"Concubine" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... weight. Or perhaps "arlwydd pwys" means "the legitimate lord," in opposition to usurpers, just as a wedded wife is styled "gwraig bwys," as distinguished from a concubine. ...
— Y Gododin - A Poem on the Battle of Cattraeth • Aneurin
... daring my affront. Then swoll'n with pride into the snare I fell Of fair fallacious looks, venereal trains, Softn'd with pleasure and voluptuous life; At length to lay my head and hallow'd pledge Of all my strength in the lascivious lap Of a deceitful Concubine who shore me Like a tame Weather, all my precious fleece, Then turn'd me out ridiculous, despoil'd, Shav'n, and disarm'd among my ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... the public may not be mistaken as to their real father, the merchant received a sum of money to establish himself at Brescia, and has not seen his wife for these two years past. General Gourion, who was last spring in Italy, has assured me that he read the advertisement of a curate after his concubine, who had eloped with another curate; and that the Police Minister at Milan openly licensed women to be the housekeepers ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... Although Louis was sincerely disposed to assist James effectually, his intentions were obstructed by the disputes of his ministry. Louvois possessed the chief credit in council; but Seignelai enjoyed a greater share of personal favour, both with the king and madame de Maintenon, the favourite concubine. To this nobleman, as secretary for marine affairs, James made his chief application; and he had promised the command of the troops destined for his service to Latisun, whom Louvois hated. For these reasons this minister thwarted his measures, and retarded the assistance which Louis ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... Yoshitomo by his wife, he had also three sons by a concubine named Tokiwa. She was a woman of great beauty, and for that reason as well as because she was the mother of the romantic hero Yoshitsune, she has often been chosen by Japanese artists as the subject of their pictures. Tokiwa and her three children, of ...
— Japan • David Murray
... syl.), whose real name was Hippodami'a, was the daughter of Brises, brother of the priest Chryses. She was the concubine of Achilles, but when Achilles bullied Agamemnon for not giving Chryse'is to her father, who offered a ransom for her, Agamemnon turned upon him and said he would let Chryseis go, but should ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... this custom is incorrect: not plenitude of females but desire of abundant progeny was primarily the cause. It is notable that although the line between nobles and commoners was strictly drawn and rigidly observed, it did not extend to marriage in one sense: a nobleman could always take a wife or a concubine from the family of an inferior. In fact, orders were commonly issued to this or that province to furnish so many ladies-in-waiting (uneme)—a term having deeper significance than it suggests—and several ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... in front. "The remarkable effect of Christianity among those who have come to think with us," Uchimura told me afterwards, "is seen most in their treatment of women. Our host, had he not been a Christian, would have been credited by public opinion with the possession of a concubine, and would not have been blamed for it." When, after the speaking, we knelt in a circle and talked less formally of how best to benefit rural people, we were joined by the women folk. Later, when a dozen of the neighbours were ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... come and gone, and Artavasdes, King of Armenia, had been led in triumph through the streets of Alexandria. Cleopatra had visited Samos and Athens; and, by her counselling, the noble Octavia had been driven, like some discarded concubine, from the house of Antony at Rome. And now, at the last, the measure of the folly of Antony was full even to the brim. For this Master of the World had no longer the good gift of reason; he was lost in Cleopatra as I had been lost. Therefore, in the event, Octavianus declared ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... frequent communion, arrived at Paris with the intention of soliciting, in public, the administration of the sacrament to the King, and secretly retarding it as much as possible. The ceremony could not take place without the previous and public expulsion of the, concubine, according to the canons of the Church and the Jesuitical party, of which Christopher was the leader. This party, which had made use of Madame du Barry to suppress the Parliaments, to support the Duc d'Aiguillon, and ruin ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... master to African slave,—is still the bondwoman of the Hon. James, the father of her son Thomas. From the "Plantation manners" of her master, the concubine, "foolishly dissatisfied with slavery," flies to Boston, and takes refuge with her Quaker son, who conceals his mother, and shelters her for a time. But let me suppose that his Honor Judge Curtis, while at Washington, fired with that patriotism which is not only habitual ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... had no scruple in recommending concubinage as a preventive, which, though scandalous in itself, might serve to prevent greater scandals." In districts it became customary to require a new parish priest to take a concubine.[494] "This was the inversion which the popular opinion had undergone in four centuries."[495] "The principles of the church led irrevocably to the conclusion, paradoxical as it may seem, that he who was guilty of immorality, ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... Calebites and Jerachmeelites. This territory Abner disputed with him in vain. In the protracted feud between the houses of Saul and David, the fortunes of war declared themselves ever increasingly for the latter. Personal causes at last brought matters to a crisis. Abner, by taking to himself a concubine of Saul's called Rizpah, had roused Ishbaal's suspicions that he was aiming at the inheritance, and was challenged on the point. This proved too much for his patience, and forthwith he abandoned the cause of his ward (the hopelessness ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... for to minister vnto him, who seeing a little danger in his water, gaue him a gentle confortatiue for the stomack, and desired those neere about him to perswade his holynes to take some rest, and hee doubted not but he would be forthwith well. Who should receiue this mild phisicke of him but the concubine Iuliana his vtter enimie, shee beeing not vnprouided of strong poison at that instant, in the popes outward chamber so mingled it, that when his grande sublimitie taster came to relish it, he sunke downe starke dead on the pauement. Herewith ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash
... Spartan. Thou reassurest me; and in so doing, thou confirmest the fair omens with which Aphrodite has received my offerings. Therefore, I speak out. No dowry ask I with Cleonice, save such, more in name than amount, as may distinguish the wife from the concubine, and assure her an honoured place amongst my kinsmen. Thou knowest I am rich; thou knowest that my birth dates from the oldest citizens of Chios. Give me thy child, and deliver her thyself at once from the Spartan's power. Once mine, all the fleets of Hellas are her protection, ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... Monsieur Granville has lived in sin with a concubine, by whom he has two children; and on this adulterous connection he has spent more than five hundred thousand francs, which ought to have been the property of ...
— A Second Home • Honore de Balzac
... sons had fallen on the fatal field of Gilboa; the fourth, the weak Ishbosheth, had been murdered after his abortive attempt at setting up a rival kingdom had come to nothing. There were only left Saul's daughters and some sons by a concubine. So low had the proud house sunk, while David was consolidating his kingdom, and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Father Xavier was to endeavour the conversion of the king of Ternate, commonly called king of the Moluccas. This Saracen prince, whose name was Cacil Aerio, was son to king Boleife, and his concubine, a Mahometan, and enemy to the Portuguese, whom Tristan d'Atayda, governor of Ternate, and predecessor of Antonio Galvan, caused to be thrown out of a window, to be revenged of her. This unworthy and cruel usage might well exasperate Cacil; ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... century is dominated by the figure of the Dowager Empress Wu, the prototype of the celebrated lady who took charge of China's fate in our own day and, like her, superhuman in decision and unscrupulousness, yet capable of inspiring loyalty. She was a concubine of the Emperor Tai Tsung and when he died in 649 lived for a short time as a Buddhist nun. The eventful life of Wu Hou, who was at least successful in maintaining order at home and on the frontiers, belongs to the history ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... nations; to which came Spaniards, Cyprians, and Armenians, knightly requesting ayde of the king of England against the Pagans, that invaded their confines. The 48th of Edward III., Dame Alice Perrers, or Pierce, (the king's concubine,) as lady of the Sunne, rode from the Tower of London through Cheape, accompanied of many lords and ladies, every lady leading a lord by his horse bridle, till they came into West Smithfield, and then began a great just, which endured seven daies after.—In the 14th of Richard ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Volume 12, No. 329, Saturday, August 30, 1828 • Various
... that I am unwillingly obliged to charge that great man with wilful falsehood) pretends that the duchess of York, his mother, endeavouring to dissuade him from so disproportionate an alliance, urged him with a pre-contract to one Elizabeth Lucy, who however, being pressed, confessed herself his concubine; but denied any marriage. Dr. Shaw too, the preacher, we are told by the same authority, pleaded from the pulpit the king's former marriage with Elizabeth Lucy, and the duke of Buckingham is said to have harangued the people to the same ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole
... the title of sultan. He is tributary to the sultan of Housa, and is chosen by the inhabitants of Timbuctoo, who write to the king of Housa for his approbation. Upon the death of a sultan, his eldest son is most commonly chosen. The son of a concubine cannot inherit the throne; if the king has no lawful son (son of his wife) at his decease, the people choose his successor from among his relations. The sultan has only one lawful wife, but keeps many concubines: the wife has a separate house for herself, children, and slaves. ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... concubine of the criminal Riganson, alias Le Biffon. This woman, who was a sort of Jacques Collin in petticoats, evaded the police, thanks to her disguises. She could ape the marquise, the baronne and the comtesse to perfection. She had her own carriage and ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... "by no means peculiarly decorous." The Latin chronicler who has related them reports in this connection that the moral state of the clergy at Rome was indescribably low. The example of the Popes had set the pace for the rest. From the highest to the lowest each priest had his concubine as a substitute for married life ("concubinas in figura matrimonii"), and that, quite openly. The good chronicler remarks: "If God does not provide a restraint, this corruption will pass on to the monks and the religious orders; however, the monasteries of the city are nearly all become brothels ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... this I was seized with a strange distemper, which neither my friends nor physicians could comprehend, and it confined me to my chamber for many days; but I knew, myself, that I was bewitched, and suspected my father's reputed concubine of the deed. I told my fears to my reverend protector, who hesitated concerning them, but I knew by his words and looks that he was conscious I was right. I generally conceived myself to be two people. When I ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... longing for life in her heart, and for love that spoke through the handsome adventurer, a young miscreant who haunted churches in search of a prize, an heiress to marry, or ready money. The Bishop bestowed his benison on the waves, and bade them be calm; it was all that he could do. He thought of his concubine, and of the delicate feast with which she would welcome him; perhaps at that very moment she was bathing, perfuming herself, robing herself in velvet, fastening her necklace and her jeweled clasps; and the perverse Bishop, so far from thinking of the power of Holy Church, ...
— Christ in Flanders • Honore de Balzac
... of royal blood, who had asked to be received into the faith of Abraham and his family, but they all, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, had rejected her, and she said, "Rather will I be a maid servant unto the dregs of this nation, than mistress of another nation," and so she was willing to be concubine to Eliphaz. To punish the Patriarchs for the affront they had offered her, she was made the mother of Amalek, who inflicted great ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... thirteen chapters on war and proposed a test of Sun's military skills. Ho asked if the rules applied to women. When the answer was yes, the king challenged Sun Tzu to turn the royal concubines into a marching troop. The concubines merely laughed at Sun Tzu until he had the head cut off the head concubine. The ladies still could not bring themselves to take the master's orders seriously. So, Sun Tzu had the head cut off a second concubine. From that point on, so the story goes, the ladies learned to march with the ...
— Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance • Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade
... single wife, save that a few dignitaries, from motives of policy, were permitted a larger number. On the marriage day the German offered presents to his bride—not the bracelets and golden necklaces with which the Gaul adorned his fair-haired concubine, but oxen and a bridled horse, a sword, a shield, and a spear-symbols that thenceforward she was to share his labors and to become a portion ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... code. But it was also possible—as the contracts prove—for a man to take one or more secondary wives or concubines, who were subordinate to the chief wife. In some cases this appears to have been done to enable the first wife to adopt the children of the concubine "as ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... that the servant could only go free by deserting his wife and his own children and leaving them in slavery (Ex. xxi. 1-6). It was under these circumstances that God taught that a man might sell his daughter to be a "maid servant" (the translator's euphemism for concubine), and that, "if she please not her master" she may be bought back again, or if he "take him another" (translator supplying "wife" as throwing an air of respectability over the transaction) she may go free ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... the passage in which Hecamede, the concubine of Nestor, is described as giving to the wounded Machaon a ...
— Ion • Plato
... brothers, and one of the Canari brothers had connexion with one of the women. Then, as the elder brother was drowned in a lake which was near, the survivor married one of the women, and had the other as a concubine. By them he had ten sons who formed two lineages of five each, and increasing in numbers they called one Hanansaya which is the same as to say the upper party, and the other Hurinsaya, or the lower party. From these all the Canaris that ...
— History of the Incas • Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa
... their wives and children. Some of them appeared to be people of the worst description: there was one in particular, a burly savage-looking fellow, of about forty, whose conduct was atrocious; he sat with his wife, or perhaps concubine, at the door of a room which opened upon the court: he was continually venting horrible and obscene oaths, both in Spanish and Catalan. The woman was remarkably handsome, but robust and seemingly as savage ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... of France, led for some time a very dissolute life, but was touched by an extraordinary grace upon the birth of his son Sigebert {335} and from that time entirely converted to God. Bagnetrude, our saint's mother, is only styled the concubine of Dagobert, though he was publicly married to her. The father desiring to have his son baptized by the most holy prelate of his dominions, recalled St. Amand, bishop of Masstricht, whom he had banished for his zeal in reproving his vices, fell at his feet at Clichi, near Paris, to ask his pardon, ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... would ever be taken from that side, seeing that here the citadel is precipitous and unassailable. To this part of the wall alone Meles also, who formerly was king of Sardis, did not carry round the lion which his concubine bore to him, the Telmessians having given decision that if the lion should be carried round the wall, Sardis should be safe from capture: and Meles having carried it round the rest of the wall, that is to say those parts of the citadel where the fortress was open to attack, passed over ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... doomed city, and its final fall was at hand. The Emperor Akbar, having laid almost all India at his feet, determined to bring the proud princes of Rajputana into subjection. He attacked Chitor, but was foiled by the masculine courage of the Rana's concubine queen. ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... Holywell, the crypt and chancel of St. Peter's-in-the-East, are fragments of the work done by Robert and his house. But the great monument of the devotion of the D'Oillys rose beneath the walls of their castle. Robert, a nephew of the first castellan, had wedded Edith, a concubine of Henry I. The rest of the story we may tell in the English of Leland. "Edith used to walke out of Oxford Castelle with her gentlewomen to solace, and that oftentymes where yn a certen place in a tree, as often as she cam, a certain pyes used to gather to ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... one would a dreaded and ghastly concubine coming to embitter a husband's heart toward his young bride; in vain; she kept her sway over me for that night and the next day, and eight succeeding days. Afterwards, my spirits began slowly to recover their tone; my appetite returned, and in a fortnight I ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... "darest thou think, Moslem, that Richard would give his kinswoman—a high-born and virtuous princess—to be, at best, the foremost concubine in the haram of a misbeliever? Know, Hakim, the meanest free Christian noble would scorn, on his child's behalf, such ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... to the unworthy touch And cruel taunting of thine enemies' For, shouldst thou die and leave us, then shall I Borne off by Argive violence with thy boy Eat from that day the bread of slavery. And some one of our lords shall smite me there With galling speech: Behold the concubine Of Aias, first of all the Greeks for might, How envied once, worn with what service now! So will they speak; and while my quailing heart Shall sink beneath its burden, clouds of shame Will dim thy glory and degrade thy race. Oh! think but of thy father, left ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... Orberosia was possessed by the devil in a cavern where, even down to his own days, the little boys and girls of the village used to play at a sort of game representing the devil and the fair Orberosia. He adds that this woman became the concubine of a horrible dragon, who ravaged the country. Such a statement is hardly credible, but the history of Orberosia, as it has since been related, seems hardly more worthy of belief. The life of that saint by the Abbot Simplicissimus ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... Issoudun. I do not know what he does with his money; he does not give twenty francs a year to his grandchildren. As for borrowing the money, I should have to get his signature, and he would refuse it. I have not even attempted to speak to your brother, who lives with a concubine, to whom he is a slave. It is pitiable to see how the poor man is treated in his own home, when he might have a sister and nephews to take ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... father of Shang is Hsieh, who has already been mentioned. The mother of Hsieh was a daughter of the House of the ancient state of Sung, and a concubine of the ancient ruler Khu (B.C. 2435). According to Mao, she accompanied Khu, at the time of the vernal equinox, when the swallow made its appearance, to sacrifice and pray to the first match-maker, and the result was the birth of Hsieh. Sze-ma ...
— The Shih King • James Legge
... Aten's life giving rays, leading them to this mountain, which they inhabited and in which they carved this Temple wherein to worship the God who had saved them. The lord of the galley was the first Pharaoh; the priest of the galley was called High Priest; the Pharaoh took a concubine to wife—and thus was ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... welcome," he said gravely, and led the way through a long corridor, crying aloud as he went, "Make way, make way," for we were entering the house itself, and it is not seemly that a Moorish woman, whether she be wife or concubine, should look upon a stranger's face. Yet some few lights of the hareem were not disposed to be extinguished altogether by considerations of etiquette, and passed hurriedly along, as though bent upon avoiding us and uncertain of our exact ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... more than I will yield unto. I know I am too mean to be your queen, And yet too good to be your concubine. ...
— King Henry VI, Third Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... he is, and he will answer by giving his own name, that of his mother, and so on in the female line. Moreover, if a free woman marry a man who is a slave, their children are free citizens; but if a free man marry a foreign woman, or cohabit with a concubine, even though he be the first person in the state, the children forfeit all rights ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas |
