"Soothsayer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... been compelled to forego her usual occupation for the evening, had not Madame du Trouffle come to her aid. Louise had written that morning to the princess, and asked permission to introduce a new soothsayer, whose prophecies astonished the world, as, so far, they had been literally fulfilled. Amelia received this proposition joyfully, and now waited impatiently for Madame du Trouffle and the soothsayer; but she was yet alone, it was not ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... a Cohen, a Jewish Priest, a soothsayer: see Al-Kahanah, vol. i. 28. In Heb. Kahanahe ministered (priests' offices or other business) and Cohena priest either of the true ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... 'there's my forge, and yonder is some iron, though not old, and by your own confession I am a soothsayer.' ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... grows Amid bare thorns their only thornless rose, From the fierce juggling of the priests' loud mart Yet alien, yet unspotted and apart From the blind hard foul rout whose shameless shows Mock the sweet heaven whose secret no man knows With prayers and curses and the soothsayer's art; One like a storm-god of the northern foam Strong, wrought of rock that breasts and breaks the sea And thunders back its thunder, rhyme for rhyme Answering, as though to outroar the tides of time And bid the world's wave back—what song should ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... of | |chrysanthemums and favors of black cats, diminutive | |pumpkin people and other suggestive Halloween | |conceits. The guests were whisked up to the | |dressing-rooms by a witch, and Mrs. George H. | |Rector, attired in somber soothsayer's robes, told | |fortunes. Place-cards were written for Mr. and Mrs. | |Enderly, Mr. and Mrs. Archibald Hart, Mr. and Mrs. | |George Rector, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Henderson, Mr. and| |Mrs. George McDaniel, Mrs. ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... brooch, and spun it round on a thread, while she sent forth the Alder-Beetle[25] to bid the Wind-Magician and Soothsayer hasten to the bedside of her husband. Seven days the brooch spun round, and seven days the beetle flew to the north, across three kingdoms and more, till he encountered the Moon, and besought his aid. But the Moon only gazed on him sorrowfully ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... attitude of these insects when watching for their prey—their fore legs being elevated and joined in a supplicating manner—has given them in English the popular names of "soothsayer," "prophet," and "praying mantis," in French, "prie-Dieu," in Portuguese, "louva-Deos," etc. According to Sparmann, the Nubians and Hottentots regard mantides as tutelary divinities, and worship them as such. A monkish legend ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various
... to be the victim was left to Cal'chas, the soothsayer, who fixed upon Sinon, and preparations were accordingly made to sacrifice him on the altar of Apollo, but he contrived to escape and conceal himself until the ...
— Story of Aeneas • Michael Clarke
... who was not counted amongst the Captains. Paris was his name. Now when Paris was in his infancy, a soothsayer told King Priam that he would bring trouble upon Troy. Then King Priam had the child sent away from the City. Paris was reared amongst country people, and when he was ...
— The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy • Padriac Colum
... window was a door covered with a plush curtain. Mrs. Wilton sat down near the table and watched this door. She thought it must be through it that the soothsayer would come forth. She laid her hands listlessly one on top of the other on the table. This must be the tenth seer she had consulted since Hugh had been killed. She thought them over. No, this must ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... Phineus [Fi'.nuce], a blind soothsayer, who was tormented by the harpies. Whenever a meal was set before him, the harpies came and carried it off, but the Argonauts delivered him from these pests in return for his information respecting the route they were to take in order ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... waiting in the tomb; Only once more to feel the coming spring As the birds feel it, when it bids them sing, Only once more to see the moon Through leaf-fringed abbey-arches of the elms Curve her mild sickle in the West Sweet with the breath of haycocks, were a boon Worth any promise of soothsayer realms 430 Or casual hope of being elsewhere blest; To take December by the beard And crush the creaking snow with springy foot, While overhead the North's dumb streamers shoot, Till Winter fawn upon ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... quite completely dead. All this, so easy to the mature woman, seemed a sort of conjuring-trick to her. It was thought-reading of the most advanced kind, the reading of thoughts that she had not consciously formulated. And the soothsayer proceeded:— ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... hands longer than is necessary. He should not sell any thing without the knowledge of the master, nor should he conceal any thing from the master. He should not have any hangers-on, nor should he consult any soothsayer, fortune teller, necromancer, or astrologer. He should not spare seed in sowing, for that is bad economy. He should strive to be expert in all kinds of farm work, and, without exhausting himself, often lend a hand. By so doing, he will ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... a goat, compare the Rakshas in the Pig's Head Soothsayer in Sagas from the Far East, p. 63, and the Rakshas in a Bengali story printed by Mr. G. H. Damant in the Indian Antiquary, 7th June, 1872, p. 120. This last story opens with seven labourers, brothers, six of whom go down to ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Anonymous
... respected them much; and one of Ptolemy's soldiers tells this story: he says that while travelling in a large company by the Red Sea, he fell in with a very brave strong Jew, called Masollam. Presently the whole company came to a halt. Masollam asked why; and a soothsayer, pointing to a bird, told him that if the bird stopped, it would be lucky for them to stop; if it flew on, they might go on; if it went back, so must they. All the answer Masollam made, was to fit an arrow to his bow-string, and ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... manner of superstitious observances, I used once to think I must have been peculiar in having such a list of them, but I now believe that half the children of the same age go through the same experiences. No Roman soothsayer ever had such a catalogue of OMENS as I found in the Sibylline leaves of my childhood. That trick of throwing a stone at a tree and attaching some mighty issue to hitting or missing, which you will find mentioned in one or more biographies, I well remember. Stepping on or over certain particular ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... without weapons and completely paralyzed with terror. "Pallas held from the roof her man-destroying aegis, their hearts trembled with fear, they fled through the palace like a drove of cattle." The four men now use their swords upon the terrified, defenseless crowd, and cut them down. Leiodes, the soothsayer of the Suitors, begs for mercy and recounts his attempts to restrain their violent deeds; vain is his prayer, he perishes with his company of brigands, "for if thou wert their soothsayer, thou must often in my palace have prayed ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... earth Trygaeus sends Harvest to the Council, while the marriage sacrifice is made ready. A soothsayer endeavours to impose on the rustics with prophecies that the Peace will be a failure. Trygaeus refutes him with a quotation from Homer. "Without kin or law or home is a man who loveth harsh strife between peoples." The makers of agricultural implements quickly sell ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... and there was confusion again till 556, when the throne was usurped by Nabonidus, the son of a soothsayer, who became a wise and active prince, and his reign ranks next in importance to that of Nebuchadnezzar. His name is found in almost all the temples unearthed. After he had ruled seventeen years, all Babylonia revolted against him because he neglected his religious duties, as well as those of the ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic
... They are reconciled later, and Philautus obtains permission to love; but he has discovered in the mean time that the lady will not have him. The account of his passion, how it 'boiled and bubbled,' of his visit to the soothsayer to purchase love charms, his stately declamations to Camilla and her elaborate replies to him, of his love letter concealed in a pomegranate, and her answer stitched into a copy of Petrarch,—is all very lively reading, much more so than that dreary love-making between ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... colour, nor did he speak for some moments; then raising his head, with a faint smile, he said, "Maltravers, you are a false soothsayer. At this moment my paths, crooked though they be, have led me far towards the summit of my proudest hopes; the straight path would have left me at the foot of the mountain. You yourself are a beacon ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and with due moderation and decorum. But when the soothsayer Chalcas had told him that he feared the wrath of the most potent among the Grecians, after an oath that while he lived no man should lay violent hands on him, he adds, but not ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... The captain blustered and threatened; but the draw remained up, and the provincials all had guns in their hands, and looked able and willing to use them, if occasion demanded. But the captain did not think it best to give the signal for combat, and meanwhile time was passing, and no soothsayer was needed to reveal that the stores were being removed to a place of safety. After an hour or so, Colonel Pickering relented so far as to permit the captain and his regulars to cross the bridge and advance thirty yards beyond ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... vatibus, i.e. by the captured Etruscan soothsayer (haruspex). 1-2. ab externis oraculis, i.e. by the Delphic Oracle. 2-3. iam in partem ... (alios) deos. Camillus had vowed to give to Apollo the tenth part of the spoils of Veii. 3-4. alios ... spectare, i.e. Juno. 'It was a Roman practice to invite the patron deity of a place or country ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... occupants of the tambo, they took their departure up the valley. It was the direction in which we were going, but we hoped not again to fall in with them. As we were mounting to proceed on our journey, the Indian soothsayer (for so I may call him) approached my father, and whispered earnestly in his ear for some minutes. My father looked surprised and somewhat anxious, and told him he thanked him for his advice. The Indian retired into the tambo apparently satisfied. We ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... A celebrated soothsayer was recommended to Bonaparte by the inhabitants of Cairo, who confidentially vouched for the accuracy with which he could foretell future events. He was sent for, and when he arrived, I, Venture, and a sheik were with the General. The prophet wished first ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... a poor soothsayer, to whom the devil came in visible form, and offered great wealth provided that he would deny Christ and never more do penance. The devil provided him with a crystal, by which he could foretell events, and thus become ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... head. She also carries a small market-basket, and a gold-headed cane. Her stockings are scarlet, her low black shoes have gold buckles. She is, withal, arrestingly picturesque, and there hangs about her a slight air of mystery, that is well in accordance with her profession, which is that of soothsayer. ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay
... fell, My Hope shall walk not in the house of Fear, While on my hearth one fire yet burneth clear, One lover, one Aigisthos, as of old! What should I fear, when fallen here I hold This foe, this scorner of his wife, this toy And fool of each Chryseis under Troy; And there withal his soothsayer and slave, His chanting bed-fellow, his leman brave, Who rubbed the galleys' benches at his side. But, oh, they had their guerdon as they died! For he lies thus, and she, the wild swan's way, Hath trod her last long weeping roundelay, And lies, his lover, ravisht ...
— Agamemnon • Aeschylus
... engagement of the Solankini maiden to an eligible young man, the soothsayer, to whom application had been made with regard to fixing a favourable and auspicious wedding-day, discovered from certain lines in her hand that the girl was already married! Thus the whole story came out, and no less than six hundred brides assumed ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... come the time when even thou, Forced by the soothsayer's terror-tales, shalt seek To break from us. Ah, many a dream even now Can they concoct to rout thy plans of life, And trouble all thy fortunes with base fears. I own with reason: for, if men but knew Some fixed end to ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... you most earnestly," she repeated, in a deeply troubled voice, "to prevent any meeting between Mr. Pargeter and Madame d'Elphis! Believe me, I do not speak without reason; I know more of this soothsayer and her mysterious powers ...
— The Uttermost Farthing • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... when he was eager to marry the famous maiden, took apples in his hand, and so accomplished his course; and Atalanta saw, and madly longed, and leaped into the deep waters of desire. Melampus too, the soothsayer, brought the herd of oxen from Othrys to Pylos, and thus in the arms of Bias was laid the lovely mother of ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... there was a perfunctory grunt of approval from round the circle. Then he turned to the official soothsayer and directed him to ascertain whether the time were propitious. The latter tossed into the air a handful of painted ivory sticks, carefully studied their arrangement ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... flattering manner, asked where was the soothsayer he praised so much. The soothsayer, who was immediately forthcoming, told those who listened to him that he knew "things" from nature's book of secrecy. A banquet was prepared, at which Charmian asked ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... it does not concern us,' a man cried. 'O thou young soothsayer, if the gift abides with thee at all seasons, I have a red-spotted cow. She may be sister to thy ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... affairs, into which it is not convenient to enter here. The stability of a government, for instance, is constantly set down to some ornamental part of it, when in fact the ornamental part has no more to do with stability than the incantations of the soothsayer. ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 1: On Popular Culture • John Morley
... blackened with war-canoes. Believing these to be the prophesied reinforcement, they rushed down to welcome their friends. Cruelly were they undeceived as the canoes of Te Waharoa and his Tauranga allies shot on to the beach. Short was the struggle. Only two of the Ngapuhi were spared, and as the blind soothsayer's blood was too sacred to be shed, the victors pounded him to death with their fists. Never again did the Ngapuhi come southwards. So for the remaining years of his life Waharoa was free to turn upon the Arawas, the men who had slain his father and mother. From one ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... the French men tooke Antioch, a certaine man named Con Can had dominion ouer the Northren regions, lying thereabouts. Con is a proper name: Can is a name of authority or dignitie, which signifieth a diuiner or soothsayer All diuiners are called Can amongst them. Whereupon their princes are called Can, because that vnto them belongeth the gouernment of the people by diuination. Wee doe reade also in the historie of Antiochia, that ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... which even then might have been beloved, and she called him Narcissus. Being consulted concerning him, whether he was destined to see the distant season of mature old age; the prophet, expounding destiny, said, "If he never recognizes himself." Long did the words of the soothsayer appear frivolous; {but} the event, the thing {itself}, the manner of his death, and the novel nature ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... legend, son of Zeus or Poseidon, king of the Leleges of Samos. In the Argonautic expedition, after the death of Tiphys, helmsman of the "Argo,'' he took his place. It is said that, while planting a vineyard, he was told by a soothsayer that he would never drink of its wine. As soon as the grapes were ripe, he squeezed the juice into a cup, and, raising it to his lips, mocked the seer, who retorted with the words, Polla metaxu pelei kulikos kai cheileos akrou ("there is many ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... likely to teach him seriousness after a rough manner. And if he is serious in his pretensions in such mystical matters, we should, according to the faith of my grandfather, Kenelm, do insult to the deceased, whose name is taken in the mouth of a soothsayer, or impious enchanter. I will not, therefore, again go near this Agelastes, be he wizard, or ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... has hearkened, hanging on thy clamorous ominous cry, 1480 Fain yet fearful of the knowledge whence it looks to live or die; Now to take the perfect presage of thy dark and sidelong flight Comes a surer soothsayer sorrowing, sable-stoled ...
— Erechtheus - A Tragedy (New Edition) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... to question the man, and he described the dresses, arms, and marks of the horses of our party so accurately, that, with other circumstances, we could not doubt of his having been in 'villainous company,' and ourselves in a bad neighbourhood. Dervish became a soothsayer for life, and I dare say is now hearing more musketry than ever will be fired, to the great refreshment of the Arnaouts of Berat ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... Curtis was no soothsayer, but he was endowed with a penetrating and usually accurate judgment, and he knew at once that Hermione had left him. Although he had only seen her handwriting when she signed the register at the clergyman's house he recognized the same free, well-formed characters in ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... many are thy arts!" said he. "But if, my Soothsayer, the wolf's cunning be a match for that of the lamb? ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... is produced by spells to dazzle foemen's sight. To cast glamour and put confusion into a besieged place a witch is employed by the beleaguerer, just as William the Conqueror used the witch in the Fens against Hereward's fortalice. A soothsayer warns Charles the Great of the coming of a Danish fleet ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... to which they could go. Even the Zulus were discouraged, and said they had come away from home across the Great River to fight, not to run about in wildernesses and starve, though Umslopogaas made no complaint, being buoyed up by the promise of his soothsayer, Goroko, that battle was ahead of him in which he would win ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... Anaxagoras's attitude to popular belief, we hear next to nothing apart from this. There is a story of a ram's head being found with one horn in the middle of the forehead; it was brought to Pericles, and the soothsayer Lampon explained the portent to the effect that, of the two men, Pericles and Thucydides, who contended for the leadership of Athens, one should prove victorious. Anaxagoras, on the other hand, had the ram's head cut open and showed ...
— Atheism in Pagan Antiquity • A. B. Drachmann
... mystic or a soothsayer or a member of that mysterious world which divines by incantations, dreams, the mystic bowl, or the crystal sphere, you might have looked into their mysterious depths at this time and foreseen a world of happenings which concerned these two, who were now apparently so fortunately placed. In the ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... influencing events, and the last three to different ways of consulting the dead. The first of these eight properly refers to drawing lots, but includes other methods; the second is an obscure word, which is supposed by some to mean a 'murmurer,' and may refer rather to the low mutterings of the soothsayer than to the method of his working; the third is probably a general expression for an interpreter of omens, especially of those given by the play of liquid in a 'cup,' such ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... soothsayer and Assyrian satrap, who told Arba'ces (3 syl.) governor of Me'dia, that he would one day sit on the throne of Nineveh and Assyria. His prophecy came true, and Beleses was rewarded with the government of Babylon.—Byron, ...
— 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.
... in the temple of Juno, the guardian deity of Veii. When the mine was finished, the attention of the inhabitants was diverted by feigned assaults against the walls. Camillus led the way into the mine at the head of a picked body of troops. As he stood beneath the temple of Juno, he heard the soothsayer declare to the king of the Veientines that whoever should complete the sacrifice he was offering would be the conqueror. Thereupon the Romans burst forth and seized the flesh of the victim, which Camillus offered up. The soldiers who ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... breaks out, over its entire facade, into a chicken-pox of red and green, blue and purple, yellow, violet, and gold electric bulbs. The Ocean Waves concession begins its side-splitting undulations. Maha Mahadra, India's foremost soothsayer (down in police, divorce, and night courts as Mamie Jones, May Costello, and Mabel Brown, respectively), loops back her spangled portiere. The Baby Incubator slides open its ticket-windows. Five carousals ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... call the enemy to the walls and distract their attention, while others made their way unperceived through the mine to the Temple of Juno in the citadel, the largest and most sacred edifice in the city. Here, it is said, was the King of the Veientines, engaged in sacrificing. The soothsayer inspected the entrails, and cried with a loud voice, that the goddess would give the victory to whoever offered that victim. The Romans in the mine, hearing these words, quickly tore up the floor, and burst through it with shouts ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... picture, or in the mind's eye, without a wand? Does even the most amateurish of prestidigitateurs attempt to emulate the performances of the once famous Wizard of the North, without the aid of the magic staff? The magician, necromancer, soothsayer, or conjurer, is as useless without his wand as a Newcastle ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... Philip's intelligence to insinuate that the Prince would shrink before danger, or die of fear. Had Orange ever been inclined to bombast, he might have answered the churchman's calumny, as Caesar the soothsayer's warning:— ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... distinguished guest is accompanied out of the aoul by a gallant array of horsemen singing in full chorus their war songs; with perhaps a wandering minstrel to chant the praises of some hero; and it may be an astrologer or soothsayer to predict a happy termination to the journey of the guest they speed on his way. With equal comfort, if with less ceremony, is entertained the humbler traveller, who is entitled to ask shoes for his feet and a coat to his back of any man who has a supply of these necessaries; while a party of warriors ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... themselves obliged to receive them even though this hospitality was extremely oppressive. Strangers, says Homer, are sacred persons, and under the protection of Jupiter, but no wise man would ever choose to send for a stranger unless he was a bard or a soothsayer. The danger too of travelling either alone or with few attendants made all men of consequence carry along with them a numerous suite of retainers, which rendered this hospitality still more oppressive. Hence the orders to build hostellaries in 24 and 85; and as many people had chosen ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... considered as a token sent them by their former Grand Lama, to aid them in their researches. Every one then falls to praying, and while the community, thus bereaved of its Lama, redoubles its feasts and orisons, a chosen band sets out to consult the Tchurtchun, or soothsayer, versed in the knowledge of all things hidden from ordinary men. He is informed that on such a day of such a month, the rainbow of the Chaberon was seen in the heavens; that it appeared in a certain direction; was more or less luminous; was visible during a certain lapse of time, and then ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... grave beauty covers her As that sleek spoil beneath her feet Clothed once the anointed soothsayer; The hallowing is gone forth from it Now, made unmeet for ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... that "never was good Witch, but she sprang from the love of a mother for her son." In this way, indeed, was born the Persian soothsayer, the natural fruit, they say, of so hateful a mystery; and thus the secrets of the magical art were kept confined to one family which constantly ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... "This counterfeated soothsayer prophecied of King John, that he should reigne no longer than the Ascension-day next followyng, which was in the yere of our Lord 1211, and was the thirteenth yere from his coronation; and this, he said, he had by revelation. Then it was of him demanded, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... what the vision and the parts thereof were. Whereupon were called all the diviners, interpreters of dreams, and soothsayers, of whom the king demanded, if they could let him understand what he had dreamed: but while they answered, that such a question used not to be demanded of any soothsayer or magician, for the resolution thereof only appertained to the gods, whose habitation was not with men, the charge was given, that they all should be slain: and amongst the rest, Daniel, whose innocence the devil envied, was sought ...
— The Pulpit Of The Reformation, Nos. 1, 2 and 3. • John Welch, Bishop Latimer and John Knox
... Hirschfeld is of opinion that, on the one hand, the epithet is the translation of the Arabic majn[u]n, a term against which Mohammed protested several times in the Koran, because it means he was possessed by a jinn, like a soothsayer. On the other hand, the word was chosen having regard to Hosea ix. 7. This was done long before Benjamin's ...
— The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela • Benjamin of Tudela
... which perhaps best indicates the ecstatic action of his mind, and which is alive in every part with that fiery sense of unlimited power which the mood of ecstasy gives,—in the play of "Antony and Cleopatra," he has put into the mouth of the Soothsayer what seems to have been his own modest judgment of the extent of his glance into the universe ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... sacred and profane, I can only prophesy when I am in a rage and think things look ugly for everybody. And like all healthy-minded prophets, I prophesy in the hope that my prophecy may not come true. For the prediction made by the true soothsayer is like the warning given by a good doctor. And the doctor has really triumphed when the patient he condemned to death has revived to life. The threat is justified at the very moment when it is falsified. Now I have said again and again ...
— Utopia of Usurers and other Essays • G. K. Chesterton
... lay at Scilly, sheltering from a storm that had driven him out of his intended course, he heard that in the isle of Tresco there was a certain soothsayer who was said to be well skilled in the foretelling of things which had not yet come to pass. Olaf fell a-longing to test the ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... who might kindle enthusiasm in the country and rouse the ignorant with hopes of a special blessing from Heaven. The gayer and younger portion of the Court probably expected a little amusement, above all, a new butt for their wit, or perhaps a soothsayer to tell their fortunes and promise good things to come. They had not very much to amuse them, though they made the best of it. The joys of Paris were very far off; they were all but imprisoned in this dull province ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... of the adversaries of the church, and bare the shield and helmet against her (Eze 27:10). Of Asshur I have spoken before. Aram became also an heathen, and dwelt among the mountains of the east: Out of him came Balaam the soothsayer that Balak sent for, to curse the children ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... of Afghanistan. Daniel made the natives believe that he was a god and he could have ruled them as a king had he not foolishly become enamored of a native beauty. This girl was prompted by a native soothsayer to bite Dravot in order to decide whether he was a god or merely human. The blood that she drew on his neck was ample proof of his spurious claims and the two adventurers were chased for miles through a wild country. When captured Daniel is forced to walk upon a bridge, the ropes of which are then ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... nest). They then search for and bring back the queen, who had been stolen by a Rakshasa. They then quarrel as to who should have the sovereignty. In variant a (ibid., 36-39) a nobleman's five sons learn sciences (soothsayer, marksman, thief, runner, physician) and jointly restore a dead princess to life. In variant b (39-42) seven princes become skilled. In variant c four Brahmans learn sciences to win the hand of a princess, and afterwards restore her to life. As they cannot settle their quarrel, they all give ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... to such qualities as are followed by praise or highest congratulation; they who do it with a view to gain assume those which their neighbours can avail themselves of, and the absence of which can be concealed, as a man's being a skilful soothsayer or physician; and accordingly most men pretend to such things and exaggerate in this direction, because the faults I have ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... time when the Francs took Antioch from the Saracens[1], a prince named Con-can, or Khen-khan, held dominion over all the northern regions of Tartary. Con is a proper name, and can or khan is a title of dignity, signifying a diviner or soothsayer, and is applied to all princes in these countries, because the government of the people belongs to them through divination. To this prince the Turks of Antioch sent for assistance against the Francs, as the whole ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... have dared to call on her now, if it had not been for the tremendous thing that had happened in his life; for he was sure he would become King of Kosnovia. The art that conceals art is good; but the art that is unconscious of artifice is better, and never had soothsayer arranged more effective preliminaries for astounding prediction than sibyl ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... a wind blowing Down the sky. It came with heavy auguries And passed. There was a soothsayer once in Rome Who on a white altar Inspected the purple ...
— Spectra - A Book of Poetic Experiments • Arthur Ficke
... extremely savage and violent, and their contemporary historian, Gildas, gives a melancholy account of their wickedness, not even excepting the great Pendragon, Arthur, in spite of his twelve successful battles with the Saxons. Merlin, the old, wild soothsayer of romance, seems to have existed at this period under the name of Merddyn-wilt, or the Wild, and bequeathed dark sayings ever since deemed prophetic, and ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... every evil imaginable, or to bring them all the blessings their simple souls desired. Arab workmen, who believe that Allah wills all things, that whatsoever happens, it is his purpose, will flock round any soothsayer who professes to see into the future and do the most absurd things conceivable to keep off the evil eye. The eye of Horus is still their ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... street, impressed by the ridiculous remembrance of their impositions, they could not help laughing in each other's faces. Madame V——laughed too; upon which Monsieur O——, very good humouredly told her, that as a soothsayer, she certainly would not have smiled, unless she intended to retire for ever from the office. Previous to my taking leave of Monsieur O——and his charming family, we walked in the gardens, where our conversation turned upon the extraordinary ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr |
