Greece: Pictorial, Descriptive, and Historical

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W. S. Orr, 1844 - Greece - 356 pages

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Page 31 - Look once more, ere we leave this specular mount, Westward, much nearer by south-west, behold, Where on the ^Egean shore a city stands, Built nobly, pure the air, and light the soil ; Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts And eloquence, native to famous wits Or hospitable, in her sweet recess, City or suburban, studious walks and shades. See there the olive grove of Academe, Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long; There flowery hill Hymettus, with...
Page 31 - And eloquence, native to famous wits, Or hospitable, in her sweet recess, City or suburban, studious walks and shades. See there the olive grove of Academe, Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long ; There flowery hill Hymettus with the sound Of bees' industrious murmur oft invites To studious musing; there Ilissus rolls His whispering stream.
Page 270 - The lonely mountains o'er And the resounding shore A voice of weeping heard, and loud lament; From haunted spring and dale Edged with poplar pale The parting Genius is with sighing sent; With flower-inwoven tresses torn The Nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn.
Page 72 - The race of her inhabitants had been always the same ; nor could she tell whence they had sprung ; no foreign land had sent them ; they had not forced their way within her confines by a violent irruption. She traced the stream of her population in a backward course, through many 232 generation«, till at last it hid itself, like one of her own brooks, in the recesses of her own soil.
Page 193 - Thebes had also the advantage of a ready export for her productions, by her convenient position in the vicinity of three seas. The character of her inhabitants appears to have been affected in a remarkable manner by the physical properties of the place. The seven-gated citadel of Thebes stood on a small circular hill, about one hundred and fifty feet above the level of the surrounding plain. The base of the hill on the eastern and western sides is bounded by two small streams, which take their rise...
Page 269 - Thamus ! who, giving ear to the cry, was bidden (for he was pilot of the ship), when he came near to Pelodes " (the Bay of Butrinto) " to tell that the great god Pan was dead ; which he doubting to do, yet for that when he came to Pelodes there was such a calm of wind that the ship stood still in...
Page 182 - ... Attica on the S. by Kithaeron, — Eleutherae which came between having voluntarily enrolled itself with Attica [Paus. I. 38, 8], — and from the territory of Thebes on the N. by the river Asopos. Toward the east, along the valley of the Asopos, it was limited by the village of Hysiae. The town stood ' on the steep and rugged slopes which fall from the heights of Kithaeron into the valley on the north. In this lower ground, and near the walls of the city, two small rivers take their rise, and...
Page 130 - ... our case. We commence our description of this city with avowing the fact, that it is impossible at this time to convey, or entertain an idea of Athens such as it appeared of old to the eyes of one of its inhabitants. But there is another point of view from which we love to contemplate it — one which supplies us with reflections of deeper interest, and raises in the heart sublimer emotions than could have been ever suggested in ancient days by the sight of Athens to an Athenian.
Page 136 - ... of the wings are fringed with an azure embroidery of ivy leaf. We pass along the avenue lying between the two central columns of the portico, and through a corridor leading from it, and formed by three Ionic columns on each hand, and are brought in front of five doors of bronze; the central one, which is the loftiest and broadest, being immediately before us.
Page 137 - Propylaea or Vestibule of the Athenian citadel. It is built of Pentelic marble. In the year BC 437 it was commenced, and was completed by the architect Mnesicles in five years from that time. Its termination, therefore, coincides very nearly with the commencement of the Peloponnesian war. After a short pause, in order to contemplate the objects around us, to explore the gallery, adorned with the paintings of...

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