Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Frankincense   /frˈæŋkənsˌɛns/   Listen
Frankincense

noun
1.
An aromatic gum resin obtained from various Arabian or East African trees; formerly valued for worship and for embalming and fumigation.  Synonyms: gum olibanum, olibanum, thus.



Related search:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Frankincense" Quotes from Famous Books



... house and saw the young child with Mary his mother; and they fell down and worshipped him; and opening their treasures they offered unto him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh." Is there anything more beautiful in the Bible, or in all literature? The imagination of painter or poet may well kindle at the scene. There are the wondering mother, the worshiping wise men bowing down, the shining fragrant gifts, and in the midst, as the center and glory ...
— A Wonderful Night; An Interpretation Of Christmas • James H. Snowden

... The silent hush succeed the plaintive hymn, The anthem cease to swell in rhythmic praise, Or vaulted dome re-echo with the sound Of pipe, of organ, harp and dulcimer; The voice of sacerdotal eloquence Become as silent as the unborn thought; The fragrant perfume of the frankincense, The scent of swinging censor and of myrrh, Supplanted by foul odors of decay; The sacred flame extinguished and forgot, Its votaries and congregations fled; The forms who ministered and forms who knelt, The burnished altar and the hoary priest, Commingling ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King

... while they arose, and, returning to the camels, brought gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, and laid them before the child, abating nothing of their worshipful speeches; of which no part is given, for the thoughtful know that the pure worship of the pure heart was then what it is now, and has ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... swarm over old moraines; circle the peaty swamps and part and meet about clean still lakes; scale the stony gullies; tormented, bowed, persisting to the door of the storm chambers, tall priests to pray for rain. The spring winds lift clouds of pollen dust, finer than frankincense, and trail it out over high ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin

... chutney; cubeb[obs3], pimento. [capsicum peppers] capsicum, red pepper, chili peppers, cayenne. nutmeg, mace, cinnamon, oregano, cloves, fennel. [herbs] pot herbs, parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, bay leaves, marjoram. [fragrant woods and gums] frankincense, balm, myrrh. [from pods] paprika. [from flower stigmas] saffron. [from roots] ginger, turmeric. V. season, spice, flavor, spice up &c. (render ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... desire for that pomp and display which is half the divinity of kings, created a demand for commodities which only the East could supply,—spices for flavoring coarse food, "notemege to putte in ale," fragrant woods and dyes and frankincense, precious stones for personal adornment or royal regalia or religious shrines, rich tapestries for bare interiors, "cloths of silk ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker

... large caravans three times in the year visit the ports, Zeyla and Barbara, laden with ivory, ostrich feathers, ghee, saffrons, gums, and myrrh. In return are brought blue and white calicoes, Indian piece goods, Indian prints, silks, and shawls, red cotton yarn, silk threads, beads, frankincense, copper ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various

... run to the royal nuptials with their gifts, and the guests of the feast are gladdened by the water changed into wine" (Ant. of Benedictus). The Magi, seeing the star, said to each other: "This is the sign of the King: let us go and seek him, and offer him gifts, gold, frankincense and myrrh" (Ant. of Magnificat, 1st Vesp.), "We celebrate a festival adorned by three miracles: this day, a star led the Magi to the manger; this day water was changed into wine at the marriage feast; this day Christ vouchsafed to be baptised by John, in the Jordan of our salvation" ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley

... presents came, the straw where Christ was rolled Smelt sweeter than their frankincense, burnt brighter than their gold, And a wise man said, "We will not give; the thanks would be ...
— Poems • G.K. Chesterton

... the womb of Mary Mother, Thou tookest human form. Thou didst appear in Bethlehem as was Thy will and choice. And in Thy praise and glory shepherds lifted up their voice. And thither to adore Thee from Arabia afar Came forth the three kings, Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar. And gold and myrrh and frankincense they proffered eagerly. Thou didst spare the prophet Jonah when he fell into the sea. And Thou didst rescue Daniel from the lions in the cave. And, moreover, in Rome city Saint Sebastian didst Thou save. ...
— The Lay of the Cid • R. Selden Rose and Leonard Bacon

... fume of it went round about their hearts like myrrh and frankincense. The landlord took the head of the table, the bailies the right and left of him; the deacons and councillors were ranged along the sides, like files of soldiers; and the chaplain at the foot said grace. It is entirely out of ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir

... and the panyer-man, and the tack-maker, and the suicide, they all found death; or, if they sought him, the churchyard where they were "hurled into a grave" was interdicted, and purified, after a fortnight, with "frankincense ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang

... for making a present to the new arrival. This is not a new social custom, for its origin goes back to the time of the Chaldean shepherds, when wise men of the East journeyed to the stable cradle to present their gifts of frankincense and myrrh. ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... the enormous hanging lock, pushed away the bolt and opened the rusty, singing door. The cold, damp air together with the mixed smell of the dampness of stones, frankincense, and dead flesh breathed upon the girls. They fell back, huddling closely into a timorous flock. Tamara alone went after the ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin

... of personal estimate and afterwards to the commands of a mastering affection was likely enough at forty-two years of age (after being loaded by the disciples that idolised him with only too much of the "frankincense of praise and myrrh of flattery") to feel deeply the slander that he had unpacked his bosom of unhealthy passions. But to say that Rossetti felt the slander does not express his sense of it. He had replied to his reviewer and had acted unwisely in so doing; but when one ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine

... Sabbath walk, for it is only through nature that the Protestants in Macao can worship nature's God, and surely the incense of flowers could bear to Him on high the thanksgiving of those two happy hearts, as truly as the frankincense and myrrh which the good Fathers of the last century burnt upon Mt. Nillau. The narrow but well paved streets with their stuccoed houses, barred windows and little peep-holes at the doors, for questioning the doubtful applicants for admission, even the ...
— In Macao • Charles A. Gunnison

... Magi laid their rich offerings of myrrh, frankincense, and gold, by the bed of the sleeping Christ Child, legend says that a shepherd maiden stood outside the ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott

... eyes gave answer ere he spoke, In tones abrupt that startled his own ears With their strange harshness; but with thanks profuse She guided him, still holding his cold hand In her warm, dainty palm, unto a cave, Whence a rare glory issued, and a smell Of spice and roses, frankincense and balm. They entering stood within a marble hall, With straight, slim pillars, at whose farther end The goddess led him to a spiral flight Of stairs, descending always 'midst black gloom Into the very bowels ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus

... by the Star they came to Bethlehem and offered their gifts and their worship. "They saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh." ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry

... at his feet; The gold was their tribute to a king; The frankincense, with its odor sweet, Was for the priest, the Paraclete, The myrrh for ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various

... exterminate—all alike he enters in his daybook and his ledger, posts them up to the account of brutal Spartan or polished Athenian, with no more expression of his feelings (if he had any) than a merchant making out an invoice of puncheons that are to steal away men's wits, or of frankincense and myrrh that are to ascend in devotion to the saints. Herodotus is a fine, old, genial boy, that, like Froissart or some of the crusading historians, kept himself in health and jovial spirits by travelling about; nor did he confine himself to Greece or the Grecian ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... behind her stands a man, probably Joseph; and before her kneels one of the Wise Men offering his gift of gold in the form of a plain tankard; on the right behind him stand his two fellows, one carrying a pot of myrrh, the other a boat-shaped vessel, probably intended for a censer containing frankincense. On a bracket above the head of the kneeling Wise Man, the shepherds kneel in adoration; nor are the flocks that they were tending forgotten, for several sheep may be seen on a hill-top above their heads. Thirty-two small ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Wimborne Minster and Christchurch Priory • Thomas Perkins

... the happy mother, and a group surrounding her That knelt with costly presents of frankincense and myrrh; And I thrilled with awe and wonder, as a murmur on the air Came drifting o'er the hearing in a melody ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley

... Egypt with the treasures of the east; there the wonders brought to Thebes from Arabia might be seen; there were delineated the houses of the inhabitants of the land of frankincense, and all the fishes of the Red Sea, in ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... appearance of Syrians or Sidonians gone ashore on some half-deserted coast and unpacking in the shadow of rocks their trumpery wares to tempt the girls of the savage tribes? These traffickers gave them copper necklaces, armlets and medicines in exchange for amber, frankincense and furs. And they astonished these beautiful but ignorant creatures by speaking to them of the stars with a knowledge acquired by seafaring. That's clear, I think, and I should like to know in what M. Mosaide could ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France

... Dosiadas of Rhodes, form four words, and seem to be addressed to some "Olympian," who, the dedicator hopes "may live to offer sacrifice for many years." The altar states that it is not stained with the blood of victims, nor perfumed with frankincense, that it is not made of gold and silver; but formed by the hand of the Graces and the Muses. In the "Second Altar," also usually attributed to Dosiadas of Rhodes, we find not only a fanciful outline formed by long and short verses, but also a studious avoidance ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... Lord of Ind, Where blows a soft and scented wind From Taprobane towards Cathay. My children, who are tall and wise, Stand by a tree with shutten eyes And seem to meditate or pray. And these red drops of frankincense Betoken man's intelligence. Hail, Lord of ...
— Forty-Two Poems • James Elroy Flecker

... sentiment, from Persia? The Gnostic Christians even had a scripture called "Zoroaster's Apocalypse."43 "The wise men from the east," who knelt before the infant Christ, "and opened their treasures, and gave him gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh," were Persian Magi. We may imaginatively regard that sacred scene as an emblematical figure of ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... were like a stream of honey fleeting.. Her deeds were like great clusters of ripe grapes... Her looks were like beams of the morning sun Forth looking thro' the windows of the east... Her thoughts were like the fumes of frankincense Which from a golden censer forth doth rise. Spenser, Colin ...
— 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.

... have spread over the country, some have probably died out, and others failed to spread, like a lonely specimen which stands in what was the Botanic Garden of Loanda, and, though most useful in yielding a substitute for frankincense, is the only one of the kind ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... cheese from Aheer, which is pounded before eaten; beef, cut into shreds, and without salt, dried in the sun and wind; peppers of the most pungent character, an extremely small quantity sufficing to season a large dish; a species of shell fruit, called by the Moors Soudan almonds[83]; bakhour, or frankincense; and ghour nuts and koudah, which are masticated as tobacco. There is then, finally, the great cotton manufacture, which clothes half the people of The Desert. Whole caravans of these cottons arrive together, and they are even conveyed from Ghat to ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... Thus they traded according to their skill, and every one had now secured something for his lord. The pearl of great price was stored by some; others had rich dresses adorned with gold and precious stones; others had bags of the most refined gold; others had the spices of Arabia and the frankincense of the ...
— The Rocky Island - and Other Similitudes • Samuel Wilberforce

... and myrrh, Frankincense for harbinger, Myrrh to make His sepulchre. Roses white and roses red, Thorns arrayed for His dear Head. Hail! hail! Wise ...
— The Grey Brethren and Other Fragments in Prose and Verse • Michael Fairless

... doom, I conjure thee, answer me!" Still there was no reply. "Thou shalt not evade me thus," said he, indignant at the slight which was put upon his spells. He drew a little ebony box from his bosom, and on opening it smoke issued therefrom, like the smell of frankincense. With this fumigation he used many uncouth and horrible words, hard names, and so forth, which probably had no existence save in the teeming issue of his own brain. During this operation groans were heard, at first low and indistinct, then loud and vehement; soon they broke into a yell, so shrill ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... only twice, both times in a perfectly general sense. Isaiah i. 13: "Bring me no more oblations; it is an abominable incense to me." Deuteronomy xxxiii. 10: "The Levites shall put incense (i.e.,the fat of thank-offerings) before thee, and whole burnt-offerings upon thine altar." The name LBNT (frankincense) first occurs in Jeremiah (vi. 20, xvii. 26, xli. 5); elsewhere only in the Priestly Code (nine times), in Isaiah xl.-lxvi. (three times), in Chronicles and Nehemiah (three times), and in Canticles (three times). Compare Zephaniah iii. ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen

... you—to have even a bald-headed man kotow to you, give you the choice berth in the compartment, move your traps himself, and then apologize for offering you the best cigarette you ever smoked in your life—well! that is to have myrrh, and frankincense, and oil of balsam, and balm of Gilead ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith

... account is worth about halfe a crowne or somewhat lesse. [Sidenote: The seuerall marchandises of Pegu.] The marchandise which be in Pegu, are golde, siluer, rubies, saphires, spinelles, muske, beniamin or frankincense, long pepper, tinne, leade, copper, lacca whereof they make hard waxe, rice, and wine made of rice, and some sugar. The elephants doe eate the sugar canes, or els they would make very much. [Sidenote: The forme of their Temples or Varellaes.] ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 10 - Asia, Part III • Richard Hakluyt

... they have rendered Unto the new-born King, Their gold and myrrh and frankincense, The best that they ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... charge against several persons; these, upon examination, denied they were, or ever had been, Christians. They repeated after me an invocation to the gods, and offered religious rites with wine and frankincense before your statue * * * and even reviled the name of Christ; whereas there is no forcing, it is said, those who are really Christians, into any of these compliances. * * * The rest owned indeed they had been of that number formerly, but had now ...
— The Prayer Book Explained • Percival Jackson

... and admitted him. When Gharib saw him he said, "What bearest there, O Sahim?"; and he replied, "O King, this is Jaland bin Karkar." Then he uncovered him, and Gharib knew him and said,"Arouse him, O Sahim," So he made him smell vinegar[FN22] and frankincense; and he cast the Bhang from his nostrils and, opening his eyes, found himself among the Moslems; whereupon quoth he, "What is this foul dream?" and closing his eyelids again, would have slept; but Sahim dealt him a kick, saying, "Open thine eyes, O accursed!" So he opened them and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton

... nation; which, by the wants of others, became necessaries; and these they sold to them at the dearest rates. From Egypt the Carthaginians fetched fine flax, paper, corn, sails and cables for ships; from the coast of the Red-Sea, spices, frankincense, perfumes, gold, pearls, and precious stones; from Tyre and Phoenicia, purple and scarlet, rich stuffs, tapestry, costly furniture, and divers curious and exquisite works of art: in a word, they fetched, from various countries, all things ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... celebrated his twenty-first birthday, when the Star of Bethlehem was coming into the ascendant, with that pealing, organ-like hymn, "On the Eve of Christ's Nativity"—the worthiest poetic tribute ever laid by man, along with the gold, frankincense, and myrrh of the Eastern sages, at the feet ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... nevertheless, was science, as at the bottom of Christianity there was love; and in the Evangelic Symbols we see the incarnate WORD adored in its infancy by three magi whom a star guides (the ternary and the sign of the microcosm), and receiving from them gold, frankincense, and myrrh; another mysterious ternary, under the emblem whereof are allegorically contained the ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... Egypt, and Aethiopia, the Arabian peninsula [2] may be conceived as a triangle of spacious but irregular dimensions. From the northern point of Beles [3] on the Euphrates, a line of fifteen hundred miles is terminated by the Straits of Bebelmandel and the land of frankincense. About half this length may be allowed for the middle breadth, from east to west, from Bassora to Suez, from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea. [4] The sides of the triangle are gradually enlarged, and the southern basis presents a front of a thousand miles to the Indian Ocean. The entire ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon

... was more splendid and handsome than ever. But both his spirits and his habits had suffered. He had quarrelled with his aunt, and she was his bread and butter—ay, buttered on both sides. How lightly these young fellows quarrel with the foolish old worshippers who lay their gold, frankincense, and myrrh, at the feet of the handsome thankless idols. They think it all independence and high spirit, whereas we know it is nothing but a little egotistical tyranny, that unconsciously calculates even in the heyday of its indulgence upon the punctual return ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... these I followed the figure of Artaban moving steadily onward, until he arrived at Bethlehem. And it was the third day after the three Wise Men had come to that place and had found Mary and Joseph, with the young child, Jesus, and had laid their gifts of gold and frankincense ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke

... Scripture text proves this?" (Exod. xxx. 34), "Take unto thee sweet spices" (the plural implying two), "stacte, myrrh, and galbanum" (these three thus making up five), "sweet spices" (the repetition doubling the five into ten), "with pure frankincense" (which ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various

... addressed his last compliment to any of the young ladies at Enville Court. Henceforward he only saw them at meals, and then he found himself, much to his discomfiture, placed between Jack and Mistress Rachel. To pay delicate attentions to the latter was sheer waste of frankincense: yet it was so much in his nature, when speaking to a woman, that he began to tell her that she talked like an angel. Mistress Rachel looked ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt

... Judge have we found in Patricius (Patrician by his name already), whom we hereby appoint to the office of Quaestor. He studied eloquence at Rome. Where could he have studied better? For while other parts of the world have their wine, their balm, their frankincense, which they can export, the peculiar product of ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... only to God shall a man knowledge his defaults, yielding himself guilty and crying him mercy, and behoting to him to amend himself. And therefore, when they will shrive them, they take fire and set it beside them, and cast therein powder of frankincense; and in the smoke thereof they shrive them to God, and cry him mercy. But sooth it is, that this confession was first and kindly. But Saint Peter the apostle, and they that came after him, have ordained to make their confession to man, and by good reason; ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown

... and took the auspices before he entered the Senate house. If they were not favorable, or not rightly taken, the business was deferred to another day. Augustus ordered that each Senator, before he took his seat, should pay his devotions with an offering of frankincense and wine, at the altar of that god in whose temple the Senate were assembled, that they might discharge their duty the more religiously. When the consuls entered, the Senators commonly rose up to do ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway

... imagination to reach that height of misery when an unfortunate sight-seeker and traveller like myself, loses his way, at broiling noon, in the vicinity of this market, the thermometer being at 90 deg., and the ling fish at perfection. How the old fishwomen, the natural guardians of this northern frankincense, chatter and squabble! With their blue petticoats tucked up above their knees, how they pick off the stray pieces of raw haddock, or cod, and, with creaking jaws, chew them; and while they ruminate, ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross

... the strength of the sun while in our world it is night, and the space of crimsonflowered meadows before their city is full of the shade of frankincense-trees, and of fruits of gold. And some in horses, and in bodily feats, and some in dice, and some in harp-playing have delight; and among them thriveth all fair-flowering bliss; and fragrance streameth ever through the ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar

... not rise from sense, And rose too high to stoop to it, And framed aloft like frankincense ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)

... house, that he a while ago At some great man's command had deftly made, And this he now must take and set below Her well-wrought feet, and there must red flame glow About sweet wood, and he must send her thence The odour of Arabian frankincense. ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris

... balm That was wafted abroad from the Forest of Thyme (For it rolled all round that curious clime With its magical clouds of perfumed trees.) And the blind man cried, "Our help is at hand, Oh, brothers, remember the old command, Remember the frankincense and myrrh, Make way, make way for those little ones there; Make way, make way, I have seen them afar Under a great white Eastern star; For I am the mad blind man who sees!" Then he whispered, softly—Of such ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... custom of the eastern nations, where the persons of great princes are not to be approached without presents, present to Jesus, as a token of homage, the richest produce their countries afforded, gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Gold, as an acknowledgment of his regal power: incense, as a confession of his Godhead: and myrrh, as a testimony that he was become man for the redemption of the world. But their far more ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... occur spontaneously in the bark of the shrubs in warm countries issues a gum resembling frankincense. This gum, as Gerard teaches, "drieth ulcers which are hollow, and filleth them with flesh if they be cast thereon." "Being mixed with oil of roses, it healeth chaps of the hands and feet." Bergius said "the lignum ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... and the copy of the Appendix, came munificently safe by the last steamer. When thought is best, then is there most,—is a faith of which you alone among writing men at this day will give me experience. If it is the right frankincense and sandal-wood, it is so good and heavenly to give me a basketful and not a pinch. I read proudly, a little at a time, and have not yet got through the new matter. But I think neither the new letters nor the commentary could ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson

... winged animals, are often seen shining through it, which, entangled in it while in a liquid state, became enclosed as it hardened. [264] I should therefore imagine that, as the luxuriant woods and groves in the secret recesses of the East exude frankincense and balsam, so there are the same in the islands and continents of the West; which, acted upon by the near rays of the sun, drop their liquid juices into the subjacent sea, whence, by the force of tempests, they are thrown out ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus

... the popular currents of the literary world, Palamas, too, worshipped the established idol, and offered his frankincense in verses modelled after Rangabean conceptions. In the same essay to which I have just referred, he tells us of the life he led with another young friend, likewise a literary aspirant, during the years of his attendance at the University. The two lived and worked together. They wrote poems ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas

... to our Bethlehem ye who come to-day— Ye who compose this multitude's array— Ye who are here from mighty Northern marts With frankincense and myrrh within your hearts— Ye who are here from the gigantic West, The offspring nurtured at Virginia's breast, Which in development by magic seems Straight to embody all that Progress dreams— Ye who are here from summer-wedded lands— From Carolina's woods to ...
— A Wreath of Virginia Bay Leaves • James Barron Hope

... contribution under the softer title of gratuity. The Colchians fixed their own burdens—the Ethiopians that bordered Egypt, with the inhabitants of the sacred town of Nyssa, rendered also tributary gratuities—while Arabia offered the homage of her frankincense, and India [42] of her gold. The empire of Darius was the more secure, in that it was contrary to its constitutional spirit to innovate on the interior organization of the distant provinces—they enjoyed their own ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the house they found the child with Mary his mother, and prostrating themselves, they worshipped him. And opening their treasures they offered him gold, frankincense and myrrh, as it is ...
— Balthasar - And Other Works - 1909 • Anatole France

... to the office he held before, and sent them away rejoicing. Then she called for writing materials and slaves, and commenced writing notes to the Prince. She would write one on gilded vellum, and, folding it, would hand it to the slave next to her, who dipped it in frankincense, and handed it to the next one, who sprinkled it with attar of roses, and passed it to the next, who ran with it as hard as ever he could to the Prince. For in that kingdom it was not considered proper for lovers to ...
— Ting-a-ling • Frank Richard Stockton

... room is newly painted, place three or four tubs full of water near the wainscot, and renew the water daily. In two or three days it will absorb all the offensive effluvia arising from the paint, and render the room wholesome. The smell of paint may also be prevented, by dissolving some frankincense in spirits of turpentine over a slow fire, and mixing it with the paint ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... without seam. No. By the dead and damning gold; by the purple and by the scarlet; by the brightness of the eyes that is born of new wine; by the mincing gait and the gloved fingers; and by the musk and civet instead of the myrrh and frankincense: by these things are you fain to purge your uncleanness. And will they suffice? Can Satan cast out Satan? Beware! 'For though thou wash thee with nitre and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw

... church; it was filled, and stifling with heat and frankincense, and contadini, and wax lights burning before the shrine, on which the sun shone. There were beautiful faces among the pajine (people in fine raiment), showing what can be made from the contadine (people in coarse ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... honorable burial. It is said that the Roman ladies contributed such vast heaps of spices, that besides what was carried on two hundred and ten litters, there was sufficient to form a large figure of Sylla himself, and another, representing a lictor, out of the costly frankincense and cinnamon. The day being cloudy in the morning, they deferred carrying forth the corpse till about three in the afternoon, expecting it would rain. But a strong wind blowing full upon the funeral pile, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... stood over where the child was. (10)And seeing the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. (11)And coming into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and did homage to him; and opening their treasures, they presented to him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. (12)And being warned by God in a dream, not to return to Herod, they departed into their ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various

... horses rattled along, bearing homeward a gay picnic party of young people, who made the woods ring with the echoes of "Hold the Fort." The grandeur of towering pines, the mysterious dimness of illimitable arcades, and the peculiar resinous odor that stole like lingering ghosts of myrrh, frankincense and onycha through the vaulted solitude of a deserted hoary sanctuary, all these phases of primeval Southern forests combined to weave a spell that ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... Dyke's The Other Wise Man, and Thomas Nelson Page's Santa Claus's Partner, at the Christmas season, and it has the advantages of extreme brevity, a fresh breeziness of style, surprise in the plot, and romantic interest. The magi brought various gifts to the Child in the manger—gold, frankincense, myrrh—but only one gift, that of love. O. Henry does not often moralize, but no reader ever finds fault with his concluding paragraph. The author's real name was William Sidney Porter. He was born in Greensboro, N. C., in 1862, and died in New York City, in 1910, the ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... the souls of the True Shines, and their city is girt with the meadow where reigneth the rose; And deep is the shade of the woods, and the wind that flits o'er them and through Sings of the sea, and is sweet from the isles where the frankincense blows: Green is their garden and orchard, with rare fruits golden it glows, And the souls of the Blessed are glad in the pleasures on Earth that they knew, And in chariots these have delight, and in dice and in minstrelsy those, And the savour of sacrifice clings ...
— Rhymes a la Mode • Andrew Lang

... meet him in debate. By lectures, in which Ingersollism blends with Arnold's "Light of Asia," the Colonel brought about a sort of Buddhist revival. The Singhalese saw the Theosophists as wise men from the West, bringing frankincense and myrrh to the cradle of their prophet. Although their high priest, Sumangala, expressed disbelief in the Mahatmas, he valued the services of Colonel Olcott. He was especially moved by a request from this American for his permission ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various

... street! Oh, could he have followed his own Bridget, maid of all work, into the heart of that steaming throng, and bowed his head while the priests intoned their Latin prayers! could he have snuffed up the cloud of frankincense, and felt that he was in the great ark which holds the better half of the Christian world, while all around it are wretched creatures, some struggling against the waves in leaky boats, and some on ill-connected rafts, and some with their ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... aside your carving, gilding, and Japan work as being too apt to gather dirt. But she never could be prevailed upon to part with plain wainscot and clean hangings. There are some ladies that affect to smell a stink in everything; they are always highly perfumed, and continually burning frankincense in their rooms. She was above such affectation, yet she never would lay aside the use of brooms and scrubbing-brushes, and scrupled not to lay her linen in ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot

... in thy peace, thy bed of spice, And make this place all Paradise: May sweets grow here! and smoke from hence Fat frankincense. ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving

... size, where full-grown animals 188 are sacrificed, whereas on the golden altar it is not lawful to sacrifice any but young sucklings only: and also on the larger altar the Chaldeans offer one thousand talents of frankincense every year at the time when they celebrate the feast in honour of this god. There was moreover in these precincts still remaining at the time of Cyrus, 189 a statue twelve cubits high, of gold and solid. This I did not myself see, but that which ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus

... peacefulness of light, Syria and Greece, Italy and Spain, laid like pieces of a golden pavement into the sea-blue, chased, as we stoop nearer to them, with bossy beaten work of mountain chains, and glowing softly with terraced gardens, and flowers heavy with frankincense, mixed among masses of laurel, and orange and plumy palm, that abate with their grey-green shadows the burning of the marble rocks, and of the ledges of porphyry sloping under lucent sand. Then let us pass farther towards the north, until we see ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin

... slid back the noiseless glass doors of the conservatory. A close smell of tropical plant life crept into the room, but this was as frankincense and myrrh to his nostrils. He passed through and seated himself in a cushioned cane chair amid the rare flora. Switching on a shaded lamp conveniently hung in this retreat, ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer

... Turkish opium and equal parts of Chinese cubebs, cinnamon, cloves, cardamoms, white pepper, ginger and mountain lizard[FN86] and pounding them all together, boiled them in sweet oil; after which he added three ounces of frankincense and a cupful or coriander-seed and macerating the whole, made it into a paste with Greek honey. Then he put the electuary in the bowl and carried it to the merchant, to whom he delivered it, saying, 'This is the seed-thickener, and the manner ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous

... order here Faggots, pine-nuts, and withered leaves, and such Things as catch fire and blaze with one sole spark; Bring cedar, too, and precious drugs, and spices, And mighty planks, to nourish a tall pile; Bring frankincense and myrrh, too, for it is 280 For a great sacrifice I build the pyre! And heap ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... at his feet: The gold was their tribute to a King, The frankincense, with its odor sweet, Was for the Priest, the Paraclete, The myrrh for ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... cultivated mind, each with his little group of assistants, were gliding round silently to perform their morning salutation to the god, raising the closed thumb and finger of the right hand with a kiss in the air, as they came and went on their sacred business, bearing their frankincense and lustral water. Around the walls, at such a level that the worshippers might read, as in a book, the story of the god and his sons, the brotherhood of the Asclepiadae, ran a series of imageries, in low relief, their delicate light ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater

... the lights of home a welcome fling Softly thro' the darkness as the star that shone of old, Softly over Bethlehem and o'er the little cradled King Whom the sages worshipped with their frankincense and gold. ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... the other had no epitaph. One of them contained a young girl, intact in all her members, covered from head to foot with a coating of aromatic paste, one inch thick. On the removal of this coating, which we believe to be composed of myrrh, frankincense, aloe, and other priceless drugs, a face appeared, so lovely, so pleasing, so attractive, that, although the girl had certainly been dead fifteen hundred years, she appeared to have been laid to rest that very day. The thick masses of hair, collected on the top of the head in the old style, ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani

... archer, maiden daughter of Zeus and Leto, Artemis to whom are given the recesses of the mountains, this very day send away beyond the North Wind this hateful sickness from the best of kings; for so above thine altars will Philippus offer vapour of frankincense, doing goodly sacrifice of a ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail

... or other metal, for the kiss of peace, which took place shortly before the host was received in communion; a stoup or stok, of metal, with a sprinkle for holy water; a censer or thurible[181-*], and a ship, (a vessel so called,) to hold frankincense; a chrismatory[181-], an offering basin, a basin which was used when the priest washed his hands, and a chalice and paten. Costly specimens of the ancient pix, containing small patens for the reception of the host, are preserved amongst ...
— The Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture, Elucidated by Question and Answer, 4th ed. • Matthew Holbeche Bloxam

... give spur to him, {indignantly} exclaiming; others, by {silent} assent fulfil their parts. Yet the {entire} destruction of the human race is a cause of grief to them all, and they inquire what is to be the form of the earth in future, when destitute of mankind? who is to place frankincense[48] on the altars? and whether it is his design to give up the nations for a prey to the wild beasts? The ruler of the Gods forbids them making these enquiries, to be alarmed (for that the rest should be his care); and he promises, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso

... and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble, and cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, ...
— Diana • Susan Warner



Words linked to "Frankincense" :   gum olibanum, gum



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com