"Basilisk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... am prevented; all my hopes are crost, Check'd, and abated; fie, a freezing sweat Flows forth at all my pores, my entrails burn: What should I do? Rome! Rome! O my vext soul, How might I force this to the present state? Are there no players here? no poet apes, That come with basilisk' s eyes, whose forked tongues Are steeped in venom, as their hearts in gall? Either of these would help me; they could wrest, Pervert, and poison all they hear or see, With senseless glosses, and allusions. ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... communication. The references to the "land of Havilah" for gold, and to "Mount Calybe" for iron, are characteristic of monkish geographical science; the recipe for the making of Spanish gold is interesting, as affording us a clew to the meaning of the mediaeval traditions respecting the basilisk. Pliny says nothing about the hatching of this chimera from cocks' eggs, and ascribes the power of killing at sight to a different animal, the catoblepas, whose head, fortunately, was so heavy that it could not be held up. Probably the word "basiliscus" in Theophilus ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... snake Crushing the bones of some frail antelope Within his brazen folds—the dewy lawn, Offering sweet incense to the sunrise, smiles 380 To see a babe before his mother's door, Share with the green and golden basilisk That comes to lick ...
— The Daemon of the World • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... like a basilisk. "And why have I been met like this?" he enquired with an air of being ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... the padded shutters. A few minutes later, Esther, in her dressing-gown, came to breathe the air, leaning on Lucien; any one who saw them might have taken them for the originals of some pretty English vignette. Esther was the first to recognize the basilisk eyes of the Spanish priest; and the poor creature, stricken as if she had been shot, ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... friends for information on natural history, not for a playwright," said Hall. "I myself should not mind what liberty I took with the cuckoo, the bee, or even the basilisk. I should not trouble you for accurate information on the subject; I should not even mind saying the cuckoo lays eggs in its own nest if it suited the ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... reply, and the eyes of Hunt and his companions were eagerly turned upon him, those of M'Lellan glaring like a basilisk's. He began by the usual expressions of friendship, and then proceeded to explain the object of his own party. Those persons, however, said he, pointing to Mr. Hunt and his companions, are of a different party, ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... comfortable enough now in its appearance that the stifling curtains were withdrawn; no temptation to invade it came to arouse me from the chair into which I had thrown myself. It was as if I felt myself under the spell of some invisible influence that like the eye of a basilisk, held me enchained. I remember turning my head towards a certain quarter of the wall as if I half expected to encounter there the bewildering glance of a serpent. Yet far from being apprehensive of any danger, I only wondered over ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... and a wish for mischief. And yet, as eyes, they were very beautiful. The eyelashes were long and perfect, and the long steady unabashed gaze, with which she would look into the face of her admirer, fascinated while it frightened him. She was a basilisk from whom an ardent lover of beauty could make no escape. Her nose and mouth more so at twenty-eight than they had been at eighteen. What wonder that with such charms still glowing in her face, and with such deformity destroying ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... in the Museum, Cairn," Ferrara continued, still having his basilisk eyes fixed upon the other from beneath the drooping lids, "and I called to you ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... faulcon is described as a small cannon of two pound shot. The following enumeration of the ancient English ordnance, from Sir William Monsons Naval Tracts, in the reigns of Elizabeth and James the First, is given in Churchills Collection, Vol. III. p. 803. I suspect the weight of the basilisk, marked 400 pounds in this list, may be ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... alone—struggling against our woes, poverty, wretchedness? No! I know there is a God, he is good, powerful, merciful; he will turn the hearts of some towards the widow and the orphan; and though basilisk-like words warn me to hope not, I will apply—I will attempt to win attention, work, slave, toil, toil, toil, until my poor hands shall wear to the bone, and my eyes no longer do their office—if he will only have mercy, pity ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... and thirty feet away on a rocky ledge was a thing of horror. Basilisk eyes in a hairy head; gray, stringy hairs; and the fearful head ended in narrow, outthrust jaws, where more of the gray hairs hung like moss from lips that writhed and curled and sucked at the air with a whistling shrillness. Those jaws could crush a man to pulp. And the head seemed ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... asked for every day. They carry bows and arrows, or sword and buckler, and play at dice and draughts, and give no alms except to their dogs. 'Our places are taken by hawks and hounds, or by that strange creature, woman, from whom we taught our pupils to flee as from an asp or basilisk. This creature, ever jealous and implacable, spies us out in a corner hiding behind some ancient cabinet, and she wrinkles her forehead and laughs us to scorn, and points to us as the only rubbish in the house; and she complains that we are totally useless, and recommends our being ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton
... better trick, the insult he spared Christ— Lure him the lure o' the letters, Aretine! Lick him o'er slimy-smooth with jelly-filth O' the verse-and-prose pollution in love's guise! The cockatrice is with the basilisk! There let him grapple, denizens o' the dark, Foes or friends, but indissolubly bound, In their one spot out of the ken of God Or care of man for ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... friend goes shaking and white; He eyes me as the basilisk: I have turned, it appears, his day to night, Eclipsing his ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... right hand, Jack glanced towards the balcony, in which the group of ladies were seated, and begged to drink their healths; he then turned to Kneebone and the others, who extended their hands towards him, and raised it to his lips. Just as he was about to drain it, he encountered the basilisk glance of ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... south-east entrance to Rocky Pass, between Basilisk and Hayter Islands, and formed, in all probability, during their sojourn in these parts, the centre of their various excursions to the islands and ...
— The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea • George Collingridge
... monsters fast The hissing basilisk; The hippopotamus so vast, And the boa with waking ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... under the head of the medicining of the body, some things on the subject of medicine in general, which could be better said there than here, because the wrath of professional dignitaries,—the eye of the 'basilisk,' was not perhaps quite so terrible in that quarter then, as it was in some others. For though 'the Doctors' in that department, did manage, in the dark ages, to possess themselves of certain weapons of their own, which are said to have proved, ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... not long, though, before I began to feel that I was the object of very earnest scrutiny on the part of an individual or individuals nearby. Turning suddenly, I met the basilisk gaze of Pearl and Ruby. Their dreadful remark came to me with crushing force. They had begun, as they coarsely put it, 'to pick up something.' Lobster-like, finding myself in hot water, I turned several beautiful shades of red immediately. I became terror-stricken—I, ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... thy fellows?" he asked of a fisherman, whose dark eye glittered in that light, like the organ of a basilisk. ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... her periodical rest in her lap, and without any abating or concealment, fixes PIKE with a basilisk glare which continues. He is unconscious of all this, his back being three-quarters to ...
— The Man from Home • Booth Tarkington and Harry Leon Wilson
... love of her, as Chrysostom died for love of the shepherdess; and she, like the shepherdess, had shed no tear. When Chrysostom was lying on his bier in the valley, and Marcella looked down from the high rock, Ambrosio, the dead man's comrade, cried out on her, upbraiding her with bitter words—"Oh basilisk of our mountains!" Nor do I think Ambrosio spoke too strongly. Marcella cared nothing for men's admiration, and yet, instead of retiring to one of those nunneries which are founded for her kind, she chose ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... exceeding comeliness Which their fancies doth so strike, They borrow language of dislike; And, instead of Dearest Miss, Jewel, Honey, Sweetheart, Bliss, And those forms of old admiring, Call her Cockatrice and Siren, Basilisk, and all that's evil, Witch, Hyena, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... profusely, and edges away with an inward vow to avoid his and the Auctioneer's eyes, as he would those of a basilisk. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 22, 1890 • Various
... although hinting at some horrid and appalling crimes. No one knew what they exactly were, for the old woman had outlived her contemporaries, and the tradition was imperfect; but she had been handed down to the next generation as one to be avoided as a basilisk. ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... arranged the remains of his victims; and she was sorry for him, dragged into the market-place, so pitifully shrunken, beaten, and mortified was he. She wanted to live in all the mediaeval castles of the picture-backgrounds, and was of opinion that the basilisk's real intentions had been misunderstood by the general public of his day. "I should love to have such a comic, trotty beast to lead about in Central Park," said she. "Why the octopi that the people cook and sell in the ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the last fading shafts of light would hover about its face. Not for a paradise of peace would I touch the loathsome thing again to hide it in the shadows. I could neither take my eyes from it nor put my hands upon it. Like the basilisk of fable it held my gaze charmed, fixed it, bound it fast. Crouch as I might in the remotest corner, cover my face in my mantle, still that searching, penetrating thing pierced all obstacles, glared ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... nearest restaurant. Surrounded by a silent, curious group, he crouched over the board counter and wolfed a ravenous meal. When he had finished he rose, turned, and stared questioningly at the circle of hostile faces; his eyes still glittered with that basilisk glare of hatred and defiance. There was something huge, disconcerting, about the man. Not once had he appealed for mercy, not once had he complained, not once had he asked about his brother; he showed neither curiosity nor concern over Jim's fate, and now he betrayed the utmost ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... in his entrails, in this black hypocrite's breast. O, the art of hell has deceived me! The Abyss sent up to me the most spotted of the spirits, the most skilful in lies, and placed him as a friend by my side. Who may withstand the power of hell? I took the basilisk to my bosom, with my heart's blood I nourished him; he sucked himself glutfull at the breasts of my love. I never harboured evil towards him; wide open did I leave the door of my thoughts; I threw away the key of wise foresight. In the starry ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... never been behind the scenes of a theater before, and she went prying about, ignoring the music, for she was almost earless. Presently, whom should she encounter but Edward Severne. She started and looked at him like a basilisk. He removed his hat and drew back a step with a great air of respect and humility. She was shocked and indignant with Ina for letting him be about her. She followed her off the stage into her dressing room, and took her to task. "I have seen ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... rascal. He that dares be false To a master, though unjust, will ne'er be true To any other. Look not for reward, Or favour from me; I will shun thy sight, As I would do a basilisk's. ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... was aware that I was liberated, the shifty spectre, whose basilisk eye had not released me, stood at ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... sometimes with a drawn sword he leapt upon him, and threatened to strike, unless he speedily turned back. At other times he assumed the shapes of all manner of beasts, roaring and making a terrible din and bellowing; or again he became a dragon, adder, or basilisk. But that fair and right noble athlete kept his soul in quietness, for he had made the Most High his refuge: and, being sober in mind, he laughed the evil one to scorn, and said, "I know thee, deceiver, who thou art, which stiffest up this trouble for me; which from the beginning didst devise ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... himself to take much note of the deep examination of which he was himself the object, Auguste did not see the half-magnetic glance with which this strange being seemed to pierce him; had he encountered that basilisk eye he might have felt the danger that encompassed him. Too passionately excited to think of himself, Auguste bowed, went down the stairs, and returned home, striving to find a meaning in the connection of these three persons,—Ida, Ferragus, and Madame Jules; an occupation equivalent to ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... 'that basilisk stare has chilled me through, my friends. I can hear bells ringing in my ears! I may take leave of you; you will bury ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... black hair dangling loosely about his shoulders, the broad frightful countenance, which, however, was devoid of paint, the glittering, basilisk-like eyes, the sinewy half-bent finger, with the right fingers closed like a vise around the handle of the knife at his waist, while gently drawing it forth, the catlike advance,—all these made him so terrible an enemy that ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... become disengaged from the block, the eye looks out, the nose gains refinement, the mouth is developed. When the last cube is reached, there remains nothing to finish save the details of the head-dress and the basilisk on the brow. No scholar's model in basalt has yet been found;[39] but the Egyptians, like our monumental masons, always kept a stock of half-finished statues in hard stone, which could be turned out complete in a few hours. The hands, ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... an expression was that?" inquired Mrs. Winslow Teed. "I saw a stuffed basilisk in a London museum when I was abroad, but I can't seem to ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... HUMBER. What basilisk was hatched in this place, Where every thing consumed is to nought? What fearful Fury haunts these cursed groves, Where not a root is left for Humber's meat? Hath fell Alecto, with invenomed blasts, Breathed forth ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... against the Scots,' Katharine said. 'But the beasts of the field strike as well against the foes of their kind—the bull of the herd against lions; the Hyrcanian tiger against the troglodytes; the basilisk against many beasts. It is the province of a man to smite not only against the foes of his kind but—and how much the more?—against the foes of ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... as it may," said his partner, "from a cock's egg is hatched the cockatrice, or basilisk, the glance of whose eye turns the beholder to stone. Therefore they tried the cock, found him guilty and burned him and his egg together at the stake. That is why ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... execution, Leontius and Apsimar were cast prostrate in chains beneath the throne of the emperor; and Justinian, planting a foot on each of their necks, contemplated above an hour the chariot-race, while the inconstant people shouted, in the words of the Psalmist, "Thou shalt trample on the asp and basilisk, and on the lion and dragon shalt thou set thy foot!" The universal defection which he had once experienced might provoke him to repeat the wish of Caligula, that the Roman people had but one head. Yet I shall presume to observe, that such a wish is unworthy ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... came travelling to me, you smiled upon his voyage, on his way over the wild waves you kept him safe. Full many a time have I troubled you to dry my tears. I ask you now of your kindness to cool my cheek aglow with love!" Ortrud has kept basilisk eyes fixed upon the sweet love-flushed face touched with moonlight. "She shall curse the hour," speaks the bitter enemy in her teeth, "in which my eyes beheld her thus!" She bids Telramund under-breath leave her for a little ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... she proves her self still to be the Devil of a Lady, for she bears Malice, and will never forgive me, that I would not let her be an Angel; but like a very Devil as she is, she endeavours to kill me at a Distance; and indeed the Poison of her Eyes, (Basilisk-like) is very strong, and she has a strange Influence upon me; but I that know her to be a Devil, strive very hard with my self to drive the Memory of ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... (loghe) i.e. vile. "Now ys Pers bycome bryche That er was bothe stoute and ryche." In the Romance of Alexander, ed. Stevenson, we find the form bicchid briched (?). Cf. shille and shrille, etc. "And on the a[gh]tent day, eftire the prime A basilisk in a browe, breis (annoys) thaim unfaire, A stra[gh]till and a stithe worme stinkande of elde, And es so bitter, and so breme, and bicchid (foul) in himselfe, That with the stinke and the strenth he stroyes no[gh]t allane, Bot quat he settes on his si[gh]t, he ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various
... moment the girl appears to have forgotten her purpose, or else she executes it in a manner sufficiently maladroit. In passing the strap over the high coon-skin cap, her fingers become entangled in the brown curls beneath. Her eyes are not directed that way: they are gazing with a basilisk glance into the ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... dart a quick glance at Bellward and found the other's staring eyes, with pupils distended, fixed on his. And Desmond felt his resistance ebb. He tried to avert his gaze; but it was too late. That basilisk glare ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... that she was! 'Tis thus that the basilisk charms the poor bird that falls a victim ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... Castleton, solely because of the Englishman's obtuseness. And there was another thing much stranger than this and quite as amusing. Dorothy Coombs knew Monty was a liar; but she was so fascinated by the glittering, basilisk eyes he riveted upon her, so taken in by his horrible tales of blood, that despite her knowledge she ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... a convent of religious, Which was founded in that desert, Where I lived retired and hidden, Well taken care of and attended. For a lady there, a nun, Was my cousin, which connection Gave to her the special burden Of this care. My heart already Being a basilisk which turned All the honey into venom, Passing swiftly from mere liking To desire — that monster ever Feeding on the impossible — Living fire that with intensest Fury burns when most opposed — Flame the wind revives and strengthens, False, deceitful, treacherous foe Which ...
— The Purgatory of St. Patrick • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... "'IMPOSSIBLE TO ALLOW YOU TO CALL any more'!" These and other terms of his dismissal recurred to him during the morning, and ever and anon he looked up from his desk, his lips moving to the tune of those horrid phrases, and stared out at the street. Basilisk glaring this, with no Christian softness in it, not even when it fell upon his own grandfather, sitting among the sages within easy eye-shot from the big window at Norbert's elbow. However, Colonel Flitcroft was not disturbed by the gaze of his descendant, being, in fact, quite unaware of it. ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... cross-legged, was observing him with the eyes of a basilisk, but Castro swore a great oath that, as to himself, he showed no signs of fear. He looked at the water gushing from the rock, bubbling up, sparkling, running away in a succession of tiny leaps and falls. Why should he fear? Was he not old, and tired, and without any hope of peace on earth? ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... can lay an egg! And do you know what's in that egg? A basilisk. No one can stand the sight of such a thing; people know that, and now you know it too—you know what is in me, and what a champion of all ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... into the extensive basin that receives them below. On one of the islands thus formed, the natives make a portage. Here, then, we took our station close to a cascade: our opponents commenced building a hut on one side of the path, we on the other. While this operation was in progress, basilisk looks denoted the strength of feeling that pervaded the breasts of either party, but not a word was exchanged between us. Our hut was first completed, when our champion clambered aloft, and crowed defiance; three ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean
... the dark glitter of a triumphant vengeance the last agony of the man whom he had loved, that the two who were with him in this ghastly hour shrank involuntarily from his side, awed more by the Living than the Dead. Almost unconsciously they watched him, fascinated basilisk-wise, as he stooped and severed a long flake of hair that was soiled by the dank earth and wet with the dew: unarrested they let him turn away with the golden lock in his hand and the fatal calm on his face, and move to the spot where his horse was waiting. ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... manner—even now the game is not entirely lost! Forget for a time that you are a father. Do not contend against a passion which opposition only renders more formidable. Leave me to hatch, from the heat of their own passions, the basilisk ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... erect Furrows with tail alone his sandy path; Swift Jaculus there, and Seps (25) whose poisonous juice Makes putrid flesh and frame: and there upreared His regal head, and frighted from his track With sibilant terror all the subject swam, Baneful ere darts his poison, Basilisk (26) In sands deserted king. Ye serpents too Who in all other regions harmless glide Adored as gods, and bright with golden scales, In those hot wastes are deadly; poised in air Whole herds of kine ye follow, and with coils Encircling close, ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... against the basilisk fascinating Philippa; and with a vow to keep them apart and deprive him of his chance, she relapsed upon the stiff frigidity which was not natural to her. It lasted long enough to put him on his guard under the seductions of a noble dame's condescension to a familiar tone. But, as he was too well ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... heads, and their look caused an instant horror, which was immediately followed by death. In Shakespeare's play of Richard the Third, Lady Anne, in answer to Richard's compliment on her eyes, says, "Would they were basilisk's, ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... going on board ship, as if each white complexion were made up like a mask, of greasepaint. Every negro in England was put under special regulations and made to report himself; the outgoing ships would no more have taken a nigger than a basilisk. For people had found out how fearful and vast and silent was the force of the savage secret society, and by the time Flambeau and Father Brown were leaning on the parade parapet in April, the Black Man meant in England almost what he once meant ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... hard and drew it into thick burnished ropes of fine gold. Anon, as the whim caught him, he would pile it up and hedge it with great silver pins, fan-shape, such as country girls use, till it took the semblance, now of a tower, now of a wheel, now of some winged beast—sphinx or basilisk—couching on the girl's head. Then, stepping back a little, he would clasp his hands over his eyes, and with head in air sing some snatch of triumph, or laugh aloud for the very wildness of his power; and so the game went ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... lion it rises; where the mighty crags, throne-like, o'ershadow the lesser woods; where the royal beast, lording it over an inferior world, stealthily prowls and lashes its angry tail at the impudence of such a disturbance in its vast domain. Its basilisk stare looks out from its furtive, drooping head, and its commands ring out in a ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... and haunted the cabins. Marsha's snake was back. There was Lazar's dragon, which seemed to grow larger every day. There was also a basilisk, a pterodactyl, a vampire bat with a five-foot wingspread, an old-fashioned red spade-tailed demon ...
— Subjectivity • Norman Spinrad
... Walked in the wilderness; Soft words of grace he spoke Unto lost desert-folk That listened wondering. He heard the bitterns call From ruined palace-wall, Answered them brotherly. He held communion With the she-pelican Of lonely piety. Basilisk, cockatrice, Flocked to his homilies, With mail of dread device, With monstrous barbed stings, With eager dragon-eyes; Great rats on leather wings And poor blind broken things, Foul in their miseries. And ever with him went, Of all his wanderings Comrade, with ragged coat, Gaunt ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... still a province of the empire of science. Strange beings moved through the pages of natural history, which were equally at home in the 'Arabian Nights' or in poetical apologues. The griffin, the phoenix, and the dragon were not yet extinct; the salamander still sported in flames; and the basilisk slew men at a distance with his deadly glance. More commonplace animals indulged in the habits which they had learnt in fables, and of which only some feeble vestiges now remain in the eloquence of strolling showmen. The elephant had no joints, ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... clear glance, sharp glance, quick glance, eagle glance, piercing glance, penetrating glance, clear eye, sharp eye, quick eye, eagle eye, piercing eye, penetrating eye; perspicacity, discernment; catopsis[obs3]. eagle, hawk; cat, lynx; Argus[obs3]. evil eye; basilisk, cockatrice [Mythical]. V. see, behold, discern, perceive, have in sight, descry, sight, make out, discover, distinguish, recognize, spy, espy, ken; get a sight of, have a sight of, catch a sight of, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... basilisk, cockatrice, amphisbaena. Associated Words: ophiology, ophiolatry, ophiophagous, ophiography, herpetology, ophidian, ophiologic, ophiomorphous, herpetologist, herpetotomy, herpetotomist, ophiologist, ophiomancy, echidna, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... down stairs to open the door, and shortly afterward Maria Remedios, who was not now a woman but a basilisk enveloped in a mantle, entered Dona Perfecta's room. Her face, flushed with ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... that for the future, at balls and similar affairs, dancing spurs be worn, so as to avoid such unpleasant accidents as we had night before last. One gentleman, who shall be nameless,"—and as he said it he fixed a basilisk eye on Lieutenant von Meckelburg—"tore off with his spurs the whole edge on the robe of Frau Captain Stark. This must not occur again, gentlemen, and from now on I shall officially punish similar behavior. Furthermore, it is customary ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... to confront the owner of that basilisk eye. There was not a sign of a human being in sight. Beyond was a black little room, at the back of which stood an old cooking stove with a fire going and a kettle singing. He leaped through, prepared to grasp the mysterious watcher, but, to his utter amazement, the ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... it? Good heavens, girl, you needn't basilisk me so, to see if I do! You glare as if I were some kind of abnormal beast eating with its eyes, or winking with ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... time to trace effect to cause. The warning came this time from the eyes of a man, a lithe, keen-faced man who flashed a look of triumphant malice on us as he disappeared in the waiting-room of the ferry-shed. But the keen face, and the basilisk glance were burned into my mind in that moment as deeply as though I had known then ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... Timothy (quoth he), keep the deposit, avoid profane novelties of words.' Avoid (quoth he) as a viper, as a scorpion, as a basilisk, lest they infect thee not only by touching, but also with their very eyes and breath. What is meant by avoid?[370] that is, not so much as to eat with any such. What importeth this avoid? 'If any man (quoth he) come unto you, and bring not this doctrine,'[371] what doctrine but the Catholic ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... make void, What is confirm'd in Court: no, no, Don Henrique, You shall know that I find my self abus'd, And adde to that, I have a womans anger, And while I look upon this Basilisk, Whose envious eyes have blasted all my comforts Rest confident I'le study my dark ends, ...
— The Spanish Curate - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... preserve at least Prussia from this noxious influence and to push her over to the other side, to the side of the coalition, than to allow her to be devoured, like a poor little bird, by the French basilisk. These endeavors, which kept up a continual conflict between him and the special favorites and confidants of the king, Haugwitz and Kockeritz, had gained him the love and esteem of all Prussian patriots, and secured him an extraordinary popularity. These ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... That is the Duke Lorenzo. Mark him well. He meditates, his head upon his hand. What from beneath his helm-like bonnet scowls? Is it a face, or but an eyeless skull? 'Tis lost in shade; yet, like the basilisk, It fascinates, and is intolerable. His mien is noble, most majestical! Then most so, when the distant choir is heard At morn or eve—nor fail thou to attend On that thrice-hallowed day, when all are there; When all, propitiating ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... waiting on the platform in the great hall where Sykes and McGuire had stood, and their basilisk eyes glared unwinkingly down at the three who were thrown at ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... replied Wayland; "I have seen a basilisk. Thank God, I saw him first; for being so seen, and seeing not me, he will do ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... A basilisk in thee we see, Which fascinates our gaze and kills. No empire mild is thine, but one That tyrannises o'er ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... "Hideous basilisk!" he spat at her; "dare you rebel against me? Am I not King of France, and is it not blasphemy for a King of France to be mocked? Frail moths that flutter about my splendor," he shrieked, in an unheralded frenzy, "beware of me, beware! for I am omnipotent! I am King of France, Heaven's regent. ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... in spite of the metaphorists, to avoid the breath of the deadly upas tree; one may, by great good fortune, succeed in blacking the eye of the basilisk; one might even dodge the attentions of Cerberus and Argus, but no man, alive or dead, can escape the ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... eye, and smiled kindly at him. The ex-policeman was looking at him with the gaze of a baffled, but malignant basilisk. ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... were stretched forth to fasten on the hapless Count, who, with vacillating step, like the bird under the eye of the basilisk, involuntarily, though with a perfect consciousness of his awful situation, and the fearful fate which awaited him, every moment drew nearer and nearer to him. The victim reached the chapel door—he felt all the power of that diabolical ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous
... the cankered effort of a barren tree," cast back Weng over his shoulder. "Look to your own offspring, basilisk. It is given me to speak." Even as he spoke there was a great cry from the upper part of the house, the sound of many feet and much turmoil, but he went on ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... painter except Murillo, whose St. John I should like to own. As far as my own pleasure is concerned, I could not say as much for any other picture; for I have always found an infinite weariness and disgust resulting from a picture being too frequently before my eyes. I had rather see a basilisk, for instance, than the very best of those old, familiar pictures in the Boston Athenaeum; and most of those in the National Gallery might soon affect me in the ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... affording Matter of Contemplation. The Description of a neat Garden, where there is a Variety of Discourse concerning Herbs. Of Marjoram, Celandine, Wolfs-Bane, Hellebore. Of Beasts, Scorpions, the Chamaeleon, the Basilisk; of Sows, Indian Ants, Dolphins, and of the Gardens of Alcinous. Tables were esteemed sacred by the very Heathens themselves. Of washing Hands before Meat. A Grace before Meat out of Chrysostom. Age is to be honoured, ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... Lo! the wonder! Basilisk, the fabled viper! Superstition names it so. Look at it, I pray, with calmness, 'Twas thy mind that was at fault. God's great goodness is displayed here; He, I trow, rewards thy eloquence In the monster which thou seest: All this ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... basilisk, the serpent, and the evil eye, have probably all some facts for their foundation. The effect of the human eye in arresting the attacks of savage animals is better authenticated, and its influence upon domestic ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... it more important to remark that the Professor's Wanderings, so far as his stoical and cynical envelopment admits us to clear insight, here first take their permanent character, fatuous or not. That Basilisk-glance of the Barouche-and-four seems to have withered-up what little remnant of a purpose may have still lurked in him: Life has become wholly a dark labyrinth; wherein, through long years, our Friend, flying from spectres, ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... looked, you might see in his face, and even the slight shiver of his frame, the repugnance and aversion which the Christian felt for one whom he knew to be so dangerous and so criminal. It was indeed the gaze of the bird upon the basilisk—so silent was it and so prolonged. But shaking off the sudden chill that had crept over him, Olinthus extended his right arm towards Arbaces, and said, in a deep and ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... Pope Alexander III. sate, and placed his foot upon the neck of the Emperor: the stone has this inscription half legible round it, Super aspidem et basiliscum ambulabis[Footnote: Thou shalt tread on the asp and the basilisk]. How does this lovely Piazza di San Marco render a newly-arrived spectator breathless with delight! while not a span of it is unoccupied by actual beauty; though the whole appears uncrowded, as in the works ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... made no reply. The manager, still keeping his basilisk eyes on him, nodded sharply, as if to say, "Go and have your head taken off." Then ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... we view'd the city, seen the sack, And caus'd the ruins to be new-repair'd, Which with our bombards' shot and basilisk[s] [196] We rent in sunder at our entry: And, now I see the situation, And how secure this conquer'd island stands, Environ'd with the Mediterranean sea, Strong-countermin'd with other petty isles, And, toward Calabria, [197] back'd by Sicily (Where Syracusian Dionysius reign'd), ...
— The Jew of Malta • Christopher Marlowe
... in such quick and confused succession, that the friends of the former knew not where to plant the succoring blow. It is true there were short and fleeting moments, when the fiery eyes of Magua were seen glittering, like the fabled organs of the basilisk through the dusty wreath by which he was enveloped, and he read by those short and deadly glances the fate of the combat in the presence of his enemies; ere, however, any hostile hand could descend on his devoted head, its ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... Aunt Eliza eloquently, nodding coyly at me, while I stared into space with basilisk calm. I object to references to my problematical marriage—especially by aunts. The great "until" never arrived for them, yet they feel quite annoyed because twenty-six has ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Glenvarloch. "How could I have dreamt of seeing you in my present close lodgings?" And at the same time, with the frankness of old kindness, he walked up to Christie and offered his hand; but John started back as from the look of a basilisk. ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... brave confessor and make them wait until the day of their own death for the ample succession of this uncle, to whom they paid great attention every day, going to look if the good man had his eyes open, and in fact found him always with his eye clear, bright, and piercing as the eye of a basilisk, which pleased them greatly, since they loved their uncle very much—in words. On this subject an old woman related that for certain the canon was the devil, because his two nephews, the procureur and the ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... gathered before her. One or two cursed Kieff in a growling undertone. But Kieff himself remained absolutely unmoved. He was smoking a cigarette and he inhaled several deep breaths before he replied to her challenge. Then, with his basilisk eyes fixed immovably upon her, as it were clinging to her, he made his deadly answer: "I will certainly tell you what I said, madam, since you desire it. But the explanation is one which surely only you can give. I said to my friend, 'There goes the wife of the Rangers.' Did I make ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... certain Count of Savoy owned the beautiful Castle of Chillon, which you have perhaps seen, on the shores of the Lake of Geneva. But he could not be happy, because he and the people about him thought that in a hole in the rock under one of the cellars a basilisk lived—a very terrible dragon—and they all went in fear of it. So the Count paid a brave mason a large sum of money (and the payment is solemnly set down in his account book) to break a way into this hole and turn the basilisk out; ...
— The Book of Art for Young People • Agnes Conway
... horror and disgust escaped at the same moment from the lips of the two officers, and the men started back from their charge as if a basilisk had suddenly appeared before them. Captain Erskine pursued:—"What the devil is the meaning of all ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... not wish to use it, especially as the sick man had slept well the preceding night and had awakened without any fever, although still very weak. After the prince's departure, the sister immediately sent a servant for a new medicine apparently—for the "egg of a basilisk"—which she affirmed had the power to restore strength even to people in agony; as for herself, she wandered about the mansion; she was humble and was dressed in a lay dress, but similar to that worn by members of the Order; ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... its gaze the person who looked on it. Thus Henry VI. says to Suffolk, "Come, basilisk, and kill the innocent gazer with ...
— 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.
... and St. Frazal de Vantalon, but she addressed herself principally to recent converts, to whom she preached concerning the Eucharist that in swallowing the consecrated wafer they had swallowed a poison as venomous as the head of the basilisk, that they had bent the knee to Baal, and that no penitence on their part could be great enough to save them. These doctrines inspired such profound terror that the Rev. Father Louvreloeil himself tells us that Satan by his efforts succeeded in ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... who had been gazing at little Theophilus Opperdyke with a basilisk glare that perturbed the bewildered Human Encyclopedia, suddenly strode across the room and placed his hand ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... a long 48-pounder, the gun next in size to the carthoun: called basilisk from the snakes or dragons sculptured in the place of dolphins. According to Sir William Monson its random range was 3000 paces. Also, in still earlier times, a gun throwing an iron ball of ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... none will ever love me! All will hate and flee from me, as from a basilisk or cockatrice, or the Loathly Worm of Spindlesheugh," ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... may escape from Rope and Gun; Nay, some have out liv'd the Doctor's Pill; Who takes a Woman must be undone, That Basilisk is sure to kill. The Fly that sips Treacle is lost in the Sweets, So he that tastes Woman, Woman, Woman, He ...
— The Beggar's Opera - to which is prefixed the Musick to each Song • John Gay
... vaulted, like that of the Maabed, having a length of eight feet, a breadth of five, and a height of about ten feet, and ornamented externally with a very peculiar cornice. This consisted of a series of carvings, representing the fore part of an uraeus or basilisk serpent, uprearing itself against the wall of the shrine, which were continued along the entire front of the chamber. There was also an internal ornamentation of the roof, consisting of a winged circle of an Egyptian character—a favourite subject with the Phoenician artists[620]—the circle having ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... (by mistake of the Greeks attributed to Ammon), and his worship was universal in Ethiopia. The sheep are sacred to him, of which there were large flocks in the Thebaid, kept for their wool. And the serpent or asp, a sign of kingly dominion,—hence called basilisk,—is sacred to Kneph. As Creator, he appears under the figure of a potter with a wheel. In Philae he is so represented, forming on his wheel a figure of Osiris, with the inscription, "Num, who forms on his wheel the Divine Limbs of Osiris." ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... Osiris; by others the same as Vulcan. Vulcanus AEgyptiis Opas dictus est, eodem Cicerone [185]teste. A serpent was also, in the Egyptian language, styled Ob, or Aub: though it may possibly be only a variation of the term above. We are told by Orus Apollo, that the basilisk, or royal serpent, was named Oubaios: [186][Greek: Oubaios, ho estin Hellenisti Basiliskos]. It should have been rendered [Greek: Oubos], Oubus; for [Greek: Oubaios] is a possessive, and not a proper name. The Deity, so denominated, was esteemed prophetic; and ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant
... he sat, watching me like a basilisk, with his dark, glittering, mesmeric eyes, out of a remote corner of the room—not in contempt or anger, but there was a quiet, assured, sardonic smile about his lips, which ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... at one crib shall meet, And harmless serpents lick the pilgrim's feet. The smiling infant in his hand shall take, The crested basilisk and speckled snake. ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... more curious animal, not often seen, was the well-named Gila monster or Escorpion (Heloderma suspectum), the only existing animal that fills the description of the Basilisk or Cockatrice of mediaeval times; not the Basilicus Americanus, which is an innocent herbivorous lizard. This Gila monster is a comparatively small, but very hideous creature, in appearance like a lizard, very sluggish ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... thou sooty spirit from Tartarus!... I cast thee down, O Tartarean boor,... into the infernal kitchen!... Loathsome cobbler,... dingy collier,... filthy sow (scrofa stercorata),... perfidious boar,... envious crocodile,... malodorous drudge,... wounded basilisk,... rust-colored asp,... swollen toad,... entangled spider,... lousy swineherd (porcarie pedicose),... lowest of the low,... cudgelled ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... much and seriously indisposed by indolence and intemperance, he requested to know what he was to do, and the doctor ordered him to eat a basilisk, stewed in rose water, which he asserted would effect a complete cure. His slaves searched in vain for a basilisk; at last they met with Zadig, who was introduced to this mighty lord, and spoke to him in ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... It is his mind that is more crooked than his back. He is a perilous man with women, for the Devil hath given him such a tongue and such an eye that he charms them even as the basilisk. Marriage may be in their mind, but never in his, so that I could count a dozen and more whom he has led to their undoing. It is his pride and his boast over the ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... with which he was wont to look erect on heaven, and see in his mirror the image of his God? What Egyptian drug have you poured into his veins, and turned the ambling fountains of the heart into black and burning pitch? Give me back my husband! Undo your basilisk spells, and give me back the man that stood with ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... if Lady Auriol had been a Gorgon or a basilisk or a cockatrice, then had I been a slain ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... Fascinated as by a basilisk with three heads, I could not leave this clique; the ground near them seemed to hold my feet. The canopy of entwined trees held out shadow, the night whispered a pledge of protection, and an officious lamp flashed just one beam to show me an obscure, safe ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... very sorry that we were not dining "at home." At least they might have left me alone there. That he did not turn to stone as he uttered these words was not my fault; at least I fixed upon him such basilisk eyes as I was capable of. What an idea! To refuse a dinner with my P. C. uncle for his sake! Grandmother, too, discovered that I ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... next moment turned up on the losing side, one of the other players cried with a laugh, 'Good-luck, Signor Vertua, good-luck! Don't lose heart. Go on staking; you look to me as if you would finish with breaking the bank through your immense winnings.' The old man shot a basilisk-like look upon the mocker and hurried away, but only to return at the end of half an hour with his pockets full of gold. In the last taille he was, however, obliged to cease playing, since he had again lost all the money he had brought ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... shoulders; his face was round, tanned, and pitted by the small-pox; his chin was straight, his lips had no curves, his teeth were white; his eyes had that calm, devouring expression which people attribute to the basilisk; his forehead, full of transverse wrinkles, was not without certain significant protuberances; his yellow-grayish hair was said to be silver and gold by certain young people who did not realize the impropriety ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... together, and a little child shall lead them. And the heifer, and the she bear shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the suckling shall play upon the hole of the asp; and upon the den of the basilisk shall the new weaned child lay his hand. They shall not hurt, nor destroy in my holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. And it shall come to pass in that day, the root of Jesse which standeth ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English
... his fear of death, and to the five thousand francs which I offered him, and which had the same effect upon him as a basilisk's eye on the bird. These German journalists, it seems, are even more needy than ours, for they can ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... lurks in palaces and courts? Take thy unwonted flight, And on the terrace light. See where she lies! See how she rears her head, And rolls about her dreadful eyes, To drive all virtue out, or look it dead! 'Twas sure this basilisk sent Temple thence, And though as some ('tis said) for their defence Have worn a casement o'er their skin, So wore he his within, Made up of virtue and transparent innocence; And though he oft renew'd the fight, And almost got priority of sight, He ne'er could overcome her quite, In pieces cut, ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... the panther's treacherous seeming, That looks so lovely to beguile its prey; Seek not to match the basilisk's false gleaming, That charms the fancy only ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... occupation. To some of the children of cities it may seem strange that men with no object in view should continue to follow a life of such hardship and desperate adventure; yet there is a mysterious, restless charm in the basilisk eye of danger, and few men perhaps remain long in that wild region without learning to love peril for its own sake, and to laugh carelessly ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... sensations of that night, none has left a more unpleasant odour in my memory than the manner of that woman in the chamber of death. Her voice was incredibly hard. Her dull, basilisk eyes, seeking in mine the answers to her questions, gave me an eerie sensation that makes my blood run cold whenever I ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... each one had wonderful tales of adventure to relate. Even the old travelers, who saw the phoenix expire in her odoriferous nest, whence the chick soon flew forth regenerated, or who found dead lions slain by the quills of some "fretful porcupine," or who knew that the stare of the basilisk was death—even those who saw unicorns graze and who heard mermaids sing—were veracious when compared with the explorers of railroad routes across the continent. Senator Jefferson Davis did much to encourage ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... his dark basilisk-like eyes on the soldier, gazed a moment, as if to read his soul; then he jerked a thumb backward, over his own shoulder, and said, with a ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... many as the properties which were assigned to it. It was called the one thing, the essence, the philosopher's stone, the stone of wisdom, the heavenly balm, the divine water, the virgin water, the carbuncle of the sun, the old dragon, the lion, the basilisk, the phoenix; and many other names ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir
... my chair gazing at it, and the more I gazed the more it disquieted me. I had never before been affected in the same way by any painting. The emotions it caused were strange and indefinite. They were something like what I have heard ascribed to the eyes of the basilisk; or like that mysterious influence in reptiles termed fascination. I passed my hand over my eyes several times, as if seeking instinctively to brush away this allusion—in vain—they instantly reverted to the picture, and its chilling, ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving |
