"Sorceress" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Naturally our Ozma wished to undertake the adventure of liberating the poor prisoners; but for a long time she could find no way to cross the great desert between the two countries. Finally she went to a friendly sorceress of our land named Glinda the Good, who heard the story and at once presented Ozma a magic carpet, which would continually unroll beneath our feet and so make a comfortable path for us to cross the desert. As soon as she ...
— Ozma of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... fierce Ambition fired your mind— 40 Beside your glittering car, Amid the thickest war, Went Superstition, sorceress blind, In dimly-figured robe, with scowling mien, Half hid in jealous hood; And Tyranny, beneath whose helm was seen His eye suffused with blood; And giant Pride, That the great sun with haughty smile defied; And Avarice, that grasped his guilty gold; ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... seduced the affections of Basina, the queen of his protector. When he regained his throne he induced her to leave her husband, and made her his queen. Basina was a sorceress, one who could divine the future and also bestow the gift upon others. Through this she gained great influence over Childeric, who desired to see and know what fate had in store for himself and his race. Basina agreed to satisfy his curiosity, and one night, at the midnight hour, they ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... before them. Frank's experience seemed to be highly satisfactory, for he reappeared grinning cheerfully. Perhaps he had cause, but he did not reveal it, and when his brother came forth from the clutches of the sorceress, he insisted that he should have ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... had consulted Yaga, a wicked sorceress; she advised them to obtain the help of Kostey the magician, who promised his aid in carrying off the princess. When he came he fell in love with the beautiful maiden at first sight, and determined to marry her himself. In order to bring ...
— Fairy Tales of the Slav Peasants and Herdsmen • Alexander Chodsko
... shallow compared to Janauschek's, as I have seen it in by-gone years, when she played Iphigenia and Medea in German. No one save a Bohemian could ever so intuit the gloomy profundity and unearthly fire of the Colchian sorceress. These are the things required to perfect every artist,—above all, the tragic artist,—that the tree of his or her genius shall not only soar to heaven among the angels, but also have roots in the depths of darkness and fire; and that he or she ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... considerably puzzled how to act. "If I hold my tongue, I shall look like a fool, or, at any rate, like a very middling sort of Don Juan: if I persist, I shall perhaps cause the poor girl some disagreeable scene. Can she be afraid of the duenna? Hardly. When that amiable old sorceress devoured my comfits, she became in some sort an accomplice. It cannot be she whom my infanta dreads. Is there a father, brother, husband, or jealous lover in the neighbourhood?" But on looking around, Andres could ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... the confidence of Mary de' Medici, who had insisted this year on her returning to Paris. Henry, who was ever chafing and struggling to escape the invisible and dangerous net which he felt closing about him, and who connected the sorceress with all whom he most loathed among the intimate associates of the Queen, swore a mighty oath that she should not show her face again at court. "My heart presages that some signal disaster will befall me on this coronation. Concini and his wife are urging the Queen obstinately to send for this fanatic. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... against his friend of many years. He scoffed at her. "What have you made me believe?" he said. "That you were a tiresome and peevish old woman with arms full of small, harmless twigs. You are a sorceress of life. You are a monster. You are beautiful, and you are terrible. You yourself know no bounds nor limits; why should I know them? How can you preach fasting, you, who wish to deluge me with such ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... White Man, yet do as this snake bids you—this snake that has lived in my kraal and fed out of my cup. Let him have his fill of vengeance because of the woman who bewitched me—yes, because of the sorceress who has brought me and thousands to the dust. Have you heard, Macumazahn, of the great deed of this son of Matiwane? Have you heard that all the while he was a traitor in the pay of Cetewayo, and that he went over, with the regiments of his command, to the Usutu ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... said to the two old men, "Go to Keawanui and you will get fish enough for the present." He then disappeared, and the fishermen went as instructed and obtained three fishes; one they gave to an old sorceress who lived near by, and the other two they ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various
... who through envy were raising private batteries against me, broke forth. Libels began to spread. Envious people wrote against me, without knowing me. They said that I was a sorceress, that it was by a magic power I attracted souls, that everything in me was diabolical; that if I did charities, it was because I coined, and put off false money, with many other gross accusations, ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... shrines destroyed. Hertha still cherished the same beneficent disposition ascribed to her in the old mythology, and continued to watch over and aid mankind until driven away by the calumnies of which she was the victim, while Frigga appears as a fearful ogress and sorceress. ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... pleasant to tell about that visit. But it was not a disappointment, for I knew Mrs. le Fay by reputation, and was not expecting anything pleasant. She was held in awe by the whole realm, for she had made everybody believe she was a great sorceress. All her ways were wicked, all her instincts devilish. She was loaded to the eyelids with cold malice. All her history was black with crime; and among her crimes murder was common. I was most curious to see her; as curious as I could have been to see Satan. To my surprise she was beautiful; black ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... I have said, debarred from any work or employ, unto which they are enjoined by the word. They have often been called forth to be God's witnesses, and have borne famous testimony for him against the sons of the sorceress and the whore.[14] I remember many of them with comfort, even of these eminent daughters of Sarah, whose daughters you also are, so long as you do well, and are not afraid with any amazement (1 Peter 3:1-6). What by the word of God, you are called unto, what by the word is enjoined you do; ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the experiment. Previously, however, he found means to plead his cause to Medea, daughter of the king. He promised her marriage, and as they stood before the altar of Hecate, called the goddess to witness his oath. Medea yielded, and by her aid, for she was a potent sorceress, he was furnished with a charm, by which he could encounter safely the breath of the fire-breathing bulls and the weapons ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... Richmond, made prisoner at Agincourt by his half-brother King Henry V., who confined him in the Tower, and afterwards in Fotheringay Castle. Joan received hard treatment from her stepson. Accused of being a sorceress—a reputation she inherited from her father, Charles the Bad of Navarre—Henry caused her to be confined in Leeds and Pevensey castles, and deprived her of her property. It was only on his approaching death that he restored her to liberty. ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... an eye upon her from his watchtower, and observing her costume and noting her silence, he concluded that it must be some witch or sorceress that was coming in such a guise to work him some mischief, and he began crossing himself at a great rate. The spectre still advanced, and on reaching the middle of the room, looked up and saw the energy with ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... of AEetes, the king of Colchis, while other authors represent her as the daughter of that monarch, and the sister of Medea. Being acquainted with the properties of simples, and having used her art in mixing poisonous draughts, she was generally looked upon as a sorceress. Apollonius Rhodius says that she poisoned her husband, the king of the Sarmatians, and that her father Apollo rescued her from the rage of her subjects, by transporting her in his chariot into Italy. Virgil and Ovid say that she inhabited one ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... whate'er her style, Would have thee with her go; Stay not to hear the Sorceress vile, But leave her ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... I rushed over to a marble wash-basin and seized a ewer of water, and, going back to the crib, despite the frantic remonstrances of the old sorceress, I baptized the Antichrist in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Before my eyes I saw the inverted cross vanish. Then I soundly spanked the presumptuous youngster and, running down the staircase, I sought the prince and said ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... young paramour, who made his boast That he had gain'd the prize his rival lost.— Acis and Galatea next were seen, And Polyphemus with infuriate mien;— And Glaucus there, by rival arts assail'd, Fell Circe's hate and Scylla's doom bewail'd.— Then sad Carmenta, with her royal lord, Whom the fell sorceress clad, by arts abhorr'd, With plumes; but still the regal stamp impress'd On his imperial wings and lofty crest.— Then she, whose tears the springing fount supplied;— And she whose form above the rolling tide Hangs a portentous cliff—the royal fair, Who wrote the dictates of her last despair To ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... meretricious Alcina, who concealed debility and deformity beneath the deceitful semblance of loveliness and health. Ariosto, the great Ariosto himself, like his own Ruggiero, stooped for a time to linger amidst the magic flowers and fountains, and to caress the gay and painted sorceress. But to him, as to his own Ruggiero, had been given the omnipotent ring and the winged courser, which bore him from the paradise of deception to the ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... presents a character capable of being viewed under a great variety of aspects, and with a corresponding variety of emotions. To the English of her own age, bigoted in their creed, and baffled by her prowess, she appeared inspired by the Devil, and was naturally burnt as a sorceress. In this light, too, she is painted in the poems of Shakspeare. To Voltaire, again, whose trade it was to war with every kind of superstition, this child of fanatic ardour seemed no better than a moonstruck zealot; and the people who followed her, and believed in her, something worse than ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... foot to give the third stamp, when the king rather chose to dismiss Michael with the most ample concessions, than to stand the probable consequences. Another time, it is said, when residing at the tower of Oakwood, upon the Ettrick, about three miles above Selkirk, he heard of the fame of a sorceress, called the witch of Falsehope, on the opposite side of the river. Michael went one morning to put her skill to the test, but was disappointed, by her denying positively any knowledge of the necromantic art. In his discourse with her, he laid ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 492 - Vol. 17, No. 492. Saturday, June 4, 1831 • Various
... her cheeks as the spray of the wild sea, Red, red are her lips as the pomegranate's bloom; Cold, cold are the kisses the phantom will give thee, Ah, cruel her kisses, that smell of the tomb. Hist, hist! 'tis the sorceress with yellow-gold hair— Oh! ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier
... his host and said to him, "O my lord, what is the meaning of these words? Verily thou hast made me fearful of this city and its folk." Replied the old man, "Know, O my son that this is the City of the Magicians and its Queen is as she were She- Satan, a sorceress and a mighty enchantress, passing crafty and perfidious exceedingly. All thou sawest of horses and mules and asses were once sons of Adam like thee and me; they were also strangers, for whoever entereth this city, being a young man like thyself this miscreant witch taketh ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... not to give What my soul loved, while happy thou didst live, Yet little can I give now unto thee, Since thou art rebel, slave, and enemy Unto the love-inspiring Queen; this grace Thou hast alone of me, to leave this place Free as thou camest, though the lovely one Seeks for the sorceress who entrapped her son In every land, and has small joy in aught, Until before her presence thou art brought." Then Psyche, trembling at the words she spake, Durst answer nought, nor for that counsel's sake Could other offerings leave except her tears, As now, tormented by the ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... Ant. A Witch, a Sorceress: I tell thee but the truth; and hear Demetrius, Which has so dealt upon thy bloud with charms, Devilish and dark; so lockt up all thy vertues; So pluckt thee back from ...
— Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (2 of 10) - The Humourous Lieutenant • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... sorceress!" said the abbot. "I am no sorceress," replied Margery, quietly, "neither do I use evil arts; I speak unto you in the words of Christ—bear you the sin if you will not hear. But lo! it is even that which is written, 'He hath blyndid ...
— Mistress Margery • Emily Sarah Holt
... living was immensely worth while! A world which——! He had reached this point, when the mention of Adair brought him back to the cause of his philosophizing—the inscrutable tenderness of the girl, half sorceress, half penitent, seated at his side. She had recovered her calmness by withdrawing her thin fingers from his ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... old sorceress died, and great was the wailing over her body. She was buried on the Monday morning, just opposite the house in which she had lived. A grave was dug two feet deep, and spread over with mats, on which the corpse was laid. Her husband lay on the ...
— Adventures in New Guinea • James Chalmers
... my ruin! He cautioned me against my relatives, and the ingratitude of my marshals! [Footnote: "Le Normand." vol. ii, p. 421.] It is the second time that this is predicted to me, and just as I now saw and heard my father in my dream, the old sorceress spoke to me by the pyramids of Egypt." And the emperor, absorbed in his reflections, muttered in a hollow voice: "'You will have two wives,' said the Egyptian sorceress to me; 'your first wife you will unjustly desert. Your second wife will ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... Deceiv'd, to Theseus, as a foe, present. Unwitting Theseus, in his hand receiv'd The cup presented; when the sire espy'd Upon his ivory-hilted sword a mark, Which prov'd his offspring; from his lips he dash'd The poison. Wrapp'd in clouds by magic rais'd, The sorceress from ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... remote village lives the sorceress Pamphile, who turns her neighbours into various animals. What true humour in the scene where, after mounting the rickety stairs, Lucius, peeping curiously through a chink in the door, is a spectator of ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... "Cherry-Maid," the name was used in the False Faces rites; and at that terrific orgy held on the Kennyetto before the battle of Oriskany, where the first split came in the walls of the Long House, and where that hag-sorceress, Catrine Montour, had failed to pledge the Oneidas to the war-post, the Cherry-Maid had taken part. Indeed, some said that she was a daughter of the Huron witch; but Jack Mount, who saw the rite, swore that the Cherry-Maid was but a beautiful child, ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... sepulchres, they discovered her, sitting sublime on a ragged rock, where Mount Haemus stretches its roots to the Pharsalic field. She was mumbling charms of the Magi and the magical gods. For she feared that the war might yet be transferred to other than the Emathian fields. The sorceress was busy therefore enchanting the soil of Philippi, and scattering on its surface the juice of potent herbs, that it might be heaped with carcasses of the dead, and saturated with their blood, that Macedon, and not Italy, ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... a sorceress," he said to her laughing. "You guessed everything. What folly I should have committed without you! We'll manage our little affairs together now. Kiss ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... tablets that they are all addressed to the gods by name, e.g. 'May the great gods remove the spell from my body,' or 'O flaming Fire-god, mighty son of Anu! judge thou my case and grant me a decision! Burn up the sorcerers and sorceress!' It is the gods that are prayed to that the word of the sorceress 'shall turn back to her own mouth; may the gods of might smite her in her magic; may the magic which she has worked ...
— The Idea of God in Early Religions • F. B. Jevons
... Lady Randolph. "You are astonished, Lucy. Mademoiselle is a sorceress. I am sure that Jock thinks so. Nothing save an alliance with something diabolical could have made her so well instructed, she who has ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... loved each other at Montferrat; and that the walls about them and the leaden devils who grinned from every waterspout and all those dark and narrow windows were only part of some magic picture, such as a sorceress may momentarily summon out of smoke-wreaths, as he had seen Zoraida ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... mockest. What justice canst thou demand, perjured one of Hades? Leave me, or I may be tempted to slay thee where thou standest; but that would not do. Sorceress, thy foul blood might haunt the ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... Monkey's shoulder and turning one bright eye thoughtfully toward her questioner. "Mrs. Yoop has declared that none of her transformations can ever be changed, even by herself, but I believe that if we could get to Glinda, the Good Sorceress, she might find a way to restore us to our natural shapes. Glinda, as you know, is the most powerful Sorceress in the world, and there are few things she cannot do ...
— The Tin Woodman of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... out to him drugged cups. The world with all its fading sweet comes tempting him, and the old fable fulfils itself—Whoever takes that Circe's cup and puts it to his lips and quaffs deep, turns into a swine, and sits there imprisoned at the feet of the sorceress ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... mistress, at height of her mutable glories, Wise from the magical East, comes like a sorceress pale. Ah, she comes, she arises—impassive, emotionless, bloodless, Wasted and ashen of cheek, zoning her ruins with pearl. Once she was warm, she was joyous, desire in her pulses abounding: Surely thou lovedst her ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... likewise from the Lorraine Marches, Catherine Suave, a native of Thons near Neufchateau, who lived as a recluse at Port de Lates, yet most certainly did the Bishop of Maguelonne know her to be a liar and a sorceress, wherefore she was burned alive at Montpellier in 1417.[644] Multitudes of women, or rather of females, mulierculae,[645] lived like this ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... "Silence, Sorceress," shouted the Abbot. "Get thee behind me, Satan. I know you and your familiars," and he glared at ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... mysteries, sacred to unrestrained love, which were divulged [by you]? And shall you, [assuming the office] of Pontiff [with regard to my] Esquilian incantations, fill the city with my name unpunished? What did it avail me to have enriched the Palignian sorceress [with my charms], and to have prepared poison of greater expedition, if a slower fate awaits you than is agreeable to my wishes? An irksome life shall be protracted by you, wretch as you are, for this purpose, that you may perpetually be able to endure new tortures. Tantalus, ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... fathers, it is true, did not burn people, but they pronounced sentences in which the ridiculous contended with the odious. During my residence in this town, the holy office had to busy itself about a pretended sorceress; it doomed her to go through all quarters of the town astride on an ass, her face turned towards the tail, and naked down to the waist. Merely to observe the commonest rules of decency, the poor woman had been plastered with a sticky substance, partly honey, they told ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... Python, received the names of Ob, or Pythia; according to the not unusual custom for the priest or priestess of any god to take the name of the deity they served. See Selden, De Dis Syris, Synt. 1. c. 2. It is a curious coincidence, that as the Witch of Endor is called "Oub," and the African sorceress "Obi," from the serpent-deity Oub, so the old English name of a witch, "hag," bears apparent relationship to the word hak, the ancient British name of a species of snake. In Yorkshire, according to Stukeley, they call snakes "hags" ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 77, April 19, 1851 • Various
... stake, fastened her there with iron chains, lit the faggots about her feet and withdrew to a short distance, where he stood with his arms folded, looking on as the flames rose about her. I understood that she had refused his love, and that in his fury he had denounced her as a sorceress. Then in the fire, above the pile, I saw the evil spirit poising itself like a fly, and rising and sinking and fluttering in the thick smoke. While I wondered what this meant, the flames which had concealed the beautiful woman, parted in their midst, ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... I altogether, Humphrey. Why should I, seeing that I am no more than woman, as you are no more than man? I would always have you remember, Humphrey, that I am no spirit or sorceress, but just ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... the sorceress who built the city of Mallinalco, on the road from Mexico to Michoacan, famous even after the conquest for the skill of its magicians, who claimed descent from her.[34-*] Such, in Honduras, was Coamizagual, queen of Cerquin, versed in all occult science, who died ...
— Nagualism - A Study in Native American Folk-lore and History • Daniel G. Brinton
... with a tray, and a bowl of bouillon on it; and Mrs. Erwin pulled up a light table, and slid about, serving her, in her cabalistic dress, like an Oriental sorceress performing her incantations. She volubly watched Lydia while she ate her supper, and at the end she kissed her again. "Now you feel better," she said. "I knew it would cheer you up more than any one thing. There's nothing like something to eat when you're homesick. ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... once. But she had no mind to yield to my requests. Then I stormed and threatened." The Angakok's voice grew louder. "The walls shook with the thunder of my voice! At last I seized her by the hair! I tipped over the saucer with my foot! My great power prevailed against the mighty sorceress!" ...
— The Eskimo Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... it for the main theme of "The Sorceress of Rome," the second book of his trilogy of romances on the mediaeval life of Italy. In detail and finish the book is a brilliant piece of work, describing clearly an exciting and strenuous period. It possesses the same qualities as ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... Gordon's Letters from the Cape, and her brilliant translation of The Amber Witch, are, of course, well known. The latter book was, with Lady Wilde's translation of Sidonia the Sorceress, my favourite romantic reading when a boy. Her letters from Egypt are wonderfully vivid and picturesque. Here is an interesting bit ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... tenements, stables, and kennels of the doughty Sir Helerand Shafto, of that ilk, and twenty ilks besides north of the Humber, had been discovered by the wonderful occult penetration possessed by the exceedingly blue sorceress-lady Miss Diana Dundas (of as many ilks north of the Tweed), to be no Orson at all; but her very veritable Valentine, to whom she was now preparing to give her fair and golden-garnished hand in the course of the forthcoming month; that is, when the season of ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... same, my sorceress," said Browning. "I have seen him tested. He has been my close companion ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... wishes. The women then made a ring round about, while Thorbiorg sat up on the spell-dais. Gudrid then sang the song, so sweet and well, that no one remembered ever before to have heard the melody sung with so fair a voice as this. The sorceress thanked her for the song, and said: "She has indeed lured many spirits hither, who think it pleasant to hear this song, those who were wont to forsake us hitherto and refuse to submit themselves to us. Many things are ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... The sorceress had not power by her charms, to call back the prophet from the world of spirits. But God had power to send him on his business; to enable him to make himself visible, and foretel the evils which then hung over Saul and Israel: And from several considerations ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... said she, "how has thy imprudence weakened my power, and destroyed thine own safety! If thou hadst not yielded to the false female slave, the sorceress Ulin had not triumphed over thee and me; but now she has given thee into the power and possession of Bennaskar, and I am not permitted to rescue thee from the clutches of this ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... ARMI'DA, a sorceress, who seduces Rinaldo and other crusaders from the siege of Jerusalem. Rinaldo is conducted by her to her splendid palace, where he forgets his vows, and abandons himself to sensual joys. Carlo ...
— 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.
... could be to the devil, now, in the world of the living. Which was Lucilla and which was Erminia? They were now things without a name. A moment of suspended animation followed Byrne's words. The sorceress with the spoon ceased stirring the mess in the iron pot, the very trembling of the other's head stopped for the space of breath. In this infinitesimal fraction of a second Byrne had the sense of being really on his quest, of having reached the turn of the path, ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... Enchantment. Comus, who represents the latter, must therefore spring from parents representing the pleasure of man's lower nature and the misuse of man's higher powers on behalf of falsehood and impurity. These parents are the wine-god Bacchus and the sorceress Circe. The former, mated with Love, is the father of Mirth (see L'Allegro); but, mated with the cunning Circe, his offspring is a voluptuary whose gay exterior and flattering speech hide his dangerously seductive and magical powers. He bears ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... has some one strangled them? The thrice-confounded creatures!" growled the visitor in a guttural voice. "Hi! Alena Ivanovna, you old sorceress! Elizabeth Ivanovna, you indescribable beauty!—open! Oh! the witches! can ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... period abounds with illustrations, and the witches of Horace, Ovid, and Lucan are the famous classical types.[25] Propertius has characterised the Striga as 'daring enough to impose laws upon the moon bewitched by her spells;' while Petronius makes his witch, as potent as Strepsiades' Thessalian sorceress, exclaim that the very form of the moon herself is compelled to descend from her position in the universe at her command. For the various compositions and incantations in common use, it must be sufficient to refer to the pages of the Roman poets. The forms of incantation and horrid rites of ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... she interrupted, "you shall not tell me. I will leave you at once and see you no more if you do. Besides, there is no need to tell me; I already know. I am a sorceress, a witch. I regret to make the confession, but it is true; I ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... fire-eating Dervish, how can he now swallow this double-tongued flame of hate and love? The Enchantress had wrought her spell, had ministered her poison. Now, where can he find an antidote, who can teach him a healing formula? Bruno D'Ast was once bewitched by a sorceress, and by causing her to be burned he was immediately cured. Ah, that Khalid could do this! Like an ordinary pamphlet he would consign the Enchantress to the flames, and her scrap-books and novels to boot. He does well, however, to ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... the Irish hero, was once entrapped by a sorceress on a similar pretext into plunging into an enchanted lake, which changed him into an old man. (See Joyce's Old Celtic Romances, "The Chase of Slieve Cullin.") The story is also related in one of ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... body; according to some of his followers, have different sexes;) therefore, as from the distinct apprehensions of a horse, and of a man, imagination has formed a centaur; so, from those of an incubus and a sorceress, Shakespeare has produced his monster. Whether or no his generation can be defended, I leave to philosophy; but of this I am certain, that the poet has most judiciously furnished him with a person, a language, and a character, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... religion, and in the manner in which she has drawn blood from our young and innocent daughter, yet were we to find thy accusation to be inspired by motive or the spirit of falsehood, as we live that pile which threatens the sorceress and hag shall be thy own ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... toys, of nature. They made one lively picture with the fruit and wine they loved, the birds they captured, the buckets of clear water drawn for pastime from [37] the great well, and Jean Semur's painted conjuring book stolen from the old sorceress, his grandmother, out of which he told their fortunes; with the musical instruments of others; with their carefully hidden dice and playing-cards, worn or soiled by the fingers of the older gamesters who had discarded them. Like their ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... fancy slips From atween these cherry lips? Whisper me, Fair Sorceress in paint, What canon says ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... England. In the eleventh century there lived a woman who had emigrated from the Hebrides, and who had the reputation for witchcraft, chiefly based upon the unusually exquisite needlework on her bed curtains! The name of this reputed sorceress was Thergunna. Bequests in important wills indicate the sumptuous styles which were usual among people of position. The Fair Maid of Kent left to her son her "new bed curtains of red velvet, embroidered ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... her small head high and went her graceful way, moving as one enchanted over the thorny floor of the court. She had great charm. Once it had been said beneath a royal commissioner's breath that here in this portionless girl was a twin sorceress to the Queen who dwelt ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... the women soon grow old, we can easily understand that the men are inclined to polygamy. It is remarkable with what rapidity the savage woman grows old. She is only fresh from thirteen to twenty years; after twenty-five she is old and sterile, and a little later she has the aspect of an old sorceress. This premature senility is not so much due to early sexual intercourse as to the terribly hard work they undergo, and also to the prolonged ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... do? She consulted the sorceress; and they poured out fear, and brewed stomach ache,[Footnote: "To pour out fear," is done with us in case of fear; when it is desired to know what caused it, melted lead or wax is poured into water, and the object whose form it assumes is the one which frightened ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various
... recount the fate of his companions, who, having wandered towards the palace of Circe, had been imprisoned after undergoing transformation into swine. Ulysses hastens to their relief, and having been provided by Mercury with antidotes, which enabled him to resist the poisons of the sorceress, whom he discovers in her retreat, ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... plunge into the element in which they delighted. Incensed at the obstinacy with which they defied all her efforts to collect them, and not remembering the precise terms of the contract by which the fiend was bound to obey her commands for a certain space, the sorceress exclaimed, "Deevil, that neither I nor they ever stir from this spot more!" The words were hardly uttered, when, by a metamorphosis as sudden as any in Ovid, the hag and her refractory flock were converted into stone, the angel ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... revenge, and guards the other's safety by magic arts. Such a condition represents a society in which the family group is closely bound together. For such illustrations compare the Fornander stories of Halemano, Hinaikamalama, Kalanimanuia, Nihoalaki, Kaulanapokii, Pamano. The character of accomplished sorceress belongs especially to the helpful sister, a woman of the Malio or Kahalaomapuana type, whose art depends upon a life of solitary virginity. She knows spells, she can see what is going on at a distance, and she can restore the dead to life. In the ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... the horn. Mehul (1763-1817), in his overture 'Le jeune Henri,' introduces several old French hunting fanfares, which perhaps may give an idea of what was meant by 'Horns wind a peal.' [See Appendix.] Also in Purcell's 'Dido and Eneas,' No. 16 (date 1675), in the scene between the Sorceress and the two witches who are plotting the destruction of 'Elissa,' at the words 'Hark! the cry comes on apace,' the violins give an imitation of ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... occupation with the greatest zeal according to the prevailing mode: he is no moralist. The partner of his first intrigue is the maid of a woman skilled in witchcraft. The curiosity of Lucius being greatly exercised about the sorceress and her magic, he importunes the girl to procure from her mistress a magic salve which will transform him at will into an owl. By mistake he receives the wrong salve; and instead of the bird metamorphosis which he had looked ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... to speak of a spell laid upon the young man, and her visits to a sorceress came to be spoken about so openly that it was against the bridegroom's wish that Rachel was asked to the wedding feast; but Ruth pleaded, saying that it would be no feast for her if Rachel did not present herself at the table. The twain sat ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... practices as disquieting as they were lugubrious."[259] Even the King's mistress, Madame de Montespan, is said to have had recourse to black Masses in order to retain the royal favour through the agency of the celebrated sorceress La Voisin, with whom she was later implicated in an accusation of having attempted the ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... replied Desire with a sheepish look. 'But she has been bewitched by a wicked sorceress, and will not regain her beauty until she is ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... can bring you here so early of a morning?" asked the sorceress, as Mme. Fontaine might well be called, for she was seventy-eight years old, and looked ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... "Sorceress!" laughed the Chevalier; "you have sounded the very soul of me. Thanks, Mignon, thanks! Next to love, what is more to a man than a full stomach? Ah, you should have seen me when I came in! And devil ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... discovered my mistake before giving you the portfolio. The loss of these papers would have compromised me irretrievably. But you are silent, Victoria—you do not utter a word. Then you do not yet believe in the truthfulness of my words? I swear to you, my fascinating sorceress, it was a mere mistake—I ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... tripped on the dyke's edge, buried a knife between his shoulders; and, as he struck, a woman lit the lamp in the window of the island farm, to tell the murdered man that it was safe to come. Indeed, that farm was a red rag to the imagination. Perhaps a sailor's widow with some sorceress blood had gone to live there, so that the ghost of her drowned husband might have less far to travel when he obeyed her ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... all it was only a witch being led to death, and they had seen that same thing in Christian lands. It was not a thing for special wonder,—except that this sorceress was young, and that she looked at the young Indian Ruler, and smiled often, and little sounds like a mere murmur of a song came sometimes from ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... the old priest had testified his love for her by giving her an education then unrivalled, so that rumour asserted that, through the knowledge of languages, enabling her to penetrate into the mysteries of the older world, she had become a sorceress, like the Celtic druidesses; and how as Abelard and Heloise sat together at home there, to refine a little further on the nature of abstract ideas, "Love made himself of the party with them." You conceive the temptations of the scholar, who, ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... of the future. I loved her, and I should love her more and more every day, that little sorceress who had so despotically and so quickly conquered me. I should not allow any participation or any intrigue from the day she gave herself to me, and when once we had been so intimately connected, who could tell whether, just as I was defending myself ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... if I were listening to a fortune-teller who, before answering the questions of those who consult her, begins by inquiring into their age, their condition, their family, and all the accidents of their life. Eh! miserable sorceress, if you know the future, you know who I am and what I want; why do you ask me to tell ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... so?" said Githa, awed yet charmed in the awe, and drawing her chair nearer to the mournful sorceress. "Didst thou not fortell our return in triumph from the unjust outlawry, and, lo, it hath come to pass? and hast thou not" (here Githa's proud face flushed) "foretold also that my stately Harold shall wear ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Egyptian! Glorious sorceress of the Nile! Light the path to Stygian horrors With the splendors of thy smile I can scorn the Senate's triumphs, Triumphing in love ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... called before opening the door below the balcony; and the sorceress threw herself upon her ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... of Sir Guy, tended by his mother and grandmother—both of whom had seen and loved well the wonderful Maid—and she was in a terrible prison, some said an iron cage, guarded by brutal English soldiers, and declared a witch or a sorceress, not fit to live, nor to die a soldier's death, but only to perish at the stake as an ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... a young ladies' school kept by one Josias Priest in Leicester Fields and afterwards at Chelsea. The libretto was the work of Nahum Tate, the Poet Laureate of the time. The opera is in three short acts, and Virgil's version of the story is followed pretty closely save for the intrusion of a sorceress and a chorus of witches who have sworn Dido's destruction and send a messenger to AEneas, disguised as Mercury, to hasten his departure. Dido's death song, which is followed by a chorus of mourning Cupids, is one of the most pathetic scenes ever written, and illustrates in ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... "Temptress, sorceress!" he suddenly exclaimed, pushing me from him with frenzied gesture,—"you have come to destroy my soul,—I have broken my solemn vow,—I have incurred the vengeance of Almighty God. Peace was flowing over me like a river, but now ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... accepting the pledge of battle which I now lay at your reverence's feet, hath become bound to do his devoir in combat this day, to maintain that this Jewish maiden, by name Rebecca, hath justly deserved the doom passed upon her—condemning her to die as a sorceress. Here, I say, he standeth such battle to do knightly and honourably, if such should be your noble and ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip
... and turbulent crowd of the lower orders of the town, which was with difficulty kept, by the pikemen, within the limits assigned to it; and which, from time to time, let forth low howls against the supposed sorceress, that increased, like the crescendo of distant thunder, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... he was never worthy of, was mine by right; and, I imagine too, by inclination. Yes, madam, Berinthia, who now— Aman. Berinthia! Impossible! Col. Town. 'Tis true, or may I never merit your attention. She is the deceitful sorceress who now holds your husband's heart in bondage. Aman. I will not believe it. Col. Town. By the faith of a true lover, I speak from conviction. This very day I saw them together, and overheard— Aman. Peace, sir! I will not even ...
— Scarborough and the Critic • Sheridan
... house down. Sorceress, you have bewitched me. You shall perish at the stake. Listen to me, my love,—my gentle Dove—I promise you the best place in heaven. Eh? No. Death to you ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... set of the head. It's subtle—it's like some pictures I remember in Italy. And intelligence is there. Enchantment ... the more real, perhaps, for not being the most obvious.... So you are enchained, witched, held by the great sorceress!... Elspeth is only one of her little names—her great name is just love—love between man and woman.... Oh yes, the whole of the sweetness is distilled into one honey-drop—the whole giant thing is shortened into one image—the ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... however, was contrary to the general rule, wherefore it is obvious that the homage was not to the woman as such, but to the priestess. The feeling inspired in such cases is, moreover, fear rather than respect; the priestess among savages is a sorceress, usually an old woman whose charms have faded, and who has no other way of asserting herself than by assuming a pretence to supernatural powers and making herself feared as a sorceress. Hysterical persons are believed by savages to be ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... astonishment of all, Tarra was led forward, and ordered to kneel down. Then a great burly man, clothed in the garb so common to the sorceress among savage tribes, followed him with a ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Treasures of the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... brethren. You will get far more good out of this accumulated count against Madam Bubble if you explain it, and open it up, and prove it, and illustrate it to yourselves. Explain, then, in what way this sorceress set Absalom against his father and Jeroboam against his master. Point out in what way she makes variance between a ruler and his subjects, and give illustrations. Put your finger on a parent and on a child between whom there is variance at this ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... an outward motive which will stimulate and stir to effort. Our wills are lamed for good, and the world has strong charms that appeal to us. And if we are not to yield to these, there must be somewhere a stronger motive than any that the sorceress world has in its stores, that shall constrainingly draw us to ways that, because they tend upward, and yield no pabulum for the lower self, are difficult for sluggish feet. To the writer of this Book of Proverbs the name of God bore in it such a motive. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... brother Illugi. The losel, "Noise," now that the brothers can no more stir abroad, will not take the trouble to pull up the ladders that lead from the top of the island down to the beach; and, amidst all this, helped by a magic storm the sorceress has raised, Thorbiorn Angle, with a band of men, surprises the island, unroofs the hut of the brothers, and gains ingress there, and after a short struggle (for Grettir is already a dying man) slays the great outlaw and captures Illugi ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris
... affirmed in open court, at this trial, what might be the cause of the child's affliction. And this deponent farther saith, That by reason of the circumstances aforesaid, and in regard Amy Duny is a woman of ill-fame, and commonly reported to be a witch and sorceress, and for that the said child in her fits would cry out of Amy Duny as the cause of her malady, and that she did affright her with apparitions of her person (as the child in the intervals of her fits related) ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... credit and renown to the lords of Venice through all nations of the civilised world. It only remains to be added that Marcello Accoramboni was surrendered to the Pope's vengeance and beheaded at Ancona, where also his mysterious accomplice, the Greek sorceress, perished. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... changing his sex, is perhaps based upon the fact, that the country of Thrace, which took the name of Thracia from a famous sorceress, was before called Scython; and that as it lost a name of the masculine gender for one of the feminine, in after times it became reported ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... spells, Estein; they have been cast on men by other maids before now. Better take your sorceress with you. It is unlucky to break such ...
— Vandrad the Viking - The Feud and the Spell • J. Storer Clouston
... Quakeress is certainly a sorceress as well. She came very soon after you left us yesterday, and she did not stay long. I had forbidden my patient to talk, and I heard every word she said. It was a mere nothing, but she has ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... this," he continued slowly and in a different tone, "the King's will goes for nothing in Angers! His writ runs not here. And Holy Church cries in vain for help against the oppressor. I tell you, the sorceress who has bewitched him has bewitched you also. Beware! beware, therefore, lest it be with you as with him! And the fire that shall consume her, spare not ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... symbol of my experience. It sounded like a gurgle in the throat of debauchery. It seemed to me that my mistress, having been unfaithful, must have such a voice. I was reminded of Faust who, dancing at Brocken with a young sorceress, saw a red mouse come ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... the privacy of the back bed-room, and to propose their retiring thither, felt a sinking of the heart—a deadly faintness, and an instinctive conviction that she was altogether overmatched, and that she could not hope to play successfully any sort of devil's game with that all-seeing sorceress. She had always thought she was a plucky woman till she met Mistress Mary. Before her her spirit died within her—her blood flowed hurriedly back to her heart, leaving her body cold, pale, and damp, and her soul quailing ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... middle; and, pointing to both pieces, 'There', said he, 'you see the cause of my interference'. We looked down, and actually saw blood running from both pieces, and forming a little pool on the ground. The fact was that the woman was a sorceress of the very worst kind, and was actually drawing the blood from the man through the cane, to feed the abominable devil from whom she derived her detestable powers. But for the timely interference of the sepoy he would have been dead in another minute; for he no sooner saw the ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... plain, would be the next added to her train. Victoria beheld the golden-haired creature as the modern Circe, surrounded by troops of ex-suitors—lovers transmogrified to Friends—docile at the heel of the sorceress. You took your chance, received your "No," and subsided cheerfully into the pen. Victoria vowed to herself that her Harry should ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Dou. Sorceress, I'll disappoint thee—he shall die, Thy minion shall expire before thy face, That I may feast my hatred with your pangs, And make his dying groans, and thy fond tears, A ...
— Percy - A Tragedy • Hannah More
... that you might see with my eyes the queer uncanny thing that happened on the road there between the woman and the horse. I have told you the spaewife—if spaewife you would call her, for I think sorceress fitted her better—I have said she came close to Chieftain's head, her black eyes fairly lowing; and as the brute, his skin twitching, gathered himself to rear on her, she hit him full on the mouth with her little brown hand, and hissed a word at him in her own tongue. As ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... Touching our present condition, dear Brother, we are a captive in the hands of certain lawless and godless men, who have not feared to detain our person, and put us to ransom; whereby we have also learned of Front-de-Boeuf's misfortune, and that thou hast escaped with that fair Jewish sorceress, whose black eyes have bewitched thee. We are heartily rejoiced of thy safety; nevertheless, we pray thee to be on thy guard in the matter of this second Witch of Endor; for we are privately assured that your Great Master, who careth not a bean for cherry cheeks and black eyes, comes from Normandy ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott |
