"Ribald" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... streamlet the willow-roots sway like branches of coral—aloft under the wild walnuts to that bubbling fountain where I used to meet my two friends, Arcadian goat-herds, aboriginal fauns of the thickets, who told me, amid ribald laughter, a few personal experiences which nothing would induce me to set ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... in Thy thirst, men heard Thee call, Thy lips were drenched with bitter gall; And to Thine ears the words were borne Of blasphemy and ribald scorn. ...
— Hymns from the East - Being Centos and Suggestions from the Office Books of the - Holy Eastern Church • John Brownlie
... his office after leaving the court house, he was kept busy nodding to friends—many of whom had become such during the later days of the drought. Merchants grinned at him from their doorways; Dunlavey's friends sneered as he passed or sent ribald jokes after him. ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... and ripened scholar who wastes his effort," was the dry comment. "Most of the lads of the town are coarse louts who pattern after their ribald elders, Jack. They will lead you ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... desperate efforts. You see the Church dashed to pieces in the seething vortex of destruction; in some countries honey-combed to rottenness, ready to totter and fall before the first outburst of Socialistic fury. The Press teems with ribald jeer and blatant blasphemy. The priesthood, a separate caste, hounded like lepers of old from the highways of public life, voiceless and despised—the apostate priest hailed with delight smothered in incense—the faithful priest lashed at the ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... screaming and kicking babies. Every other man had a cigar or pipe in his mouth, and jugs of whiskey were handed round freely. The fumes of the whiskey and the dense tobacco smoke were sickening to my senses, and my mind was equally nauseated by the coarse jokes and ribald songs around me. It was a very disagreeable ride. Since that time there has been some ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... had the latter played, a queenly figure in that ribald, gross gathering. She had reached the scene where the actress turns upon her tormentors, those noble ladies of rank and position, and launches the curse of a soul lashed beyond endurance. Sweeping forward to confront her adversaries, ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... step began to be understood, when Lady Mildmay came with him no more, and it dawned upon Henstead that Sir Winterton would not bring her, the very supporters felt themselves offended. Were a few ribald cries and the folly of a wrong-headed old Japhet Williams to outweigh all their loyalty and devotion? Was the town to be judged by its rowdies? They could not but remember that Lady May Quisante sat smiling through the hottest meetings, and one evening had at the last ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... whatever he is after, Makes the woods ring with ribald laughter; "Hee, hee, ha, ha," he says, and then "Ha, ha, hee, hee, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 5, 1920 • Various
... Mayor, "d' ye think I brook Being worse treated than a Cook? Insulted by a lazy ribald With idle pipe and vesture piebald? You threaten us, fellow? Do your worst, Blow your pipe ...
— The Pied Piper of Hamelin • Robert Browning
... threadbare. A similar kind of fun, with local differences, prevails in the States, but is wonderfully mixed up with scriptural and religious jokes. To us sober Britons, whatever our opinions, these latter japes appear more or less ribald, though ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... a frightful glitter in his eyes, an ugly ooze about his bloodless lips, a flickering effort of his shriveled fingers to adjust themselves to some ribald rhythm, Raikes began to sing, with the dry rasp and ancient husk ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... the Duke, "pay him gold pieces five," "How—pay a rogue?" the Knight did fierce retort. "A ribald's rant—give good, gold pieces for't? A plague! A pest! The knave should surely die—" But here he met Duke Joc'lyn's fierce blue eye, And silent fell and in his poke did dive, And slowly counted ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... bosom and bespeak his soul By charms of thee and whitest cheek I swear thee, * Pity a heart for love lost all control Bend to him, be his stay 'gainst stress of love, * Nor aught accept what saith the ribald fool.'" ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... "Thou slanderous ribald! quoth the miller, hast! A traitor false, false lying clerk, quoth he, Thou shalt be slain by heaven's dignity Who rudely dar'st disparage with foul lie My daughter, that is come of lineage high! And by the throat he Allan grasp'd amain, And caught him, yet more furiously again, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... skirts and fled, whirling up the veranda steps and into the house like a small cyclone, never pausing until a locked door lay between her and a ribald, unfeeling world. ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... and with eyes A hard, hot blue; her hair a frowsy flame, Bold, dowdy-bosomed, from her widow-frame She leans, her mouth all insult and all lies. Or slattern-slippered and in sluttish gown, With ribald mirth and words too vile to name, A new Doll Tearsheet, glorying in her shame, Armed with her Falstaff now she takes the town. The flaring lights of alley-way saloons, The reek of hideous gutters and black oaths Of drunkenness from vice-infested dens, Are to her senses ...
— Weeds by the Wall - Verses • Madison J. Cawein
... successor to the rustic bard in renovating the national minstrelsy. Possessing a fine musical ear, she adapted her lyrics with singular success to the precise sentiments of the older airs, and in this happy manner was enabled rapidly to supersede many ribald and vulgar ditties, which, associated with stirring and inspiring music, had long maintained a noxious popularity among the peasantry. Of Burns' immediate contemporaries, the more conspicuous were, John Skinner, Hector Macneill, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... Kirkyard before these things befell. But the widowed mother had to bear the burden, and to receive in her home and bring up the child that should not have been born. When silence and shame would have most become him, Burns poured forth his feelings in ribald verses, and bitterly satirized the parish minister, who required him to undergo that public penance which the discipline of the Church at that time exacted. Whether this was a wise discipline or not, no blame attached to ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... preserve his mummy throughout the ages, fell in and is the only one of the tombs of the kings that cannot be shown. The mummy of this ablest and proudest of the Pharaohs is now on exhibition at the Cairo Museum with a score of others and excites the ribald comment of the Cook's tourist, who drops his "h's" and knows nothing of Egyptology. Yet the mummy of Rameses is by far the most interesting of those shown at the museum because the head and face are so essentially ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... Just behind, upon a sorry mule, escorted by a mixture of negroes and Yankees riding his own fine horses, came Colonel M——, his head erect, his eyes blazing scornfully, glancing from side to side, or drawing a sharp, hard breath between his clinched teeth as he overheard some ribald jest. His house and gin-house had been burned, his fields laid waste; he had left his young daughters without protection and without shelter. What the ladies felt as they saw this sad cavalcade pass out of sight may not be told. Morning dawned upon a scene of desolation, sickening ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... unlike an Oriental dancer's, the Widow Weatherwax had assumed the centre of the ring. The sanctified were without sense of humor, but the unregenerate onlookers were not proof against the comic aspects of emotional religion, and from the dark outskirts rang a ribald laugh. ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... females played sprightly airs; thence back to Market street and the Midway. "Little Egypt," tiny, graceful, sensually pretty, performed a "danse du ventre," at the conclusion of a long program of crude and often ribald "turns." When "off-stage" the performers, mostly girls, drank with the audience in a tier of curtained boxes which lined the sides of the auditorium. At intervals the curtains parted for a moment and faces peered down. ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... never ask for 'im. 'E come into my dressing-room and I like 'im for 'is cheek and I give 'im a good time. Now he is ennuyeux. 'E want to marry me and make an honest woman of me." She patted Stonehouse on the shoulder with so droll a grimace that he bit his lip to avoid a gust of ribald, incredible laughter. It was as though by some trick she changed the whole aspect of things so that they became simply comic—scenes in a jolly, improper French farce. "And now I 'ope you see 'ow funny that is. And please take Monsieur Cosgrave away and keep ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... influence is lessening, and men are returning to their manly senses. But while that Press has its evil eye in every house, and its black hand in every appointment in the state, from a president to a postman; while, with ribald slander for its only stock in trade, it is the standard literature of an enormous class, who must find their reading in a newspaper, or they will not read at all; so long must its odium be upon the country's head, and so long must the evil ...
— Contributions to All The Year Round • Charles Dickens
... by Heaven, such cold, pompous insolence amuses me," vociferated Wacousta. "It reminds me of Ensign de Haldimar of nearly five and twenty years back, who was then as cunning a dissembler as he is now." Suddenly changing his ribald tone to one of scorn and rage:—"You BELIEVE me, you say, to be Reginald Morton the outlaw. Well do you know it. I am that Sir Reginald Morton, who became an outlaw, not through his own crimes, but through your villainy. Ay, frown as you may, I heed it ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... founded on excitement. Counting its numerous shootings and consequent lynchings, and proportioning them to its population, White Lodge had experienced more thrills than the largest of Eastern cities. Some ribald verse-writer, seizing upon White Lodge's weakness as a ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... for a hearing. The little Cockney was the centre of a well-organised and thoroughly competent body of obstructers who by clever "heckling," by points of order, by insistent questioning, by playing now upon the anti-American string, now upon the anti-Federation string, by ribald laughter, by cheering a happy criticism, completely checked every attempt of the speaker to take flight in his oratory. The International official was evidently an old hand in this sort of game, but in the hands of these past masters ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... in the character of a prisoner, was the signal for a great yell of ferocious delight on the part of the outlaws, immediately followed by a brisk fusillade of scurrilous, ribald jests concerning the sport that they would have with me upon their return to their mountain stronghold; and so bloodcurdling were the suggestions thrown out by some of those fiends that I confess a qualm of fear surged ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... those days was not what it is in these advanced times. Then, it meant that one was possessed of all the evil habits that fall to the lot of man. David Cable was more or less contaminated by contact with his rough, ribald companions of the rail, and he glided moderately into the bad habits of his kind. He drank and "gamboled" with the rest of the boys; but by nature not being vicious and low, the influences were not hopelessly deadening to the better qualities of his character. ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... Peter's pretty sweetheart, blubbered when he learned the truth, and the younger Checkleigh, who delighted to sketch her, left off because his hand shook so, and he couldn't see clearly. The Spanish student in the velvet coat, who could sing lustily to a guitar, came and sang for her, not the ribald songs the Quartier heard from him, but the beautiful and soft love songs he had heard as a child in Andalusia—how love is an immortal rose one carries through the gates of the grave into the gates of ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... priests of the Temple of Letters, it is interesting and helpful occasionally for an acolyte to swinge them a good hard one with an incense-burner, and cut and run, for a change, to something outside the rubrics. Midnight is the time when one can recall, with ribald delight, the names of all the Great Works which every gentleman ought to have read, but which some of us have not. For there is almost as much clotted nonsense written about literature as there ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... up the hill from the main road. They sang a song with a ribald chorus, such as men sing in a tavern when they have drunk deep. Lord Dunseveric and Maurice had already reached the door of the meeting-house, and ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... advent, by affording me a brief respite, had enabled me to collect my thoughts, and, disregarding the ribald interruptions, which at first were frequent, I began as follows: 'I am no Rabelais, sire,' I said, 'but droll things happen to the most unlikely. Once upon a time it was the fortune of a certain swain, whom I will ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... profundity of thought was deemed possible unless allied with those pagan ideas which Saint Augustine had exploded and Pascal had ridiculed. Even while living among these people, Rousseau had all the while a kind of sentimental religiosity which revolted at their ribald scoffing, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... great shop doors, thronged with brilliantly-dressed ladies, and watched to see if his little sister might not dash up in one of those satin-lined coaches and take him where he would be warm and safe and would sleep undisturbed by drunken, ribald songs and loathsome surroundings. There were days when he almost forgot his name, and, striving to remember, would lose his senses for a moment and drift back to the harmonious solitudes of the North and breathe the resin-scented frosty atmosphere. He grew ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie
... dead—that this sweet clay, That even from her picture breathes perfume, Was carried on a fiery wind away, Or foully locked in the worm-whispering tomb; This casket rifled, ribald fingers thrust 'Mid all her dainty treasure—is ...
— The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... of your own now sitting in Parliament, the chief of learned men reputed in this land." Acquaintance, on the other hand, is implied or avowed, on Milton's part, with some of the most notoriously ribald writers that the world had produced: with Petronius Arbiter, and him of Arozzo "dreaded and yet dear to the Italian Courtiers," and an Englishman whom he will not name, "for posterity's sake," but "whom Harry the Eighth named in merriment his Vicar of Hell." We may add, that ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... "Thou slanderous ribald!" quoth the Miller, "hast? A traitor false, false lying clerk!" quoth he, "Thou shalt be slain by heaven's dignity, Who rudely dar'st disparage with foul lie My daughter that is come of lineage high!" And by the throat he Allen grasped amain; And caught him, yet more furiously, ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... would have caught a note of ribald scorn in Mr. Doolittle's drawl, as he quoted from his candidate's statement, ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... signs that the English had taken heed of her letter, she finally mounted the walls of the town, and in a loud voice warned the English to depart before overtaken with the shame and disaster in store for them. To this the English responded with insults and ribald words, and told her to "Go home and keep her cows." Joan wept at their insults to her modesty, and would have at once opened an attack, had she not been dissuaded by her generals, who begged her to await the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... profound lectures on the reason of state, ecclesiastical and political, which the Protestant Association have since condescended to read to us? Or were we, seven hundred peers and commoners, the only persons ignorant of the ribald invectives which occupy the place of argument in those remonstrances, which every man of common observation had heard a thousand times over, and a thousand times over had despised? All men had before heard what they dare to say, and all men at this day know what they dare to do; ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... to his feet, forgot his wrath on the instant, and began to sing drunkenly the words of a ribald air. I took him by both shoulders and pushed him ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... unto our fellow kind. Right wroth was ye Divell, therefore, when that he knew this ben ye Chrystmass time. And as rage doth often confirm in ye human harte an evill purpose, so was ye Divell now more diabolically minded to work his unclean will, and full hejeously fell he to roar and lash his ribald legs with his poyson taile. But ye Divell did presently conceive that naught might he accomplish by this means, since that men, affrighted by his roaring and astonied by ye fumes of brimstone and ye sulphur flames issuing from his mouth, wolde flee therefrom; whereas by subtile craft and by words ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... chased by US troops at the very commencement of his enterprise; of being severely wounded, rescued, and carried off during the flight by Buck Tom, and then—a long blank, mingled with awful dreams and scenes, and ribald songs, and curses—some of all which was real, and some the working of a ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... trail on horseback, with shouts and ribald songs, rode four rough men, too drunk to know where they were going. The little schoolhouse seemed to attract their attention as they passed, and just for deviltry they shouted out a volley of oaths and vile talk to the worshippers ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... every insubordination and every vice they assumed a degage, or air of superiority, and fleeced their verdant companions of the very clothes they wore; while they made the impure air of the camps more foul with ribald jest and profane song. ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... eye. But the prisoner did not move or raise a hand in protest, even when he was bared to his under-clothing in front of fraeulein, who signalled her appreciation of the sight by wildly clapping her hands, laughing merrily, and giving expression to ribald jokes. ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... changes four Suffolk youths broke into a church at Dovercourt, tore down a wonder-working crucifix, and burned it in the fields. The suppression of the lesser monasteries was the signal for a new outburst of ribald insult to the old religion. The roughness, insolence, and extortion of the Commissioners sent to effect it drove the whole monastic body to despair. Their servants rode along the road with copes for doublets or tunicles for saddle-cloths, and scattered panic among the larger houses which ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green
... not, child, I fear not. I hear the same oaths and blasphemies, the same ribald jests and ungodly talk, as of old. They say the Court, which has lately returned to Whitehall, is as gay and wanton as ever. In face of the terror of death, men did resolve to amend their ways; but I fear me, that terror ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... large bodies which year after year had been quartered upon the Netherlands during the constant warfare to which they had been exposed. Living upon the substance of the country, paid out of its treasury, and as offensive by their licentious and ribald habits of life as were the enemies against whom they were enrolled, these troops had become an intolerable burthen to the people. They were now disposed in different garrisons, nominally to protect the frontier. As a firm peace, however, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... haunches. There are other mosaics in the Torcello cathedral, especially those in the apsis and in one of the side chapels, which are in a beautiful spirit of art, and form the widest possible contrast to the eighteenth-century high altar, with its insane and ribald angels flying off at the sides, and poising themselves in the rope-dancing attitudes favored by statues of heavenly persons in the decline of the Renaissance. The choir is peculiarly built, in the form of a half-circle, with seats rising one above another, as in an amphitheatre, ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... incredible to those who have not seen them. Certainly the extraordinary honours which he pays his dead wife show how dearly he loved her. She has left him two little sons. And all Ferrara sorrows for her death, and I saw many weeping. And so goes this ribald world."[68] ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... unable to endure certain tests (or he thought so) which were about to be made with a view to retiring certain officers grown fat in the service. As he explained to Culhane, and the latter was always open and ribald afterward in his comments on those who offered explanations of any kind, his plan was to take the course here in order to be able to make the difficult ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... He was tired from his all day's running around after Jim. It was a raw evening out-of-doors, but it was cosy in there. The popping of corks, the clinking of glasses, the hum of voices and the occasional burst of ribald laughter, even the quarrelsome argument; all had more or less a soothing effect, which began to make Phil feel at harmony with the world at large. He looked at his watch. It was eight o'clock. He stretched his legs, unfolded the large sheet and ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... into the steerage. Classes were reciting to the professors, and studying their lessons at the mess tables. There was certainly no appearance of evil, for the place was still, and no sound of angry altercation or ribald jest, which his fancy connected with the vice of gambling, saluted his ears. He cautiously entered Gangway D, and paused where he could hear what was said in ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... sneers at and ribald jokes about the American Navy. They laughed in derision at our declaration of war. They spoke of the Constitution frigate, which had performed such gallant deeds in the Mediterranean, as "a bundle of pine boards sailing under a bit of striped bunting," ...
— Harper's Young People, August 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... like such jesting,' said I. 'The dead are very dead and will not disturb anybody, but even the prejudices of respectable persons ought to be respected. A ribald like Jacques counts for nothing, but I did not ...
— A Beleaguered City • Mrs. Oliphant
... this Jew?" Pilate made answer to the mob, "The choice Is yours; I wash my hands of this, and you, Do as you will." With one vast ribald voice The populace arose and, shrieking, cried, "Give us Barabbas, we condone his deeds!" And He of Nazareth was crucified— Misjudged, ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... clam-carts were ribald as a fair, (Pink nets and wet shells trodden under heel) She had haggled from the fruit-man of his rotting ware; (I shall never get to ...
— A Few Figs from Thistles • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... home, which was usually a scene of great merry-making. In Devonshire, when a farmer's wheat was ripe he sent round notice to the neighbourhood, and men and women from all sides came to reap the crop. As early as eleven or twelve, so much ale and cider had been drunk that the shouts and ribald jokes of the company were heard to a considerable distance, attracting more helpers, who came from far and near, but none were allowed to come after 12 o'clock. Between 12 and 1 came dinner, with copious libations of ale and cider, which lasted till 2, when reaping ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... necessary rule, every convict has an opportunity to listen to the vilest obscenity that ever falls upon human ears. At times, when some of these convicts, who seem veritable encyclopedias of wickedness, are crowded together, the ribald jokes, obscenity and blasphemy are too horrible for description. It is a pandemonium—a miniature hell! But worse than this horrible flow of language are the horrible and revolting practices of the mines. Men, degraded to a plane lower than the brutes, are guilty of the unmentionable ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... every soul on board but himself, and only spared his life, as he thought, for the purpose of amusement; for they had compelled him to dance—he, a minister of the gospel—and had made him drink under torture, and recite ribald poetry, and swear, and wash their clothes. All sorts of indignities had been heaped upon him, but he had remembered the injunction of the Master; he had invariably turned the other cheek when smitten, and had prayed for ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... of the Hind did almost fail; For well she mark'd the malice of the tale;[127] 640 Which ribald art their Church to Luther owes; In malice it began, by malice grows; He sow'd the Serpent's teeth, an iron-harvest rose. But most in Martin's character and fate, She saw her slander'd sons, the Panther's hate, The people's ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... to as we bow to saints In window'd shrines; and, far from all attaints Of ribald passion, thou, as seemeth good, Wilt smile serenely in thy virginhood. Nor shall I know, of mine own poor accord, Which thing in all the world is best to hoard, Or which is worst of all the things that slay: A woman's beauty or a ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay
... said a man of huge stature, pressing onward, like some bulky ship, casting the noisy waves right and left from its prow, "this is hot work; but for what, in the holy Mother's name, do ye crowd so? See you not, Sir Ribald, that my right arm is disabled, swathed, and bandaged, so that I cannot help myself better than a baby? And yet you push against me as if I were ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... innate, inbred, congenital. Incite, instigate, stimulate, impel, arouse, goad, spur, promote. Inclose, surround, encircle, circumscribe, encompass. Increase, grow, enlarge, magnify, amplify, swell, augment. Indecent, indelicate, immodest, shameless, ribald, lewd, lustful, lascivious, libidinous, obscene. Insane, demented, deranged, crazy, mad. Insanity, dementia, derangement, craziness, madness, lunacy, mania, frenzy, hallucination. Insipid, tasteless, flat, vapid. ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... peep behind the scenes. Private Burke, of D Company, a cheery soul, who possesses the entirely Hibernian faculty of being able to combine a most fanatical and seditious brand of Nationalism with a genuine and ardent enthusiasm for the British Empire, one day made a contemptuous and ribald reference to the Ulster Volunteers and their leader. M'Ostrich, who was sitting on his bedding at the other side of the hut, promptly rose to his feet, crossed the floor in three strides, and silently felled the humorist to the earth. ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... here as worse rascals than mountebanks, Callias the town-slave and the like of him, antic-jesters, [Footnote: [Greek: Mimous geloion], players of drolls, mimes, or farces. Our ancient word droll signifies, like [Greek: mimos], both the actor and the thing acted.] and composers of ribald songs to lampoon their companions, such persons Philip caresses and keeps about him. Small matters these may be thought, Athenians, but to the wise they are strong indications of his character and wrong-headedness. ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes
... kindly cease that ribald screaming. David (David is Angel's proper name) get up instantly from that piano stool and face me! John, ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... of Washington, who must pass her father's house on his return from a distant settlement. The Tory knows nothing of this; but he starts whenever the men in the next room rattle the dice or break into a ribald song, and a frown of apprehension crosses his face as the foragers crunch by, half-barefoot, through the snow. The hours go on, and the noise in the next room increases; but it hushes suddenly when a knock at the door is ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... and green trees send A chuckle round the earth, And the soft winds croon a jeering tune, And the harsh winds shriek with mirth, And the wee small birds chirp ribald words When the Swank walks down the street; But every Glug takes off his hat, And whispers humbly, "Look at that! Hats off! Hats off to the Glug of rank! Sir Stodge, the Swank, the Lord High Swank!" Then the East wind roars a loud guffaw, And the ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis
... extent to which he could go in falsifying in Young's behalf is illustrated, however, most pointedly in what he had to say regarding the charge of polygamy: "The remaining charge connects itself with that unmixed outrage, the spiritual wife story; which was fastened on the Mormons by a poor ribald scamp whom, though the sole surviving brother and representative of their Jo. Smith, they were literally forced to excommunicate for licentiousness, and who therefore revenged himself by editing confessions and ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... the ear of Ernest. Meantime joke followed jest, among Polydore and the rest of the gay youths, in riotous and ribald succession, which, however characteristic of the rude speakers, may as well be omitted here. Their effect was to shake in some degree the fortitude of the Saxon maiden, who had some difficulty in mustering ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... and girls, trotted along beside or after the cart, hooting, shouting profane and ribald remarks, singing snatches of foul song, skipping, dancing—a very holiday of hellions, a sickening sight. We had struck a suburb of London, outside the walls, and this was a sample of one sort of London society. Our master secured a good place for us near the gallows. A priest was in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... 23d (July) they encamped on the banks of what they term Big River; and here we cannot but pause to lament the stupid, commonplace, and often ribald names entailed upon the rivers and other features of the great West, by traders and settlers. As the aboriginal tribes of these magnificent regions are yet in existence, the Indian names might easily be recovered; which, besides ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... out Brother Smith and Professor Petersen, and explaining to them exactly what had happened in full detail, and should they still continue their ribald jests, of punching their heads, which as a manly young fellow, he was quite capable of doing. Reflection showed him, however, that this course might not be wise, since such adventures are apt to end in the police-court, where the ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... the horns wear thin And the noise, like a garment outworn, Falls from the night, The tattered and shivering night, That thinks she is gay; When the patient silence comes back, And retires, And returns, Rebuffed by a ribald song, Wounded by vehement cries, Fleeing again to the stars— Ashamed of her sister the night; Oh, then they steal home, The blinded, the pitiful ones With their gew-gaws still in their hands, Reeling with odorous breath And thick, coarse words on their tongues. ...
— Rivers to the Sea • Sara Teasdale
... emerged from the War a changed nation. The people who in 1870 made ribald verses and sang cynical songs over the plight of their country are now no more, and France emerges serious, resolute, to the great work which she has before her — of building the great first Democratic State of Europe and becoming the corner-stone of the future ...
— NEVER AGAIN • Edward Carpenter
... gruesome service, but it was generally accompanied by ribald jokes, at the expense of the poor "Johnny" they were "planting." This was not the fruit of debased natures or degenerate hearts on the part of the boys, who well knew it might be their turn next, ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... spirit is daily becoming more and more prevalent in good society. There is a growing curiosity concerning my country; a craving desire for correct information, that cannot fail to lead to a favourable understanding. The scoffer, I trust, has had his day; the time of the slanderer is gone by; the ribald jokes, the stale commonplaces, which have so long passed current when America was the theme, are now banished to the ignorant and the vulgar, or only perpetuated by the hireling scribblers and traditional jesters of the press. The intelligent and high-minded now pride ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... ribald remarks greeted Mr. Wedmore as he appeared at the window, telling him only too plainly that the merry days of old were gone, never to be restored, and that the feudal feeling which bound (or is supposed to have bound) rich and poor, gentle and simple, in one ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... "Stop your ribald talk," said Alan in a stern voice. "It would be better if instead of making jokes you gave thanks to Providence for bringing both of us alive and well out of very dreadful dangers. Now I am going to dress for dinner," and with an ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... moment, and down below, near the gateway, I heard some brute screaming, "Pretty pigeons! Pretty pigeons, are your feathers singeing? Come then into our pie, pretty pigeons, pretty pigeons!" followed by shouts of ribald laughter. ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... reeled off more ribald remarks, things that created a sudden chill among the passengers on the Fall of Rome. Mrs. Tinneray, looked upon as a leader, called up a shocked face and walked away; Mrs. Mealer after a faint "Excuse me," also abandoned the parrot-cage; and Mrs. Bean, a small stout woman ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... the American Anti-Slavery Society, denies that the society asks for the enfranchisement of colored men, and the Liberator apologizes for excluding the colored men of Louisiana from the ballot-box, they injure us more vitally than all the ribald jests of the whole pro-slavery press." Finally the convention insisted that any such things as the right to own real estate, to testify in courts of law, and to sue and be sued, were mere privileges so long as general political liberty was withheld, and ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... at him, however. Hradzka became more insistent in his manner, making signs to indicate his hunger and willingness to work. The other men in the shop left their tasks and gathered around; there was much laughter and unmistakably ribald and derogatory remarks. Hradzka was beginning to give up hope of getting employment here when one of the workmen approached the master and whispered something ...
— Flight From Tomorrow • Henry Beam Piper
... other houses across the way. A wash-stand stood modestly inside a large cupboard. Over the mantel was the familiar picture—usually, however, reserved for the fourth floor back—of a young lady having her shoes shined by a ribald small boy. ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... Rhetoric parolarto, retoriko. Rhetorical elokventa, retorika. Rheumatic reuxmatisma. Rheumatism reuxmatismo. Rhinoceros rinocero. Rhomb rombo. Rhombus rombo. Rhubarb rabarbo. Rhyme rimi. Rhythm ritmo. Rib ripo. Ribald malcxasta, dibocxa. Ribaldry dibocxo—ajxo. Ribbon rubando. Rice rizo. Rich, to grow ricxigxi. Rich ricxa. Riches ricxeco. Rid malembarasi, liberigi. Riddle (sieve) kribrilo. Riddle enigmo, logogrifo. Ride rajdi. Ridge supro, pinto. Ridge (agricul.) ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... the hug of his own arms the Stranger sat rocking himself to and fro in uncontrollable, choking mirth,—"ribald mirth" was what Flame ...
— Peace on Earth, Good-will to Dogs • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... answered fiercely, flinging out an arm to drag forward her son. "Is he to waste his youth here in softness and idleness? But yesternight that ribald mocked him with his lack of scars. Shall he take scars in the orchard of the Kasbah here? Is he to be content with those that come from the scratch of a bramble, or is he to learn to be a fighter and leader of the ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... new departure, you see. What the critics in those parts expect from me is something entitled 'Wow! Wow!' or 'The Girl from Yonkers'. It would have unsettled their minds to find me breaking out in poetic drama. They are men of coarse fibre and ribald mind and they would have been very funny about it. I thought it wiser to come over here among strangers, little thinking that I should sit in the next seat to somebody I had known ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... myself as a most extraordinary, rare, and orchid-like male creature, I feel that the appended narrative, albeit I do not figure therein as Sir Galahad or King Arthur, is no more than your just due. I relinquish the steel helmet and holy grail adjuncts, and exploit myself to your ribald gaze and half-witted laughter just ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... was simply but another proof of the guilt of the accused, that he should compare himself with the apostles and the martyrs; and these worshipful Christian magistrates with heathen magistrates and judges. Hearing him talk in this ribald way, he could no longer doubt the accusation brought against him; for there was no surer proof of a man or woman having dealings with Satan, than to defame ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... we find, in the half-random and wholly scurrile slander of womankind, a touch of real humour, of the humour that has feeling behind it, as here, where a sufficiently ribald variation on the theme of the ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... eodem cogimur,'' and the rest; which is all very pretty and mighty consoling. The fact is, the poets are the only people who score by the present arrangement; which it is therefore their interest to maintain. While we are doing all the work, these incorrigible skulkers lounge about and make ribald remarks; they write Greek tragedies on Fate, on the sublimity of Suffering, on the Petty Span, and so on; and act in a generally offensive way. And we are even weak enough to buy their books; offer them drinks, peerages, and things; and say what superlative fellows they are! But when the long-looked-for ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame
... at least enjoined upon others. We come in this field also, as in others, upon the assertion of the human as nobler and more beautiful than that which had by the theologians been alleged to be divine. The assertion came indeed to be made in ribald and blasphemous forms, but it was not without ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... near the middle hour of the night. Many, just out of banquet-hall, theatre, and circus, thronged the main thoroughfares of the capital. Cries of venders, ribald songs, shouts of revelry, the hurrying of many feet roused the good people who, wearied by other nights of dissipation, now sought repose. They turned, uneasily, reflecting that to-morrow they would ...
— Vergilius - A Tale of the Coming of Christ • Irving Bacheller
... Stede Bonnet with his own hand bent the "Jolly Roger" to the lanyard and sent the great black flag with its skull and crossbones to fly from the masthead. The grog was served out. No man would have believed that the roaring, rollicking gang of cutthroats who tossed off their liquor in cheers and ribald laughter was identical with the grumbling, sour-faced crew of twenty hours before. As they finished, something came skipping over the water astern and the first echoing report followed ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... violent items; he amused himself with abuse of their private lives, and with sardonic humour, with blasphemous and obscene detail, attacked the legitimacy of their births and the purity of their conjugal relations: he used an Oriental imagery and an Oriental emphasis to accentuate his ribald scorn. Nor did he conceal his contempt for the students whose work he examined. By them he was hated and feared; the women by his brutal sarcasm he reduced often to tears, which again aroused his ridicule; and he remained at the studio, notwithstanding ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... godlike Cato was.* Recall the Wars of England's giant-born, Is Elyot's voice, is Hampden's death in vain? Have all the meteors of the vernal morn But wasted light upon a frozen main? Where is that child of Carnage, Freedom, flown? The Sybarite lolls upon the martyr's throne. Lewd, ribald jests succeed to solemn zeal; And things of silk to Cromwell's men of steel. Cold are the hosts the tromps of Ireton thrilled, And hushed the senates Vane's large presence filled. In what strong heart doth the old manhood dwell? ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... down to see the hated British evacuate the city, forced out by the troops of Gen. Washington (plain Mr. Washington, the British liked to call him)? The ragged gamins scurried here and there, yelling ribald jests at the departing soldiers; and the scarlet-coated troopers had hard work keeping down their rising anger, as suggestive cries of "boiled lobsters" rose on every side. Even the staid citizens could hardly conceal their exultation, as they thought that with those soldiers ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... guest of a few days previous treated them most shamefully. When they were well on the voyage to Cebu the prisoners were allowed to be on the upper deck, and Mrs. Wilson was permitted to use an armchair. The soldiers insulted them, and, leaning their backs against Mrs. Wilson's chair, some sang ribald songs, whilst others debated whether their captives would be shot on the beach or at the Cotta in Cebu. Sometimes they would draw their swords and look viciously towards them. At last, after a series of ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... Varro; but the fellows were too quick-sighted for her, saw her movements, guessed her mind, and followed her to have some sport, not knowing who she was. She ran quickly down the pathway to hide behind the foliage, and, not daring to follow, they let her go. She heard the shouting of the ribald crew as they ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... had gone to sleep in splendid isolation under the verandah of an empty house, but awoke among some Munsters, who greeted dawn with ribald songs. Harnessed up after breakfast, and marched off through the town, past the head-quarters, where Roberts reviewed us and the 38th. He was standing with a large Staff at the foot of the steps. The order "eyes right" gave ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers |
