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Galatea   /gˌælətˈiə/   Listen
Galatea

noun
1.
(Greek mythology) a maiden who was first a sculpture created by Pygmalion and was brought to life by Aphrodite in answer to Pygmalion's prayers.






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"Galatea" Quotes from Famous Books



... a foot so fair the belle exposed, E'en Galatea never such disclosed; The stream, that glided by, received the prize; Her lilies she beheld with downcast eyes, And, half ashamed, herself surveyed at ease, While round the zephyrs ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine

... lovers, so sweetly described by Mr Gay, who were struck dead in each other's arms. There is something so pathetic in the description, that I have read it an hundred times with new rapture.'—'In my opinion,' cried my son, 'the finest strokes in that description are much below those in the Acis and Galatea of Ovid. The Roman poet understands the use of contrast better, and upon that figure artfully managed all strength in the pathetic depends.'—'It is remarkable,' cried Mr Burchell, 'that both the poets you ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith

... in part ludicrous. Such subjects are scarce fitted for Catgut. Even Magnus Handel—even Messiah. He (Handel) was a good old Pagan at heart, and (till he had to yield to the fashionable Piety of England) stuck to Opera, and Cantatas, such as Acis and Galatea, Milton's Penseroso, Alexander's Feast, etc., where he could revel and plunge and frolic without being tied down to Orthodoxy. And these are (to my mind) his really great works: these, and his Coronation Anthems, where Human ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald

... June, the day after, the wind moderated and became fair, the weather cleared up, and we sailed almost into Simon's Bay, a snug little nook at the north-western angle of False Bay. It then fell calm, but the boats of the men-of-war at anchor, his Majesty's ships Lion, Nisus, and Galatea, soon towed us into our berth. During the winter of that hemisphere, which corresponds to our northern summer, the only safe quarters for ships is in Simon's Bay, on the south side of ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall

... Gilbert did a Pygmalion-and-Galatea act. He changed from a statue of stupefaction to a young man with a problem to tackle. He admitted Nevada, got a whisk-broom, and began to brush the snow from her clothes. A great lamp, with a green shade, hung over an ...
— Options • O. Henry

... the eyes of Polymnestor, and is changed into a bitch. Birds arise from the funeral pile of Memnon, and kill each other. Escape of AEneas from Troy, and voyage to Delos. The daughters of Anius transformed to doves. Voyage to Crete and Italy. Story of Acis and Galatea. Love ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid

... Roman as well as Sanscrit and other Oriental writers, and they assume as diverse forms as in modern erotic literature. The commonest is that in which a girl's complexion is compared to lilies and roses. The Cyclops in Theocritus tells Galatea she is "whiter than milk ... brighter than a bunch of hard grapes." The mistress of Propertius has a complexion white as lilies; her cheeks remind him of "rose leaves ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... Galatea. In the story told by Ovid (Met. x. 243) Pygmalion, king of Cyprus, conceived an aversion to women, and devoted himself to art, but having made in ivory a lovely statue of a woman he became enamored of it, and at his request Aphrodite ...
— Legends, Tales and Poems • Gustavo Adolfo Becquer

... scarfs, ladies, cuirassiers, fiddlers, and trumpeters in and about the hall was such a sight as is seldom met with but in romances. De Noirmoutier, who was a great admirer of Astrea, said he imagined that we were besieged in Marcilli. "Well you may," said I; "Madame de Longueville is as fair as Galatea, but Marsillac (son of M. de La Rochefoucault) is not a man of so much honour as Lindamore." I fancy I was overheard by one in a neighbouring window, who might have told M. de La Rochefoucault, for otherwise I cannot guess at ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz

... my coolness and indifference. The first day I merely hunted for whim, character, and absurdity, according to my usual custom; the second day being rainy, I sat in the bar-room at the Seventh Ward, and read a volume of 'Galatea,' which I found on a shelf; but before I had got through a hundred pages, I had three or four good Feds sprawling round me on the floor, and another with his eyes half shut, leaning on my shoulder in the most affectionate manner, and spelling a page of the book as if it had been an electioneering ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner

... long In tattered cloak of army pattern, And Galatea joined the throng,— A blowsy, apple-vending slattern; While old Silenus staggered out From some new-fangled lunch-house handy, And bade the piper, with a shout, To strike up ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various

... of this literature are Kenrick's "The Whole Duty of a Woman, or A Guide to the Female Sex," published some time in the eighteenth century (a copy in the Galatea Collection, Boston Public Library); and Duties of Young Women, by E.H. Chapin. 218 pp. ...
— Taboo and Genetics • Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard

... Bateson feeding her fowls," said Elisabeth evasively; "and, I say, have you ever noticed that hens are just like tea-pots, and cocks like coffee-pots? Look at them now! It seems as if an army of breakfast services had suddenly come to life a la Galatea, and were pouring ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler

... away, The Sun is up and will not stay; And oh how very short's a Lover's Day! Make haste, Amintas, to this Grove, Beneath whose Shade so oft I've sat, And heard my dear lay'd Swain repeat, How much he Galatea lov'd; Whilst all the listening Birds around, Sung to the Musick of ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn

... destroyed for ever, if he brought a favourite slave under the same roof as his 'wife,' and thus sinned against the laws of outward seemliness. So Machbuba and the master who, like another Pygmalion, seems to have endowed this dusky Galatea with a mind and soul, remained at Vienna, where the Abyssinian, clad in a picturesque Mameluke's costume, accompanied the prince to all the public spectacles, and became a nine days' wonder to the novelty-loving Viennese. But the severity ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston

... will go down in history as the date of this titanic conflict. The British light cruiser Galatea on patrol duty near Horn Reef reported at 2.20 o'clock on the afternoon of that day, that it had sighted smoke plumes denoting the advance of enemy vessels from the direction of Helgoland Bight. Fifteen minutes later the smoke ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish

... Atlantic as it races in mighty waves on to the beach at Long Branch. She declares that in the offing, among the snowy craft which dance at anchor there, can be distinguished her pretty steam yacht, the Galatea. ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar

... cast at length Her eyes upon the sluggard, when my beard 'Gan whiter fall beneath the barber's blade- Cast eyes, I say, and, though long tarrying, came, Now when, from Galatea's yoke released, I serve but Amaryllis: for I will own, While Galatea reigned over me, I had No hope of freedom, and no thought to save. Though many a victim from my folds went forth, Or rich cheese pressed for the unthankful town, Never with ...
— The Bucolics and Eclogues • Virgil

... foreseen this attitude—had, in fact, painted with feverish energy in anticipation of it. The comparison was too striking to be missed by an artist. Were it not for the tightly clinging garments, the pair would have provided a charming representation of Galatea in stone and Galatea after Pygmalion's frenzy had warmed her ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy

... world opened up before her. Her hands flew to her throat, her hair. She flushed into vivid life as the marble Galatea incardinated under ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy

... little square shoulders. Her eyes were blue and black lashed, her nose nondescript, her mouth large, her chin square and her little jaw line long and pronounced. She wore a soiled sailor suit of blue galatea. Caught in the crotch of two opposite branches was a doll almost as large as the sleeping child below. It was a queer old-fashioned doll, with a huge china head, that displayed brilliant black hair and eyes as blue as those ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow

... condition and worse placed, no two of them corresponding to each other, a figure midway between the two extremes, neither tall nor short, a vivid complexion, rather fair than dark, somewhat stooped in the shoulders, and not very lightfooted: this, I say, is the author of 'Galatea,' 'Don Quixote de la Mancha,' 'The Journey to Parnassus,' which he wrote in imitation of Cesare Caporali Perusino, and other works which are current among the public, and perhaps without the author's name. He is commonly called MIGUEL DE CERVANTES SAAVEDRA. He was for ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... top of the cliff, lost in M. Lenepveu's copper ceiling, figures grinned and grimaced, laughed and jeered at MM. Richard and Moncharmin's distress. And yet these figures were usually very serious. Their names were Isis, Amphitrite, Hebe, Pandora, Psyche, Thetis, Pomona, Daphne, Clytie, Galatea and Arethusa. Yes, Arethusa herself and Pandora, whom we all know by her box, looked down upon the two new managers of the Opera, who ended by clutching at some piece of wreckage and from there stared silently at Box Five ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux

... some cases failing to see even the way, and being rescued from peril of water by the Skipper or Rento. The favourite shells were the conches, of all sizes and varieties, from the huge pink-lipped Tritons of the "Triumph of Galatea," down to fairy things, many-whorled, rainbow-tinted, which were included in the "handful for five cents" which Franci joyously proclaimed at intervals, when he thought the children looked wistful and needed cheering up, since they could ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards

... family in their palace, which is now the Villa Farnesina, scenes from the history of Cupid and Psyche, and the Triumph of Galatea, subjects which show how the passion for classical mythology that distinguishes the next generation, was beginning to work. To these last years belong his 'Madonna di San Sisto,' so named from its having been painted for the ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler

... up Thorwaldsen's bust at the end of the table, attired in a dressing-gown, for he was to be a guest; such was her whim. Songs were sung and cheers were given, for it was a gay wedding, and they were a handsome pair. "Pygmalion received his Galatea," so one of the ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen

... a butterfly.' Thou art vanity absolute, conceit beyond measure, and presumption out of all whooping. Yea, and but as a fool Pygmalion, not content with loving thine own handiwork, thou must needs fall in love with the goddess that breathed life into its stiff limbs; must yearn, not for Galatea, but for Aphrodite; not for ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... unblackan'd elms were gay; The kine were resting in the shade, 40 The flies a summer-murmur made. Bright was the morn and south deg. the air; deg.42 The soft-couch'd cattle were as fair As those which pastured by the sea, That old-world morn, in Sicily, 45 When on the beach the Cyclops lay, And Galatea from the bay Mock'd her poor lovelorn giant's lay. deg. deg.48 "Behold," I said, "the painter's sphere! The limits of his art appear. 50 The passing group, the summer-morn, The grass, the elms, that blossom'd thorn— Those cattle couch'd, or, as they rise, Their shining flanks, their ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold

... Venus, Galatea's shape, A wondering world beheld, as we behold, — Here, in blest isles beyond the stormy Cape, Where man the new land dowers with the old, Are neither marble shapes nor fruits of gold, Nor white-limbed maidens, queened enchantress-wise; Here, Nature's beauties no vast ruins enfold, ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens

... to their piping. The old gods had not been discrowned and banished; and to fishers drawing their nets the coasts yet kept a something of the trace of amorous Polypheme, the rocks were peopled with memories of his plaint to Galatea. Inland, among the dim and thymy woods, bee-haunted and populous with dreams of dryad and oread, there were rumours of Pan; and dwellers under thatch—the goatherd mending his sandals, the hind carving his ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley

... the loveliest silver-mounted tobacco-stopper you ever saw. It is a little box-wood Triton, carved with charming liveliness and truth; I have often compared it to a figure in Raphael's "Triumph of Galatea." It came to me in an ancient shagreen case,—how old it is I do not know,—but it must have been made since Sir Walter Raleigh's time. If you are curious, you shall see it any day. Neither will ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... more The valley echoes to the stolen kisses, Or to the twanging bow, or to the bay Of the immortal hounds, or to the Fauns' Plebeian laughter. From the golden rim Of shells, dewy with pearl, in ocean's depths The snowy loveliness of Galatea Has fallen; and with her, their endless sleep In coral sepulchers the Nereids Forgotten ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells

... Likeman. "In the eighteenth century they used to draw beautiful female figures as Science and Mathematics. Young men have loved Science—and Freedom—as Pygmalion loved Galatea. Have it so if you will. Have a visible person for your Deity. But let ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells

... brought with her complete dramatic ballets, the characters in which were appropriately dressed according to the time and place of the story they related; for Mdlle. Salle was a reformer in the matter of stage costumes. She discarded paniers and hoops and false hair. As Galatea in a ballet upon the story of Pygmalion, she wore nothing, we are told, "in addition to her bodice and under petticoats, but a simple robe of muslin draped after the manner of a Greek statue." She ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook

... would not answer him; she was ashamed to be caught mimicking such a rough ridiculous song. Oh, and the pet that your beau brought you in his arms!—a bear cub nearly as shaggy as himself. Now then, Galatea, do you still think we ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata

... of Piety, in which are bronze busts of Titus Vespasian and Nero, and a fine bas-relief of the Grecian Daughter. In front of this temple the water assumes a variety of fantastical forms, ornamented at different points by statues of Neptune, Bacchus, Roman Wrestlers, Galatea, &c. The banqueting-house contains a Venus de Medicis, and a painting of the Governor of Surat, on horseback, in a Turkish habit; on the front of this building are spirited figures of Envy, Hatred, and Malice. From the octagon tower, Mackershaw Lodge and Wood are seen to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 343, November 29, 1828 • Various

... lovesick Polypheme, that could not see, Who on the barren shore His fortunes doth deplore, And melteth all in moan For Galatea gone, And with his piteous cries Afflicts both earth and skies, And to his woe betook Doth break both pipe and hook, For whom complains the morn, For whom the sea-nymphs mourn, Alas, his pain is nought; For were my woe but thought, Oh how would Phoebe sigh ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge

... diligence, proceeding step by step in every line, with the same kind of caution and circumspection (though I cannot say upon quite so religious a principle) as was used by John de la Casse, the lord archbishop of Benevento, in compassing his Galatea; in which his Grace of Benevento spent near forty years of his life; and when the thing came out, it was not of above half the size or the thickness of a Rider's Almanack.—How the holy man managed the ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne

... to see them return with a Bird of Paradise in full plumage, a pair of the fine Papuan lories (Lorius domicella), four other lories and parroquets, a grackle (Gracula dumonti), a king-hunter (Dacelo gaudichaudi), a racquet-tailed kingfisher (Tanysiptera galatea), and two or three other ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... of September 7, 1886, in which the "May Flower" distanced the "Galatea" by two miles and a half, was a spanking race. Our sporting blood was roused to fighting pitch, and we became more active in every way of outdoor sports. Lawn tennis tournaments were epidemic all over the country. ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage

... now!" he said. "Let us not lose our only chance of happiness. 'Come forth, O Galatea, and forget as thou comest, even as I already have forgot, the homeward way! Nay, choose with me to ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell

... Mrs. Martin,—How am I to thank you for this most beautiful shawl, looking fresh from Galatea's flocks, and woven by something finer than her fingers? You are too good and kind, and I shall wrap myself in this piece of affectionateness on your part with very pleasant feelings. Thank you, thank you. I only wish I could have ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... had set up Thorwalsden's bust at the end of the table, attired in a dressing-gown; it was her fancy that he should be a guest. Songs were sung, and cheers given; for it was a gay wedding, and they were a handsome pair. "Pygmalion loved his Galatea," said one of ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... matter of conscious perception, but only of the vague sense which it is the office of decoration to impart, had grown less pleasing with the passage of time. There in the first hall was the story of Cupid and Psyche in the literal illustration of Apuleius, and there in another hall was Galatea on her shell with her Nymphs and Tritons and Amorini; and there were Perseus and Medusa and Icarus and Phaeton and the rest of them. But, if I gave way to all the frankness of my nature, I should own the subjects fallen silly through the old age ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells

... stiffening of the line here and there, a little greater turn of the foot upon the ankle and of the hand upon the wrist, the figure in the painting has been given an accent of rusticity that makes it more human, more natural, and more appealing. She is no longer a possible Galatea or Arethusa, she is only a goose girl, and we feel but the more strongly on that account the eternal poem ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox

... than lambs and whiter than the curds, O Galatea, swan-nymph of the sea! Vain is my longing, worthless are my words; Why do you come in night's sweet dreams to me, And when I wake, swift leave me, as in fear The lambkin hastens ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan

... gave eyes to ears and showed in sound All thoughts and things in earth or heaven above— From fire and hailstones running along the ground To Galatea grieving for her love— He who could show to all unseeing eyes Glad shepherds watching o'er their flocks by night, Or Iphis angel-wafted to the skies, Or Jordan standing ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler

... floundering in the waters like an enormous whale; the herring shoals hurrying away from his unwieldy gambols, as from the presence of the real sea-born leviathan. Cacus in love was not more grand, or the gigantic Polyphemus, sighing at the feet of Galatea, or infernal Pluto looking amiable beside his ravished queen. Have you seen an elephant in love? If you have, you may conceive what Mr. Tims would ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 13, No. 359, Saturday, March 7, 1829. • Various

... too his reminiscences of the said Acis and Galatea as given at the Concerts for Ancient Music. "I can see them now, the dear old creeters with the gold eye-glasses and their turbans, noddling their heads ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald

... a white woollen material, inexpensive perhaps, but classic in its soft foldings around the slender body; and the thought flitted through Max's head that she was like a slim Greek statue, come alive; or perhaps Galatea, disappointed with the world, ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson

... story of Apollo playing his harp amongst the nine muses in the Parnasus is singular. In the house(191) of Augustimguis (Chigi) Raphael has painted very preciously a poetry, the story of Psyche, and very gracefully he surrounded Galatea by mermen in the middle of the waves and by cupids in the air. The picture in S. Pietro in Montorio of the Transfiguration of our Lord,(192) in oils, is very good, and another in Aracoeli, and in the Temple ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd



Words linked to "Galatea" :   mythical being, Greek mythology



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