VESTAL VIRGIN • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Vestal virgin

/vˈɛstəl vˈərdʒɪn/ Listen

Vestal virgin

noun

(Roman mythology) one of the virgin priestesses consecrated to the Roman goddess Vesta and to maintaining the sacred fire in her temple.

See images of 'Vestal virgin'

Etymology of 'Vestal virgin'

Share |

"Vestal virgin" Quotes from Famous Books

... the unseen structure of artistic sincerity. That was why in rare solemn moments he believed that his poetry would live, live beyond his own lifetime and his age, even, perhaps, as long as the Pontifex Maximus and the Vestal Virgin should ascend to the Capitol in public processional. He had said laughingly of his published metrical letters that they might please Rome for a day, travel on to the provinces, and finally become ...

— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson

... of the household, but for him it bore a message of deeper mystery than for these uninitiated spiritualists; although in man's clothes, his observant eye recognised the face of the spirit; terrible and suggestive truth, it was the face of the vestal Virgin, who, far off in Calcutta, had fluidified in the third temple, and he uttered a great cry! He has now decided to void the virginity of the vestal, and to assume that she was in reality a demon, and not a being of earth. At the same time, my readers must thoroughly understand that the doctor, ...

— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite

... French painter, decorated the foyer of the Grand Opera in Paris; is best known as the author of the "Punishment of a Vestal Virgin" and the "Assassination ...

— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... whom the rock opposite Charybdis was named, was a beautiful maiden, beloved by the sea-god Glaucus, but changed into a monster through the jealousy and enchantments of Circe. The mother of Romulus: Silvia, daughter and only living child of Numitor, whom her uncle Amulius made a vestal virgin, to preclude the possibility that his brother's descendants could wrest from him the kingdom of Alba Longa. But the maiden was violated by Mars as she went to bring water from a fountain; she bore Romulus and Remus; and she was drowned in the Anio, while the cradle with ...

— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

Words linked to "Vestal virgin" : votary, Roman mythology, Rea Silvia, Rhea Silvia