"Cestus" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... then it is no marvel that, as you have inherited the cestus of Aphrodite, your votaries bow as blindly, as helplessly, as those over whom your ancient Greek mother ruled so despotically. By divine right of birth you should ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... indispensable in dress, but that, united to neatness, is all that is necessary—that is the fabled cestus of Venus which gave beauty to its wearer. Good taste involves suitable fabrics—a neat and becoming 'fitting' to her figure—colors suited to her complexion, and a simple and unaffected manner of ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... drawn. I was soon informed by the Genius it was Mars, who had long usurp'd a Place among the Attendants of the Spring. He made Way for a softer Appearance, it was Venus, without any Ornament but her own Beauties, not so much as her own Cestus, with which she had incompass'd a Globe, which she held in her right Hand, and in her left she had a Sceptre of Gold. After her followed the Graces with their Arms intwined within one another, their Girdles were loosed, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... the rest I behold of the dark-eyed sons of Achaia; Known to me well are the faces of all; their names I remember; Two, two only remain whom I see not among the commanders, Castor, fleet in the car, Polydeukes, brave with the cestus— Own dear brethren of mine,—one parent loved us as infants. Are they not here in the host, from the shores of loved Lacedaimon? Or, though they came with the rest in the ships that bound through ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... of disease. Now I, for my part, have washed my hands of it; I have renounced my laureation; I am no doctor; I am only a worshipper of the true goddess Hygieia. Ah, believe me, it is she who has the cestus! And here, in this exiguous hamlet, has she placed her shrine: here she dwells and lavishes her gifts; here I walk with her in the early morning, and she shows me how strong she has made the peasants, ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... four-and-twenty again, even with all the risks and dangers of life before one, the set traps, the gaping holes, and the treacherous quicksands, if it were only to feel once more the overwhelming spirit of the mysterious goddess of the golden cestus? In silence they walked side by side over the bridge. Half-way across, they stopped and looked up the river. The tide was running in with a swift current, and the broad river was nearly at the full; the strong September sun fell upon the water, which was broken ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant
... wife. Jupiter gave her to Vulcan, in gratitude for the service he had rendered in forging thunderbolts. So the most beautiful of the goddesses became the wife of the most ill-favored of gods. Venus possessed an embroidered girdle called Cestus, which had the power of inspiring love. Her favorite birds were swans and doves, and the plants sacred to her were the rose and ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... word, too,) none to her descent from one whom Nature had endowed with her most splendid regalia,—genius that fascinated the attention of all kinds and classes of men, grace and winning qualities that no heart could resist. Was the cestus buried with her, that no sense of its pre-eminent value lingered, as far as I could perceive, in the thoughts of ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... cestus," was another sour comment, "does Lola wind round the blade of her poniard? We all remember how much the respectable Juno was indebted to the bewitching girdle of a less regular fair one, but the properties of that ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... earth's green, And all wherewith life's face is fair beseen; Journeying its journey bare Five suns, except of the all-kissing sun Unkissed of one; Almost I had forgot The healing harms, And whitest witchery, a-lurk in that Authentic cestus of two girdling arms: And I remembered not The subtle sanctities which dart From childish lips' unvalued precious brush, Nor how it makes the sudden lilies push Between the loosening fibres of the heart. Then, that thy little ...
— Sister Songs • Francis Thompson
... more loftily imagined than the creation of the cestus of Fancy in this ode: the allegorical imagery is rich and sublime: and the observation, that the dangerous passions kept aloof during the operation, is founded on the strictest philosophical truth: for poetical fancy can exist only in minds ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... ground, So far before all others he arrived Victorious, where the throng'd spectators stood. Some tried the wrestler's toil severe, in which Euryalus superior proved to all. In the long leap Amphialus prevail'd; Elatreus most successful hurled the quoit, And at the cestus,[29] last, the noble son Of Scheria's King, Laodamas excell'd. When thus with contemplation of the games 160 All had been gratified, Alcinoues' son Laodamas, arising, then address'd. Friends! ask we now the stranger, if he boast Proficiency in aught. His figure seems Not ill; ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... cestus of Venus, caballeros, the pressure of that girl's hand, and the deep, speaking look of gratitude she gave me out of her liquid eyes, quite did ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... marble or canvas, and the art which designs a capitol, tapers a spire, or plants a pleasure-ground. Nay, is not this very interfusion of gifts, this universality of uses, in itself the bond of beauty which girdles the world like a cestus? If poetry were only rhyme, and art only painting, to what an outer darkness of matter-of-fact should we be condemning nine-tenths ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... forget the harrowing of hell in a close study of Luini, and in copying the "St. Catherine" now at Oxford. Ruskin has never said so much about Luini as, perhaps, he intended. A short notice in the "Cestus of Aglaia," and occasional references scattered up and down his later works, hardly give the prominence in his writings that the painter held in his thoughts. It was about this time that he was made an Hon. Member of ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... shells is found in the Soudan and East Africa at the present day.[129] The girdle upon which the shells were hung is the prototype of the cestus of Hathor, Ishtar, Aphrodite, Kali and all the goddesses of fertility in the Old World. It is an admirable illustration of the fact that not only were the finished products, the goddesses and their fantastic repertory ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... better to insure it. But his threats were of no avail, for it was soon found that the same thief had disarmed him of his quiver and bow. Being taken up into his arms by Vulcan, he robbed him of his tools, and whilst Venus caressed him for his superiority to Cupid in wrestling, he slipped off her cestus unperceived. From Jupiter he purloined his sceptre, and would have made as free with his thunder-bolt, had it not proved too ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway
... I have no headach. We had Tom * * up after dinner;—very facetious, though somewhat prolix. He don't like his situation—wants to fight again—pray Pollux (or Castor, if he was the miller) he may! Tom has been a sailor—a coal heaver—and some other genteel profession, before he took to the cestus. Tom has been in action at sea, and is now only three-and-thirty. A great man! has a wife and a mistress, and conversations well—bating some sad omissions and misapplications of the aspirate. ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... butting and dodging and hammering the ice, with always the possibility that the antagonist will hit back a body blow. It is like the work of a skilled heavy-weight pugilist, or the work of an old Roman fighter with the cestus. ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary |
