The Romance of Biography: Or, Memoirs of Women Loved and Celebrated by Poets, from the Days of the Troubadours to the Present Age; a Series of Anecdotes Intended to Illustrate the Influence which Female Beauty and Virtue Have Exercised Over the Characters & Writings of Men of Genius, Volume 1Saunders and Otley, 1837 - Women |
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Common terms and phrases
addressed admiration adoration Alessandra amatory amor appears Ariosto Beatrice beauty behold Blanche Canzone celebrated chansons character charms Chaucer chivalrous Countess Countess of Provence court Court of Love d'amore Dante death delight Demetrius Chalcondyle disdain doth Duchess Earl elegant Elizabeth Elizabeth Throckmorton exquisite eyes fair fame fancy favour feeling female Ferrara gallantry genius gentle Geraldine glory grace grief Guido Cavalcanti hair heart heaven homage honour imagination inspired Italian lady lamented Laura Leonora Leonora Baroni Leonora d'Este look Lord Lorenzo lover marriage married ment Milton mind mistress modesty mort never noble object occhi ogni Parliament of Birds passion Petrarch poems poet poëtes poetical poetry praise Princess Queen racter rapture Rudel says Scandiano sentiment Shakspeare smiles song Sonnet Sonnet 39 Spenser spirit style Surrey sweet talents Tasso tenderness thee thing thou thought translated Troubadours truth verse virtue Vita wife woman women young youth
Popular passages
Page 227 - O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide, The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds, That did not better for my life provide Than public means which public manners breeds. Thence comes it that my name receives a brand, And almost thence my nature is subdued To what it works in, like the dyer's hand.
Page 224 - And to his robbery had annex'd thy breath ; But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth A vengeful canker eat him up to death. More flowers I noted, yet I none could see But sweet or colour it had stol'n from thee.
Page 228 - No longer mourn for me when I am dead, Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell Give warning to the world that I am fled From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell : Nay, if you read this line, remember not The hand that writ it ; for I love you so, That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot, If thinking on me then should make you woe.
Page 256 - That very time I saw, but thou couldst not, Flying between the cold moon and the earth, Cupid all arm'd : a certain aim he took At a fair vestal throned by the west, And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow, As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts ; But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watery moon, And the imperial votaress passed on, In maiden meditation, fancy-free.
Page 225 - Let not my love be call'd idolatry, Nor my beloved as an idol show, Since all alike my songs and praises be, To one, of one, still such, and ever so. Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind, Still constant in a wondrous excellence ; Therefore my verse to constancy confined, One thing expressing, leaves out difference. Fair, kind, and true...
Page 213 - And blesseth her with his two happy hands, How the red roses flush up in her...
Page 223 - The forward violet thus did I chide: Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells, If not from my love's breath?
Page 224 - How like a winter hath my absence been From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year! What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen! What old December's bareness everywhere! And yet this time removed was summer's time; The teeming autumn, big with rich increase, Bearing the wanton burden of the prime, Like widow'd wombs after their lords...
Page 317 - O'er other creatures. Yet when I approach Her loveliness, so absolute she seems And in herself complete, so well to know Her own, that what she wills to do or say, Seems wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best. All higher knowledge in her presence falls Degraded : wisdom in discourse with her Loses discountenanced, and like folly shows.
Page 329 - Methought I saw my late espoused saint Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave, Whom Jove's great son to her glad husband gave, Rescued from death by force though pale and faint.