"Minotaur" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... an example. The Athenians had been forced by the Cretan king Minos to deliver up to him every eight years seven boys and seven girls. These were thrown as food to a terrible monster, the Minotaur. When the mournful tribute was to be paid for the third time, the king's son Theseus accompanied it to Crete. On his arrival there, Ariadne, the daughter of Minos interested herself in him. The Minotaur dwelt in the labyrinth, a maze from which no one could extricate himself who had ...
— Christianity As A Mystical Fact - And The Mysteries of Antiquity • Rudolf Steiner
... condition that every nine years they should send him a tribute of seven youths and seven maidens. The most tragic of the legends states these poor children when they reached Crete were thrown into the Labyrinth, and there either were devoured by the Minotaur or else perished with hunger, being unable to find the way out. The Minotaur, as Euripides ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... education as well—that is to say, not only what he really is by nature, but what he has appropriated from the common wealth of mankind; three-fourths of what he says does not belong to him, but has been acquired from without; so that we are often surprised to hear such a minotaur speak so humanly. And on a still further acquaintance, the brutality of which his face gave promise, will reveal itself in all its glory. Therefore a man who is gifted with a keen sense of physiognomy should pay careful attention to ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... dinner and once more I marched to the great hall in her company; Dr. Jeffreys got Mrs. Smith; Papa Smith got Mrs. Jeffreys who looked like a Grecian maiden walking into dinner with the Minotaur; Scroope got one of the Miss Smiths, she who wore a pink bow, the gloomy curate got the other with a blue bow, and Archibald got Mrs. Scroope who departed making faces at us over ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... of the fist, the baker in kneading his bread, the poet in the enthusiasm which consumes and demands an enormous quantity of it; it passes to the feet of the dancer; in fact, every one diffuses it at will, and may I see the Minotaur tranquilly seated this very evening upon my bed, if you do not know as well as I do how he expends it. Almost all men spend in necessary toils, or in the anguish of direful passions, this fine sum of energy and of will, with which nature has endowed them; but our ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... neither your Minotaur, nor your Centaur, nor your satyr, nor your hyaena, nor your babion, but your mere ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... in during the story hour to visit a room in the school of my neighborhood. The teacher told the story of Pandora and the tale of Theseus and the Minotaur. A small friend of mine is a member of the "grade" which occupies that room. At the end of the session she walked ...
— The American Child • Elizabeth McCracken
... midst of a multitude of alleys, which crossed and recrossed his path and bore the appearance of a uniform passage, among the briars, rocks and thorns, the patient found himself in combat with an animal called the Minotaur. ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... as though the Minotaur were in love with Ariadne; it was Caliban thirsting for the beauty of Miranda. Prospero had not come in time; the satyr had surfeited upon the unripe grapes, and now was ahungered for the purple cluster, tied up out of reach of those gross, greedy, ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... the laughter of fools, the contempt; the hope, the glee, the prayers, the awe, the dumb amazement at the superb courage of this act? No, for a just comparison we shall have to reach back to history and fable: David and Goliath; Theseus and the Minotaur; or, better still, Cadmus and the Dragon! It was Cadmus (if we remember rightly) who wasted no time whatever, but actually jumped down the dragon's throat and cut him up from the inside! And it was Cadmus, likewise, who afterwards sowed the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... written by the Alexandrian poets. Short as it is, it contains two plots, one within the other. The story of Peleus's marriage is made the occasion for describing the scene embroidered on the coverlet or cushion of the marriage bed. This contains the loves of Theseus and Ariadne, the Minotaur, the Labyrinth, the return of Theseus, his desertion of Ariadne, and her reception into the stars by Iacchus. The poem is unequal in execution; the finest passages are the lament of Ariadne, which Virgil has imitated in that of Dido, and the song of the Fates, which gives the first instances ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... toes webbed, eyes covered with a film, and thighs and legs horny with large shining scales. Clodio, though aware of the real paternity of this creature, adopted it as his own son, as did King Minos in the case of the Minotaur, giving him the name Merovig from his piscatory origin. On Clodio's death the demi-monster succeeded to the throne, and from him sprang a long line of sovereigns, worthless and imbecile for the ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... mythical hero, whose exploits resemble and rival those of Hercules. The most famous of them was the killing of the Minotaur. Theseus was the national hero ...
— Ritchie's Fabulae Faciles - A First Latin Reader • John Kirtland, ed.
... to face an enemy with whom we have not yet fought; of whose fighting capacity we incline to think little, in spite of warnings of Marshal Keith, who knows them. The Russians have occupied East Prussia and are advancing. On August 25, Frederick comes to hand-grips with Russia—Theseus and the Minotaur at Zorndorf; with much ultimate slaughter of Russians, Seidlitz, with his calvary, twice saving the day; the bloodiest battle of the Seven Years' War, giving Frederick new views of Russian obstinacy in the field. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... out of this place," said he. "I will return to Dea! They shall not keep me here by force. Woe to him who bars my exit! What is that great tower yonder? If there was a giant, a hell-hound, a minotaur, to keep the gate of this enchanted palace, I would annihilate him. If an army, I would ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... danger of getting lost in their intricate passages. Legend was afterwards built round these mazes. The most familiar instance is the labyrinth made by Daedalus in Crete for King Minos. In the centre was placed the Minotaur, and no one who entered could find his way out again, but became the prey of the monster. Seven youths and seven maidens were sent regularly by the Athenians, and were duly devoured, until Theseus slew the monster and escaped from the maze ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... unsuspicious, and would scarcely see a monster in a minotaur. It is well, however, to draw good out of evil, and it is the peculiar gift of an elevated mind. Nevertheless, you must have observed, although with greater curiosity than concern, the slipperiness and ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... lines, is exerted by the principle of knightly honor,—that solemn farce, unknown to the ancient world, which makes modern society stiff, gloomy and timid, forcing us to keep the strictest watch on every word that falls. Nor is this all. The principle is a universal Minotaur; and the goodly company of the sons of noble houses which it demands in yearly tribute, comes, not from one country alone, as of old, but from every land in Europe. It is high time to make a regular attack upon this foolish system; and this is what I am trying to ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life • Arthur Schopenhauer
... the sight of the patent log-line trailing in the creamy turmoil of our wake used always to suggest imaginings to me, as I leaned gazing over our poop rail, of a modern Theseus being rescued by this line of ours from the labyrinthine caverns of some submarine Minotaur. ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... watched the battle on the plains of Troy. There ruled Minos, who first gave laws to men, and who at his death was sent by the gods to judge the shades as they entered the lower world. There was the famous Labyrinth, and there the Minotaur devoured his annual tale of maidens until he was slain by Theseus. Was there such a real palace of Minos as the Greek poets sung? The magnificent palace of the Cretan kings at Cnossus has been found, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... with the civic pageants of St. John's Day in Florence. Civic pageants were common and in them sacred and profane elements were curiously mingled. For example, "Perugia gratified Eugenius IV in 1444 with the story of the Minotaur, the tragedy of Iphigenia, the ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... stands the cunning workman, the crafty past all praise, The man who chained the Minotaur, the man who built the Maze. His young son is beside him and the boy's face is a light, A light of dawn and wonder ...
— Young Adventure - A Book of Poems • Stephen Vincent Benet
... Well, at least one man who has seen women as plenty as flowers in May has lingered about you for your own sake. And since he is one whom you can never marry, you will believe him. There is an argument in favor of some other man. But don't give yourself for a meal to a minotaur like Bult. I shall go now and pack. I shall make my excuses to Mrs. Arrowpoint." Klesmer rose as he ended, and walked ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... Hawthorne again tells us in simple language of great heroes of Greek mythical days. The Minotaur, the Pygmies, The Dragon's Teeth, Circe's Palace, The Pomegranate Seeds, and The Golden Fleece, comprise ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold
... made between us, we thirteen artificers—a beautiful Talus to walk our coasts and cry 'All's well!' We thought so—by the gods, we think so yet! That is our Union—the golden thread, the faithful servant; not the monster that Frankenstein made, not this Minotaur swallowing States! The Sovereignty of the State! Virginia fought seven years for the sovereignty of Virginia, wrung it, eighty years ago, from Great Britain, and has not since resigned it! Being different in most things, possibly the North is different also in this. It ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... day, Their bodies racked with aftermaths of toil. Over the city, in each gasping street, Shudders a haze of heat, Reverberant from pillar, span and plinth. Once more, cribbed in this monstrous labyrinth Sacrificed to the Minotaur of Greed Men bear the turmoil, glare, sweat, brute inharmonies; Denial of each simplest human need, Loss of life's meaning as day lags on day; And my rebellious spirit rises, flies In dreams to the green quiet ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... smooth water, and then a small island, easy of approach, and inhabited; its occupants were the Ox-heads, savage men with horns, after the fashion of our poets' Minotaur. We landed and went in search of water and provisions, of which we were now in want. The water we found easily, but nothing else; we heard, however, not far off, a numerous lowing; supposing it to indicate a herd of cows, we went a little ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... hypochondriac recluse of the Rue Lafitte, who I believe has been most malignantly traduced by the third-rate English Colony in Paris—all his faults exaggerated, none of his good qualities even hinted at. The good British public has so long been used to look upon him as a minotaur that it will perhaps startle and amuse it to be told that he ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... girls from the provinces, without beauty and certified to be virtuous. One by one—a Flemish girl, an Alsatian, three Nivernaise, two from Picardy; even a young girl from Beauce, hired on account of her certificate as "the best-behaved girl in the village"—they were unsparingly devoured by the minotaur of the Rue Servandoni. All were turned out of doors, with a conscientious blow in the face, by the justly irritated spouse. When he became a widower he gave himself up to his liaisons in perfect security, but ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... own in the "Lion and Snake." Thenceforward Barye, though engaged in a perpetual struggle with want, exhibited year after year these studies of animals—admirable groups which reveal him as inspired by a spirit of true romance and a feeling for the beauty of the antique, as in "Theseus and the Minotaur" (1847), "Lapitha and Centaur" (1848), and numerous minor works now very highly valued. Barye was no less successful in sculpture on a small scale, and excelled in representing animals in their most familiar attitudes. As examples of his larger work we may mention the Lion of the Column of July, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... apparently aimed at much the same effects of line and movement, as those which have become the latest fashion in Paris, and may be described as sinuous and serpentine. Not only is that the case, but it is evident that the painter of Knossos, the Minotaur city, and M. Boldini have experienced the same artistic impression, and have presented in their pictures the same significance of pose and the same form, from the tip of the nose to the ends of the fingers and the ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... female attributes are often combined on coins for purposes of sexual symbolism. R. P. Knight explains these symbols as follows; "It appears therefore that the asterisk, bull, or minotaur, in the centre of a square or labyrinth equally mean the same as the Indian lingam,—that is the male personification of the productive attribute placed in the female, or heat acting upon humidity. Sometimes the bull is placed between two dolphins, and sometimes ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... heroes moved and enacted their romances among 'Gorgons and Hydras and Chimeras dire.' What proportion of fact, if any, lay in the stories of Minos, the great lawgiver, and his war fleet, and his Labyrinth, with its monstrous occupant; of Theseus and Ariadne and the Minotaur; of Daedalus, the first aeronaut, and his wonderful works of art and science; or of any other of the thousand and one beautiful or tragic romances of ancient Hellas, to attempt to determine this lay utterly beyond the sphere of the serious historian. 'To analyze the fables,' ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie
... Culloden. Minotaur. Goliath. Theseus. Leander. Majestic. Alexander. Audacious. Bellerophon. ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... shining in the sun, and the ozone of country breezes, a sudden entrance into the network of narrow streets was like being thrown, without a clue, into the Minotaur's dark labyrinth. ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the Judgment Day, the poets entered upon the next and seventh circle, composed of three smaller circles in which were punished the Violent against their neighbors, against nature, and against God. The steep banks of the ravine were guarded by the huge Minotaur, from which Dante and Vergil ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... sinuosities whose devious course makes him err, without ever finding a termination to his incertitude. Nature alone, known through experience, can furnish him with this desirable thread; her eternal energies can alone supply the means of attacking the Minotaur; of exterminating the figments of hypocrisy; of destroying those monsters, who during so many ages, have devoured the unhappy victims, which the tyranny of the ministers of Moloch have exacted as a cruel tribute from affrighted mortals. ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... behind is entirely open. No hedges. Just gently undulating uplands. The crops are all cut. So three of us set out. The orderly-room work had almost been finished, and the remainder could wait. Jezebel was brought round for me, Chloe for Roger, and Minotaur for the Colonel. The Colonel's orderly, Corporal Orchard, following on Shotover. We rode back to the more open country where there are few troops, and then started the drive. Jezebel on the right, ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... contriv'd. Monster! avaunt! He comes not tutor'd by thy sister's art, But to behold your torments is he come." Like to a bull, that with impetuous spring Darts, at the moment when the fatal blow Hath struck him, but unable to proceed Plunges on either side; so saw I plunge The Minotaur; whereat the sage exclaim'd: "Run to the passage! while he storms, 't is well That thou descend." Thus down our road we took Through those dilapidated crags, that oft Mov'd underneath my feet, to weight like theirs Unus'd. ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... inside of a penitentiary. Here we were, all arraigned before the bar of public opinion, the relentless Dickinson, the surfeited Scherer, the rapacious Grierson, the salacious Tallant. I have forgotten what Miller Gorse was called; nothing so classic as a Minotaur; Judd Jason was a hairy spider who spread his net and lurked in darkness for his victims. Every adjective was called upon to do its duty.... Even Theodore Watling did not escape, but it was intimated that he would be dealt with in another ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... extending its influence from Sicily to Palestine and dominating the eastern Mediterranean for many centuries. From recent excavations of the ancient capital we get an interesting light on the old Greek legends of the Minotaur and the Labyrinth, going back to the time when the island kingdom levied tribute, human as well as monetary, on its ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... Piraean putting a-seawards Reacht the Gortynian roofs where dwelt th' injurious Monarch. 75 For 'twas told of yore how forced by pestilence cruel, Eke as a blood rite due for th' Androgeonian murthur, Many a chosen youth and the bloom of damsels unmarried Food for the Minotaur, Cecropia was wont to befurnish. Seeing his narrow walls in such wise vexed with evils, 80 Theseus of freest will for dear-loved Athens his body Offered a victim so that no more to Crete be deported Lives by Cecropia ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... inspiring and determining factor. Behind all the handsome professions of romantic natures the gaunt facts of monetary necessity remain the rulers of life. Every youth who must sell his art and capacity for gain, every girl who must sell herself for money, is one more sacrifice to the Minotaur of Private Ownership—before ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... strength and activity in battle; and religious, to accompany the sacred songs at pious festivals. To the last class belongs the dance which Theseus is said to have instituted on his return from Crete, after having abated the Minotaur nuisance. At the head of a noble band of youth, this public spirited reformer of abuses himself executed his dance. Theseus as a dancing-master does not much fire the imagination, it is true, but the incident has its value and purpose in this dissertation. ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... the labours of Hercules is the history of Pasiphae and the Minotaur; and this brings us again within the sphere of magic. Pasiphae was the wife of Minos, king of Crete, who conceived an unnatural passion for a beautiful white bull, which Neptune had presented to the king. Having found the means of gratifying her passion, she became ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... When a Man's Single, remarks to Rorrison, "And yet I had thirty articles rejected before the 'Minotaur' accepted that one," Rorrison's reply is, "Yes, and you will have another thirty rejected if they are of the same kind. You beginners seem able to write nothing but your views on politics, and your reflections on art, and your theories on life, which ...
— Journalism for Women - A Practical Guide • E.A. Bennett
... clew, old man," exclaimed Barton, as he handed Maitland a cup of his peculiar mixture, very weak, with plenty of milk and no sugar. "Oh, Ariadne, what a boon that clew of yours has been to the detective mind! To think that, without the Minotaur, the police would probably never have hit on that invaluable expression, ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... notice the landmarks. It did seem ridiculous to have trouble in finding the way, so short a distance from the hotel; but you can't conceive how misleading it is in the New Forest. It's like a part of the enchantment; and if we had been in the maze of the Minotaur, without Ariadne's clue, we couldn't have been more bewildered than we soon found ourselves, tangled in the veil ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... Things combine so a hero to humble! I fancied that Bull-headed Minotaur—BUMBLE, Would fall to my hand like Pasiphae's monster To Theseus. But oh! every step that I on stir Bemuddles me more. I did think myself clever, But fear from the Centre I'm farther than ever, Oh, this is a Labyrinth! Worse than the Cretan! Yet shall the new ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 25, 1891 • Various
... and awful hour, the Divine Deliverer appears, the Son of Hermes, Genius of Interpretation, Champion of the Spiritual Life. As Hercules slew the Hydra, the Lion, and many another noxious thing; as Theseus the Minotaur, as Bellerophon the Chimera, as Rama the Ogre Ravan, as David the Giant, as Perseus the Gorgon and Sea-monster, so St. George slays the Dragon and rescues from its insatiable clutch the hope and pride of humanity. This hero of so many names ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... was a creature with great horns and a fur rug—something like a bull and something like a minotaur—and I don't wonder Denny was frightened. It was Alice, ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... other purchaser appeared to give him the full value of the work when completed. He also gave him a workshop in the Venetian Palace, to which no one had access, where he could be entirely free and undisturbed. The subject chosen for the group was Theseus vanquishing the Minotaur, and the size was to be colossal. Canova now worked with untiring devotion; he was often seen before the statues on Monte Cavallo, with sketch-book in hand, as soon as it was light enough for him to see, and he studied faithfully ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students - Painting, Sculpture, Architecture • Clara Erskine Clement
... Minoan or early Mycenaean palace of Knossos, near Candia in Crete. It is impossible to enter here into all the arguments by which it has been proved that the Knossian palace is the veritable labyrinth of the Minotaur legend, nor would it be strictly germane to our subject were we to do so; but it may suffice to ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... had brushed up your Greek history. I have now reached the place where Pan has a cave, where the man voted against Aristides because he was humanly tired of hearing him called the Just and where the Minotaur ate young women. ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... born in 1757 at Passaguo near Treviso. He was first an apprentice to a statuary in Bassano, from whom he went to the Academy of Venice, where he had a brilliant career. In 1779 he was sent by the Senate of Venice to Rome, and there produced his Theseus and the Slain Minotaur. In 1783, Canova undertook the execution of the tomb of Pope Clement XIV., a work similar to the tomb of Pope Clement XIII. His fame rapidly increased. He established a school for the benefit of young Venetians, and among ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... Wall of Death" is the only one I dislike; and the worst of it is that it was written by Victor Rousseau, who is one of my favorite authors. The story is horribly reminiscent of the old Greek myth of the Minotaur, which it resembles in many phases. Still, this is an exception that proves Victor Rousseau's stories to be of high average value. And I shall expect ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... car; 110 Red was his sword, and shield, and whole attire, And all the godhead seem'd to glow with fire; Even the ground glitter'd where the standard flew, And the green grass was dyed to sanguine hue. High on his pointed lance his pennon bore His Cretan fight, the conquer'd Minotaur: The soldiers shout around with generous rage, And in that victory their own presage. He praised their ardour: inly pleased to see His host the flower of Grecian chivalry, 120 All day he march'd, and all the ensuing night, And saw the city with returning light. ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... youths grew fair and strong. Then Taormina struck her coins: Apollo with the laurel, with the lyre, with the grape; Dionysus with the ivy, and Zeus with the olive; for the gods and temples of the Naxians had become ours, and were religiously cherished; and with the rest was struck a coin with the Minotaur, our symbol. But of Andromachus, the founder of the well-built and fairly adorned Greek city that then rose, we hear no more—a hero, I think, one of the true breed of the founders of states. But alas for liberty! A new tyrant, Agathocles, was soon on the Syracusan ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... impenetrable rampart against the impertinent gallantries of the coxcomb Gregorio. She wore no jewels or ornaments, and from her pensive and serious expression of countenance, might have passed for an Athenian tribute-maiden whom the annual ship was about to carry to the den of the Minotaur. ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... is no more! My heart flutters as I write the fatal words. This morning, at nine o'clock precisely, she was conducted in bridal array to the new church of Mary-le-bone; and there, with ring and book, sacrificed to the Minotaur, Matrimony, who devours so many of our ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... everlasting pillory of art. It was the hour of releases, and I found myself in a moment in the midst of a "classic revival," whimsical beyond description. Aeneas hastened to deposit his aged father in a heap on the gravel and ran after the Sylvan Nymphs; Theseus gave the Minotaur a respite; Themistocles was bending over the dying Spartan, who was coming to life; Venus Pudica was waltzing about the diagonal basin with Antinous; Ascanius was playing marbles with the infant Hercules. In this unreal phantasmagoria it ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... bodice heavily overhung the table, whose large rounded face was creased and wrinkled by what seemed countless years of joy and disillusion; and the young, slim girl, so fresh, so virginal, so ignorant, with all the pathos of an unsuspecting victim about to be sacrificed to the minotaur of Time! They both ate hot toast, with careless haste, in silence, ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... flying fish, black sheep, black swan, lusus naturae [Lat.], rara avis [Lat.], queer fish; mongrel, random breed; half-caste, half-blood, half-breed; metis [Lat.], crossbreed, hybrid, mule, hinny, mulatto; tertium quid [Lat.], hermaphrodite. [Mythical animals] phoenix, chimera, hydra, sphinx, minotaur; griffin, griffon; centaur; saggittary^; kraken, cockatrice, wyvern, roc, dragon, sea serpent; mermaid, merman, merfolk^; unicorn; Cyclops, men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders [Othello]; teratology. [unconformable to the surroundings] ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... intelligence had ripened and his sphere of reading expanded, he looked upon the passion of a Romeo or an Othello as a conventional peg on which the poet hung his imagery, but having no more relation to real life as it is lived by human beings than the blood-lust of the half-man, half-bull Minotaur, or the uncomfortable riding ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... prevent their master from swallowing up all his neighbours, and thereby having increased means of promoting their interest and that of their friends; and they detest us all most cordially in consequence. The peasantry of the Gwalior territory seem to consider their own government as a kind of minotaur, which they would be glad to see destroyed, no matter how or by whom; since it gives no lucrative or honourable employment to any of their members, so as to interest either their pride or their affections; nor throws back among them for purposes ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... that unsisterly action? and not far from him, the terrible danger of the father's, the step-mother's jealousy, the mockery of those half- brothers to come? Ah! how perilous for happiness the sensibilities which make him so exquisitely happy now! Before they started on their dreadful visit to the Minotaur, says Plutarch, the women told their [166] sons many tales and other things to encourage them; and, even as she had furnished the child betimes with rules for the solace of bodily pain, so now she would have brought her own sad experience into service in precepts for the ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... enormity, abnormality, monstrosity lusus naturae; fiend, brute, ogre, villain; Cerberus, Chimera, Minotaur, Bucentaur. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... stronger affinity to those who are outside the walls, those whose sin has been lack of self-restraint in one form or another, than they do to the worse criminals who have "offended of malicious wickedness," and who lie at and below the foot of the steep guarded by the Minotaur. The former class at all events have been, to use a common phrase, "their own worst enemies;" their sins have not been, at any rate in their essence, like those of the latter, of the kind which break up the fabric of society, and with them the heretics may most naturally be considered. It can hardly ...
— Dante: His Times and His Work • Arthur John Butler
... violent-coloured plaid, -a pair of white cord trousers that fitted tightly to the leg, - and a white-spotted blue handkerchief, which was twisted round a neck that might have served as a model for the Minotaur's. In his mouth, the Pet cherished, according to his wont, a sprig of parsley; small fragments of which herb he was accustomed to chew and spit out, as a pleasing relief to the ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... of Prometheus in bringing down fire for man and his heroic endurance of vengeful tyranny as a result. The work of Hercules in slaying the many-headed serpent or in cleansing the Augean stables, the adventures of Theseus culminating in the labyrinth of the horrible Minotaur, the beautiful hospitality of Baucis and Philemon, the equally beautiful sadness of the death of Balder—all these simply hint the riches of the myth as story. This story interest is the one that appeals to all human beings as human ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... the sea is visible; and there AEgeus drowned himself, as they say. For the ship which took his sons to Crete had black sails, but Theseus told his father (for he knew there was some peril in attacking the Minotaur) that he would have white sails if he should sail back a conqueror. But he forgot this promise in his loss of Ariadne. And AEgeus, seeing the ship with black sails, thinking his son was dead, threw himself in and was drowned. And the Athenians have a hero-chapel to ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... twenty-five this noble youth, whose incessant toil had perfected genius, was the marvel of his age! What wonder that his famous group, Theseus vanquishing the Minotaur, elicited the enthusiastic admiration of the most noted art critics of Rome! What wonder that the little peasant boy, who had first opened his eyes, in 1757, in a mud cabin, closed them at last, in 1822, in a marble palace, crowned with all of fame and honor and wealth ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... her during the evening. But Julian could see that she longed, as well as dreaded, to meet him again. After all, had he not picked her out from all the girlhood of London as one to whom he wished, to do honour? Had he been the Minotaur, such a fact must have made her look upon him with ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... "Thunderer," the "Iron Legion," and many others whom the Chief of the Hundred Valleys pointed out to his men, formed the reserve. We saw glittering in the sun the arms and the distinctive emblems of the legions, an eagle, a wolf, a dragon, a minotaur, and other figures of gilded bronze, decorated with leaves. The wind bore to us the piercing notes of the long Roman clarions, and our hearts leaped at the martial music. A horde of Numidian horsemen, wrapped in long white robes, preceded the army. The column halted a moment, and several of the ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue
... repel the Dutch foe: costly wars, fruitless expeditions, in which each time thousands and thousands of native archers and rowers were recorded to have embarked, but whether they returned to their homes was never stated. Like the tribute that once upon a time Greece sent to the Minotaur of Crete, the Philippine youth embarked for the expedition, saying good-by to their country forever: on their horizon were the stormy sea, the interminable wars, the rash expeditions. Wherefore, Gaspar de San Agustin says: "Although anciently there were in this town ...
— The Indolence of the Filipino • Jose Rizal
... almost more like a prize bull," she said meditatively. "Perhaps he's a Minotaur, Aunt Liza. ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... as the boy said when he put his father's coat upon his grandfather's tenterhooks, with felonious intent upon his grandmother's apples; the main point to be understood is this, that nothing—neither brazen tower, hundred-eyed Argus, nor Cretan Minotaur—could stop John Pike from getting at a good stickle. But, even as the world knows nothing of its greatest men, its greatest men know nothing of the world beneath their very nose, till fortune sneezes dexter. For ...
— Crocker's Hole - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... upon the retina in a marvellous ly definite way. They live, they move. One is gowned in dotted green, the other in black. There is a little landscape with water beyond the iron railing. A venerable minotaur is in pursuit. He wears evening clothes, an overcoat is thrown across his left arm, under his right he carries waggishly a cane. His white tie and hat of sober silk are in respectable contrast with his air of fatuousness—the Marquis of Steyne en route; the ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... literature of any race, in which the hero stands out as the deliverer, the destroyer of evil? Theseus ridding the land of robbers, and delivering it from the yearly tribute of boys and maidens to be devoured by the Minotaur; Perseus slaying the Gorgon, and rescuing Andromeda from the sea-beast; Heracles with his twelve famous labours against giants and ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... retained for their shibboleth, joyless and powerless for all good. The very labyrinth of the grass and flowers of our fields, though dissected to its last leaf, is yet bitten bare, or trampled to slime, by the Minotaur of our lust; and for the traceried spire of the poplar by the brook, we possess but the four-square furnace tower, to mingle its ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... water snakes, with snakes for hair, and the Gorgon Medusa, representing the heart-hardening effect of sensual pleasures, are found on the fire-glowing towers of the City of Dis, Inner Hell. In the seventh circle presides Minotaur, half-man, half-bull, the symbol of bloodthirsty ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... an eclipse do you throw across my bright thoughts, forcing me to call to mind that melancholy ruin, which stands in mental desolation, more irreparable than a fragment of a carved column in a weed-grown field. You dream that you can restore him? Daedalus never wound so inextricable an error round Minotaur, as madness has woven about his imprisoned reason. Nor you, nor any other Theseus, can thread the labyrinth, to which perhaps some ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... ways of earning his bread are alike becoming to an honest man, whether to split wood or to sit at the helm of state. It does not concern his conscience how useful he is, but how useful he would be." Goethe's poetic sense was the Minotaur to which he sacrificed everything. To make a study, he would soil the maiden petals of a woman's soul; to get the delicious sensation of a reflex sorrow, he would wring a heart. All that saves his egoism from being hateful is, that, ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... meet any fate for myself, or for them, rather than sacrifice my child to such a beast as Angus Anglesea! But—but—I cannot see Abel's noble head bowed in grief and shame! I cannot! I cannot! So if the Minotaur persists in demanding the maiden, she must be thrown to him. ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth |
