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Libation   Listen
noun
Libation  n.  The act of pouring a liquid or liquor, usually wine, either on the ground or on a victim in sacrifice, in honor of some deity; also, the wine or liquid thus poured out. "A heathen sacrifice or libation to the earth."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Libation" Quotes from Famous Books



... yet a little while, O outraged soul, in the shape that once was thine, and thou shalt see thyself avenged. Lo, I hear the wings of Kefa, Goddess of the Flood-time, rustling in the silence of the midnight skies. She herself shall pour out a libation to thine injured shade! "Nay, nay, my lords, and you good friends of those who did my own true lord to death, sit still, and drain a farewell cup with me, your Queen. It is too late to fly, for every way is closed. The High Gods have spoken, and I will do their bidding!" Then, extending ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith

... brow crowned with ivy and faded roses; whilst all the unholy delights of earth sacrifice to it, in return it scatters amongst its adorers all the ills and sorrows that flow from the curse of Eden, making a libation to the infernal gods of the honor, the fortune, and the lives of men. The ghoul or fiend of modern society is the demon ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly

... the right to avoid the drip of a limpid stream,—that falls over the entrance like a perpetual libation to Pluto,—a few minutes' walk places us many hundred feet vertically beneath the surface, and in the "Rotunda," an enlargement of the cave, which looks about as large as the interior of Trinity Church, but is in reality larger; being quite as lofty, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various

... launched a ship. We ornament our vessels with flags; they decked theirs with garlands. At the moment the ship was launched forth into the deep the priest of Neptune raised to his lips a goblet of wine, and after quaffing from it, he poured the remainder out as a libation to his deity. The modern Greeks still perform the ceremony much in the manner of their ancestors. Clearly, the custom we have of breaking a bottle of wine is derived from the libations of the ancients. In most instances, at the present day, ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston

... God in life may be his when he comes to die, and that death may become a voluntary act, and the spirit may not be dragged out of us, reluctant, and as far as we can, resisting, but that we may offer it up as a libation, to use one metaphor of St. Paul's, or may surrender it willingly as an act of faith? It is wonderful to think that life and death, so unlike each other, may be made absolutely identical in the spirit in which they are met. You remember how the first martyr caught ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... young fellow eagerly, "we ought to have ALL been there! We ought to have made a solemn rite of it, you know,—a kind of sacrifice. We ought to have poured a kind of libation ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte

... when his righteous hand, In vain the splendid blow had given, The tyrant, only chang'd, disdain'd The light of unregarded Heaven. And Cato—thou, who tyranny All earth besides enslaved, withstood; And failing to high liberty, Pour'd fierce libation of thy blood. ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper

... nothings that fill our everyday life blossom suddenly into bright possibilities. In a word, while such friends are near us we feel that all is well. Perhaps we never saw them before, and they may never cross our life's path again; but the influence of their calm, mellow natures is a libation poured upon our discontent, and we feel its healing touch, as the ocean feels the mountain ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller

... child. A most peculiar case is that of a widow, seventy years old, a native of Garches. She had been in the habit of indulging freely in wine, and, during the last six months, to decided excess. After an unusually prolonged libation she found herself unable to walk home; she sat down by the roadside waiting until she could proceed, and was so found by a young man who knew her and who proposed helping her home. By the time her house was reached night was well advanced, and she invited ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... rolling up her eyes like a greedy tabby. Then she broke forth into praises, lifting up the glass in a solemn manner. She was offering her libation to Eros, the god of Love, the most beautiful of the gods, and Ferragut who always had a certain terror of the infernal and agreeable concoctions of his cook, gulped the glass in one swallow, in order to join ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... Fitzgerald with me; we visited every grotto on the lovely banks, where we dined; kissed every flower, raised a votive altar on the little island, poured a libation of wine to the river goddess; and, in short, did every thing which it became ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke

... too much," said Colaisso suddenly, and with a certain brutality that startled his friend. "You are not sober. You must have taken a great deal last night. A libation to the dead, I suppose, in the manner of ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford

... to complain of his portion. But when of meat and of drink the desire from them all had departed, Duly the goblets were mantled with wine by the youths of the temple, Handed in order to all, and the round of libation accomplish'd. Then through the livelong day the Achaians, in melody gracious, Chanted the paean divine to the glory of Phoebus Apollo, Hymning the might of the King; and the voice of the harmony pleased him. Then, when the sun went down, and the darkness ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various

... the Lacedaemonians concluded with the Athenians and their allies on the twelfth day of the Spartan month Gerastius; the allies also taking the oaths. Those who concluded and poured the libation were Taurus, son of Echetimides, Athenaeus, son of Pericleidas, and Philocharidas, son of Eryxidaidas, Lacedaemonians; Aeneas, son of Ocytus, and Euphamidas, son of Aristonymus, Corinthians; Damotimus, son of Naucrates, and Onasimus, son of Megacles, Sicyonians; Nicasus, son of ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides

... and convincing at political gatherings; decorous and grave in the kirk; and humorous and jovial at festivities, where perhaps later in the evening, in company with others, hands were clasped over a libation lyrically defined as a "right guid williewaught." On one of these occasions they had walked home together, not without some ostentation of steadiness; yet when MacFen's eminently respectable front door had closed upon him, the consul was perfectly ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... delay. Her father and Bradley ate as Kate had never seen men eat; only her amazement could keep pace with their quiet but unremitting efforts to clean up everything in sight. There was little mastication but much knife and fork work, with free libation of coffee; and Belle, Kate noticed, while somewhat left behind by the men, paid strict attention to ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman

... to ask, Who acted in the noblest way—the three strong men who got the water, or David, who made a sacrifice or libation of it? It does not take us long to answer. The real greatness of the whole affair was with the three men, though David put a beautiful meaning upon it, and exalted it to its true place. Their act was very brave and lofty; but David crowned it with its highest grace by carrying it on into ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells

... down to one of these streams, fills the hollow of his hand with water, and tastes it, as a libation, and as a toast to the generous land which has just received him; the water is excellent; he plucks a flower, and continues ...
— The Solitary of Juan Fernandez, or The Real Robinson Crusoe • Joseph Xavier Saintine

... ruins of thy temple, O Liberty! we, Romans, dedicate to thee this libation! We, befriended and inspired by no unreal and fabled idols, but by the Lord of Hosts, and Him who, descending to earth, appealed not to emperors and to princes, but to the fisherman and the peasant,—giving ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... over the setting up of a Dispensary in a room of the College of Physicians for relief of the sick poor, houses the God of Sloth within the College, and outside, among other allegories, personifies Disease as a Fury to whom the enemies of the Dispensary offer libation. Boileau in his Lutrin a mock-heroic poem written in 1673 on a dispute between two chief personages of the chapter of a church in Paris, la Sainte Chapelle, as to the position of a pulpit, had with some minor allegory, chiefly personified Discord, and made her enter into the form of an old precentor, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... prodigal engaged in one of his midnight festivities: forgetful of the past, and negligent of the future, he riots in the present. Having poured his libation to Bacchus, he concludes the evening orgies in a sacrifice at the Cyprian shrine; and, surrounded by the votaries of Venus, joins in the unhallowed mysteries of the place. The companions of his revelry are marked with that easy, unblushing effrontery, which belongs to the servants of all work in ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler

... at least slay me with my daughter, and there will be twice the libation of blood for the earth, and the dead ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides

... a building called the Erechtheum, and in the vestibule is an altar of Supreme Zeus, where they offer no living sacrifice, but cakes without the usual libation of wine. And as you enter there are three altars: one to Poseidon (on which they also sacrifice to Erechtheus according to the oracle), one to the hero Butes, and the third to Hephaestus. And on the walls are paintings of the family of Butes. The building ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various

... with an audacious freedom that was often the cause of his expulsion from respectable company. A glass or two of wine seemed quite to turn his brain; he was alert then for any frivolity, and he was not always content with so restricted a libation, when the consequences were ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook

... smile will be an ever living and delightful memory in the hearts of all to whom she ministered during those long hours of the nation's peril, in which the best blood of her sons was poured out a red libation to Liberty. ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... did he thus embrace me during our journey from Philadelphia to New York, and four times did I pour down my libation of love's dew. We parted the best of friends, and from that day to this I have never seen him but the pleasure I enjoyed with him will never be ...
— The Life and Amours of the Beautiful, Gay and Dashing Kate Percival - The Belle of the Delaware • Kate Percival

... jealousy and ill-humour to take possession of his mind. The other, on the contrary, before he satisfied his thirst, raised in the hollow of his hand a portion of the water, and, lifting it toward the sun, reversed his hand, and allowed it to fall upon the ground, as a libation to the Great Spirit, who had vouch-safed him a successful hunt and the blessing of the refreshing water with which he was about ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... conceal his own identity, that Orestes is also dead, and that Electra is the sole remnant of the house of Atreus. Iphigenia bursts into a passionate lament, and the act ends with her offering a solemn libation to the shade of ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild

... loyalty, and a final libation, the party took leave of each other for the night. Sir Henry offered his old acquaintance Wildrake a bed for the evening, who weighed the matter somewhat in this fashion: "Why, to speak truth, my patron will expect me at the ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... All that piety can do for them is beside the mark. Their wilful spirit is fled before the last stone of the mausoleum can be got in place, and as it flies it jogs the elbow of the cup-bearer and his libation is spilt idly upon the ground. Although it would be too much and too ungrateful to say that the monumental piety of Mr Festing Jones has been similarly turned to derision—after all, Butler was not a great man—we feel that something analogous ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry

... we took her photo she was returning from her morning worship at the shrine. She had poured her libation over the idol, walked round and round it, prostrated herself before it, gone through the prayers she had learned off by heart, and now was on her ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael

... Deign to wash your hands. Indeed hot water is always carried on one's person. But...." All grasped their nasal members and protested. Noborinosuke laughed outright, and submitted to the ablution. Abe in malice gave the hands a copious libation. For the nonce his fingers had been saved and Kondo[u] ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville

... their character of consecrated believers (cp. Rom. xii. 1), as a holocaust to God; and upon that sacrifice the drink-offering, the outpoured wine, is his own life-blood, his martyrdom for the Gospel which he has preached to them. Cp. Num. xv. 5 for the Mosaic libation, oinon eis sponden . . . poisete epi tes holokautoseos. Lightfoot thinks that a reference to pagan libations is more likely in a letter to a Gentile mission. But surely St Paul familiarized all his converts with Old Testament symbolism. And his own mind was ...
— Philippian Studies - Lessons in Faith and Love from St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians • Handley C. G. Moule

... centre, God in Christ. Thus the germ of all practical obedience lies in vital faith. It is, if I might so say, the mother-tincture which, variously combined, coloured, and perfumed, makes all the precious things, the virtues and graces of humanity, which the believing soul pours out as a libation before its God. It is the productive energy of all practical goodness. It is the bottom heat in the greenhouse which makes all the plants grow and flourish. Faith is obedience, and faith produces obedience. Does my faith produce obedience? If it does ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren

... was dining with me. In one of the compartments the painter had depicted his hero in the guise of Bacchus; the King immediately took up a bottle of clear water and drank a big glass. I gave a great peal of laughter, and said to M. le Brun, "You see, monsieur, his Majesty's decision in that libation of pure water." ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan

... which records The pact of Theseus and Peirithous. Betwixt that rift and the Thorician rock, The hollow pear-tree and the marble tomb, Midway he sat and loosed his beggar's weeds; Then calling to his daughters bade them fetch Of running water, both to wash withal And make libation; so they clomb the steep; And in brief space brought what their father bade, Then laved and dressed him with observance due. But when he had his will in everything, And no desire was left unsatisfied, It thundered from the netherworld; ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles

... year, when, upon this stone, were made libations of wine, oil, honey, and flour; and here they sacrificed and ate in common, having first made a trench in which they burnt the entrails of the victim into which the libation and the blood were made to flow. They began with thanking God with having given them life, and providing them necessary food; and then praised him for the good examples they had been favoured with. From these melancholy rites were banished all licentiousness and levity, ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian

... and with meal Sprinkling the victims, their retracted necks First pierced, then flay'd them; the disjointed thighs 565 They, next, invested with the double caul, Which with crude slices thin they overspread. The priest burned incense, and libation poured Large on the hissing brands, while, him beside, Busy with spit and prong, stood many a youth 570 Trained to the task. The thighs with fire consumed, They gave to each his portion of the maw, Then slashed the remnant, ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... libation was ended and they had sung the hymn, up got first some Thracians, who performed a dance under arms to the sound of a pipe, leaping high into the air with much nimbleness, and brandishing their swords, till at last one man struck his fellow, and every one thought he was really ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon

... Happiness, or the hope of happiness, was the one end for which man existed, for one who suffered, and who suffered without hope, death ceased to be an evil, and became a good, and suicide became a final act of wisdom. This act Epicurus neither blamed nor praised; he was content to say as he poured a libation to Bacchus, 'As for death, there is nothing in death to move ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac

... with beauty in art. Among the objects discovered at Troy—mere curiosities, some of them, however interesting and instructive—the so-called royal cup of Priam, in solid gold, two-handled and double- lipped, (the smaller lip designed for the host and his libation, the larger for the guest,) has, in the [211] very simplicity of its design, the grace of the economy with which it exactly fulfils its purpose, a positive beauty, an absolute value for the aesthetic sense, while strange and new enough, if it really settles at last a ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... before and behind the heaps of ashes under the table, and then placed it to the lips of the Virgin and Christ, lovingly requesting them to partake. She then compelled each of the three men priests to make the same libation. Taking the unlighted candles, she made passes with them, over and across the figures, first to one side and then to the other, brushing the wicks against them. This, too, had to be done by the three assistants, after which the old lady began to make vigorous personal use of the bottle ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr

... domestic hearth of ours holds only, besides its drift-wood, the peaceful records of the day,—its shreds and fragments and fallen leaves. As the ancients poured wine upon their flames, so I pour rose-leaves in libation; and each morning contributes the faded petals of yesterday's wreaths. All our roses of this season have passed up this chimney in the blaze. Their delicate veins were filled with all the summer's fire, and ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... there lay his fish cooked to perfection, a dish fit for a king. Upon this fish, and a portion of the bread which he had procured from the wreck on the previous evening, he breakfasted royally; washing down the whole with a moderate libation of wine, and topping off with a couple of oranges, after which he was ready to start on his homeward journey. Before going, however, he hauled up his raft as high as he could get it on the beach, placed the two oars in safety beside the carpenter's ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood

... same poison by which the great philosopher of Athens had been put to death. But his limbs were already cold, and the draught proved fruitless. He then entered a bath of hot water, sprinkling the slaves who stood nearest to him, with the words that he was pouring a libation to Jupiter the Liberator.[36] Even the warm water failed to make the blood flow more speedily, and he was finally carried into one of those vapour baths which the Romans called sudatoria, and stifled with its steam. His body was ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar

... a delicious coolness to the temples on which it bloomed. And now for the first time wine came to heighten the spirits and test the charm of the garlands. Each, as the large goblet passed to him, poured from the brim, before it touched his lips, his libation to the good spirit. And as Antagoras, rising first, set this pious example, out from the further ends of the hall, behind the fountains, burst a concert of flutes, and the great Hellenic Hymn of ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton

... the modern Tel Sifr. The magistrates, before whom it was brought, are described as looking after not only the city but also "the walls and streets," from which we may gather that municipal commissioners already existed in the Babylonian towns. The plaintiff made oath before them over the copper libation-bowl of the god of Boundaries, which thus took the place of the Bible in an English court ...
— Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs • Rev. A. H. Sayce

... The sheriff poured his libation, swallowed it, and wiped his long mustache on the back of his hand. Then he said: "U-um! A-ah!" Whereupon Zack poured another and passed it to him. Old Zack did not understand the drift of things in the least, but ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris

... her daughters, Laodice, and she called him by his name, and spoke: "Dear Son! why hast thou left the field? Do the Achaians press thee hard? Dost thou come to make prayers to Father Zeus, from the Citadel? But come, I will bring thee honey-sweet wine, that thou mayest pour out a libation to Almighty Zeus, the Son of Cronos, and refresh thyself with ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various

... eggs at the cross roads, the god of the world. God, with benignant spirit, desired in sacrifice a goat, a bull to be carried within the precincts of the holy place. God, twice propitiated, blesses the pit of the sacred libation." ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan

... of his fierceness and of the mountains. He soon gained so much esteem for this among the Swedes that he was thought to be the son of the great Thor, and the people bestowed divine honours upon him, and judged him worthy of public libation. ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... thank you," said he, and then wondered if perhaps he should not have said yes, as he watched the other select the largest of the half-dozen wine-glasses clustered at her place, and pour herself out a generous libation. ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair

... that grieve and love. She hung upon his bosom, pressed his lips, Breathed, and would feign it his that she resorbed; She chafed the feathery softness of his veins, That swelled out black, like tendrils round their vase After libation: lo! he moves! he groans! He seems to struggle from the grasp of death. Charoba shrieked and fell away, her hand Still clasping his, a sudden blush o'erspread Her pallid humid cheek, and disappeared. 'Twas not the blush of shame—what shame has woe? - 'Twas not ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor

... it was the Egyptians placed the river among their gods. They personified it as a man with regular features, and a vigorous but portly body, such as befits the rich of high lineage. Sometimes water springs from his breast; sometimes he presents a frog, or libation of vases, or bears a tray full of offerings of flowers, corn, fish, or geese. The inscriptions call him "Hapi, father of the gods, lord of sustenance, who maketh food to be, and covereth the two lands of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... are the main source of dharma. The mantras which are generally hymns in praise of some deities or powers are to be taken as being for the specification of the deity to whom the libation is to be offered. It should be remembered that as dharma can only be acquired by following the injunctions of the Vedas they should all be interpreted as giving us injunctions. Anything therefore found in the Vedas which cannot be connected ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta

... and Indian corn. The head of the family usually eats alone; his wives and slaves have also their separate tables. Before we taste food we always wash our hands: indeed our cleanliness on all occasions is extreme; but on this it is an indispensable ceremony. After washing, libation is made, by pouring out a small portion of the food, in a certain place, for the spirits of departed relations, which the natives suppose to preside over their conduct, and guard them from evil. They ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano

... red beard, and a hideous expression") in his arms. The other men were frightened, and begged Chu to restore his worship to his place on the infernal bench. Before carrying back the worthy magistrate, Chu poured a libation on the ground and said, "Whenever your excellency feels so disposed, I shall be glad to take a cup of wine with you in a friendly way." That very night, as Chu was taking a stirrup cup before going to bed, the ghost of the ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang

... of stars! Light, the revealer of dread beauty's face! Weaving whereof the hills are lambent clad! Mighty libation to the Unknown God! Cup whereat pine-trees slake their giant thirst And little leaves drink sweet delirium! Being and breath and potion! Living soul And all-informing heart of all that lives! How can we magnify thine awful name Save by its chanting: Light! and light! and light! ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various

... feed them from a portable manger. The car, left to itself, is tilted back, and stands with its pole in the air. (5) Food and drink having been prepared and placed on two tables, or altars, the hunter, seated on a throne under the shadow of his umbrella, pours a libation to the gods. They, on their part, scent the feast and draw near, represented by the sun and moon—a winged disk, and a crescent embracing a full orb. The feast is also witnessed by a spirit of evil, in the shape of a huge baboon or cynocephalous ape, who from a cavern at the ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson

... all his furs. This you are aware of, and accordingly proceed to untie your pack, and exposing its contents to view, solicit him to give, at least, the preference in trade. Your opponent, on the other side of the fire-place, having also poured out his libation, imitates your example in every respect; and most probably he may secure the wife, while you engage the ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean

... not of his own accord. So he went his way, I mine, and I have seen him no more. Yet ever on my birthday I drain a cup to him, and none knows to whom the King drinks a full glass silently. It is my libation on a friendship's grave. Perhaps it would support an interpretation more subtle. For when I stood between Owen and Hammerfeldt, torn this way and that, uncertain whom I should follow through life, was not I the humble ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope

... our better fortunes, then!" said the old soldier, filling a glass for Tappingham; and, "Here's to our better fortunes!" echoed the young men, pouring off the gentle liquor heartily. Having thus made libation to their particular god, the trio separated. But Jefferson did not encounter the alacrity of acceptance he expected from Crailey, when he found him, half an hour later, at the hotel bar. Indeed, at first, Mr. Gray not only refused outright to go, but seriously urged the same course upon ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington

... midst of a crooked and perverse generation, in which you shine as luminaries in the world, [2:16]holding fast the word of life, for my glorying in the day of Christ, that I did not run in vain, nor labor in vain. [2:17]But if I am even poured out as a libation on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice and congratulate you all; [2:18]do you also rejoice with the ...
— The New Testament • Various

... were just about to celebrate my downfall, I perceive, by pouring a libation," Weir said. "Don't let me interrupt. Only I must request you to conduct the proceedings there where you're standing, Vorse, instead of at the rear of the room: Madden and I wish a good view of the ceremony. If Mr. Sorenson will be so agreeable as to step forward, ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd

... missed! That's not bad shooting, considering what a hole it is to shoot in. Gentlemen, here's your health," and filling himself out a fair sized wine-glassfull of Ferintosh, into the silver cup of his dram-bottle, he tossed it off; and then poured out a similar libation for Tim Matlock. Tom and myself, nothing loth, obeyed the hint, and sipped our modicums of distilled waters out of ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)

... into the sacred quiet of a national Sabbath. From savannahs and prairies, from valleys and mountains, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, more than fifty millions of freemen have been invited to gather around the altars of the God of our fathers, and pour forth the libation of their gratitude to Him who is the giver of every good and perfect gift. If in all the past, nations have made public recognition of the divinities which have presided over their destiny, according ...
— 'America for Americans!' - The Typical American, Thanksgiving Sermon • John Philip Newman

... Then Manu went about singing praises and toiling, wishing for offspring. And he sacrificed there also with a Paka-sacrifice. He poured clarified butter, thickened milk, whey, and curds in the water as a libation. In one year a woman arose from it. She came forth as if dripping, and clarified butter gathered on her step. Mitra and Varuna came to ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller

... the happy deity of the hymeneal sacrifice. I had this from his own declaration. He did not name the positive day, but it is certainly to be soon. You will undoubtedly, however, have timely notice, as a guest. We must pour a liberal libation upon the mystic altar, Alonzo, and twine the nuptial garland with wreaths of joy. Beauman ought to devote a rich offering to so valuable a prize. He has been here for a week, and departed for New-London yesterday, ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.

... a clot of blood for each of them; the rest of the victim they took to the fire, after having made a purification of the column all round. Then they drew from the cup in golden vessels, and, pouring a libation on the fire, they swore t hat they would judge according to the laws on the column, and would punish any one who had previously transgressed, and that for the future they would not, if they could help, transgress any of the inscriptions, ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly

... made little wet rings on the table with his empty glass. A waiter, hovering near by, caught the glint of his eye and brought the liquor. Then Spotty, after a libation, spoke. ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele

... upon her health being proposed among a round of beauties, the Laird of Bumperquaigh, permanent feast-master and croupier of the Bautherwhillery Club, not only said MORE to the pledge in a pint bumper of Bourdeaux, but, ere pouring forth the libation, denominated the divinity to whom it was dedicated, 'the Rose of Tully-Veolan;' upon which festive occasion, three cheers were given by all the sitting members of that respectable society, whose throats the wine had left capable of such exertion. Nay, I am well assured, that ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott

... fresh myrtle my blade I'll entwine, Like Harmodius, the gallant and good, When he made at the tutelar shrine A libation of Tyranny's blood. ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe

... offer a libation to your Good Genius; taste, taste the liquor of the genial soil ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... then they were making preparation to cross over; and on the next day they waited for the Sun, desiring to see him rise, and in the meantime they offered all kinds of incense upon the bridges and strewed the way with branches of myrtle. Then, as the Sun was rising, Xerxes made libation from a golden cup into the sea, and prayed to the Sun, that no accident might befall him such as should cause him to cease from subduing Europe, until he had come to its furthest limits. After having thus prayed he threw the cup into the Hellespont ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus

... heard from women's gentle voices. Precious Rhine-wine which had been the poet's favourite drink, and which so often had inspired his poetry, was poured by hands of his admirers over his grave, so profusely, the legend relates, that the entrance of the church was flooded by the libation. But still more precious than all these gifts were the tears, which on this memorable day were shed by many a ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland

... which was the superior in station, a dilemma which was finally neatly solved by serving us both at the same moment. I had seen that it was chewed kava,[53] but in my weariness after the long journey I forgot that fact before it came my turn to drink. Before the bowl was offered to the king a libation was poured out and fresh water from a cocoanut shell was sprinkled first to the right and then to the left. The talking man and the others made polite orations, one of them likening Louis to Jesus ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez

... you," said Ireneus, who in his turn wished to laugh at the young girl. "It seems to me, that when seated in front of the riches of the north, it would be a profanation to pour out a libation in a foreign beverage. This beer has besides so excellent a flavor, that were there anything like it in France, it is probable that the owners of the Clos de Vaugeot and Medoc would root out their vines to make room ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various

... their ancient situation, without more blood shed and murder than has already been committed, I could freely wish at the risk of my all to have a fair chance of offering to the manes of my slaughtered countrymen a libation of the blood of the ruthless traitors who conspired their destruction. It is here I confess my fingers would fall with weight, let those of Dr. Y -g, Mr. -x, or even Mr. A -s, fall how or ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams

... producing a demijohn of whiskey, slung it dexterously and gracefully over her arm, so that it rested on her elbow like a cradle, and, going to each one in succession, filled their glasses. It obliged each one to rise to accept the libation, and as Hale did so in his turn he met the dark eyes of the girl full on his own. There was a pleased curiosity in her glance that made this married man of thirty-five color ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte

... you never knew— You, with youth's dews yet glittering on your soul— What 'tis to love. Slow, drop by drop, to pour Our life's whole essence, perfumed through and through With all the best we have, or can control, For the libation; cast it down before Your feet—then lift the goblet, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 430 - Volume 17, New Series, March 27, 1852 • Various

... rulers, Thus of the blood y' have shed, I make libation And sprinkle it, mingling. May it rest upon you, And all your race. Be henceforth peace a stranger Within your walls; let plagues and famine waste Your generation—Oh, poor Belvidera! Sir, I have a wife, bear this in safety to her; A token that with my dying breath I bless'd her, And the ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy • Thomas Otway

... cooking vessels of the Romans. One of the most celebrated vases in the Neapolitan collection was found with a bronze simpulum in it; and upon the vase itself there was a sacrificial painting, representing a priest in the act of pouring out a libation from a vase ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... and performed penance, by which blessings were forced from the reluctant gods. In India not only temporal, but eternal happiness, depends on having children. The son alone by the offering of the Sraddha, or libation for the dead, can obtain rest for the departed spirit of the father. Hence the begetting of a son is a religious duty, particularly for a Brahmin, and is one of the three debts to which he is bound during life. After he has read the ...
— Nala and Damayanti and Other Poems • Henry Hart Milman

... boastful answer to the tyrant and the despot was that his bright home was the land of the settin' sun." Mr. Scadder and Mr. Jefferson Brick were to him the men who said (in cooperation) that "the libation of freedom must sometimes be quaffed in blood." And in these chapters more than anywhere else he falls into the extreme habit of satire, that of treating people as if there were nothing about them except their opinions. It is therefore difficult to accept these ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton

... eaten nothing but bread and radishes. I thought so? Then the chicken must pretend to be a pheasant and you, wife, will eat this leg. The girls are gone to bed? Why here is some wine too! Fill up your cup, boy. A libation to the God! Glory to Dionysus!" The two men poured the libation on the floor and drank; then the father thrust his knife into the breast of the bird and began his meal with a will, while Orpheus, the son, went ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... the top slab are often seen a number of basin-shaped holes, sometimes connected by furrows. Many of the slabs are slightly slanting, and it has been suggested that the series of holes and furrows was intended for the pouring a libation of some kind. In a monument of this type at Amman the cover-slab slopes considerably; the upper part of its surface is a network of small channels converging on a hole 11 inches deep about the centre of the slab. Here, again, no excavations have been carried out, and we do ...
— Rough Stone Monuments and Their Builders • T. Eric Peet

... SALAMIS when TEUCER fled, Driven by a Parent's unrelenting frown, Hope from his spirit chas'd each anxious dread, While on his brow he bound the poplar crown; In rich libation pour'd the generous wine, Then bath'd his temples in the juice divine; And thus, with gladden'd eye, and air sedate, Address'd the drooping Followers ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward

... of profanity in this," said Spence. "The least we can do is to pour a libation to Poseidon, before we ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing

... his dead body. His friends had once been sureties that he would remain, and they shall now be sureties that he has run away. Yet he would not die without the customary ceremonies of washing and burial. Shall he make a libation of the poison? In the spirit he will, but not in the letter. One request he utters in the very act of death, which has been a puzzle to after ages. With a sort of irony he remembers that a trifling religious duty is still unfulfilled, just as above he desires before he departs ...
— Phaedo - The Last Hours Of Socrates • Plato

... the Sar as his libation pours The sparkling sacred wine before the doors That lead to Ishtar's glorious inner shrine. He bows before her golden ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous

... and refused to die, so a man sat down on the ground, put his thumbs on the victim's throat, and choked him to death. Before that the usual lances had been laid across his body, and some bubud poured (judiciously, not extravagantly) on him as a libation. This was a head-dance, the taken head being simulated by a ball of fern-tree pith stuck on a spear ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox

... who, in the easiest and gentlest manner, without the least fear or change of color or feature, looking at the man with his eyes, Echecrates, as his manner was, took the cup and said: "What do you say about making the libation out of this cup to any god? May I, or not?" The man answered, "We only prepare, Socrates, just so much as we deem enough." "I understand," he said. "Yet I may and must pray to the gods to prosper my journey ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard

... glories of the house of Alcinous, and when Odysseus had gazed his fill he began to think of the purpose for which he had come. The feasters were just pouring a libation to Hermes, to be followed by a parting cup, before they went home. At that very moment their eyes were opened, and they saw Odysseus kneeling at the feet of Arete, and ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell

... golden bottle, with cracked ice in a tall glass, with a crisp curl of lemon peel, ready for an innocuous libation, brought his nose down from the heights to look for the foot, found that it no longer barred the way, and ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey

... the go-between, after drinking liquor himself, pours out some on the floor of the house and then gives some to the bride and bridegroom to drink. The killing of the fowls, the sacrifice of the pig, and the libation of liquor are essentials at a Lynngam marriage. The sacrifice of the fowls is also an essential feature of a Garo marriage. The Lynngams, unlike the Garos, do not observe which way the beaks of the fowls turn when ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon

... her food, This her libation poured; Uplift, like offering Aaron good Heaved up unto the Lord; More riches in the thanks than ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald

... one end of State street and drinks, or pretends to drink, at every bar between Lake and Fortieth streets. This libation poured on the altar of liberty, he is popularly declared to be in the race. The newspapers announce that he is the people's idol, and the boss of the machine sends word to the newspapers that it is all well enough, but ...
— David Lockwin—The People's Idol • John McGovern

... incense smokes, and in and out, and round and round, the dancers whirl about the pillars of the temple! The ox for the sacrifice is without spot; his horns are gilt; the crown and fillet adorn his head. The priest stands before him naked from the waist upwards; he heaves the libation out of the cup; the blood flows over the altar! Up! up! tear forth with reeking hands the heart while it is yet warm, futurity is before you in the quivering entrails, look on them and ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins

... over, took up his opponent's dice box, and rattled it, and appeared inspecting and fingering the tali.[105] "You have won your throws fairly," he said, handing it back. "Now let us invoke the decision of Fortune once more. A libation to the Genius of Good Luck!" And instead of spilling out a few drops only, he canted the flagon too far and spattered the wine on to ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis

... house ought to look beautiful," I replied. "It would be a sin and a shame to have it otherwise. No house ought to be fitted up for a future home without a strong and a leading reference to beauty in all its arrangements. If I were a Greek, I should say that the first household libation should be made to beauty; but, being an old-fashioned Christian, I would say that he who prepares a home with no eye to beauty neglects the example of the great Father who has filled our earth home ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... bring my genius as a sacrifice, before you I shed my tears as a libation.... Who knows but I am the last to sing of Zion, and you the last to read the ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz

... they dress a large caudle of eggs, butter, oatmeal and milk; and bring besides the ingredients of the caudle, plenty of beer and whisky; for each of the company must contribute something. The rites begin with spilling some of the caudle on the ground, by way of libation: on that every one takes a cake of oatmeal, upon which are raised nine square knobs, each dedicated to some particular being, the supposed preserver of their flocks and herds, or to some particular animal, the real destroyer of them: each person then ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... had been intemperate in food or libation I know not, but I was attacked with the Walcheren fever, and was sent home in a line-of-battle ship; and, perhaps, as Pangloss says, it was all for the best; for I knew I could not have left off my inveterate habits, and it would have been very inconvenient ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... fill'd a golden cup with wine, Which, tasted first, he to the daughter bore Of Jove the Thund'rer, and her thus bespake. Oh guest! the King of Ocean now adore! For ye have chanced on Neptune's festival; And, when thou hast, thyself, libation made Duly, and pray'r, deliver to thy friend The gen'rous juice, that he may also make Libation; for he, doubtless, seeks, in prayer 60 The Immortals, of whose favour all have need. But, since he younger is, and with myself Coeval, first ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer

... has dubbed him a "prose paranoiac," and Elbert Hubbard says, "He writes so well that he grows enamoured of his own style and is subdued like the dyer's hand; he becomes intoxicated on the lure of lines and the roll of phrases. He is woozy on words—locoed by syntax and prosody. The libation he pours is flavoured with euphues. It is all like a cherry in a morning Martini." A phrase which Remy de Gourmont uses to describe Villiers de l'Isle Adam might be applied with equal success to the author of "The Lords of the Ghostland": "L'idealisme ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten

... with cloths made from the finest wool. Meanwhile, three masseurs were guzzling Falernian under his eyes, and when they spilled a great deal of it in their brawling, Trimalchio declared they were pouring a libation to his Genius. He was then wrapped in a coarse scarlet wrap-rascal, and placed in a litter. Four runners, whose liveries were decorated with metal plates, preceded him, as also did a wheel-chair in which rode his favorite, a withered, blear eyed slave, even more repulsive looking ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... hae been at Crookie-den," etc. I would advise you in this musical quandary, to offer up your prayers to the muses for inspiring direction; and, in the meantime, waiting for this direction, bestow a libation to Bacchus, and there is not a doubt but you will hit on a judicious ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... hearth, and, as the household sat round it, master and man together, a part of the meal, set aside on a special sacred dish (patella), would be thrown into the flames as the gods' portion. Sometimes incense might be added, and later a libation of wine: when images had become common, the little statuettes of Lares and Penates would be fetched from the shrine (lararium) and placed upon the table in token of their presence at the meal. Even in the luxurious, many-roomed house ...
— The Religion of Ancient Rome • Cyril Bailey

... in King Dushyanta's place To offer sacred homage to the dead Of Puru's noble line; my ancestors Must drink these glistening tears, the last libation[99] A childless man can ever hope ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa

... these, I also, in such station As when the pyre was charr'd, and piled the sods. And offering to the dead made, and their gods, The old mourners had, standing to make libation, I stand, and to the Gods and to the dead Do reverence without prayer or praise, and shed Offering to these unknown, the gods of gloom, And what of honey and spice my seed-lands bear, And what I may of fruits in this chill'd air, And ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... order that the corn may grow well and the beasts be healthy during the year. In Montenegro, instead of throwing corn, he more usually breaks a piece of unleavened bread, places it upon the log, and pours over it a libation of wine.{1} ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles



Words linked to "Libation" :   portion, religious ritual, religious ceremony, witticism, helping, wit, serving, drink, humour



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