"Theban" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to the deified hero Hercules, and the town of Herculaneum, built at its base, was named after him. So also, it is said, was the mountain itself, though in a more round-about way. Hercules, as you will doubtless learn, was feigned to have been the son of the heathen god Zeus and Alcmena, a Theban lady. Now one of the appellations of Zeus was Ves, which was applied to him as being the god of rains and dews—the wet divinity. Thus Hercules was Vesouuios, the son of Ves. How this name should have become corrupted into "Vesuvius," you can be ...
— Wonders of Creation • Anonymous
... occurs on one. Another of these vessels, or the neck part of one, is covered with cement, and sealed with three cartouches, besides having four others painted on it. This, it is thought, may have contained the precious Theban wine, sealed with the royal signet. There are many other things taken from the tombs which our space forbids us to dwell upon; such as idols and figures, papyri and phylacteries, paint-pots and colours, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 455 - Volume 18, New Series, September 18, 1852 • Various
... clearly his duty to presume every thing bad which he is not unwillingly forced to confess good, or concerning which he retains no distinct recollection. But I, after the first glory of Antigone's avatar had subsided, applied myself to consider the general 'setting' of this Theban jewel. Creon, whom the Greek tragic poets take delight in describing as a villain, has very little more to do (until his own turn comes for grieving), than to tell Antigone, by minute-guns, that ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... absolutely transformed into a snivelling fellow, who bellows like a calf at the prospect of dying for his friend. 'Wallace' was purloined from me in like manner, and several other heroes: at length I fix upon 'Epaminondas', as a 'learned Theban' of so philosophical a cast of character, that even the French had not thought of him for the boards. I form my plot, and begin con amore, when I am told that Dr. Bird has written a 'Pelopidas' and an 'Epaminondas,' comprehending the whole ...
— The Indian Princess - La Belle Sauvage • James Nelson Barker
... adopted the usual complaint against the minister, that he brought forward no definite plan, and whose own field of choice was therefore left all the wider, offered nothing more specific than the following mysterious suggestion, which is probably a Theban hieroglyphic—that, like as the "celebrated" Cromwell, in times past, did appoint Sir Matthew Hale to the presiding seat on the bench of justice, even so ought Sir Robert Peel to——. But there the revelation ceased. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... express an absolute refusal. "Business to-morrow!" is another Greek proverb, applied to a person ruined by his own neglect. The fate of an eminent person perpetuated the expression which he casually employed on the occasion. One of the Theban polemarchs, in the midst of a convivial party, received despatches relating to a conspiracy: flushed with wine, although pressed by the courier to open them immediately, he smiled, and in gaiety laying the letter under the pillow of his couch, observed, "Business to-morrow!" Plutarch records ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... (like that Which made the world) another world begat Of unknown joy. Treason was in her thought, And cunningly to yield herself she sought. Seeming not won, yet won she was at length. In such wars women use but half their strength. Leander now, like Theban Hercules, Entered the orchard of th' Hesperides; Whose fruit none rightly can describe but he That pulls or shakes it from the golden tree. And now she wished this night were never done, And sighed to think upon th' approaching sun; For much it grieved her ...
— Hero and Leander • Christopher Marlowe
... Thorwaldsen. To the right commence frescoes illustrating incidents in the life of St. Ranieri, the patron saint of Pisa, by Andrea da Firenzi, 1377. Those beyond the second door illustrate the temptations and miracles of hermits in the Theban wilderness, by the Lorenzetti. Between Nos. 39 and 40, Hell. Above 38, the Day of Judgment. Then, by Orcagna, the Power of Death,—filling those living in pleasure with horror, but those in sorrow with joy. Now follow (in the eastern side) the oldest of the ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... exorbitant in their demands—a little money will satisfy them. My means, which are certainly ample, are at your service, and if you have a scruple about spending all mine, here are strangers who will give you the use of theirs; and one of them, Simmias the Theban, has brought a large sum of money for this very purpose; and Cebes and many others are prepared to spend their money in helping you to escape. I say, therefore, do not hesitate on our account, and do not say, as you did in the court (compare Apol.), that you will have a difficulty in knowing ...
— Crito • Plato
... of the Cupids, and the son of the Theban Gemele, and lascivious ease, command me to give back my mind to its deserted loves. The splendor of Glycera, shining brighter than the Parian marble, inflames me: her agreeable petulance, and her countenance, ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... histories, songs, philosophies, cut in slabs of sandstone or on granite blocks; I see at Memphis mummy-pits, containing mummies, embalmed, swathed in linen cloth, lying there many centuries; I look on the fallen Theban, the large-balled eyes, the side-drooping neck, the hands ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... both shots had been a success, but they sheered off with the stately movements of a clipper about to tack. When they ran they had an ungainly, dislocated motion, somewhat like the contortions of an Indian nautch or a Theban danseuse—a dreamy, undulating movement, which even the tail, with its long fringe of black ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... in the Volage, from Spithead, the Princess Caroline, 74, and the Theban frigate, to aid in protecting a fleet of East India Company's ships, all for China direct.[2] As these ships were of the largest class, well manned, well commanded, and were likewise pretty well armed, and got up to look like men-of ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... lies, I had passed into that mood when the grotesque wickedness of Fate's awards can draw from the victim no loud lamentations—when there are no frantic blows aimed at the sufferer's own poor eyeballs till the beard—like the self-mutilated Theban king's—is bedewed with a dark hail-shower of blood. More terrible because more inhuman than the agony imagined by the great tragic poet is that most awful condition of the soul into which I had passed—when the cruelty ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... poems is the Theban Cycle, which comprises the Thebais, by some unknown author, wherein is related in full the story of Oedipus, that of the Seven Kings before Thebes, and the doings of ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... Sec. 21. the Theban confederacy. The reference is particularly to the Arcadian allies of Thebes, but the wider expression perhaps suggests a general policy of a more ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 2 • Demosthenes
... histories, records of conquering kings, dynasties, cut in slabs of sand-stone, or on granite-blocks, I see at Memphis mummy-pits containing mummies embalm'd, swathed in linen cloth, lying there many centuries, I look on the fall'n Theban, the large-ball'd eyes, the side-drooping neck, the hands ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman |
