"Janus" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... shutting it hastily behind them. But—if we may trust the legend—the gate refused to stay shut. It opened again of its own accord. They closed it twice more, and twice more it swung open. The victorious Sabines, who had now reached it, began to rush in; but just then, from the Temple of Janus, near by, there burst forth a mighty stream of water, which swept the Sabines away and saved Rome from capture. Therefore, in after-days, the gates of the Temple of Janus stood always wide open in time of ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... They had visited the Coliseum, at that period still overhung with ivy garlands and trailing greeneries, and not, as now, scraped clean and bare and "tidied" out of much of its picturesqueness. They had seen the Baths of Caracalla and the Temple of Janus and St. Peter's and the Vatican marbles, and had driven out on the Campagna and to the Pamphili-Doria Villa to gather purple and red anemones, and to the English cemetery to see the grave of Keats. They had also peeped into certain shops, and attended a reception at the American Minister's,—in ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... and Farfar's lovely shades; "With all that Scythian Dian's woody realm "Traverse; and all who haunt the sedgy lakes. "But he, all these despis'd, lov'd one fair nymph, "Whom erst Venilia, fame reports, brought forth "To Janus on Palatiura's mount. When reach'd "The nuptial age, preferr'd before the rest, "Laurentian Picus gain'd the lovely maid. "Wond'rous was she for beauty, wond'rous more "Her art in song, and hence was Canens nam'd. "Wont was her voice ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... on air; the earth softened under his feet, the trees bore flowers; the skies were rosy, the air cerulean, as they are in the temples of Hymen in those fairy pantomimes which finish happily. In such situations every woman is a Janus, and sees behind her without turning round; and thus Modeste perceived on the face of her lover the indubitable symptoms of a love like Butscha's,—surely the "ne plus ultra" of a woman's hope. Moreover, the great value which La Briere attached to her opinion filled Modeste ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... discharged the military duties of his place with vigor and ability. The Persians had invaded Mesopotamia, and threatened Antioch. By the persuasion of his father-in-law, the young emperor quitted the luxury of Rome, opened, for the last time recorded in history, the temple of Janus, and marched in person into the East. On his approach, with a great army, the Persians withdrew their garrisons from the cities which they had already taken, and retired from the Euphrates to the Tigris. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... established, too, we may draw true principles of judgment for the poetry of our own day. A right knowledge and apprehension of the past teaches humbleness and self-sustainment to the present. Showing us what has been, it also reveals what can be done. Progress is Janus-faced, looking to the bygone as well as to the coming; and radicalism should not so much busy itself with lopping off the dead or seeming dead limbs, as with clearing away that poisonous rottenness around the roots, from which the tree ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... Robin's leasings, And Sheridan's perpetual teazings. This box is cramm'd on every side With Stella's magisterial pride. Behold a cage with sparrows fill'd, First to be fondled, then be kill'd. Now to this hamper I invite you, With six imagined cares to fright you. Here in this bundle Janus sends Concerns by thousands for your friends. And here's a pair of leathern pokes, To hold your cares for other folks. Here from this barrel you may broach A peck of troubles for a coach. This ball ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... from its proper soil the tree is moved Which Phoebus loved erewhile in human form, Grim Vulcan at his labour sighs and sweats, Renewing ever the dread bolts of Jove, Who thunders now, now speaks in snow and rain, Nor Julius honoureth than Janus more: Earth moans, and far from us the sun retires Since his dear mistress here no more is seen. Then Mars and Saturn, cruel stars, resume Their hostile rage: Orion arm'd with clouds The helm and sails of storm-tost seamen breaks. To ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... mounted on our shoulders," said a contributor whom Lucien did not know. "You will be the Janus ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... found awaiting him. Antony's son by Fulvia, and Caesarion, son of Caesar and Cleopatra, were put to death; and in 29 B.C., after regulating affairs in Egypt, Greece, Syria, and Asia Minor, Augustus returned to Rome in triumph, and, closing the temple of Janus, proclaimed universal peace. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... infallible guide. I had the opportunity of studying Mr. Gladstone's face carefully when he did me the honour of inviting me to dinner at Downing Street, and I have met him since; but I fancy, after my 'Mrs. Gummidge' cartoon and 'Janus,' I don't deserve to be honoured again! His face has much more character and is much stronger than Mr. Bright's. Mr. Bright had fine eyes and a grand, powerful mouth, as well as an earnest expression; but a weak nose—artistically speaking, no nose ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... they met with a series of mishaps which they laid at the door of an ill-favored man who had vainly tried to become their guide. The disappearance of Janus Grubb, the guide who had been engaged by Miss Elting during their mountain hike, and the surprising events that followed made the story of their mountain trip ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... sons, their wars with curt Kical the bow-legged, and all that relates to the Fomoroh of the Nemedian epoch, then first moving dimly in the forefront of our history. After that, the great Fir-bolgic cycle, a cycle janus-faced, looking on one side to the mythological period and the wars of the gods, and on the other, to the heroic, and more particularly to the Ultonian cycle. In the next place, the immense mass of bardic literature which treats of the Irish gods who, having conquered the Fir-bolgs, ...
— Early Bardic Literature, Ireland • Standish O'Grady
... Janus Lacinius gives in his Pretiosa Margarita the following allegory. In the palace sits the king decorated with the diadem and in his hand the scepter of the whole world. Before him appears his son with five servants and falling at his feet implores him to give the kingdom to him and the servants. ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... less and less account, when facility of communication has given both force and the means of exerting it to the sentiment of civilized mankind, and when commerce has made the banker's strong-box a true temple of Janus, the shutting or opening of which means peace or war. Battles are decisive now not so much by the destruction of armies as by the defeat of public spirit, and a something that has actually happened ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... Knowledge Immortality The Hermit The Great Breath The Divine Vision The Burning Glass A Vision of Beauty Rest The Earth Breath Divine Visitation The Master Singer Aphrodite Illusion Babylon Alter Ego Krishna Symbolism Sung on a By-Way The Hunter The Vision of Love A Call of the Sidhe Janus The Grey Eros The Memory of Earth By the Margin of the Great Deep Three Counsellors, Desire The Place of Rest ...
— The Nuts of Knowledge - Lyrical Poems New and Old • George William Russell
... Janus, a mighty god of the ancient Romans, was represented as having two faces. He could smile ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... be so to have all the dirty work done outside the house. Another attraction was the good views from all the windows; that of the Beuvray, with the plain leading to it; the amphitheatre of Autun, with the intervening wood of noble trees, and beyond it the temple of Janus; the range of the Morvan hills, the fields of golden wheat and waving corn, and the pastures which looked like mysterious lakes in the moonlight when the white mist rose from the marshes and spread all over their surface—endlessly as it seemed. He promised me to plan out a garden, and ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... spread over the last eighty years it has been well said that "to be borne in one world, to die in another, is, in the case of very old people, scarcely a figure of speech," so marvellous is the difference between the surroundings of their cradle and their grave. Standing by the Janus at the portals of the two centuries, what a contrast was presented in the backward and forward views! Backward we have seen, in these glimpses of the past, men struggling with difficulties and passing away with the seed-sowing; forward, we see other men enter ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... by two-headed Janus, Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time; Some that will ever more peep through their eyes, And laugh like parrots at a bagpiper; And others of such vinegar aspect, That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile, Though Nestor swear the ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Urbs, and the herooen of Romulus, son of Maxentius, became a joint church of SS. Cosma and Damiano, during the pontificate of Felix IV. (526-530); the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina was dedicated to S. Lorenzo; the Janus Quadrifrons to S. Dionysius, the hall of the Senate to S. Adriano, the offices of the Senate to S. Martino, the Mamertine prison to S. Peter, the Temple of Concord ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... this side of the Corso, and crossed the Forum, skirting along the Capitoline Hill, and thence towards the Circus Maximus. On our way, looking down a cross street, we saw a heavy arch, and, on examination, made it out to be the Arch of Janus Quadrifrons, standing in the Forum Boarium. Its base is now considerably below the level of the surrounding soil, and there is a church or basilica close by, and some mean edifices looking down upon it. There is something satisfactory in this arch, from the immense solidity of its structure. It ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of the beautiful. I wonder that the ancients, who came so near it in so many ways, never made a goddess of Contrast. They had something like it in ever-varying Future—something like it in double-faced Janus, who was their real 'Angel of the Odd.' Perhaps it is my ignorance which is at fault—if so, I pray you correct me. The subtle Neo-Platonists must have apotheosized such a savor to all aesthetic bliss. Mostly do I feel its charm when there come before me pictures true to life of far lands and ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... specimen of Roman coinage was the as, subdivided almost indefinitely, and originally weighing a pound. This ponderous coin subserved a purpose which our penny does to-day. It had upon the obverse the double-headed Janus, and upon the reverse the keel of a ship, rudely done, but answering the requirements of the light, juvenile gambling known as pitching coppers. Capita aut navem, 'Heads or the ship,' the Roman boys cried, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... affairs was conveyed to Hoogerbeets and Grotius by means of an ingenious device of the distinguished scholar, who was then editing the Latin works of the Hague poet, Janus Secundus. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... mourn'd. Hence weepeth still Sad Cleopatra, who, pursued by it, Took from the adder black and sudden death. With him it ran e'en to the Red Sea coast; With him compos'd the world to such a peace, That of his temple Janus barr'd the door. "But all the mighty standard yet had wrought, And was appointed to perform thereafter, Throughout the mortal kingdom which it sway'd, Falls in appearance dwindled and obscur'd, If one with steady eye and perfect thought On the third Caesar look; for to his hands, ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... air-filled buoy, floats about quite unconcernedly, and plies his fishing-tackle with great success. The analogy between this Oriental buoy and the inflated skins mentioned by Layard and by your correspondent JANUS DOUSA, is sufficiently remarkable ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 66, February 1, 1851 • Various
... Well, the day grows old, gentlemen, and I must leave you. Publius, if thou wilt hold my favour, abandon these idle, fruitless studies, that so bewitched thee. Send Janus home his back face again, and look only forward to the law: intend that. I will I allow thee what shall suit thee in the rank of gentlemen, and maintain thy society with the best; and under these ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... grass did not grow under our feet, it was soon growing over the heads of numbers of the fine fellows who composed the expedition—both redcoats and seamen; and though our captain, receiving notice of his appointment to another ship, the 'Janus,' sailed away immediately, we lost the greater number of our people by sickness. The captain was so knocked up that he had to go home invalided, as did my father, who was never able again to go to sea. I went with him, and we lived ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... Sir Francis Bacon thinks that the Carp lives but ten years: but Janus Dubravius has writ a book Of fish and fish-ponds in which he says, that Carps begin to spawn at the age of three years, and continue to do so till thirty: he says also, that in the time of their breeding, which is in summer, when ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... accordant vibration with the pulsations of common sense amongst a people not wholly fools. That it was thought possible to foster the idea and expand it into a belief, that Stanford, Huntington, the Crockers and Hopkins—Janus faced—looking northerly along monopoly lines, were the implacable enemies of the Crockers, Stanford, Hopkins and Huntington gazing along monopoly lines southerly; and that the interests of the government and the good of the people required ...
— How Members of Congress Are Bribed • Joseph Moore
... off.[102] It might thus easily have been believed that the representation of a god's head had a still more powerful protective influence, especially when it was triplicated, thus looking in all directions, like Janus. ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch |
