"Thyrsus" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that he has useful, or beautiful, or entertaining ideas within him, he may hold that he can express them in fresh and charming language. He may, in short, have a "vocation," or feel conscious of a vocation, which is not exactly the same thing. There are "many thyrsus bearers, few mystics," many are called, few chosen. Still, to be sensible of a vocation is something, nay, is much, for most of us drift without any particular aim or predominant purpose. Nobody can justly censure people whose chief ...
— How to Fail in Literature • Andrew Lang
... Wanting thee, that aidest more The god's victories than before All his panthers, and the brawls Of his piping Bacchanals. These, as stale, we disallow, Or judge of thee meant; only thou His true Indian conquest art; And, for ivy round his dart, The reformed god now weaves A finer thyrsus of thy leaves. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... letters, epigrams reproving the curious, concetti, wittily turned farewells, rendezvous given at which only one side appears, pretentious biographies, glitter, rubbish and tinsel. Here the floriated thyrsus, there a lance-head, farther on Egyptian urns, now and then a few cannon; on all sides the emblems of professions, and every style of art,—Moorish, Greek, Gothic,—friezes, ovules, paintings, vases, guardian-angels, temples, together with innumerable immortelles, and dead rose-bushes. ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... i., p. 247.).—The Fir-cone on the Thyrsus—a practice very general throughout Greece, but which is very prevalent at Athens, may perhaps, in some degree, account for the connexion of the Fir-cone (surmounting the Thyrsus) with the worship of Bacchus. Incisions are made in the fir-trees for the purpose of obtaining the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 76, April 12, 1851 • Various
... which Christianity had to endure among the heathens. The Graceful Superstition was never silent; every, the most household, action of their lives was entwined with it—it was a portion of life itself, as the flowers are a part of the thyrsus. At every incident they recurred to a god, every cup of wine was prefaced by a libation; the very garlands on their thresholds were dedicated to some divinity; their ancestors themselves, made holy, presided as Lares over their hearth and hall. So abundant was belief with them, that ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... shuttle fleet our years: Man goeth to the grave, and where is he? Did I say, basalt for my slab, sons? Black— 'Twas ever antique-black I meant! How else Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath? The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me, Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so, The Saviour at his sermon on the mount, Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan {60} Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off, And Moses with the tables. . .but I know Ye mark me not! What do ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... Venus sculptured in some Ionian isle before ever Caesar and his cohorts had pressed the soil of Gallia beneath their Roman sandals; there, a Ganymede or a Ceres or a Minerva gleamed wan and beautiful; beneath an ilex-tree a Bacchus leaned lightly on his marble thyrsus. It seemed as if all the hierarchy of Olympus had descended to dwell in this royal pleasure-ground at the bidding of ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... with snow-white hair, I come, the last of all. This crown of mine Is of the holly; in my hand I bear The thyrsus, tipped with fragrant cones of pine. I celebrate the birth of the Divine, And the return of the Saturnian reign;— My songs are carols sung at every shrine, Proclaiming "Peace on earth, good ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... Cleopatra had gathered it all in the monument she was constructing in the palace; and she threatened to burn all of it with her, in case she should miss the smallest of her demands. Octavius sent therefore Thyrsus, a freedman of his, to speak to her kindly in every way and to tell her further that it so happened that he was in love with her. He hoped at least by this means, since she thought she had the power to ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio
... wreath for Lamia? What for Lycius? What for the sage, old Apollonius? Upon her aching forehead be there hung The leaves of willow and of adder's tongue; And for the youth, quick, let us strip for him The thyrsus, that his watching eyes may swim Into forgetfulness; and, for the sage, Let spear-grass and the spiteful thistle wage War on his temples. Do not all charms fly At the mere touch of cold philosophy? ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... to follow the irresistible stranger, Dionysus, dwelled in the mountains, binding their hair with tame adders, carrying in their arms the cubs of wolves and the young deer, and feeding them with the milk of their breasts; that milk and wine welled up when they struck the earth with the thyrsus; and so on. Dionysus implores Pentheus, the representative of the Hellenic masculine system, not to venture undisguised among the maenads: "They'll murder you if they divine your sex," and, knowing the secret of ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... they love and bade me wear it, I kiss the shrine. I will not give thee up, nay, here I swear it, That thou art mine. * * * * * * * * * * A desecrated holiness is o'er me, I've held the Thyrsus cup; I've dared the thunderbolts of Heaven for thee, I will ...
— Debris - Selections from Poems • Madge Morris
... begins his work. The exhilaration and satisfaction which he felt at his first performances, in this hour of renunciation, are changed to bitterness and disgust. He remembers the old oracle: "In the Bacchic procession many carry the thyrsus, but few are inspired." The possibility of ultimate failure threatens him more and more while he reflects; as the chasm which you wish to leap grows impassable, if you measure and deliberate. But the vivacity of youth preserves him from any permanent misanthropy or doubt. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... clad in a lion's skin, which displayed his juvenile grace and charming purity of form shone with divine beauty. Standing up in a car, drawn by two tigers, with an air at once gentle and proud, he leaned with one hand upon a thyrsus, and with the other guided his savage steeds in tranquil majesty. By this rare mixture of grace, vigor, and serenity, it was easy to recognize the hero who had waged such desperate combats with men and with monsters of the forest. Thanks to the brownish tone of the figure, ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue |
