The Greek Tradition: Essays in the Reconstruction of Ancient ThoughtG. Allen & Unwin, 1927 - 248 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
Admetus Aeschylus Alcestis ancient Apollo Aristagoras Aristeas Aristophanes artist Athenian Athens beautiful birds Catullus character choral choric chorus Cleon colour Comedy comes convention curse dance Daughter dead death diction earth epic Euripides everything expression F. M. Cornford father feel flowers genius Girl give goat gods Greece Greek art Greek literature Greek poetry heard heart Heracles hero Herodotus Hesiod Homer human hunter Hyperboreans imagination Ionian kind Kômos Korê labour language least legend living look Lucretius magical mean mind Minoan modern moon Mother nature never night odes Odysseus Old Woman original passion perhaps Pericles Persians Pherae Pindar poem poet reader reason religion ritual satyr-play satyric scholars seems sense sentiment simple simplicity song Sophocles sorrow speak speech spirit story strange style Theocritus things thou thought Thucydides traditional Tragedy translation true truth victory wild wonderful words write young
Popular passages
Page 191 - ... because, in that condition, the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint, and speak a plainer and more emphatic language; because in that condition of life our elementary feelings co-exist in a state of greater simplicity, and, consequently, may be more accurately contemplated, and more forcibly communicated...
Page 191 - Humble and rustic life was generally chosen, because in that condition the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint, and speak a plainer and more emphatic language...
Page 195 - That spectacle, for many days, my brain Worked with a dim and undetermined sense Of unknown modes of being ; o'er my thoughts There hung a darkness, call it solitude Or blank desertion. No familiar shapes Remained, no pleasant images of trees, Of sea or sky, no colours of green fields ; But huge and mighty forms, that do not live Like living men, moved slowly through the mind By day, and were a trouble to my dreams.
Page 227 - Where should Othello go? — Now, how dost thou look now ? O ill-starr'd wench ! Pale as thy smock ! when we shall meet at compt, This look of thine will hurl my soul from heaven, And fiends will snatch at it. Cold, cold, my girl ? Even like thy chastity. — O cursed, cursed slave ! — Whip me, ye devils, From the possession of this heavenly sight! Blow me about in winds ! roast me in sulphur ! Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire ! — O Desdemona!
Page 197 - Will no one tell me what she sings? — Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow For old, unhappy, far-off things And battles long ago; Or is it some more humble lay, Familiar matter of today Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, That has been, and may be again?
Page 192 - Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower ; We will grieve not, rather find Strength in what remains behind ; In the primal sympathy Which having been must ever be ; In the soothing thoughts that spring Out of human suffering ; In the faith that looks through death, In years that bring the philosophic mind.
Page 192 - Or image unprofaned ; and I would stand, If the night blackened with a coming storm, Beneath some rock, listening to notes that are The ghostly language of the ancient earth, Or make their dim abode in distant winds.
Page 194 - I had gazed perhaps two minutes' space, Joanna, looking in my eyes, beheld That ravishment of mine, and laughed aloud. The Rock, like something starting from a sleep, Took up the lady's voice, and laughed again ; That ancient woman seated on Helm-crag Was ready with her cavern ; Hammar-scar, And the tall steep of Silver-how, sent forth A noise of laughter ; southern Loughrigg heard, And Fairfield answered with a mountain tone ; Helvellyn far into the clear blue sky Carried the lady's voice ; old...
Page 195 - A TROUBLE, not of clouds or weeping rain, Nor of the setting sun's pathetic light Engendered, hangs o'er Eildon's triple height. Spirits of power, assembled there, complain For kindred power departing from their sight ; While Tweed, best pleased in chanting a blithe strain, Saddens his voice again and yet again. Lift up your hearts, ye mourners ! for the might Of the whole world's good wishes with him goes ; Blessings and prayers, in nobler retinue Than sceptred king or laurelled conqueror knows,...
Page 194 - But worthier still of note Are those fraternal Four of Borrowdale, Joined in one solemn and capacious grove ; Huge trunks ! and each particular trunk a growth Of intertwisted fibres serpentine Up-coiling, and inveterately convolved ; Nor uninformed with Phantasy, and looks That threaten the profane...