"Delphic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and of course Zeus, hold their ground.[51:1] What this god's original name was at Delos we cannot be sure: he has very many names and 'epithets'. But he early became identified with a similar god at Delphi and adopted his name, 'Apollon', or, in the Delphic and Dorian form, 'Apellon'—presumably the Kouros projected from the Dorian gatherings called 'apellae'.[51:2] As Phoibos he is a sun-god, and from classical times onward we often find him definitely ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray
... paragram^, calembour^, quibble, equivoque [Fr.], anagram; conundrum &c (riddle) 533; play on words, word play &c (wit) 842; homonym, homonymy [Gramm.]; amphiboly^, amphibology^; ambilogy^, ambiloquy^. Sphinx, Delphic oracle. equivocation &c (duplicity) 544; white lie, mental reservation &c (concealment) 528; paltering. V. be equivocal &c adj.; have two meanings &c 516; equivocate &c (alter) 544. Adj. equivocal, ambiguous, amphibolous^, homonymous^; double-tongued &c (lying) 544; enigmatical, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... individual will be the prime cause of a decision to overturn the deliberate act of a whole State or of the United States; yet we are admonished to receive their opinions as the ancients did the responses of the Delphic oracle, or the Jews, with more propriety, the communications from Heaven delivered by Urim and Thummim to the High Priest ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... leaves; For to that honour thou, and my high theme Will fit me. If but seldom, mighty Sire! To grace his triumph gathers thence a wreath Caesar or bard (more shame for human wills Deprav'd) joy to the Delphic god must spring From the Pierian foliage, when one breast Is with such thirst inspir'd. From a small spark Great flame hath risen: after me perchance Others with better voice may pray, and gain From the Cirrhaean city answer kind. Through diver ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... see dimly in the Present what is small and what is great, Slow of faith, how weak an arm may turn the iron helm of fate, But the soul is still oracular; amid the market's din, List the ominous stern whisper from the Delphic cave within,— "They enslave their children's children who make compromise ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... a vain or shallow thought His awful Jove young Phidias brought; Never from lips of cunning fell The thrilling Delphic oracle: Out from the heart of nature rolled The burdens of the Bible old; The litanies of nations came, Like the volcano's tongue of flame, Up from the burning core below,— The canticles of love and woe. The hand ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... signifying the fleet, and though thought to be peculiarly English, was used by the Delphic oracle, when applied to by the Athenians on the Persian invasion: ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... soon as it was born he had its ancles pierced, and put it out in a wood to die; but it was found by a shepherd, and brought to Corinth, where the queen named it OEdipus, or Swollen Feet, and bred it up as her own child. Many years later OEdipus set out for the Delphic oracle, to ask who he was; but all the answer he received was that he must shun his native land, for he would be the slayer of his own father. He therefore resolved not to return to Corinth, but on his journey he met in a narrow pass with a chariot going ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... will keep him safe enough," said the major, complacently stroking his chin. The major better understood the Delphic answer of the General ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... waters roar In the parched land where rustic Daunus reigned, And first taught Grecian numbers how to run In Latin measure. Muse! the honor gained Is thine, for I am thine till time is done. Gracious Melpomene, O hear me now, And with the Delphic ...
— Horace and His Influence • Grant Showerman
... zoologist, an intelligent botanist and a general physiologist, and has been for a long series of years the focus of the diffusion of knowledge on a great variety of subjects. Gov. Clinton has well called him the "Delphic Oracle" in one of his Letters of Hibernicus, because every one who has a scientific question ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... returned to Sparta about the period of the first Olympiad, B.C. 776, with a rich store of wisdom and knowledge. The State was full of disorders, but he instituted great reforms, aided by the authority of the Delphic oracle, and a strong party of influential men. His great object was to convert the citizens of Sparta into warriors united by the strongest bonds, and trained to the severest discipline, governed by an oligarchy under the form of the ancient monarchy. In other words, his object was ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... Heaven; there the impious Titans warred with the sky; there Jupiter was born and nursed; there was the celebrated shrine of Ammon, dedicated to Theban Jove, which the Greeks reverenced more highly than the Delphic Oracle; there was the birth-place and oracle of Minerva; and there, Atlas supported both the heavens and ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... lycanthropists and witches ascribed the power of disembodying themselves to the use of ointments. Antiquity furnishes no parallel to the horrors of these malignant and homicidal manias. Their analogues may be found in the fabled styes of Circe, or in the frenzied raptures of the Sybilline and Delphic priestesses; but the extent, the variety, and the hideousness of the disease in modern times, infinitely surpass all that was ever dreamt of in Pagan credulity. The points of resemblance, however, are ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... by fiction; and the fancy of the Syrian poets had transported the amorous tale from the banks of the Peneus to those of the Orontes. The ancient rites of Greece were imitated by the royal colony of Antioch. A stream of prophecy, which rivalled the truth and reputation of the Delphic oracle, flowed from the Castalian fountain of Daphne. [106] In the adjacent fields a stadium was built by a special privilege, [107] which had been purchased from Elis; the Olympic games were celebrated at the expense of the city; and a revenue of thirty thousand pounds sterling was annually ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... goddess. To say he looked up to her would be too mild. As the Cockney tourist in Chamounix peers at the summit of Mont Blanc, he peered at Mrs. Greyne. And when, finally, she bought the lease of the mansion in Belgrave Square, he knew her Delphic. ...
— The Mission Of Mr. Eustace Greyne - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... Bunsby is one of the happiest of Dickens's creations; stupid as an owl, he has nevertheless an oracular mode of delivering himself, and the simple-minded Cuttle places as much reliance upon this wooden-headed sailor as the ancients did on the mysterious utterance of the Delphic Apollo. That the powerful will of Macstinger should hold himself in subjugation so long as he was under the dominion of her eye was a matter of course; but that this man of wisdom should be so easily boarded and captured by the enemy, is so absolutely beyond his ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... went into quarters at Shorncliffe where we trained until the last week in March, when early, very early, one dark cold morning, a wailing sleepy drum and fife band played us down to the Shorncliffe Station, where we entrained for the Albert Docks, London. There the transport "Delphic" received us, together with a squadron of Paget's Horse (the 73rd I.Y.), and soon after noon the officers and troopers were being borne down the river, and with mixed feelings, were beginning to realise they were actually off ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... Pythoness of old, had said so many things that others of her sex neither knew nor dared to say. He avoided and put off all introduction to her. Madame Sand was ignorant of this. In consequence of that captivating simplicity, which is one of her noblest charms, she did not divine his fear of the Delphic priestess. At last she was presented to him, and an acquaintance with her soon dissipated the prejudices which he had obstinately nourished ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... mould, the fragrance of the rose has penetrated me, and the spirit of thy nature hath passed within me, to embalm, to sanctify, to inspire. Have they slandered me to thee, Ione? Thou wilt not believe them. Did the Delphic oracle itself tell me thou wert unworthy, I would not believe it; and am I less incredulous than thou I think of the last time we met—of the song which I sang to thee—of the look that thou gavest me in return. Disguise it as thou wilt, Ione, there is something kindred between us, and our eyes acknowledged ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... 'Like Delphic Hag of old, by Fiend possest, He swells, wild Frenzy heaves his panting breast, His bristling hairs stick up, his eyeballs glow, And from his mouth long ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... letter over again, to make sure that all the principal expressions were indistinct, and that the composition generally, except the postscript, resembled a Delphic oracle, when there was a hasty footstep, and a tap at her door, ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... vi. p. 149. to impress, by a description of the feelings of the unfortunate pair towards each other, a presentiment of their fatal relationship. The prophecy of Nostradamus is also obviously imitated from the response of the Delphic Pythoness ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... unusually gruff, not to say jeering, she resolved to find an opportunity of seeking Hozier's advice on the cablegram problem. But the portent of the blood-red water was not to be disregarded. Never was Delphic oracle better served by nature. The Andromeda began to roll ominously; masses of black cloud climbed over the southwest horizon; at midday the ship was driving through a heavy sea. As the day wore, the weather became even more threatening. A sky and ocean that had ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... against the paganizing Christians, or Gnostics. Like all great men, he was accused of plagiarism. A defence of great men accused of literary theft would be as valuable as Naude's work of a like name about magic. On his death the Delphic Oracle, in very second-rate hexameters, declared that Plotinus had ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang
... sometimes she thought there was such a thing as a girl's being too sweet. "I met Claire Fendall once when I went with Priscilla to a recital," Amy remarked. "And—Oh, well, I'm not one of the people who like honey for breakfast every morning of the year." But the only reply this Delphic utterance called forth from Peggy ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... a unit in favoring free coinage. Recent Republican and Democratic platforms had been phrased with Delphic genius to suit the East and West at once. The best known statesmen of both parties had "wobbled" upon the question. The Republican party contained a large element favorable to silver, while the Democratic President, at least, had boldly ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... and treated with kindness and hospitality. The news is eagerly demanded, friends are inquired for, and the words which fall from his lips are attentively listened to, carefully noted, and prized as highly as the sayings of the Delphic oracles. ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... Athenians, in obedience to oracles of the Delphic Apollo, and with the general agreement of all Hellas, despatched thirteen colonies at one time to Asia Minor, appointing leaders for each colony and giving the command-in-chief to Ion, son of Xuthus and Creusa (whom ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... spread before I reached home, and sufficiently accounted for our visit to Jersey, and the temporary postponement of my last trip to England before our marriage. My mother, Johanna, and I, kept our own counsel, and answered the many questions asked us as vaguely as the Delphic oracle. ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... of the Chameleon was an old journalist, whose face was a sealed book of Confucius, and who talked to me, patronizingly, now and then, like the Delphic Oracle. His name was Watch, and he wore a prodigious pearl in his shirt-bosom. He crept up to the editorial room at nine o'clock every night, and dashed off an hour's worth of glittering generalities, at the end of which ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... 1918 a very pretty quarrel was on between the two allies, culminating in at least one bloody mix-up between Turkish and Bulgarian troops. In these circumstances Bulgaria appealed to Germany, but was deeply chagrined to receive from the Wilhelmstrasse a Delphic utterance which might have been interpreted as an indorsement of Turkish claims. The reason for this was that Germany was then overrunning the Ukraine preparatory to the occupation of Transcaucasia and the penetration of the middle East. For such far-flung projects zealous Turkish ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... of the Sphynx, tempting the curious by their quaintness, but involving the personal risk of the adventurous interpreter. "The Gods themselves," it was said, "disclose their intentions to the wise, but to fools their teaching is unintelligible;" and the King of the Delphic Oracle was said not to declare, nor on the other hand to conceal; but emphatically to ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... philosopher, pronounced by the Delphic oracle the wisest of men; was the son of Sophroniscus, a statuary, and Phaenarete, a midwife; was brought up to his father's profession, in which it would seem he gave promise of success; he lived all his days in Athens, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... that factious or enthusiastic dotards dream, And all the incoherent jargon of the schools; Though all the fumes of fear, hope, love, and shame, Contrive to shock your minds with many a senseless doubt; Doubts where the Delphic God would grope in ignorance and night, The God of learning and of light Would want a God himself to help ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... whatever construction upon them their hopes or fears suggested. Compare, for example, the first specimen of writing given in this article with the descriptions we read in ancient history of the utterances of the Delphic oracle. How vague and indefinite are its warnings! and then the continual recurrence of the solemn admonition, "Hope and trust"—does it not seem prophetic of some evil hour, when all one's hope and faith were to be tried ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... many others of his contemporaries, had upon a vast reversionary estate of Fame. But I here speak too politically; to some the res angustoe domi leave no option. And, as Aristotle and the Greek proverb have it, we cannot carve out all things with the knife of the Delphic cutler. ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... it doubly a Delphic oracle for vagueness to me," said Mrs. Orton Beg, "because Colonel Colquhoun's name was ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... he took refuge with Minerva at Athens. The goddess afforded him protection, and appointed the court of Areopagus to decide his fate. The Erinyes brought forward their accusation, and Orestes made the command of the Delphic oracle his excuse. When the court voted and the voices were equally divided, Orestes was acquitted by the command ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... period modelled on the appearance of the Dioscuri—similar down to its very details—in the famous battle fought about a century before between the Crotoniates and Locrians at the river Sagras. The Delphic Apollo too was not only consulted—as was usual with all peoples that felt the influence of Grecian culture—and presented moreover after special successes, such as the capture of Veii, with a tenth of the spoil (360), but also had a temple built for him in the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... the future by signs from the gods or direct divine inspiration, was throughout antiquity considered one of the surest proofs of the existence of the gods. Now, it by no means follows that a person who was not impressed by a deformed ram's head would deny, e.g., the ability of the Delphic Oracle to predict the future, especially not so when the person in question was a naturalist. But that there was at this time a general tendency to reject the art of divination is evident from the fact that Herodotus as well as Sophocles, both of them contemporaries ...
— Atheism in Pagan Antiquity • A. B. Drachmann
... and profound remark of Hegel's that the riddle which the Sphinx, the Egyptian symbol of the mysteriousness of Nature, propounds to Oedipus is only another way of expressing the command of the Delphic oracle, "Know thyself." And when the answer is given the Sphinx casts herself down from her rock. When man knows himself, the mysteriousness of Nature and her ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... Delphic oracle foretold That the first Greek who touched the Trojan strand Should die; but me the threat could not withhold: A generous cause a victim did demand; And forth I leapt upon the sanely plain; A ...
— The Story of Troy • Michael Clarke
... Inspiration spurs thee on, Raising thy heart to flights of Helicon! If thus in strains of Delphic ecstasy Ascends the short-lived blissful memory Of his bright charms,—Oh, how divine must be His own sweet voice,—his look how heavenly! But why of that great attribute Kronion joys in most, be mute,— The majesty that hurls the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... King Hyperion, o'er the Delphic dale Reigning meanwhile in glory, Ocean know Thine absence, and outstretch'd an icy veil, A marble pavement, o'er his waters blue; Past the Varangian fiord and Zembla hoar, And from Petsora north to dark ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... to something vague that can be construed two ways, like the Delphic Oracle or Old Moore's Almanac," ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... such subjects, and which night and day contemplates them, contains in itself that precept of the Delphic God, so as to "know itself," and to perceive its connexion with the divine reason, from whence it is filled with an insatiable joy. For reflections on the power and nature of the Gods raise in us a desire of imitating their eternity. Nor does the mind, that sees the necessary dependences and connexions ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... Binder, with a sigh, "I give it up. I never will make a statesman. I listen to your words as to a Delphic oracle, and do not pretend to understand their ambiguous meaning. I understand, however, do I not, that we are the allies of the Sultan? Now we thereby do him a great favor—what does he give ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... they all pumped Mr Tadpole, who did not find it difficult to keep up his reputation for discretion; for knowing nothing, and beginning himself to be perplexed at the protracted silence, he took refuge in oracular mystery, and delivered himself of certain Delphic sentences which adroitly satisfied those who consulted him while they never ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... mind fixed upon the end for which he ought to act and live."[475] In himself, therefore, he sought that ground of certitude which should save him from the prevailing skepticism of his times. The Delphic inscription, Gnoti seauton, "know thyself" becomes henceforth ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... who knows but that, like burning Sappho, I might have sang as well as loved? Who knows but that the golden gates of the Eden of immortality might have opened to admit the wandering Peri to her long-lost home? I might have been the priestess of a shrine of Delphic celebrity, and the world have offered burning incense at my altar. I might have won the laurel crown, and found, perchance, thorns hidden under its triumphant leaves. I might,—but it matters not. The divine spark is undying, and though circumstances ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... Watson very well, and with the power of singing difficult part music at sight, they did so for the same reason that the lark sings, and chiefly under the same gentle tuition—that of nature, glad almighty nature, breathing inspiration from her Delphic tripod of happiness, and health, and hope. Mrs. Schreiber pretended to no intellectual gifts whatever; and yet, practically, she was wiser than many who have the greatest. First of all other tasks which she imposed upon her wards, was that of daily exercise, and ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... Poet, who the Sonnet's claim, Severest of the orders that belong Distinct and separate to the Delphic Song, Shall venerate, nor its appropriate name Lawless assume. Peculiar is its frame, From him deriv'd, who shunn'd the City Throng, And warbled sweet thy rocks and streams among, Lonely Valclusa!—and ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... food, and when he was reduced to the last extremity, brought him out to die. But though his death occurred outside the temple, this did not save them from the sin of sacrilege, and a public reprimand by the Delphic God. ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... Polymnia;[443] and, by the firmness with which she treads her upward path, she convinces the coarsest calculators that another road exists than that which their feet know. But besides those who make good in our imagination the place of muses and of Delphic Sibyls,[444] are there not women who fill our vase with wine and roses to the brim, so that the wine runs over and fills the house with perfume; who inspire us with courtesy; who unloose our tongues, and we speak; who anoint our eyes, and we see? We say things we ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... was that known as the Delphic Amphictyony, or simply The Amphictyony. This was a league of twelve of the sub-tribes of Hellas, whose main object was the protection of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. Another of its purposes was, by humane regulations, to mitigate ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... chariot and his dear nephew Iolaus, who was permitted by the Delphic priestess to drive for him, took up the reins. The way to Lerna was pleasant. In spring-time crocuses and hyacinths sprang by the roadside, and in early summer the nightingales sang in the olive groves, vineyard and forest. ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... duped himself. Moreover, and this was perhaps the secret of his continued success, his "visions" were invariably symbolic and mysterious; they possessed an adaptability of character that was truly Delphic. Indeed, his hearers were compelled to put their own interpretation upon his visions. The seer seldom pretended to understand ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... the very image of the Deity. When you stand, therefore, in front of the shrine to worship, you see your own image reflected on its shining surface, and the act of worship is tantamount to the old Delphic injunction, "Know Thyself." But self-knowledge does not imply, either in the Greek or Japanese teaching, knowledge of the physical part of man, not his anatomy or his psycho-physics; knowledge was to be of a moral kind, the introspection of our moral nature. ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... piety be wanting in the priests, equity in the judges, or the magistrates be found rated at a price, what justice or religion is to be expected? which are the only two attributes make kings akin to God, and is the Delphic sword, both to kill ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... which it behooveth thee to be victorious. But Hermione, to whose neck thou art holding the sword, it is destined for thee, Orestes, to wed, but Neoptolemus, who thinks to marry her, shall never marry her. For it is fated to him to die by the Delphic sword, as he is demanding of me satisfaction for his father Achilles. But to Pylades give thy sister's hand, as thou didst formerly agree, but a happy life now coming on awaits him. But, O Menelaus, ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... to a certain spot, where a regular oracle is open for consultation. At Dodona we read that the Selloi or Helloi, a band or family of priests of ascetic habits, interpret the rustling of the sacred oak, and Agamemnon consults the Pythia, the Delphic priestess, ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... of his burning spirit, revolving as the planets do, throws off sparks or streams of fire. To the accuracy of this observation witness both Browning and Tennyson. When they were "possessed," as the Delphic oracle would say, they marched toward truth like an invincible troop. Truth seemed the missing half of their own sphere, toward which, by a subtle and lordly gravitation, they swung. When Tennyson's instincts speak, he is democrat; ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... is, it must be remembered, a sort of Delphic oracle of the marine genus, who invariably keeps his mystic intentions locked within the secret recesses of his own breast and only gives them utterance, when the occasion arrives for him to speak, through the lips of ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... the Delphic oracle to "flee for his life when he saw a goat drink from the river Neda." Consequently, all goats were driven from the banks of this river; but one day, The[)o]clos observed that the branches of a fig tree bent into ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... has here taken the greatest license of anachronisms and geographical errors; not to mention other incongruities, he opens a free navigation between Sicily and Bohemia, makes Giulio Romano the contemporary of the Delphic oracle. The piece divides itself in some degree into two plays. Leontes becomes suddenly jealous of his royal bosom-friend Polyxenes, who is on a visit to his court; makes an attempt on his life, from which Polyxenes ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... exalted from a low degree, shall be acknowledged as having originally adapted the Aeolic verse to Italian measures. Melpomene, assume that pride which your merits have acquired, and willingly crown my hair with the Delphic laurel. ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... told of the travels of Pythagoras to Egypt, Chaldaea, Phoenicia, and even to India. Others tell of a mysterious initiation at the sacred cave of Jupiter in Crete, and of a similar ceremony at the Delphic oracle. What is certain is that at some date towards the end of the sixth century B.C. he removed to Southern Italy, which was then extensively colonised by Greeks, and that there he became a great philosophic teacher, and ultimately even a ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... generation of men, more than half perish in mind or body; the last ten, perhaps, win through, and these are they that have understood the writing over the temple door, the great 'Know thyself,' the precept of the Delphic Oracle and of all mystics before ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... boyhood and youth he performed various marvelous feats of strength, and on reaching manhood succeeded in delivering the Thebans from the oppression of the Minyae. In a fit of madness sent upon him by Juno, he slew his own children; and on consulting the Delphic oracle as to how he should cleanse himself from this crime, he was ordered to submit himself for twelve years to Eurystheus, king of Tiryns, and to perform whatever tasks were appointed him. Hercules obeyed the oracle, and during the twelve years of his servitude accomplished twelve ...
— Ritchie's Fabulae Faciles - A First Latin Reader • John Kirtland, ed.
... the pictured ceiling of my own room. Surely that is Zaldu, my pet slave, with big drops on her black face.... And father, mother, kneeling either side. And who are you with rapt face and star-deep eyes, thick hair with Delphic wreaths, and in purple gown and golden girdle? Are you ...
— The Flutter of the Goldleaf; and Other Plays • Olive Tilford Dargan and Frederick Peterson
... The British people during the past twenty months have seemed more than once to resemble that historic huntsman. They have answered the screaming exhortations of the politicians with whispers of more than Delphic ambiguity; they have gone unconcernedly about their pleasures and their business, to all appearances unvexed by the din of Revolution in their ears; they have presented the spectacle, more common in France than in England, of a tranquil nation ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... galore; and men did not profit by it: something else was needed. His mission was to the Athens of his day; he was going to save Athens if he could. So he went into the marketplace, the agora, and loafed about (so to say), and drew groups of young men and old about him, and talked to them. The Delphic Oracle had made pronouncement: Sophocles is wise; Euripides is wiser; but Socrates is the wisest of mankind. Sometimes, you see, the Delphic Oracle could get off a distinctly good thing. But Socrates, with his usual sense of humor, had never ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... Talk of Midas, Croesus, Delphic treasures! they were all nothing to Timon and his wealth; why, the Persian King could not match it. My spade, my dearest smock-frock, you must hang, a votive offering to Pan. And now I will buy up this desert corner, and build a tiny castle for my treasure, big enough for me to live in all ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... help laughing at these Delphic utterances, but she went downstairs thoughtfully. She knew Suzanne's practical spirit. Till now the maid had never shown any capacity of imagination. Beni-Mora was certainly beginning to mould her nature into a slightly different shape. And Domini ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... and the history of his peregrinations could never have been written, for no one but himself could have furnished the necessary material, and on all matters concerning himself Mr. Gunterson was as cryptic as were the Delphic oracles of old. He chose to consider himself a victim of an astonishing series of circumstances, and in a certain sense this was true, although the circumstances were largely of his own creation. Good companies and bad, established concerns and ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... scrutiny into your personal character," is the advice of what Milton denominates "the sty of Epicurus." The discouraging religious condition of the present age is due to the great lack, not merely in the lower but the higher classes, of calm, clear self-intelligence. Men do not know themselves. The Delphic oracle was never less obeyed than now, in this vortex of mechanical arts and luxury. For this reason, it is desirable that the religious teacher dwell consecutively upon topics that are connected with that which is within man,—his settled motives of action, and all those ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... her jaws could not boast of one remaining tooth; one eye distilled a large quantity of rheum, by virtue of the fiery edge that surrounded it; the other was altogether extinguished, and she had lost her nose in the course of her ministration. The Delphic sibyl was but a type of this hoary matron, who, by her figure, might have been mistaken for the consort of Chaos, or mother of Time. Yet there was something meritorious in her appearance, as it denoted ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... small boy with a cigarro of the bigness of a rolling-pin, and puffs the smoke thereof into the face of each warrior, from the eldest to the youngest; while they, putting their hands funnel-wise round their mouths, draw into the sinuosities of the brain that more than Delphic vapor of prophecy; which boy presently falls down in a swoon, and being dragged out by the heels and laid by to sober, enter another to puff at the sacred cigarro, till he is dragged out likewise, and so on till the Tobacco is finished, and the seed of wisdom ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... "where Aufidus is loved, Where Danaus scant of streams beneath him bowed The rustic tribes, from dimness he waxed bright, First of his race to wed the Aeolian lay To notes of Italy." Put glory on, My own Melpomene, by genius won, And crown me of thy grace with Delphic bay. ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... raining oracles round me, and they quite resembled, for all the help and light they contained, their Delphic predecessors. ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... between them and not conceive a strong affection for him. The Honourable Brush, though not given to expressing his feelings, betrayed some surprise at the volumes Mr. Crewe had contributed to the stream of bills; and Mr. Botcher, in a Delphic whisper, invited Mr. Crewe to visit him in room forty-eight of the Pelican that evening. To tell the truth, Mr. Crewe returned the feeling of his companions warmly, and he had even entertained the idea of asking them both to dine ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... assumes a tone of authority which might better suit some veteran Bard than a raw candidate for the Delphic bays: for, before he proceeds to the regular process of Invocation, he clears the way, by driving from his presence (with sundry hard names; and bitter reproaches on her father, mother, and all the family) a venerable Personage, whose age at least ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... to require mending, "Not hurling, according to the oracle, a transcendent foot towards piety." The language of excitement is at best picturesque merely. You must be calm before you can utter oracles. What was the excitement of the Delphic priestess compared with the calm wisdom of Socrates?—or whoever it was that was wise.—Enthusiasm is a ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... sentences inscribed upon the Delphic oracle, hugely accommodated to the usages of man's life: "Know thyself,"[736-1] and "Nothing too much;" and upon ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... proud estate I've won, And, with thine own dear hand the meed supplying, Bind thou about the forehead of thy celebrated son The Delphic ...
— Echoes from the Sabine Farm • Roswell Martin Field and Eugene Field
... inquire whether there is any feature common to all the statements of a document indicating that they all proceed from persons having the same prejudices or passions: in this case the tradition followed by the author is biassed; the tradition followed by Herodotus has both an Athenian bias and a Delphic bias. In respect of each fact derived from such a tradition we must ask whether it has not been distorted by the interest, the vanity, or the prejudices of the group concerned. We may even ignore the author, and ask whether ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... was then in the zenith of her reputation—the celebrated Nun of Kent—whose cell at Canterbury, for some three years, was the Delphic shrine of the Catholic oracle, from which the orders of Heaven were communicated even to the pope himself. This singular woman seems for a time to have held in her hand the balance of the fortunes ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... tumults dire: A solitary sorrow best befits Thy lips, and antheming a lonely grief. Leave them, O Muse! for thou anon wilt find Many a fallen old Divinity Wandering in vain about bewildered shores. Meantime touch piously the Delphic harp, 10 And not a wind of heaven but will breathe In aid soft warble from the Dorian flute; For lo! 'tis for the Father of all verse. Flush every thing that hath a vermeil hue, Let the rose glow ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... Head,—witness it, ye Heavens and thou Earth!" Dauphiness falling on her knees to Most Christian Majesty; "Princess and dearest Sister" to Most Christian Majesty's Pompadour; especially no end of Pleading to the German Reich, in a furious, Delphic-Pythoness or quasi-inspired ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Seven-Years War: First Campaign—1756-1757. • Thomas Carlyle
... development which existed in Rome before the regular literature. There are many signs in tradition and early history of relations between Greece and Rome; as the decemviral legislation, the various consultations of the Delphic Oracle, the legends of Pythagoras and Numa, of Lake Regillus, and, indeed, the whole story of the Tarquins; the importation of a Greek alphabet, and of several names familiar to Greek legend—Ulysses, Poenus, Catamitus, &c.—all antecedent to the ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... among his other odd Advertisements, has this remarkable one, which is parallel to the present Discourse. When Tasso (says he) had presented Apollo with his Poem, call'd Giurasalemme Liberata; the Reformer of the Delphic Library, to whose Perusal it was committed, found fault with it, because it was not written according to the Rules of Aristotle; which affront being complain'd of, Apollo was highly incens'd, and chid Aristotle for his Presumption in daring to prescribe Laws and Rules to the high Conceptions ...
— Discourse on Criticism and of Poetry (1707) - From Poems On Several Occasions (1707) • Samuel Cobb
... fiction. His wholesome appeal then, everywhere, from what seems, to what really is, is a service to the Delphic god, the god of sanity. To prove that the oracle had [83] been right after all, improbable as it seemed, in the signal honour it had put upon him, would be henceforward his proper business. Committing him to a sort of ironical humility towards others, at times seemingly petty and ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... promises deceitful. Horace thus warns Leuconoe against reading the Babylonian numbers to learn the time of her death,—he does not imply their promise of previous happiness; and the continually deceptive character of the Delphic oracle itself, tempted always rather to fatal than to fortunate conduct, unless the inquirer were more than wise in his reading. Byron gathers into the bitter question all the sorrow of former superstition, while in the lines italicized, just above, he ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin
... demigods and kings; From that fierce wrath the noble song arose, That made Ulysses and Achilles foes; How o'er the feast they doom the fall of Troy; The stern debate Atrides hears with joy; For Heaven foretold the contest, when he trod The marble threshold of the Delphic god, Curious to learn the counsels of the sky, Ere yet he loosed the rage ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... are shed Upon thy laurelled head, Hurtled by many cares and many wrongs! Malignity lets none Approach the Delphic throne; A hundred lane-fed curs bark down Fame's hundred tongues. ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... turn addle and die before it cheeps, is one of those considerations that are but dimly revealed by the oracles of futurity. Now, don't be nonplussed by all this metaphorical mystery. I talk of a plain and everyday occurrence, though, in Delphic style, I wrap up the information in figures of speech concerning eggs, chickens etceatera, etcaeterorum. To come to the point: Papa and aunt talk, by fits and starts, of our—id est, Emily, Anne, and myself—commencing ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... them and held converse with them, as friends would speak with friends. One by one the questions prepared by Mr. Harrison were read, and Mr. Godbe and Mr. Harrison, with pencil and paper, took down the answers as they heard them given by the spirits."* The instruction which they thus received was Delphic in its clearness—that which was true in Mormonism should be preserved and the rest ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... reverence and honor join'd, Long as the hero's glory warms the mind, Long as the flame of gratitude shall burn, Or human tears bedew the patriot's urn, Thy sound shall dwell on each Columbian tongue And live lamented in elegiac song! Till some bold bard, inspired with Delphic rage! Shall with thy lusters fire ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... first walk was to the shrine of the Delphic oracle, at the bottom of the cleft between the two peaks. The hewn face of the rock, with a niche, supposed to be that where the Pythia sat upon her tripod, and a secret passage under the floor of the ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... the stern precision of soldiers. Together they wheeled through the open doors of the Commercial Trust Building, together they left-turned into the elevator, and simultaneously raised their heads to examine its roof, as though in its panelled ceiling was concealed some Delphic oracle who would answer the riddle which circumstances had ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... belt and that which bounds (7) The furthest east, midway Parnassus rears His double summit: to the Bromian god And Paean consecrate, to whom conjoined The Theban band leads up the Delphic feast On each third year. This mountain, when the sea Poured o'er the earth her billows, rose alone, By one high peak scarce master of the waves, Parting the crest of waters from the stars. There, to avenge his mother, from ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... friend's information. The Count, indeed, had rather avoided than sought advice on the subject, and the piper, after several confidential conversations and the passage of a sum of silver into his sporran, displayed an equally Delphic tendency. ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... Etruscans, Romans, &c., and, in fact, was held in the highest repute all over the world. In obedience to its decrees, the laws of Lycurgus were introduced, and the earliest Greek colonies founded. No cities were built without first consulting the Delphic oracle, for it was believed that Apollo took special delight in the founding of cities, the first stone of which he laid in person; nor was any enterprise ever undertaken, without inquiring at this sacred fane ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... supplicants. Her incoherent words are very hard to understand, but the priest duly "interprets" them, i.e. gives them to the suppliant in the form of hexameter verses. Sometimes the meaning of these verses is perfectly clear. Very often they are truly "Delphic," with a most dubious meaning—as in that oft-quoted instance, when the Pythia told Croesus if he went to war with Cyrus, "he would destroy a mighty monarchy," and ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... is why St. Jerome saw in the Desert Centaurs that confessed Jesus Christ; secondly, that God had communicated to the Pagans certain glimmerings of light, to the end they might be saved. Likewise the Sibyls, for instance the Cumaean, the Egyptian and the Delphic, did these not foreshadow, amid the darkness of the Gentiles, the Holy Cradle, the Rods, the Reed, the Crown of Thorns and the Cross itself? For which reason St. Augustine admitted the Erythraean Sibyl into the City of God. Fra Mino ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... S. { W., Persian, and E., W.: Solomon as a young { Delphic Sibyl. A somewhat man. E.: David as an old { far-fetched design man with an air of { borrowed from mediaeval melancholy, thinking { art. Angels from above of the Temple of which Clerestory { delivering their message. he may only get ready { Architectural background, the ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of St. Paul - An Account of the Old and New Buildings with a Short Historical Sketch • Arthur Dimock
... peril is not the one he needs fear, yet that danger is nigh; and who floats awe-struck under beetling precipices, through the dark and turbid waters—seeing in the distance yet stranger and ruder shapes, towards which he is irresistibly impelled. What would become of us? O for some Delphic oracle, or Pythian maid, to utter the secrets of futurity! O for some Oedipus to solve the riddle of the cruel Sphynx! Such Oedipus was I to be—not divining a word's juggle, but whose agonizing pangs, and sorrow-tainted life were to ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... this young man from the country, De Castro?' said he. 'You seem to be the Oraculum of the hay-fields, sir,' he continued, turning to me with a delightfully humorous expression on his face. 'Have you any other Delphic utterance?' ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... the singular step of artificially producing a sort of trance, with the object of availing themselves of one of its attendant phenomena. The Thamans in Siberia do the like to this day to obtain the gift of prophecy. And it is more than probable that the Egyptian and Delphic priest habitually availed themselves of some analogous procedure. Modern mesmerism is in part an effort in the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various |
