it,—SO help me Beelzebub (or whoever is the recording Angel here)! [Helden-Geschichte, v. 141-149: Preuss, ii. 145, iii. 578, iv. 477, &c.] And thus does Preussen, with astonishment, as by the spell of a Czarina Circe, find itself changed suddenly to Russian: and does not recover the old human form till four years hence,—when, again suddenly, as we shall see, the Circe and her wand ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... devotion to Sah-luma was wasted! What did he care for her timid tenderness, . . her unselfish worship? Nothing? ... less than nothing! He was entirely absorbed by the sovereign-peerless beauty of this wonderful High Priestess,—this witch-like weaver of spells more potent than those of Circe; and musing thereon, Theos was sorry for Niphrata, he knew not why. He felt that she had somehow been wronged,—that she suffered, ... and that he, as well as Sah-luma, was in some mysterious way to blame for this, though he could by ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... dame! to the end be thou my assistant, Making my medicines work no less than the philtre of Circe, Or Medea's charms, or yellow-haired Perimede's. Wheel of the magic spells, draw thou ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... or celebrity whose works were not speedily familiarized to the English public through the medium of translations. The study of this enchanting language found however a vehement opponent in Roger Ascham, who exclaims against the "enchantments of Circe, brought out of Italy to mar men's manners in England; much by examples of ill life, but more by precepts of fond books, of late translated out of Italian into English, and sold in every shop in ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... Penelope was Flaubert, He fished by obstinate isles; Observed the elegance of Circe's hair Rather than ...
— Hugh Selwyn Mauberley • Ezra Pound
... cementing of a close union between a man and woman, two beings with so abundant a capacity for misunderstanding each other, is a complex and delicate affair. That to marry is to be a kind of Odysseus advancing into the palace of a Circe, nobler and more humane than the enchantress of old, yet capable also of working strange and terrible transformations. That many go in there carrying in their hands blossoms which they believe to be moly; but the true moly is not easy to distinguish. ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... for all from Circe's magic, vowing that never again should the sorceress work her charm upon him; and that vow he intended to keep. Nevertheless, it did not prevent him from stealing an occasional peep at the enchantress, if only to assure himself that her spell was as potent and deadly as he had supposed ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... guest, her boy in her hand. Where I go I know not, nor what thread Clotho is spinning. Strange dangers are to be found in strange places, and Jove and lightning are not comfortable neighbors. Ulysses took moly in his hand when there came to meet him Circe's gentlemen pensioners, and Gyges's ring not only saved him from peril, but brought him wealth and great honor. What silly mariner in my ship hath not bought or begged mithridate or a pinch of achimenius wherewith to make good his voyage? And shall not I, who have much more at ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... Cyclic poems began; authors took new characters, whom they attached by false genealogies to the older heroes, and they chanted the adventures of the sons of the former heroes, like the Cyclic poet who sang of the son of Odysseus by Circe. All these conditions are undeniably "true parallels" to "the conditions under which the Homeric poems appeared." The only obvious point of difference vanishes if we admit, with Sir Richard Jebb and M. Salomon Reinach, the possibility ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... divide, and many a pathless mere. First must Trinacrian waters bend the oar, Ausonian waves thy vessels must explore, First must thou view the nether world, where flows Dark Styx, and visit that AEaean shore, The home of Circe, ere, at rest from woes, Thou build the promised walls, and win ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... March greyness, and wondering very much to find himself again at Fellside. He had gone forth from that house full of passionate indignation, shaking off the dust from his feet, sternly resolved never again to cross the threshold of that fateful cave, where he had met his cold-hearted Circe. And now, because Circe was safe out of the way, he had come back to the cavern; and he was feeling all the pain that a man feels who beholds again the scene of a great ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... keen and practised as that of any modern observer. He enjoys with rapture the panoramic splendor of the view from the summit of the Alban hills—from the Monte Cavo—whence he could see the shores of St. Peter from Terracina and the promontory of Circe as far as Monte Argentaro, and the wide expanse of country round about, with the ruined cities of the past, and with the mountain chains of central Italy beyond; and then his eye would turn to the green woods in the hollows beneath, and the mountain ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... offices instead of money, to the greater ruin of the Commonwealth. The Divine in human nature disappears, and interest, greed, and selfishness takes it place. That is a sad and true allegory which represents the companions of Ulysses changed by the enchantments of Circe into swine. ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... to the end be thou of our company, and make this medicine of mine no weaker than the spells of Circe, or of Medea, or of Perimede of ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... right hand a bunch of wonder-working herbs. She will not yield to her new-born love for the Greek enemy Jason, because this love is the most shameful treason to father and people. But to her comes Venus in the form of the sorceress Circe, the sister of Medea's father, irresistibly pleading that she shall go to the alien lover, who waits in the wood. It is the vain resistance of Medea, hopelessly caught in the toils of love, powerless for all her enchantments to resist, ...
— The Earlier Work of Titian • Claude Phillips
... this London, with its society, its worldly clergy, its art, its literature, its luxury, its idle life, all built on the toil of the country and compounded of the sweat of the nameless poor! Oh, this 'Circe of cities,' drawing good people to it, decoying them, seducing them, and then turning them into swine! It seems impossible to live in the world and to be spiritually-minded. When I try to do so ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... a bit absent-mindedly. "No, I don't think it's nice at all to call Miss Flora a 'Vicious Circe.'" It was Flame's turn now to wince back a little. "I—I hate people who hate dogs!" she ...
— Peace on Earth, Good-will to Dogs • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... it is true, that he cared nothing for it, that it was nothing to him, that it never affected him, and all those things that young men always say when the cup of Circe is beginning its work with them. Friends were annoyed, became anxious, remonstrated; but he laughed at their fears, and insisted on knowing himself best. At last, with a sudden start and shiver of ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... fresh, young manhood The bestial veil was flung,— The curse of the wine of Circe, The spell ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... cooped up reminds them of the cave of the Cyclops; Giton hiding from the town-crier under a mattress is compared to Ulysses underneath the sheep and clinging to its wool to escape the eye of the Cyclops, while the woman whose charms engage the attention of Encolpius at Croton bears the name of Circe. It seems to be clear from these reminiscences that Petronius had the epic in mind when he wrote his story, and his novel may well be a direct or an indirect parody of an epic narrative. Rohde in his analysis of the serious Greek romance of the centuries ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... "I once travelled through Illinois when the waters were high; and when I was told that Little Mary would stop me, and that to get by Big Mary was impossible, I supposed them to be attractive damsels, who, like beauteous Circe of old, amused themselves with playing tricks upon travellers. But, lo! instead of blushing, blooming, and melodious maids, I found torrents cold as ice, and boisterous as furies. Mary is too sweet a name ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 374 • Various
... friend. There is the inevitable joke at the expense of "his friend the Mate," that individual being in a towering passion with a certain pig which had escaped from his enclosure. This same pig, he declares, is some previous First Officer, who had been smitten by Circe for incontinence, and now wanders even from his sty! But I cannot go on in this way, for he is dead, poor lad, and I shall not see ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... magnificent views on every side. On the north, looking from the promontory of Antium, the eye follows the line of the coast away to the mouth of the Tiber; while, on the south, the view is terminated, at about the same distance, by the promontory of Circe, which is the second cape, or promontory, that marks the shore of Italy in going southward from Rome. Toward the interior, from Antium, there extends a broad and beautiful plain, bounded by wooded hills toward the shore, and by ranges of mountains in the ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... since solved Napoleon's dilemma: "Dans cinquante ans l'Europe sera republicaine ou cosaque." [1 Within fifty years Europe will be either republican or Cossack.] It found the solution in the "republique cosaque." [2 Cossack republic.] No Circe distorted with wicked charms the work of art of the bourgeois republic into a monstrosity. That republic lost nothing but the appearance of decency. The France of to-day was ready-made within the womb of the Parliamentary republic. All that was wanted was a bayonet thrust, in ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx
... aunt," rejoined Edwin, smiling, "if you do not mean to play Circe to our Ulysses, give ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... your fate, And Venus would destroy you. Tycho Brahe Inspired your royal father with the fear That kept your youth so long in leading-strings, The fear that every pretty hedgerow flower Would be your Circe. So he thought to avenge Our mockery of this peasant-girl Christine, To whom, indeed, he plays the faithful swine, Knowing full well his gold and silver nose Would never win another." Thus the sky Darkened above Uraniborg, and those Who dwelt within it, till one ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes
... filthy surroundings; he looks at you, up to the knees in ooze, out of his little eyes as if he would live in a more cleanly way if he were permitted. Pigs always remind me of the mariners of Homer, who were transformed by Circe; there is a dreadful humanity about them, as if they were trying to endure their base conditions philosophically, waiting for their release.' All this I entreat my critic to lay well to heart before he judges me too severely for ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... than that. In short, one might write a catechism upon it, my lord. There is nothing on all the earth equal to it. No man has, or has had, or will have, anything that can compete with it. Gold could not buy it. I was obliged to seduce the girl that worked it; and then, like Ulysses with Circe, I bound her to perform what task I liked. 'Produce me,' I exclaimed, 'a dressing-gown!' and, ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... to ashes in their sockets!—Were it not a noble end to have seen Zeus, and die like Semele, burnt up by his glory? Happy, thrice happy! though their mind reel from the divine intoxication, and the hogs of Circe call them henceforth madmen and enthusiasts. Enthusiasts they are; for Deity is in them, and they in It. For the time, this burden of individuality vanishes, and recognising themselves as portions of the universal Soul, ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... one still doubt that men may be changed into beasts? Call Lucian, call Apuleius, call Homer, whose story of the companions of Ulysses made swine of by Circe, says Bodin, n'est pas fable. If that arch-patron of sorcerers, Wierus, is still unconvinced, and pronounces the whole thing a delusion of diseased imagination, what does he say to Nebuchadnezzar? Nay, let St. Austin be subpoenaed, who declares that "in his time among the Alps sorceresses ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... there one to counsel otherwise. And then he summoned to go with him the sons of Phrixus, and Telamon and Augeias; and himself took Hermes' wand; and at once they passed forth from the ship beyond the reeds and the water to dry land, towards the rising ground of the plain. The plain, I wis, is called Circe's; and here in line grow many willows and osiers, on whose topmost branches hang corpses bound with cords. For even now it is an abomination with the Colchians to burn dead men with fire; nor is it lawful to place them in the earth and raise a mound ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... send a wire To the moon; And they'll set the Thames on fire Very soon; Then they learn to make silk purses With their rigs From the ears of LADY CIRCE'S Piggy-wigs. And weasels at their slumbers They'll trepan; To get sunbeams from cuCUMbers They've a plan. They've a firmly rooted notion They can cross the Polar Ocean, And they'll find Perpetual ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... misers count their treasures; and you pocket the change for a five uncomputed. Perhaps the brass-bound inaccessibility multiplies her charms—anyhow, she is a shirt-waisted angel, immaculate, trim, manicured, seductive, bright-eyed, ready, alert—Psyche, Circe, and Ate in one, separating you from your circulating medium after ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry |
