Careful Words

mantle (n.)

mantle (v.)

  Now had Aurora displayed her mantle over the blushing skies, and dark night withdrawn her sable veil.

Miguel De Cervantes (1547-1616): Don Quixote. Part i. Book iii. Chap. vi.

There are a sort of men whose visages

Do cream and mantle like a standing pond.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 1.

So have I heard, and do in part believe it.

But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,

Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill.

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

The green mantle of the standing pool.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Lear. Act iii. Sc. 4.

Now came still evening on, and twilight gray

Had in her sober livery all things clad;

Silence accompany'd; for beast and bird,

They to their grassy couch, these to their nests,

Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale;

She all night long her amorous descant sung;

Silence was pleas'd. Now glow'd the firmament

With living sapphires; Hesperus, that led

The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon,

Rising in clouded majesty, at length

Apparent queen unveil'd her peerless light,

And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 598.

Blessing on him who invented sleep,—the mantle that covers all human thoughts, the food that appeases hunger, the drink that quenches thirst, the fire that warms cold, the cold that moderates heat, and, lastly, the general coin that purchases all things, the balance and weight that equals the shepherd with the king, and the simple with the wise.—Jarvis's translation.

by simon sarris • about