"Cuirass" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of his mother, wiped his tearful eyes to see before him in the distance the baton of a marshal. The bold soldier who stormed a battery felt his heart beat more proudly and more securely beneath the cordon of the Legion than behind a cuirass of steel; and to a people in whom the sense of duty alone would seem cold, barren, and inglorious, he had substituted a highly-wrought chivalrous enthusiasm; and by the prestige of his own name, the proud memory of his battles, and the glory of those mighty tournaments at which ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... above, and, offering them solemnly up to the God who feeds the ravens when they call on him, left them there for the wild birds. He watched, fasted, and scourged himself, and wore always a hair shirt and an iron cuirass. He sat, night after night, even in mid-winter, in the cold Wear, the waters of which had hollowed out a rock near by into a natural bath, and afterwards in a barrel sunk in the floor of a little chapel of wattle, which ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... his antagonist a delicate frustrating science. Rotherby, a fine swordsman in his way, soon saw that here was need for all his skill, and he exerted it. But the prodigious rapidity of his blade broke as upon a cuirass against the other's light, ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... either of these questions. He and Andrew (who, in a tattered cloak and with a pair of brogues on his feet, looked like a Highland scarecrow) were soon perceived by the sentries and conducted to the presence of the commanding officer, evidently a man of rank, in a steel cuirass, crossed by the ribband of the Thistle, to whom the others seemed to pay great deference. This proved to be no other than his Grace the Duke of Montrose, who in person had come to conduct the operations ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... shore.—Perdiccas, be it thine To march thy cohorts to the mountain's foot, Where the wood skirts the valley; there make halt Till brave Amyntor stretch along the vale. Ourself with the embodied cavalry Clad in their mail'd cuirass, will circle round To where their camp extends its furthest line; Unnumber'd torches there shall blaze at once, The signal of the charge; then, oh, my friends! On every side let the wild uproar loose, Bid massacre and carnage stalk ...
— The Grecian Daughter • Arthur Murphy
... steed along the bank of the river to come upon Don Alonso by surprise. The back of the warrior was toward him, and, collecting all his force, the Moor hurled his lance to transfix him on the spot. The lance was not thrown with the usual accuracy of Ali Atar: it tore away a part of the cuirass of Don Alonso, but failed to inflict a wound. The Moor rushed upon Don Alonso with his scimetar, but the latter was on the alert and parried his blow. They fought desperately upon the borders of the river, ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... "This is David and Goliath," and as she spoke she pointed with one hand at Villon while with the other she struck with her open palm a ringing blow on the cuirass of Villon's antagonist. "Let them fight it out with sword ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... placed at the head of the table, and attracts our attention first. He is dressed in black velvet, his breast covered with a cuirass, on his head a broad-brimmed black hat with white plumes. He is comfortably seated on a chair of black oak, with a velvet cushion, and holds in his left hand, supported on his knee, a magnificent drinking-horn, surrounded by a St. George destroying the dragon, and ornamented with olive-leaves. ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... to go." "Well, go," replied the professor; "but be wise, Signor Bucciolo—be wise and think more than once what you are about." "Trust me for that," said the scholar, a little piqued: "I shall go well provided, and not walk into the mouth of danger unarmed." And away he went, furnished with a good cuirass, a rapier, and a stiletto in his belt. He was no sooner on his way than the professor slipped out quietly after him, dogging his steps closely, until, trembling with rage, he saw him stop at his own house-door, which, on a ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... has been molded by nature, the best shape is undoubtedly that which she has given it. To endeavor to render it more elegant by artificial means is to change it; to make it much smaller below and much larger above is to destroy its beauty; to keep it cased up in a kind of domestic cuirass is not only to deform it, but to expose the internal parts to serious injury. Under such compression as is commonly practiced by ladies, the development of the bones, which are still tender, does not take place conformably to ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... brought to the front all the qualities of her soul and mind, tenderness, courage, delicacy, pride, modesty, gave her face at the same time an expression so varied, so winning in all its moods, that the grave, sombre assembly of judges let fall the brazen cuirass of impassive integrity and the leaden cope of hypocritical virtue. If Edmee had not triumphantly defended me by her confession, she had at least roused the greatest interest in my favour. A man who is loved by a beautiful ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... Noirmoutier went forth with the cavalry of the Fronde to skirmish with them, and returning to the Hotel de Ville, entered the circle of the Duchess de Longueville, followed by his officers, each wearing his cuirass, as he came from the field. The hall was filled with ladies preparing to dance, the troops were drawn up in the square, and this mixture of blue scarves and ladies, cuirasses and violins and trumpets, ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... most real, Presence wrapping us round! It is only when our faith in it has fallen asleep that any earthly good allures, or any earthly evil frightens us. To be sure, in our thrilling consciousness, that we dwell with Jesus is an impenetrable cuirass that blunts the points of all arrows and keeps the breast that wears it unwounded in the fray. The world has no voices which can make themselves heard above that low sovereign whisper: 'I am with you always, even to the end of the world'—and after the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Over the mould, swarming among the venomous fruit, innumerable crabs make a sound almost like the murmuring of water. Some are very large, with prodigious stalked eyes, and claws white as ivory, and a red cuirass; others, very small and very swift in their movements, are raspberry-colored; others, again, are apple-green, with queer mottlings of black and white. There is an unpleasant odor of decay in the ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... pyramids could take care of themselves. They had seen the plains at their feet covered again and again with hordes of barbarians, and yet had lost not an inch of their height or a stone of their polished cuirass. Even in the temples the setting up of a few fallen columns, the reworking of a few bas-reliefs, the restoration of a painting here and there, was all that was necessary to ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... forward and putting Abenali's work into the master's hand. The Condottiere was in raptures. He pronounced it as perfect a weapon as Gonzalo de Cordova himself could possess; showed off its temper and his own dexterity by piercing and cutting up an old cuirass, and invited the bystanders to let him put it to further proof by letting him slice through an apple placed on the open palm ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... you would come to it in your carriage and four? This, it is unnecessary to add, you have not yet done. You thought likewise that when you came back you would be arrayed in a scarlet coat, possibly in a cuirass of steel; whereas in fact you have come to the little inn where nobody knows you to spend the night, and you are wandering along the bank of the river (how little changed!) in a shooting-jacket of shepherd's ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... a still more singular kind of duel—one between a secutor and a retiarius? The retiarius wears neither helmet nor cuirass, but carries a three-pronged javelin, called a trident, in his left hand, and in his right a net, which he endeavors to throw over the head of his adversary. If he misses his aim he is lost; the secutor then pursues him, sword ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... high, which rested against the side of the tent. The light of the lamp falling upon the polished surface of the weapon—rendered doubly bright by the dark skins behind it—was reflected back upon the figure of the Goth chief. It glowed upon his ample cuirass; it revealed his firm lips, slightly curled by an expression of scornful triumph; it displayed the grand, muscular formation of his arm, which rested—clothed in tightly-fitting leather—upon his knee; it partly brightened over his short, light hair, and glittered steadily ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... with hum and cry. Wherever a group of other trees rose amid the firs, the loud chirp of the chaffinch was heard, or the eager twitter of some little newly-wedded birds, disputing about the position of their nest. The beetle in his black cuirass droned around the buds of the chestnut; at times a wild bee, newly wakened from its winter sleep, came humming by; even brown butterflies fluttered over the bushes, and, wherever the ground sunk ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... penetrating as far as the third oar, and delivered a withering fire from his arquebuses. The Christians had all the advantage of armour and firearms, and fired behind bulwarks; the Turks were unprotected by cuirass or helmet or bulwark, and most of them had bows instead of guns. Colonna's volleys decided the fate of the Fanal, and 'Ali Pasha departed this life. An hour and a half had sufficed to disperse the Ottoman right and to overpower the flagship in chief. When the fleet saw the Christian ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... wore a plain cuirass and gorget so severely simple that it might have been mistaken for the guise of one of Cromwell's officers, ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... the scanty studio of my friend. Dijon and I have sat by the hour, and gazed upon that company of images. The severe, the frisky, the classical, the Louis Quinze, were there—from Joan of Arc in her soldierly cuirass, to Leda with the swan; nay!—and God forgive me for a man that knew better!—the humorous was represented also. We sat and gazed, I say; we criticised, we turned them hither and thither; even upon the closest inspection they looked quite like statuettes; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... pot. Another obsolete name given to a steel cap was a privy pallet, from Fr. palette, a barber's bowl, a "helmet of Mambrino." To a brilliant living monarch we owe the phrase "mailed fist," a translation of Ger. gepanzerte Faust. Panzer, a cuirass, is etymologically a pauncher, or defence for the paunch. We may compare an article of female apparel, which took its name from a more polite name for this part of the anatomy, and which Shakespeare uses even in ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... cuirass protecting the front of the body; brigantine, a jacket quilted with iron (also spelt 'brigandine'); gorget, a metal covering for the throat; mace, a heavy club, plain or spiked, designed ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... Clovis met and with his own hand slew Alaric in the fray; at the moment of striking his blow two Goths fell suddenly upon Clovis, and attacked him with their pikes on either side, but he escaped death, thanks to his cuirass and the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... shock of this fall rushed through their veins like strange blood, hissing as it seemed, and full of scorching sparks. Their pain was like an electric discharge. The loud, heavy step of a man-at-arms sounded on the stairs with the iron clank of his sword, his cuirass, and spurs; a soldier presently stood before ...
— The Exiles • Honore de Balzac
... Smee—Igh art,' says Gandish. 'The models of the hancient Britons in that pictur alone cost me thirty pound—when I was a struggling man, and had just married my Betsey here. You reckonise Boadishia, Colonel, with the Roman elmet, cuirass, and javeling of the period—all studied from the hantique, sir, the ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... live again, And the steel line along the Rhine Shall cuirass thee and all that's thine. France lives—thy ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... the summit, I said to the monk who accompanied me: "Father, how happy you must be here!" And he replied: "It is very windy, Monsieur;" and so we began to talk while watching the rising tide, which ran over the sand and covered it with a steel cuirass. ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... who seemed to be chief of the twain, having entered Mueller's replies in a greasy pocket-book of stupendous dimensions, which he seemed to wear like a cuirass under the breast of his uniform, proceeded to interrogate the proprietor ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... sword and dagger; but to be found with a gun or pistol in the palace, or even in the town, subjected them to a sentence of death. To wear a casque or cuirass was punished with imprisonment. The laws of politeness were equally strict. If one man used insulting words to another, the offense was construed as being given to the king; and the offender was obliged ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... time, too, in good faith, that ye had a soldier at your head,' Decimus Saxon answered quietly. 'My eyes deceive me strangely if I do not see the gleam of sword and cuirass upon the brow of yonder declivity. Methinks our pious exercises have ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... seen some service against the Spaniards in the Netherlands, and after his return had been made a captain in the Lifeguards, and a Gentleman of the Bedchamber. Vandyke has left portraits of the father and the son; the one a bald-headed, alert, precise-looking old warrior, with the cuirass and gauntlets of elder warfare; the other, the very model of a cavalier, tall, easy, and graceful, with a gentle reflecting face, and wearing the long lovelocks and deep point lace collar and cuffs characteristic ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... b-o-u-d-o-i-r,) and was waited upon by handsome pages, and took her airing on a dappled-gray palfrey, attended by trusty and obsequious grooms; when Sir Knight, followed by his sturdy henchmen, rode forth in gay and gaudy attire, with glittering helmet and cuirass, and entered the lists, and bravely fought for his fair lady's fame. She spoke with fervid eloquence, and with a glibness that betrayed a very recent perusal of the tournament-scene in Ivanhoe. I was about to reply, and say something in behalf of modern chivalry; ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... Louvre; like Montluc, who strangled Huguenots with his own hands, or Baligui, the king of Cambrai, who read Machiavel in order to copy the Valentinois, and whose wife went to war on horseback, wearing a helmet and a cuirass. ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert
... the invention of guns, the English archers are spoken of as excelling those of all other nations; and an ancient writer affirms that an English arrow, with a little wax upon its point, would pass through any ordinary corselet or cuirass. It is uncertain how far the archers with the long-bow could send an arrow; but the cross-bowmen could shoot their quarrels to the distance of forty rods, or the eighth part of a mile. For a more general and extended notice of the history of archery, however, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 264, July 14, 1827 • Various
... night. Fourneaux, with twenty men armed to the teeth, knocked fiercely at the commandant's door. Forcing an entrance, they wounded a gentleman who opposed them, and crowded around the sick man's bed. Fourneaux, armed with steel cap and cuirass, held his arquebuse to Laudonniere's breast, and demanded leave to go on a cruise among the Spanish islands. The latter kept his presence of mind, and remonstrated with some firmness; on which, with oaths and menaces, they dragged him from his bed, put ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... opened with a sudden pong, and out there came three ostrich feathers in a gold crown, surrounding a beautiful shining steel helmet, a cuirass, a pair of spurs, finally a complete ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... divine? Was it Alexander III, who defended the Holy See against the Empire, and at last conquered and set his foot on the neck of Frederick Barbarossa? Was it, long after the sorrows of Avignon, Julius II, who wore the cuirass and once more strengthened the political power of the papacy? Was it Leo X, the pompous, glorious patron of the Renascence, of a whole great century of art, whose mind, however, was possessed of so little penetration and foresight ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... lad of some seventeen years, has the lean, veined arms of a stone-hewer or gold-beater. As a faithful portrait of the first Florentine prentice who came to hand, this statue might have merit but for the awkward cuirass and kilt that partly ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... other spoils of war found on the spot, were offered for sale by some boys and eagerly bought up as relics. My brother-in-law made a purchase of a helmet, sword and cuirass, intending to hang it up in his hall. For my part I have seen, and can see no reason whatever to rejoice at this event. I fear it is ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... a large beard but he was not yet old, and he was almost gigantic but thin, with broad shoulders; he wore his hair in a net ornamented with beads; he was dressed in a leather jacket, which was marked by the cuirass, and he wore a belt composed of brass buckles; in the belt he had a knife in a horn scabbard, and at his ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... carabine and commanded me to stand. I obeyed, and when the soldier came up, desired to be conducted to his commanding-officer. I was immediately brought where a circle of officers, sitting upon the grass, seemed in attendance upon one of superior rank. He wore a cuirass of polished steel, over which were drawn the insignia of the ancient Order of the Thistle. My friend Garschattachin, and many other gentlemen, some in uniform, others in their ordinary dress, but all armed and well attended, seemed to receive their orders from this person of distinction. Many ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... bent—the Spaniards raised a shout—Muza seemed stricken from his horse. But the blow of the heavy falchion had not touched him: and, seemingly without an effort, the curved blade of his own cimiter, gliding by that part of his antagonist's throat where the helmet joins the cuirass, passed unresistingly and silently through the joints; and Alonzo fell at once, and without a groan, from his horse—his armour, to all appearance, unpenetrated, while the blood oozed slow and gurgling from ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... battle, he would electrify his soldiers by a motion of his sword. He would climb the walls of a citadel with a knotted rope, at night, rocked by the storm, while sparks of fire clung to his cuirass, and molten lead and boiling ...
— Three short works - The Dance of Death, The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller, A Simple Soul. • Gustave Flaubert
... an utter disregard of danger. The dress of the warriors was magnificent. Their bodies were protected by a vest of quilted cotton, impervious to light missiles, and over this the chiefs wore mantles of gorgeous feather-work, and the richer of them a kind of cuirass of gold or silver plates. Their helmets were of wood, fashioned like the head of some wild animal, or of silver surmounted by plumes of variously coloured feathers, sprinkled with precious stones, beside which they wore many ornaments of gold, and their banners were embroidered ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... with Ansuor Gonzalvez of himself account he gave. Against each other's bucklers the mighty strokes they drave. Was Ansuor Gonzalvez a gallant man of might. Against don Muno Gustioz on the buckler did he smite, And piercing through the buckler, right through the cuirass broke. Empty went the lance; his body was unwounded by the stroke. That blow struck, Muno Gustioz has let his buffet fly. Through the boss in the middle was the buckle burst thereby. Away he could not ward it. Through his cuirass did it dart. Through one ...
— The Lay of the Cid • R. Selden Rose and Leonard Bacon
... never was galleon of Spain Thus freighted, by winds wafted over the Main! There were stuffs, and brocades, and rich laces and blonde; There were Damascene blades, and thy silks Trebisond; There was armor from Milan, both cuirass and helm, Abelards, Eloisas, and Father Anselm: There were jewels, and gold, and the amulet's power, A hero to spout, and to rant by the hour; A lady to love, and be loved, and to faint, As a matter of course, turning pale through ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... was too instant to be termed that. The spider simply was upon the wasp without seeming to go there; but the wasp was not there, or, rather, her vital spot wasn't. She had kicked herself round on her side, like a cart-wheel, lying flat, with her feet, and the spider's jaws struck only hard cuirass. Before the spider, leaping back, wolf-like, could lunge in her lightning second stroke, the wasp was on her feet, a ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... was wearing, so help me, red tights cross-gartered with strips of gold-blue tinsel-cloth, a green doublet gold-trimmed and to top it a ruff, and he was trying to fit onto his front a bright silvered cuirass that would have looked just dandy maybe on one ...
— No Great Magic • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... sit beside her in the dining-room, where a coke fire was burning in the stove. In the lamplight army revolvers and sabres with golden tassels on the sword-knots gleamed upon the wall. They were hung about a woman's cuirass, which was provided with round breast-shields of tin-plate; a piece of armour which Felicie had worn last winter, while still a pupil at the Conservatoire, when taking the part of Joan of Arc at the house of a spiritualistic duchess. An officer's widow and the mother of an actress, ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... a Roman?" I exclaimed. He denied that nationality, and offered me his Roman trappings, cuirass and falchion, saying they would help me to money, riot, violence, and vice in the doomed city; "and," said he, "what else do nine-tenths of mankind ask for ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... and link our time with theirs, when they, too, strove to uphold the honour of their guild and benefit their generation. Many a quaint old-time custom and ceremonial usage linger on within the old halls, and there too are enshrined cuirass and targe, helmet, sword and buckler, which tell the story of the past, and of the part the companies played in national defence or in the protection of civic rights. Turning down some dark alley and entering the portals of one of their halls, we are transported at once from the busy ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... unarm'd, No strength of man or wild beast could withstand; Who tore the lion as the lion tears the kid; Ran on embattl'd armies clad in iron; And, weaponless himself, Made arms ridiculous, useless the forgery Of brazen shield and spear, the hammer'd cuirass, Chalybean temper'd steel, and frock of mail, Adamantean proof; But safest he who stood aloof, When insupportably his foot advanced Spurned them to death by troops. The bold Priamides Fled from his lion ramp; old warriors turn'd Their plated backs under his heel, ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... idea, sentiment, or expression, sets an audience on fire, if I may say so. By the same rule that talent holds the first rank amongst us, it excites considerable envy; Pergolese was assassinated for his Stabat Mater; Giorgione armed himself with a cuirass when he was obliged to paint in public; but the violent jealousy which talent inspires amongst us, is that which, in other nations, gives birth to power. This jealousy does not degrade its object; it may hate, proscribe, and kill, but it is nevertheless ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... hearth, half covered with glasses and bottles, sat two men playing hazard. The dice rang sharply as I entered, and he who had just thrown kept the box over them while he turned, scowling, to see who came in. He was a fair-haired, blonde man, large-framed and florid. He had put off his cuirass and boots, and his doublet showed frayed and stained where the armour had pressed on it. Otherwise he was in the extreme of last year's fashion. His deep cravat, folded over so that the laced ends drooped a little in front, was of the finest; his great sash of ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... excellent sign-post to the inns in Germany, was the true church militant: and his figure was exhibited according to the popular fancy. His head was half mitre and half helmet; a crosier in one hand and a sabre in the other; half a rochet and half a cuirass: he was made performing mass as a dragoon on horseback, and giving out the charge when he ought the Ite, missa est! He was called the converter! and the "Bishop of Munster" became popular as a sign-post in German towns; for the people like fighting men, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... of view, the Venetian Bravi were children in his hands; but when they came quite near to him, one on each side, and spoke slowly and clearly in their determined way, the tremendous Markos felt his bravery shrink within him till it seemed to rattle like a dry pea shaken in a steel cuirass, and the amount of money he actually advanced on the ring was considerable; he even consented to let Gambardella seal the six jars of Samos wine, which formed part of the loan, with the heavy brass seal ring ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... A hundred and fifty thousand men were marshaled on the plain. It was the morning of the 8th of September, 1380. Thousands of banners fluttered in the breeze. The polished armor of the cavaliers, cuirass, spear and helmet, glittered in the rays of the sun. Seventy-five thousand steeds, gorgeously caparisoned, were neighing and prancing over the verdant savanna. The soldiers, according to their custom, ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... from the sea, and those sprung from the earth were soldiers who assisted Psammeticus and Cadmus in carrying out their objects. Bochart's conjecture is strengthened by the fact, that Cadmus was either the inventor of the cuirass and javelin, or the first that brought them into Greece. Without inquiring further into the subject, we may conclude, that the men sprung from the earth, or the dragon's teeth which were sown, were the people of the country, whom Cadmus found means to bring over to his ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... France, and especially the French Revolution. She was a fearless horsewoman, and had been seen facing great dangers at the battle of Jena. When she rode before her troops in her helmet of polished steel, shaded by a plume, in her glittering golden cuirass, her tunic of silver stuff, her red boots with gold spurs, she resembled Tasso's heroines. The soldiers burst into cries of enthusiasm, as they saw their warlike Queen; before her were bowed the flags she had embroidered with her ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... What Philip mentally designated as benches, with deep cushion seats of greenish leather, were arranged about the table. These same curious seats furnished other parts of the room. From the pictures on the walls to the ancient helmet and cuirass that stood up like a legless sentinel in one corner, this room, like the others, breathed of extreme age. Over a big open fireplace, in which half a dozen birch logs were burning, hung a number of old-fashioned weapons; a flintlock, a pair of obsolete French ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood
... symptoms, and by the approaching night, he deployed his men, and closed in overwhelming numbers on the centre and right flank of the insurgent army. In the increasing twilight the burning matches of the firelocks, shimmering on barrel, halbert, and cuirass, lent to the approaching army a picturesque effect, like a huge, many-armed giant ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... mail, like the Egyptian, had commonly a short sleeve, extending about half way down to the elbow. [PLATE CI.. Fig. 1.] This was either composed of scales set similarly to those of the rest of the cuirass, or of two, three, or more rows placed at right angles to the others. The greater part of the arm was ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... victory as should reassure the supremacy of Rome. But Arminius was far too sage a commander to lead on his followers, with their unwieldy broadswords and inefficient defensive armour, against the Roman legionaries, fully armed with helmet, cuirass, greaves, and shield; who were skilled to commence the conflict with a murderous volley of heavy javelins, hurled upon the foe when a few yards distant, and then, with their short cut-and-thrust swords, to hew their ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... figure. What was she to do? Best go back where she had come from. But the sight of the giant in the doorway held her in a spell. He seemed to be lost in revery. He stood gazing out upon the moon-washed landscape, his head tilted slightly forward, his chin propped on his hand. How his golden cuirass gleamed in the moonlight! Something in the way he stood there ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels
... river banks. Upon this fertile tract, which stretched down to the very brink of the sea, the Hippogrif descended; and his feet no sooner touched the ground than Prince Roger leaped from his back, and made fast his bridle to the stem of a spreading myrtle-bush. Then he took off his helmet and cuirass, and went to bathe his face and hands in the cool waters of the brook; for his pulses were throbbing from his swift ride, and he wanted nothing so much as an hour or two of repose. Such rapid flying through ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... my Cid, seeing King Fariz, made towards him, smiting down all who were in his way; and he came up to him, and made three blows at him; two of them failed, but the third was a good one, and went through his cuirass, so that the blood ran down his legs. And with that blow was the army of the Moors vanquished, for King Fariz, feeling himself so sorely wounded, turned his reins and fled out of the field, even to Teruel. And Martin Antolinez, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... friend among the hundred thousand men who filled that plain. If I were wounded, I should be placed in hospital, in the hands of ignorant and careless surgeons. I called to mind what I had heard of operations. My heart beat violently, and I mechanically arranged, as a kind of rude cuirass, my handkerchief and pocketbook upon my breast. Then, overpowered with weariness, my eyes closed drowsily, only to open the next instant with a start at ...
— How The Redoubt Was Taken - 1896 • Prosper Merimee
... in the forging and hammering of steel.[813] Here it was that, by the King's command, the master armourer made Jeanne a suit of mail.[814] The suit he furnished was of wrought iron; and, according to the custom of that time, consisted of a helmet, a cuirass in four parts, with epaulets, armlets, elbow-pieces, fore-armlets, gauntlets, cuisses, knee-pieces, greaves and shoes.[815] The maker had doubtless no thought of accentuating the feminine figure. But the armour of that period, ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... donned sword and cuirass and led out the royal army to the support of the Duke of Mantua, a French nobleman who had inherited an Italian duchy and found his rights disputed by both Spain and Savoy. Louis XIII accompanied Richelieu and showed himself a brave soldier. Their road to Italy ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... told him that he was a prisoner and must come. 'Slay me, rather,' he answered. But Orsini bade him surrender and have no fear. And he yielded himself up, and they took him away through the smoking house, slippery with blood. They found also John Philip Savelli, and they stripped him of the cuirass he wore, and setting their swords to him, bade him cry, 'Long live Orsini!' And he answered, 'I will not say it.' Then they wounded him deep in the forehead and smote off both his hands, and gave him many wounds in face and body, and left him dead. And they plundered ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... very nearly the same diameter as the head and is much longer than those which come after. It forms a sort of cuirass equal in length to almost three abdominal segments. It is squared off in front in a straight line and is rounded at the sides and at the back. Its colour is bright red. The second ring is hardly a third as long as the first. It ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... over Esmond entered the room, where he knew several of the gentlemen present, and there sat my young lord, having taken off his cuirass, his waistcoat open, his face flushed, his long yellow hair hanging over his shoulders, drinking with the rest; the youngest, gayest, handsomest there. As soon as he saw Esmond, he clapped down his glass, and running towards his friend, put ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... our enterprise, and prove, by protecting the oppressed, that tyranny is offensive to thee." To the duke, on the other hand, when intending to go to the church, many omens occurred of his approaching death; for in the morning, having put on a cuirass, as was his frequent custom, he immediately took it off again, either because it inconvenienced him, or that he did not like its appearance. He then wished to hear mass in the castle, and found that the priest who officiated in the chapel had gone to St. Stephen's, and had taken with ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... obstinate and about to insist, when the doors opened and there entered a bevy of staff officers, all green and gold and blue and silver, clustered about a huge man in the full regalia of a general, his crimson plumes nodding above his golden helmet, his crimson cloak dangling about his golden cuirass, his gilt kilt-straps gleaming over his crimson tunic-skirt. There was no mistaking that incredible expanse of face, seemingly as big as the body of an ordinary man, those bleary gray eyes under the shaggy ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... man of great stature, with a fierce, hard face and a bristling black beard, which fell over his cuirass. ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... government of his Holiness is too prudent to go in search of adventures. We are no longer in the days of Julius II., who donned the cuirass, and buckled on the sword of the flesh, and sprang himself into the breach. But why should not the Head of the Church do as Pius V., who sent his sailors with the Spaniards and Venetians to the battle of Lepanto? Why should you ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... his royal dignity should be compromised by failure, never repaired to a siege, till it had been reported to him by the most skilful officers in his service, that nothing could prevent the fall of the place. When this was ascertained, the monarch, in his helmet and cuirass, appeared among the tents, held councils of war, dictated the capitulation, received the keys, and then returned to Versailles to hear his flatterers repeat that Turenne had been beaten at Mariendal, that Conde had been forced to raise the siege of Arras, and that the only ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Cuirassiers were heavy cavalry wearing helmet and cuirass (two plates fastened together for the protection of the breast ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... defensive weapons tells us that to be able to march, maneuver, and fight efficiently in this armor implies that the Athenian soldier is a well-trained athlete. The whole panoply weighs many pounds.[*] The prime parts in the armor are the helmet, the cuirass, the greaves, and the shield. Every able-bodied citizen of moderate means has this outfit hanging in his andronitis, and can don it at brief notice. The HELMET is normally of bronze; it is cut away enough in front to leave the face visible, but sometimes a cautious individual will ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... Unfortunately we know but little of Matilda's personal appearance. Her health was not strong; and it is said to have been weakened, especially in her last illness, by ascetic observances. Yet she headed her own troops, armed with sword and cuirass, avoiding neither peril nor fatigue in the quarrels of her master Gregory. Up to the year 1622 two strong suits of mail were preserved at Quattro Castelli, which were said to have been worn by her in battle, and which were afterwards sold on the market-place at Reggio. This habit of donning armour ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... like soldiers on each side of the wide table aisle, and now I could see that their horny armour covered shoulders and backs, ran across the chest in a knobbed cuirass, and at wrists and heels jutted out into curved, murderous spurs. The webbed hands and feet ended in ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... news of her Grace," she said, "save that she is turning soldier in her old age. She rode out to Tilbury, you know, the other day, in steel cuirass and scarlet; out to see her dear Robin and the army; and her royal face was all smiles and becks, and lord! how the soldiers cheered! But if you had seen her as I did, in her room when she first buckled on her ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... confusion of the permitted and the forbidden, of reason and folly! Art alone, extolled and discussed, stood out boldly from among it all, and I took refuge in it. That is perhaps why I shall never be anything but an artist, a woman apart from others, a poor Amazon with heart imprisoned in her iron cuirass, launched into the conflict like a man, and as a man condemned ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... goes on!" said the man, changing the steel headpiece for a cuirass. "There won't be no trouble. First time your father gets a sight of the mob of tailors, and shoemakers, and tinkers, with an old patch-work counterpane atop of a clothes-prop for their flag, he'll ride along the front of his ridgement of cavaliers, ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... fish of the Chaetodon genus. What riches to our eyes were contained in the canoes of these poor Indians! Broad spreading leaves of Vijao* (* Heliconia bihai.) covered bunches of plantains. The scaly cuirass of an armadillo (Dasypus), the fruit of the Calabash tree (Crescentia cujete), used as a cup by the natives, productions common in the cabinets of Europe, had a peculiar charm for us, because they reminded us ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... there were many holiday-keepers hastening to trains. At the corner of one of the main thoroughfares a crowd partly blocked the road. The cause of it became apparent to us when the head and arched neck of a black charger appeared, and then the white plume and polished cuirass of a Life Guardsman. We stood on a door-step, so that Bella ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... upon and devour all within his reach; the genii of fire shall ride forth, clothed in flame, and lead on the giants to the storming of Asgard. Heimdall sounds his trumpet, which echoes through all worlds; the gods fly to arms; Odin appears in his golden casque, his resplendent cuirass, with his vast scimitar in his hand, and marshals his heroes in battle array. The great ash tree is shaken to its roots, heaven and earth are full of horror and affright, and gods, giants, and heroes are at length buried in one common ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... lay winged bulls, and the king's body-guard-their dress consisting of a gold cuirass under a purple overcoat, and the high Persian cap, their swords in golden scabbards glittering with jewels, and their lances ornamented with gold and silver apples, were stationed in the court of the palace. Among them the band of the "Immortals" was easily to be distinguished by their ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... when elegance invariably gave place to utility. Her headgear dated back to the later Georgian epoch. It consisted mainly of a gauze turban twinkling with jet ornaments. Her bosom was defended by a cuirass of cold-looking steel beads, finished off at the throat by a gigantic brooch, containing the portrait and hair of the late archdeacon. Her skirts were lengthy and voluminous, so that they swept the floor with a creepy rustle like the frou-frou of a brocaded spectre. She wore ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... his right hand on the servant's arm, "take off your cuirass, and wear the uniform ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac
... exhaustive study of all the circumstances. Besides it so happened that the Lord Bishop, allied with the Guelphs of Pisa against the Ghibellines of Florence, was at that moment waging war with such right good will that for a whole month he had not so much as unbuckled his cuirass. And that is why, without saying a word to anyone, Fra Mino made profound researches on the tomb of San Satiro and the Chapel containing it. Deeply versed in the knowledge of books, he investigated many texts, both ancient and modern; ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... horse, with their lances, after they had broken and spent these, they fell to it with their swords. And Alexander, being easily known by his buckler, and a large plume of white feathers on each side of his helmet, was attacked on all sides, yet escaped without a wound, though his cuirass was pierced by a javelin in one of the joinings. And Rhoesaces and Spithridates, two Persian commanders, falling upon him at once, he avoided one of them, and struck at Rhoesaces, who had a good cuirass on, with such force, that his spear breaking in his hand, he was glad to betake himself ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... his comrade Antilochus, whom he dearly loved, and answered him, "Antilochus, I will do as thou sayest: I will give him the bronze cuirass, edged with shining tin, which ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... did it in the following way. He painted a naked man with his back turned, at whose feet was a most limpid pool of water, wherein he painted the reflection of the man's front. At one side was a burnished cuirass that he had taken off, which showed his left profile, since everything could be seen on the polished surface of the piece of armour; and on the other side was a mirror, which reflected the other profile of the naked figure; which was a thing ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... in his front, had made a nightly ride as a ghost, in order to keep the American outposts from advancing, and also to guess, from elevated points, at the strength and disposition of their troops. He wore a cuirass of steel, but that did not protect his ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... thirteen reigns nothing special is noted save attention to civil affairs, occasional conquests, and "a great plague." The twentieth sovereign, called Huascar-Titupac, "gave all the provinces new governors of royal blood, and introduced in the army a cuirass made of cotton and copper." The twenty-first, Manco-Capac-Amauta, "being addicted to astronomy, convened a scientific council, which agreed that the sun was at a greater distance from the earth than the moon, and that they followed different ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... double-soled description, which ought more properly to be called brogues; and into them, on the evening previous to his departure, his father had driven tackets and sparables innumerable, until they became like a plate of iron or a piece of warlike workmanship, resembling the scaled cuirass of a mailed knight in the olden time; "for," said he, "the callant will hae runnin' about on the causeway and plainstanes o' Carlisle sufficient to drive a' the shoon in the world aff his feet." When, therefore, William Sim made his debut ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... falling gauntlet quits the rein, Down drops the casque of steel, The cuirass leaves his shrinking side, The spur his ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... who practise a religious life should always think about 'the body'; if thought upon one's self be absent, then all virtue dies. For as the champion warrior relies for victory upon his armor's strength, so 'right thought' is like a strong cuirass, able to withstand the six sense-robbers. Right faith enwraps the enlightened heart, so that a man perceives the world throughout is liable to birth and death; therefore the religious man should ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various |
