"Cerberus" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Sir Horace Mann, March 10.-Lord Hertford's embassy to Paris. Warlike prospects. Progress of election trials. Lord Pomfret's collection of statues. Cerberus.-242 ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... increased the number of unbelievers; but it was announced that a most interesting performance would take place on May 4th; indeed, the programme when issued was varied enough to arouse general curiosity. Asmodeus was to raise the superior two feet from the ground, and the fiends Eazas and Cerberus, in emulation of their leader, would do as much for two other nuns; while a fourth devil, named Beherit, would go farther still, and, greatly daring, would attack M. de Laubardemont himself, and, having ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Cerberus, who the gate did keep, First with a sop he lays asleep, Then forward goes to th' room of State, Where on a lofty throne of jet, The grizly King of Terrors sate, Discoursing with his Proserpine On things infernally divine. To him the winged Ambassador His message tells, then adds to her How much ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... blood—as little to be resisted as the impulse to eat when you are hungry, or drink when you thirst. Besides, what particular harm had been done, what particular harm could have been done with such a Cerberus of a husband? As to the outcry which had followed one special incident, nothing could have been more uncalled for, more superfluous. Aldous had demanded contrition, had said strong things with the flashing eyes, the set mouth of a Cato. And the culprit had turned ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Here Juno came, Braving the region's horrors, from her throne Celestial,—so did ire and hatred goad Her bosom with their stings! Sacred she press'd The groaning threshold,—instant as she stepp'd, Fierce Cerberus his triple head uprais'd, And howl'd with triple throat. The goddess calls The night-born sisters, fierce, implacable: Before the close-barr'd adamantine gates They sit; their tresses twisting ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... a few sentences on Wall Street affairs, one would certainly choose a rich American, because he would load one with money and jewels, and absolutely obey one when he was at home, and let one spend most of the time in Europe. But Mrs. Van Brounker-Courtfield says all that is only a sop to Cerberus, to keep the wives from grumbling at not being made love to like women of other nations are; that all men are hunters, and while ours in England chase foxes and are thrilled with politics the New Yorkers hunt dollars, and it is the same thing. Wall ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... This is too much. Here is an universal genius; sophist,—orator,—poet. To what a three-headed monster have I given birth! a perfect Cerberus of intellect! And pray what may your piece be about? Or will your tragedy, like your speech, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... at all times been forward in owning the Egyptians as their teachers in religion; and in the dog Cerberus, the judge Minos, the boat of Charon, and the river Styx of their mythology, we see a clear proof that it was in Egypt that the Greeks gained their faint glimpse of the immortality of the soul, a day ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... daughter of Saturn, leaving her celestial habitation, submits to go thither, so much does she give way to hatred and to anger. Soon as she has entered there, and the threshold groans, pressed by her sacred body, Cerberus raises his threefold mouth, and utters triple barkings at the same moment. She summons the Sisters,[57] begotten of Night, terrible and implacable Goddesses. They are sitting before the doors of the prison shut close with adamant, and are combing ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... chance. Somewhere, in some sinister den in the criminal districts of the town, there is a school where small boys are trained for these positions, where their finer instincts are rigorously uprooted and rudeness systematically inculcated by competent professors. Of this school the candy-eating Cerberus of Messrs Goble and Cohn had been the star scholar. Quickly seeing his natural gifts, his teachers had given him special attention. When he had graduated, it had been amidst the cordial good wishes of the entire faculty. They had taught him all they knew, and they ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... It seemed to me we should never pass them, but we walked fast, and reached our door in safety. Here we thundered in vain. The porter was asleep, and for nearly ten minutes we heard voices within, male and female, ineffectually endeavouring to persuade the heavy-headed Cerberus to relinquish his keys. It would have been a choice moment for our friends, had any of them wished to accost us; but either they had not observed us, or perhaps they thought that C—-n walking so late must have been armed; or perhaps, more charitable construction, they had profited by the solemnities ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... see that no mortal intruded on the revels of the gods, when Jupiter discovered something at a distance running at full speed towards them. "Heyday! what have we here?" he exclaimed; "as I live, my old friend Cerberus, with a note in his jaws; why what can Pluto have got to say? Here, Cer! Cer! Cer! good dog!" The breathless animal dropped the letter at Jupiter's feet and then took his seat on the ground, panting, as well he might, after so ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 556., Saturday, July 7, 1832 • Various
... enormity, abnormality, monstrosity lusus naturae; fiend, brute, ogre, villain; Cerberus, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... with each issue. This ill-favored individual, owner of a yellow countenance covered with red excrescences, to which he owed his nickname of "Coloquinte," indicated a personage behind the lattice as the Cerberus of the paper. This was an elderly officer with a medal on his chest and a silk skull-cap on his head; his nose was almost hidden by a pair of grizzled moustaches, and his person was hidden as completely in an ample blue overcoat ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... been a tottering, old woman. I wondered what his first look would say to me, what the first word from his lips would portend? It seemed as if I were going in there like one who sought some hidden treasure, knowing which door it lay behind but stricken with fear lest some unseen Cerberus might be crouching in wait for the rash seeker after happiness. Oh! Aunt Jennie! The tenseness of that moment! The feeling that, like the Snowbird a few days ago, I was moving through a fog-hidden world ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... The country, as usual, a dead flat: many Shillook villages on west bank all deserted, owing to Mahomed Her's plundering. This fellow now assumes a right of territory, and offers to pay tribute to the Egyptian Government, thus throwing a sop to Cerberus to prevent intervention. Course S.W. The river in clear water about seven hundred yards wide, but sedge on the east bank for a couple of miles ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... vienent de la tiere des Turs Et. cccc. m. hommes amenerent u plus, Il en jurent la mer dont sire est Neptunus Et le porte d'infier que garde Cerberus Que l'orguel d'Alixandre torneront a reues Por cou les enclot puis es estres desus. Dusc' al tans Antecrist n'en ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... been the entrance to Hades, to which it had been likened by a learned visitor, we might have been confronted by Cerberus instead of our guide, whom our friends had warned overnight that his attendance would be required early this morning by distinguished visitors, who would expect the cave to be lit up with coloured lights in honour of their visit. The guide as he handed a light to each of us explained apologetically ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... Hercules when he set about bringing up Cerberus from below, and all the work done by Apollo in the years when he ground corn, are but a little matter compared with the attempt to master botany. Great minds have been at it these two thousand years, and yet we are ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... by and by," answered Pluto. "We are just entering my dominions. Do you see that tall gateway before us? When we pass those gates, we are at home. And there lies my faithful mastiff at the threshold. Cerberus! Cerberus! Come hither, ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... talk of that by and by," answered Pluto. "Do you see these big gates? When we pass these we are at home; and look! there is my faithful dog at the door! Cerberus; Cerberus, come ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... bulk of giant Geryon Dead mid his kine. His gory heads were cast In dust, dashed down by that resistless club. Before him slain lay that most murderous hound Orthros, in furious might like Cerberus His brother-hound: a herdman lay thereby, Eurytion, all bedabbled ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... "At what hour does he commonly rise?" said I. "Sometimes sooner, sometimes later," said he, closing the door upon me by degrees. I then told him I was come by his lordship's own appointment, to which intimation this Cerberus replied, "I have received no orders about the matter," and was upon the point of shutting me out, when I recollected myself all of a sudden, and slipping a crown into his hand, begged as a favour that he would inquire, and let me know whether ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... be one of the monsters who are said to be growing up in Rome—Apollos ravenous as Cerberus. Does he ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... been sanctioned by the council of officers, and presented[a] by Fairfax to the House of Commons, that it might be transmitted to the several counties, and there receive the approbation of the inhabitants. As a sop to shut the mouth of Cerberus, the sum of three thousand pounds, to be raised from the estates of delinquents in the county of Durham, had been voted[b] to Lilburne; but the moment he returned from the north, he appeared at the bar of the house, ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... Orpheus was too perfect to know any fear; thankfully he hastened to the dark cave on the side of the promontory of Taenarus, and soon arrived at the entrance of Hades. Stark and grim was the three-headed watchdog, Cerberus, which guarded the door, and with the growls and the furious roaring of a wild beast athirst for its prey it greeted Orpheus. But Orpheus touched his lute, and the brute, amazed, sank into silence. And still he played, and the dog would gently have ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... from visiting her brother. But the doctor says this sleep is the beneficial result of his treatment, and that when the Electoral Prince awakes he will be quite restored to health. He has ordered that no one else be admitted to see the Prince, and Dietrich watches over him like a Cerberus." ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... Cerberus, to be coaxed and cheated by a well-buttered sop of flattery? Return to your mutton, reverend sir, and know that I am incorruptible, and disdain to betray my cause for your thirty pieces of ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... Fretted that man of icy will? Who knows—or cares to know? At least he "has to learn ere long That constant mind, and hate of wrong" Than steely pride are yet more strong; That shame can strike a blow At comradeship more fatal far Than any chance of fateful war When faction howled with Cerberus throat, When falsehood struck a felon stroke, When forgery did its worst To pull its hated quarry down, To dim, disarm, degrade, discrown. Against the array accurst That ancient chief made gallant head, Dismayed not, nor disquieted At rancour's rude assault. He shared ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 6, 1890 • Various
... latter, who by his saving strength delivered the earth from its Augean impurities, and, arrayed in celestial panoply, subdued the monsters of the earth, and at last, descending to Hades, slew the three-headed Cerberus and took away from men much of the fear of death. Such was the train of the Eleusinian Dionysus. If Demeter was the wanderer, he was the conqueror and centre ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... been bountiful to the poet, have encouraged Virgil to speak such English as I could teach him, and rewarded his interpreter for the pains he has taken in bringing him over into Britain by defraying the charges of his voyage. Even Cerberus, when he had received the sop, permitted AEneas to pass freely to Elysium. Had it been offered me and I had refused it, yet still some gratitude is due to such who were willing to oblige me. But how much more ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... have been written by a "Canadian priest" living at Lurgan in Ireland, and to be a reply to M. de Mandat Grancey's volume, Chez Paddy. It is adorned with a frontispiece representing a monster of the Cerberus type on a monument, with three heads and three collars labelled respectively "Flattery," "Famine," and "Coercion." On the pedestal is the inscription—"1800 to 1887. Erected by the grateful Irish to the English ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... epithets that the dignified Reuchlin applies to Pfefferkorn are: "A poisonous beast," "a scarecrow," "a horror," "a mad dog," "a horse," "a mule," "a hog," "a fox," "a raging wolf," "a Syrian lion," "a Cerberus," "a fury of hell." In this matter Reuchlin was finally triumphant. This triumph was loudly celebrated by his friend Hutten in another poem, in which the Obscurantists were ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan
... a mist does shew us, That our best friends do not know us; And, for those allowed features, Due to reasonable creatures, Liken'st us to fell Chimeras, Monsters, that, who see us, fear us, Worse than Cerberus, or Geryon, Or, who first loved ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... the setter, the collie, and the St. Bernard are choked into insensibility with a wire noose, hurled into a stuffy cage, and with the thermometer at ninety in the shade, are dragged through the blistering city, as a sop to that Cerberus of the law which demands for its citizens safety from dogs, and pays no attention ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... poet found himself in the third circle of hell, a place of everlasting wet, darkness, and cold, one heavy slush of hail and mud, emitting a squalid smell. The triple-headed dog Cerberus, with red eyes and greasy black beard, large belly, and hands with claws, barked above the heads of the wretches who floundered in the mud, tearing, skinning, and dismembering them, as they turned their sore and ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... Refers to the story of Orpheus' attempt to rescue his wife Eurydice from Hades. With his exquisite music he charmed Cerberus, the fierce dog who guarded hell-gates, into submission, and won Pluto's consent that he should lead Eurydice back to the upper world on one condition—that he would not look back to see that she was following. When he was almost at the gates, love and curiosity overpowered him, ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... us see what they are made of; are either of you known? for Cerberus, who keeps the door, is d——d particular, in consequence of some rows they have recently had, and the devil is careful to ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... the Parthenius.) Coasting past (the latter), they reached Heraclea (2), a Hellenic city and a colony of the Megarians, situated in the territory of the Mariandynians. So they came to anchorage off the Acherusian Chersonese, where Heracles (3) is said to have descended to bring up the dog Cerberus, at a point where they still show the marks of his descent, a deep cleft more than two furlongs down. Here the Heracleots sent the Hellenes, as gifts of hospitality, three thousand measures of barley and two thousand jars of wine, twenty beeves and one hundred sheep. Through the flat country here ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... conducted Captain Nutting and ten sentinels to the ferry landing. They were but a little distance from the frigate Somerset at anchor in the stream. Farther up, towards Lechmere's Point, were the Glasgow, Cerberus, and Symetry. Down the river, off Moulton's Point, lay ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... things happen to be so, they harness a parcel of them together and breed them up to draw fish-carts. I yesterday met a man driving four-in-hand; in turning a corner and meeting three of these open-mouthed Mastiffs panting and pulling, you might almost fancy it was Cerberus drawing the Chariot of Proserpine—but I am wandering from the Diligence, which deserves some description. It resembled a little Theatre more than a coach, with front boxes, pit, &c., lined with common ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... forth their nails to detain the souls; the Furies in despair twist the serpents in their locks; and Cerberus, fastened by thee with a chain, has a rattling in the throat, while he ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... mild and miniature Cerberus with a dainty piece of ham, but was rewarded only by a disdainful sniff and angrier snarl. The politic cat, however, with wary glances at the dog and the stranger, stole noiselessly to the meat, seized it, and retreated quickly to her recognized ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... descend on the fields of asphodel. He began to try what prayers would do, but city prayers were vain against the great rural potentate. Not only did Mr. Plomacy order his exit but, raising his stick to show the way which led to the gate that had been left in the custody of that false Cerberus Barrell, proceeded himself to see the edict of banishment ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... what the managing editor would be like; would almost, in the wreckage of his preconceived notions, have accepted a woman or a priest in that manifestation, when Mr. Gordon appeared and was addressed by name by the hollow-chested Cerberus. Banneker at once echoed the ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... does not apply his views to the human body, but only to an imaginary machine which, if it could be constructed, would do all that the human body does; throwing a sop to Cerberus unworthily; and uselessly, because Cerberus was by no means stupid enough ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... contented in her underground kingdom, where she ruled with Pluto. It was supposed to be below the volcanic grounds in southern Italy, near Lake Avernus. The entrance to it was guarded by a three-headed dog, named Cerberus, and the way to it was barred by the River Styx. Every evening Mercury brought all the spirits of the people who had died during the day to the shore of the Styx, and if their funeral rites had been properly performed, and they had ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... dismal track Where Odysseus half hung back, How wilt thou conciliate That grim mastiff by the gate? Sure, 'twill puzzle thee to fawn On his muzzles three that yawn Antrous; or to find, poor dunce, Grace in his six eyes at once— Those red eyes of Cerberus. ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... rigorously as Charon demands an obolus from every soul he ferries over Acheron, the river of death. The fierce dog Garm, cowering in the Gnipa hole, and keeping guard at Hel's gate, is like the three-headed monster Cerberus; and the nine worlds of Nifl-heim are not unlike the divisions of Hades, Nastrond being an adequate substitute for Tartarus, where the wicked were ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... his venison pasty a similar intimation of the evil destiny of his cousin, whom he determined, if possible, to rescue from the jaws of Cerberus. ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... troubled with indigestion; the dog, in general, however mythically represents all utter senseless and carnal desires; mainly that of gluttony; and in the mythic sense of Hades—that is to say, so far as it represents spiritual ruin in this life, and not a literal hell—the dog Cerberus as its gatekeeper—with this special marking of his character of sensual passion, that he fawns on all those who descend, but rages against all who would return (the Virgilian "facilis descendus" being a later recognition ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... nothing for Rhoda beyond his exquisite wardrobe and jewellery, a service of gold plate, and a number of unpaid bills, which Madam flatly refused to take upon herself, and defied the unhappy tradesmen to impose upon Rhoda. She did, however, keep the plate and jewels; and by way of a sop to Cerberus, allowed the "beggarly craftsmen," whom she so heartily despised, to sell and divide the proceeds ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... him, and informed her that ten soldi would admit her to the enchanted realm within. Poor Annunciata's countenance fell; she pulled her seven soldi from her pocket, counted them three or four times deliberately in her hand, and cast appealing glances at the stony-hearted Cerberus. At this moment she discovered a handsome young gentleman who, with his eyes fixed on her face, was elbowing ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... produced no abatement of Tearum's vociferation, which in part prevented his master from bearing the sounds of alarm which his ferocious vigilance was in the act of challenging. But the mate of the two-legged Cerberus was gifted with sharper ears than her husband. She also was now at the window; "B-t ye, gae down and let loose the dog," she said, "they're sporting the door of the Custom-house, and the auld sap at Hazlewood House has ordered off the guard. But ye hae nae mair heart, than a cat." And down ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... not speaking. It consists of three bodies, carries eighteen inside, and is not unfrequently drawn by nine horses. A cavalry charge, therefore, could scarcely make more noise. Hence, and from the other circumstance, its association in the second stanza with the triune sonorous Cerberus. A ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 282, November 10, 1827 • Various
... more? And is not that want accompanied with a real and sharp sense of hunger? Is it not true the appetite GROWS with what it feeds on? And even if a man schools himself to something like content, it comes not because the desire is satisfied, but because it is somehow bridled. Cerberus often breaks his chain, in spite of honied cakes that have been tossed into the wide mouths of his tripled heads. What do wealth and ambition do for their votaries? And even he who thirsts for nobler occupations and lives for higher aims is ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... the list, viz. Canes venatici (the Greyhounds), Lacerta (the Lizard), Leo minor (Little Lion), Lynx, Sextans Uraniae, Scutum or Clypeus Sobieskii (the shield of Sobieski), Vulpecula et Anser (Fox and Goose), Cerberus, Camelopardus (Giraffe), and Monoceros (Unicorn); the last two were originally due to Jacobus Bartschius. In 1679 Augustine Royer introduced the most interesting of the constellations of the southern hemisphere, the Crux australis or Southern Cross. He also suggested ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various
... for boys and girls of all ages,' containing 'A Sequel to Desdichado' (the modern development of Ivanhoe), in which a quite monumental example of the kind of art in question will be found as a leading illustration of this characteristic sentence, "See, good Cerberus," said Sir Rupert, "my hand has been struck off. You must make me a hand of iron, one with springs in it, so that I can make it grasp a dagger." The text is also, as it professes to be, instructive; being the ultimate degeneration ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... by having kings named after him. But Rae, greater than he, could safely pass down the dim river running through that world: could pass in his golden sun-boat, guided by magic words of Thoth instead of oars or sails; and the guardian hippopotamus (whom Greeks turned into the dog Cerberus) dared ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... Greek and Latin, Like fustian heretofore on satin; It had an odd promiscuous tone, As if h' had talk'd three parts in one; 100 Which made some think, when he did gabble, Th' had heard three labourers of Babel; Or CERBERUS himself pronounce A leash of languages at once. This he as volubly would vent 105 As if his stock would ne'er be spent: And truly, to support that charge, He had supplies as vast and large; For he cou'd coin, or counterfeit New words, with little ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... to a worried personage in Grand Uniform. The personage was the Cerberus of the Emperor's antechamber, and he barred her way. He was newly a personage, and did not ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... is but a monument of the City's shame and dishonour, instead of its glory; come, let us take a walk in, and view its inside. Accordingly we were admitted in thro' an iron gate, within which sat a brawny Cerberus, of an Indico-colour, leaning upon a money-box; we turned in through another Iron-Barricado, where we heard such a rattling of chains, drumming of doors, ranting, hollowing, singing, and running, that I could think of nothing but Don Quevedo's Vision, ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... she is under the fierce eye of some Cerberus of a schoolmistress, about whose grounds you prowl piteously, searching for small knot-holes in the surrounding board fence, through which little souvenirs of impassioned feeling may be thrust. Sonnets are written for the town papers, full of telling phrases, and with classic ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... the journey to the happy land. We everywhere hear of a water which the soul must cross, and an opponent, either a dog or an evil spirit, which it has to contend with. We are all familiar with the dog Cerberus (called by Homer simply "the dog"), which disputed the passage of the river Styx over which the souls must cross; and with the custom of the vikings, to be buried in a boat so that they might cross the waters of Ginunga-gap to the inviting strands of Godheim. Relics of this belief are found in the ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... rattlesnake. I believe, however, that the snake is not there as a welcome visitor, but comes in the role of a self-appointed assessor and tax gatherer. I picked up and adopted a little bulldog which had been either abandoned on the cars or lost by its owner, not then thinking that this little Cerberus, as I called it, should later prove, on one occasion, to be my true and only friend when I was in dire distress and ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... CERBERUS, the three-headed or three-throated monster that guarded the entrance to the nether world of Pluto, could be soothed by music, and tempted by honey, only Hercules overcame him by sheer strength, dragging him by neck and crop to the ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... and for the last, Mother Cerberus, I assure you I do not acknowledge your authority to dismiss me!" retorted Capitola. "So show me to the ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... three mouths, as that obdurate guardian of the infernal regions had? Do not shrug your shoulders, my dear comte: I put the question to you with an excellent reason, since poets pretend that, in order to soften Monsieur Cerberus, the visitor must take something enticing with him—a cake, for instance. Therefore, I, who view the matter in a prosaic light, that is to say in the light of reality, I say: one cake is very little for three mouths. If your ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... throwing a vast column of water to an amazing height, and leaving the enemy to conjecture whether it was caused by a bomb, a water-spout, or an earthquake. Want of resources obliged Mr. Bushnell to abandon his schemes for that time; but, in 1777, he made an attempt from a whale-boat against the Cerberus frigate, by drawing a machine against her side with a line. It accidentally became attached to a schooner and exploded, tearing the vessel in pieces. Three men were killed, ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... TRIPLET, the Cerberus of art, who had the first bark in this legend, and has since been out of hearing, ran from Lambeth to Covent Garden, on receipt of Mr. Vane's note. But ran he never so quick, he had built a full-sized castle in the air before he reached ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... infernal regions. Over it, AEneas stands before the Cumoean Sybil, a very injured painting. Below, Orpheus in Hades plays before Pluto and Persephone to win back Eurydice, who lies bound before them. On the right Hercules rescues Theseus from Hades, and slays Cerberus, and on the left, Eurydice, following Orpheus, looks back, and is re-seized by the demons. These are all exceedingly good and dramatic paintings, ...
— Luca Signorelli • Maud Cruttwell
... dog, however, could not possibly have any such unsubstantial origin, and this small Cerberus had now entered the room, and was barking furiously at him as an unrecognized stranger. A moment later his vision under the window stood in the doorway. The sportive girl was transformed at once into a well-bred ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... endeavour to bring about the immediate annexation of Sicily to the Sardinian kingdom. On the other hand, Garibaldi's faith in Cavour had ceased with the cession of Nice, and he believed him to be even now contemplating the cession of the island of Sardinia as a further sop to Cerberus—a project which, if it existed nowhere else, did exist in the mind of Napoleon III. With regard to immediate annexation, he had no intention of agreeing to it, and for one sufficing reason: had he consented he could not ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... dreadfull Cerberus[*] His three deformed heads did lay along, Curled with thousand adders venemous, 300 And lilled forth his bloudie flaming tong: At them he gan to reare his bristles strong, And felly gnarre, until Dayes enemy Did him appease; then downe his taile he hong And suffred ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... dog, a squint-eyed Cerberus with what Count Victor for once condemned as a tribal gibberish for his language, so that he was incapable of understanding what was said to him even if he had been willing ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... his view my box was luggage, and luggage is not permitted in any European park. Relieved to find that my detention was not more serious, my first thought was to comply with the conditions of entrance. I begged to leave my package in the sentry-box, to be reclaimed at departure. The amiable Cerberus, smiling and nodding, closed his eyes significantly: at this moment I recollected that my only motive for entering the park lay in that feature of my paraphernalia, and caught it up again, with a gesture of parental violence, in the very act of depositing it. The sentry, watching with increasing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... millions of sestertia in the course of one year; for if he choked Croton, like a whelp, who can resist him? They would give for his every appearance in the arena as much gold as he himself weighs. He guards that maiden better than Cerberus does Hades. But may Hades swallow him, for all that! I will have nothing to do with him. He is too bony. But where shall I begin in this case? A dreadful thing has happened. If he has broken the bones of such a man as Croton, beyond a doubt the soul of ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... portico of the guard-house, sat a sergeant, occupied, in obedience to orders given since the escape of Baltasar, in surveying the peasants as they passed with a keen and scrutinizing glance. For some time, however, this military Cerberus found no object of suspicion in any of the passers-by. Lithe active lads, greyhaired old men, and women whose broad shoulders and brawny limbs might well have belonged to disguised dragoons, but who, nevertheless, were unmistakeably of the softer ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... ball-room in couples or alone. To find the ball in the full tide of successful operation we should arrive about half-past ten in the evening. Entering then through a long, broad passage, midway of which we deposit five sous each with the Cerberus on guard, we pass into a hall crowded with people. The hall is not larger than that of an average country-tavern ball-room in New England: the space occupied by the dancers will accommodate perhaps fifty quadrille sets. (There are no "side couples" in the quadrilles of Paris popular balls; hence ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... were creatures of the worthy John. It was a deplorable business; they did not know what to think, nor how to act. Letters left at the door, couched in whatever terms of humility, kindliness, and just excuse, were equally unavailing; for the Cerberus there was too well sopped by pleasant brother John ever to deliver them to any one but him. It was entirely hopeless—extraordinary—a most wretched state of things. What were they to do? The only practicable mode of getting at Sir Thomas, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... Mr Cargrim was admitted with certain solemnity by a sour-faced footman whose milk of human kindness had turned acid in the thunderstorms of Mrs Pansey's spite. This engaging Cerberus conducted the chaplain into a large and sepulchral drawing-room in which the good lady and Miss Norsham were partaking of afternoon tea. Mrs Pansey wore her customary skirts of solemn black, and looked ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... to wait upon the Raymounts the next morning at breakfast, startled them all with a sweet surprise. Every time she left the room the talk about her broke out afresh, and Hester's information concerning her was a welcome sop to the Cerberus of their astonishment. A more striking contrast than that between her and her two aunts could hardly have been found in the whole island. She was like a star between two gray clouds of twilight. But she had not ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... in attending to the matter in hand, whatever it might be, would not limn Stewart Morrison in any clearer light than to state that old Andrew, at seventy-two, was obeying Stewart's orders as to the ten-o'clock rule and was just as consistently a Cerberus as he had been in the case of Angus and David. He was a bit more set in his impassivity—at least to all appearances—because chronic arthritis had made ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... especially of statues, are proverbially unsatisfactory; only a vague idea can be given in words, to the unprofessional reader; otherwise we might dwell upon the eager, intent attitude of Orpheus as he seems to glide by the dozing Cerberus, shading his eyes as they peer into the mysterious labyrinth he is about to enter in search of his ravished bride;—we might expatiate on the graceful, dignified aspect of Beethoven, the concentration ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... might be somewhat softened, and prevailed on, for a short time, to remit their fury. Having for this purpose considered many expedients, I find in the records of ancient times, that Argus was lulled by music, and Cerberus quieted with a sop; and am, therefore, inclined to believe that modern critics, who, if they have not the eyes, have the watchfulness of Argus, and can bark as loud as Cerberus, though, perhaps, they cannot bite with equal force, ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... called him Ahriman, the Hindus called him Siva. He was represented on canvas as a mythological combination of Thor and Cerberus and Pan and Vulcan and other horrible addenda. I do not care what you call him, that monster of evil is abroad, and his one work is destruction. John Milton almost glorified him by witchery of description, but he is the concentration of all meanness and of all despicability. ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... differ; people always must hunt something, don't you know; primeval instinct! Used to hunt one another," he laughed. "Sometimes do now. Fox is only a substitute for the joys of the man-hunt; sort of sop to Cerberus, as it were. ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... in selections on this principle, and a zeal has been embarked which has been found to tend neither to profit nor edification; for there have been known, at the head of public libraries, men of the Cerberus kind, who loved the books so dearly as to be unable to endure the handling of them by the vulgar herd of readers and searchers—even by those for whose special aid and service they are employed. They who have ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... ruminating over what he had both seen and heard that day, until the tossing and mutterings which proceeded from the cabin of Esther, who was his nearest neighbour, advertised him of the wakeful situation of its inmate. Perceiving the necessity of doing something to disarm this female Cerberus, before his own purpose could be accomplished, the Doctor, reluctant as he was to encounter her tongue, found himself compelled to invite a ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... down has been the problem of every religion. And the great problem of progress has been to smuggle the newly-discovered truth past Cerberus, the priest, by preparing a sop ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... his duty toward me. A single glance showed me that the inclosed sheets belonged to the number just received, not to the preceding number. I drove immediately to the Moscow office and demanded the censor. "You can tell me what you want with him," said the ante-room Cerberus. "Send me the censor," said I. After further repetition, he retired and sent in a man who requested me to state my business. "You are not the censor," I said, after a glance at him. "Send him out, or I will go to him." Then they decided that I was a connoisseur in ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... kindly toward the editor of the San Francisco Examiner. After waiting two whole weeks, Martin had written to him. A week later he wrote again. At the end of the month, he went over to San Francisco and personally called upon the editor. But he did not meet that exalted personage, thanks to a Cerberus of an office boy, of tender years and red hair, who guarded the portals. At the end of the fifth week the manuscript came back to him, by mail, without comment. There was no rejection slip, no explanation, ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... by the particular description of Cerberus, the porter of hell, in the 6th Aeneid, Virgil might possibly intend to satirize the porters of the great men in his time; the picture, at least, resembles those who have the honour to attend at the doors of our great men. The porter ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... etc. 3. Deities who perform special service to the greater gods,—Iris, Hebe, the Horae;, etc. 4. Deities whose personality is less distinct,—Ate, Eris, Thanatos, Hypnos, etc. 5. Monsters, progeny of the gods,—the Harpies, the Gorgons, Pegasus, Chimaera, Cerberus, Scylla and Charybdis, the Centaurs, the Sphinx. Below the gods are the demigods ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... fancies, master. Two gentlemen of the Palace passed to-day, and looking up at the tablet, one wagered the other on the battle to-morrow between Cerberus and the Golden Dog. I have not forgotten wholly my early lessons in classical lore," added ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... for his obtusity. He should have been aware that Burgo was a danger to be avoided; and he should have been aware also that Mrs Marsham was a duenna not to be employed. When a woman knows that she is guarded by a watch-dog, she is bound to deceive her Cerberus, if it be possible, and is usually not ill-disposed to deceive also the owner of Cerberus. Lady Glencora felt that Mrs Marsham was her Cerberus, and she was heartily resolved that if she was to be kept ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... lesser towns has never been profound. I have even been bold enough, when I came across one of them, to hasten straight through as though assured that Cerberus was securely chained; but I found, after a time, what I might indeed have guessed, that the Road, also led irresistibly to the lair of the Old Monster himself, the He-one of the species, where he lies upon the plain, lolling under his soiled ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... if ought your loyal peers Accomplish may, to ease your lingering grief, I, in the name of all, protest to you, That we will boldly enterprise the same, Were it to enter to black Tartarus, Where triple Cerberus with his venomous throat, Scarreth the ghosts with high resounding noise. We'll either rent the bowels of the earth, Searching the entrails of the brutish earth, Or, with his Ixion's overdaring son, Be bound in chains of ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... we ask if these mystic influences of light and of darkness still retain their power. Can we doubt it? We have Milton's Melancholy, "of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born"—"where brooding darkness spreads his jealous wings." All this no mere refurbishing of classical lore, but the outcome of deep sympathy with the poets of the prime. And the same is true of his buoyant lines that describe ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... have related to times before the invention of the bow and arrow, or of spinning flax. Other stories of Hercules are perhaps of later date, and appear to be allegorical, as his conquering the river- god Achilous, and bringing Cerberus up to day light; the former might refer to his turning the course of a river, and draining a morass, and the latter to his exposing a part of the superstition of the times. The strangling the lion and tearing his jaws asunder, are described from a statue in the Museum ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... by his nearest friends and dearest connections. The brave Grillon was the only one who ventured to visit me, at the hazard of incurring disgrace. He came five or six times to see me, and my guards were so much astonished at his resolution, and awed by his presence, that not a single Cerberus of them all would venture to refuse him entrance ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... mist dost show us, That our best friends do not know us, And, for those allowed features, Due to reasonable creatures, Liken'st us to fell Chimeras, Monsters that, who see us, fear us; Worse than Cerberus or Geryon, Or, who ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... Notwithstanding which assurance, the cottage was visited next day by eleven gods and demigods, mostly Titans. Elenko found it trying, and was really alarmed when by and by the Furies, having made over their functions to the Devil, strolled up to take the air, and dropped in for a chat, bringing Cerberus. But they behaved exceedingly well, and took back a message from Elenko to Eurydice. Ere long she was on most intimate terms with all the dethroned divinities, celestial, ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... of centuries, or perhaps the mushroom growth from a rich man's grave, a great collection magically convoked by the talisman of gold. At the threshold, as I ardently enter, the flaming sword of regulation is waving. Between me and the inviting shelves are fences of woven iron; the bibliographic Cerberus is at his sentryship; when I want a full draught, I must be content with driblets; and the impatient messengers are sworn to bring me only a single volume at a time. To read in such a hampered and limited way is not to read at all; and I go back, after ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... large as a big hazel-nut, with the head of Minerva in a style of inconceivable beauty. I remember yet another precious stone, different from these; it was a cameo, engraved with Hercules binding Cerberus of the triple throat; such was its beauty and the skill of its workmanship, that our great Michel Agnolo protested he had never seen anything so wonderful. Among many bronze medals, I obtained one upon which was a head of Jupiter. It was the largest that had ever ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... a warm flush over her pale face, and Mrs Forbes entered, then Kate, and last of all, Alec, much against his will. Then Annie re-entered, and Bruce resumed his place as Cerberus of the pew-door. So Annie was seated next to Alec, as she had never been, in church or chapel, or even in school, before, except on that memorable day when they were both kept in for the Shorter Catechism. ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... veteris Bacchi pinguisque ferinae Anno Dom 1655.' 10. The Arms of the late Earl of Yarmouth. 11. The Arms of the Duke of Norfolk. 12. Neptune on a Dolphin. 13. A Lion supporting the Arms of Norwich. 14. Charon carrying a reputed Witch to Hell. 15. Cerberus. 16. An Huntsman. 17. Actaeon [with three dogs, and this legend, 'Actaeon ego sum Dominum cognoscite vestrum']. 18. A White Hart couchant [underneath appears in the engraving the artist's name—Johannes Fairchild struxit]. 19. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 20, March 16, 1850 • Various
... makes thee sink under this last danger who hast been so miraculously supported in all thy former?" Then the voice told her how by a certain cave she might reach the realms of Pluto, and how to avoid all the dangers of the road, to pass by Cerberus, the three-headed dog, and prevail on Charon, the ferryman, to take her across the black river and bring her back again. But the voice added, "When Proserpine has given you the box filled with her beauty, of all things this is chiefly to be observed by ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... this figure which astonished me. The face is full of the inspiration of the poet, softened by the lover's tenderness, and the whole fervor of his soul is expressed in the eagerness with which he gazes forward, on stepping past the sleeping Cerberus. Crawford is now engaged on the statue of an Indian girl, pierced by an arrow, and dying. It is a simple and touching figure, and will, I think, be ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... the Lion, and destroyed the many-headed Hydra; was able to kill the fleet man-eating birds, and brought up from hades the three-headed dog, Cerberus; effectually cleansed the Augean stable from its refuse; killed the bulls and stag whose nostrils breathed fire; slew the poisonous serpent and killed Ach-e-lo-us. The guest-slaying Bu-si-ris was delighted with being stunned by the cymbals ...
— The Christian Foundation, April, 1880
... my life!" said a voice as soft and musical as the vibration of a bell, "you make an admirable Cerberus. My gauntlet." The sweep of the hand fascinated him. "Are your ears like the sailors' of Ulysses, filled with wax? I am asking you to pick up ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... the supreme judge, before whom all shades had to appear, and who, after hearing full confession of their actions whilst on earth, pronounced the sentence of happiness or misery to which their deeds had entitled them. This tribunal was guarded by the terrible triple-headed dog Cerberus, who, with his three necks bristling with snakes, lay at full length on the ground;—a formidable sentinel, who permitted all shades to enter, ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... my great secret that the Law is the Cerberus that guards the portals of our earthly paradise against the common herd—we must not be disturbed ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 4, June 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... the preceding ones, increased the probability of the fiction; and thus to arrive at Tartarus or Elysium, souls were obliged to cross the rivers Styx and Acheron, in the boat of Charon the ferryman, and to pass through the doors of horn and ivory, which were guarded by the mastiff Cerberus. At length a civil usage was joined to all these inventions, and gave ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... your Englishman at me,' he said, 'like the sop to Cerberus. Would you have been quite so ready to do that if you had not had a motive of your own? I repeat my question. You have an ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... will you miss this splendid opportunity of giving a sop to your Cerberus? Of conciliating your bugbear? your bete noire? your fear ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... terrible, outrageous and lawless, was joined in love to her, the maid with glancing eyes. So she conceived and brought forth fierce offspring; first she bare Orthus the hound of Geryones, and then again she bare a second, a monster not to be overcome and that may not be described, Cerberus who eats raw flesh, the brazen-voiced hound of Hades, fifty-headed, relentless and strong. And again she bore a third, the evil-minded Hydra of Lerna, whom the goddess, white-armed Hera nourished, being angry beyond measure with the mighty Heracles. And her Heracles, the ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... bending his predeterminations to the call of the moment. He acted wiselier than he intended; as, for instance, three weeks after declaring he would not give a constitution to his people, he gave it,—a sop to Cerberus, indeed,—a poor vamped-up thing that will by and by have to give place to something more legitimate, but which served its purpose at the time as declaration of rights for the people. When the news of the revolution of Vienna arrived, the Pope himself cried ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... capital. Since then the road by the sea had been built, and the Harinoki pass had ceased to be in practice what it purported to be in print. It had in a double sense reverted to type. There was small wonder at this, for it was a very Cerberus of a pass at best, with three heads to it. The farthest from Etchiu was ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... steering his phallus toward its absurd destiny. The transvaluations—the ineffable and inarticulate mysteries he fancied himself embracing—turn out to be a woman with her legs wrapped around him. His desires for the infinite sate themselves in the feeble tickle of orgasm. Cerberus seduced from his Godhood ...
— Fantazius Mallare - A Mysterious Oath • Ben Hecht
... of irony ape smiles of love. Down from the oaks of Hertford Castle park, Double with warm rose-breaths of southern Spring Came rumors, as if odors too had thorns, Sharp rumors, how the three Estates of France, Like old Three-headed Cerberus of Hell Had set upon the Duke of Normandy, Their rightful Regent, snarled in his great face, Snapped jagged teeth in inch-breadth of his throat, And blown such hot and savage breath upon him, That he had tossed great sops of royalty ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... to write anything except actual scenes from border life. As a sop to the Cerberus of sensationalism, he did occasionally condescend to heighten his effects by exaggeration. In sending one story to the ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... was one of the party that had ushered Peveril into the presence of this Cerberus, now conveyed him out in silence; and, under his guidance, the prisoner was carried through a second labyrinth of passages with cells opening on each side, to that which was destined ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... indeed, that we have nothing new to say on any subject, and yawn at each other in a sort of quiet inquietude. I hear nothing from Cawthorn, or Captain Hobhouse; and their quarto—Lord have mercy on mankind! We come on like Cerberus with our triple publications. [2] As for myself, by myself, I must be satisfied with a comparison ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... hands, with which He tears the spirits, flays them, and their limbs Piecemeal disparts. Howling there spread, as curs, Under the rainy deluge, with one side The other screening, oft they roll them round, A wretched, godless crew. When that great worm Descried us, savage Cerberus, he op'd His jaws, and the fangs show'd us; not a limb Of him but trembled. Then my guide, his palms Expanding on the ground, thence filled with earth Rais'd them, and cast ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... said Boswell. "The city claimed, however, that Cerberus was more than that, and endeavored to collect on three dogs—one license for each head. This the State declined to pay, and out of this grew further complications of a distressing nature. The city sent its dog-catchers up to abscond with ...
— The Enchanted Typewriter • John Kendrick Bangs
... duodecim laboribus relinquebatur sed inter omnis hic erat difficillimus. Iussus est enim canem Cerberum[4] ex Orco in lucem trahere. Ex Orco autem nemo antea reverterat. Praeterea Cerberus erat monstrum maxime horribile et tria capita habebat. Hercules postquam imperia Eurysthei accepit, statim profectus est et in Orcum descendit. Ibi vero non sine summo periculo Cerberum manibus rapuit et ingenti cum labore ex Orco in lucem ...
— Latin for Beginners • Benjamin Leonard D'Ooge
... She had told the Cerberus below that she would be out all the evening; and she had procured a considerable stock of charcoal. She wrote two letters,—one to her father, the other to M. ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... 315 When in their hearts are Scylla and Caribdis, Which still are hid in dark and standing foggs, Where never day shines, nothing ever growes But weeds and poysons that no states-man knowes; Nor Cerberus ever saw the damned nookes 320 Hid with the veiles of womens vertuous lookes. But what a cloud of sulphur have I drawne Up to my bosome in this dangerous secret! Which if my hast with any spark should light Ere D'Ambois were engag'd in some sure plot, 325 I were blowne up; ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... might be a shadowy world—the poets said so—Odysseus visited its depths and brought back its report—but it was a gloomy place at best. Horace alludes to it always in the tone of the Hebrew Psalmists, or of Hezekiah sick to death, utilizing Minos and Cerberus and Tantalus and Sisyphus for poetic effect, yet ever with an undertone of sadness and alarm. Not Orpheus' self, he says (I, xxiv, 13), in his exquisite lament for dead Quinctilius, can bring back life-blood to the phantom pale who has joined the spectral band that voyage to Styx: the ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... Open the door of Madame Dupont's room, and let me feel that I am within hearing of my dear old Cerberus. ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... soul, That fain would please each part[106], if so he might. He and the Spring are scholars' favourites: What scholars are, what thriftless kind of men, Yourself be judge; and judge of him by them. When Cerberus was headlong drawn from hell, He voided a black poison from his mouth, Call'd Aconitum, whereof ink was made: That ink, with reeds first laid on dried barks, Serv'd me awhile to make rude works withal, Till Hermes, secretary to the gods, Or Hermes Trismegistus, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... "Cerberus" was not at all fierce—quite the contrary! He had been deputed by the others to confront the unwelcome visitor, as being the eldest, and therefore responsible for all unpleasant duties; but as far as he was concerned, he had no feeling in ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... vast organic harmonies of Nature and the Universe; but they do not enter into the soul of their creation any more than the limitations of counterpoint and rhythm laid their incubus on the lyre of Apollo. The porches where Callicrates, Hermogenes, and Callimachus walked were guarded by no such Cerberus as the disciples of Plato encountered at the entrance of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... you, are you afraid of the three-headed Cerberus in the shades below, and the roaring waves of Cocytus, and the passage over Acheron, and Tantalus expiring with thirst, while the water touches his chin; ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... Servetus was not an ordinary heretic; he was a bold pantheist, and outraged the dogma of all Christian communions by saying that God, in three persons, was a Cerberus, a monster with three heads. 2. He had already been condemned to death by the Catholic doctors at Vienne in Dauphiny. 3. The affair was judged, not by Calvin, but by the magistrates of Geneva; and if it is objected that his advice must have influenced their decision, it is necessary to recollect ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... out, and thundered upon her vicarious head the damnation of the world. At each side of her an adamant parent held her rigidly to the bar of judgment. An ant crawled upon her neck, but she dared not move. She lowered her eyes before the congregation—a hundred-eyed Cerberus that watched the gates through which her sins were fast thrusting her. Her soul was filled with a delirious, almost a fanatic joy. For she was out of the clutch of the tyrant, Freedom. Dogma and creed pinioned her with beneficent cruelty, as steel braces bind the feet of a crippled child. ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... would dare to awaken the sepulchral echoes of that dismal tomb. We find, too, that at the very threshold of the house she defies the one of the most time-honored institutions of our stage, by employing a pleasant and courteous door-keeper—instead of the snarling Cerberus who lies in wait at the doors of other theatres. We find again that she outrages the public by the presence of decent and civil ushers, who neither insult the male spectators by their surly impudence, nor annoy the lady visitor by coloring her train with ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 33, November 12, 1870 • Various
... the well-known quest, the delightful singer Orpheus took that downward way, coming in sight of old Cerberus centiceps, he astutely feigned inattention to the hostile appearances of the multiple beast, and with a wave of his plectrum over the responsive lyre, he at the stroke raised voice. This much you ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... he had not given up all hope of finding proofs of Deroulede's treason, although by the latter's attitude he remained quite convinced that such proof did exist, he was already reckoning upon the cat's paw, the sop he would offer to that Cerberus, the Committee of Public Safety, in exchange for his ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:—I confess that my mind was a little relieved when I found that the toast to which I am to respond rolled three gentlemen, Cerberus-like, into one [laughter], and when I saw Science pulling impatiently at the leash on my left, and Art on my right, and that therefore the responsibility of only a third part of the acknowledgment has fallen to me. You, my lord, have alluded to the ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... No man of experience can have believed that such an agreement could be wise, or that it can result in anything but trouble and humiliation; but the trouble and humiliation will not come just yet, and in the meanwhile a sop is thrown to Cerberus. Political memories are short, and when exposure comes it will be easy to fix the blame upon the other side. It is because we appreciate these facts that in the end we must prevail. The Liberal party, or rather the Radical section, which is to ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... their fabric than Those images which take a hold on eyes And smite the vision, since through body's pores They penetrate, and inwardly stir up The subtle nature of mind and smite the sense. Thus, Centaurs and the limbs of Scyllas, thus The Cerberus-visages of dogs we see, And images of people gone before— Dead men whose bones earth bosomed long ago; Because the images of every kind Are everywhere about us borne—in part Those which are gendered in the very air Of own accord, in part those others which From ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... wherein they stood with rapidly increasing violence. The terrible, unseen hand of the Frozen North had unleashed its brood of furies, and the air rang with their hideous cries. It was Dante's third circle of hell let loose— Cerberus baying through his wide, threefold throat, and the voices of tormented souls shrilling through the infernal shades. It came from behind them, lifting the fur on the backs of the wolf-dogs and filling it with powder, pelting their hides with sharp particles until ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... mastiff that he has to lead by the nose, he can make an empty show, very safely, by giving his single voice, and suffering his light squadron to file off to the other side. And when a question of humanity is agitated, he may dip a sop in the milk of human kindness, to silence Cerberus, and talk of the interest which his heart takes in an attempt to make the earth no longer cry for vengeance as it sucks in its children's blood, though his cold hand may at the very moment rivet their chains, by sanctioning the abominable traffick. A minister is no longer a minister than while ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... there in the freezing cold instead of in bed? Frederick found the right answer. Not more than three paces away was the door of Ingigerd's cabin; and he was the faithful dog in three senses, the watchdog, the Cerberus, the dog crazed ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... Semitic face of the second Jewish secretary, on the farther side of the torrent of boiling amber sunshine pouring through a central opening in the roof of the inner hall that succeeded the vestibule of the mosaic Cerberus. An atrium some forty feet in length, paved with squares of black and yellow marble with an oblong pool in the midst of it, upon whose still crystal surface pink and crimson petals of roses had been strewn in patterns, and in the centre of which a ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... hairy, oily paw, saying, "Let me see the pretty watch." "Not necessary," I replied, putting it back in my pocket and calmly eying him, although my heart began to beat fast. I was alone in the tower with this hairy Cerberus, who, for all I knew, might be contemplating doing ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards |
