“These Heaven decrees, and ever-fixed Fate.
But say, blest prophet, and the truth relate;
I see my mother's shade, who not her son
Will speak to, nor so much as look upon:
Silent she sits by sacred blood: ah, how
May she, poor shadow! her dear offspring know?”

Book X
Homer His Odysses Translated (1665)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "These Heaven decrees, and ever-fixed Fate. But say, blest prophet, and the truth relate; I see my mother's shade, who…" by John Ogilby?

John Ogilby121

Scottish academic 1600–1676

Related quotes

“See mother earth her offspring's fate bemoan, And nations gaze at scenes before unknown! See the bright beams of heaven's revolving light Involved in sorrows and the veil of night! The goddess comes, she moves divinely fair”

Phillis Wheatley (1753–1784) American poet

1770s, To His Excellency, George Washington (1775)

“The truth is that I wasn't there with her when she needed me. Now she see's how I love Nanhoï and she believes that I can't love her as much as I love my son. That I've never loved her like this. I try to tell her that she's distorting everything in her pain and not seeing the truth. That I've painfully missed her since our separation and that I've never stopped loving her. But even though she gradually calms down, I have a feeling she doesn't believe me.”

Klaus Kinski (1926–1991) German actor

On his daughter, Nastassja. p. 286
Kinski Uncut : The Autobiography of Klaus Kinski (1996)

“I sang to my dear dead mother
and she instantly understood me,
and pressing a kiss to my forehead said
as into her arms she pulled me:
Believe then in truth, or in fantasy, –
if you'll only believe in it utterly!
For truth is what you believe it to be.
My son, believe in your dream!”

Eino Leino (1878–1926) Finnish poet and journalist

Eino Leino, "Smiling Apollo," in: Antti Tuomainen (2015), Dark As My Heart, p. 87

“Eh! sire, that is the fate of truth; she is a stern companion; she bristles all over with steel; she wounds those whom she attacks, and sometimes him who speaks her.”

Alexandre Dumas (1802–1870) French writer and dramatist, father of the homonym writer and dramatist

Le Vicomte de Bragelonne ou Dix ans plus (The Vicomte de Bragelonne) (1847)

“My mother took too much, a great deal too much, care of me; she over-educated, over-instructed, over-dosed me with premature lessons of prudence: she was so afraid that I should ever do a foolish thing, or not say a wise one, that she prompted my every word, and guided my every action. So I grew up, seeing with her eyes, hearing with her ears, and judging with her understanding, till, at length, it was found out that I had not eyes, ears or understanding of my own.”

Maria Edgeworth (1768–1849) Irish writer

Vivian (1812), ch. 1; Tales and Novels, vol. 8, p. 8.

“Marie falls back upon her idea, obdurately, and says, "A woman only lives by love and for love. When she's no longer good for that she's no longer anything."
She repeats, "You see — I'm nothing any more."
Ah, she is at the bottom of her abyss! She is at the extremity of a woman's mourning! She is not thinking only of me. Her thought is higher and vaster. She is thinking of all the woman she is, of all that love is, of all possible things when she says, "I'm no longer anything." And I — I am only he who is present with her just now, and no help whatever is left her to look for from any one.
I should like to pacify and console this woman who is gentleness and simplicity and who is sinking there while she lightly touches me with her presence — but exactly because she is there I cannot lie to her, I can do nothing against her grief, her perfect, infallible grief.
"Ah!" she cries, "if we came to life again!"”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

Light (1919), Ch. XIX - Ghosts

“Ah, ah,
Beautiful is the mother.
Ah, ah,
Beautiful is her son.”

Sufjan Stevens (1975) American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist

"Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabelle"
Lyrics, The Age of Adz (2010)

“My mother and I have this really strangely close relationship. No other relationship can come close to it. It's frightening. Even when I'm in a relationship with a man, I compare it to my relationship with my mother. She is a friend, but she is still a mother, and everything a mother needs to be, she is. She is really observing and caring and doesn't want anything but giving because it's her joy. Even when I can't bear anybody, not even myself, she 's like the sun coming up to me. She dedicated all her life to me. Sometimes I feel that she gave her life to me and now it's my job to maybe take her somewhere. But what is it she doesn't know? She knows things I couldn't begin to know. Yet she is so fresh with ideas which I already take for granted. She sometimes wakes me up and says, 'Don't you see?”

Nastassja Kinski (1961) German actress

and she makes me see and feel things again. Nobody, not my father, not anybody, has done that for me, except movies.
As quoted in Denise Worrell (1989), Icons: Intimate Portraits.

“I didn't listen to her because she was my mother & wouldn't know anything until I was much older.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

“A real mother, who knows the will of God by experience, will prepare her children also to fulfil it. Such a mother will suffer if she sees her child overfed, effeminate, and dressed-up, for she knows that these things will make it difficult for it to fulfil the will of God which she recognizes.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

What then must we do? (1886)

“These Heaven decrees, and ever-fixed Fate.But say, blest prophet, and the truth relate;I see my mother's shade, who not her sonWill speak to, nor so much as look upon:Silent she sits by sacred blood: ah, howMay she, poor shadow! her dear offspring know?”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

John Ogilby121

Related quotes

Related topics

“These Heaven decrees, and ever-fixed Fate.
But say, blest prophet, and the truth relate;
I see my mother's shade, who not her son
Will speak to, nor so much as look upon:
Silent she sits by sacred blood: ah, how
May she, poor shadow! her dear offspring know?”