"Jester" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to herd with the artificial nobility of an hereditary peerage. We also take the opportunity of regretting that Tennyson ever became Poet Laureate. The court poet should not survive the court dwarf and the court jester. It is painful to see a great writer grinding out professional odes, and bestowing the excrements of his genius on royal nonentities. The preposterous office of Poet Laureate should now be abolished. No poet should write for a clique or a coterie; he ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... caste of story-tellers and buffoons. The name is derived from the Sanskrit Bhanda, a jester, and the caste are also known as Naqqal or actor. Only a trifling number of Bhands are shown by the census as belonging to the Central Provinces. Mr. Crooke remarks: "The Bhand is sometimes employed in the courts of Rajas and native gentlemen ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... a general smile of incredulity among the warriors, for Wapoota was well known to be a time-server: nevertheless they were mistaken, for the jester was ...
— The Madman and the Pirate • R.M. Ballantyne
... seldom the most imperturbable good-nature. Sometimes he fell into a true artistic zeal, forgot the dignity of the reformer, and pinched like a German peasant boy, even like a malicious goblin. What blows he gave to all his opponents, now with a club, wielded by an angry giant, now with a jester's bauble! He liked to twist their names into ridiculous forms, and thus they lived in Wittenberg circles as beasts, or as fools. Eck became Dr. Geck; Murner was adorned with the head and claws of ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... from the pressure of debt, discreet as a tomb out of which nought issues to contradict the epitaph intended for the passer's eye, bold and fearless when soliciting, good-natured and witty in all acceptations of the word, a timely jester, full of tact, knowing how to compromise others by a glance or a nudge, shrinking from no mudhole, but gracefully leaping it, intrepid Voltairean, yet punctual at mass if a fashionable company could be met ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... clearly, like those of Oenomaus, that the religious reaction did not run its course without criticism from certain sides; but even here it is significant that the criticism comes from a professional jester and not from ...
— Atheism in Pagan Antiquity • A. B. Drachmann
... life of a royal jester beset with great dangers, and the king having once gotten it into his royal head that I was a wizard, it was not long before I again fell into trouble, from which my wit did not a second time in ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... poor devils who may have killed a man and licenses creatures who despatch, medically speaking, a dozen young folks in a season. Morality is powerless against a dozen vices which destroy society and which nothing can punish.—Another cup!—Upon my word of honor! man is a jester dancing upon a precipice. They talk to us about the immorality of the Liaisons Dangereuses, and any other book you like with a vulgar reputation; but there exists a book, horrible, filthy, fearful, corrupting, which is always open and will never be shut, the great book of ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... and a long jangling argument ensued, during which Beatrice, although she knew he had so well approved his valour in the late war, said that she would eat all he had killed there: and observing the prince take delight in Benedick's conversation, she called him "the prince's jester." This sarcasm sunk deeper into the mind of Benedick than all Beatrice had said before. The hint she gave him that he was a coward, by saying she would eat all he had killed, he did not regard, knowing himself to be a brave man; but there is nothing that great wits so much dread as the ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... in to see the invalid upon Janet's invitation. They found Bobby Hargrew there before them. Harum-scarum as Bobby was, nobody could accuse her of lack of sympathy; and she had already learned that her fun and frolic pleased the invalid. Bobby did not mind playing the jester for her friends. ...
— The Girls of Central High Aiding the Red Cross - Or Amateur Theatricals for a Worthy Cause • Gertrude W. Morrison
... observation as a serious compliment; but Cedric, who better understood the Jester's meaning, darted at him a severe and menacing look; and lucky it was for Wamba, perhaps, that the time and place prevented his receiving, notwithstanding his place and service, more sensible marks of his ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... the clerical forces to hail James Tissot as an evangelical painter. His Life of Christ is one of the least religious works conceivable, for, in fact, it might be regarded as a hesitating paraphrase of the Life of Jesus as narrated by that cheerful apostate and terrible jester, Renan. ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... prevent misunderstanding, it was shown in the pains taken by Shakespeare to obviate the misconstruction which would impute to Falstaff the quality of a Parolles or a Bobadil, a Bessus or a Moron. The delightful encounter between the jester and the bear in the crowning interlude of La Princesse d'Elide shows once more, I may remark, that Moliere had sat at the feet of Rabelais as delightedly as Shakespeare before him. Such rapturous inebriety or Olympian incontinence of humour only fires the blood of the graver and ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... the town to inhabitants of the town, they always said to me: "Oh, all that you have seen is nothing. You ought to see the Khitroff market-place, and the lodging-houses for the night there. There you would see a regular 'golden company.'" {1} One jester told me that this was no longer a company, but a GOLDEN REGIMENT: so greatly had their numbers increased. The jester was right, but he would have been still more accurate if he had said that these people now form in Moscow ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi
... at the court of Denmark, whose skull Hamlet apostrophises in the churchyard; also a sinister jester in ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... nicknamed Janus, or the Double-faced, of Danish—or, as some maintained, Jewish—extraction, and the mad Prince L. Contrary to what was customary in those days, the dwarf did nothing to amuse the master or mistress, and was not a jester—quite the opposite; he was always silent, had an ill-tempered and sullen appearance, and scowled and gnashed his teeth directly a question was addressed to him. Alexey Sergeitch called him a philosopher, and positively respected him; at ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... They had been given to her when she was six years old. Tat had died. But Tit. I knew Tit? Did I not? No one could spend an hour in Mansfield Court without making the acquaintance of the ancient thing on the hearthrug, with the shape of a woolly lamb and the eye of a hawk and the smile of a Court jester. Besides, I had known him since he was a puppy. I, moi qui parle, had been the donor of Tit and Tat. I reminded her. I was a stupid. As if she didn't know. But I was to confirm her right to dispose of the pups. I confirmed it solemnly. ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... evidence that her reading has lain much among the old poets, and that Shakspeare is one of her most favourite ones. "Triboulet," the king's jester, may be instanced as an example of this; and "Margaret of Valois" furnishes another. "Francoise de Foix" is a more original conception; timid, yet fond, sacrificing her honour to save her brother's life, but rendered wretched by remorse; and not able to endure the presence of ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... secret troubles to her. For this unwieldy jester, with the jolly red face and rough tongue, could touch the heart with a word, when she was in the humour. Then she spoke so wisely and kindly that the tears gathered in stubborn eyes, and the ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... another - and that other himself, who had insulted him! With the generosity of youth, Archie was instantly under arms upon the other side: had instantly created a new image of Lord Hermiston, that of a man who was all iron without and all sensibility within. The mind of the vile jester, the tongue that had pursued Duncan Jopp with unmanly insults, the unbeloved countenance that he had known and feared for so long, were all forgotten; and he hastened home, impatient to confess his misdeeds, impatient to throw himself on the ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... audacious words the guests sprang up in anger and drew their swords to slay the man who dared speak thus to the King, but the angel answered calmly: "Thou art not the King, but henceforth thou shalt be the king's jester and wear cap and bells and motley. As counselor thou shalt lead an ape, and thou shalt obey my servants and ...
— The Children's Longfellow - Told in Prose • Doris Hayman
... there's a poet with closely cropped hair, Or a sporting man quiet in dress; Now and then there's a lady from Boston who's fair, Now and then there's a fetterless press; Now and then there's a laugh that a jester may coax, A librettist may put on his page— But they're terribly rare in American ...
— Tobogganing On Parnassus • Franklin P. Adams
... when it matters not, Nor where, but mark! the sun was plaguy hot Falling athwart a long and dusty road In which same dust two dusty fellows strode. One was a tall, broad-shouldered, goodly wight In garb of motley like a jester dight, Fool's cap on head with ass's ears a-swing, While, with each stride, his bells did gaily ring; But, 'neath his cock's-comb showed a face so marred With cheek, with brow and lip so strangely scarred As might scare tender maid or timid child Unless, by chance, ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... poets of the age of Elizabeth, still excite the admiration of every student attached to the early literature of our country. Amongst other frivolous charges brought against him on his trial, it was mentioned that he kept an Italian jester, thought to be a spy, and that he loved to converse with foreigners and conform his behaviour to them. For his personal safety, therefore, it was perhaps unfortunate that a portion of his youth had been passed in a visit to Italy, then the focus of literature and fount of ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... not at the name, for it was familiar to him, but at the mere mention of the person who bore it and who was the King's dwarf jester, Miguel de Antona, commonly known by his classic nickname. "Bring Adonis here—he is ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford
... little legs, so that he was sorely tried to keep pace with me. Yet who would not have been in haste, urged by such a spur as had I? Here, then, was the end of my shameful travesty. To-morrow a soldier's harness should replace the motley of a jester; the name by which I should be known again to men would be that of Lazzaro Biancomonte, and no longer Boccadoro—the Fool of the ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... sufficiently complex in color, passion and character to furnish material for an exciting spectacular representation. The tragic element is strong, but supported and shaded by the company of roysterers, a jester, whose foolery is a compound of bluff of that period and bluff of modern politics and athletics. The jester, the black company and the penitents, together with the roysterers, form now the foreground, now the background, of action, which in itself is never without the ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... as leading a triumphal march enthroned on a wine-press, wreathed with vine leaves and drawn with grape vines by jolly vintagers of every age and sex. Behind follow as chamberlains a band of coopers, a jester dancing on a cask, and a troop of gay youths full of all "quips and cranks and youthful wiles." Then come, represented by most happily conceived figures, the German rivers on whose shores are the world-famous vineyards whose ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... incidents of this tale, yet one of those may be accepted as proof of its Eastern extraction, namely, the Cyprian story of "Three Eyes," where the ogre attempts to rescue his wife with a party of blacks concealed in bales: "The King's jester went downstairs, in order to open the bales and takes something out of them. Directly he approached one of the sacks, the black man answered from the inside,'Is it time, master?' In the same manner he tried all the ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... Jester and jolly fellow, he keeps on good terms with all political opinions, and is patriotic to the bottom of his soul. A capital mimic, he knows how to put on, turn and turn about, the smiles of persuasion, satisfaction, and good-nature, or drop them for the normal ...
— The Illustrious Gaudissart • Honore de Balzac
... particularly, their military side. He exhibits their large, showy aspects: battles, processions, hunts, feasts in hall, tourneys,[46] sieges, and the like. The motley mediaeval world swarms in his pages, from the king on his throne down to the jester with his cap and bells. But it was the outside of it that he saw; the noise, bustle, colour, stirring action that delighted him. Into its spiritualities he did not penetrate far; its scholasticisms, strange casuistries, shuddering ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... master and the last—is gone, but it has taken some stiffness with it. Some—indeed a good deal—of the piquancy of the later is not yet apparent; but its absence implies, and is more than compensated by, the concomitant absence of those airs and flings, those interludes as of an academic jester, in cap and gown and liripipe instead of motley, which have been charged, not quite unjustly, on the Arnold that we know best. There is hardly in English a better example of the blending and conciliation of the two modes of argumentative writing referred to in Bishop Kurd's acute ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... her?"—But the Tsarevich said, "Whoever will tell me who this great lady is, to him will I give a sack-load of gold ducats!"—Then they inquired and inquired, and laid all their heads together, but nothing came of it. But the Tsarevich had a jester who was always with him, and used always to jest and cut capers whenever this child of the Tsar was sad. So now, too, he began to laugh at the young Tsarevich and say to him, "I know how to find out who this ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous
... is a great potentate, which is true enough. But he requests that you acknowlege him the greatest living ambassador! Honestly, your majesty, he has great skill as a jester, which I take it is why ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... Mantua, the Duke and his suite, and the only member of his household who dared do as he pleased was the Duke of Mantua's jester, Rigoletto. The more deformed a jester happened to be, the more he was valued in his profession, and Rigoletto was a very ugly little man, and as vindictive and wicked as he was ill-favoured in appearance. The only thing he truly ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... her knight for a merry jester, was yet half inclined to believe his account of the forest dwellers, and she looked with added interest upon the blushing Dolly. Master Morgan was quite ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... joysome wit, spiced with anecdotes of prison cells and the torture chamber. Oh, a very delicate wit! I have tried it on many a prisoner, and there have been some who smiled. Now it is not easy to make a prisoner smile. And it should not be difficult to be a good jester, seeing that ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... quilt anecdote, typically oriental, which contains a bit of true philosophy. It seems that the hero, Nass-ed-Din Hodja, was a Turkish person who became chief jester to the terrible Tamerlane during his invasion of Asia Minor. He was also the hero, real or imaginary, of many other stories which originated during the close of the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth centuries. His tomb is still shown at Akshekir. ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... rather than the gloss of novelty (though other gloss there was), characterised the garments of the men. The toilettes of the women were modest; that amount of praise (and it is a good deal) they deserved. A young lady, Miss Maskelyne, an amber-hued beauty, who practically lived as a female jester at the houses of the great, shone resplendent, indeed, but magnificence of apparel was demanded ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... evening I went to the durbar to wait upon the king, where I met the Persian ambassador with the first muster of his presents. He seemed a jester or juggler, rather than a person of any gravity, continually skipping up and down, and acting all his words like a mimic player, so that the Atachikanne was converted as it were into a stage. He delivered all his presents with his own hand, which the king ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... thickets and glens, who have abated the cruelty of priests, the pride of nobles, the divinity of kings in former times: to whom we owe it, that we no longer wear round our necks the collar of Gurth the swineherd, and of Wamba the jester; that the castles of great lords are no longer the dens of banditti, whence they issue with fire and sword to lay waste the land; that we no longer expire in loathsome dungeons without knowing the cause, or have ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... Lomelyn, Jester to Henry VIII., By Edward F. Rimbault Marlowe and the Old Taming of a Shrew Beetle Mythology Churchwardens' Accounts of St. Margaret's, Westminster, by Rev. M. Walcott Notes on Cunningham's London, by E.F. Rimbault Old Painted Glass Aelfric's Colloquy, by S.W. Singer Logographic Printing Memorial ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.26 • Various
... roads, by me possessed, He shambles forth in cosmic guise; He is the Jester and the Jest, And he ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... we know best are those of old Judge Phoenix—for so the office-jester named him when we first moved in, and we have known him by that name ever since. He is a fat old Irishman, with a clean-shaven face, who stands summer and winter in the side doorway that opens, next to the little grocery ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... old terms signifying a fool or idiot. Patch was the favourite jester of Henry the Eighth, whose name was used as synonymous ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... Tales? Those are not for children: Chaucer was a jester. You had better take my book. It has beautiful pictures." The young Percy took the little breviary, and, going down the path as though they sought the shade, they both quietly disappeared ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... little unsatisfying the elaboration of scenic description and mediaeval pageantry is conscientious in the extreme, and the laughter which followed the malicious pranks of Gangogo, the professional jester of the tourney, must, if I am to take the author's word for it, have made the glaciers ring. There is a great deal in the way of philosophy and psychology that is very baffling in this book, but of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 8th, 1920 • Various
... although she knew be had so well approved his valor in the late war, said that she would eat all he had killed there; and observing the prince take delight in Benedick's conversation, she called him "the prince's jester." This sarcasm sank deeper into the mind of Benedick than all Beatrice had said before. The hint she gave him that he was a coward, by saying she would eat all he bad killed, he did not regard, knowing himself to be a brave man; but there is nothing that great wits so much dread ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... summon the Wazir and bade him betroth the man to a woman of righteous conduct and come of decent folk. Now the Minister had with him an old nurse, and he commanded her to find a match for the Sultan's Jester; whereupon she rose and went out from him and engaged for the man a beautiful woman. And presently the marriage-tie was tied between these twain and he went in unto the bride and she tarried with him a while of time even half a year or may be ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... were, for that matter, the whole Court) always found means to throw him out of favour again. The celebrated Archie Armstrong offered Sir Mungo, in his generosity, a skirt of his own fool's coat, proposing thereby to communicate to him the privileges and immunities of a professed jester—"For," said the man of motley, "Sir Mungo, as he goes on just now, gets no more for a good jest than just the king's pardon for having ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... Denderis, surprised the Empress Theodora in her private chamber kissing eikons and placing them over her eyes. 'What are these things?' he inquired. 'My beautiful dolls which I love,' she replied. Not long afterwards the jester was summoned to amuse Theophilus while sitting at table. 'What is the latest news?' asked the emperor. 'When I last visited "mamma" (the jester's familiar name for the empress) I saw most beautiful dolls in her room.' Instantly the emperor rose, beside himself with rage, and rushing to his wife's ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen
... really deserve thanks?' asked De Stancy. 'I wish I deserved a reward; but I must bear in mind the fable of the priest and the jester.' ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... the sorry tragedy in his voice that contrasted so sharply with the banality of his words. He felt that he was but a pitiful jester who was like a clown, compelled to play a merry part when there was anguish in his mind. But—he ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... the table of Mac Strann made a speech to the effect that Elkhead had everything it needed except laughter, that Mac Strann had come to their assistance in that respect, and that if he, the old man, had the power, he would pension such an efficient jester and keep him permanently in the town. To all of this Mac Strann paid not the slightest heed, but with his fleshy brow puckered considered the infinite distance. Even the drink which Pale Annie, grateful for the averted riot, placed on the table before ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... souvenir of that other gracious and graceful dandy, king of fashion in his day, the count D'Orsay. It was at a breakfast at Tortoni's that the preliminaries were arranged for the famous duel wherein D'Orsay appeared as the champion of the Virgin Mary. Some irreverent jester having made some slighting remark respecting the Virgin, D'Orsay took the matter up and called the speaker to account. "For," said the count, "the Virgin is a woman, and as such ought not to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... very admirable subordinate character, He is the jester of the piece: yet one speech of his, in his own defence, contains a whole volume ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... carpeted the cold floor. Stirring tales of love and warfare gathered little knots of listeners; wandering minstrels sought hospitality, and repaid it in songs and rhymes; the beef and the bowl went round; my lord's jester made his privileged way into every circle in turn, and cracked his jokes at everybody's expense; and pretty Bess, my lady's maid, peeped in at the open door, just in time to join in the laugh ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... 1733. He was a staunch Loyalist till the end of his days, as were his daughters, who lived till 1837. His chief fame does not rest on his name as a clergyman or an author, but as an inveterate and unmerciful jester. ...
— Diary of Anna Green Winslow - A Boston School Girl of 1771 • Anna Green Winslow
... a merry jangle of bells in the air, an all-pervading sense of jester's noise, and the flaunting vividness of royal colors; the streets swarm with humanity,—humanity in all shapes, manners, forms,—laughing, pushing, jostling, crowding, a mass of men and women and ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... probably to Archibald Armstrong, the fool or privileged jester of Charles I., usually called Archy, who had a quarrel with Archbishop Laud, and of whom many arch things are on record. There is a little jest-book, very high priced, and of little worth, which bears the ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... into a jovial laugh. "You are coming round all right; that is the first joke you have got off since we came here; his royal Nibs may need a court-jester and ...
— The Land of the Changing Sun • William N. Harben
... me, and begged me to take a Pheasant pye to a gentleman who had been his constant shooting companion." Records, Sicily, vol. 97. Ferdinand was the last sovereign who habitually kept a professional fool, or jester, in attendance ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... been, by common consent, placed at the head of modern wits. When kings were kings, they bullied, beat, and and brow-beat their jesters. Now and then they treated them to a few years in the Tower for a little extra impudence. Now that the people are sovereign, the jester fares better—nay, too well. His books or his bon-mots are read with zest and grins; he is invited to his Grace's and implored to my Lord's; he is waited for, watched, pampered like a small Grand Lama, and, in one sentence, the greater the fool, ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... woeful shock to the gleeman MacConglinne, could that friend of kings have beheld him in prophetic vision from the pillar stone at Cork. And yet though the short cloak and the leather wallet were no more, he was a true gleeman, being alike poet, jester, and newsman of the people. In the morning when he had finished his breakfast, his wife or some neighbour would read the newspaper to him, and read on and on until he interrupted with, "That'll do—I have me meditations"; and from these meditations would come the day's store of ...
— The Celtic Twilight • W. B. Yeats
... in the harbour let loose the old jester again. "A friend of mine," said he, "pilot of a vessel almost as fast a sailer as my own, which is acknowledged to be the best in these seas, was bound to Mocha with camels on board. When off the high table-land betwixt ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... subject to change than the fashion of a jest, and that jokes that make one generation laugh seem insipid to the next. But there is something perennial in the fun of Rabelais, whom Bacon called "the great jester of France," and though the puns of Shakespeare's clowns are detestable the clowns themselves have not lost their power ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... called for so many ingredients, that the doctor had nearly expired when the list was presented to him. In addition to all these, arrived the king's band of singers and musicians, and the Luti Bashi (jester in chief) accompanied by twenty lutis, each with a drum hanging over ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... meaning of this jester's question, a titter of laughter swept over it like a ripple over the face of a pond. The chairman, also rising with a smile, said: "Really, I do not think it necessary to put that query to my friend here, seeing that for nearly twenty years he has been recognised ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... that bears for winding-sheet The Stars and Stripes he lived to rear anew, Between the mourners at his head and feet, Say, scurrile jester, is ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... In the Middle Ages kings and noblemen had in their courts jesters to make sport for the company; as every one then wore a dress indicating his rank or occupation, so the jester wore a cap hung with bells. The fool of Shakespeare's plays is the king's jester at ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... awkwardness when we speak to a lord. And, besides this social equality, there is a family equality too. In England old people enjoy fun, but it is held to be indecorous in them to afford amusement to others. A Palmerston may be a jester at eighty, but the jest must never go beyond words. But in an Italian Carnival the old claim just as much a part in the fun as the young. Grandfathers and grandmothers think it the most natural thing in ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... I do not also die hard," I replied, stepping out of the way of an idiot lad, who, dressed as a jester in Walker's colours, was sitting on a horse whose progress was blocked by the crowd, which ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... had been living with us had married,—Nellie, to A. C. Jester, a cattle man, and May, to Ed. Bradford, a railroad engineer—and consequently left us; and my wife had been wishing for a long time to visit her parents in St. Louis. Taking these and other things into consideration I finally resolved to resign my seat in the legislature and try my luck behind ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody
... mingle the two feelings as he and the audience experience them. Taking his cue from the tone of the occasion he must fit his remarks to that mood. He may be as bright and sparkling and as amusing as a refined court jester. He may be as impressive and serious as a judge. The treatment must ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... all the evening for opportunities of letting off his jokes, which were always applauded longest and loudest by himself. My comical neighbour's name, I afterwards learned, was Bayles; he was the licensed jester of the club; he had been a punster from his youth; and it was his chief boast that he had joked himself into the best society and out of the largest fortune of any ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 4, 1841 • Various
... sense laughter is a "correction." Whether one considers the jests uttered, the feelings of the jester, or of him at whom one jests, laughter appears from the point of view of morality as a correction most often undeserved, unjust—or at least disproportionate to ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... and very different side to Stevenson which struck others more than it struck myself, namely, that of the freakish or elvish, irresponsible madcap or jester which sometimes appeared in him. It is true that his demoniac quickness of wit and intelligence suggested occasionally a "spirit of air and fire" rather than one of earth; that he was abundantly given to all kinds of quirk and laughter; and that there ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Frederick stood before them. For it has been already mentioned, that he left the chamber in which the family council was held, by a small private door which led down to this portion of the castle. Here he was looking about for his court-jester, Clas Hinze, to bid him order the carriages to convey him and his suite that very night to Freienwald, and by chance opened this very door which led out ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... singers to be heard. When it was over it was announced that Hal Macy had carried off the role of the poor, neglected son, which was in reality the male lead. The Crane was selected for the king, while freckle-faced Daniel Seabrooke was chosen for the jester, greatly to his delight and surprise. There was an emphatic round of applause when Professor Harmon announced that Constance Stevens had been selected to sing the Princess. Ellen Seymour captured the role of the queen, and to Mignon La Salle was ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... is," he muttered. "It's Wamba, son of Witless, the Jester of Ivanhoe. I've been trying to catch him for seventy-two years, and if ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... "we English have eyes as well as hands; but it is only when discharging our duty that we permit our tongues to dwell on what we have observed. I noted but little of this man's conversation, but from what I heard, it seemed he was not unwilling to play what we call the jester, or jack-pudding, in the conversation, a character which, considering the man's age and physiognomy, is not, I should be tempted to say, natural, but assumed for some purpose ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... jolly old fellow was King Marshmallow As ever wore a crown! At every draught of wine he quaffed, And at every joke of his jester he laughed, Laughed till the tears ran down— O, he laughed Ha! Ha! and he laughed Ho! Ho! And every time that he laughed, do you know, The Lords in waiting they did ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... My self? my conscience and internal peace. Can they think me so broken, so debas'd With corporal servitude, that my mind ever Will condescend to such absurd commands? Although thir drudge, to be thir fool or jester, And in my midst of sorrow and heart-grief To shew them feats, and play before thir god, 1340 The worst of all indignities, yet on me Joyn'd with extream ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... address, Nicholas recognised the king's jester, Archie Armstrong, a merry little knave, with light blue eyes, long yellow hair hanging about his ears, and a sandy beard. There was a great deal of mother wit about Archie, and quite as much shrewdness ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... ferociously sincere person can produce such effective flippancies on a matter like war; just as only a strong man could juggle with cannon balls. It is all very well to use the word "fool" as synonymous with "jester"; but daily experience shows that it is generally the solemn and silent man who is the fool. It is all very well to accuse Mr. Shaw of standing on his head; but if you stand on your head you must have ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... friends, how strange and unnatural they seemed. Their most intimate friends would scarcely have recognized them. Margaret was a fat, jolly Falstaff, stuffed out to immense proportions. Edith was entirely disguised as a jester and enjoyed her own quips immensely when she tapped a visitor on the shoulder with her bauble and said, "Good morrow, fair maid, ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed
... and the inscriptions, have thrown an unexpected light on the life of antiquity. We can even read the passing conceits scribbled on the walls. At one corner a house is offered for hire from July I—"intending tenants should apply to the slave Primus." On another a jester advises an acquaintance: "Go and hang thyself." A citizen writes of a friend: "I have heard with sorrow that thou art dead—so adieu!" Another wall bears the following warning: "This is no place for idlers; go away, good-for-nothing." It is curious to read the ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... decide the religion of the people. The true religion is but the religion of the prince; the true God is the God whom the prince wishes them to worship; the will of the priests who govern the prince, always becomes the will of God. A jester once said, with reason, that "the true faith is always the one which has on its side 'the prince ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... succeed as a jester, you'll need To consider each person auricular: What is all right for B would quite scandalize C (For C is so very particular); And D may be dull, and E's very thick skull Is as empty of brains as a ladle; While F is ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert
... Robert answered, with a sneer, "I am the King, and come to claim my own From an impostor, who usurps my throne!" And suddenly, at these audacious words, Up sprang the angry guests, and drew their swords; The Angel answered, with unruffled brow, "Nay, not the King, but the King's Jester, thou Henceforth shalt wear the bells and scalloped cape, And for thy counsellor shalt lead an ape; Thou shalt obey my servants when they call, And wait upon my ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... he read me a lecture, and told me how it really stood with you financially. He was pretty serious; fearing, as I could not help perceiving, that I should take too light a view of the responsibility and the service (I was always thought too light - the irresponsible jester - you remember. O, QUANTUM MUTATUS AB ILLO!) If I remember rightly, the money was repaid before the end of the week - or, to be more exact and a trifle pedantic, the sennight - but the service has never been forgotten; and I send you back this piece of ancient history, CONSULE PLANCO, as a salute ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... chests as nature bade them. But this man—who can make you laugh, who can make you cry, too—never lets his reader alone, or will permit his audience repose: when you are quiet, he fancies he must rouse you, and turns over head and heels, or sidles up and whispers a nasty story. The man is a great jester, not a great humourist. He goes to work systematically and of cold blood; paints his face, puts on his ruff and motley clothes, and lays down his carpet ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... more natural had they been a paler shade of scarlet. Thus disguised, he crept softly down the Opera House Building stairs and ran full into Billy Getz, Riverbank's best example of the spoiled only-son species, and the town's inveterate jester. Mr. Getz put a ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... jester, incorrigible farceur!" cried Barbican with a smile; "you want no nitrous oxide to put a bee in your bonnet! He is always as bad as you and I were for a short time, M'Nicholl, under the laughing gas! He's never had a sensible ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... great D'Artagnan, yet I march under the flag of the Sieur Bussy d'Amboise, a proud Clermont, of blood royal in the reign of Henry III., who shed luster upon a court that was edified by the wisdom of M. Chicot, the "King's Brother," the incomparable jester and philosopher, who would have himself exceeded all heroes except that he despised the actors and the audience of the world's theater and performed valiant feats only that he might hang his cap and bells upon the achievements ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... you go. There is more of you than I thought, my boy. In May I knew you had a heart; but one who heard you in the woods would have set you down just for a kindly, practical man of the world. Last night, and most of the time to-day, you were the trifler, the incorrigible jester. Why do you belie yourself so and hide your inmost self from ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... be tied firmly and well, for some jester might try to pull away that of Pierre, and if his face were seen, it would be death—a slaughter without defense, for he had not been able to conceal his big Colt in these tight-fitting clothes. Even as it was, there was ...
— Riders of the Silences • Max Brand
... but before the light disappeared, black eyes flashed hate at the jester, and Gallagher, himself, two horses ahead, turned in the saddle and told the taunter to shut his mouth, observing at the same time that "some guys didn't know a decent ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... it, there is no thought of monotony. Sometimes it injects laughter, sometimes horror, into tragedy. It will bring Romeo face to face with the apothecary, Macbeth with the witches, Hamlet with the grave-diggers. Sometimes it may, without discord, as in the scene between King Lear and his jester, mingle its shrill voice with the most sublime, the most dismal, the dreamiest music ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... stranger had mentioned these notables with no especial emphasis on the names; but instead, quite casually and in a manner which carried with it the impression that such noted folk as Mrs. Denton and her distinguished father, and Freddy Urb the court jester of the innermost holies of holies of Newport and Bar Harbor and Palm Beach, and Mrs. Gordon-Tracy, the famous beauty, were of the sort with whom customarily he associated. Plainly here was a gentleman who not ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... physical shape of the arms, but the feeling of the burden under which the man was bending; and by lengthening the arms he has succeeded in conveying, as mere accuracy could not express it, the sensation of weight and muscular strain. In Hals' picture of the "Jester" the left hand is sketched in with a few swift strokes of the brush. But so, it "keeps its place" in relation to the whole; and it is more nearly right than if it had been made the centre of attention and had been drawn with the most meticulous precision. The ...
— The Gate of Appreciation - Studies in the Relation of Art to Life • Carleton Noyes
... Buonespoir, the pirate, was to him reality and the actual, and he called him Bono Publico. At first Lempriere, ever jealous of his importance, was inclined to treat him with elephantine condescension; but he could not long hold out against the boon archness of the jester, and he collapsed suddenly into as close a friendship as ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... was making ready to impale the tailor, the sultan of Casgar, wanting the company of his crooked jester, asked where he was; and one of his officers told him; "The hunch-back, Sir, whom you inquire after, got drunk last night, and contrary to his custom slipped out of the palace, and went strolling about the city, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... their dignity. Now when all those that sat with him had laid the bones Of the several parts on a heap before Hyrcanus, [for they had themselves taken away the flesh belonging to them,] till the table where he sat was filled full with them, Trypho, who was the king's jester, and was appointed for jokes and laughter at festivals, was now asked by the guests that sat at the table [to expose him to laughter]. So he stood by the king, and said, "Dost thou not see, my lord, the bones that lie by Hyrcanus? by this ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... in discourse that Tom Killigrew hath a fee out of the Wardrobe for cap and bells, under the title of the King's Foole or Jester; and may revile or jeere any body, the greatest person without offence, by the privilege of his place. This morning Sir G. Carteret come to the office to see and talk with me: and he assures me that to this day the King is the most kind man to my Lord Sandwich ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... have borne The foremost shield, and dealt the deadliest blow That drew the life-blood of a warring foe! Perhaps thou wor'st the courtier's gilded thrall,— Some glittering court's gay, proud papilio! Perchance a clown, the jester of some hall, The slave of one man, and the ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands
... covered with a high cap, which had a tassel and bells. He wore also a party-coloured waistcoat, huge full breeches of all the colours of the rainbow, hose of yellow, and long shoes with rosettes of vast size. He stood forth a veritable clown or jester of bygone days. ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... a sense upon him that elsewhere it is Eugene and not he who is the jester, and that in these circles where Eugene persists in being speechless, he, Mortimer, is but the double of the friend on whom ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... [93] [Conan the Jester, a character in the Irish ballads, was "a kind of Thersites, but brave and daring even to rashness. He had made a vow that he would never take a blow without returning it; and having ... descended to the infernal regions, he received ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... his portrait makes thee laugh. What wouldst thou do, if thou couldst see the jester himself? But Till is a picture and mirror of this world. He left many a brother behind. We are great fools In thinking that we are the greatest sages: Therefore laugh at thyself, as ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 190, June 18, 1853 • Various
... at least, such a piece is printed in his Miscellanies; and for that of Shadwell, in his epilogue to Bury-fair. But Shadwell was now poet-laureat, and his satire was privileged, like the wit of the ancient royal jester. Our author was suspected of disaffection, and liable to misconstruction: For which reason, probably, he declined this sarcastic prologue, and substituted that which follows, the tone of which is submissive, and conciliatory ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... grateful sound has again the big conclusive phrase that merges into more pranks of the jaunty tune in the biggest revel of all, so that we suspect the jolly jester is the real hero and the majestic figures are, after all, mere background. And yet here follows the most tenderly moving verse, all ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... men had rebelled against the gods and had to be killed. This interpretation was probably the result of a confusion with the old legend of the fight between Horus and Set, the rulers of the two kingdoms of Egypt. The possibility also suggests itself that a pun made by some priestly jester may have been the real factor that led to this mingling of two originally separate stories. In the "Destruction of Mankind" the story runs, according to Budge,[195] that Re, referring to his enemies, said: ma-ten set uar er set, "Behold ye ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... as Friedrich perceived. Thus had La Mettrie found a Goshen;—and stood in considerable favor, at Court and in Berlin Society in the years now current. According to Nicolai, Friedrich never esteemed La Mettrie, which is easy to believe, but found him a jester and ingenious madcap, out of whom a great deal of merriment could be had, over wine or the like. To judge by Nicolai's authentic specimen, their Colloquies ran sometimes pretty deep into the cynical, under showers of wildfire playing about; and the high-jinks must have been ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... editor of the Jeunes was seated in his office, which was decorated with etchings and beautiful bindings. He is well known by his magnificent black beard and his large bald head, upon which a wicked jester once advised him to paste his advertisements; he publishes the works of audacious authors and sensational books, and had the honor of sharing with Charles Bazile, the poet, an imprisonment at St.-Pelagie. ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... a Vaihasaka, i.e., one who provokes laughter) is a person only acquainted with some of the arts who is a jester, and who ...
— The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - Translated From The Sanscrit In Seven Parts With Preface, - Introduction and Concluding Remarks • Vatsyayana
... his whole aspect evidence of such strength and force and power, such human passion kept in control by relentless will, such attributes of command, that none looked upon him without awe; and the idlest jester, the lowest and most insubordinate soldier, subsided into silence before that noble personality, realizing the ineffable dignity of the man. The grandeur of that cause which perhaps even he scarcely realized while he sustained it, looked out from ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... together to the scene. From Wittenberg had come the Pomeranian Duke Barnim, then Rector of the University. Prince George of Anhalt, then a young Leipzig student, and afterwards a friend of Luther, was there. Duke George of Saxony frequently attended the proceedings, and listened attentively. His court jester is said to have appeared with him, and a comic scene is mentioned as having occurred between him and Eck, to the great diversion of the meeting. Frederick the Wise was represented by one of his counsellors, ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... slowly, "it's—it's just as though some cosmic jester, all-powerful, had scooped up the fragments of a ruined city and tossed them pell-mell into the core of ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... exactly as if the girl were a penknife or a marble that had rolled from Bates's pocket, and the latter, irritated by an inward fear, grew to hate the jester. ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... smiled. "This is a prank of some carnival-mad jester, child," said she. "There is not a word of truth in it. I wish ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... been in his way a disciplinarian. He had arrested with his own hands, pulling him down from the rostrum and committing him to Bocardo prison, an undergraduate who had carried too far the wit of the 'Terrae Filius', the licensed jester of ...
— The Oxford Degree Ceremony • Joseph Wells
... Mr. Migott, who, since the death of Dr. Johnson, is the most desperate drinker of tea in all England. When the cups and saucers are cleared away, a conversazione is held in the cockpit. Sam Dobbs is the best listener of the company; Dick Dobbs, who has been a yachtsman, is the jester; Bob Dobbs, the merchant sailor, is the teller of adventures; and my friend and I keep the ball going smartly in all sorts of ways, till it gets dark, and a great drought falls upon the members of the conversazione. Then, if the mermaids are anywhere near us, they may smell ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... yon antics were holy things, Elder," retorted the reckless jester; but Standish ranging up alongside of ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... not to appear touched with the sarcasm of a jester, they subject themselves to his power, and the wise man will have his folly anatomised, that is dissected and laid open by the squandring glances or random ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... trying circumstances, Bruno might have answered in kind, but now he merely smiled at the jester, then turned again to receive the earnest cautions let fall for ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... followed a lubber jester, a wellkempt head, newbarbered, out of the vaulted cell into a ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... good Saxon," said the Jester; "but how call you the sow when she is flayed, and drawn, and quartered, and hung up by ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... study, compared to which, all the philosophy taught by the wisest heathens is little better than a dream, and is indeed as full of vanity as the silliest jester ever pleased to represent it. This is that Divine wisdom which is alone to be found in the Holy Scriptures; for they impart to us the knowledge and assurance of things much more worthy our attention than all which this world can offer to our acceptance; of things which Heaven ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... comes bluff March—a cross between A Jester and a Libertine. He loves to make the parson race With wicked words his hat to chase; To dye with compromising rose The pious man's abstemious nose. The ladies hate him, though he shows A pretty taste for silken hose. The smoker views him with distrust, Shielding his last match ...
— The Smoker's Year Book • Oliver Herford
... particulars, here omitted, Nash supplies in the course of this play. [In 1676 a pamphlet was printed, purporting falsely to be] "A pleasant History of the Life and death of Will Summers; how he came first to be known at court, and by what means he got to be King Henry the Eighth's 'Jester.'" It was reprinted by Harding in 1794, with an engraving from an old portrait, supposed to be Will Summer; but if it be authentic, it does not at all support Armin's description of him, that he was "lean and hollow-eyed." Many of the jests ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... you go with us to behold it? My merry host hath had the measuring of their weapons; and, I think, hath appointed them contrary places; for, believe me, I hear the parson is no jester. Hark, I will tell you what our sport shall be. ...
— The Merry Wives of Windsor • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... knowledge of composition, a familiarity with mediaeval costume, and a command over chiaroscuro, which astonished and delighted those who had been accustomed to regard him only as a funny fellow,—one of infinite whim, to be sure, but still a jester of jests, and nothing more. Unfortunately, or fortunately, as the case might be,—for the rumor ran that George intended to abandon caricaturing altogether, and to set up in earnest as an historical painter,—there came from beyond the sea, to assist ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... treating her criminals like this, she doesn't deserve to have any." Similarly, if the public insists on bringing its woes to its colyumists, it doesn't deserve to have any colyumists. Then the battered jester turns again to his machine and ticks off something ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... to a "Folly Party" may be adorned with a picture of a fools cap and bells or a Jester. One form ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... Grenville, and Lord Howick, it is because they love their country; if I abhor ... it is because I know there is but one man among them who is not laughing at the enormous folly and credulity of the country, and that he is an ignorant and mischievous bigot. As for the light and frivolous jester, of whom it is your misfortune to think so highly, learn, my dear Abraham, that this political Killigrew, just before the breaking-up of the last administration, was in actual treaty with them for a place; and if they had survived twenty-four ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... 'What an eternal jester is that Pomponius!' said one voice. 'He is going to receive absolution, and he journeys in his chariot of state, as if he were preparing to celebrate his triumph, instead of to ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... Hateetah. The Prince said, "Yâkob, place yourself under the sword of Hateetah, and go out with him and fight a hundred Shânbah." "Oh, he's an ass," replied Bel-Kasem. Such was their style of ridicule. Bel-Kasem is a well-meaning little fellow, but a sort of fool or jester of the Sheikh's. Khanouhen allows him to say anything and do anything, but laughs at him all the time. Bel-Kasem always brings the Sheikh some pretty present, and Khanouhen throws around him his powerful arm of protection. The slavish merchant and faithful sycophant always calls him Sultan, ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... beauteous Amoret of his idolatry, were most worthy the affection he so generously bestowed on both. Waller, the most specious flatterer of flattering courts—the early worshipper of Charles the First—the pusillanimous betrayer of his friends—the adulator of Cromwell—the wit and the jester of the second Charles—the devotional whiner of the bigot James—had not, however, sufficient power to keep the lady from her slumbers long. She was soon in the refreshing sleep, known only to ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... this time every king kept a jester to make jokes and amuse him and his friends at their feasts, and the jester was a privileged person, who could say anything he liked. So now they told the jester of the King of France that he must tell the king the bad news, because he could say what ...
— Royal Children of English History • E. Nesbit
... romancers. The Greeks, on the contrary, whose religion was an apotheosis of the earth, framed upwards and only by fiction of fancy handed downwards, derived all their theology from the poets. Prophecy and taste were combined in Homer,—Isaiah and the king's jester in Pindar. The care of the highest, not less than the lowest departments of thought, fell upon the creative author, and a happy suggestion became a new article in the Hellenic creed. His composition ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various |
