"Soothsayer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Gottingen university gown, did not relax his haughty and rigid attitude. He observed the waters as a critic of waves and of men. He studied the billows, but almost as if he was about to demand his turn to speak amidst their turmoil, and teach them something. There was in him both pedagogue and soothsayer. He seemed ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... might have been beloved, and she called him Narcissus. Being consulted concerning him, whether he was destined to see the distant season of mature old age; the prophet, expounding destiny, said, "If he never recognizes himself." Long did the words of the soothsayer appear frivolous; {but} the event, the thing {itself}, the manner of his death, and the novel nature ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... the child-bearing woman, or drew the arrow-head from the dying champion's breast; the same bright eye that gazed up to heaven in ecstacy through the sacred grove and read the will of the Gods when the mystic tablets and rune-carved lots were cast—all these, if the will were bad, if the soothsayer passed into the false prophetess, the leech into a poisoner, and the priestess into a witch, were as potent and terrible for ill as they had once been powerful for good. In all the Indo-European tribes, therefore, women, and especially old women, have practised witchcraft ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... the Soothsayer, "can neither be bought nor sold;" and he pushed back her proffered offering ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... prophecy of the millennium that produced the vibrations in my soul, but the surging passion of his faith, the tempest of his enthusiasm. I had enough experience of public speaking to distinguish between the theatrical and the genuine in oratory. Here was no tub-thumping soothsayer, but an inspired zealot. He lived his impassioned creed in every fibre of his frame and faculties. He was Titanic, this rough miner, in his unconquerable hope, divine in ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... mystic or a soothsayer or a member of that mysterious world which divines by incantations, dreams, the mystic bowl, or the crystal sphere, you might have looked into their mysterious depths at this time and foreseen a world of happenings which concerned ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... Africa; but adverse winds and want of food forced him to land at Circaeum, whence, with a few friends, he made his way along the coast, through woods and rocks, keeping up the spirits of his companions by telling them that, when a little boy, he robbed an eyrie of seven eaglets, and that a soothsayer had then foretold that he would be seven times consul. At last a troop of horse was seen coming towards them, and at the same time two ships near the coast. The only hope was in swimming out to the nearest ship, and Marius was so heavy and old that this was done with ...
— Young Folks' History of Rome • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... things that were not: what Caesar would have lived to do had he believed the soothsayer: what might have been: possibilities of the possible as possible: things not known: what name Achilles bore when he lived ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... an intimate acquaintance with all the elegant dissipation and languid excesses of a dying order. We feel that he has himself been at home in the masquerade, has accompanied the lady to the fortune-teller, and, leaning over her graceful shoulder, has listened to the soothsayer's murmurs. He has attended balls and routs, danced minuets, and gossiped over tiny cups of China tea. He is the last chronicler of the Venetian feasts, and with him ends that long series that began with Giorgione's ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... have made an enemy of the influential gambling-master Mathura. I had better not stay here. Besides, my good friend Sharvilaka told me that a young herdsman named Aryaka has been designated by a soothsayer as our future king. Now everybody in my condition is running after him. I think I will join ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... like a soothsayer," said Mrs. Bracher, with a sudden gesture of her hand and arm, as if she ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason
... bull from the lake. A third version presents the maiden as rowing on New Year's Eve up and down the lake in a golden boat with a golden oar. She disappears from the hero's gaze, without replying to his adjurations. Counselled by a soothsayer, who dwells on the mountain, he casts loaves and cheese night after night from Midsummer Eve to New Year's Eve into the water, until at length the magic skiff again appears, and the fairy, stepping ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... was good Witch, but she sprang from the love of a mother for her son." In this way, indeed, was born the Persian soothsayer, the natural fruit, they say, of so hateful a mystery; and thus the secrets of the magical art were kept confined to one ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... to certain prominent points which may be summarily noticed. Several terms and expressions were employed to characterize persons supposed to be conversant with supernatural and magic art; such as diviner, enchanter, charmer, conjurer, necromancer, fortune-teller, soothsayer, augur, and sorcerer. These words are sometimes used as more or less synonymous, although, strictly speaking, they have meanings quite distinct. But none of them convey the idea attached to the name of witch. It was sometimes especially used to signify a female, ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... with his hand on her horse's rein, "I am no common soothsayer, and I am no flatterer. All the advantages I have detailed, all and each of them have their corresponding evils—unsuccessful love, crossed affections, the gloom of a convent, or an odious alliance. I, who wish ill to all mankind, cannot wish more evil to you, so much is ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... the story was told. Judged by our standards, the ethics of the story are often low, and its religion is largely a superstition. What brings the Almighty on the scene is most frequently some great calamity, which priest or soothsayer interprets as a divine judgment. Often there is attributed to him the quality of a jealous Oriental despot. The justice he enforces is often injustice and savagery. Take the story of the Gibeonites. A three years' famine in Israel was explained by Yahveh's oracle as a retribution for the ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... play the soothsayer, out of a hundred words, do not speak two that are true, and impose upon these poor people. There are enough like them in the world, who take food from the mouths of the people by their impostures, as these worthies do. I often remonstrated with the people, telling ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain
... seems always to have been liable to the influence of soothsayers, who professed to utter oracles from the gods, particularly when war was threatening. This was so (e. g.) at the time of the Peloponnesian War (Thucyd. ii. 8, v. 26), and the soothsayer is delightfully caricatured by Aristophanes in ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 2 • Demosthenes
... a pair of enormous spectacles set in clumsy rims of tortoiseshell or silver, and sitting before a small table on which are displayed a few mysterious-looking tablets inscribed with characters, paper, pencils, and ink. We are in the presence of a fortune-teller, a seer, a soothsayer, a vates; or better, a quack who trusts for his living partly to his own wits, and partly to the want of them in the credulous numskulls who surround him. These men are generally old, and sometimes blind. Youth stands but a poor chance among a people who regard age and wisdom as synonymous ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... man-destroying aegis, their hearts trembled with fear, they fled through the palace like a drove of cattle." The four men now use their swords upon the terrified, defenseless crowd, and cut them down. Leiodes, the soothsayer of the Suitors, begs for mercy and recounts his attempts to restrain their violent deeds; vain is his prayer, he perishes with his company of brigands, "for if thou wert their soothsayer, thou must often in my palace have prayed ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... over, met each other by accident in the street, impressed by the ridiculous remembrance of their impositions, they could not help laughing in each other's faces. Madame V——laughed too; upon which Monsieur O——, very good humouredly told her, that as a soothsayer, she certainly would not have smiled, unless she intended to retire for ever from the office. Previous to my taking leave of Monsieur O——and his charming family, we walked in the gardens, where our conversation turned upon the extraordinary genius, who in the character of first consul of the ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... philosopher?" inquired Petronius. "Eunice told me that thou art a physician and a soothsayer. Whence knowest thou Eunice?" ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... "This counterfeated soothsayer prophesied of King John, that he should reigne no longer than the Ascension-day next followyng, which was in the yere of our Lord 1211, and was the thirteenth yere from his coronation; and this, he said, he had by revelation. Then it was of him demanded, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... through Canaanitish hands; perhaps, too, through the hands of the Etruscans. At all events, the system of augury which Rome borrowed from Etruria had a Babylonian origin, and the prototype of the strange liver-shaped instrument by means of which the Etruscan soothsayer divined, has been found among the relics ...
— Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations • Archibald Sayce
... opinion that, on the one hand, the epithet is the translation of the Arabic majn[u]n, a term against which Mohammed protested several times in the Koran, because it means he was possessed by a jinn, like a soothsayer. On the other hand, the word was chosen having regard to Hosea ix. 7. This was done long before Benjamin's time, by Jafeth ...
— The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela • Benjamin of Tudela
... he!' said the man in black; 'now I know that you are not a gypsy, at least a soothsayer; no soothsayer ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... the parts thereof were. Whereupon were called all the diviners, interpreters of dreams, and soothsayers, of whom the king demanded, if they could let him understand what he had dreamed: but while they answered, that such a question used not to be demanded of any soothsayer or magician, for the resolution thereof only appertained to the gods, whose habitation was not with men, the charge was given, that they all should be slain: and amongst the rest, Daniel, whose innocence the devil envied, was sought to have suffered the ...
— The Pulpit Of The Reformation, Nos. 1, 2 and 3. • John Welch, Bishop Latimer and John Knox
... obliged to receive them even though this hospitality was extremely oppressive. Strangers, says Homer, are sacred persons, and under the protection of Jupiter, but no wise man would ever choose to send for a stranger unless he was a bard or a soothsayer. The danger too of travelling either alone or with few attendants made all men of consequence carry along with them a numerous suite of retainers, which rendered this hospitality still more oppressive. ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... The "soothsayer," on the other hand (Mantis superstitiosa Fab.[1]), little justifies by its propensities the appearance of gentleness, and the attitudes of sanctity, which have obtained for it its title of the praying ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... tune and it plays that hard. When a respectable house has been gathered by these out-of-door allurements the curtain rises on a Turkish play. It is a sweet pastoral of a youth who is lovesick and cannot be cured by the doctor, by the soothsayer—by any one except his love, who comes in time, ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... saw the door of the vestibule partly open. The fates are propitious. I crossed the court, intending to consult the most famous soothsayer in the emperor's dominions." ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... the Lutheran Church and the temporal Pope of the Catholic Church, the leader of economists, the cleverest of stategists, the one and only socialist, the most marvellous incarnation of the warrior of German legends, the greatest pacifist of modern times, explorer in his day and soothsayer whenever he likes. In his own eyes, ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... that, as Varro says, your patrician magistrates would rather lose a battle than that a plebeian consul should triumph! Varbo, the butcher, dreamed last night that his son's blood was drenching his bed, and when he awoke, it was water from the roof; and Arates, the Greek soothsayer, says that Varbo's son has been slain in the ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... soothsayer was recommended to Bonaparte by the inhabitants of Cairo, who confidentially vouched for the accuracy with which he could foretell future events. He was sent for, and when he arrived, I, Venture, and a sheik were with the General. The prophet ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... influencing events, and the last three to different ways of consulting the dead. The first of these eight properly refers to drawing lots, but includes other methods; the second is an obscure word, which is supposed by some to mean a 'murmurer,' and may refer rather to the low mutterings of the soothsayer than to the method of his working; the third is probably a general expression for an interpreter of omens, especially of those given by the play of liquid in a 'cup,' such as Joseph ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... was then in charge of electrical maintenance in The Leader's various residences. Herr Schweeringen was officially one of The Leader's secretaries, but his actual task was to make predictions for The Leader, like a soothsayer or a medium. He had a very remarkable gift. There were times when it was especially needful that there be no electrical failures—when The Leader was to be in residence, for example. On such occasions it was my custom to ask Herr Schweeringen if there ...
— The Leader • William Fitzgerald Jenkins (AKA Murray Leinster)
... spring As the birds feel it, when it bids them sing, Only once more to see the moon Through leaf-fringed abbey-arches of the elms Curve her mild sickle in the West Sweet with the breath of haycocks, were a boon Worth any promise of soothsayer realms 430 Or casual hope of being elsewhere blest; To take December by the beard And crush the creaking snow with springy foot, While overhead the North's dumb streamers shoot, Till Winter fawn ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... dresses, arms, and marks of the horses of our party so accurately, that, with other circumstances, we could not doubt of his having been in 'villainous company,' and ourselves in a bad neighbourhood. Dervish became a soothsayer for life, and I dare say is now hearing more musketry than ever will be fired, to the great refreshment of the Arnaouts of Berat and ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... miraculous maid, yet at least for a passing wonder, who might kindle enthusiasm in the country and rouse the ignorant with hopes of a special blessing from Heaven. The gayer and younger portion of the Court probably expected a little amusement, above all, a new butt for their wit, or perhaps a soothsayer to tell their fortunes and promise good things to come. They had not very much to amuse them, though they made the best of it. The joys of Paris were very far off; they were all but imprisoned in this dull ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... "Hold your peace, old soothsayer," said Heriot, who at that instant entered the room with a calm and steady countenance; "your calculations are true and undeniable when they regard brass and wire, and mechanical force; but future events are at the pleasure of Him who ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... from Athens, nor any other means of safety, formed a scheme with the Athenians besieged with them for escaping, if possible, by forcing their way over the enemy's walls; the attempt having been suggested by Theaenetus, son of Tolmides, a soothsayer, and Eupompides, son of Daimachus, one of their generals. At first all were to join: afterwards, half hung back, thinking the risk great; about two hundred and twenty, however, voluntarily persevered in the attempt, which was carried out in the ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... Providence had watched over the pair. Mrs. Strange was a natural seamstress, and luck had directed her and Phil to a community which was not only in need of a good dressmaker, but peculiarly ripe for the talents of a soothsayer. Phil, too, had intended to embrace a new profession; but he had soon discovered that Jonesville offered better financial returns to a man of his accepted gifts than did the choicest of seaside concessions, ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... quite completely dead. All this, so easy to the mature woman, seemed a sort of conjuring-trick to her. It was thought-reading of the most advanced kind, the reading of thoughts that she had not consciously formulated. And the soothsayer proceeded:— ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... soothsayer and Assyrian satrap, who told Arba'ces (3 syl.) governor of Me'dia, that he would one day sit on the throne of Nineveh and Assyria. His prophecy came true, and Beleses was rewarded with the government of ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... spake well, and with due moderation and decorum. But when the soothsayer Chalcas had told him that he feared the wrath of the most potent among the Grecians, after an oath that while he lived no man should lay violent hands on him, he adds, but not ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... king had been warned, by some soothsayer, to beware of Madrigal, and that he had ever since avoided entering into the town of that name in Old Castile. The name of the place he was now in was not precisely that indicated, but corresponded near enough for ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... "Listen! My soothsayer tells me that somewhere there is a city lost in a forest, and a temple lost in the city, and a tomb lost in the temple; a city of ghosts and djins given over to bad spirits, wherefore all human men shun it by day and night. And on the tomb is ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... attitude to popular belief, we hear next to nothing apart from this. There is a story of a ram's head being found with one horn in the middle of the forehead; it was brought to Pericles, and the soothsayer Lampon explained the portent to the effect that, of the two men, Pericles and Thucydides, who contended for the leadership of Athens, one should prove victorious. Anaxagoras, on the other hand, had the ...
— Atheism in Pagan Antiquity • A. B. Drachmann
... when Olaf Tryggvason was lying off the Isles of Scilly he heard tell that there was a soothsayer thereon, and that he foretold the future and spake of things not yet come to pass, and many folk believed that things ofttimes happened according as this man had spoken. Now Olaf being minded to make assay of his cunning sent to him the finest and fairest of his men, in apparel as ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... if ye are to see the bottom of my purse more than once," said Law gaily. "See! 'tis quite empty now. I make ye all my solemn promise that 'twill not be empty again for twenty years. After that—well, the old Highland soothsayer, who dreamed for me, always told me to forswear play after I was forty, and never to go too near running water. Of the latter I was born with a horror. For play, I was born with a gift. Thus I foresee that this little feat which you mention is sure ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... colour, nor did he speak for some moments; then raising his head, with a faint smile, he said, "Maltravers, you are a false soothsayer. At this moment my paths, crooked though they be, have led me far towards the summit of my proudest hopes; the straight path would have left me at the foot of the mountain. You yourself are a beacon against the course you advise. Let us contrast each other. You took the straight ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in a flattering manner, asked where was the soothsayer he praised so much. The soothsayer, who was immediately forthcoming, told those who listened to him that he knew "things" from nature's book of secrecy. A banquet was prepared, at which Charmian asked the soothsayer ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... peasant and said: 'Come and eat some more with me.' The peasant did not require to be invited twice, but got up and ate. After this the miller saw the skin in which the raven was, lying on the ground, and asked: 'What have you there?' The peasant answered: 'I have a soothsayer inside it.' 'Can he foretell anything to me?' said the miller. 'Why not?' answered the peasant: 'but he only says four things, and the fifth he keeps to himself.' The miller was curious, and said: 'Let ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... and to the satisfaction of all the occupants of the tambo, they took their departure up the valley. It was the direction in which we were going, but we hoped not again to fall in with them. As we were mounting to proceed on our journey, the Indian soothsayer (for so I may call him) approached my father, and whispered earnestly in his ear for some minutes. My father looked surprised and somewhat anxious, and told him he thanked him for his advice. The Indian retired into the tambo apparently satisfied. We had begun to move on, ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... snake, while python is far older, the same word being used by the Greeks to denote a spirit, demon, or evil-soothsayer. This name was really given to designate any species of large serpent. Boa is Latin and was also applied to a large snake, while the importance of the character of size is seen, perhaps, in our words ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... free burgher received under the land law. Higher than these were the service families (tsa-hu) who were registered in their place of residence, but had to perform certain services; here we find "tomb families" who cared for the imperial tombs, "shepherd families", postal families, kiln families, soothsayer families, medical families, and musician families. Each of these categories of commoners had its own laws; each had to marry within the category. No intermarriage or adoption was allowed. It is interesting to observe that a similar ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... a ferocious gang as the Jews, with a bloody God of Battles to help them, human valor promised little success; so Balak resolved to solicit supernatural aid. Accordingly he sent messengers unto Balaam the son of Beor, a renowned and potent soothsayer, desiring him to come and ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote |
