"Jester" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... graceful dandy, king of fashion in his day, the count D'Orsay. It was at a breakfast at Tortoni's that the preliminaries were arranged for the famous duel wherein D'Orsay appeared as the champion of the Virgin Mary. Some irreverent jester having made some slighting remark respecting the Virgin, D'Orsay took the matter up and called the speaker to account. "For," said the count, "the Virgin is a woman, and as such ought not to be slandered ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... Clara!—better off in the dregs of the river than she had ever been in the dregs of New York. She shuddered. Then, as so often, the sense of the grotesque thrust in, as out of place as jester in cap and bells at a bier—and she smiled sardonically. "Why," thought she, "in being squeamish about Freddie I'm showing that I'm more respectable than the respectable women. There's hardly one of them that doesn't swallow worse doses with less excuse or no excuse ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... 'What an eternal jester is that Pomponius!' said one voice. 'He is going to receive absolution, and he journeys in his chariot of state, as if he were preparing to celebrate his triumph, instead of to confess ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... a 'prelatical cut', Owen had been in his way a disciplinarian. He had arrested with his own hands, pulling him down from the rostrum and committing him to Bocardo prison, an undergraduate who had carried too far the wit of the 'Terrae Filius', the licensed jester of the solemn Act. ...
— The Oxford Degree Ceremony • Joseph Wells
... spare thee a long journey and much danger. Leave here thy rum and presents, and return to thy patrons, Alrichs and Beeckman, bearing our English gratitude, and thou shalt wear a beautiful hat, such as the King of England allows only his jester ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... it was over it was announced that Hal Macy had carried off the role of the poor, neglected son, which was in reality the male lead. The Crane was selected for the king, while freckle-faced Daniel Seabrooke was chosen for the jester, greatly to his delight and surprise. There was an emphatic round of applause when Professor Harmon announced that Constance Stevens had been selected to sing the Princess. Ellen Seymour captured the role of the queen, and to Mignon La Salle was allotted ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... longer need of a court jester," returned her companion, with sarcasm. "But never mind, Adrien will find out his mistake for himself one day. Certainly, I am not going to attempt to strip the mask off his friend's face. Give him rope enough, and ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... contemptuous of the common herd, seems rather a complimentary portrait of Jonson than a caricature. As to the personages actually ridiculed in "Every Man Out of His Humour," Carlo Buffone was formerly thought certainly to be Marston, as he was described as "a public scurrilous, and profane jester," and elsewhere as the grand scourge or second untruss [that is, satirist], of the time" (Joseph Hall being by his own boast the first, and Marston's work being entitled "The Scourge of Villainy"). Apparently we must ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... time every king kept a jester to make jokes and amuse him and his friends at their feasts, and the jester was a privileged person, who could say anything he liked. So now they told the jester of the King of France that he must tell the king the bad news, because ...
— Royal Children of English History • E. Nesbit
... of their admirals: the loss of the English was inconsiderable, compared to the greatness and importance of the victory.[*] None of Philip's courtiers, it is said, dared to inform him of the event; till his fool or jester gave him a hint, by which he discovered the loss that he ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... during which Beatrice, although she knew be had so well approved his valor in the late war, said that she would eat all he had killed there; and observing the prince take delight in Benedick's conversation, she called him "the prince's jester." This sarcasm sank deeper into the mind of Benedick than all Beatrice had said before. The hint she gave him that he was a coward, by saying she would eat all he bad killed, he did not regard, knowing himself ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... love. Ah! if women only knew the cynical tone that such men, so humble, so fawning in their presence, take behind their backs! how they sneer at what they say they adore! Fresh, pure, gracious being, how the scoffing jester disrobes and analyzes her! but, even so, the more she loses veils, the more her ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... ill a jester," said Lawless, "ye shall have your word for me. 'Duckworth and Shelton' is the word; and here, to the illustration, is Shelton on my shoulders, and to Duckworth do I ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "A jester might say this is just like Paradise. You are Eve, and I am the old Other One come to tempt you in the disguise of an inferior animal. I used to be quite up in that scene of Milton's when I was ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... a shrill and sudden cry, And, looking up, I saw the antic Puck Grappling with Time, who clutch'd him like a fly, Victim of his own sport,—the jester's luck! He, whilst his fellows grieved, poor wight, had stuck His freakish gauds upon the Ancient's brow, And now his ear, and now his beard, would pluck; Whereas the angry churl had snatched him now, Crying, "Thou impish mischief, who ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... may-pole carried by a man dressed as a jester, and boys and girls in early English peasant costumes held the ends of the long fluttering ribbons, laughing ...
— Princess Polly At Play • Amy Brooks
... humorist, wag, wit, reparteeist^, epigrammatist, punster; bel esprit, life of the party; wit-snapper, wit-cracker, wit- worm; joker, jester, Joe Miller^, drole de corps^, gaillard^, spark; bon diable [Fr.]; practical joker. buffoon, farceur [Fr.], merry-andrew, mime, tumbler, acrobat, mountebank, charlatan, posturemaster^, harlequin, punch, pulcinella^, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... of every age and nation, silly thoughts and wise thoughts, thoughts of people, of things, and of nothing, good thoughts, impish thoughts, and large, gracious thoughts. There they went swinging hand-in-hand in corkscrew fashion. An antic jester in green and gold led the dance. The guests followed no order or precedent. No two thoughts were related to each other even by the fortieth cousinship. There was not so much as an international alliance between them. Each thought behaved ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... a jester did adore, Who early died and in the church-yard sleeps. Once in a while she reads his best jokes o'er And sits her down and madly, ...
— Cobwebs from a Library Corner • John Kendrick Bangs
... Perhaps a warrior, and those arms have borne The foremost shield, and dealt the deadliest blow That drew the life-blood of a warring foe! Perhaps thou wor'st the courtier's gilded thrall,— Some glittering court's gay, proud papilio! Perchance a clown, the jester of some hall, The slave of one man, and the fool ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands
... visited with some misgivings, as many expected to find there the mate of the dead cayman, but nature is ever a jester, and the nets came up full at each haul. Aunt Isabel superintended the sorting of the fish and ordered that some be left in the trap for decoys. "It's not lucky to empty the corral completely," ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... shifted for a monologue of three lines or a dialogue of six; tragic and comic were interwoven; the stage was thronged with a motley variety of figures, humors, and conditions—knights, citizens, soldiers, horse-boys, peasants; there was a court-jester; songs and lyric passages were interspersed; there were puns, broad jokes, rant, Elizabethan metaphors, and swollen trunk-hose hyperboles, with innumerable Shakesperian reminiscences in detail. But the advice of Herder, ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... The Dickens scenes were repeated for a younger club, just trying its dramatic wings in charades, and when May-time came these younger girls of twelve to fifteen gave a very successful representation of an old English May-day with Robin Hood and his merry band, a Jester, a Dragon, a Hobby-horse and Jack in the Green, Maid Marian and the Lord and Lady of the ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... fellow in his time, and notable jester; he loved to drink neat, as much as any man that then was in the world, and would willingly eat salt meat. To this intent he was ordinarily well furnished with gammons of bacon, both of Westphalia, Mayence and Bayonne, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... of the beginnings of that beastly development. Over the great fireplace, after the great oak panels had been torn down, I found that there was let into the masonry a scrollwork of stone, with on it an old inscription, in ancient Celtic, that here in this room was burned Dian Tiansay, Jester of King Alzof, who made the Song of Foolishness upon King Ernore ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson
... Literature.—In Two Volumes, Koempe Viser; Songs about Giants and Heroes. With Romantic and Historical Ballads, Translated from the Ancient Danish. With an Introduction and Copious Notes.—In One Volume, The Turkish Jester; or, The Pleasantries of Cogia Nasr Eddin Efendi. Translated from the Turkish. With an Introduction.—In Two Volumes, Penquite and Pentyre; or, The Head of the Forest and the Headland. A Book on Cornwall.—In One Volume, ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... the guests sprang up in anger and drew their swords to slay the man who dared speak thus to the King, but the angel answered calmly: "Thou art not the King, but henceforth thou shalt be the king's jester and wear cap and bells and motley. As counselor thou shalt lead an ape, and thou shalt obey my servants and wait ...
— The Children's Longfellow - Told in Prose • Doris Hayman
... qualification for a patron saint is antiquity. As poppa says, there may be elderly gentlemen in Heidelberg now whose grandfathers have warned them against the personal habits of Perkeo from actual observation. Also we know that he was a court jester, and the pages of the Calendar, for some reason, are closed to persons in that walk of life. Judging by the evidences of his popularity that survive on all sides, Mr. Malt declared that he was probably worth more to the ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... anecdote, typically oriental, which contains a bit of true philosophy. It seems that the hero, Nass-ed-Din Hodja, was a Turkish person who became chief jester to the terrible Tamerlane during his invasion of Asia Minor. He was also the hero, real or imaginary, of many other stories which originated during the close of the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth centuries. His tomb is still shown at ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... he could lay hands. The result was a naval victory at Sluys, in which well-nigh the whole French fleet was absolutely destroyed. It was by the English archers that the day was won. So complete was the victory that no one dared to tell the ill news to Philip, till his jester called out to him, "What cowards those English are!" "Because," he explained, "they did not dare to leap into the sea as ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... Crow smelleth powder, 'tis said, Like a soldier escheweth the taste of cold lead; No jester, or mime, hath more marvellous wit, For, wherever he lighteth, he maketh a hit! Caw! Caw! the Carrion Crow! Dig! Dig! in ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... wonder of the sweet-smelling chairs, the birds, and the elegant dogs. Richest of treats, a monkey was introduced to me. 'It 's your papa's whim,' Mrs. Waddy said, resignedly; 'he says he must have his jester. Indeed it is no joke ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... courtiers following SHUMAKIM, a hump-backed jester, in blue, green and red, a wreath of poppies around his neck and a flagon in his hand. He walks unsteadily, and stutters in ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... that bears for winding-sheet The Stars and Stripes he lived to rear anew, Between the mourners at his head and feet, Say, scurrile jester, is ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... which was exercised with equal promptitude upon friends and foes, he alternately roused the terror and the laughter of his audiences. At the bar and in the Irish House of Commons he was alike notorious as jester and bully; but he was a courageous bully, and to the last was always as ready to fight with bullets as with epigrams, and though his humor was especially suited to the taste and passions of the rabble, it sometimes convulsed with merriment those who were shocked by ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... near enough to watch his lips and his smile and his merry eyes, I was happy. That any one could talk so fast, and in English, was marvel enough, but that this prodigy should belong to our establishment was a fact to thrill me. I had never seen anything like Mr. Wilner, except a wedding jester; but then he spoke common Yiddish. So proud was I of the talent and good taste displayed at our stand that if my father beckoned to me in the crowd and sent me on an errand, I hoped the people noticed that I, too, was connected with ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... will go to bed well pleased. And there isn't a single police agent there, I'm sure. Ah! to be loved, to be loved!" Plainly enough his distress of spirit was coming back, and so, turning towards the gallery again, he tried to play the jester. "Attention, my dear Abbe, we mustn't miss their Majesties' entry. That will be the finest part ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... Tieng-tsong-tai-oang died of a tumour in the back, no one dreaming of employing the lancet, which would probably have saved his life. It is said that one king suffered terribly from an abscess in the lip, till his physician called in a jester, whose pranks made the king laugh heartily, and so the abscess burst. Roman and Sabine priests might not be shaved with iron but only with bronze razors or shears; and whenever an iron graving-tool was brought into the sacred grove of the Arval Brothers ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... the girl were a penknife or a marble that had rolled from Bates's pocket, and the latter, irritated by an inward fear, grew to hate the jester. ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... a royal jester beset with great dangers, and the king having once gotten it into his royal head that I was a wizard, it was not long before I again fell into trouble, from which my wit did not a second time in a like ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... foul songs and to dance foul dances. I have grinned and whistled through evil days and ways. My wit was gray with iniquities when Hildebrand, the King's minion, saw me one day at a fair in Naples and picked me out for jester to Prince Robert." ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... length, her choice of a companion for life. It is repeatedly argued, by critics of any new idea, that the eugenist, in his concern for the race, is blind to the natural interests and needs of the individual; that "we are all to be married to each other by the police," as an irresponsible jester has declared; that the sanctities of love are to be profaned or its imperatives defied. Even serious and responsible persons assume that there is here a necessary antagonism between the interests of the race and those of the individual,—that ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... of a pipe now very mournful and sweet, anon breaking into a merry lilt full of rippling trills and soft, bubbling notes most pleasant to be heard. Wherefore he went aside and thus, led by the music, beheld a jester in his motley lying a-sprawl beneath a tree. A long-legged knave was he, pinched and something doleful of visage yet with quick bright eyes that laughed 'neath sombre brows, and a wide, up-curving mouth; upon his escalloped cape and flaunting cock's-comb were many little bells that rang a silvery ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... pleasantly lambent, though maddish, as Friedrich perceived. Thus had La Mettrie found a Goshen;—and stood in considerable favor, at Court and in Berlin Society in the years now current. According to Nicolai, Friedrich never esteemed La Mettrie, which is easy to believe, but found him a jester and ingenious madcap, out of whom a great deal of merriment could be had, over wine or the like. To judge by Nicolai's authentic specimen, their Colloquies ran sometimes pretty deep into the cynical, under showers of wildfire playing about; and the high-jinks ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... backward and forward without assistance. It was painful in the extreme to see the man who was undergoing tortures behind the curtain step lightly before the audience amid a burst of merriment, and for more than an hour sustain the part of jester, tossing his cap and jingling his bells, a painted death's head, for he had to rouge his face to ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... "walk up," let us march in the train of the great Mime, until he takes his ease in his inn,—the Black Jack aforesaid,—and laugh at his jibes and flashes of merriment, before the Mad Wag shall be silenced by the great killjoy, Death, and the jester's boon companions shall lay him in the graveyard in Portugal Fields, placing over him a friendly ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... Jester, a character in the Irish ballads, was "a kind of Thersites, but brave and daring even to rashness. He had made a vow that he would never take a blow without returning it; and having ... descended to the infernal regions, he received ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... corpse, that bears for winding sheet The Stars and Stripes, he lived to rear anew, Between the mourners at his head and feet, Say, scurrile-jester, is ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... the religion of the people. The true religion is but the religion of the prince; the true God is the God whom the prince wishes them to worship; the will of the priests who govern the prince, always becomes the will of God. A jester once said, with reason, that "the true faith is always the one which has on its side ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... King's, and was tearing the bed to pieces with his sword, when Margaret Bisset, one of the Queen's ladies, who was sitting up reading a book of devotions, heard the noise; roused the guard, and he was secured. There, too, was the half-witted jester, who, we are sorry to say, was a chaplain, with whom the King and his brother Aymer were seen playing like boys, pelting each other with apples and ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... about Venus's turtle and the London Tavern before—you begin to fail, my poor Wagg. If you don't mind I shall be obliged to have a new Jester," Lord Steyne said, laying down his glass. "Go on, Wenham, ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... interrogation, propounded in a jeering tone, the Puritan deigned no reply; but an answer was given for him by Archee, the court jester, who had managed in the confusion to creep up to ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... twanged her guitar and sang little songs—French and English, funny and sentimental—he became, as he had so often become in other scenes, the Rigoletto of the company; and Riffrath was a kingdom in which he might be court jester in ordinary if he chose, whenever he elected to honor it with his ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... (as my lord's jester) took upon himself to marshal the guests. And wild work he made of it; good Days, bad Days, all were shuffled together. He had stuck the Twenty-first of June next to the Twenty-second of December, and the former looked ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... Vidushaka, we find an instance of our author's masterly skill in giving life to the dry bones of a rhetorical definition. The Vidushaka is a stock character who has something in common with a jester; and in Maitreya the essential traits of the character—eagerness for good food and other creature comforts, and blundering devotion to his friend—are retained, to be sure, but clarified and elevated by his quaint humor and his readiness to follow ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... palace Thoughts unnumbered throng; And there, most quiet and, as a child, most wise, High-throned you sit, and gracious. All day long Great Hopes gold-armoured, jester Fantasies, And pilgrim Dreams, and little beggar Sighs, Bow to your benediction, go their way. And the grave jewelled courtier Memories Worship and love and tend you, all ...
— The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke • Rupert Brooke
... called for so many ingredients, that the doctor had nearly expired when the list was presented to him. In addition to all these, arrived the king's band of singers and musicians, and the Luti Bashi (jester in chief) accompanied by twenty lutis, each with a drum hanging over ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... grey-haired. She wears gold spectacles, which stand out oddly against the thin whiteness of her face; she is still a handsome, distinguished woman, who can have, when she chooses, a most gracious manner. As I, worldling and jester though I am, for some mysterious reason have found favour in the lady's eyes, she manifests this graciousness whenever we foregather. Ergo, I like Lady Kynnersley, and would put myself to much inconvenience in order ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... will be sold in sets, carefully arranged on all self-respecting bookshelves, pointed to with pride as a proof of culture, and never read. They will perhaps one day be the Rogers's statuettes of literature. But that day is evidently far off. I do not think that any jester of the older day—the day of Touchstone or of Rigoletto, with a rooted sorrow in his heart, could have been more pessimistic and more hopeless than Mark Twain. To change the words of Autolycus—"For the life to come, I jest out the thought ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... from their seats, and drew their swords. They would have killed the crazy man who insulted their king; but he raised his hand and stopped them, and with his eyes looking into Robert's eyes he said, "Not the king; you shall be the king's jester! You shall wear the cap and bells, and make laughter for my court. You shall be the servant of the servants, and your companion shall be the ...
— Stories to Tell to Children • Sara Cone Bryant
... these are old terms signifying a fool or idiot. Patch was the favourite jester of Henry the Eighth, whose name was ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... supply of presents down the chimney that night, which caused great merriment next day. For ladies got smoking caps, and cigar-cases; while gentlemen received workboxes, thimbles, and tatting-needles. Peter got a jester's cap and bells, which he vowed was a dunce's cap intended for Rose, to that young lady's great indignation. Tom had a primer, and a present for a good boy, and May received a plain gold ring at which they all laughed very much, to May's excessive ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... England insists on treating her criminals like this, she doesn't deserve to have any." Similarly, if the public insists on bringing its woes to its colyumists, it doesn't deserve to have any colyumists. Then the battered jester turns again to his machine and ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... slowly, "it's—it's just as though some cosmic jester, all-powerful, had scooped up the fragments of a ruined city and tossed them pell-mell into the core of the Adirondacks! ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... is because they love their country; if I abhor ... it is because I know there is but one man among them who is not laughing at the enormous folly and credulity of the country, and that he is an ignorant and mischievous bigot. As for the light and frivolous jester, of whom it is your misfortune to think so highly, learn, my dear Abraham, that this political Killigrew, just before the breaking-up of the last administration, was in actual treaty with them for a place; and if they had survived twenty-four hours ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... and then throughout the middle age records, to Umbrellas; but the extreme paucity of such allusions goes to show that they were not in common use. In an old romance, "The Blonde of Oxford," a jester makes fun of a nobleman for being out in the rain without his cloak. "Were I a rich man," says he, "I would bear my house about with me." By this very valiant joke he meant, as he afterwards explained, that the nobleman should wear a cloak, not ...
— Umbrellas and their History • William Sangster
... Jester and jolly fellow, he keeps on good terms with all political opinions, and is patriotic to the bottom of his soul. A capital mimic, he knows how to put on, turn and turn about, the smiles of persuasion, satisfaction, and good-nature, or drop them for ...
— The Illustrious Gaudissart • Honore de Balzac
... prose of Milton, only to run, the next moment, to the Silenian ribaldry of Tom Brown the younger,—and so keeping up a Saturnalia, in which goat-footed sylvans mix with the maidens of Diana, and the party-colored jester shakes his truncheon in the face of Plato. Only in this wild and promiscuous license can we taste the genuine joys ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... thickets and glens, who have abated the cruelty of priests, the pride of nobles, the divinity of kings in former times: to whom we owe it, that we no longer wear round our necks the collar of Gurth the swineherd, and of Wamba the jester; that the castles of great lords are no longer the dens of banditti, whence they issue with fire and sword to lay waste the land; that we no longer expire in loathsome dungeons without knowing the cause, or have our right hands struck off for raising them in self-defence against wanton ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... kept them there, and would not have the pond dragged; but would go thither and gloat upon them for half a summer's day. The mansion was full of gay folks—his old town companions invited to visit him, and behold his greatness (as he had often imagined they should be): Tub Ryll was his jester now, and Parson Whymper his "chaplain." They were all playing pool as usual, and he was just about to make an easy hazard, when somebody jogged his elbow. It was the ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... inclination or civility, while this merry companion is acting his part. It is a business he hath undertaken, and we are to suppose he is paid for his day's work. I only quarrel when in select and private meetings, where men of wit and learning are invited to pass an evening, this jester should be admitted to run over his circle of tricks, and make the whole company unfit for any other conversation, besides the indignity of confounding men's talents at so ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... separated, were represented as meeting at every crossroad or entering the church door side by side. So the most solemn Miracles were scandalized by humorous Interludes, and into the most tragic of Shakespeare's scenes entered the fool and the jester. A Greek playwright might object to brutalizing scenes before a cultured audience, but the crowds who came to an Elizabethan play were of a temper to enjoy a Mohawk scalp dance. They were accustomed to violent scenes and sensations; they had witnessed ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... of those women who are never swayed by any passion stronger than worldly ambition, never burned by any fires other than those of jealousy or anger. Her meagre nature was truly depicted in her meagre face. Nature is ofttimes a great lair and a cruel jester, giving to the cold and vapid woman the face and form of a sensuous siren, and concealing a heart of volcanic fires, or the soul of a Phryne, under the exterior of a spinster. But the old dame had been wholly frank in forming Miss Lawrence. The thin, flat ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... again the big conclusive phrase that merges into more pranks of the jaunty tune in the biggest revel of all, so that we suspect the jolly jester is the real hero and the majestic figures are, after all, mere background. And yet here follows the most tenderly moving verse, all unexpected, of the ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... Levant to buy horses, for which he gave him ten thousand ducats, and the fool marked this as a piece of folly. Some time afterwards the king asked for the book to look over it, was surprised to find his own name, and asked why it was there. "Because," said the jester, "you have entrusted your money to one you are never likely to see again." "But if he does come again," demanded the king, "and brings me the horses, what folly have I committed?" "Well, if he does return," replied the fool, ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... dressed partly in Spanish and partly in English costume. Thus, the huge sleeves were Spanish, but the laced stomacher English. Hobby-horse represented the king and all the knightly order; Maid Marian, the queen; the friar, the clergy generally; the fool, the court jester. The other characters represented a franklin or private gentleman, a churl or farmer, and the lower grades were represented by a clown. The Spanish costume is to show the origin ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... during which Beatrice, although she knew he had so well approved his valour in the late war, said that she would eat all he had killed there: and observing the prince take delight in Benedick's conversation, she called him "the prince's jester." This sarcasm sunk deeper into the mind of Benedick than all Beatrice had said before. The hint she gave him that he was a coward, by saying she would eat all he had killed, he did not regard, knowing himself to be a brave man: but there is nothing that great wits so much dread as the imputation ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... of myrtle. By a sun-dial stood a little man, robust, though aged, rather stout, and of a very cheerful countenance; his attire plain and simple, a pelisse of dark silk, and a turban white as his snowy beard; he was in merry conversation with his companion, who turned out to be his jester. In the background, against the myrtle wall, stood three or four courtiers in rich dresses—courtiers, for the little old man was their princely master—the great ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli
... among the nations. But that he is so void of the comic faculty as certain potent authorities allege, we persistently doubt. Mr Macaulay affirms that Southey may be always read with pleasure, except when he tries to be droll; that a more insufferable jester never existed; and that, often as he attempts to be humorous, he in no single occasion has succeeded further than to be quaintly and flippantly dull. Another reviewer warned the author of the Doctor, that there is no greater mistake than that which a grave person falls into, when ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various
... jester to divert the court, Fit Scene for sportive joys and frolic mirth; Think'st thou I lack that manly constancy Which braves misfortune, and remains unshaken? Are these, are these the emblems of thy friendship, These rankling ...
— The Prince of Parthia - A Tragedy • Thomas Godfrey
... tired of this Merry Andrew—they "sent him elsewhere to talk other folks to death"—to the State House, where he served several terms creditably, but was mainly the fund of jollity to the lobby and the chartered jester of ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... enough, he combined this taste with an intense fondness for pure literature and for lyrical poetry. Rabelais is among his masters, and so is Aretino, "one of the wittiest knaves that ever God made." Tarleton the jester is among his friends, and so is Kemp, the Dogberry of Shakespeare's "Much Ado," the Peter of "Romeo and Juliet," the famous dancer who performed a morris dance from London to Norwich. And at the same time he bestows with unbounded enthusiasm heartfelt praises upon Spenser, "heavenly Spenser"; ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... is true that no literary fashion is more subject to change than the fashion of a jest, and that jokes that make one generation laugh seem insipid to the next. But there is something perennial in the fun of Rabelais, whom Bacon called "the great jester of France," and though the puns of Shakespeare's clowns are detestable the clowns themselves have not ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... Jester; or, the Pleasantries of Cogia Nasr Eddin Effendi. Translated from the Turkish. Jarrold & ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... inhabitants of those sublime regions will like your company no better than mine. Indeed, how Momus himself could get a seat at that table I can't well comprehend. It has been usual, I confess, in some of our Courts upon earth, to have a privileged jester, called the king's fool. But in the Court of Heaven one should not have supposed such an officer as Jupiter's fool. Your allegorical theology in ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... nothing but ladies?" says Feste the Jester to poor Malvolio. He might have said the same to Horace; for of the Odes in the first three Books one third part is addressed to or concerned with women. How many of the pretty female names which musicalize his love songs, in syllables that breathe ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... of the abuses which Luther later attacked escaped Erasmus' satirical pen. The book is a mixture of the lightest humor and the bitterest earnestness. As one turns its pages one is sometimes tempted to think Luther half right when he declared Erasmus "a regular jester who makes sport of everything, even of religion and Christ himself." Yet there was in this humorist a deep seriousness that cannot be ignored. Erasmus was really directing his extraordinary industry, knowledge, and insight, not toward ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... not to appear touched with the sarcasm of a jester, they subject themselves to his power, and the wise man will have his folly anatomised, that is dissected and laid open by the squandring glances or ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... bauble and the lure, Or gird at those who your wild hopes would chasten, Or guide you on a pathway more secure! And yet beware! No oriflamme of battle Is that false radiance round yon impish brow. The jester's bladder-bauble, with its rattle Of prisoned peas, is not the tow-row-row Of Labour's true reveille. Bonnet Phrygian, Cap of sham Liberty, the spectre wears; But he will plunge to depths of darkness Stygian Whom anti-civic Violence ensnares. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 19, 1890 • Various
... very different side to Stevenson which struck others more than it struck myself, namely, that of the freakish or elvish, irresponsible madcap or jester which sometimes appeared in him. It is true that his demoniac quickness of wit and intelligence suggested occasionally a "spirit of air and fire" rather than one of earth; that he was abundantly given to all kinds of quirk and laughter; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... head-gear, even more boisterously than usual. He bore it at first with an inviting patience; but upon one of the students proceeding to an unpardonable freedom, plucked out his knife and suddenly plunged it in the belly of the jester. This gentleman, I am pleased to say, passed months upon a bed of sickness before he was in a position to resume his studies. The second incident was that which had earned Pinkerton his reputation. In a crowded studio, while some very filthy brutalities ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... room, lest the nobility that went to see him dine should encumber the table, and he alone set on and took off the dishes, for the pages neither came near nor spoke a word. Strict silence was observed, none daring to speak unless it was some jester, or the person of whom he asked a question. The sewer was always upon his knees and barefooted, attending him without lifting up his eyes. No man with shoes on was to come into the room upon pain of death. The sewer also gave him drink in a cup of several shapes, sometimes of gold, and sometimes ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... the gay uniform of the Lord High Commissioner, the gold lace of his dragoon officers, and the glitter of his pages in silver and scarlet. 'We are two of the humblest servants of Mother Church,' said the Prior and his companion to Wamba, the jester of Rotherwood. 'Two of the humblest servants of Mother Church!' repeated Wamba; 'I should rather like to see her seneschals, her chief butlers, and her ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... of those two medieval institutions which we have now lost—I suppose irrevocably—the whipping boy and the court jester. What a pity that they cannot be revived! The whipping boy, a device to put princes on their honor to be neither negligent nor wanton in the fulfilment of their duties; and the jester to break us of our too self-conscious airs and exhibit to us our follies. See what we have ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... words the strange king smiled sadly, and replied: "I am the king, and thou shalt be my servant. Yes, thou shalt be the servant of all my servants, for thou shalt be court jester, and wear the cap and bells, and have for your companion the ...
— A Child's Story Garden • Compiled by Elizabeth Heber
... dark distress, left him all alone? Then suddenly his door opened, and there came in a man in disguise, and, as he threw back his cloak, the Kaiser recognized in him his faithful Conrad von der Rosen, the court jester. This man brought him comfort and counsel, and he was ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... minutes before the hour a cock gives warning of the time by crowing and flapping its carved wings. Then out comes a procession of bears that march solemnly round a bearded Father Time, whereupon the cock crows again, and a jester, hammer in hand, strikes a bell. At the sound the bearded old man raises his sceptre, opens his mouth, and turns an hourglass. And at each stroke of the bell a bear nods his head. All this done, the cock crows again and ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... or professional jester, was not only a fool, however. His value was trebled in the eyes of the king, by the fact of his being also a dwarf and a cripple. Dwarfs were as common at court, in those days, as fools; and many monarchs would have found it difficult to get through their days (days are rather longer at ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... that sardonic jester who loves best to thwart the dearest desires of men and warp the destiny of nations, became piqued at the peace and the plenty in the land which lay around the bay. Chance, knowing well how best and quickest to let savagery loose upon the land, plucked a ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... steady. So in the refectory, when they sat down for a meal, there was an endless fire of raillery, and the blue-eyed boy with the blond hair used to crow like Peter Pan and speak a wonderful mixture of French and English, and play the jester gallantly. There would be processions of plate-bearers to the kitchen next door, where a splendid Englishwoman—one of those fine square-faced, brown-eyed, cheerful souls—had been toiling all day in the ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... of a marriage of convenience.... The dialogue is good: that of "Dicky Browne," a kind of licensed jester, being really bright and lively. The heroine is well drawn, and so is a terrible aunt of hers, whose encounters with the Marquis (himself a clever ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... carmen, the mingled sounds which arose from the multitude were those of light-hearted mirth and tiptoe jollity. The musicians preluded on their instruments—the minstrels hummed their songs—the licensed jester whooped betwixt mirth and madness, as he brandished his bauble—the morrice-dancers jangled their bells—the rustics hallooed and whistled-men laughed loud, and maidens giggled shrill; while many a broad jest flew like a shuttlecock ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... Tales? Those are not for children: Chaucer was a jester. You had better take my book. It has beautiful pictures." The young Percy took the little breviary, and, going down the path as though they sought the shade, they both quietly disappeared ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... but most amusing jester (Mr. Jerdan) mainly contributed, was checked only by the announcement of supper; and as the guests descended the stairs from the gallery, or assembled on the lobby, they beheld their cheer borne in procession from ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... merely a glance, we fancy we comprehend them. But the more we think, the more we reflect, the more the difficulty opens on us of doing full justice to the mind of Hood. We soon discover that we are dealing, not with a mere punster or jester, not with a mere master of grimace or manufacturer of broad grins, not with an eccentric oddity in prose or verse, not with a merry-andrew who tickles to senseless laughter, not with a spasmodic melodramatist who writhes in fictitious pain, but that we are ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... and took it out of this singular kettle in some way unknown to his guests. He carefully gave each their portion to eat, but made so many odd movements that the Otter could not refrain from laughing, for he is the only one who is spoken of as a jester. The Manito looked at him with a terrible look, and then made a spring at him, and got on him to smother him, for that was his mode of killing animals. But the Otter, when he felt him on his neck, slipped his head back and made for the door, which he passed in safety; but went out with the curse ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... women took their secret troubles to her. For this unwieldy jester, with the jolly red face and rough tongue, could touch the heart with a word, when she was in the humour. Then she spoke so wisely and kindly that the tears gathered in stubborn eyes, and the poor fools went ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... of story-tellers and buffoons. The name is derived from the Sanskrit Bhanda, a jester, and the caste are also known as Naqqal or actor. Only a trifling number of Bhands are shown by the census as belonging to the Central Provinces. Mr. Crooke remarks: "The Bhand is sometimes employed in the courts of Rajas and native gentlemen of rank, where he amuses the company at entertainments ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... dope most of last night from some merry little jester working a toy, home-made. He just kept repeating the same thing—something about 'McCarthy, at six o'clock you shall have a sign given unto you. It works,' over and over all night. Some new advertising dodge, I reckon. Didn't know but you were the McCarthy and were ...
— The Sign at Six • Stewart Edward White
... manhood is preferable to senile decrepitude, that Pheidias surpasses the sculptors of Antinous, that one Madonna of Gian Bellini is worth all the pictures of the younger Palma, and that Dossi's portrait of the Ferrarese jester is better worth having than the whole of Annibale Caracci's Galleria Farnesina.[235] It will even lead us to select for models those works which bear the mark of adolescence or vigorous maturity, as supplying more fruitful sources for our ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... killed. This interpretation was probably the result of a confusion with the old legend of the fight between Horus and Set, the rulers of the two kingdoms of Egypt. The possibility also suggests itself that a pun made by some priestly jester may have been the real factor that led to this mingling of two originally separate stories. In the "Destruction of Mankind" the story runs, according to Budge,[195] that Re, referring to his enemies, said: ma-ten set uar er set, "Behold ye them ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... had been living with us had married,—Nellie, to A. C. Jester, a cattle man, and May, to Ed. Bradford, a railroad engineer—and consequently left us; and my wife had been wishing for a long time to visit her parents in St. Louis. Taking these and other things into consideration I finally resolved ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody
... to be tied firmly and well, for some jester might try to pull away that of Pierre, and if his face were seen, it would be death—a slaughter without defense, for he had not been able to conceal his big Colt in these tight-fitting clothes. Even as it was, there was peril from the moment that the lights within should shine ...
— Riders of the Silences • Max Brand
... a dollar," she said, "but it is a jester's dollar, the fee of a clown. Don't you see, Martin, the whole thing is lowering. I want the man I love and honor to be something finer and higher than a ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... the buffalo on our hunt was accredited to sister May, to me the episode proved of much more moment. In the spring of 1871 I was married to Mr. Jester, the bachelor ranchman at whose place we had tarried on our hurried return to the fort. His house had a rough exterior, but was substantial and commodious, and before I entered it, a bride, it was refitted in a style almost luxurious. I returned to Leavenworth to prepare for the wedding, which ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... Prince, when you are king you must appoint me court jester. Will you, my good Lord? We two are good contrasts: You full of dignity upon a royal throne, a golden crown upon your head, the scepter in your hand, and I dressed in motley with cap and bells. Heigh ho! That will be jolly. And after all we ...
— The Buddha - A Drama in Five Acts and Four Interludes • Paul Carus
... was a little wit in that, I must confesse, but she put him downe far, and aunswered him with a question, and that was whether he wood seeme a lover, or a jester? if a lover, a must tell her far more lykelier then those, or else she was far from believing them; if a Jester, she cood have much more ridiculous jests then his of twenty fooles, that followed the Court; and told him she had as lieve be courted with a brush faggot as with ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... as the man who was willing to send all his wife's relatives to the war and who, standing by the tomb of Shakespeare, thought it "a success." But no one who turns to the almost forgotten pages of that kindly jester can fail to be impressed by his sunny quality, by the atmosphere of fraternal affection which glorifies his queer spelling and his somewhat threadbare witticisms. Mark Twain, who is universally recognized by Europeans ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... gluttony, who, lacking the means to support the expenditure which his gluttony demanded, and being, for the rest, well-mannered and well furnished with excellent and merry jests, did, without turning exactly court jester, cultivate a somewhat biting wit, and loved to frequent the houses of the rich, and such as kept good tables; whither, bidden or unbidden, he not seldom resorted for breakfast or supper. There was also in those days at Florence one that was called ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... Court of Wine." He represents King Wine as leading a triumphal march enthroned on a wine-press, wreathed with vine leaves and drawn with grape vines by jolly vintagers of every age and sex. Behind follow as chamberlains a band of coopers, a jester dancing on a cask, and a troop of gay youths full of all "quips and cranks and youthful wiles." Then come, represented by most happily conceived figures, the German rivers on whose shores are the world-famous vineyards ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... at once, casting aside with a violent effort the seriousness into which he had involuntarily fallen, Jaekel plunged again into his mad buffoonery, and went on in his harsh jester tones, "Don't be afraid, beautiful lady, Nose Star will not harm you. He is only dangerous to old Schnapper-Elle. She has fallen in love with his nose—which, faith! deserves it. Yea, for it is as ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... East, and Mandeville's Travels, were translated from the Latin. Kabatnik, J. Lobkowicz, and Bakalarz, wrote descriptions of Palestine between 1490 and 1500; the two first in books of travels. Mezyhor wrote a journal of the travels of Lew of Rozhmital, whom he accompanied as jester through Europe and a part of Asia. Collections of statutes, of the decrees of diets, of judicial decisions, and of other documents, were made by patriotic and sometimes eminent men; and those merely extant in Latin were carefully translated into Bohemian.[25] Thus they ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... moreover was the most disinterested man I ever saw; while Tete Rouge, though equally good-natured in his way, cared for nobody but himself. Yet we would not have lost him on any account; he admirably served the purpose of a jester in a feudal castle; our camp would have been lifeless without him. For the past week he had fattened in a most amazing manner; and indeed this was not at all surprising, since his appetite was most inordinate. He was eating from morning till night; half the time he would ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... and offensive. Those who wished to go to her house were forced to put up with Ferdishenko. Possibly the latter was not mistaken in imagining that he was received simply in order to annoy Totski, who disliked him extremely. Gania also was often made the butt of the jester's sarcasms, who used this method of keeping in ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... a country we are invading, and to locate the places where we are liable to meet with resistance. We will stop a moment now and then to shudder at Caliban, to admire Prospero, to love the sweet Miranda or to laugh at the nonsense of the jester and the drunken butler, but we will hasten on to the end nevertheless, knowing that we will become better acquainted with the people at ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... when the jester Asked the monarch how he was, And the landlady addrest her Guests as 'gossip' or as 'coz'; When the Templar said, "Gramercy," Or, "'Twas shrewdly thrust, i' fegs," To Sir Halbert or Sir Percy As they knocked him ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.
... too narrowly into the mouth of a Joe-Millerism. But Mr. Gillman, writing the life of a philosopher, and no jest-book, is under a different law of decorum. That retort, however, which silences the jester, it may seem, must be a good one. And we are desired to believe that, in this case, the baffled assailant rode off in a spirit of benign candor, saying aloud to himself, like the excellent philosopher that he evidently was, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... other friends, how strange and unnatural they seemed. Their most intimate friends would scarcely have recognized them. Margaret was a fat, jolly Falstaff, stuffed out to immense proportions. Edith was entirely disguised as a jester and enjoyed her own quips immensely when she tapped a visitor on the shoulder with her bauble and said, "Good morrow, fair maid, ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed
... Greeks, on the contrary, whose religion was an apotheosis of the earth, framed upwards and only by fiction of fancy handed downwards, derived all their theology from the poets. Prophecy and taste were combined in Homer,—Isaiah and the king's jester in Pindar. The care of the highest, not less than the lowest departments of thought, fell upon the creative author, and a happy suggestion became a new article in the Hellenic creed. His composition thus ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... listless gait, like a weary workman, turning his face, as smooth as an apple, with its ball-like nose, from side to side; and when he entered the dining-room, he cast a glance round at the furniture and fixed his eyes on a small picture of Rigoletto, a hunchbacked jester, and ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... "Profane jester! Would'st thou insult me with thy torn-foolery? Begone—all of ye! tramp! pack! I say: away with ye!" and into the ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... Canute or Knute, with whom this bird was a special favourite. To come to more modern times, and not pausing at Ben Johnson's 'chaucerisms', Bishop Hall's 'scoganisms', from Scogan, Edward the Fourth's jester, or his 'aretinisms', from an infamous writer, 'a poisonous Italian ribald' as Gabriel Harvey calls him, named Aretine; these being probably not intended even by their authors to endure; a Roman cobbler named Pasquin has given us the ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... cock and bells, with which he dances, making a jingling noise. A Zany is not an idiot, but often a funny clever fellow, paid to make people laugh. We all like a good laugh sometimes. Many years ago kings used to keep jesters to amuse the company; King Henry the Eighth had a clever jester, called Will Somers, whose portrait was painted by a great artist named Holbein, which is now in the palace at Hampton Court, and may be seen ...
— The Royal Picture Alphabet • Luke Limner
... prison cells and the torture chamber. Oh, a very delicate wit! I have tried it on many a prisoner, and there have been some who smiled. Now it is not easy to make a prisoner smile. And it should not be difficult to be a good jester, seeing that ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... really deserve thanks?' asked De Stancy. 'I wish I deserved a reward; but I must bear in mind the fable of the priest and the jester.' ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... Aristippus and Epicurus bore the palm, in virtue of their kindliness, sociability, and good-fellowship. Aesop the Phrygian was there, and held the office of jester. Diogenes of Sinope was much changed; he had married Lais the courtesan, and often in his cups would oblige the company with a dance, or other mad pranks. The Stoics were not represented at all; they were supposed to be still climbing the steep hill of Virtue; and ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... feather gathered for the purpose on the golf links ashore. He was thin, a grey-haired, silent man. His face, in repose, was that of a deliberate thinker whose thoughts had not led him to an entirely happy goal. Yet his smile when amused had a quality of gratitude to the jester, not altogether without pathos. He had a slightly cynical demeanour, a bitter tongue, and a curiously sympathetic, almost tender manner with the sick. He was professedly a fierce woman-hater, and when ashore passed children quickly with ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... the person be an extraordinary man, and, by a civil waiting, upon him at another man's invitation, you design to begin an acquaintance with him. And those friends you should chiefly go to as shadows, who would come to you again in the same quality. To Philip the jester, indeed, he seemed more ridiculous that came to a feast of his own accord than he that was invited; but to well-bred and civil friends it is more obliging for men of the same temper to come at the nick of time with other friends, when uninvited ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... into tragedy. It will bring Romeo face to face with the apothecary, Macbeth with the witches, Hamlet with the grave-diggers. Sometimes it may, without discord, as in the scene between King Lear and his jester, mingle its shrill voice with the most sublime, the most dismal, the dreamiest music ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot |
