“Night threw her shadow on the world. Sailors out at sea looked up at the circling Bear and the stars of Orion. Travellers and watchmen longed for sleep, and oblivion came at last to mothers mourning for their children's death. In the town, dogs ceased to bark and men to call to one another; silence reigned over the deepening dark. But gentle sleep did not visit Medea. In her yearning for Jason, fretful cares kept her awake. She feared the great strength of the bulls; she saw him face them in the field of Ares; she saw him meet an ignominious end. Her heart fluttered within her, restless…”

—  Apollonius of Rhodes, book Argonautica

Source: Argonautica (3rd century BC), Book III. Jason and Medea, Lines 744–755

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 "Night threw her shadow on the world. Sailors out at sea looked up at the circling Bear and the stars of Orion. Travelle…" by Apollonius of Rhodes?
Apollonius of Rhodes photo
Apollonius of Rhodes34
ancient Greek poet -295–-215 BC

Related quotes

Henri Barbusse photo

“She had fallen asleep with her head on her lover's knees. He looked at her and smiled. An expression of pity and benevolence flitted across his face. His hands stretched out part way toward the sleeping woman with the gentleness of strength. I saw the glorious pride of condescension and charity in this man whom a woman prostrate before him deified.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

The Inferno (1917), Ch. XVI

Nalo Hopkinson photo

“She curled up on the pallet and stared into the dark, praying for a peaceful sleep.
Prayers didn’t do no good, oui. Antonio chased her all night. (In the book Antonio, her father, beats and sexually abuses her long-term; she eventually kills him)”

Nalo Hopkinson book Midnight Robber

Section 4 (p. 222)
Midnight Robber (2000)

Tamora Pierce photo

“The bravest person I know is afraid of the dark. She sleeps with a night lamp always, but if her friends are threatened? She suddenly thinks she's a bear twelve feet tall and attacks whoever scared her friends.”

Tamora Pierce book Cold Fire

Source: Cold Fire

Lucy Maud Montgomery photo

“But she lay long awake that night, nor did she wish for sleep. Her waking fancies were more alluring than any vision of dreamland. Had the real Prince come at last? Recalling those glorious dark eyes which had gazed so deeply into her own, Anne was very strongly inclined to think he had.”

Lucy Maud Montgomery book Anne of the Island

Source: Anne of the Island (1915), Ch. 25

“Hold your hands out over the earth as over a flame. To all who love her, who open to her the doors of their veins, she gives of her strength, sustaining them with her own measureless tremor of dark life. Touch the earth, love the earth, honour the earth, her plains, her valleys, her hills, and her seas; rest your spirit in her solitary places. For the gifts of life are the earth’s and they are given to all, and they are the songs of birds at daybreak, Orion and the Bear, and dawn seen over ocean from the beach.”

Henry Beston (1888–1968) American writer

Source: The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod

William Blake photo

“England! awake! awake! awake!
Jerusalem thy sister calls!
Why wilt thou sleep the sleep of death
And close her from thy ancient walls?”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

Source: 1800s, Jerusalem The Emanation of The Giant Albion (c. 1803–1820), Ch. 4, prefatory poem, plate 77, st. 1

Jeffrey Eugenides photo

“She kept her face to the floor, moving in her personal oblivion, her sunflower eyes fixed on the predicament of her life we would never understand.”

Jeffrey Eugenides book The Virgin Suicides

Source: The Virgin Suicides

Sarah Monette photo

“He could tell by the quality of her silence that she did not believe him, but if there was an advantage to being emperor, it was that she could not call him a liar to his face.”

Sarah Monette book The Goblin Emperor

Source: The Goblin Emperor (2014), Chapter 31, "A Conspiracy Unearthed" (p. 434)

Bruce Springsteen photo

“Sometimes I sit up in the darkness,
And I watch my baby as she sleeps.
Then I climb in bed and I hold her tight.
I just lay there awake in the middle of the night,
Thinking 'bout the wreck on the highway.”

Bruce Springsteen (1949) American singer and songwriter

"Wreck on the Highway"
Song lyrics, The River (1980)

“Meanwhile Medea, though she was singing and dancing with her maids, could think of one thing only. There was no melody, however gay, that did not quickly cease to please. Time and again she faltered and came to a halt. To keep her eyes fixed on her choir was more than she could do. She was for ever turning them aside to search the distant paths, and more than once she well-nigh fainted when she mistook the noise of the wind for the footfall of a passer-by. But it was not so very long before the sight of Jason rewarded her impatient watch. Like Sirius rising from Ocean, brilliant and beautiful but full of menace for the flocks, he sprang into view, splendid to look at but fraught with trouble for the lovesick girl. Her heart stood still, a mist descended on her eyes, and a warm flush spread across her cheeks. She could neither move towards him nor retreat; her feet were rooted to the ground. And now her servants disappeared, and the pair of them stood face to face without a word or sound, like oaks or tall pines that stand in the mountains side by side in silence when the air is still, but when the wind has stirred them chatter without end. So these two, stirred by the breath of Love, were soon to pour out all their tale.”

Apollonius of Rhodes book Argonautica

Source: Argonautica (3rd century BC), Book III. Jason and Medea, Lines 948–972

Related topics