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Priam   /prˈaɪˌæm/  /prˈaɪəm/   Listen
Priam

noun
1.
(Greek mythology) the last king of Troy; father of Hector and Paris and Cassandra.






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"Priam" Quotes from Famous Books



... Serv. Aen. ii. 57, a curious passage, in which the release of Sinon from his bonds by King Priam is compared with that of the prisoner who enters the flaminia (house of the Flamen Dialis). That there was something in the iron which interfered with the religious efficacy of the Flamen seems likely; cp. the rule that he might wear no ring unless it were broken, and have no knot about ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler

... cause, quoth she, Why the Grecians sacked Troy? Fond done, done fond, Was this King Priam's joy? With that she sighed as she stood, With that she sighed as she stood, And gave this sentence then; Among nine bad if one be good, Among nine bad if one be good, There's yet ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various

... despise thee too, as well as hate thee? Complain of grief, complain thou art a man.— Priam from fortune's lofty summit fell; Great Alexander 'midst his conquests mourn'd; Heroes and demi-gods have known their sorrows; Caesars have wept; and I have had—my blow: But, 'tis reveng'd, and now my work is done. Yet, ere I fall, be it one part of vengeance To force thee to confess that I am just.— ...
— The Revenge - A Tragedy • Edward Young

... pillars, one of them about twenty-five feet in length, and at least five in diameter. Near these they saw arches of brick-work, and on the east of them those magnificent remains, to which early travellers have given the name of the palace of Priam, but which are, in fact, the ruins of ancient baths. An earthquake in the course of the preceding winter had thrown down large portions of them, and the internal divisions of the edifice were, in consequence, choked with huge masses of mural ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt

... unfaithful to flesh and blood; the Dream that longs for the embrace of reality, that wanders never satisfied till it finds a reality as immortal as itself. Helen couldn't stay in the house of Theseus, or the house of Menelaus or the house of Priam. Theseus was a fool if he thought he would take her by force, and Paris was a fool if he thought he could keep her for pleasure; and Menelaus was the biggest fool of all if he expected her to bear him children ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... is useless; cease to lament," Achilles to Priam, his suppliant for the body of Hecor. "For thus have the gods appointed for mortal men; that they should live in vexation, while the gods themselves are untroubled. Two vessels are set upon the ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch

... to stop him. "Alas!" said he, "All advice would be useless. I can foretell destiny, but I cannot change it. M. de la Perouse would laugh if he heard my words, as the son of Priam laughed when Cassandra prophesied; and see, you begin to laugh yourself, Count Haga, and laughing is contagious: your companions are catching it. Do not restrain yourselves, gentlemen—I am accustomed to ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere

... turn had been gather'd; Now he was king for a third in the bountiful region of Pylos. He, with beneficent thoughts, in the midst of them rose and address'd them:— "Woe to me! great is the grief that has come on the land of Achaia! Great of a surety for Priam the joy and the children of Priam! Ilion holds not a soul in her bounds but will leap into gladness, Soon as the tidings go forth that ye two are divided in anger, Foremost in council among us and foremost of all in the battle! Hear me while yet there ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various

... When you have answered? 'Take the leave you seek.' Then why should Ajax, though so oft renowned For patriot service, rot above the ground, Your bravest next Achilles, just that Troy And envious Priam may the scene enjoy, Beholding him, through whom their children came To feed the dogs, himself cast out to shame? 'A flock the madman slew, and cried that he Had killed my brother, Ithacus, and me.' Well, ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace

... paused a moment, then with great emotion he repeated the magnificent lines of Hector prophesying the fall of Priam, and his house, and his great town of Troy. His voice trembled and shook sadly as he concluded, 'My house too has fallen and nears its end, and I alone am left to tell the tale—the tale of a most foul—as I ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease

... entirely filled with battles, which are very skillfully diversified. Some episodes, such as the farewell of Hector to his wife Andromache when he quits her for the fight, or King Priam coming, in tears, to ask Achilles for the corpse of his son Hector that he may piously inter it, are among the most beautiful passages that ever came from a ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet

... Oileus [O.i'.luce], generally called "the less." In conseqnence of his insolence to Cassan'dra, the prophetic daughter of Priam, his ship was driven on a rock, and he perished at sea.—Homer, Odyssey, iv. ...
— 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.

... Ilium was in flames, Were sent to Heaven by woful Trojan dames, 700 When Pyrrhus toss'd on high his burnish'd blade, And offer'd Priam to his father's shade, Than for the cock the widow'd poultry made. Fair Partlet first, when he was borne from sight, With sovereign shrieks bewail'd her captive knight: Far louder than the Carthaginian wife, When Asdrubal, her husband, lost his life; When she beheld ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... I didn't know and was much astonished when I saw Priam come upon the stage in the tragedies with a bird, which kept watching Lysicrates(1) to see if he ...
— The Birds • Aristophanes

... Cecil Mayford had made his unlucky offer to Alice, he appeared at Sam's bedside very early, as if he had come to draw Priam's curtains; and told him shortly, that he had spoken, and had been received with contempt; that he was a miserable brute, and that he was going back home to attend to his business;—under the circumstances, the best thing he ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley

... thunder of the hexameters—a music which, like that of the Sirens, few can hear without being lured to the seas and isles of song. Then the tutor might translate a passage of moving interest, like Priam's appeal to Achilles; first, of course, explaining the situation. Then the teacher might go over some lines, minutely pointing out how the Greek words are etymologically connected with many words in English. Next, he might ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang

... last the load of his forebodings was greater than he could bear, he gets up, steals into the Doctor's cabin, wakes him up, and standing over him—as the messenger of ill tidings once stood over Priam—whispers, "SIR!" "What is it?" says Fitz, thinking, perhaps, some one was ill. "Do you know where we are going?" "Why, to Throndhjem," answered Fitz. "We were going to Throndhjem," rejoins Wilson, "but we ain't now—the vessel's course was altered two hours ago. Oh, ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)

... depreciation she might not choose to depart, she had sunk to as low as the human form, as though she had had to be restrained by chains of flesh, and then for many ages being turned about through a succession of female conditions, she became also that Helen who proved so fatal to Priam, and after to the eyes of Stesichorus, for she had caused his blindness on account of the insult of his poem, and afterwards had removed it because of her pleasure at his praise. And thus transmigrating from body to body, in the extreme of dishonour she had stood, ticketed ...
— Simon Magus • George Robert Stow Mead

... contrary condition. And so it was that Agesilaus made answer to one who was saying what a happy young man the King of Persia was, to come so young to so mighty a kingdom: "'Tis true," said he, "but neither was Priam unhappy at his years."—[Plutarch, Apothegms of the Lacedaemonians.]—In a short time, kings of Macedon, successors to that mighty Alexander, became joiners and scriveners at Rome; a tyrant of Sicily, a pedant at Corinth; a ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... in which the old king and his great family lived was Ilium, though it is better known as Troja or Troy, because that is the name that the Roman people used for it in later times. One of the sons of Priam, for that was the name of this king, was Paris, who, though very handsome, was a wayward and troublesome youth. He once journeyed to Greece to find a wife, and there fell in love with a beautiful daughter ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman

... but drifted desolate dust where once was Mycenae, though I am more obscure to see than any chance rock, he who looks on the famed city of Ilus, whose walls I trod down and emptied all the house of Priam, will know thence how great my former strength was; and if old age has done me outrage, I am content with ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail

... he replied, "and a prophet who leaves far behind him the sibyls with their sacred verses as well as the daughter of King Priam, and that great diviner of future things, Plato of Athens. You will find in the fourth of his Syracusan cantos the birth of our Lord foretold in a lancune that seems of heaven rather than of earth.* In the time of my early studies, when I read for the first time ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France

... she eagerly repaired to the dark room, wondering, yet half dreading to enter on the subject, and beginning by an apology for having by no means perfected herself in Priam's visit to Achilles. ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... centers around the siege of ancient Troy by the Greeks. Its hero, Troilus, is a young son of Priam, high-spirited and enthusiastic, who is in love with Cressida, daughter of a Trojan priest. Pandarus, Cressida's uncle, acts as go-between for the lovers. Just as the suit of Troilus is crowned with success, Cressida, from motives of policy, is forced to join her father Calchas, who is ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken

... Aetna and its crags, spotted with fire. Turn then to converse under human laws, Receive us shipwrecked suppliants, and provide Food, clothes, and fire, and hospitable gifts; 285 Nor fixing upon oxen-piercing spits Our limbs, so fill your belly and your jaws. Priam's wide land has widowed Greece enough; And weapon-winged murder leaped together Enough of dead, and wives are husbandless, 290 And ancient women and gray fathers wail Their childless age;—if you should roast the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... AEsacus told his father that it was absolutely necessary to put to death both the mother and the infant which was born on that same day; on which Priam being informed that Cilla, the wife of Thymaetes, being delivered on that day of a son, he ordered them both to be killed; thinking thereby to escape the realization of the prediction. Servius, on the authority of Euphorion, relates the story in much the same manner; but a poet quoted by ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso



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



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