"Untranslatable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Putting his sword to the youth's throat, Gianpaolo looked into his eyes and said, 'Art thou here, Grifonetto? Go with God's peace: I will not slay thee, nor plunge my hand in my own blood, as thou hast done in thine.' Then he turned and left the lad to be hacked in pieces by his guard. The untranslatable words which Matarazzo uses to describe his death are touching from the strong impression they convey of Grifonetto's goodliness: 'Qui ebbe sua signoria sopra sua nobile persona tante ferite che suoi membra leggiadre stese in terra.'[4] None but Greeks felt the charm of ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... Angles!" the slave-dealers answered. The deacon's pity veiled itself in poetic humour. "Not Angles, but Angels," he said, "with faces so angel-like! From what country come they?" "They come," said the merchants, "from Deira." "De ira!" was the untranslatable reply; "aye, plucked from God's ire, and called to Christ's mercy! And what is the name of their king?" "AElla," they told him, and Gregory seized on the words as of good omen. "Alleluia shall be sung in AElla's land!" he cried, and passed on, ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... and half in Flemish, they were discussing what course they would pursue if they found a wounded German on the battlefield. "Tuez-le comme un lapin," cried one. "Faut les zigouiller tous," cried another (almost untranslatable slang, but meaning more or less "choke the lot"). "Ba, non, sauvez-le p'is qu'il est blesse," cried a third to which several agreed. This discussion waxed furious till finally I was called on to arbitrate. One boy was rapidly ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... grace. She checked herself. Words seemed crowding to her tongue. She would not give them utterance; but her look spoke much at the moment. What, Yorke tried to read, but could not. The language was there, visible, but untranslatable—a poem, a fervid lyric, in an unknown tongue. It was not a plain story, however, no simple gush of feeling, no ordinary love-confession—that was obvious. It was something other, deeper, more intricate than he guessed at. He felt his revenge had not struck home. He felt that Shirley ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... the Greek epigram the prime consideration was not that a poem should be pointed, but that it should be what is summed up in the untranslatable French epithet lapidaire; that is to say, it should possess the conciseness, finish, and relevance required for an inscription on a monument. Its range was wide; it might express the lover's passion, the mourner's grief, the artist's skill, the cynic's laughter, the ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
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