The Fair Maid Of Astolat Quotes

Elaine turned to her father in her distress. 'Father will you give me permission to ride after Sir Lancelot? I must reach him. Otherwise I will go out of my mind with grief.'
'Go, good daughter. Rescue him, if you can.'
So she made herself ready for the journey, weeping all the time. Gawain himself rode back to the court of the king in London"
–The Fair Maid of Astolat ~ Peter Ackroyd

My brave husband came back from fighting the Turks and brought me a robe of silk and a necklace of human teeth. He sat up at night by his hearth telling tales of battle. Apparently the Turks are ten times more ferocious and fearless than the Scots. 'Perhaps we should invite them here to drive the Scots back,' I suggested, and he laughed, but he didn't kiss me. That's when I learned the truth about scars. A man with a battle scar is a veteran, a hero, given an honoured place at the fire. Small boys gaze up fascinated, dreaming of winning such badges of courage. Maids caress his thighs with their buttocks as they bend over to mull his ale. Women cluck and cosset, and if in time other men grow a little weary of that tale of honour, then they call for his cup to be filled again and again until he is fuddled and dozes quietly in the warmth of the embers.

But a scarred woman is not encouraged to tell her story. Boys jeer and mothers cross themselves. Pregnant women will not come close for fear that if they look upon such a sight, the infant in their belly will be marked. You've heard of the tales of Beauty and the Beast no doubt. How a fair maid falls in love with a monster and sees the beauty of his soul beneath the hideous visage. But you've never heard the tale of the handsome man falling for the monstrous woman and finding joy in her love, because it doesn't happen, not even in fairytales. The truth is that the scarred woman's husband buys her a good thick veil and ~ Karen Maitland

For a fair maid of England hath told me
That the crows are departed the Tower.
So I'll seek for my bailiwick elsewhere,
Sniffing out some new dungheap of power. ~ Paul Christensen

I know not which I love the most, Nor which the comeliest shows, The timid, bashful violet Or the royal-hearted rose: The pansy in purple dress, The pink with cheek of red, Or the faint, fair heliotrope, who hangs, Like a bashful maid her head. ~ Phoebe Cary

A scratch at the door interrupted us. Colin dropped and rolled under the bed again. One of the maids poked her head in. "Miss?"
I tried not to look as if I was hiding a handsome young lad under the mattress.
"Yes?"
"Lord Jasper sent me up to see if you need help getting ready for a ball." She smiled proudly. "I have a fair hand with a curling iron."
"Oh.Thank you." I needed to get Colin out before I ended up naked in the middle of my bedroom. "I,um, could I get some hot water? To wash my face?"
"Certainly,miss. I'll have the footmen bring up the bathtub, if you like, before all the fine ladies start calling for their own baths."
"That would be great, thanks." I'd never actually been in a full reclining tub before. We had a battered hip bath in the kitchen.
The maid curtsied and closed the door behind her. I let out a breath. Colin crawled back out. "They need to sweep under there," he said, sneezing. ~ Alyxandra Harvey

Epictetus explained what becoming a Cynic would entail: "You must utterly put away the will to get, and must will to avoid only what lies within the sphere of your will: you must harbour no anger, wrath, envy, pity: a fair maid, a fair name, favourites, or sweet cakes, must mean nothing to you." A Cynic, he explained, "must have the spirit of patience in such measure as to seem to the multitude as unfeeling as a stone. Reviling or blows or insults are nothing to him."2 Few people, one imagines, had the courage and endurance to live the life of a Cynic. The ~ William B. Irvine

In Amsterdam there lives a maid (Mark well what I do say) In Amsterdam there lives a maid. And she is the mistress of her trade: I'll go no more a-roving with you, fair maid! A-roving, a-roving, since roving's been my ru-eye-in, I'll go no more a-roving with you, fair maid! British seaman's songearly seventeenth centuryMost seamen's songs and chanties, from the sixteenthcentury on, were highly "permissive" when read aright.They were much bowdlerised in the nineteenth century,and many lost their original honesty and delight. Thisone, innocent except to the seamen's ears, survived.("Torove," is the sailor's term for the weft in canvas. It means"to insert" - "to pass through." "Trade," in English, hasalways had a sexual connotation.) ~ Tristan Jones

You've heard tales of beauty and the beast. How a fair maid falls in love with a monster and sees the beauty of his soul beneath the hideous visage. But you've never heard the tale of the handsome man falling for the monstrous woman and finding joy in her love, because it doesn't happen, not even in a story-teller's tale. ~ Karen Maitland

Fairest Cordelia, that art most rich, being poor;
Most choice, forsaken; and most loved, despised!
Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon:
Be it lawful I take up what's cast away.
Gods, gods! 'tis strange that from their cold'st neglect
My love should kindle to inflamed respect.
Thy dowerless daughter, king, thrown to my chance,
Is queen of us, of ours, and our fair France:
Not all the dukes of waterish Burgundy
Can buy this unprized precious maid of me.
Bid them farewell, Cordelia, though unkind:
Thou losest here, a better where to find. ~ William Shakespeare

Nay, I'll conjure too.
Romeo! humours! madman! passion! lover!
Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh:
Speak but one rhyme, and I am satisfied;
Cry but 'Ay me!' pronounce but 'love' and 'dove;'
Speak to my gossip Venus one fair word,
One nick-name for her purblind son and heir,
Young Adam Cupid, he that shot so trim,
When King Cophetua loved the beggar-maid!
He heareth not, he stirreth not, he moveth not;
The ape is dead, and I must conjure him.
I conjure thee by Rosaline's bright eyes,
By her high forehead and her scarlet lip,
By her fine foot, straight leg and quivering thigh
And the demesnes that there adjacent lie,
That in thy likeness thou appear to us! ~ William Shakespeare

Homer's Hymn to the Moon

Published by Mrs. Shelley, "Poetical Works", 1839, 2nd edition; dated 1818.
Daughters of Jove, whose voice is melody,
Muses, who know and rule all minstrelsy
Sing the wide-winged Moon! Around the earth,
From her immortal head in Heaven shot forth,
Far light is scattered - boundless glory springs;
Where'er she spreads her many-beaming wings
The lampless air glows round her golden crown.

But when the Moon divine from Heaven is gone
Under the sea, her beams within abide,
Till, bathing her bright limbs in Ocean's tide,
Clothing her form in garments glittering far,
And having yoked to her immortal car
The beam-invested steeds whose necks on high
Curve back, she drives to a remoter sky
A western Crescent, borne impetuously.
Then is made full the circle of her light,
And as she grows, her beams more bright and bright
Are poured from Heaven, where she is hovering then,
A wonder and a sign to mortal men.

The Son of Saturn with this glorious Power
Mingled in love and sleep - to whom she bore
Pandeia, a bright maid of beauty rare
Among the Gods, whose lives eternal are.

Hail Queen, great Moon, white-armed Divinity,
Fair-haired and favourable! thus with thee
My song beginning, by its music sweet
Shall make immortal many a glorious feat
Of demigods, with lovely lips, so well
Which minstre ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

Oh, stop talking," I cried, in a hunted tone. "I can't bear it. If you are going to arrest me, get it over."

"I'd rather NOT arrest you, if we can find a way out. You look so young, so new to Crime! Even your excuse for being here is so naive, that I - won't you tell me why you wrote a love letter, if you are not in love? And whom you sent it to? That's important, you see, as it bears on the case. I intend," he said, "to be judgdicial[sic], unimpassioned, and quite fair."

"I wrote a love letter" I explained, feeling rather cheered, "but it was not intended for any one, Do you see? It was just a love letter."

"Oh," he said. "Of course. It is often done. And after that?"

"Well, it had to go somewhere. At least I felt that way about it. So I made up a name from some malted milk tablets - - "

"Malted milk tablets!" he said, looking bewildered.

"Just as I was thinking up a name to send it to," I explained, "Hannah - that's mother's maid, you know - brought in some hot milk and some malted milk tablets, and I took the name from them."

"Look here," he said, "I'm unpredjudiced and quite calm, but isn't the `mother's maid' rather piling it on?"

"Hannah is mother's maid, and she brought in the milk and the tablets, I should think," I said, growing sarcastic, "that so far it is clear to the dullest mind."

"Go on," he said, leaning back and closing his eyes. "You named the letter ~ Mary Roberts Rinehart

Speak to me, fair maid!
Speak and do not go!
What sorrows have your eyes inlaid
With such black woe?
My dam is buried deep
Dark are my father's halls
And carrion fowl and wolves now keep
Their ruined walls
From: The Lay of Andomian and Beruldh ~ Alison Croggon

Will sat where he was, gazing at the silver bowl in front of him; a white rose was floating in it, and he seemed prepared to stare at it until it went under. In the Kitchen Bridget was still singing one of her awful sad songs; the lyrics drifted in through the door:
"Twas on an evening fair I went to take the air,
I heard a maid making her moan;
Said, 'Saw ye my father? Or ye my mother?
Or saw ye my brother John?
Or saw ye the lad that I love best,
And his name it is Sweet William?"
I may murder her, Tessa thought. Let her make a song about that. ~ Cassandra Clare

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief
That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she. . . . ~ William Shakespeare

The Bear and the Maiden Fair


A bear there was, a bear, a bear!
All black and brown, and covered with hair!
The bear! The bear!
Oh, come, they said, oh come to the fair!
The fair? Said he, but I'm a bear!
All black, and brown, and covered with hair!

And Down the road from here to there.
From here! To There!
Three boys, a goat, and a dancing bear!
[He] danced and spun, all the way to the Fair!
The Fair! The Fair!

[...]

Oh, sweet she was, and pure, and fair!
The maid with honey in her hair!
Her hair! Her hair!
The maid with honey in her hair!

[The bear,] smelled the scent on the summer air.
The bear! The bear!
All black and brown and covered with hair.
He smelled the scent on the summer air!
He sniffed and roared and smelled it there!
Honey on the summer air!

Oh, I'm a maid, and I'm pure and fair!
I'll never dance with a hairy bear!
A bear! A bear!
I'll never dance with a hairy bear!
He lifted her high into the air!
The bear! The bear!

I called for a knight, but you're a bear!
A bear! A bear!
All black and brown and covered with hair!
She kicked and wailed, the maid so fair,
But he licked the honey from her hair,
Her hair! Her hair!

Then she sighed and squealed and kicked the air!
My bear! She sang. My bear so fair!
And off they went, from here ~ George R.R. Martin

Feste. Are you ready, sir?

Orsino. Ay; prithee, sing.
[Music] 945
SONG.

Feste. Come away, come away, death,
And in sad cypress let me be laid;
Fly away, fly away breath;
I am slain by a fair cruel maid. 950
My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,
O, prepare it!
My part of death, no one so true
Did share it.
Not a flower, not a flower sweet 955
On my black coffin let there be strown;
Not a friend, not a friend greet
My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown:
A thousand thousand sighs to save,
Lay me, O, where 960
Sad true lover never find my grave,
To weep there!
Orsino. There's for thy pains.
Feste. No pains, sir: I take pleasure in singing, sir.

Orsino. I'll pay thy pleasure then. 965

Feste. Truly, sir, and pleasure will be paid, one time or another.

From Twelfth Night, Act II, Scene 4. ~ William Shakespeare

The fallacy in the progressive critique is the egalitarian dogma that no one should get more than what liberals deem is a 'fair' reward, nor should there be any risk to anyone to fail. ~ Robert Agostinelli

Bacchus ever fair and young, Drinking joys did first ordain. Bachus's blessings are a treasure, Drinking is the soldier's pleasure, Rich the treasure, Sweet the pleasure- Sweet is pleasure after pain. ~ John Dryden

Seriously, why do you read that crap?" asked the girl.
Book Boy snapped his volume shut and removed his glasses from his nose. "I speak the truth! In all of these books the girls are throwing themselves at the romantic heroes- romantic heroes who are dead, ho drink human blood. Be of good cheer, my brothers, for I tell you there is hope!"
One of the other guys, a large black chap, rolled his lone eye. "Okay, you're cut off. Someone get him a cookbook or something."
"Or, you know, some fair damsel to seduce," the girl said, looking up from her reflection. ~ Lia Habel

Let the watchwords of all our people be the old familiar watchwords of honesty, decency, fair-dealing, and commonsense." ... "We must treat each man on his worth and merits as a man. We must see that each is given a square deal, because he is entitled to no more and should receive no less.""The welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally upon the welfare of all of us. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Love, whose month is ever May,
Spied a blossom passing fair,
Playing in the wanton air:
Through the velvet leaves the wind,
All unseen can passage find;
That the lover, sick to death,
Wish'd himself the heaven's breath. ~ William Shakespeare

I know it's not fair to ask you to be with me when we can't even sleep in the same bed, but I'll love you better than anyone else could. I'll take care of you and make you happy. I know I can. ~ Sylvia Day

Is it fair to say we're just two adults who find the other interesting?"
"That's all I would say."
"No hidden agenda?"
"None"
"Have breakfast with me?"
"How could I refuse? ~ Bernadette Marie

If life were fair, Elvis would still be alive and all the impersonators would be dead. ~ Johnny Carson

I've always been in two minds about women, really. On the one hand, I always liked the fact they had waists, and we hadn't. That aroused in me a feeling of - how shall I put it? - well, pleasure. Yes, pleasurable feelings. Still, on the other hand, they did stab Marat with a penknife, and Marat was Incorruptible, so they shouldn't have stabbed him. That fairly killed off the pleasure. Then again, like Karl Marx, I've always loved women for their little weaknesses - i.e. they've got to sit down to pee, and I've always liked that - that's always filled me with - well, what the hell - a sort of warm feeling. Yes, pleasurable warmth. But then again they did shoot at Lenin, with a revolver no less! And that put a damper on the pleasure as well. I mean, fair enough, sitting down to pee, but shooting at Lenin? That's a sick joke, talking about pleasure after that.

However, I digress. ~ Venedikt Erofeev

The World's Fair audience tended to think of the machine as unqualifiedly good, strong, stupid and obedient. They thought of it as a giant slave, an untiring steel Negro, controlled by Reason in a world of infinite resources. ~ Robert Hughes

So it is fair enough that you are paying me what I ask for, because it is my name you are using to sell the film. If the producer gives me a guarantee that he will sell the film at a lower price to the distributors, fair enough, then I will charge less! ~ Ajay Devgan

But for real, for me, I feel like with the red lipstick thing it all depends on the pair of complexion. I'm just being for real. You have to be fair skinned to get away with that. ~ ASAP Rocky

(About a cookbook ... )
- What about this one? Maids of Honor?
- Weeelll, they starts OUT as Maids of Honor ... but they ends up Tarts. ~ Terry Pratchett

He turned the haggered, haunted face on her and said, "I want you to stop it."
"Whatever you're doing ... to try to make me like Pilar, it has to stop. Because it's not fair to her. She's upset right now because I'm acting crazy. But I don't want to be with her. It's you I love. And if you want to get rid of me, then tell me, but don't try to foist me off on somebody else. ~ L.J.Smith

All women, from the countess to the cook-maid, are put into high good humor with themselves when a man is taken with them at firstsight. And be they ever so plain, they will find twenty good reasons to defend the judgment of such a man. ~ Samuel Richardson

For two nights Félicité never left the dead girl. She said the same prayers over and over again, sprinkled holy water on the sheets, then sat down again to watch. At the end of her first vigil, she noticed that the child's face had gone yellow, the lips were turning blue, the nose looked sharper, and the eyes were sunken. She kissed them several times, and would not have been particularly surprised if Virginie had opened them again: to minds like hers the supernatural is a simple matter. She laid her out, wrapped her in a shroud, put her in her coffin, placed a wreath on her, and spread out her hair. It was fair and amazingly long for her age. Félicité cut off a big lock, half of which she slipped into her bosom, resolving never to part with it. ~ Gustave Flaubert

When he thought of her, he could call up a vivid picture of her to himself, especially the charm of that little fair head, so freely set on the shapely girlish shoulders, and so full of childish brightness and good humor. The childishness of her expression, together with the delicate beauty of her figure, made up her special charm, and that he fully realised. But what always struck him in her as something unlooked for, was the expression of her eyes, soft, serene, and truthful, and above all, her smile, which always transported Levin to an enchanted world, where he felt himself softened and tender, as he remembered himself in some days of his early childhood. ~ Leo Tolstoy

I spend a fair bit of time in Los Angeles, and there is much I love about the place - the weather, the food, the beaches and the golf. And a few things I don't. Like the way an enormous number of mentally ill people seem to be forced to live on the streets with little or nothing in the way of government assistance. ~ John Niven

Actually, she went off on a tangent, I told her about your mother at one point and she went all (H starts doing a lightly French accent) it is not fair for your friend, she is not going to get the important boredoms and mournings and melancholies that are her due and are owing to her just from being the age that she is, for now it will be interrupted by real mournings and real melancholies, anyway then i thought I'd bring the picture round to get away from her going on about it, then I thought I could ask you if you want to come out to the car park with me. ~ Ali Smith

and when love came to us twice
and lied to us twice
we decided to never love again
that was fair
fair to us
and fair to love itself.

we ask for no mercy or no
miracles;
we are strong enough to live
and to die and to
kill flies,

attend the boxing matches, go to the racetrack,
live on luck and skill,
get alone, get alone often,
and if you can't sleep alone
be careful of the words you speak in your sleep;
and
ask for no mercy
no miracles;

and don't forget:
time is meant to be wasted,
love fails
and death is useless. ~ Charles Bukowski

Macke went to the door. He looked at the three women: the maid, the wife, and the daughter. "All this trouble," he said, "for the sake of an eight-year-old moron. I will never understand you people. ~ Ken Follett

Man loves his own ruin. The cup is so sweet that though he knows it will poison him, yet he must drink it. And the harlot is so fair, that though he understands that her ways lead down to hell, yet like a bullock he follows to the slaughter till the dart goes through his liver. Man is fascinated and bewitched by sin. ~ Charles Spurgeon

I know what it's like and how hard my assistants work, and I try to treat them as fair as possible and make the office a fun environment. ~ Brad Goreski

Any fair-minded person will agree that humanity hasn't the faintest inkling, at this time, of the powers and laws that will, sometime, be known and used. ~ Margery Wilson

Dat means you like me. A lot."
"Yeah, it does." Captain obvious.
"So dat means I'm Mr. Bryn."
"Whatever you say."
"Oh. Whatever I say? You want me to be da boss? Because dat's not a problem at all. I like to be da boss of you."
"No," I said, putting on and zipping up my shorts, "you are not the boss of me. I'm the boss of me and you."
He frowned. "Dat's not fair. I want to be da boss of something."
"You can be the boss of Buster."
"No, not da dog. Dat's not da boss of anything, really."
"Fine. You can be the boss of ... I don't know. Kissing."
Bodo stopped putting on his shirt, his eyes taking on a special gleam, making me almost regret I had said it. ~ Elle Casey

But I learned more than you know from Owen Paris. I learned that trying to live up to imagined expectations is a waste of energy. I learned that nothing can replace the time I spend with my daughter every day. I learned much too late that his way of loving me was just his way. I learned too late that he loved me at all. He chose his career over his children. He left us with you, and you are a great mom. But every day he wasn't there was another day I spent wondering what I had done wrong and why he didn't care enough to be with me. "My children are never going to wonder that. I'm going to be there for every birthday, every school assembly, every science fair, every bad grade, every fight on the playground, every good-night kiss, every messy, hard, frustrating, perfect moment of it. ~ Kirsten Beyer

Indeed, so far from being humorous, the male American is the most abnormally serious creature who ever existed.. It is only fair to admit that he can exaggerate, but even his exaggeration has a rational basis. It is not founded on wit or fancy; it does not spring from any poetic imagination. ~ Oscar Wilde

He faced Darktail. "You will take this Clan over my dead body." Delight sparked in Darktail's gaze. "That sounds fair." The rogue leader flung himself at Rowanstar. ~ Erin Hunter

Unless hours were cups of sack, and minutes capons, and clocks the tongues of bawds, and dials the signs of leaping-houses, and the blessed sun himself a fair hot wench in flame-colored taffeta, I see no reason why thou shouldst be so superfluous to demand the time of the day. ~ William Shakespeare