"Persephone" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... used to call it Hades," she said, in a hushed voice. "And I used to pretend I was Persephone. I did so wish Pluto would appear some day with his chariot and his black horses and take me underground. But," with a sigh, ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... definite expression of the mediaeval feeling in this respect, while the fables of the rape of Proserpine and of Apollo and Daphne embody that of the Greeks. There is no Greek goddess corresponding to the Flora of the Romans. Their Flora is Persephone, "the bringer of death." She plays for a little while in the Sicilian fields, gathering flowers, then snatched away by Pluto, receives her chief power as she vanishes from our sight, and is crowned in the grave. Daphne, on the other hand, ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... simply "after being initiated;" but the Eleusinian mysteries are meant. The city of Eleusis was in Attica, and the sacred rites were those of Ceres and Proserpine (Demeter and Persephone). Those only who were duly initiated could partake in these ceremonies. An intruder ran the risk of being put to death. Livius (31, c. 14) tells a story of two Akarnanian youths who were not initiated, and during the time of the Initia, as he calls them, entered the temple of ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... might the white-armed Nausicaa have tossed her cowslip balls among the other maids; perhaps by some such river might Persephone have paused to gather the daffodil—"the fateful flower beside the rill." Light clouds flitted across the sky, a waft of wind danced in at the open window, ruffling my hair mockingly, and bearing with it the deep sound of a ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... charmed her friends, it did not spoil them, for they knew her perfect truth. They knew that she loved them, not for what she imagined, but for what she saw, though she saw it only in the germ. But as the Greeks beheld a Persephone and Athene in the passing stranger, and ennobled humanity into ideal beauty, Margaret saw all her friends thus idealized. She was a balloon of sufficient power to take us all up with her into the serene depth of heaven, ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... seeds of thistles and of bell-flowers were taking leaf between the square stones of the paven places; on the deserted threshold lichens and brambles climbed together; the filmy ooze of a rank vegetation stole over the loveliness of Persephone and devoured one by one the divine offspring of Zeus; about the feet of the bound sun king in Pheroe and over the calm serene mockery of Hermes' smile the grey nets of the spiders' webs had been woven to and fro, across and across, with the lacing of a million threads, as Fate weaves round ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... powers of nature personified, as some epithets in Homer[4] still indicate; but they became, sometimes under the same names, types of power and lordship, science and art, courage and sensuous beauty. While Dionysus, Demeter, Hades, and Persephone remained earthly, and Helios, Eos, Iris, and Hecate, heavenly divinities, and Oceanus, Poseidon, Amphitrite, Proteus, and Nereus ruled the waters, Zeus was conceived as the god of the sky and of thunder, who hurled the bolts, the great king and lawgiver, the father of men, and Hera, originally ...
— A Comparative View of Religions • Johannes Henricus Scholten
... flush red for anguish.... This kiss will I treasure, even as thyself, Adonis, since, ah ill-fated! thou art fleeing me,... while wretched I yet live, being a goddess, and may not follow thee. Persephone, take thou my lover, my lord, for thyself art stronger than I, and all lovely things drift down to thee.... For why ah overbold! didst thou follow the chase, and, being so fair, why wert thou thus over-hardy to fight with beasts?... A tear the Paphian sheds for each ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... he was sure: Dame Fortune would rise like Persephone out of the earth. He was all the more sure, because other men of the town were in with him at this venture: sound, moneyed grocers and plumbers. They were ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... 479)] 31. As the allies were unwilling to contribute anything for the support of Pyrrhus, he betook himself to the treasuries of Persephone, that were widely reputed for their wealth, despoiled them and sent the spoils on ships to Tarentum. And the men almost all perished through a storm, while the money and offerings were cast out ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio
... has occurred to me that the way to rouse her will be to send Persephone to her in a little country cart I have discovered. I have two mouse-coloured ponies already caught and harnessed—such little beauties. The only thing left to do is ...
— Hypolympia - Or, The Gods in the Island, an Ironic Fantasy • Edmund Gosse |
