"Bowstring" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... throat, on the retaliating principle, I soon had some such sensations as one would be apt to feel if his gullet were in a vice. I shall not attempt to describe very minutely the miracle that followed. Hanging ought to be an effectual remedy for many delusions; for, in my case, the bowstring I was under certainly did wonders in a very short time. Gradually the whole scene changed. First came a mist, then a vertigo; and finally, as the captain relaxed his hold, objects appeared in new forms, and instead of being in our lodgings ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... object he was looking for. At a distance out in the lake sat a most beautiful Red Swan, whose plumage glittered in the sun, and who would now and then make the same noise he had heard. He was within long bow-shot, and, pulling the arrow from the bowstring up to his ear, took deliberate aim and shot. The arrow took no effect; and he shot and shot again till his quiver was empty. Still the swan remained, moving round and round, stretching its long neck and dipping its ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... plumage. To meet our contentions Sir Edward cites our own seizures and our own court decisions. It remains to be seen whether out of strands plucked from the mane and tail of the British lion we can fashion a bowstring which will give effective momentum to a counterbolt launched in the ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... the harmless camper, and saw too late the folly of neglecting Raften's advice to have a big Dog in camp. He glanced around and would have run, but the tramp was too quick for him and grabbed him by the collar. "Oh, no you don't; hold on, sonny. I'll fix you so you'll do as you're told." He cut the bowstring from its place, and violently throwing Yan down, he tied his feet so that they had about eighteen ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... wondered at the king's insolence in sending him a foolish beardless boy." To this the admiral made a spirited reply, which caused the Dey to forget the laws of all nations in respect to ambassadors, and he ordered his mutes to attend with the bowstring, at the same time telling the admiral he should pay for his audacity with his life. Unmoved by this menace, the admiral took the Dey to a window facing the bay, and showed him the English fleet riding ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... but Fox Eye would not run. Hiding behind a rock he prepared to fight, but as he was looking for some enemy to shoot at, holding his arrow on the string, a Snake had crept up on the bank above him; the Piegan heard the twang of the bowstring, and the long, fine arrow passed through his body. His bow and arrow dropped from his hands, and he fell forward, dead. Now, too late, the warriors came rushing out from the Piegan camp to help him, but the Snakes scalped their enemy, scattered up the mountain, ...
— Blackfeet Indian Stories • George Bird Grinnell
... demonstration I make in favor of Mehemet Ali, the Sultan send me the bowstring, and make my secretaries ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... become insurance agents, or generals transformed into salesmen for some wine house; Cuban chiefs half shot to pieces by the Spaniards; Cretes exiled by the Turks; great personages from Constantinople, escaped from the Sultan's silken bowstring, and displaying proudly their red fez in Paris, where the opera permitted them to continue their habits of polygamy; Americans, whose gold-mines or petroleum-wells made them billionaires for a winter, only to go to pieces and ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... prisoners shut up in the mosques were reduced to frightful extremities. Many perished raving mad, fancying themselves swimming in boundless seas, yet unable to assuage their thirst. Many of the soldiers lay parched and panting along the battlements, no longer able to draw a bowstring or hurl a stone; while above five thousand Moors, stationed upon a rocky height which overlooked part of the town, kept up a galling fire into it with slings and crossbows, so that the marques of Cadiz was obliged to heighten the battlements by ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... will set me a trap for this impudent fellow," said Tavwots, for he was very cunning. So he made a snare of his bowstring and set it in ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... sort of acquiescence, and then asked me for the loan of a white tie. I should have loved to give him a bowstring instead, with somebody who knew how to operate it. He was a fluff, that fellow—a ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... The fatal bowstring was not in his thought, When, breaking truce, he so unjustly fought; Made the world tremble with a numerous host, And of undoubted victory ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... My Eyes quickly singled out some of the most splendid Figures. Several in rich Caftans and glittering Turbans bustled through the Throng, and trampled over the Bodies of those they threw down; till to my great Surprize I found that the great Pace they went only hastened them to a Scaffold or a Bowstring. Many beautiful Damsels on the other Side moved forward with great Gaiety; some danced till they fell all along; and others painted their Faces till they lost their Noses. A Tribe of Creatures with busie Looks falling into a Fit of ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... the birds were fighting within thirty yards of the spot where the Bushman lay. The twang of a bowstring might have been heard by one of the koris, had he been listening. The other could not possibly have heard it; for before the sound could have reached him, a poisoned arrow was sticking through his ears. The barb had passed through, and the shaft remained ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... is a simpler way. Thy mind ever runs on the bowstring and the sword. These are great, but there is a greater. It is the mocking finger. At midnight, when Kaid goes to the Mosque Mahmoud, a finger will mock the plotters till they are buried in confusion. Thou knowest the governor of the prisons—has he not need of something? ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... was before him. Torture or death? Both, most likely. He tried to be resigned, but how could one be resigned when one was so young and so strong? The hum of the village life came to him, the sound of voices, the tread of feet, the twang of a boyish bowstring, but the guard in the doorway never stirred. It seemed to Dick that the Sioux, who wore very little clothing, was carved out of reddish-brown stone. Dick wondered if he would ever move, and lying on his back he managed to raise his head a little on the doubled corner of ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... the beauteous Teacher, and awhile Gazed on her train with sympathetic smile. 'Beware of Love! she cried, ye Nymphs, and hear 'His twanging bowstring with alarmed ear; 'Fly the first whisper of the distant dart, 'Or shield with adamant the fluttering heart; 430 'To secret shades, ye Virgin trains, retire, 'And in your bosoms guard the vestal fire.' —The obedient Beauties hear her words, advised, ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... and awful hush followed the Solicitor's words, which seemed to vibrate like a twanging bowstring that had just hurled its bolt. Sir Andrew, pale and staring, drew away, with an exclamation of repulsion. His eyes were fastened upon the Naval Attache with fascinated horror. But the American emitted a sigh of great content, and sank, comfortably, into the arms of his ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... in twain his bowstring, and they cut his pond'rous mace, Slew his steeds and chariot-driver, streaked ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... this he received L195 17s. and for the copy he had L100. People probably attended, as they attend modern representations of legitimate drama, rather from a sense of duty, than in the hope of pleasure. The heroine originally had to speak two lines with a bowstring round her neck. The situation produced cries of murder, and she had to go off the stage alive. The objectionable passage was removed, but Irene was on the whole a failure, and has never, I imagine, made another appearance. When asked how he felt upon his ill-success, he replied "like the ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... crowded blazing upon the golden-haired youth. Radiant as Apollo, he stood in mighty strength, a flashing shape in the midst of flame. He fitted a glowing arrow to a gleaming bow. The arrow parted with a keen musical twang of the bowstring, and Photogen darting after it, vanished with a shout. Up shot Apollo himself, and from his quiver scattered astonishment and exultation. But the brain of poor Nycteris was pierced through and through. She fell down in utter darkness. All around her was a flaming furnace. ...
— Harper's Young People, December 23, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... ere this important morrow rise, But fear or mutiny may taint the Greeks? Who knows, if Mahomet's awaking anger May spare the fatal bowstring till to-morrow? ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... with the same kind of cord, which he carried around the neck and then under his left arm. The ends of the arrows were thus convenient to his right hand, and with one sweeping circular motion he could draw them from the quiver and fit them to the bowstring. ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... sorrowing lover mourns His cruel vengeance; and himself he hates, Too credulous listening, and too soon enflam'd: The bird he hates, who first betray'd the deed And caus'd him first to grieve: his bow he hates; His bowstring; arm; and with his arm the dart, Shot vengeful. Fond he clasps her fallen form; And strives by skill, by skill too late apply'd To conquer fate:—his healing arts he tries,— All unavailing. Fruitless he beholds His each ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... ascended a very strong rapid, and arrived at a range of three steep cascades, situated in the bend of the river. Here we made a portage of one thousand three hundred yards over a rocky hill, which received the name of the Bowstring Portage, from its shape. We found that the Indians had greatly the advantage of us in this operation; the men carried their small canoes, the women and children the clothes and provisions, and at the end of the portage they were ready to embark; whilst it was necessary for our people to return ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... to get out the stresses in girders of the bowstring form, the author was not satisfied with the common formulae for the diagonal braces, which, owing to the difficulty of apportioning the stresses amongst five members meeting in one point, were to a large extent based on an assumption as to the course taken by the stresses. As far as he could ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 483, April 4, 1885 • Various
... a swineherd in Normandy, while mine were Thanes in England, and their courteous manners have descended to you," retorted Martin; whereupon Drogo laid his bowstring about his ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... kings as equals, and in less than a century disposed of the throne of its former tyrant. The unseen hand of fate gave to the discharged arrow a higher flight, and quite a different direction from that which it first received from the bowstring. In the womb of happy Brabant that liberty had its birth which, torn from its mother in its earliest infancy, was to gladden the so despised Holland. But the enterprise must not be less thought of because its issue differed from the first design. Man works up, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... says I; 'an' you better look out an' obey your orders, else de bowstring bery soon go round your pritty little neck. But tell me, ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... were kept in prison, till they grew Of years to fill a bowstring or the throne, One or the other, but which of the two Could yet be known unto the fates alone; Meantime the education they went through Was princely, as the proofs have always shown: So that the heir apparent still was found ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... they would have very unsettled times of it. At every turning we meet people, or see their villages; all armed with bows and arrows. The bows are unusually long: I measured one made of bamboo, and found that along the bowstring it measured six feet four inches. Many carry large knives of fine iron; and indeed the metal is abundant. Young men and women wear the hair long, a mass of small ringlets comes down and rests on the shoulders, giving them the appearance of the ancient Egyptians. One side is ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... the rest, stood the captain, with the fatal bowstring hanging carelessly on his arm, and his eyes intent to catch the slightest gesture of the king. "Behold!" said ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to me, not many months ago, as he sat in his palace, crowned and dreary and trying to cheat me out of my fair profit on some emeralds,—'Jurgen, I cannot sleep of nights, because of that fool Alexius, who comes into my room with staring eyes and the bowstring still about his neck. And my Varangians must be in league with that silly ghost, because I constantly order them to keep Alexius out of my bedchamber, and they do not obey me, Jurgen. To be King of the East is not to the purpose, Jurgen, when one must submit to such vexations.' Yes, it was Caesar ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... sunshiny day: The trembling tongue, the longing tone, Imploringly ask why They can not be as happy now As in the days gone by. And two more hearts, tumultuous With overflowing joy, Are dancing to the music Which that dear, provoking boy Is twanging on his bowstring, As, fluttering his wings, He sends his love-charged arrows While merrily be sings: "Ho! ho! my dainty maiden, It surely can not be You are thinking you are master Of your heart, when it is me." And another gleaming arrow Does the little god's behest, And the dainty little ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... as a bowstring, and the current so strong she pulled upon her anchor. All round the hull, in the blackness, the rippling current bubbled and chattered like a little mountain stream. One cut with my sea-gully, and the Hispaniola would ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... he soliloquized aloud, "it is difficult for civilization to get on without the sultan's sack and bowstring." ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... with him a retinue; and in the course of the pursuit of the game on foot, he came to the Missa mountain. A certain devo, assuming the form of an elk, stationed himself there, grazing; the sovereign descried him, and saying 'it is not fair to shoot him standing,' sounded his bowstring, on which the elk fled to the mountain. The king gave chase to the flying animal, and, on reaching the spot where the priests were, the thero Mahindo came within sight of the monarch; but the metamorphosed deer ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... must have one of themselves over them to keep them in good humor for a while. When he has used Waltheof as his stalking-horse long enough to build a castle every ten miles, he will throw him away like a worn bowstring, Earl Morcar, nephew mine." ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... sand he grasped his fire stick in his left hand after placing the bowstring in position. With a shell over the upper end of the stick, he sawed away busily for a moment. A tiny wreath of smoke eddied away from the lower end ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson
... the Rainy River, about 20 miles from the head of Rainy River. It stands on a point of land where the Missachappa or Bowstring River and the Rainy River join. There is a dense forest covering the river bank where the mound is found. The owner of the land has made a small clearing, which now shows the mound to some extent to one standing on the deck of ...
— The Mound Builders • George Bryce
... bowstring a bowstring was out of the question; and Racine, with triumphant art, has managed to introduce the periphrasis in such a way that it exactly expresses the state of mind of the Sultana. She begins with revenge and rage, until she reaches ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... perpendicularity on a demi-pique saddle, ornamented with a huge pair of well-stuffed saddle-bags, and holsters revealing the stocks of a brace of immense pistols, the horse with its obstinate mouth thrust out, and the bridle drawn as tight as a bowstring! its ears laid sullenly down, as if, like the Corporal, it complained of going to Yorkshire, and its long thick tail, not set up in a comely and well-educated arch, but hanging sheepishly down, as if resolved ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... oxen, Belisarius, placing himself on the ramparts, ordered the garrison to allow the towers to advance unmolested by the machines to within bow-shot. Then taking up a long bow, which might have graced the hand of Robin Hood, and choosing two shafts of a yard in length, he drew the bowstring to his ear, and shot his shaft at the tower. The Gothic captain, who was directing its movements from the summit, had trusted too much to the workmanship of his Milan armour. The fabric was not equal to that of Byzantium. The shaft pierced him to the heart; he tottered a moment on ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... foreshaft. The sting-ray spine, which makes an excellent natural projectile point, was let directly into the split end of the cane, and was secured by cord binding (see "Haftings"). Instead of the usual nock in the butt end of the shaft for a bowstring, there is a cuplike depression (fig. 1). This suggests, of course, that this may have been a dart for use with a thrower or atlatl. Although that weapon is unreported in the Spanish sources on central and northern Baja California, dart-throwers were reported ...
— A Burial Cave in Baja California - The Palmer Collection, 1887 • William C. Massey
... the possession (nay, the profession, even) of principles been rejected as superfluous, and may not the patriot reasonably hope that the ability to write will follow? At present, there may be death in pothooks as well as pots, the loop of a letter may suffice for a bowstring, and all the dreadful heresies of Antislavery may lurk ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... the Austrian armies then invading Naples was yet in suspense, the news of another revolution filled him with exultation. We had formed the acquaintance at Pisa of several Constantinopolitan Greeks, of the family of Prince Caradja, formerly Hospodar of Wallachia; who, hearing that the bowstring, the accustomed finale of his viceroyalty, was on the road to him, escaped with his treasures, and took up his abode in Tuscany. Among these was the gentleman to whom the drama of "Hellas" is dedicated. ...
— Notes to the Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley • Mary W. Shelley
... pastime any fellow would choose for fun, not if he were the party to be tossed, though it is a beanfeast for the onlookers. They manage it this way. A hide, freshly stripped from a bullock, smoking, bloody, and limber as a bowstring, is requisitioned; the hairy side is turned downwards, two strong men get hold of each corner, cutting holes in the green hide for their hands to have a good grip; they allow the hide to sag until it forms ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... head to foot. What was that Chippy had worked in among his sobs and moans? B.P.—the motto of their order—'Be Prepared.' Dick held himself tense as a bowstring, ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... grunting voice as before; "and you call that pastime, that which we have seen a thousand and one times? By the beard of the Prophet, vizier," he continued in a louder tone, "if I have no sleep to-day, nor appetite to-morrow, there is the bowstring for you, and the stake for ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... the cloth of their garments was somewhat coarse, but stout and serviceable. I knew, somehow, that they had been shooting at the butts, and, indeed, I could still hear a noise of men thereabout, and even now and again when the wind set from that quarter the twang of the bowstring and the plump of the shaft ...
— A Dream of John Ball, A King's Lesson • William Morris
... envious man brought false reports to the king. The monarch now thought of nothing but in what manner he might best execute his vengeance. He one night resolved to poison the queen and in the morning to put Zadig to death by the bowstring. The orders were given to a merciless eunuch, who commonly executed his acts of vengeance. There happened at that time to be in the king's chamber a little dwarf, who, though dumb, was not deaf. He was allowed, on account of his insignificance, to go wherever ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... shown in Plate III. They should be restrained in some manner from moving when the concrete strikes them. A very good way of accomplishing this is to string them on a longitudinal rod, nested in the bend at the upper end. Mr. Godfrey, in his advocacy of bowstring bars anchored with washers and nuts at the ends, fails to indicate how they shall be placed. The writer, from experience in placing steel, thinks that it would be very difficult, if not impractical, to place them in ...
— Some Mooted Questions in Reinforced Concrete Design • Edward Godfrey
... tell you what happened in New York. I says to myself: 'Friend Heherezade, you want to get busy and make Bagdad look pretty to the sad sultan of the sour countenance, or it'll be the bowstring for yours.' But I never had any ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... nobles; but if thou losest it, thou shalt be stript of thy Lincoln green, and scourged out of the lists with bowstrings, for a wordy and insolent braggart, and if thou refusest my fair proffer, the Provost of the lists shall cut thy bowstring, break thy bow and arrows, and expel thee from the presence ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... certain, that in this political game the great lottery of power is that into which men will purchase with millions of chances against them. In Turkey, where the place, where the fortune, where the head itself, are so insecure, that scarcely any have died in their beds for ages, so that the bowstring is the natural death of Bashaws, yet in no country is power and distinction (precarious enough, God knows, in all) sought for with such boundless avidity, as if the value of place was enhanced by the danger ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... a remarkable thing once when on a one-arrow-to-kill buffalo hunt with his brother-in-law. His companion had selected his animal and drew so powerfully on his sinew bowstring that it broke. Roman Nose had killed his own cow and was whipping up close to the other when the misfortune occurred. Both horses were going at full speed and the arrow jerked up in the air. Roman Nose caught it and shot the ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... Nor waited there to see how Gray Cloud died; Her fury all in that fierce outburst spent, As from a charnel cave she fled the tent; The wolfish dog suspiciously outside Sniffed at her moccasins but let her pass. Her tipi soon she reached, distant no more Than arrow from a warrior's bowstring sent, Paused but to wipe her knife upon the grass, And found her usual couch upon the floor. But not to sleep; she closed her eyes in vain, Shutting away the moonlight from her view; Darkness and moonlight wore the same ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... had spent its upward flight, Stacy Brown's bowstring sang, a slender dark streak sped through the air, its course laid directly for the hat of which its ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Rockies • Frank Gee Patchin
... right of acting as umpire in wrestling-matches was vested in his family, that the "Driving Wind" might for future generations preside over athletic sports. In ancient days, the prizes for the three champion wrestlers were a bow, a bowstring, and an arrow: these are still brought into the ring, and, at the end of the bout, the successful competitors go through a variety ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... modelled upon Apiarian laws would be a strange Utopia! the bowstring would be used there as unmercifully as it is in the seraglio, to say nothing of the summary mode of bringing down the population to the means of subsistence. But this is straying from the subject. The consequences of defective order are indeed frightful, whether we regard the physical ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... won't get ahead of me," as he had said at the first; he set his teeth, threw off his hat, and, knitting his brows with a resolute expression, prepared to take steady aim, though his heart beat fast and his thumb trembled as he pressed it on the bowstring. ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... Bowstring never sped arrow from itself that ran so swift a course through the air, as a very little boat which I saw coming through the water toward us at that instant, under the direction of a single ferryman, who was crying out, "Art thou then ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... Surely thou knowest, thou god of love, that unnumbered saints and sages have surrendered the merits of their life-long penance at the feet of a woman. I broke my bow in two and burnt my arrows in the fire. I hated my strong, lithe arm, scored by drawing the bowstring. O Love, god Love, thou hast laid low in the dust the vain pride of my manlike strength; and all my man's training lies crushed under thy feet. Now teach me thy lessons; give me the power of the weak and the weapon of the ...
— Chitra - A Play in One Act • Rabindranath Tagore
... harp that had but one long string, But one low song, but one brief wingy flight, Is voiceless, for my bowstring is cut off. Sever two locks of hair for my sake now, Spoil those bright coils of power, give me your hair, And with my mother twist those locks together Into a bowstring for me. Fierce small head, Thy stinging tresses shall scourge men forth ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... in sight, but this time there were only two of them, as the youngest had stayed at home. The air was warm and damp, and the snow soft and slushy, and the elder brother's bowstring hung loose, while the bow of the younger caught in a tree and snapped in half. At that moment the dogs began to bark loudly, and the bear rushed out of the thicket and set off in the direction of the mountain. ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... brave Hobie Noble, Wi' his ain bowstring they band him sae; And I wat heart was ne'er sae sair, As when his ain five ...
— A Collection of Ballads • Andrew Lang
... whose Neck is stained with Blue.(257) The mighty Sire their wishes knew, And he whose lips are ever true Caused the two Gods to meet as foes. Then fierce the rage of battle rose: Bristled in dread each starting hair As Siva strove with Vishnu there. But Vishnu raised his voice amain. And Siva's bowstring twanged in vain; Its master of the Three bright Eyes Stood fixt in fury and surprise. Then all the dwellers in the sky, Minstrel, and saint, and God drew nigh, And prayed them that the strife might cease, And the great rivals met in peace. ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... the thread, about an eighth of an inch from the pointed end. When the thread is carried through the cloth, which may be done to the distance of about three-fourths of an inch the thread will be stretched above the curved needle, something like a bowstring, leaving a small open space between the two. A small shuttle, carrying a bobbin, filled with thread, is then made to pass entirely through this open space, between the needle and the thread which it carries; ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... the stricken whale flew forward; with igniting velocity the line ran through the grooves;—ran foul. Ahab stooped to clear it; he did clear it; but the flying turn caught him round the neck, and voicelessly as Turkish mutes bowstring their victim, he was shot out of the boat, ere the crew knew he was gone. Next instant, the heavy eye-splice in the rope's final end flew out of the stark-empty tub, knocked down an oarsman, and smiting the sea, disappeared ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... if terrified at the glittering figures that dashed upon them so fearlessly. As they swept through, Menna had enough to do to manage his steeds, which were wild with excitement; but Ramses' bow was bent again and again, and at every twang of the bowstring a Hittite champion fell from his chariot. Behind the King came his household troops, and all together they burst through the chariot brigade of the enemy, leaving a long trail marked by dead and wounded men, overturned chariots, and ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Ancient Egypt • James Baikie
... mother," was the only thing they could get out of her. Her little body was taut as a bowstring, her lips tight. They offered her excuses; the lady mother slept; now she was rising and must be clothed. And then at last they told her, because of the ...
— The Truce of God • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... stopped, seeing Mavis under an apple-tree with one hand clutching a low bough and her tense face lifted to the west. He could see that the hand was clenched tightly, for even the naked forearm was taut as a bowstring. The sun was going down in the little gap, above it already one pale star was swung, and upon it her eyes seemed to be fixed. She heard his step and he knew it, for he saw her face flush, but without looking around she turned into the house. That night ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... was a short one. Leaving his sword in the body of the archer, Jethro drew his dagger and speedily dispatched his foe. Then he jumped down, and lifting Amuba, who was insensible from the sharp jerk of the bowstring upon his throat and the violence of his fall, carried him back to his chariot. This with the greatest difficulty he managed to draw out of the heat of the conflict, which was for the moment raging more fiercely than before. The Rebu who had seen the fall of their king had dashed forward ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... they always seemed to be stealing something which belonged to the men who were engaged in the struggle. And apart from this they were so indifferent in their practice of archery that they drew the bowstring only to the breast[5], so that the missile sent forth was naturally impotent and harmless to those whom it hit[6]. Such, it is evident, was the archery of the past. But the bowmen of the present time go into battle wearing ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... "The summer has come to an end And I wake from my dreaming," he mused. "Wake to know That my place is not here—I must go—I must go. Who dares laugh at Love shall hear Love laughing last, As forth from his bowstring barbed arrows are cast. I scoffed at the god with a sneer on my lip, And he forces me now from his chalice to sip A bitter sweet potion. Ah, lightly the part Of a lover I've played many times, but my heart Has been proud in its record of friendship. And now The mad, eager lover born in me ...
— Three Women • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... and feverishly restless, watching the movements of the other people. Finally I went up to my room and sat down by the windows, staring out. There came a little tap at the unlocked door and in an instant, like the go of a taut bowstring, I was up and had ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... Considerable execution was also done by the Turkish arrows, with which portions of the masts and spars bristled. Several of these missiles came from the bow of the Pacha himself, who was probably the last commander-in-chief who ever drew a bowstring in European battle. But on the whole the fire of the Christians was greatly superior to that of the Turks. Twice the deck of Ali was swept clear of defenders, and twice the Spaniards rushed on board and advanced as far as the mainmast. At that point they were ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... us. O, what shall we do? Let's cut his bowstring," said Ting-a-ling, in great excitement, and drawing his little sword. The green fairy, although polite, could not help laughing at this idea; but Ting-a-ling slipped softly to where the bow was lying, a little behind the Kyrofatalapynx, and commenced ...
— Ting-a-ling • Frank Richard Stockton
... had was soon after apparent, for another of Drake's companions, being desirous to show the third Indian a specimen of the English valour and dexterity, attempted, likewise, to shoot an arrow, but drawing it with his full force, burst the bowstring; upon which the Indians, who were unacquainted with their other weapons, imagined him disarmed, followed the company, as they were walking negligently down towards their boat, and let fly their arrows, aiming particularly at ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... like a bowstring. I felt myself turned inside out, passed through a small sieve, and poured back into shape. The entire bow wall-screen was full of Earth. Something was wrong all right, and this time it was much, much worse. We'd come out of the jump about two hundred miles above ...
— Accidental Death • Peter Baily
... opposite side of the Adige, upon the plain, with their backs against the city walls, are two other fortresses, about a mile distant from each other, one called the Old the other the New Citadel, and a wall extends between them that may be compared to a bowstring, of which the city wall is the arc. The space comprehended within this segment is very populous, and is called the Borgo of St. Zeno. Niccolo Piccinino designed to capture these fortresses and the Borgo, and he hoped to succeed without ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... sash and red fingers. I have promised him that when he comes to Beech Park you shall sing him my favourite Scotch song, 'Should auld acquaintance be forgot?' I would sing it myself if I could; but I think every Englishwoman who pretends to sing Scotch songs ought to have the bowstring." Then, turning to the harpsichord, she began to play it with exquisite ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... rhetoric, roughly dragged forth by head and ears, came his momentous confession into the world. Gnulemah had more than once striven to check it, but in vain. When he had come to an end, and stood tense and quivering as a bowstring whose arrow has just flown, ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... "Ping!" went the bowstring. The arrow seemed to sing through the frosty air, and, a second later, the silence was broken by cheer after cheer. The apple lay upon the ground pierced right through ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... combat; all but myself, who, inflamed with grief and rage for the loss of my companion, determined either to revenge his death or perish in the attempt. Seeing, therefore, that it was in vain to attack the animal in the usual manner, I chose the sharpest arrow, and fitted it to the bowstring; then, with a cool unterrified aim, observing him moving nimbly into the river, I discharged it full at his broad and glaring eye-ball with such success, that the barbed point penetrated even to his brain, and the monster fell expiring to ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... said she, on the thousand-and-second night, (I quote the language of the "Isitsoornot" at this point, verbatim) "my dear sister," said she, "now that all this little difficulty about the bowstring has blown over, and that this odious tax is so happily repealed, I feel that I have been guilty of great indiscretion in withholding from you and the king (who I am sorry to say, snores—a thing no gentleman would do) the full conclusion of Sinbad the sailor. This person went ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... extremes, It but irritates and hardens. Any instrument of music Of this truth is an example. Lightly touched, it breathes but sweetness, Discord, when 't is roughly handled. 'T is not well to send an arrow To such heights, that in discharging The strong tension breaks the bowstring, Or the bow itself is fractured. These two simple illustrations Are sufficiently adapted To my purpose, of advising Means of cure both mild and ample. You must take a middle course, All extremes must be abandoned. Gentle but judicious treatment Is the method for Chrysanthus. For severer ...
— The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria - A Drama of Early Christian Rome • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... her veins. Silent, self-controlled, she had given no sign of her suffering and her terror, though her eyes were ringed with sleeplessness and her mouth had grown stiff with its effort to command. The tension was torture. Her heart strings were drawn to the snapping point; her mind was a bowstring never relaxed, till every fiber of her resistant ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... this double disappearance, there was picked up in the Tiber, a little below the Castle Sant' Angelo, the body of a beautiful young woman, her hands bound together behind her back, and also the corpse of a handsome youth with the bowstring he had been strangled with tied round his neck. The girl was Caracciuolo's bride, the young ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... left fist, palm upward, at arm's length before the body, the right as if grasping the bowstring and drawn back. (Shoshoni and Banak I.) "From their peculiar manner of holding the long bow horizontally in ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... breathe. Oh, for an hour of the old liberty and power! It would amuse me to see the faces of ENVER and of my wretched brother MOHAMMED as I ordered them to execution—them and their gang of villainous parasites. By the bowstring of my fathers, but that would be a great and worthy killing! Pardon the fond day-dreams of a poor and lonely old man whose only crime has been that he loved his country too well and treated his enemies with a kindness not to be understood by ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 30, 1914 • Various
... the mark. But here the chief, the old White Bear, interposed and said that it was necessary that they should have long claws in order to be able to climb trees. "One of us has already died to furnish the bowstring, and if we now cut off our claws we shall all have to starve together. It is better to trust to the teeth and claws which nature has given us, for it is evident that man's weapons were not intended ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... thought they discovered openings through the cord into the pool or lake, that was included between that and the bow; but whether there were or were not such openings is uncertain. We sailed abreast of the low beach or bowstring, within less than a league of the shore, till sun-set, and we then judged ourselves to be about half-way between the two horns. Here we brought-to, and sounded, but found no bottom with one hundred and thirty fathom; and as it is dark almost instantly ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... drew together the notch [of the arrow] and the ox-hide string; the string, indeed, he brought near to his breast, and the barb to the bow. But after he had bent the great bow into a circle, the bow twanged, the bowstring rang loudly, and the sharp-pointed shaft bounded forth, impatient to wing its flight ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... have weighed sufficiently long upon men, Providence, like the sultan to his viziers, sends them the bowstring by a mute, and they ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... it would come easily Into his hand; but when that he Gat hold of it, full fast it stack, So fuming, down he laid his sack, And with both hands pulled lustily, But as he strained, he cast his eye Back to the dais; there he saw The bowman image 'gin to draw The mighty bowstring to his ear, So, shrieking out aloud for fear, Of that rich stone he loosed his hold And catching up his bag of gold, Gat to his feet: but ere he stood The evil thing of brass and wood Up to his ear the notches drew; And clanging, forth ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... the words a bowstring twanged to the fore and a young girl stumbled across Jack Battle's feet with a scream that rings, and rings, and rings in memory like the tocsin of a horrible dream. She was wounded in the shoulder. Getting to ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... upon those sordid pages was spared him. It was not possible for an instant to turn away his eyes. His mental clarity was unrelieved by weariness. No shadow dimmed the keen crystal of his brain. He was at tension, like a bowstring that is stretched continually. He realised this, thinking: "Presently I will cut the bow-string, and the bow shall have rest! Even if my once-boasted will-power reasserted itself—even if I rose triumphant for the second time, cured of my vile craving, I do not the less owe my ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... accept "considerations of state" as a reason for Mr. Motley's removal. Considerations of state have never yet failed the axe or the bowstring when a reason for the use of those convenient implements was wanted, and they are quite equal to every emergency which can arise in a republican autocracy. But for the very reason that a minister is absolutely in the power of his government, the manner in which that power is ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... angrily. "Find out, John, and he shall have a bowstring about his back. Point out the man who stripped you, my little lad," he continued, turning to ...
— Young Robin Hood • G. Manville Fenn
... as great a soil in the new gloss of your marriage, as to show a child his new coat, and forbid him to wear it. I will only be bold with Benedick for his company; for, from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, he is all mirth; he hath twice or thrice cut Cupid's bowstring, and the little hangman dare not shoot at him: he hath a heart as sound as a bell, and his tongue is the clapper; for what his heart ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Knight edition]
... it must yet be admitted that he habitually speaks out of that primitive silence and solitude in which only the heroic soul dwells. Certainly not in contemporary British literature is there another writer whose bowstring has such a twang. ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... maize, now snatches from his hungry lips the red-gilled mushroom, and he, into whose crystal stream he threw impure substances, in revenge, strikes from his lip the gourd of crystal water. The good hunter, whose bowstring he enviously cut, fillips him on the forehead; the warrior whose spear he broke when no human eye beheld him, now, informed of the unmanly deed by the Spirit who sees all, spits in his face, as a coward should ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... son, sprang up on the roof, and cuts asunder Gunnar's bowstring. Gunnar clutches the bill with both hands, and turns on him quickly and drives it through him, and hurls him down ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... fine buck went by. He had not spied us while we lay still, but the moment my comrade moved, he threw up his head and bounded off. Yet not before a quick twang from Sir Ludar's bowstring had sent an arrow into his quarter. "Are you mad?" cried I, in terror, "it is ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... with their drums, conch-shells, and other instruments, and shrieking and howling at the top of their voices. After this, the principal chiefs entered the houses of the late chief's wives, armed with a sort of bowstring. With these they proceeded deliberately to kill the unfortunate women, one after the other, till about twenty were thus executed. The new chief's mother had before died, or she would have been murdered in the same ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... terrible figure. He wears a loose flowing cloak which swells around and behind him in the wind. His left arm, strong and bare, is firmly stretched out, and his left hand holds a thick bow in its iron grasp. His right arm is out of sight, and only the right hand is seen, drawing back the bowstring to his breast. At his left side there hangs a quiver, full of arrows with feathered shafts. On his head he wears a stately winged helmet, and above it a crown. His face wears a look of commanding strength, and in the eyes beneath the shadow of the helmet there ...
— Evangelists of Art - Picture-Sermons for Children • James Patrick
... received the pass-key to Ibrahim Pasha's harem. But the moment it was conveyed to her, she summoned to her presence three black slaves, belonging to the corps of the bostanjis, or gardeners, who also served as executioners, when a person of rank was to be subjected to the process of bowstring, or when any dark deed was to be accomplished in silence and with caution. Terrible appendages to the household of Ottoman sultans were the black slaves belonging to that corps—like snakes, they insinuated themselves, noiselessly and ominously into the presence of their victims, and it were ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... to keep his Stomach steady. An end, however, was put to the discomfort he suffered through Corpulence, by the arrival, three weeks after the suppression of the Insurrection, of a Tartar Courier, who brought with him a Bowstring and a Firman from the Grand Seignor. By means of the Bowstring, the Fat Bashaw was then and there strangled,—for they do things in a very off-hand manner in Turkey,—and when the Firman was opened by his Vizier it was found to contain, not his own nomination ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... the Hellenes victory on the sea, At once their bodies they in armour sheathed, Leaped from their galleys forth, and all the isle With arms encircled. Outlet for escape Our hopeless bands had none. A ceaseless storm Of stones was rained upon them, and the shafts, Whistling from many a bowstring, scattered death. At last, combining in one charge, the foe Fell on them, stabbed them, hacked them limb from limb, Nor stayed the butchery till the last was slain. Xerxes, when he such utter ruin saw From the high ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... celerity. Success attended him, and the pacha, his predecessor, having in his opinion, as well as in that of the sultan, remained an unusual time in office, by an accusation enforced by a thousand purses of gold, he was enabled to produce a bowstring for his benefactor; and the sultan's "firmaun" appointed him to the vacant pachalik. His qualifications for office were all superlative: he was very short, very corpulent, very illiterate, very irascible, ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... point of the chin when the head is thrown up. The other fleets and other arrangements threaten the enemy's solar plexus and stomach. Somewhere in relation to the Grand Fleet lies the "blockading" cordon which examines neutral traffic. It could be drawn as tight as a Turkish bowstring, but for reasons which we may arrive at after the war, it does not seem to have been ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... countenance, each in turn, all of them together, are to the spoken words, or, rather than that, it should be said, to the thoughts and emotions of which those articulate sounds are but the winged symbols, as to the barbed and feathered arrows are the bowstring. How essential every external of this kind is, as affording some medium of communication between a speaker and his auditors, may be illustrated upon the instant by the rough and ready argument of the reductio ad absurdum. Without ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... had the footprints gone along. So Rabbit lay waiting for night to come. Then he made a noose of a bowstring, setting it where the footprints ...
— Myths and Legends of the Great Plains • Unknown
... turned my haggard, burning eyes upon her murderers—four of them there were and all staring into those cruel, black waters below and not a word betwixt them. Suddenly the black-bearded man snapped his fingers and laughed even as my bowstring twanged; then I saw him leap backwards, screaming with pain, his shoulder transfixed by my arrow. Immediately (and ere I might shoot again) his fellows dragged him down, and lying prone on their bellies let fly wildly in my direction with petronel and musquetoon. And ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... cried a voice. By way of answer the bowstring twanged, and an arrow sped home to its feathers through the throat of the speaker, so that he went down, grabbing at it, and ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... Mouktar Pacha was not quite such an easy prey. The kapidgi-bachi who dared to present him with the bowstring was instantly laid dead at his feet by a pistol-shot. "Wretch!" cried Mouktar, roaring like a bull escaped from the butcher, "dost thou think an Arnaout dies like an eunuch? I also am a Tepelenian! To arms, comrades! they would slay us!" As he spoke, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Piccadilly, with THAT for your pillow, young man!' Thereupon, the little dressmaker again dabbed out his eyes separately, and making a loop in the air of her thread and deftly catching it into a knot with her needle, seemed to bowstring him ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... confident Giraffe. "And just make up your minds I'm going to do that same stunt yet. Why, half a dozen times already I've been pretty close to getting fire; but something always seemed to happen just at the last minute. Once my bowstring sawed through. Another time the plaguey stick burst. Then Bumpus had to fall all over me just when I felt sure the spark was going to come in the tinder. And the last time, you may remember, when I sang out that ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... hear how he inherited the Rajah's treasures from a mistress who died strangely, swiftly, conveniently, as soon so he had wearied of her, and a new favourite had begun to exercise her influence. Such things are done in the East—dynasties annihilated, kingdoms overthrown, poison or bowstring used at will, to gratify a profligate's passion, or pay for a spendthrift's extravagances. Such things were done when that man was Governor of Madras as were never done by an Englishman in India before his time. He went there fettered by no prejudices—he was ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... made of some extremely hard wood, was about ten inches in length. Affixed to it was a pointed fish-bone, sharp, but not barbed, and not fastened in a manner suggestive of much strength. The arrow was neither feathered nor grooved for a bowstring. Altogether it seemed to be a childish weapon to be used by men equipped with lead ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... the harsh croak of the raven. At night the savage cry of the wolf too often disturbed the rest of the scattered dwellers in that vast forest, and made a belated traveller look well to the sharpness of his weapons and the temper of his bowstring; but by day and in the sunlight the forest was beautiful and quiet enough — something too quiet, perhaps, for the taste of the two handsome lads who were pacing the dim aisles together, their arms entwined and their ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... drink,—intent my savage game to slay. Then of a water cruse, as slow it filled, the gurgling sound I heard, Nought saw I, but the sullen low of elephant that sound appeared. The swift well-feathered arrow I upon the bowstring fitting straight, Towards the sound the shaft let fly, ah, cruelly deceived by fate! The winged arrow scarce had flown, and scarce had reached its destined aim, 'Ah me, I'm slain,' a feeble moan in trembling human accents came. 'Ah, ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... muscle in Jean's body became as taut as a bowstring. He hunched a little forward, as if about to leap upon the other, and strike him down. And then, all at once, he relaxed. His hands unclenched. And he ...
— God's Country—And the Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... auxiliary cut-throats to murder the reputation of those who offend him. A black-vizarded ruffian (whom we will unmask), who signs the forged name of Trefoil, is at present one of the chief bravoes and bullies in our contemporary's establishment. He is the eunuch who brings the bowstring, and strangles at the order of the Day. We can convict this cowardly slave, and propose to do so. The charge which he has brought against Lord Bangbanagher, because he is a Liberal Irish peer, and ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... array appear, And some the front assail, and some the rear; Their remedies to reinforce and vary, Came surgeon eke, and eke apothecary; Till the tired Monarch, though of words grown chary, Yet dropt, to recompense their fruitless labor, Some hint about a bowstring or a saber. There lack'd, I promise you, no longer speeches, To rid the palace of those ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... score of heads each day 'for divine inspiration.' Still if he had been as thoroughly skilled as he professed to have been, he should have shown himself a humane as well as an innovating sovereign. Those who assisted him in his reforms, he rewarded with the bowstring. His character was blackened by ingratitude, an instinctive vice in oriental rulers. Obstinate as he was suspicious, deceitful as he was cunning, he could not rule his own passions, much less could he control the corrupt morals of his people. He ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... is a holder for the missile, and it (not the missile) is driven by the bowstring. When the holder stops, the ...
— Procopius - History of the Wars, Books V. and VI. • Procopius
... Kingdom had confiscated the property of Li's family, that his wife had died of sorrow, in misery, and that his son, Li, having taken the liberty to complain of the glorious emperor's severity, suffered death by the bowstring, as is proper and reasonable in ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... a litter to carry the Skull-Splitter on," exclaimed Einar Bowstring-Twanger (the sheriff's son); "he'll never get to Witch-Martha alive if ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... the men who were in the small ships took him, but he received quarter from the Earl. And after this all leapt overboard who yet lived; but most of these were wounded, and those who received quarter were taken as they swam: these were Thorkell Netja, Karlshead, Thorstein, and Einar Bowstring-shaker. ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... rattan about 3 millimeters broad. This is attached to the lower end of the stock by a simple series of loops. To the upper extremity it is attached by a loop that slips along the stock into the upper notch when the bow is strung for shooting. It is needless to remark that the bowstring is about 2 or 3 centimeters shorter than the stock, which in the moment of stringing must be bent to enable the upper extremity of the string to reach the upper notch and thereby acquire a sufficient tension to ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... hand, from habit, going to his mouth. His attention being thus called to the force of habit, the strong- armed son of Pandu set his heart upon practising with his bow in the night. And, O Bharata, Drona, hearing the twang of his bowstring in the night, came to him, and clasping him, said, 'Truly do I tell thee that I shall do that unto thee by which there shall not be an archer equal to thee in ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... the city of Pergamos, and with help of Telamon slew the nations of the Meropes, and the herdsman whose stature was as a mountain, Alkyoneus whom he found at Phlegrai, and spared not of his hands the terrible twanging bowstring. ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar
... as well as I might. But I was filled with longing to be gathered to the company of the Divine ones, and I knew that I had no evil in me, and desired to do only the thing that is just. Therefore, having with so much labour drawn the bowstring to my ear, I was fain to let fly the shaft. "Lead on," I cried with a loud voice; "lead on, thou ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... a pair of peculiar goat-skin bellows, provided with wooden nozzles tipped with iron. A catgut bowstring drills for boring holes, and screw-drills for cutting threads, hammers, and an anvil. A rude but ingenious forge is constructed out of a few handfuls of stiff mud, and, building a charcoal fire, they ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... bent his bow, and came so near to the king's chariot that he could be heard exclaiming in a hoarse voice, as he let the bowstring snap, "Now I will reckon with you—thief! robber! My bride is your wife, but with this arrow I ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... this matter fully, and I have no claim whatever against you; neither has this man. I settled all my accounts with him; and I have his receipt in full, signed by him, and witnessed by Captain Sharp and his wife. He is a swindler and a villain; and if I ever catch him in Morocco he shall have the bowstring!" ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... and in which the red heat arises. When fire is to be lighted by means of this implement, the lower part of the drill pin is daubed over with a little train-oil, one foot holds the light-stock firm against the ground, the bowstring is put round the drill pin, the left hand presses the pin with the drill block against the light-stock, and the bow is carried backwards and forwards, not very rapidly, but evenly, steadily, and uninterruptedly, ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... is of fir rounded, and the rest of bone let by a socket into the wood, and having a head of thin iron, or more commonly of slate, secured into a slit by two treenails. Towards the opposite end of the arrow are two feathers, generally of the spotted oval, not very neatly lashed on. The bowstring consists of from twelve to eighteen small lines of three-sinew sinnet, having a loose twist, and with a separate becket of the same size for going over the knobs at the end ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... to throw stones, and one cast a spear at him, but that fell short. Then the bank hid him from us; but we saw a Dane fixing arrow to bowstring, and saw him shoot; but he missed, surely, for he took another arrow and ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... his men would have tough work in the bow. "Are you afraid?" asked the King. "We are no more afraid forward than you are aft," replied Ulf, with a flash of anger. The King lost his temper and threatened Ulf with an arrow on his bowstring. "Put down your bow," said Ulf. "If you shoot me you wound your own hand," and then he went back to his ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... figure, painted, clothed, and plumed in scarlet. Everything was scarlet about him, his moccasins, his naked skin, the fantastic cloak and blanket, girdle, knife-hilt, axe shaft, and the rattling quiver on his back—nay, the very arrows in it were set with scarlet feathers, and the looped bowstring ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... each man alone A single bowstring uses, and that his own; What matters it to any the worth that's buried? By its own waves the current o'er ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner
... praised by the master. After the death of Confucius, Chi K'ang asked Yen how that event had made no sensation like that which was made by the death of Tsze-ch'an, when the men laid aside their bowstring rings and girdle ornaments, and the women laid aside their pearls and ear-rings, and the voice of weeping was heard in the lanes for three months. Yen replied, 'The influences of Tsze-ch'an and my master ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) • James Legge
... so wondrous well, Till his arrows were all gone, And the fire so fast upon him fell, That his bowstring burnt in two. The sparkles burnt, and fell upon, Good William of Cloudeslie! But then was he a woeful man, and said, "This is a coward's death ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... Swift as bowstring speeds a shaft, Through the camp was spread the rumor, And the soldiers, as they quaffed Flemish beer at dinner, laughed At ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... Relaxing his bowstring, he returned the arrow to the quiver and, throwing the bow about his shoulder, stepped closer to ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... were riding on in the ellipse, and another man fitted an arrow to his bowstring, and as he ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... strangled was not much better than to be starved; and certainly with half a dozen highly respectable females clinging round his neck, he was not reminded, for the first time in his life, what a domestic bowstring is an affectionate woman." He is next joined by an "influential personage," who informs him that he is in Hubbabub (London)—the largest city, not only that exists, but that ever did exist, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 322, July 12, 1828 • Various
... greatly in numbers: there are 448 Haberdashers, for instance: 380 Fishmongers: and 356 Spectacle Makers: while there are only 16 Fletchers, i.e. makers of arrows. Many of the trades are now extinct, such as the Fletchers above named, the Bowyers, the Girdlers, the Bowstring Makers and ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant
... myself a good hazel and make myself a bow, Mr Jack, and get reeds out of the edge of the long lake, to tie nails in the ends and use for arrows. I used to bind the nails in with whitey-brown thread well beeswaxed, and then dress the notch at the other end to keep the bowstring from splitting it up. I've hit rabbits with an arrow before now, though they always run into their holes. You can shoot with a bow and arrow ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... Professor unslung his telescope, set his rifle upright on the moss, and, kneeling, balanced the long spyglass alongside of the blued-steel barrel, resting it on his hand as an archer fits the arrow he is drawing on the bowstring. ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... no? Undoubtedly not more insane than the rest of us, but her self-control snapped like a bowstring which is overstrained. She saw—so she said—a grinning death's head behind every smiling face. Merely a bee in her bonnet! But she was foolish enough to talk about it; and when people laughed at her words with a good-natured contempt, her ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis
... for his right eye!" said Otto; and stepping forward in the English manner (which his godfather having learnt in Palestine, had taught him), he brought his bowstring to his ear, took a good aim, allowing for the wind and calculating the parabola to a nicety. Whiz! his ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... as bowstring speed, a shaft, Through the camp was spread the rumor, And the soldiers, as they quaffed Flemish beer at dinner, laughed At the ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... twine, to which the bowstrings could be tied after the bow was all wound. The stock of our crossbow was cut out of a board of soft wood 1 inch thick to as near the shape of a gun as we could get it. A hole was drilled through the muzzle end to receive the bow, and then the bowstring was tied fast. Along the upper edge of the barrel a V-shaped channel was cut. The channel was not very deep, only enough to receive a tenpenny nail with the head projecting half-way above the sides. A ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond
... such a state of economic disorder? Because the confusion of moral ideas persists. In many countries nerves are still as tense as a bowstring, and the language of hatred still prevails. For some countries, as for some social groups, war has not yet ceased to be. One hears now in the countries of the victors the same arguments used as were current ...
— Peaceless Europe • Francesco Saverio Nitti
... feels after thou hast fashioned it carefully of strong wood and bound its head upon it with thongs. It says to itself; 'I am happy here, hanging in my warm bed on Nautauquas's back.' And then when thou takest it in thy hand and fittest its notch to the bowstring, it crieth out: 'Now I shall speed forth; now shall I cut the wind; now shall I journey where no arrow ever journeyed before; now shall I achieve ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... bird pass and escape being seen by the four sharp eyes that peered from the brush in the direction indicated by the sound of the breaking stick. Two hearts beat loudly as Fine Bow fitted his arrow to the bowstring. Tense and expectant they waited—yes, it was a deer—a buck, too, and he was coming down the trail, alert and watchful—down the trail that he had often travelled and knew so well. Yes, he had followed his mother along that trail when he was but a spotted fawn—now he wore ...
— Indian Why Stories • Frank Bird Linderman
... hae ta'en brave Hobbie Noble, Wi's ain bowstring they band him sae; But his gentle heart was ne'er sae sair, As when his ain five ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... one month; a fawn and a boar, for two; a snake, for a whole day; and then I will devour the bowstring.' When the first impulse of his hunger was allayed, he said, 'This flesh is not yet tender; let me taste the twisted string with which the horns of this bow are joined.' So saying, he began to gnaw it; but, in the instant when he had cut the ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... tole me that if I tole anybody whar he was gwine, he'd bowstring me and feed mah flesh ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... Melancolia on a revolving dome ribbed with millions of lights, and that all his wondrous thoughts stood embodied hundreds of feet below his tiny swinging plank, shouting together in his honour, when something cracked inside his temples like an overstrained bowstring, the glittering dome broke inward, and he was alone in the ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... good yew bow in his hand, and placing the tip at his instep, he strung it right deftly; then he nocked a broad clothyard arrow and, raising the bow, drew the gray goose feather to his ear; the next moment the bowstring rang and the arrow sped down the glade as a sparrowhawk skims in a northern wind. High leaped the noblest hart of all the herd, only to fall dead, reddening the green ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... describing Turkish, not English revolutions; and will cast your eye upwards to see if my letter is not dated from Constantinople. Indeed, violent as the changes have been, there has been no bloodshed; no Grand Vizier has had a cravat made of a bowstring, no Janizaries have taken upon them to alter the succession, no Grand Signior is deposed—only his Sublime Highness's dignity has been a little impaired. Oh! I forgot; I ought not to frighten you; you will interpret all these fine allusions, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... his fathers. Yet, even in the East, the sphere of contention is usually limited to the princes of the reigning house, and as soon as the more fortunate competitor has removed his brethren by the sword and the bowstring, he no longer entertains any jealousy of his meaner subjects. But the Roman empire, after the authority of the senate had sunk into contempt, was a vast scene of confusion. The royal, and even noble, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon |
