"Funeral pyre" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... grief at the departure of AEneas, the unhappy queen resolved to put an end to her life. She bade her servants erect in the inner court yard of her palace a lofty pile of wood, called a funeral pyre, and upon it to place an image of AEneas as well as the arms he had left behind him. Then mounting the pyre, to which flaming torches had been applied, she stabbed herself with her false lover's ...
— Story of Aeneas • Michael Clarke
... Christian soldiery of Thoulouse and Rome. Here it was that Attila prepared to resist to the death his victors in the field; and here he heaped up the treasures of his camp in one vast pile, which was to be his funeral pyre should his camp be stormed. It was here that the Gothic and Italian forces watched but dared not assail, their enemy in his despair, after that great and terrible ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... occasion of the funeral of the murdered dictator on the 19th or 20th March, B.C. 44, Mark Antony pronounced the celebrated oration which wrought so wonder-fully on the passions of the excited populace. A funeral pyre was hastily improvised, and the unparalleled honor accorded to the illustrious dead of being burned in view of the most sacred shrines of the city. A column with the inscription 'parenti patriae' was afterwards erected here to commemorate the event. ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... funeral pyre of my father," the girl answered simply. She had long since recovered from her initial outburst of grief at her loss, and now watched the progress of the conflagration dry-eyed. At length Jimmie slipped an arm protectingly about ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... queens burned themselves, one of whom was of the same age as the King, and the other two aged thirty-five years. They showed great courage. They went forth richly dressed with many jewels and gold ornaments and precious stones, and arriving at the funeral pyre they divided these, giving some to their relatives; some to the Brahmans to offer prayers for them, and throwing some to be scrambled for by the people. Then they took leave of all, mounted on to a lofty place, and threw themselves into the middle of the fire, which was ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... helmsman bold? The captain saw him reel, His nerveless hands released their task, He sank beside the wheel. The wave received his lifeless corse, Blackened with smoke and fire. God rest him! Never hero had A nobler funeral pyre! ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... him in his ship, With horse and harness, As on a funeral pyre. Odin placed A ring upon his finger, And whispered ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... in such manner that fire would either destroy, or completely damage them. Having accomplished this work, the lighted tinder was applied, when the flames leaped high up in the air, forming a fit funeral pyre for their slain companions. Fremont saw the reflection of the fire, and also the smoke, and at once knew that Kit Carson was engaged with the Indians; consequently, he pushed on at a very rapid pace to assist him. He arrived too ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... neglect and abuses on the part of the Civil Guard, her younger son having disappeared some time before in the convento, where he was a sacristan. Basilio, who is ignorant of Elias's identity, helps him to build a funeral pyre, on which his corpse and the madwoman's are ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... towers and clambering perilously on the roofs, surged the press of the furious populace. It was all that Duke John and his officers could do to keep the prisoners in ward, and to prevent them from being torn limb from limb (as had perhaps been fittest), and tossed alive into the flaming funeral pyre of Castle Machecoul, which, lighted by a hundred hands, presently began to flame like ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... drown the thought of this fatal determination in wine, ended the feast with the mortal mess; and embracing one another, after they had jointly deplored the misfortune of their country, some retired home to their own houses, others stayed to be burned with Vibius in his funeral pyre; and were all of them so long in dying, the vapour of the wine having prepossessed the veins, and by that means deferred the effect of poison, that some of them were within an hour of seeing the enemy inside the walls ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... done; what kindly act can I Perform who, pitiless, deserve to die?" "Bring wood," he begged, "and build a funeral pyre, That we may seek our son through death ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... a widow, who, far from having mounted any funeral pyre, appeared to enjoy life immensely, had placed ...
— The Motor Maids in Fair Japan • Katherine Stokes
... general rule of natural affinity that only those are safe who pray for a heavenly hand to lead them. Because they depended on themselves and not on God there are thousands of women every year going to the slaughter. In India women leap on the funeral pyre of a dead husband. We have a worse spectacle than that in America—women innumerable leaping on the funeral pyre of ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... was burning furiously when he climbed in under the wheel of his car. He held Joan very close and watched that blazing funeral pyre in wordless sorrow as the bereaved girl dropped her ...
— Wanderer of Infinity • Harl Vincent
... as the Consultore passed them, "that they have found themselves a new diversion before the palace of the Vatican, and that some of our great ones here are burned in effigy to instruct the populace. A pile of Fra Paolo's writings doth light the funeral pyre; and all that he hath written or may hereafter write is placed upon ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... martyrs revel in their funeral pyre, With such devotion to their ecstasy, That life knows no such rapture as to die; And die they do; for earthly life has naught Match'd with that burst of nature, even in thought; And all our dreams of better life above But close in one eternal gush ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... new moon—the last moon that human eyes will ever rest upon—and the stars are most brilliant. Even in the clear plateau air of South America I have never seen them brighter. Possibly this etheric change has some effect upon light. The funeral pyre of Brighton is still blazing, and there is a very distant patch of scarlet in the western sky, which may mean trouble at Arundel or Chichester, possibly even at Portsmouth. I sit and muse and make an occasional note. There is a sweet melancholy ...
— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle
... though it was known he would be dashed to death. When the heroism of "Mucius Scaevola" was represented, a real criminal was compelled to thrust his hand into the flame without a murmur, and stand motionless while it was being burned. Hercules was compelled to ascend the funeral pyre, and there be burned alive. The poor slaves and criminals were compelled to play their parts heroically until the ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... graves the Romans affected the rose; the Greeks amaranthus and myrtle: the funeral pyre consisted of sweet fuel, cypress, fir, larix, yew, and trees perpetually verdant lay silent expressions of their surviving ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... the glare of a fire? Is it the breaking of day? Birth lights, or funeral pyre? Who shall ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... bol), evil, suffering, a word obsolete except in poetry, and more common in the adjectival form "baleful." In early alliterative poetry it is especially used antithetically with "bliss." (2) (O. Eng. bael, a blazing fire, a funeral pyre), a bonfire, a northern English use more common in the tautological "bale-fire," with sometimes a confused reference from (1) to evil. (3) (A word of doubtful origin, possibly connected with "ball "), a bundle of merchandise, especially of cotton, wool or hay, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... mariners lying dead beside their vessel; and they, marvelling greatly what manner of men these might have been, took counsel among themselves and decided to bestow upon them the last rites of the dead. So they built a mighty funeral pyre for them with logs of resinous wood hewn in the dark forest that stretched inland, and they fortified the souls of the dead seamen with prayer and lamentation. But lo! a miracle: for as the flames hissed upwards, purging the bodies of all earthly taint, life returned to them by the grace of ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... the souls who build their own fame's funeral pyre, Derided by the scornful throng like ice deriding fire. I'm sorry for the conquering ones who know not sin's defeat, But daily tread down fierce desire ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... widow to remain single and lead an austere and joyless life was held to confer great honour on her family; and this was enormously enhanced when she decided to become sati and die with her husband on the funeral pyre. Though it is doubtful whether this practice is advocated by the Vedas, subsequent Hindu scriptures insist strongly on it. It was said that a widow who was burnt with her husband would enjoy as many years ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... against the fading dawn The flames' red wings soar upward duskily. This is the funeral pyre and Troy is dead That sparkled so the day I saw it first, And darkened slowly after. I am she Who loves all beauty—yet I wither it. Why have the high gods made me wreak their wrath— Forever since my maidenhood to sow Sorrow and blood about me? Lo, they keep Their bitter care above me even now. ...
— Helen of Troy and Other Poems • Sara Teasdale
... away as he approached the last line of tents, with the open land beyond. The horses of the herd, which had been driven to this side to avoid the funeral pyre, were shifting nervously, the scent ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... Jewish synagogues have their eternal lamps and in their rituals fire and light have played prominent roles. The devout Brahman maintains a fire on the hearth and worships it as omniscient and divine. He expects a brand from this to be used to light his funeral pyre, whose fire and light will make his spirit fit to enter his heavenly abode. He keeps a fire burning on the altar, worships Agni, the god of fire, and makes fire sacrifices on various occasions such as betrothals and marriages. To the Mohammedans lighted lamps symbolize holy ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... whether I bear thee most hatred or most love I cannot tell. Die thou must; yet I feel I should die with thee. Oh! that to-night could lead at the same time unto our marriage bed and funeral pyre. Must that white bosom bleed? and must those delicate limbs be hacked and handled by these bloody butchers? Is that justice? They lie, the traitors, when they call thee false to our God. Thou art thyself a god, and I could worship thee! See those beauteous lips; ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... may rejoice in them because they make man the head of the woman. I have been traveling over the old world during the last few years and have found new food for thought. What power is it that makes the Hindoo woman burn herself on the funeral pyre of her husband? Her religion. What holds the Turkish woman in the harem? Her religion. By what power do the Mormons perpetuate their system of polygamy? By their religion. Man, of himself, could not do this; but when he declares, "Thus saith the Lord," of course he can do it. So long as ministers ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... dancing battalion of destroying flames! ... For one fleeting breath of time Theos stared aghast at the horrid scene, . . then making a superhuman effort he raised Sah-luma's corpse entirely from the ground and staggered with his burden away, . . away from the burning Shrine, . . the funeral pyre, as it vaguely seemed to him, of a wasted ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... pointed out to him. This was done, and the dead Rajah was laid with his feet turned towards his native country. Then twelve bottles of kerosene were poured over him and he was covered completely with thin slabs of pine wood. For almost another hour the relations and servants kept piling up the funeral pyre which looked like one of those piles of wood that carpenters keep in their yards. Then on top of this was poured the contents of twenty bottles of oil, and on top of all they emptied a bag of fine shavings. A few steps further on, a flame was glimmering ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... was drowned in the Mediterranean. Nonsense, again,— sheer nonsense! What, am I babbling about? I was thinking of that old figment of his being lost in the Bay of Spezzia, and washed ashore near Via Reggio, and burned to ashes on a funeral pyre, with wine, and spices, and frankincense; while Byron stood on the beach and beheld a flame of marvellous beauty rise heavenward from the dead poet's heart, and that his fire-purified relics were finally buried near ...
— P.'s Correspondence (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... again, the happiness of ourselves and our friends by any further experiments. I have never wondered since that the Chinese women allow their daughters' feet to be encased in iron shoes, nor that the Hindoo widows walk calmly to the funeral pyre; for great are the penalties of those who dare resist the ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... quite in keeping with the little touches of characterisation which we can also notice in this book. In the second line Aeneas pursues his way certus, even while he gazes at the flames of Dido's funeral pyre, not knowing what they meant. He presides at the games with the dignity of a Roman magistrate, and reproachingly consoles the beaten Dares with words which seem to reflect his late experience at Carthage ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... they take their flight. The flight of Congress may be regarded as a blessing. But Congressmen do not brighten. PUNCHINELLO listens in vain for the swan song of SUMNER, and looks longingly, without being gratified by the spectacle of the oratorical funeral pyre of NYE. Almost the only gleam of humor he discerns in his weekly wading through the watery and windy wastes of the Congressional Globe is a ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 18, July 30, 1870 • Various
... succeed as well as she expected, however, for though just in the act of setting fire to a funeral pyre, the Professor dropped his torch, metaphorically speaking, and made a dive after the little blue ball. Of course they bumped their heads smartly together, saw stars, and both came up flushed and laughing, without the ball, to resume their seats, wishing ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... and I, somehow, conspire, To grasp the Matrimonial Scheme entire, Would we not shatter it to bits—and then, Make of its bonds a rousing Funeral Pyre? ...
— The Rubaiyat of a Bachelor • Helen Rowland
... rush, Suns sink on suns, and systems systems crush, 375 Headlong, extinct, to one dark centre fall, And Death and Night and Chaos mingle all! —Till o'er the wreck, emerging from the storm, Immortal NATURE lifts her changeful form, Mounts from her funeral pyre on wings of flame, 380 And soars and shines, another and ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... Robert, as the pet of the Phoenix, ought to have the last melancholy pleasure of choosing the materials for its funeral pyre. ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... islands" of the Columbia; the Chinooks, who stretched them in canoes with paddles and fishing implements by their side; and the Kalamaths, who burned them with the maddest saturnalia of dancing, howling, and leaping through the flames of the funeral pyre. Over sixty or seventy petty tribes stretched the wild empire, welded together by the pressure of common foes and held in the grasp of the hereditary ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch
... midst, though brutal imprisonment reduce them to skeletons. Let us devote ourselves to the service of the Mother. A man maddened by devotion will do everything and anything to achieve his ideal. His strength will be adamantine. Just as a widow immolates herself on the funeral pyre of her husband, let us ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... the wharf to see them fire an enormous flat-boat piled mountain-high with cotton. A dozen bales had been broken open and the whole floating funeral pyre stood shrouded in spotless white which leaped into flames as it was ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... middle of the room. Each had a perceptible thickness and a rounded loglike edge; and when the time came for turning in on top of the lot, I was always reminded of the latter end of a Grecian hero, the structure looked so like a funeral pyre. When to the above indispensables were added clothes, camera, dry plates, books, and sundries, it made a collection of household gods quite appalling to consider on the march. I had no idea I owned half so much in the ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... of the story is all blood and horror. The desperate leaders of the Commune determined that, if they must perish, Paris should be their funeral pyre. On the night of May 24 the city became a scene of incendiary rage. The Hotel-de-Ville was in flames; the Palace of the Tuileries was burning like a great furnace; the Palace of the Legion of Honor, the Ministry of War, the Treasury were lurid ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... that this was the Fourth Book of the Aeneid, and the most lamentable, heartrending story of Dido's love for Aeneas, of his desertion of her, of her grief and death upon the funeral pyre. ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... What greater bliss could we ask than this, To sweep with a bird's free motion Through leagues of space to a resting place, In a vast and vapoury ocean - To pass away from this life for aye With never a dear tie sundered, And a world on fire for a funeral pyre, While the stars looked ...
— Poems of Cheer • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... Cappella Cornaro, while in the church, outside the chapel, the Ducal guards kept watch. Very still and pale she was in the light of the tall wax candles burning about her and the torches flaring from the funeral pyre, and strange to look upon in the coarse brown cape and cowl of the habit of St. Francis, with a hempen cord for girdle. But the Lady Margherita had tenderly folded the hood away from the beautiful face and ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... perceive that you suspect me; you think that I seek to put you to some proof, but by the ashes of that funeral pyre whence my ancestor arose a god, I swear to you that I speak frankly and without ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... even when there is no longer any hope, when he is irrevocably sentenced, and he knows that he can no longer deceive anyone, neither mankind nor Him whose name he profanes by this last sacrilege, he yet exclaims, "O Christ! I shall suffer even as Thou." It is only by the light of his funeral pyre that the dark places of his life can be examined, that this bloody plot is unravelled, and that other victims, forgotten and lost in the shadows, arise like spectres at the foot of the scaffold, and escort ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... frantic grief, but later her joy turns into sorrow, and she determines to share Sigurd's death. In vain they try to dissuade her; donning her gold corselet, she pierces herself with a sword and begs to be burned on Sigurd's funeral pyre. In dying she prophesies the future, telling of Gudrun's marriage to "Atli" and of the death of the many men which will be ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown
... since Rome hath no more Caesars. On that day when the populace stood weeping where flames from the funeral pyre did cast their somber smoke against ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... saying, 'So be it,' imparted unto Madri the mantra of invocation. And on Madri were raised by the twin Aswins, the twins Nakula and Sahadeva. And (one day) Pandu, beholding Madri decked with ornaments, had his desire kindled. And, as soon as he touched her, he died. Madri ascended the funeral pyre with her lord. And she said unto Kunti, 'Let these twins of mine be brought up by thee with affection.' After some time those five Pandavas were taken by the ascetics of the woods to Hastinapura and there introduced ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... the Universe Had he not glowed with passion's sacred fire; Though man oft turns the blessing to a curse, And burns himself on his own funeral pyre, Though scarred the soul be where its light burns bright, Yet where it is ...
— Poems of Sentiment • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... embroideries. Without describing one of these awful erections, it is impossible to give any idea of how much artistic treasure was thrown into the flames which consumed the remains of a great man. The funeral pyre dedicated by Alexander to his friend Hephaestion recalls that erected by Sardanapalus in one of the courts of his own palace, on which he perished, surrounded by his wives and his treasures. Hephaestion's catafalque was built of inflammable ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... the distance) travelled to his ear, and the next moment, the towers on which he gazed had vanished from the scene, and one intense and sullen glare seemed to settle over the atmosphere,—making all Rome itself the funeral pyre of THE LAST OF THE ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... as the object of their criticism bounded down the trail towards them. He had seen the funeral pyre. It was awfully sad, it was awfully lovely, but there was something grand in it! Who could have thought Stacy could be so poetic? But he wanted to tell them something ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... was telling me in what great reverence people of this locality hold the sacred river Ganges. If one of their relatives dies, he said, and they have not the means of taking the ashes to the Ganges, they powder a piece of bone from his funeral pyre and keep it till they come across some one who, some time or other, has drunk of the Ganges. To him they administer some of this powder, hidden in the usual offering of pan[1], and thus are content to imagine that a portion of the remains of ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore
... laughed as part of the ceremony, the executioners also smiling. The old people were supposed to laugh with joy at the revivification which was in store for them in a future state. So, too, the Hindoo widows used to laugh when seated on the funeral pyre ready to be burnt. So, too, is explained (by Reinach) the laughter of Joan of Arc when she made her abjuration in front of the faggots which were to burn her to death. Her laugh was caused by the thought of her escape from persecution ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... the burning of the dead at a ghat by the Ganges. This ghat is reserved exclusively for the cremation of Hindoo dead. No Mussulman can use it. It was about eight o'clock in the morning when my boat reached this burning ghat. Already one body had been placed on a funeral pyre of wood. The guide said this body was that of a poor man who had no relatives or friends, as the place where the relatives sit until the cremation is complete was empty. Soon, however, two men came rushing down the stone steps with a corpse strapped to a bamboo stretcher. The body was that ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... "A high funeral pyre is erected of dry wood, on which the body of the dead is laid, and in course of time after igniting the faggots the corpse is consumed. While this cineration is going on vultures and carrion fowl not infrequently pounce down upon the body, and tear away pieces of flesh from the ghastly, smoking ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green
... was not ambitious at the grave. He threw neither garments nor odors upon the funeral pyre, but the arms and the war-horse of the departed were burned ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... time. Impregnable in her citadel of silence, with the cohorts of Codes to protect her from escalade and assault, will the guardians of justice have obeyed her solemn commands when they permit the prisoner to light the funeral pyre where she elects to throw herself—a vicarious sacrifice for another's sins? For a nature so exalted, the Providence who endowed it has decreed a nobler fate; and by His help, and that of your twelve consciences, I purpose to save her from a species ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... convenient distance in the scullery ready to catch. Then he would smash the house lamp on the staircase, a fall with that in his hand was to be the ostensible cause of the blaze, and then he would cut his throat at the top of the kitchen stairs, which would then become his funeral pyre. He would do all this on Sunday evening while Miriam was at church, and it would appear that he had fallen downstairs with the lamp, and been burnt to death. There was really no flaw whatever that he could see in the scheme. He was quite sure he knew ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... most curious thing about Bubbles," said Varick thoughtfully, "is a kind of thought-reading gift. I fancy she must have inherited it from an Indian ancestress, for her great-great-grandfather rescued a begum on her way to be burnt on her husband's funeral pyre. He ultimately married her, and though she never came to England. Bubbles' father, a fool called Hugh Dunster, who's lost what little money he ever had, is one of her descendants. There's something just a little Oriental and strange ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... transient joys of time, Their purport not the Pearl of our desire. Loved are these confines as immortal clime, And dear the hearth-flame as the altar fire; When fate accomplished wins her utmost bourne, And fulness ousts for aye fair images, Will doting mem'ry from their funeral pyre Rise phoenix-wise and earth-sick spirits yearn For fragrant flower, and sward, and changeful trees, For storied rose, and sweet poetic morn, For sound of bird, and brook, and murmuring bees, For luckless fancies of illusion ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer
... dost know me?" and a soul from out the gloom Welcomed the rippling brooklet flowing past the tomb, Gilding the steeples, near and far, with a dusk and dimsome spleen, Tipping with crest of golden fire Each mighty CAESAR'S funeral pyre In ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., Issue 31, October 29, 1870 • Various
... the beautiful Caroline Morsson, the peasant queen of Sweden, wife of Eric XII., who died here, and whose remains lie in the Cathedral—the city of the mighty hosts of warlike Finns who fought under the banner of Charles XII., and made a funeral pyre of their bodies upon the bloody field of Puttara. The present Finns are of this heroic race. Not less brave, yet less fortunate than the Spartans of Thermopylae, they have lost their country and their freedom, and now groan under the oppression ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... that "being of religious origin, cremation is mostly denoted in China by clerical terms, expressive of the metamorphosis the funeral pyre is intended to effect, viz. 'transformation of man'; 'transformation of the body'; 'metamorphosis by fire.' Without the clerical sphere it bears no such high-sounding names, being simply called 'incineration of corpses.' A term of illogical composition, and nevertheless very common in the ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... never quit it more," rejoined the enthusiast, in a voice of thunder, "but shall perish with the fire I have kindled. No monarch on earth ever lighted a nobler funeral pyre." ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... and Achaians! Amongst you are the great chiefs of the Achaians. Now let one of these be your champion, to fight with me, Hector: and I call Zeus to witness, that if he slay me, you shall let him carry off my armor, but give my body to the Trojans, that they may render to me the honor of the funeral pyre. But if the Far-Darter shall grant me glory, that I may slay him, then will I strip him of his armor, and hang it in the Temple of Apollo; but his lifeless body I will give back to the long-haired Achaians, that they may bury him, and build him a ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... kepis piled upon them told of the graves of France's defenders. Far ahead I could discover groups of men with shovels, hastily burying those who remained. To the right a lazy column of dense smoke rose reluctantly in the heavy air. I fancied it came from a funeral pyre; we certainly smelled tar and petrol. The ground beneath rocked with the thundering of the distant cannon, and as one peal burst louder a flock of jet black crows mounted heavenward, mournfully cawing in ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard
... mocked him too. His many hands (he had no few, This God of gifts and charity), The marble race, that smiled on me, I mocked, and said, "O God unthroned, Lone exile from the faith you owned, No priest to bring you sacrifice, No censer with its breath of spice, No land to mourn your funeral pyre. O King, whose subjects felt your fire, Now dead, now stone, without a slave, Unfeared, unloved, you have no grave. Poor God, who cannot understand, And what of your fair Eastern land, What dark brows ...
— The Fairy Changeling and Other Poems • Dora Sigerson
... But, rescued from the funeral pyre, Life's ashen, light residuum Lay soft, and, spent the cleansing fire, The urn held sweet the ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier
... feet; and then brands and embers were thrust underneath. Pike turned sick with horror and helplessness at the sight, for he knew instantly what it meant. The wagon was to be the wretched Manuelito's funeral pyre. They meant to burn him to death by inches. Suddenly a bright flame leaped up from the bottom of the stack of fuel; broader, brighter, fiercer it grew until it lapped up over the floor of the wagon. A scream of agony rang through the Pass, answered by jeering laughter and fiendish yells. The next ...
— Sunset Pass - or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land • Charles King
... possess a personality as such inanimate objects will, having been our faithful companions and our reliance for many a hundred difficult miles, and it seemed like desertion to abandon them so carelessly to destruction. We ought to have had a funeral pyre. The flags of the boats, which Mrs. Thompson had made and which had been carried in them the entire way, were still to be disposed of, and that of the Dean was generously voted to me by the Major, Jack, and Jones, who had crew claims to it; that of ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... clothes in a cemetery. There he lives twelve months. His wife comes to the cemetery to perform the obsequies of her son, who had died from the bite of a serpent. The two determine to burn themselves with the corpse of their son. When Haricchandra, after placing his son on the funeral pyre, is meditating on the Supreme Spirit, the lord Hari Naraya[n.]a Krish[n.]a, all the gods arrive headed by Dharma (righteousness) and accompanied by Vicvamitra. Dharma entreats the king to desist from his rash enterprise, and Indra announces to him that he, ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Anonymous
... women, and children came rushing into the trees from every direction, some crying on Heaven for mercy, some begging for water, all of them exhausted and seemingly ready to die. The island grove was like a great funeral pyre. ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... a page of glory bright, Her present a blaze of splendor, You may turn o'er the leaves of the jewell'd tome, You'll not find the word surrender; For sooner than lay down her trusty arms, She'd build her own funeral pyre, And the flames that give her a martyr's fate ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... hunter's knife would he have clutch'd, and there Had slain himself, to follow to that land Where flit the ghosts of men, a shadowy band That have no more delight, no more desire, When once the flesh hath burn'd down like a brand, Drench'd by the dark wine on the funeral pyre: ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
... Abandon lamentations. It is useless to lament. All this is the result of work in previous lives. I will prepare a funeral pyre. Apply the sacrament of fire to the dead body and return at once to the house of your master." The queen is disconsolate and wants to remain with her husband, who explains the situation thus:—"You have no right to remain here. Do not forget that your person ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta
... me pain? Then, Go. Each tiny, lapping flame of fire That fed its tongue on thee, would scorch The life-blood in my heart until Upon the funeral pyre, I'd throw My worthless ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... practically impossible for me to bury the body deep enough to protect it from the jackals and hyaenas; and I therefore determined that, instead of burying it, I would burn it. There was an abundance of fallen boughs and twigs in the adjacent jungle to enable me to build a funeral pyre; and I should have the melancholy satisfaction of actually watching the reduction of the body to impalpable ashes. I therefore took all that remained of poor Ama in my arms and carried it to the top of a bare rocky plateau ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... and overturned one of its walls for a distance of twenty stades. Then the King, convinced that the oracle was accomplished and despairing of any means of escape, to avoid falling alive into the enemy's hands constructed in his palace an immense funeral pyre, placed on it his gold and silver and his royal robes, and then, shutting himself up with his wives and eunuchs in a chamber formed in the midst of the pile, disappeared in ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... gladly went back to the old slavery and sacrificed freedom to repose. I have never wondered since that the Chinese women allow their daughters' feet to be encased in iron shoes, nor that the Hindoo widows walk calmly to the funeral pyre. I suppose no act of my life ever gave my cousin, Gerrit Smith, such deep sorrow, as my abandonment of the "Bloomer costume." He published an open letter[87] to me on the subject, and when his daughter, Mrs. Miller, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... mournfully to Dwarka where he breaks the news. Vasudeva with his two wives, Devaki and Rohini, die of grief. Arjuna recovers the bodies of Krishna and Balarama and places them on a funeral pyre. Rukmini along with Krishna's seven other queens throw themselves on the flames. Balarama's wives, as well as King Ugrasena, also die. Arjuna then appoints Krishna's great grandson, Parikshit, to rule over the survivors ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... in making his palace his own funeral pyre and burning himself upon it, is also attributed to the king who was ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 82, May 24, 1851 • Various
... companions had broken it up and fed the flames with withered boughs, the torn garments of the murdered man, and dry sea-weed. A blaze soon rose, and a body was carefully placed upon the wretched funeral pyre. It was the corpse of the great Pompey. One of the Imperator's veterans aided ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... have done if Charley had been drowned while we were engaged?" she exclaimed, mentally, with horror. Her heart turned to ice, while her cheeks flamed up as if scorched by the blaze of a funeral pyre consuming all her earthly affections. The tears burst out of ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... no one could see how they came; this the greatest of the gods ever wore upon his arm, until the death of his beautiful son Baldur, when, as token of his great love he placed it upon the dead youth's breast as he lay on his funeral pyre. To Frey was given the golden boar, which would run faster than any horse, over the sea or through the air, and wherever it went, there it would be light, because the bristles shone so brightly. To Thor Brok gave the dull-looking hammer, saying, that whatever he struck with ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... from the embers of his funeral pyre to the planet Venus has led several distinguished students of Mexican mythology to identify his whole history with the astronomical relations of this bright star. Such an interpretation is, however, not only ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton
... It's quite impossible that I should get to you in time, you realise that? But I'll tell you what I will do for you, with the greatest pleasure. When you are safely dead, I'll avenge you in style. The smoking ruins of Agpur shall be your funeral pyre, as the old fellow said to the Dey ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... that they are the ancestors of the European gypsies and that Rom or Romany is nothing more than a variant of Dom. In the ironical language of the proverbs the Dom figures as "the lord of death" because he provides the wood for the Hindu funeral pyre. He is ranked with Brahmans and goats as a creature useless in time of need. A common and peculiarly offensive form of abuse is to tell a man that he has eaten a Dom's leavings. A series of proverbs represents him ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... curious pamphlet (Manila, 1649) describes the funeral ceremonies recently solemnized in that city in honor of the deceased crown prince of Spain, Baltasar Carlos. Solemn and magnificent rites are celebrated, both civil and religious; and a funeral pyre, or chapelle ardente, is erected in the royal military chapel, the splendors of ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various
... Josiah, Townsend, a pilot of the Ganges, and tradition has it that he and Job Charnock, who, as an officer of the East India Company, founded Calcutta in 1690, saved a pretty young Hindu widow from ascending her husband's funeral pyre and committing suttee. Tradition states further that Job Charnock and his bride "lived lovingly for many years and had several children," until in due time she was buried in the mausoleum at St. John's, where her husband sacrificed ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... depths of human emotions, a striving to understand the riddles behind the impulsive body. One sees why Dido is not, like Apollonius' Medea, simply driven to passion by. Cupid's arrow—the naive Greek equivalent of the medieval love-philter—why Pallas' body is not merely laid on the funeral pyre with the traditional wailing, why Turnus does not meet his foe with an Homeric boast. That Vergil has penetrated a richer vein of sentiment, that he has learned to regard passion as something more than an accident, to sacrifice mere logic ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank
... logs and turf blazed in the hall fireplace, a funeral pyre, on which Christian cast one basketful after another of letters, papers, ball-cards, hunt cards, pamphlets, old school-room books, stray numbers of magazines, all the accumulated rubbish that life, like the leader in a paper-chase, strews ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... insignificant for such solemn use. Don't expect any ghastly details. A longish building of "wattle and dab," much like the northern farmhouses, a high roof, and chimneys resembling those of the "oast houses" in Kent, combine with the rural surroundings to suggest "farm buildings" rather than the "funeral pyre," and all that is horrible is left ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... disappears. "The glow of a funeral pyre slowly dies by the silent river. "Jackals cry in chorus from the courtyard of the deserted house in the light of the worn-out moon. "If some wanderer, leaving home, come here to watch the night and with ...
— The Gardener • Rabindranath Tagore
... Call everything that grieves, And build a funeral pyre above his head! Heap there all golden promise that deceives, Beauty that wins the heart and then bereaves— ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... body had lain unanimated unusually long, beguiled his wife, made her believe that he was certainly dead, and that it was disrespectful and indecent to keep him so long in that state. The woman therefore placed her husband on the funeral pyre, and consumed him to ashes; so that, continues the philosopher, when the soul of Hermotimus came back again, it no longer found its customary receptacle to retire into. [92] Certainly this kind of treatment appeared ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... was left alive. Then the Kana prepared for the end. He sent the boy Ajeysi with a small band by a secret way, and he escaped to Kailwarra, so that the royal race of Chitor should not become extinct. Then the women of the city, with the noble Padmani at their head, accepted the Johur; "the funeral pyre being lighted within the great subterranean retreat," they steadfastly marched into the living grave rather than yield themselves to the will of the conqueror. All being now ready for the last act of the hideous drama, the Rana caused the gates to be opened, and with his valiant remnant of ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... throne; that is, they found it necessary to adduce some guilt to account for the facts, and they introduced the notion of hereditary responsibility. Another story was that he determined to sacrifice all his wealth to the gods. He built a funeral pyre of it all and mounted it himself, but rain extinguished it. The gods were satisfied. Croesus afterwards enjoyed the friendship of Cyros, which was good fortune. Still others rejected the doctrines of correlation between goodness and ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... either case be broken, Bele (the giant of spring storms, corresponding to the dragon Fafner in the Niblung story,) must be conquered, and Wafurloge (the wall of bickering flames that surrounded the castle) must be penetrated. The fanes symbolize the funeral pyre, for whoever enters the nether world must scorn the fear of death. (Auber Forestier's Echoes from Mistland; Introduction, xliii, xliv.) We also find this story repeated again and again, in numberless variations, in Teutonic folk-lore; for instance, in The Maiden on the Glass Mountain, ...
— The Younger Edda - Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda • Snorre
... stole over the gardens of the Priory, at sunset. It was the close of one of the most exquisite days of Spring. A calm had settled over the country with the passing away of the sun-god. His attendant winds and voices had been sacrificed on his funeral pyre. ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... American. His party came at last, through a deep canyon to a large bar on which they found among unmistakable evidences of a plundered camp both white man's and Indian's hair. A great ash heap containing calcined bones was undoubtedly the funeral pyre of white men and red men alike, and some yelling savages upon the upper bluff confirmed the tragedy which Captain Merritt's party had been too ...
— Down the Mother Lode • Vivia Hemphill
... received her with coldness and with downcast eyes, saying that she could no longer be his wife, after having dwelt in the zenana of the demon. Sita assured him of her innocence; but on his continuing to revile her, she ordered her funeral pyre to be built, since she would rather die by fire than live despised by Rama. The sympathy of all the bystanders was with Sita, but Rama saw her enter the flames without a tremor. Soon Agni, the god of fire, appeared, bearing the uninjured ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... the "benefit of their church." The child-wives of India need to be rescued and protected, but no more than many adult wives in Bible lands need protection from drunken and brutal husbands. The heathen wife seeks death on her husband's funeral pyre, but the Christian wife is often sent to death by a bullet in her brain, or a knife in ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... his praise to Venus, and I saw Tichatschek moving towards Elizabeth and addressing his passionate outburst to her, I thought of Schroder-Devrient's warning in very much the same way as Croesus must have thought when he cried, 'O Solon! Solon!' at the funeral pyre. In spite of the musical excellence of Tichatschek, the enormous life and melodic charm of ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... and by this chiefly they think to incite men to valour, the fear of death being overlooked." Later he adds, that at funerals all things which had been dear to the dead man, even living creatures, were thrown on the funeral pyre, and shortly before his time slaves and beloved clients were also consumed.[1155] Diodorus says: "Among them the doctrine of Pythagoras prevailed that the souls of men were immortal, and after completing their term of existence they live again, the soul passing into ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... of visible howls coming out of an immense mouth in the shape of o's. The oxen were particularly good, for their horns branched like those of the moose, and Mr. Grant had a patriarchal beard which waved in the breeze as he bore the wounded girl to a sled very like a funeral pyre, the stakes being crowned with ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... wickedness and pervading sin, a world quivering as a ship in the storm, the bending heavens as though unbolted and insecure, all foundations apparently shattered and the universe itself as though rushing forward to its funeral pyre. ...
— Why I Preach the Second Coming • Isaac Massey Haldeman
... in the rush of battle he holds scales, and for the golden coin you spend on him he sends you back lifeless shapes of men; they sent out men, the loving friends receive back well-smoothed ashes from the funeral pyre. They sing the heroic fall of some—all for another's wife; and some murmur discontent against the sons of Atreus, and some have won a grave in the land ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... hill, and beheld a blazing pile. On a log of wood lay a maiden with her left breast ripped open; flames licked her feet. Around were sombre, bearded men with swords in their hands. An ancient Shaman priest was circling in front of the funeral pyre and ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... status of widows. In uncivilized society a widow is considered dangerous because the ghost of her husband is supposed to cling to her. Hence she must be slain that his spirit may depart in peace with her, as well as with the weapons and other possessions which are buried with him or burned upon his funeral pyre. The Marathi proverb to the effect that "the husband is the life of the woman" thus ...
— Taboo and Genetics • Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard
... the funeral pyre, And bid the laughing fire, Eager and strong and swift, like my desire, Scatter my subtle essence into space, Free ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... the fiery flung flashes, Gleam o'er the sad wreck like a funeral pyre; And louder and louder each thunder clap crashes. The air in a roar! the billows ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... or lead; but that Brynhild whom Segurd found, clad in helm and byrne, the warrior maid, who gave him counsel "the deepest that ever yet was given to living man," and "wrought on him to the performing of great deeds;" who, when he died, raised high the funeral pyre and lay down on it beside him, crying, "Nor shall the door swing to at the heel of him as I go in beside him!" We are of a race of women that of old knew no fear, and feared no death, and lived great lives and hoped ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... we regard the clouds above, Our souls are filled with fond desire, To me the smoke of my dead love, Seems rising from the funeral pyre." ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... being burned. Prometheus must be really chained to his rock, and Dirce in very fact be tossed and gored by the wild bull; and Orpheus be torn to pieces by a real bear; and Icarus must really fly, even though he fall and be dashed to death; and Hercules must ascend the funeral pyre and there be veritably burned alive; and slaves and criminals must play their parts heroically in gold and purple ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... Vibulanus, who now looked upon the young man as their patron, had raised a prodigious din of applause during the oration, and Quintus was flattered to feel that he had not studied rhetoric in vain. Finally, as next of kin, he had to apply the torch to the funeral pyre, and preside over the funeral feast, held by custom nine days after the actual burning, and over the contests of gladiators which took place at this festivity. Meanwhile Sextus Flaccus had been attending to the legal business ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... "Upon his funeral pyre he lay Crownless, his sceptre passed away, The shade of Solon seem to say, oudeis toon ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... bound him in his chair. They tied the babe down in his cradle. They set fire to the house. Heaven send that the reek choked them before the fire touched them! They lie yonder beneath the funeral pyre—our venerable sire and ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... on the greedy tongues of fire, To make of those dread mounds a funeral pyre, As raging onward o'er their victims broke, The fearful conflict of the ...
— Home Lyrics • Hannah. S. Battersby
... 206). The wife's religious service is not concerned with feasts to the Manes, with sacrifice to the gods, nor with studying the Veda. In all these she has no part. Her religion is to serve her husband (III. 205. 23), and to die, if worthy of the honor, on his funeral pyre. Otherwise the epic woman has religious practices only in visiting the holy watering-places, which now abound, and in reading the epic itself. For it is said of both practices: "Whether man or woman read this book (or 'visit this holy pool') he or she is freed ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... for escape; the wild beasts' dens were full. One strangled died; another from the height Fell headlong down upon the unpitying earth, And from the encrimsoned victor snatched his death: One built his funeral pyre and oped his veins, And sealed the furnace ere his blood was gone. Borne through the trembling town the leaders' heads Were piled in middle forum: hence men knew Of murders else unpublished. Not on gates Of Diomedes (11), tyrant king of Thrace, Nor ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... A funeral pyre was soon constructed with splinters of wood, Dolly ran to the kitchen for matches, and Willie turned his jacket inside out, tied Ada's sack about his neck by the sleeves, put the watering-pot on his head, and was ready to personate the priest. Ada selected four victims, who were securely bound ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... on Book VII. stanza ciii. Procris was accidentally slain by her husband, Eriphyle was killed by her son Alcmaeon, Evadne threw herself on her husband's funeral pyre, and Laodamia also died with her husband. For Pasiphae, see note on ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... blows of his iron logic. He pushed me away from all I had esteemed reliable in the universe, till I seemed to stand on the verge of creation. There I hung with the strength of terror. Then I found poet Campbell true to nature, where he speaks of hope standing intact ''mid Nature's funeral pyre.' I insisted upon 'hoping,' in spite of all ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... it up: and when he was dead, all who survived deemed him happy, as sure to have a divine lot in Hades. And as to thy fire, did not Decius, the general of the Romans, anticipate it for himself, having piled up a funeral pyre between the two armies, and sacrificed himself to Cronos, dedicating himself for the supremacy of his country? And the chaste and loving wives of the Indians strive and contend with one another for the fire, and she that wins the day ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... both destroyed by the sun. The exposure of the child in infancy represents the long rays of the morning-sun resting on the hillside. Then Paris forsakes Oinone ("the wine-coloured one"), but meets her again at the gloaming when she lays herself by his side amid the crimson flames of the funeral pyre. Sarpedon also, a solar hero, is made to fight on the side of the Niblungs or Trojans, attended by his friend Glaukos ("the brilliant one"). They command the Lykians, or "children of light"; and with them comes also Memnon, son of the ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... Bay. Here the natives are burned to ashes. For some distance they had noticed funeral processions on their way to this place. The remains are borne on open litters. A granite platform is the base of the funeral pyre, and the bodies wait their turn to be reduced to ashes; and the cremation is far more repulsive than that in ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic |
