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Orphic   /ˈɔrfɪk/   Listen
Orphic

adjective
1.
Ascribed to Orpheus or characteristic of ideas in works ascribed to Orpheus.
2.
Having an import not apparent to the senses nor obvious to the intelligence; beyond ordinary understanding.  Synonyms: mysterious, mystic, mystical, occult, secret.  "The mystical style of Blake" , "Occult lore" , "The secret learning of the ancients"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Orphic" Quotes from Famous Books



... were civilised: by witchery of the Orphic fiddle-bow, and Euterpean rhythm; by the Graces, by the Smiles! Thermidorian Deputies are there in those soirees; Editor Freron, Orateur du Peuple; Barras, who has known other dances than the Carmagnole. Grim Generals of the Republic are there; in enormous ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... which they call calasiris; above these they have garments of white wool thrown over: woollen garments however are not taken into the temples, nor are they buried with them, for this is not permitted by religion. In these points they are in agreement with the observances called Orphic and Bacchic (which are really Egyptian), 71 and also with those of the Pythagoreans, for one who takes part in these mysteries is also forbidden by religious rule to be buried in woollen garments; and about this there is a sacred ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus

... talking more and more quickly, and gesticulating with a little piece of bread and butter in his right hand. "It is ze entire liberation from the laws of logical perspective that makes movement—the Orphic cubism—if you will allow me to ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson

... part of their appointed destiny—at moments flashes on the human child the intuition of the unutterable secret. In the spangled glory of the summer night—in the roar of the Nile-flood, sweeping down fertility in every wave—in the awful depths of the temple-shrine—in the wild melodies of old Orphic singers, or before the images of those gods of whose perfect beauty the divine theosophists of Greece caught a fleeting shadow, and with the sudden might of artistic ecstasy smote it, as by an enchanter's wand, into an eternal sleep of snowy ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley

... Mutes.' The institution is in the most flourishing condition, and its usefulness greatly increased. We are sorry to perceive, by the following 'specimen of composition' of a pupil in the eighth class, that the 'Orphic Sayings' of Mr. A. BRONSON ALCOTT are taken as literary models by the deaf and dumb students. The ensuing is certainly much better, internally, than anything from the transcendental 'seer;' but the manner too nearly resembles ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various

... Orphic utterance at West Point, Styles Staple emptied the partnership's pocket-flask, and then slept peacefully until we reached ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... the Tragic and goatish life, and tragedy is the place of them.' Several philosophers and sophists are mentioned by name: first, Protagoras and Euthydemus are assailed; then the interpreters of Homer, oi palaioi Omerikoi (compare Arist. Met.) and the Orphic poets are alluded to by the way; then he discovers a hive of wisdom in the philosophy of Heracleitus;—the doctrine of the flux is contained in the word ousia ( osia the pushing principle), an anticipation of Anaxagoras is found in psuche and selene. Again, he ridicules ...
— Cratylus • Plato

... that religion itself became aware of the need of the times, and that the attempt was made, late in the day but with deep earnestness and great ability, to construct out of the myths a reasoned account of the origin of things. This was the aim of the Orphic poets. Orpheus, the mythical singer of Thrace, who charmed men and beasts with his songs on earth, had descended into Hades to fetch back his wife, who had been taken from him, and had beheld the secrets of the under-world. The school which was named after him ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies

... palpable, life-giving soul, and, as always happens, seeking the quiet, and not too anxious to make itself felt by others. With some unfixed, though real, place in the general scheme of Greek religion, this phase of the worship of Dionysus had its special development in the Orphic literature and mysteries. Obscure as are those followers of the mystical Orpheus, we yet certainly see them, moving, and playing their part, in the later ages of Greek religion. Old friends with new faces, though they had, ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... the aisles of the hills. A grey eerie light began to spread ghostly along the gallery. The ebon cloud was breaking, but torrents of rain continued to descend. Paul's keen intuition told him that Jules Thessaly was indisposed to pursue the Orphic discussion further at the moment, but he realised that the owner of Babylon Hall was no ordinary man, but one who had delved deeply into lore which had engaged much of his own attention. He found himself looking forward with impatient ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer

... given over his school to a younger brother named Joseph, but it was still kept in the old house in Eighth Street, where also I had taken my lessons in the rudiments of Transcendentalism from the Orphic Alcott. It was now a fairly good school as things went in those days, with the same lectures in Natural Philosophy and Chemistry—the same mild doses of French and Latin. The chief assistant was E. Otis Kimball, subsequently a professor of astronomy, ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland

... of the populace we find many traces of mysticism and magic, as for example in connexion with oracles, with divine healing, with the efficacy of images and other sacred objects, and especially in connexion with Orphic and other Mysteries. And, while for the most part Greek philosophy was rather imaginative than mystic, still we encounter the genuine mystic element in such Greek sages as Empedocles and Pythagoras, both of whom assumed the priestly character and seem ...
— The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' • H. B. Cotterill

... indefinite next greater and lesser determinants. The obscure consciousness of this has made itself felt in many religions when they have progressed to a certain plane of thought. The ancient Egyptian gods were nearly all triune; Phanes, in the Orphic hymns the first principle of things, was tripartite; the Indian trinities are well known; the Celtic triads applied to divine as well as human existence; the Jews distinguished between Jehovah, his Wisdom and his Word; and in Christian religion and philosophy the doctrine of the trinity, though ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton

... child seemed all happiness. He brought hope, and a sense of atonement, and all sweet things, to the quiet family at Beaubocage; and as he grew from childhood to boyhood, from boyhood to manhood, it seemed to that household as if the first Gustave of their love had never been taken from them. That Orphic fable of Zagreus repeats itself in many households. For the one bright creature lost another is given; and then comes a time when it is almost difficult to separate the image of the missing one from the dear substitute who so nearly ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

... calm and sure, From the dread watch-tower of man's absolute self, With light unwaning on her eyes, to look Far on—herself a glory to behold. The Angel of the vision! Then (last strain) Of Duty, chosen laws controlling choice, Action and joy!—An Orphic song indeed, A song divine of high and passionate thoughts To their own music chanted! O great Bard! Ere yet that last strain dying awed the air, With stedfast eye I viewed thee in the choir Of ever-enduring men. The truly great Have all one age, and from one visible space Shed influence! ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth

... the predecessors of Caesar in the description of Britain. Recent as it is, it is important; since some of the details are taken from the voyage of Himilco, a Carthaginian. He supplies us with a commentary upon the word Demeter, in the so-called Orphic poem—a commentary which will soon ...
— The Ethnology of the British Islands • Robert Gordon Latham



Words linked to "Orphic" :   esoteric, Orpheus, mystical, occult, secret



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