Careful Words

field (n.)

field (v.)

field (adv.)

field (adj.)

Her father loved me; oft invited me;

Still question'd me the story of my life,

From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes,

That I have passed.

I ran it through, even from my boyish days,

To the very moment that he bade me tell it:

Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances,

Of moving accidents by flood and field,

Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach,

Of being taken by the insolent foe

And sold to slavery, of my redemption thence

And portance in my travels' history;

Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle,

Rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch heaven,

It was my hint to speak,—such was the process;

And of the Cannibals that each other eat,

The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads

Do grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear

Would Desdemona seriously incline.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Othello. Act i. Sc. 3.

  As for man his days are as grass; as a flower of the field so he flourisheth.

Old Testament: Psalm ciii. 15.

What though the field be lost?

All is not lost; th' unconquerable will,

And study of revenge, immortal hate,

And courage never to submit or yield.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 105.

Together let us beat this ample field,

Try what the open, what the covert yield.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Essay on Man. Epistle i. Line 9.

  A cow is a very good animal in the field; but we turn her out of a garden.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784): Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. iii. Chap. viii. 1772.

Nature, exerting an unwearied power,

Forms, opens, and gives scent to every flower;

Spreads the fresh verdure of the field, and leads

The dancing Naiads through the dewy meads.

William Cowper (1731-1800): Table Talk. Line 690.

That field hath eyen, and the wood hath ears.

Geoffrey Chaucer (1328-1400): Canterbury Tales. The Knightes Tale. Line 1524.

He rush'd into the field, and foremost fighting fell.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 23.

Her father loved me; oft invited me;

Still question'd me the story of my life,

From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes,

That I have passed.

I ran it through, even from my boyish days,

To the very moment that he bade me tell it:

Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances,

Of moving accidents by flood and field,

Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach,

Of being taken by the insolent foe

And sold to slavery, of my redemption thence

And portance in my travels' history;

Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle,

Rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch heaven,

It was my hint to speak,—such was the process;

And of the Cannibals that each other eat,

The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads

Do grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear

Would Desdemona seriously incline.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Othello. Act i. Sc. 3.

  Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin.

New Testament: Matthew vi. 28.

Soon shall thy arm, unconquer'd steam! afar

Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car;

Or on wide-waving wings expanded bear

The flying chariot through the field of air.

Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802): The Botanic Garden. Part i. Canto i. Line 289.

Our business in the field of fight

Is not to question, but to prove our might.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Iliad of Homer. Book xx. Line 304.

Slowly and sadly we laid him down,

From the field of his fame fresh and gory;

We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone,

But we left him alone with his glory.

Charles Wolfe (1791-1823): The Burial of Sir John Moore.

  Dead on the field of honour.

When Prussia hurried to the field,

And snatched the spear, but left the shield.

Scott: Marmion, Introduction to canto iii.

When Prussia hurried to the field,

And snatch'd the spear, but left the shield.

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832): Marmion. Introduction to Canto iii.

I have set my life upon a cast,

And I will stand the hazard of the die:

I think there be six Richmonds in the field.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Richard III. Act v. Sc. 4.

  Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do ingloriously, by licensing and prohibiting, to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple: who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?

John Milton (1608-1674): Areopagitica.

That never set a squadron in the field,

Nor the division of a battle knows.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Othello. Act i. Sc. 1.

Shall victor exult, or in death be laid low,

With his back to the field and his feet to the foe,

And leaving in battle no blot on his name,

Look proudly to heaven from the death-bed of fame.

Thomas Campbell (1777-1844): Lochiel's Warning.