"Circe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... their poems to just such a goodly company as Giraldi Cinthio (a Ferrarese, and fond of romance, too) describes in the prologue of his "Ecatomiti:" gentle and sprightful ladies, with the splendid brocaded robes, and the gold-filleted golden hair of Dosso Dossi's wonderful Alcina Circe; graceful youths like the princely St. John of Benvenuto Garofalo; jesters like Dosso's at Modena; brilliant captains like his St. George and St. Michael; and a little crowd of pages with doublets and sleeves laced with gold tags, of sedate ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... following scenes in the Bower of Bliss were plainly suggested by the Palace of Circe, in the Odyssey; but where Homer is direct, simple, forceful, Spenser revels in luxuriant details. He charms all Guyon's senses with color, perfume, beauty, harmony; then he remembers that he is writing a moral poem, and suddenly his delighted knight turns reformer. He catches Acrasia in a ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... stem of moly, If thou touch at Circe's isle,— Hermes' moly, growing solely To undo enchanter's wile! When she proffers thee her chalice,— Wine and spices mixed with malice,— When she smites thee with her staff, To transform thee, do thou laugh! Safe thou art if thou but bear The least leaf of moly rare. Close it ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... first gave to Martinique its poetical name, Le Pays des Revenants, thought of his wonderful island only as "The Country of Comers-back," where Nature's unspeakable spell bewitches wandering souls like the caress of a Circe,—never as the Land of Ghosts. Yet either translation of the name holds equal truth: a land of ghosts it is, this marvellous Martinique!. Almost every plantation has its familiar spirits,—its phantoms: some may be unknown beyond the particular district in which ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... novelist of the nineteenth century, like that of Homer, might indeed defy time; but the setting of his pathetic tales, the misery of the poor, the wrongs of power, the pitiless cruelty of the system of society, had passed away as utterly as Circe and ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... is called. Out of the high heaven is she summoned, from mystic communion with her own perfection, from majestic labours in the Sistine Chapel of the Stars,—yea, she must put aside her gold-leaf and purples and leave unfinished the very panels of the throne of God,—that Circe shall have her palace, and her worshippers ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... out from the heavy hangings behind her chair of state, and stood, a vision of majestic loveliness, on the dais. Clad in her short tunic, her hair bound to her brow by the gold circlet that Milo had made, she had calculated effects with the art of a Circe. Her rounded arms and bare shoulders, faultless throat and swelling bosom, radiant enough in their own fair perfection, she had embellished with such jewels as subtly served to accentuate even that perfection. Upon one polished forearm a bracelet was pressed, ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... travellers, and too often communicated a fatal shock to their principles. Inglese Italianato e un diavolo incarnato passed into a proverb: we find it on the lips of Parker, of Howell, of Sidney, of Greene, and of Ascham; while Italy itself was styled by severe moralists the court of Circe. In James Howell's 'Instructions for forreine travell' we find this pregnant sentence: 'And being now in Italy, that great limbique of working braines, he must be very circumspect in his carriage, for she ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... not fail'd, Ulysses, when from Troy he sail'd Was by a tempest forc'd to land Where beauteous Circe did command. Circe, the daughter of the sun, Which had with charms and herbs undone Many poor strangers, and could then Turn into beasts the bravest men. Such magic in her potions lay, That whosoever passed that way And drank, ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... Jason, flattering her, "for your fame is spread over all the earth. Are you not the queen of all enchantresses, wiser even than your sister Circe, in her fairy ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... On the north, looking from the promontory of Antium, the eye follows the line of the coast away to the mouth of the Tiber; while, on the south, the view is terminated, at about the same distance, by the promontory of Circe, which is the second cape, or promontory, that marks the shore of Italy in going southward from Rome. Toward the interior, from Antium, there extends a broad and beautiful plain, bounded by wooded hills toward the shore, ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... French captain being sent on board the Crescent, they began to remove the prisoners and repair damages. When the action began, a ship had been seen under the land to the eastward, about four leagues distant; this was supposed to be an enemy: but it turned out to be the Circe, Captain Yorke, who joined four hours after the action, and took part of the prisoners. In the mean time the cutter made off towards Cherbourg, out of which harbour the wind and adverse tide prevented the other frigate, ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... on the following, in not more than one hundred words, naming the source from which you got your information: the situation and government of the Fiji Islands; Circe; the author of "A man's a man for a' that"; Becky Sharp; the age of President Taft and the offices he has held; the early career of James Madison; the American amateur record in the half-mile run; the family name of Lord Salisbury, and a brief account of his ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... Vittoria. But somehow in that fantastic palace of hers, with its enchanted atmosphere and its opulent surroundings, my cool reason of the meadows and the open air seemed at a loss, and I found myself ready, as it were, to surrender to Circe like any ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... then the Sultana took Soliman into her chamber and gazed up into his eyes. The man was stunned by the immensity of the calamity which had befallen him and his kingdom, but his manhood availed him not against the wiles of this Circe. Ibrahim had been foully done to death in his own palace, and this woman clinging so lovingly round his neck now was the murderess. The heart's blood of his best friend was coagulating on the threshold of his own apartment when he forgave ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... perpetually renewed. But a still more wonderful sign of the future of Rome was given on this occasion. A mysterious woman, endowed with preternatural longevity—believed to be no other than Deiphobe, the Cumaean Sibyl herself, the daughter of Circe and Gnostus, who had been the guide of AEneas into the world of the dead—appeared before Tarquin and offered him for a certain price nine books, which contained her prophecies in mystic rhyme. Tarquin, ignorant of the value of the books, refused to buy them. The Sibyl departed, and burned ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... It did not return by the same route, but went to the north, and came to the isle of the goddess Circe, who purified Jason and Medea from the blood of the poor boy. Then they came to the isle of the Sirens, creatures like fair maidens, who stood on the shore singing so sweetly that no sailor could resist the charm; but the moment any man reached the shore, they strangled him and sucked his ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... tosses you as misers count their treasures; and you pocket the change for a five uncomputed. Perhaps the brass-bound inaccessibility multiplies her charms—anyhow, she is a shirt-waisted angel, immaculate, trim, manicured, seductive, bright-eyed, ready, alert—Psyche, Circe, and Ate in one, separating you from your circulating medium after your ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... and the Circe-breasted pillows that supported his head were his undoing. The morning after Shan Tung's visit he awoke to find the sun flooding in through the eastern window of his room, The warmth of it as it fell full in his face, setting his eyes blinking, told him it was too late. He guessed it was eight ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood
... caught the siren's doom-sweet cries, And sips oblivion at fond Circe's nod. Oh! for a seer whose soul is lightning-shod, To stand imperial 'gainst th' impervious skies, As Lincoln stood, with brave heaven-gazing eyes, To appeal from guile's ...
— Iolaeus - The man that was a ghost • James A. Mackereth
... hotel; from his own experiences with her Kendric thought that he could imagine how she stood before the sailor, how she talked with him and looked at him, how in the first small point she won over him. He thought of an ancient tale of Circe and the swine. Was he a free man, a man's man or was he a woman's plaything? . . . It flashed over him again that it might be that Zoraida was mad. Even now, that he seemed to be reading her inmost soul, was she but playing the ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... dream'st of lightly passing o'er, Long leagues divide, and many a pathless mere. First must Trinacrian waters bend the oar, Ausonian waves thy vessels must explore, First must thou view the nether world, where flows Dark Styx, and visit that AEaean shore, The home of Circe, ere, at rest from woes, Thou build the promised walls, and ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... but are found in the effort itself. There is pleasure in dressing a field or in painting a house, but not in the dressed field or in the painted house. In other words, there is pleasure in individual assertiveness and not in inertia. No doubt either Calypso or Circe was more attractive than Penelope, but Ulysses was not content. He had to continue his wanderings even to his own home, and when he had killed of all the suitors and was restored to his diplomatic spouse, there were doubtless days ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... from the divine lady. I cannot give her any other epithet; for I think her superior to all womankind.' For a long time he seemed to be able only to paint Emma Lyon. His son enumerates some two dozen portraits, in which she appears as Circe, Iphigenia, St. Cecilia, Sensibility, a Bacchante, Alope, the Spinstress, Cassandra (for the Shakespeare Gallery), Calypso, a Pythoness, Joan of Arc, a Magdalen, etc.; some of these were left unfinished. But at one time the form and features of his beautiful model appeared ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... her countenance that was only so much the more striking when placed in obvious contrast to the ingenuous nature and calm purity that shone in every lineament of the face of Ghita. One might very well have passed for an image of the goddess Circe; while the other would have made no bad model for a vestal, could the latter have borne the moral impression of the sublime and heart-searching truths that are inculcated by the real oracles of God. Then ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Circe murmured these words, his color went and came, and when she ceased he panted out ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... to the Trojans—to each a steed from the royal stables, with rich purple trappings. To Aeneas himself he sent a chariot and a pair of horses of the breed which the sorceress, Circe, had obtained from the sun-god, her father. With these presents, the Trojan ambassadors, mounted on their splendid steeds, returned to their chief, and joyfully informed him of ...
— Story of Aeneas • Michael Clarke
... you as Circe," she commented, "quite well." She tucked her arm into Gillian's and, as they moved away together, threw back over her shoulder: "By the way, have you two settled the vexed question of the model for the ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... Bodine, Spondanus, and others, are of opinion that they cause a true metamorphosis, as Nebuchadnezzar was really translated into a beast, Lot's wife into a pillar of salt; Ulysses' companions into hogs and dogs, by Circe's charms; turn themselves and others, as they do witches into cats, dogs, hares, crows, &c. Strozzius Cicogna hath many examples, lib. iii. omnif. mag. cap. 4 and 5, which he there confutes, as Austin likewise doth, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... first from out the purple Grape, Crush't the sweet poyson of mis-used Wine After the Tuscan Mariners transform'd Coasting the Tyrrhene shore, as the winds listed, On Circes Hand fell (who knows not Circe 50 The daughter of the Sun? Whose charmed Cup Whoever tasted, lost his upright shape, And downward fell into a groveling Swine) This Nymph that gaz'd upon his clustring locks, With Ivy berries wreath'd, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... that by fortune and by art I am out of my way. I believe nothing more certainly than this, that I cannot be hurt by the use of things to which I have been so long accustomed. 'Tis for custom to give a form to a man's life, such as it pleases him; she is all in all in that: 'tis the potion of Circe, that varies our nature as she best pleases. How many nations, and but three steps from us, think the fear of the night-dew, that so manifestly is hurtful to us, a ridiculous fancy; and our own watermen and peasants ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... Circe's Charm ('Inner Temple Masque') The Hunted Squirrel ('Britannia's Pastorals') As Careful Merchants Do Expecting Stand (same) Song of the Sirens ('Inner Temple Masque') An Epistle ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... way, while thou perchance Shalt sleep secure on board the sable bark. Which when Ulysses heard, Hero renown'd, Adjusting close the lid, he cast a cord Around it which with many a mazy knot He tied, by Circe taught him long before. 550 And now, the mistress of the household charge Summon'd him to his bath; glad he beheld The steaming vase, uncustom'd to its use E'er since his voyage from the isle of fair Calypso, although, while a guest with ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... masterpieces of art, of madonnas and palaces he has little to say; but he has much to note concerning the loose morals of the inhabitants. He beseeches his compatriots not to continue to visit this dangerous country: they will meet "Circe" there, and will certainly greatly enjoy themselves; but, behold, they will come back to their native land with an ass's head and a swine's belly. In Italy, according to his experience, a man may sin to his heart's content and no one will in any way interfere. He ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... done nothing else; but Milton found time to write the Masque of Comus, which was presented at Ludlow, then the residence of the lord president of Wales, in 1634; and had the honour of being acted by the earl of Bridgewater's sons and daughter. The fiction is derived from Homer's Circe[30]; but we never can refuse to any modern the ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... pass, yet 'Darayavush' disturbs the metre as well as the rhyme? It seems, however, that 'Themistokles' may be winked at: not so the 'harsh and subversive Kirke.' But let the objector ask somebody with no knowledge to subvert, how he supposes 'Circe' is spelt in Greek, and the answer will be 'with a soft c.' Inform him that no such letter exists, and he guesses, 'Then with s, if there be anything like it' Tell him that, to eye and ear equally, his own k answers the purpose, ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... Why Circe, the enchantress, skilled in the use of poisonous herbs, should have had her name applied to this innocent and insignificant looking little plant is not now obvious; neither is the title of ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... keen and practiced as that of any modern observer. He enjoys with rapture the panoramic splendor of the view from the summit of the Alban Hills—from the Monte Cavo—whence he could see the shores of St. Peter from Terracina and the promontory of Circe as far as Monte Argentaro, and the wide expanse of country round about, with the ruined cities of the past, and with the mountain-chains of Central Italy beyond; and then his eye would turn to the green woods in the hollows beneath and the mountain-lakes ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... men. To Octavius Mamilius of Tusculum he gives his daughter in marriage; (he was by far the most eminent of the Latin name, being descended, if we believe tradition, from Ulysses and the goddess Circe, and by this match he attaches to himself his ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... Barton. It concerns itself with Medea scattering the limbs of her murdered brother along the way to delay her pursuers and with Antigone performing the rites of burial over the body of her brother that his soul might live forever. It has to do with Circe, who transformed men into pigs, and with Frances Willard, who sought to restore lost manhood. It includes all that pertains to Lucrezia Borgia and Mary Magdalene; Nero and Phillips Brooks; John Wilkes Booth and Nathan Hale; Becky ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... find himself again at Fellside. He had gone forth from that house full of passionate indignation, shaking off the dust from his feet, sternly resolved never again to cross the threshold of that fateful cave, where he had met his cold-hearted Circe. And now, because Circe was safe out of the way, he had come back to the cavern; and he was feeling all the pain that a man feels who beholds again the scene of ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... wit, you are still the friend of Edgar ... hostility will certainly come. Friendship is too feeble a sentiment to struggle against love. This passion is more violent than tropical storms—I have felt it—I am one of its victims now! There lives another woman—half siren, half Circe—who has crossed my path in life, as you well know. If I had collected in my house as many friends as Socrates desired to see in his, and all these friends were to become my rivals, I feel that my jealousy would fire the house, and I would gladly perish in the flames ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... of the sirens through Circe, and he wanted to hear the maidens sing, but he did not want to come within their power. So this is the way he managed it. One day he put wax in the ears of all his sailors, so that they could not hear the music, and then had ...
— Fifty-Two Story Talks To Boys And Girls • Howard J. Chidley
... maiden" and also "the sow": in other words it was Aphrodite. The use of the term "maiden" for the Pterocera suggests a similar identification. To complete this web of proof it may be noted that an old writer has called the mandrake the plant of Circe, the sorceress who turned men into swine by a magic draught.[308] Thus we have a series of shells, plants, and marine creatures accredited with identical magical properties, and each of them known in popular tradition as "the maiden". They are all ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... of unboastful charms! whom white-robed Truth Right onward guiding through the maze of youth, Forbade the Circe Praise to witch thy soul, And dash'd to earth th' intoxicating bowl: Thee meek-eyed Pity, eloquently fair, 5 Clasp'd to her bosom with a mother's care; And, as she lov'd thy kindred form to trace, The slow smile wander'd ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... luxuriousness &c adj.; dissipation, round of pleasure, titillation, gusto, creature comforts, comfort, ease; pillow &c (support) 215; luxury, lap of luxury; purple and fine linen; bed of downs, bed of roses; velvet, clover; cup of Circe &c (intemperance) 954. treat; refreshment, regale; feast; delice [Fr.]; dainty &c 394; bonne bouche [Fr.]. source of pleasure &c 829; happiness &c (mental enjoyment) 827. V. feel pleasure, experience pleasure, receive pleasure; enjoy, relish; luxuriate in, revel ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Wolf Larsen, enslaver and tormentor of men, a male Circe and these his swine, suffering brutes that grovelled before him and revolted only in drunkenness and in secrecy. And was I, too, one of his swine? I thought. And Maud Brewster? No! I ground my teeth in my anger and determination till the man I was attending winced under my hand and Oofty-Oofty ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... unworthy; and men are bribed with offices instead of money, to the greater ruin of the Commonwealth. The Divine in human nature disappears, and interest, greed, and selfishness takes it place. That is a sad and true allegory which represents the companions of Ulysses changed by the enchantments of Circe into swine. ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... before the beauty and charm of another. The heart of the simple country girl ached. But Isabel smiled, flattered and charmed and did it so adeptly that instead of being obnoxious to the country boy it thrilled and held him like the voice of a Circe. They never noticed Amanda's silence. She could lean back in her chair and dream. She remembered the story of Ulysses and his wax-filled ears that saved him from the sirens; the tale of Orpheus, who drowned their ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... describe the dancing of a red-haired lady at the last charity ball you can either say—"The ruby Circe, with the Titian locks glowing like the oriflamme which surrounds the golden god of day as he sinks to rest amid the crimson glory of the burnished West, gave a divine exhibition of the Terpsichorean art which ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... beside him, and the chap got up as if her motion had been Circe's and disappeared. Through the roof or somewhere. I don't know. Anyway, he vanished. And she took his place and sat down beside Sabre and poor old Sabre crouched away from her as if he was stung, and old Buddha, reaching out for his dignity, said, 'You may ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... is part of the Latin country and the Latins have the same name as Latinus, who is said to be the son of Odysseus and Circe, and the Tiber, once called Albulus, received its change of name from the fact that King Tiberius lost his life in it; this is proclaimed by Dio's history among others. The Tiberius here meant by the history is not the one subsequent to Augustus, but another who came earlier. He, they say, died ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio
... the op'era-comique. The three acts of the piece(961) were three several interludes, of the Loves of Antony and Cleopatra, of Alcibiades and the Queen of Sparta, and of Tibuilus with a niece of Macenas; besides something of Circe, who was screamed by a Mademoiselle Hermans, seven feet high. She was in black, with a nosegay of black (for on the French stage they pique themselves on propriety,) and without powder: whenever you are a widow, are in distress, or are a witch, you are ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... the German I have only to say that, poor fellow, he spent but a short life of pleasure and of pain. What became of his Circe I never sought to know. It was a clear case of "Ne cherchez ...
— In Bohemia with Du Maurier - The First Of A Series Of Reminiscences • Felix Moscheles
... Greek myths we find none of these mysterious elements. The supernatural creations we meet with are innumerable, and no less strange in themselves. But there is nothing in Polyphemus, in Circe, in the Sirens, beyond their physical natures, which can make us look beyond ourselves to understand and fully sympathize with them. Once fully grasp their superhuman endowments, and you feel they act like men on a large scale. Not so with the Northern supernatural beings. In ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... victims to Circe. Not willingly do they become flunkeys to Fido, bell boys to bull terriers, and toddlers after Towzer. Modern Circe, instead of turning them into animals, has kindly left the difference of a six-foot leash between them. Every one of those dogmen has been either cajoled, bribed, ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... the second group represented Circe with the companions of Ulysses changed into swine. The marvellous Lady Rupper was to represent Circe. She entered dramatically, half nude, her tunic open to her waist, caught at intervals by diamond clasps, her peplum held in place by a garland of bay leaves. She ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... warfare of the true Christian soldier. The sunny plains of Capua demoralized the soldiers of Hannibal, and it was not without a reason that ancient poets made those lovely regions the abode of Sirens whose song maddened by its sweetness, and of a Circe who made men drunk with her sensual fascinations, till they became sunk to the form of brutes. Here, if anywhere, is the lotos-eater's paradise,—the purple skies, the enchanted shores, the soothing gales, the dreamy mists, which all conspire to melt the energy ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... gained upon the town, and Dr. Davenant was obliged to have recourse to the dramatic opera, rich scenes, and fine music, to support the stage on which Betterton played. The Dr. himself wrote the Opera of Circe, which came first on the stage in 1675, and was received with, such applause, as gave hopes of succeeding in this new way. The same year a Pastoral, called Calista, or the Chaste Nymph, written by Mr. ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... potion should be heady, As Circe's cup, or gin of Deady, Water from the crystal spring. Thirty quarterns, draw and bring; Let it, after ebullition, Cool to natural condition. Add, of powder saccharine, Pounds thrice five, twice ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various
... clouds—she may be able to spell rightly of every star that heaven doth show; and in her fields, ordered and wide and fair, of every herb that sips the dew;[181] and under the green avenues of her enchanted garden, a sacred Circe, true Daughter of the Sun, she must guide the human arts, and gather the divine knowledge, of distant nations, transformed from savageness to manhood, and redeemed from despairing ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... cement and plate glass Circe. We walk—a long procession of us. It is curious to note how we adjust ourselves to backgrounds. In other streets we are hurried, flurried, worried. We summon portentous frowns to our faces. Our arms swinging at our sides proclaim, "Make way, make ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... n't," I replied, recalling myself; for I had been half-listening to a sound in the lignum. But as he spoke there flashed across my mental vision the picture of his wife—a tawny-haired tigress, with slumbrous dark eyes; a Circe, whose glorious voice had been silent in death for ten years, and lost to him for three years longer. Hence, by some sequence worth tracing, the voluntary exile, the Ishmaelite occupation; the morbid, malevolent interest in the Messalinas at large; and the generally pervading ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... anxious to aid Ulysses, gave him prosperous winds and tied the treacherous winds up in a bag, but some of the curious mariners untied the bag, and the conflicting winds escaping, destroyed several of the ships and threw Ulysses and the survivors upon the island of Circe. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... even in that remote epoch. Francis Bacon, in his "Advancement of Learning," chapter 2, says that "the poets were clear-sighted in discerning the credulity of men in often preferring a mountebank, or a cunning woman to a learned physician. Hence they made Esculapius and Circe brother and sister, and ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... coadjutors—then no man, who ever advocated or dreamed of such a principle, is anything more than a novice, blunderer and trickster in chiaroscuro. And my firm belief is, that though color is inveighed against by all artists, as the great Circe of art—the great transformer of mind into sensuality—no fondness for it, no study of it, is half so great a peril and stumbling-block to the young student, as the admiration he hears bestowed on ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... of DONI, and the numerous whimsical works of ORTENSIO LANDI, and the "Circe" of GELLI, of which we have more than one English translation, which, under their fantastic inventions, cover the most profound philosophical views, have been considered the precursors of the finer genius of "The Persian Letters," that fertile mother of a numerous ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... Blanche, Cleopatre, Danae, Virginie, Poursuivante, Pandore, Nemesis, Bellonne, Amazone, Astree, Junon, Hermione, Dryade, Circe, Flore. ...
— Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post • Thomas Rainey
... a bit absent-mindedly. "No, I don't think it's nice at all to call Miss Flora a 'Vicious Circe.'" It was Flame's turn now to wince back a little. "I—I hate people who hate dogs!" she cried out ...
— Peace on Earth, Good-will to Dogs • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... one shrewd bargain; success a process of getting more than one gave; the survivors, shrewd bargainers, shouldering, edging, metamorphosed by a modern Circe, their forefeet and muzzles thrust eager and deep into the magic swill of her trough; and the others—creatures like Joe—untouched by the sorcery, going without and suffering discredit. Militant, her ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... Rowley was reduced to playing butler in his own house and thereby saving some of the most precious of his curios from the double waste of a spendthrift heir and an unscrupulous lawyer. There was also—need I mention it?—a Circe in the case. It Will Be All Right is an exercise in the picaresque school, lacking none of the author's usual raciness and vigour; but, if at the end we find Mr. Fergus Rowley still unable to reinstate himself, and left with no better ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 29, 1914 • Various
... faced each other: the one laughing, triumphant, beautiful, alas, as Circe; the other pale, sorrowful a, the guardian angel of the soul which has just been banished from the presence of ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... muse are agreeable to the gods. Here plenty, rich with rural honors, shall flow to you, with her generous horn filled to the brim. Here, in a sequestered vale, you shall avoid the heat of the dog-star; and, on your Anacreontic harp, sing of Penelope and the frail Circe striving for one lover; here you shall quaff, under the shade, cups of unintoxicating Lesbian. Nor shall the raging son of Semele enter the combat with Mars; and unsuspected you shall not fear the insolent Cyrus, lest he should savagely lay his intemperate hands on you, ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... Island of AEolus with heavy hearts. Next we came to the AEean Island, where we met with Circe, the Enchantress. For two days and two nights we were on that island without seeing the sign of a habitation. On the third day I saw smoke rising up from some hearth. I spoke of it to my men, and it seemed good to us that part of our company should go to see were there people there who might ...
— The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy • Padriac Colum
... foot. On the same shelf were Thomas the Rhymer's green velvet shoes, and the brazen shoe of Empedocles which was thrown out of Mount AEtna. Anacreon's drinking-cup was placed in apt juxtaposition with one of Tom Moore's wine-glasses and Circe's magic bowl. These were symbols of luxury and riot; but near them stood the cup whence Socrates drank his hemlock, and that which Sir Philip Sidney put from his death-parched lips to bestow the draught upon a dying soldier. Next appeared a ...
— A Virtuoso's Collection (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... a weary space has lain Lulled by the song of Circe and her wine In gardens near the pale of Proserpine, Where that AEaean isle forgets the main, And only the low lutes of love complain, And only shadows of wan lovers pine, As such an one were glad to know the brine Salt on his lips, and the large air again, - So gladly, from the ...
— Ballads in Blue China and Verses and Translations • Andrew Lang
... because something has changed in me. I tell thee sincerely, that nothing is more repugnant to my nature than that religion, and still I cannot recognize myself since I met Lygia. Is it enchantment, or love? Circe changed people's bodies by touching them, but my soul has been changed. No one but Lygia could have done that, or rather Lygia through that wonderful religion which she professes. When I returned to my house from the Christians, ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... of mortals. Nor art thou pale, because the form of the moon, nearer to the earth, stands in thy way. It is that passion which occasions this complexion. Thou lovest her alone, neither does Clymene, nor Rhodos,[32] nor the most beauteous mother[33] of the AEaean Circe engage thee, nor {yet} Clytie, who, though despised, was longing for thy embraces; at that very time thou wast suffering these grievous pangs. Leucothoe occasioned the forgetting of many a damsel; she, whom Eurynome, the most beauteous ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... out, and moralize— Thus 'tis with mortals, as it is with flies, Forever hankering after Pleasure's cup: Though Fate, with all his legions, be at hand, The beasts, the draught of Circe can't withstand, But in goes every ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... late, you unfurled the flag of truce. With my game in sight, I decline to forego the chase. For your solicitude regarding my marriage, I tender my thanks; and the assurance, that no magnet can draw, not all the charms of Circe lure me across the Atlantic, until I have accomplished my purpose. The tardiness of your proposal is unerring appraiser of its costliness; and I were a monster of cruelty to debar you the sight of your idol, though I bring him ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... old hymn to Demeter or also illustrate Coela enarrant gloriam Domini. It is susceptible of nodes or modes as far apart as hyperphrygian and mixolydian and of texts so divergent as priests haihooping round David's that is Circe's or what am I saying Ceres' altar and David's tip from the stable to his chief bassoonist about the alrightness of his almightiness. Mais nom de nom, that is another pair of trousers. Jetez la gourme. Faut que jeunesse se passe. (He stops, ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... the end be thou of our company, and make this medicine of mine no weaker than the spells of Circe, or of Medea, or of ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... henceforward Aeneas makes no allusion to the past and the figures that peopled it, abandons talk and lamentations, "virtutem extendit factis." At the outset of Book vii. we feel the ship moving at once; three lines suffice for the fresh start; Circe is passed unheeded. "Maior rerum mihi nascitur ordo," says the poet in line 43; "maius opus moveo;" for the real subject of the poem is at last reached, and a heroic character by heroic deeds is to lay the foundation of the eternal ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... men—English, Irish, and Scottish soldiers—who waited their turn to get that vile imitation of life's romance from women who were bought and paid for. Our men paid a higher price than a few francs for the Circe's cup of pleasure, which changed them into swine for a while, until the spell passed, and would have blasted their souls if God were not understanding of human weakness and of war. They paid in their bodies, if not in their souls, those boys of ours who ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... way inland from the sea, is the principality of Mingrelia, where we again tread classic ground, inasmuch as our wanderings have brought us to the AEa of Circe and the Argonauts. In a Mingrelian landscape we are struck at the aspect afforded by the numerous whitewashed cottages as they dot the well-wooded hills. The Mingrelians, too, like their neighbours whom we have just quitted, are incurably given to indolence, except ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... a large town or rather city situated on a mountain, to which you ascend by a winding road skirting a beautiful forest. From the terrace of one of the Palazzi here, you have a superb view of all the plain below as far as the rock of Circe, comprehending the Pontine marshes. There are several very fine buildings at Velletri, and it is remarkable as being the birthplace of Augustus Caesar. There is a spacious Piazza too on which stands a bronze statue of Pope Urban ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... because, I believe, very little is truly known. 'A propos' of Sir C. W.; he is out of confinement, and gone to his house in the country for the whole summer. They say he is now very cool and well. I have seen his Circe, at her window in Pall-Mall; she is painted, powdered, curled, and patched, and looks 'l'aventure'. She has been offered, by Sir C. W——'s friends, L500 in full of all demands, but will not accept of it. 'La comtesse veut plaider', and I fancy 'faire autre ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... seemed never to hope for a release from the bonds of Hades. Voluptuous Circe, the Odysseyan swine-maker, told the hero of those tales he was a ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan
... greatest difficulty by Leucothea, who conveyed me to the country of the Phaeacians, and from thence I got home; where I found a number of suitors about my wife, revelling there at my expense. I destroyed every one of them, and was afterwards slain myself by Telegonus, a son whom I had by Circe. I still lament the pleasures which I left behind at Ogygia, and the immortality which you promised me; if I can ever find an opportunity, I will certainly make my escape from hence, and come ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian
... immorality to degrade the soul. When Homer tells us that Ulysses escaped unharmed from the enchanted palace, but suffered injury from his unfaithfulness to a friend, the poet wishes us to know that it is easier to recover from the poison of Circe's cup than to escape the effect of disobedience to the laws ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... Book. Secondly in the Ulyssiad we may here note in advance the same general movement: (1) Phaeacia, the Present; (2) back to Troy in the strains of Demodocus; (3) forward to the Fairy World of Polyphemus and Circe; (4) return to Ithaca in the Thirteenth Book. Thus we reach down and grasp the fundamental norm according to which the poet wrought, and which holds in unity all the differences between these two divisions of the poem. The spiritual basis of this movement, its ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... pair of coursers, born of heav'nly breed, Who from their nostrils breathed ethereal fire; Whom Circe stole from her celestial sire, By substituting mares produced on earth, Whose wombs conceived ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... me. At any other moment I should inevitably have broken loose again, but the fascination of his personality was upon me and I let him spin his webs. Any man, and there are scores adrift, who falls under the spell of Henry H. Rogers, invariably, as did the suitors of Circe, pays the penalty of his indiscretion. Some he uses and contemptuously casts aside useless; others he works, plays, and pensions; still others serve as jackals or servitors and proudly flaunt his livery; a few, the strong, independent souls, tempted with great rewards ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... Would have allur'd the venturous youth of Greece To hazard more than for the golden fleece. Fair Cynthia wish'd his arms might be her sphere; Grief makes her pale, because she moves not there. His body was as straight as Circe's wand; Jove might have sipt out nectar from his hand. Even as delicious meat is to the tast, So was his neck in touching, and surpast The white of Pelops' shoulder: I could tell ye, How smooth his breast was, and how white his belly; And whose immortal fingers did imprint That heavenly path with ...
— Hero and Leander and Other Poems • Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman
... is no goddess, but Circe, masquerading at the dance given in honour of the fair debutante, Summer, puts the ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... was procurable. I forget whether Swinburne, who landed here, found any prehistoric remains on the spot; I should doubt it. On another Mediterranean island, that of Ponza, I myself detected the relics of what would formerly have been described as the residence of that second Homeric witch, Circe. [30] ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... his virtue's lofty port In the Eighth Henry's base and bloody court. But, if exceptions here and there are found, Who tread thus safely on enchanted ground, The normal type, the fitting symbol still Of those who fatten at the public mill, Is the chained dog beside his master's door, Or Circe's victim, feeding ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... her dupes dealt Circe Life deals with hers, for she Reshapes them without mercy, And shapes them swinishly, To wallow ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... she saw her enterprise had got Some wished mean of quick and good proceeding, She thought to strike the iron that was hot, For every action hath his hour of speeding: Medea or false Circe changed not So far the shapes of men, as her eyes spreading Altered their hearts, and with her syren's sound In lust, their minds, their hearts, in love ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... seems so nigh, Will far from your deluded wishes fly; Long tracts of seas divide your hopes from Italy: For you must cruise along Sicilian shores, And stem the currents with your struggling oars; Then round th' Italian coast your navy steer; And, after this, to Circe's island veer; And, last, before your new foundations rise, Must pass the Stygian lake, and view the nether skies. Now mark the signs of future ease and rest, And bear them safely treasur'd in thy ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... always been magnificent, and—with the exception of the trivial punishments of childhood and those few moments when she was sitting for the picture of Circe—physical suffering was unknown to her. The penances, therefore, which Catherine appointed her—to kneel for a stated length of time until it seemed as though every muscle she possessed were stretched to breaking-point, to fast when her whole healthy young body craved for food, to be ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... they gave me passage home, and there I found a great company suing for my wife's hand and living riotously upon our goods. All them I slew, and in after years was slain by Telegonus, the son that Circe bare me. And now I am in the Island of the Blest, ruing the day when I left the life I had with you, and the everlasting life you proffered. I watch for opportunity, and meditate escape and return. Some words were added, commending us to ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... thrown among these lions, I could not understand. They were not the least likely to convert me to their own desperate intensity of feeling. If Lady Moyne wanted to convert me a far better plan would have been to invite me to her house after the politicians had gone away. Circe, I imagine, did not attract new lovers by parading those whom she had already turned into swine. Nor could I suppose that I had been brought to Castle Affey in order to convert people like Malcolmson to pacific ways of thought. In the first place, Lady Moyne did not want him converted. He and his ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... bears the silken knot Of dusky hair, is it more free from blot Than is her soul who slumbers? Her visions? Of 'desirable young men,' Who crowd round her like swine round Circe's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari Volume 98, January 4, 1890 • Various
... degree, in our prosaic and plodding daily routine, we invest the life of the favorites of fortune with an ideal charm. It is, to our fond fancy, all that it might be. Those figures are not what Circe's wand might disclose. They are gods and goddesses feasting, and in happier moments we feign ourselves possible Ixions to be admitted to the celestial banquet. In the streets of the summer city their palaces are closed, their brilliant equipages are gone; they do not ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... faster, O Circe, Goddess, Let the wild, thronging train, The bright procession Of eddying forms, Sweep through ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... celebrity whose works were not speedily familiarized to the English public through the medium of translations. The study of this enchanting language found however a vehement opponent in Roger Ascham, who exclaims against the "enchantments of Circe, brought out of Italy to mar men's manners in England; much by examples of ill life, but more by precepts of fond books, of late translated out of Italian into English, and sold in every shop in London." He afterwards declares that "there be more of these ungracious ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... characteristics are quite unmistakable. An Italian Picture-Gallery seems to me a pretty fair type of the Italian mind and character. The habitual commingling of the awful with the paltry—the sacred and the sensual—Madonna and Circe—Christ on the Cross and Venus in the Bath—which is exhibited in all the Italian galleries, seems an expression of the National genius. Am I wrong in the feeling that the perpetual (and often execrable) representation of such awful scenes as the ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... her right hand a bunch of wonder-working herbs. She will not yield to her new-born love for the Greek enemy Jason, because this love is the most shameful treason to father and people. But to her comes Venus in the form of the sorceress Circe, the sister of Medea's father, irresistibly pleading that she shall go to the alien lover, who waits in the wood. It is the vain resistance of Medea, hopelessly caught in the toils of love, powerless for all her enchantments to resist, it is the subtle persuasion of ...
— The Earlier Work of Titian • Claude Phillips
... own fault," goes on Circe, strong in argument. "When I provoke you I care nothing for Philip Shadwell, or your Mr. Potts, or any of them: but when you are uncivil to me, what am I to do? I am driven into speaking to some one, although I don't in the least care for general admiration, ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... seemed of more importance to me than the beautiful speaker could have thought. I had almost committed my soul; was it to a cup of Comus, to a fatal household of Circe? ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... utterly her devotion to Sah-luma was wasted! What did he care for her timid tenderness, . . her unselfish worship? Nothing? ... less than nothing! He was entirely absorbed by the sovereign-peerless beauty of this wonderful High Priestess,—this witch-like weaver of spells more potent than those of Circe; and musing thereon, Theos was sorry for Niphrata, he knew not why. He felt that she had somehow been wronged,—that she suffered, ... and that he, as well as Sah-luma, was in some mysterious way to blame for this, though ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... Ceres! Quidnuncs and their queries will hardly restore her her loved long-lost daughter, (Fair Profits) whom Pluto ("the Foreigner") stole. Vainly landlords and farmers breathe forth fire and slaughter At Free Trade—that Circe on whom they've no mercy,—and howl down the speeches of those she's enchanted. The one "Missing Word" may sound wholly absurd to cool sense, but to them 'tis the one thing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 17, 1892 • Various
... joking me, and can hardly believe that my matronly air should have quite won his youthful heart. At least I shall try not to believe it; and when I welcome him one day, the husband of some fairy who is worthy of his love, we will smile together at the old lady who once played the Circe to his senses. Seriously, my friend Clarence, I know your impulse of heart has carried you away, and that in a year's time, you will smile with me at your old penchant for one so much your senior, and so ill-suited to your years, as your ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... eagerness for the inevitable result. Before he grew quite too thick to be understood, he groaned to himself, but loudly enough to be heard the whole length and breadth of the table: "I remember readin' about old Greek witch name Circe—changed human beings into shape of swine. I wonder who turned those German swine into ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... u: Regula Theologorum Quecunque possunt D[e,]mones possunt etiam magi & malefici eius opera, hinc & illi tempestates exitant Virgilius Ecologa 4. Carmina vel c[oe]lo possunt deducere Lunam: Carminibus Circe socios mutauit Vlyssis, Frigidus in pratis cantando rumpitur Anguis, &c. Et de se Iactans Medea apud Ouidium Lib. 7. Metamorphoseon. Cum volui ripis ipsis mirantibus; amnes In fontes rediere suos, concussaque sisto, Stantia ...
— A Treatise of Witchcraft • Alexander Roberts
... greatest attraction for the human mind. There is such a charm in novelty, says Dr. John Mason Good, that it often leads us captive in spite of the most glaring errors, and intoxicates the judgment as fatally as the cup of Circe. But is not variety at hand ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... draughts of poison sweet, As changed their form, and brutified. Ten years the heroes at Ulysses' side Had been the sport of wind and tide. At last those powers of water The sea-worn wanderers bore To that enchanted shore Where Circe reign'd, Apollo's daughter. She press'd upon their thirsty lips Delicious drink, but full of bane: Their reason, at the first light sips, Laid down the sceptre of its reign. Then took their forms and features The lineaments of various ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... the most orthodox of all the formalists, who for some reason came to be very much quoted in England, Bossu, in his discourse on the Epic Poem, had serious difficulties with the adventures of Ulysses, and his stories told in Phaeacia. The episodes of Circe, of the Sirens, and of Polyphemus, are machines; they are also not quite easy to understand. "They are necessary to the action, and yet they are not humanly probable." But see how Homer gets over the difficulty and brings back ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... subtle traits, the capital touches. 'Do you like Sterne?' 'Yes, to be sure,' he would say; 'I should deserve to be hanged if I didn't!' His repeating some parts of Comus with his fine, deep, mellow-toned voice, particularly the lines, 'I have heard my mother Circe with the Sirens three,' etc., and the enthusiastic comments he made afterwards, were a feast to the ear and to the soul. He read the poetry of Milton with the same fervour and spirit of devotion that I have since heard others read their own. 'That is the most delicious feeling of all,' I have ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... capital of which is Clifden, standing high above Ardhear Bay. If we go direct from Galway to Clifden we pass Oughterard and the ruins of Aughnanure Castle, formerly the stronghold of "The furious O'Flahertys." From its Tower we can get a view of Lough Corrib, with its famous Caislean-no-Circe, long the lair of Grace O'Malley, of whom the western peasant may ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger |
