"Pythian" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... base of the obelisk. These sculptures, as you see, are in good condition. The bronze 'Serpent Column' in the centre of the square, representing three serpents coiled around each other, once supported the tripod used in the ceremonial services of the Pythian oracle at Delphi." ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... auspicium melioris aevi[Lat][obs3]. 513. Oracle.— N. oracle; prophet, prophesier, seer, soothsayer, augur, fortune teller, crystal gazer[obs3], witch, geomancer[obs3], aruspex[obs3]; aruspice[obs3], haruspice[obs3]; haruspex; astrologer, star gazer[obs3]; Sibyl; Python, Pythoness[obs3]; Pythia; Pythian oracle, Delphian oracle; Monitor, Sphinx, Tiresias, Cassandra[obs3], Sibylline leaves; Zadkiel, Old Moore; sorcerer &c. 994; interpreter &c. 524. [person who predicts by non-mystical (natural) means] predictor, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... people, and returned with you. Well, Chaerephon, as you know, was very impetuous in all his doings, and he went to Delphi and boldly asked the oracle to tell him whether—as I was saying, I must beg you not to interrupt—he asked the oracle to tell him whether anyone was wiser than I was, and the Pythian prophetess answered, that there was no man wiser. Chaerephon is dead himself; but his brother, who is in court, will confirm the truth of what ...
— Apology - Also known as "The Death of Socrates" • Plato
... to tell the truth, I don't get much time for reading, we're always so busy at the store and——But we had the dandiest professional reciter at the Pythian Sisters sociable last winter." ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... What path do I mean? The emulous imitation of the great poets and prose-writers of the past. On this mark, dear friend, let us keep our eyes ever steadfastly fixed. Many gather the divine impulse from another's spirit, just as we are told that the Pythian priestess, when she takes her seat on the tripod, where there is said to be a rent in the ground breathing upwards a heavenly emanation, straightway conceives from that source the godlike gift of prophecy, and utters her inspired oracles; so likewise from the mighty genius of the great ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus
... prayer has ever been acknowledged to be inspiration, revelation, the thought of God made clear to the mind of man, the mystical hypostasis through which the ideas of the human coincide with those of universal Intelligence. This is what the Pythian priestess, the Siberian shaman, the Roman sibyl, the Voluspan prophetess, the Indian medicine-man, all claimed in various degrees along with the Hebrew seers and ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... and again pressed on your attention the beginning of the arts of men in the make and use of the ploughshare. Read more carefully—you might indeed do well to learn at once by heart,—the twenty-seven lines of the Fourth Pythian, which describe the ploughing of Jason. There is nothing grander extant in human fancy, nor set down in human words: but this great mythical expression of the conquest of the earth-clay, and brute-force, by vital human energy, will become yet more interesting to you when you reflect what enchantment ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... almost hath its peculiar walks, cloisters, terraces, groves, theatres, pageants, games, and several recreations; every country, some professed gymnics to exhilarate their minds, and exercise their bodies. The [3272]Greeks had their Olympian, Pythian, Isthmian, Nemean games, in honour of Neptune, Jupiter, Apollo; Athens hers: some for honour, garlands, crowns; for [3273]beauty, dancing, running, leaping, like our silver games. The [3274]Romans had their feasts, as the Athenians, and Lacedaemonians held their public banquets, in Pritanaeo, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... glowing stream Ran silver forth and gold, soon to receive The minting stamp. 'Twas thus that money came Whereby men count their riches, cause accursed Of warfare. Hence came down that Python huge On Cirrha: hence the laurel wreath which crowns The Pythian victor: here Aloeus' sons Gigantic rose against the gods, what time Pelion had almost touched the stars supreme, And Ossa's loftier peak amid the sky ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... Dionysus. Here the comedians, the chief of whom was Aristophanes, moved hosts of spectators to inextinguishable laughter. Here the choicest lyric poets of Greece awoke admiration with their unequalled songs, at their head the noble Pindar, the laureate of the Olympic and Pythian games. Here the sophists and philosophers argued and lectured, and Socrates walked like a king at the head of the aristocracy of thought. Here the sculptors, headed by Phidias, filled temples, porticos, colonnades, and public places ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... new waltz this demon of the Viennese musical spirit shook like a Pythian priestess on the tripod, and veritable groans of ecstasy (which, without doubt, were more due to his music than to the drinks in which the audience had indulged) raised their worship for the magic violinist to almost bewildering heights ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... prison of the giant Euceladus or Typhon, by others the forge of Hephaestus. The flames proceeded from the breath of Euceladus, the thunderous noises of the mountain were his groans, and when he turned upon his side, earthquakes shook the island. Pindar in his first Pythian ode for Hiero of AEtna, winner in the chariot race in 474 B.C., exclaims:—He (Typhon) is fast bound by a pillar of the sky, even by snowy AEtna, nursing the whole year's length her dazzling snow. Whereout pure springs of unapproachable fire are vomited from the inmost ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... nature of things, and see thoroughly what it demands; for otherwise we cannot arrive at the knowledge of ourselves. And because this precept was too important an one to be discerned by a man, it has on that account been attributed to God. The Pythian Apollo, then, enjoins us to know ourselves: but this knowledge is to know the power of our mind and body, and to follow that course of life which enjoys the circumstances in which it is placed. And ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... have learned as truth, and as sharers in your sorrows and misfortunes cannot conceal it from you, that it is an enormous serpent, gliding along in many folds and coils, with a neck swollen with deadly venom, and prodigious gaping jaws, that secretly sleeps with you by night. Remember the Pythian Oracle. Besides, a great many of the husbandmen, who hunt all round the country, and ever so many of the neighbors, have observed him returning home from his feeding-place in the evening. All declare, too, that he will not long continue to pamper ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... said Nicephorus, "it might incense the Pythian god were a deposit to be recalled of which he alone can fitly estimate the value. I came hither to speak with the Emperor upon pressing affairs of state, and not to hold a literary conversation with a company which I must needs say is something of a miscellaneous description, since I behold ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... prepare her for singular eminence in moral attainments. In the religion of Ancient Greece, it was she who presided at the tribunal of fate; her native enthusiasm qualified her for this office. "A man," says Diderot, "never sat on the sacred tripod; a woman alone, could deliver the Pythian oracle; alone could raise her mind to such a pitch as seriously to imagine the approach of a god, and panting with emotion, to cry, 'I perceive him, I perceive him; there! there! the god!'" The same zeal ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... proclaimed. But should you not rather send into exile this common pest of the Greeks? Or will you not seize upon him as a thief, and avenge yourself upon him whose mouthings have enabled him to bear full sail through our commonwealth? Remember the season in which you cast your vote. In a few days the Pythian Games will come round, and the convention of the Hellenic States will hold its sessions. Our State has been concerned on account of the measures of Demosthenes regarding present crises. You will appear, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... from time to time the instruments and aids she needed, and then, when satisfied that the intellectual gymnastics had properly trained and developed her, he invited her— where he felt assured the spirit of the age would inevitably drive her—to the great Pythian games of speculation, where the lordly intellects of the nineteenth century gather to test their ratiocinative skill, and bear off the crown of bay on the point of a syllogism or the wings of an ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans |
