John Knox as portrayed in Bothwell : A Tragedy (1874) Act I, Sc. 2.
Bothwell : A Tragedy (1874)
Context: Sins are sin-begotten, and their seed
Bred of itself and singly procreative;
Nor is God served with setting this to this
For evil evidence of several shame,
That one may say, Lo now! so many are they;
But if one, seeing with God-illumined eyes
In his full face the encountering face of sin,
Smite once the one high-fronted head, and slay,
His will we call good service. For myself,
If ye will make a counsellor of me,
I bid you set your hearts against one thing
To burn it up, and keep your hearts on fire,
Not seeking here a sign and there a sign,
Nor curious of all casual sufferances,
But steadfast to the undoing of that thing done
Whereof ye know the being, however it be,
And all the doing abominable of God.
Who questions with a snake if the snake sting?
Who reasons of the lightning if it burn?
While these things are, deadly will these things be;
And so the curse that comes of cursed faith.
“The face that thou shalt smite in earnest is bound thereafter to be boneless.”
Amphitryon, Act I, scene 1.
Amphitryon
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Plautus 54
Roman comic playwright of the Old Latin period -254–-184 BCRelated quotes
“But who art thou? that Voyce, and beauteous Face,
Not Mortal is; thou art of Heavenly Race.”
The Works of Publius Virgilius Maro (2nd ed. 1654), Virgil's Æneis
Eros http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/2933.html, st. 1 (1899).
Poetry
"Lathmon"
The Poems of Ossian
Waldersee in his diary c. 1886, quoted in John C. G. Röhl, The Kaiser and his court : Wilhelm II and the government of Germany
Giunta è tua gloria al sommo e per lo innanzi
Fuggir le dubbie guerre a te conviene,
Ch' ove tu vinca sol di stato avvanzi
Nè tua gloria maggior quindi diviene;
Mal' Imperio acquii'tato e prefo dianzi
El' onor perdi, se 'l contrario avviene.
Canto II, stanza 67 (tr. Fairfax)
Gerusalemme Liberata (1581)