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vassal
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  • Then, from all corners of Hrothgar's sphere of influence and from towns beyond--the vassals' vassals--an army began to form.†   (source)
  • "You are fortunate in your vassals," Attolia said.†   (source)
  • The other rulers might find it rather presumptuous for Prusias to claim Rowan as his vassal state.†   (source)
  • But I am not Loki's vassal.†   (source)
  • And numerous inferior vassals occupied and cultivated that land.†   (source)
  • Besides, he was at bottom a vassal of IG Farben.†   (source)
  • Behind them in long swift lines came all their vassals from the northern mountains, speeding on a gathering wind.†   (source)
  • He once declared: I would rather go down to my political grave with a clear conscience than ride in the chariot of victory as a Congressional stool pigeon, the slave, the servant, or the vassal of any man, whether he be the owner and manager of a legislative menagerie or the ruler of a great nation…… I would rather lie in the silent grave, remembered by both friends and enemies as one who remained true to his faith and who never faltered in what he believed to be his duty, than to…†   (source)
  • Presumptuous vassals, are you not ashamed   (source)
  • Vassals were expected to fight offensive wars up to two months a year.
  • She can always rile the crowd by implying that America treats their nation as a vassal state.
  • As her vassal, he ought to be searching for a way to rescue her, to the exclusion of all else.†   (source)
  • Thus it was this evening that I turned to his vassal—a fiend called Prusias.†   (source)
  • "In the Merman's Court, it is customary for vassals and petitioners to kneel."†   (source)
  • Lord Tywin did not suffer disloyalty in his vassals.†   (source)
  • We were kings and the Blackwoods were our vassals, but they betrayed us and usurped the crown.†   (source)
  • We are not a country of vassals subject to the whims of foreign masters.†   (source)
  • But still more, he loves to show all men that he is not Loki's vassal.†   (source)
  • You and your vassals command a thousand leagues of coast.†   (source)
  • The Book of Enoch says I have to kill my Nephil vassal.†   (source)
  • I mean to be firm but fair with my new vassals.†   (source)
  • Save a human life and become a guardian angel, or kill your Nephil vassal and become human.†   (source)
  • And not just any Nephil, but Chauncey Langeais, Patch's vassal."†   (source)
  • With our help, Palancar was usurped and banished, but he, his family, and their vassals refused to leave the valley.†   (source)
  • Our domain shall in— dude all the Stark lands north of the Neck, and in addition the lands watered by the River Trident and its vassal streams, bounded by the Golden Tooth to the west and the Mountains of the Moon in the east.†   (source)
  • Finally all of the principal vassals of House Stark had been heard from save for Howland Reed the crannogman, who had not set foot outside his swamps for many a year, and the Cerwyns whose castle lay a half day's ride from Winterfell.†   (source)
  • Very well, as my newest and only vassal, will you agree to give your fealty to me again-in public, when the council expects your vow?†   (source)
  • They rode beside the river for hours, splashing across two muddy vassal streams before they reached the place that Sandor Clegane had spoken of.†   (source)
  • My advice is to submit to whatever terms Prusias demands and hope that he indulges Rowan as a vassal state.†   (source)
  • He will swear solemnly before gods and men to henceforth remain a leal vassal of Harrenhal and the Iron Throne, and I will give him pardon in the king's name.†   (source)
  • A vassal who disobeys his lord is no better than a warrior who ignores his captain on the field of battle and may be punished similarly.†   (source)
  • Rise as my vassal and take your sword.†   (source)
  • "You have attacked my king, murdered his vassals, and destroyed our embassy," the ambassador seethed, heaving his body forward so that its bulk flattened against the runeglass in a white, corpulent smear.†   (source)
  • Have our vassals kept alert.†   (source)
  • Rise as my vassal and take your sword.†   (source)
  • Her draft was so shallow she could work her way up even the smallest of the river's vassal streams, negotiating sandbars that would have stranded larger vessels, yet with her sail raised and a current under her, she could make good speed.†   (source)
  • You do not have the authority to bind me in place; nor Eragon, who is my vassal; nor Saphira; nor Arya, who answers to no mortal lord but rather to one more powerful than the two of us combined.†   (source)
  • In ancient days, the ironborn had boldly sailed the river road and plundered all along the Mander and its vassal streams …. until the kings of the green hand had armed the fisherfolk on the four small islands off the Mander's mouth and named them his shields.†   (source)
  • "In it, a fallen angel kills his Nephil vassal by sacrificing one of the Nephil's female descendants.†   (source)
  • Drawing himself upright then, to the full extent of his limited height, Orik ordered the prisoners removed from the ornate entryway and dismissed all of his vassals, save for Eragon and a contingent of twenty-six of his finest warriors.†   (source)
  • Southron ambitions that would not be served by having his heir marry the daughter of one of his own vassals.†   (source)
  • They live on boats, and pole them up and down the Greenblood and its vassals, fishing and picking fruit and doing whatever work needs doing.†   (source)
  • Corbray's vassals would be there, with the Lords Waxley, Grafton, Lynderly, some petty lords and landed knights …. and Lord Belmore, who had lately reconciled with her father.†   (source)
  • Small, but it would lead her to a larger stream, and that stream would flow into some little river, and all the rivers in this part of the world were vassals of the Skahazadhan.†   (source)
  • No trumpets announced the foe: vassals, servants, friends, brothers, sons, even wives, any of them might have knives concealed beneath their cloaks and murder hidden in their hearts.†   (source)
  • I have no quarrel with that, Sire, but it is being said that you also mean to grant these castles to your knights and lords, to hold as their own seats as vassals to Your Grace.†   (source)
  • Both before and after I received the ring I have been a loyal vassal to the King.†   (source)
  • Saving my order, I am at his command, As his most faithful vassal in the land.†   (source)
  • He was accustomed to command, not to entreat, and he retained the respect of his Indian vassals to the end.†   (source)
  • Each of them"the mob and the mob-masters" the wire-pullers and the frightened" the leaders and their pet vassals"know and feel that their lives are built upon a historical deed of wrong against many people, people from whose lives they have bled their leisure and their luxury!†   (source)
  • You, Reginald, three times traitor you : Traitor to me as my temporal vassal, Traitor to me as your spiritual lord, Traitor to God in desecrating His Church.†   (source)
  • He too worships fire; most faithful, broad, baronial vassal of the sun!†   (source)
  • These services were not supposed to be due from man to man, but to the vassal or to the lord.†   (source)
  • Now the least contact with that Egyptian of the demon would make you the vassal of Satan.†   (source)
  • * A lord having a right on the woods of his vassals.†   (source)
  • They have been complaining this long while, of the bailiff, whose vassals they are.†   (source)
  • Doubtless the builders were all poor men, vassals, and had to pay heavy taxes, and to keep up the priesthood.†   (source)
  • And when evening came, holding my hand in her own, as we passed by the little gardens of her vassals, she would point out to me the flowers that leaned their red and purple spikes along the tops of the low walls, and would teach me all their names.†   (source)
  • At midnight of the 19th of February, Tom Canty was sinking to sleep in his rich bed in the palace, guarded by his loyal vassals, and surrounded by the pomps of royalty, a happy boy; for tomorrow was the day appointed for his solemn crowning as King of England.†   (source)
  • Craftsmen and peasants, no matter in what honor they may be held, own no land, they are vassals of those who do own it.†   (source)
  • She sang I Dreamt that I Dwelt, and when she came to the second verse she sang again: I dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls With vassals and serfs at my side, And of all who assembled within those walls That I was the hope and the pride.†   (source)
  • More than once, when some great dignitary, some gilded vassal of the crown, made argument against his leniency, and urged that some law which he was bent upon amending was gentle enough for its purpose, and wrought no suffering or oppression which any one need mightily mind, the young King turned the mournful eloquence of his great compassionate eyes upon him and answered— "What dost THOU know of suffering and oppression?†   (source)
  • I can see again to-day, above her mauve scarf, silky and buoyant, the gentle astonishment in her eyes, to which she had added, without daring to address it to anyone in particular, but so that everyone might enjoy his share of it, the almost timid smile of a sovereign lady who seems to be making an apology for her presence among the vassals whom she loves.†   (source)
  • There was Clavdia Chauchat herself, that charming, softly treading patient and traveler, who was Peeperkorn's vassal, by choice and conviction, to be sure—yet the sight of a cavalier from a long-ago Mardi Gras night on such good terms with her lord and master always made her somewhat uneasy, honing her emotions to a point.†   (source)
  • Indeed, until well into the late Middle Ages, the majority of people, even those in the cities, were vassals.†   (source)
  • …Somerset, similarly mounted, took place in his rear; the King's Guard formed in single ranks on either side, clad in burnished armour; after the Protector followed a seemingly interminable procession of resplendent nobles attended by their vassals; after these came the lord mayor and the aldermanic body, in crimson velvet robes, and with their gold chains across their breasts; and after these the officers and members of all the guilds of London, in rich raiment, and bearing the showy…†   (source)
  • …which stood close around it, an 'ornamental water' had been constructed by Swann's parents but, even in his most artificial creations, nature is the material upon which man has to work; certain spots will persist in remaining surrounded by the vassals of their own especial sovereignty, and will raise their immemorial standards among all the 'laid-out' scenery of a park, just as they would have done far from any human interference, in a solitude which must everywhere return to engulf…†   (source)
  • …of whom I had so often dreamed, now that I could see that she had a real existence independent of myself, acquired a fresh increase of power over my imagination, which, paralysed for a moment by contact with a reality so different from anything that it had expected, began to react and to say within me: "Great and glorious before the days of Charlemagne, the Guermantes had the right of life and death over their vassals; the Duchesse de Guermantes descends from Genevieve de Brabant.†   (source)
  • For five minutes the air quaked with shouts and the crash of musical instruments, and was white with a storm of waving handkerchiefs; and through it all a ragged lad, the most conspicuous figure in England, stood, flushed and happy and proud, in the centre of the spacious platform, with the great vassals of the kingdom kneeling around him.†   (source)
  • His merits, his learning, his quality of immediate vassal of the Bishop of Paris, threw the doors of the church wide open to him.†   (source)
  • I took my young sister (for I have another) to a place beyond the reach of this man, and where, at least, she will never be his vassal.†   (source)
  • Thus condemn'd, The current of my former life was stemm'd, And to this arbitrary queen of sense I bow'd a tranced vassal.†   (source)
  • She was a commoner, and had been sent here on her bridal night by Sir Breuse Sance Pite, a neighboring lord whose vassal her father was, and to which said lord she had refused what has since been called le droit du seigneur, and, moreover, had opposed violence to violence and spilt half a gill of his almost sacred blood.†   (source)
  • "He did endow him with it," answered Cedric; "nor is it my least quarrel with my son, that he stooped to hold, as a feudal vassal, the very domains which his fathers possessed in free and independent right."†   (source)
  • In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights, plebeians, slaves; in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these classes, again, subordinate gradations.†   (source)
  • …and ruthless baron: her virtue and her life alike in danger, drawing forth her dagger to preserve the one at the cost of the other; and just as our expectations are wrought up to the highest pitch, a whistle is heard, and we are straightway transported to the great hall of the castle; where a grey-headed seneschal sings a funny chorus with a funnier body of vassals, who are free of all sorts of places, from church vaults to palaces, and roam about in company, carolling perpetually.†   (source)
  • Lydgate was convinced that if there had been no valid objection to Mr. Farebrother, he would have voted for him, whatever Bulstrode might have felt on the subject: he did not intend to be a vassal of Bulstrode's.†   (source)
  • Once, a vassal was dispatched in haste to the abbey at dead of night, and when morning came, there were sounds of woe and wailing in the sisters' house; and after this, a mournful silence fell upon it, and knight or lady, horse or armour, was seen about it no more.†   (source)
  • —The Lady Rowena the affianced bride of a vassal like thee?" said De Bracy; "Saxon, thou dreamest that the days of thy seven kingdoms are returned again.†   (source)
  • The treachery of a vassal was branded with extraordinary severity by public opinion, and a name of peculiar infamy was invented for the offence which was called "felony."†   (source)
  • "Ay, gracious sir," answered the Jew, with more confidence; "and knight and yeoman, squire and vassal, may bless the goodly gift which Heaven hath assigned to her.†   (source)
  • Nothing was more strict than the tie which united the vassal to the lord under the feudal system; at the present day the two men know not each other; the fear, the gratitude, and the affection which formerly connected them have vanished, and not a vestige of the tie remains.†   (source)
  • Fidelity to a political superior was, moreover, a sentiment of which all the members of the aristocracy had constant opportunities of estimating the importance; for every one of them was a vassal as well as a lord, and had to command as well as to obey.†   (source)
  • "If the lands are to my liking, my lord," answered De Bracy, "it will be hard to displease me with a bride; and deeply will I hold myself bound to your highness for a good deed, which will fulfil all promises made in favour of your servant and vassal."†   (source)
  • I am your majesty's faithful vassal.†   (source)
  • The same ages which witnessed so many heroic acts of self-devotion on the part of vassals for their lords, were stained with atrocious barbarities, exercised from time to time by the lower classes on the higher.†   (source)
  • But we will make the vassals call him.†   (source)
  • Accordingly, the governments of our time look upon associations of this kind just as sovereigns in the Middle Ages regarded the great vassals of the Crown: they entertain a sort of instinctive abhorrence of them, and they combat them on all occasions.†   (source)
  • Many of his vassals had assembled at the news of his death, and followed the bier with all the external marks, at least, of dejection and sorrow.†   (source)
  • That same jealousy which a husband cherisheth for the honor of his wife, the resentment which the son hath for the love of his father, a good vassal should feel for the glory of his king; he should pine away for the zeal of this house, for the aggrandizement of his service.†   (source)
  • The Bohemians, said Gringoire, were vassals of the King of Algiers, in his quality of chief of the White Moors.†   (source)
  • Should he then presume to demand it, or to affirm he was unlawfully made my prisoner, by the belt of Saint Christopher, he will speak to one who hath never refused to meet a foe on foot or on horseback, alone or with his vassals at his back!†   (source)
  • It would be a mistake to suppose that Madame de Sevigne, who wrote these lines, was a selfish or cruel person; she was passionately attached to her children, and very ready to sympathize in the sorrows of her friends; nay, her letters show that she treated her vassals and servants with kindness and indulgence.†   (source)
  • Can the wrinkled decrepit hag before thee, whose wrath must vent itself in impotent curses, forget she was once the daughter of the noble Thane of Torquilstone, before whose frown a thousand vassals trembled?†   (source)
  • He remained in thought for a moment, then added, shaking his aged head,— "Ho! ho! by our Lady, I am not Philippe Brille, and I shall not gild the great vassals anew.†   (source)
  • "Call on them again, valiant Baron," said the hag, with a smile of grisly mockery; "summon thy vassals around thee, doom them that loiter to the scourge and the dungeon—But know, mighty chief," she continued, suddenly changing her tone, "thou shalt have neither answer, nor aid, nor obedience at their hands.†   (source)
  • The priests of a neighbouring convent, in expectation of the ample donation, or "soul-scat", which Cedric had propined, attended upon the car in which the body of Athelstane was laid, and sang hymns as it was sadly and slowly borne on the shoulders of his vassals to his castle of Coningsburgh, to be there deposited in the grave of Hengist, from whom the deceased derived his long descent.†   (source)
  • Their wealth is the least they can surrender; they must also carry off with them the swarms that are besetting the castle, subscribe a surrender of their pretended immunities, and live under us as serfs and vassals; too happy if, in the new world that is about to begin, we leave them the breath of their nostrils.†   (source)
  • Are not the gentry lords, and the common people vassals?†   (source)
  • Are they not like the uncivilized vassals Britain represents us to be?†   (source)
  • Men of sense in all ages abhor those customs which treat us only as the vassals of your sex; regard us then as beings placed by Providence under your protection, and in imitation of the Supreme Being make use of that power only for our happiness.†   (source)
  • His art is of such power, It would control my dam's god, Setebos, And make a vassal of him.†   (source)
  • Each principal vassal was a kind of sovereign, within his particular demesnes.†   (source)
  • O, give me pardon, That I, your vassal, have employ'd and pain'd Your unknown sovereignty.†   (source)
  • Pray you, tell him I am his fortune's vassal and I send him The greatness he has got.†   (source)
  • Well, I know not What counts harsh fortune casts upon my face; But in my bosom shall she never come To make my heart her vassal.†   (source)
  • "Now, royal father, to the present state Of our affairs, and of this high debate: If in your arms thus early you diffide, And think your fortune is already tried; If one defeat has brought us down so low, As never more in fields to meet the foe; Then I conclude for peace: 't is time to treat, And lie like vassals at the victor's feet.†   (source)
  • Pardon, madam; The Count Rousillon cannot be my brother: I am from humble, he from honour'd name; No note upon my parents, his all noble; My master, my dear lord he is; and I His servant live, and will his vassal die: He must not be my brother.†   (source)
  • O vassal! miscreant!†   (source)
  • Erroneous vassals! the great King of kings Hath in the table of his law commanded That thou shalt do no murder: will you then Spurn at His edict and fulfil a man's?†   (source)
  • O lady, deign to hold in remembrance this heart, thy vassal, that thus in anguish pines for love of thee.†   (source)
  • But if it did infect my blood with joy, Or swell my thoughts to any strain of pride; If any rebel or vain spirit of mine Did with the least affection of a welcome Give entertainment to the might of it, Let God for ever keep it from my head And make me as the poorest vassal is That doth with awe and terror kneel to it!†   (source)
  • Where pain of unextinguishable fire Must exercise us without hope of end The vassals of his anger, when the scourge Inexorably, and the torturing hour, Calls us to penance?†   (source)
  • —and, gentle sir, When you do come to swim in golden lard, Up to the arms in honey, that your chin Is born up stiff, with fatness of the flood, Think on your vassal; but remember me: I have not been your worst of clients.†   (source)
  • 'that shallow vassal,'— COSTARD.†   (source)
  • I then said to the queen, "since I was now her majesty's most humble creature and vassal, I must beg the favour, that Glumdalclitch, who had always tended me with so much care and kindness, and understood to do it so well, might be admitted into her service, and continue to be my nurse and instructor."†   (source)
  • Thou that art like enough,—through vassal fear, Base inclination, and the start of spleen,— To fight against me under Percy's pay, To dog his heels, and curtsy at his frowns, To show how much thou art degenerate.†   (source)
  • More fairer than fair, beautiful than beauteous, truer than truth itself, have commiseration on thy heroical vassal!†   (source)
  • Then shalt thou give me, with thy kingly hand What husband in thy power I will command: Exempted be from me the arrogance To choose from forth the royal blood of France, My low and humble name to propagate With any branch or image of thy state: But such a one, thy vassal, whom I know Is free for me to ask, thee to bestow.†   (source)
  • He was deeply in love with a peasant girl, a vassal of his father's, the daughter of wealthy parents, and herself so beautiful, modest, discreet, and virtuous, that no one who knew her was able to decide in which of these respects she was most highly gifted or most excelled.†   (source)
  • In those instances in which the monarch finally prevailed over his vassals, his success was chiefly owing to the tyranny of those vassals over their dependents.†   (source)
  • But when your carters or your waiting-vassals Have done a drunken slaughter, and defac'd The precious image of our dear Redeemer, You straight are on your knees for pardon, pardon; And I, unjustly too, must grant it you:— But for my brother not a man would speak,— Nor I, ungracious, speak unto myself For him, poor soul.†   (source)
  • Who sees the heavenly Rosaline That, like a rude and savage man of Inde At the first op'ning of the gorgeous east, Bows not his vassal head and, strucken blind, Kisses the base ground with obedient breast?†   (source)
  • But the principal vassals, whose fiefs had become hereditary, and who composed the national diets which Charlemagne had not abolished, gradually threw off the yoke and advanced to sovereign jurisdiction and independence.†   (source)
  • Who would have said that one who saw himself yesterday sitting on a throne, governor of an island, giving orders to his servants and his vassals, would see himself to-day buried in a pit without a soul to help him, or servant or vassal to come to his relief?†   (source)
  • I am your vassal, but I am not your slave; your nobility neither has nor should have any right to dishonour or degrade my humble birth; and low-born peasant as I am, I have my self-respect as much as you, a lord and gentleman: with me your violence will be to no purpose, your wealth will have no weight, your words will have no power to deceive me, nor your sighs or tears to soften me: were I to see any of the things I speak of in him whom my parents gave me as a husband, his will…†   (source)
  • There was a common head, chieftain, or sovereign, whose authority extended over the whole nation; and a number of subordinate vassals, or feudatories, who had large portions of land allotted to them, and numerous trains of INFERIOR vassals or retainers, who occupied and cultivated that land upon the tenure of fealty or obedience, to the persons of whom they held it.†   (source)
  • WHICH DEALS WITH MATTERS RELATING TO THIS HISTORY AND NO OTHER The duke and duchess resolved that the challenge Don Quixote had, for the reason already mentioned, given their vassal, should be proceeded with; and as the young man was in Flanders, whither he had fled to escape having Dona Rodriguez for a mother-in-law, they arranged to substitute for him a Gascon lacquey, named Tosilos, first of all carefully instructing him in all he had to do.†   (source)
  • And then plucking off a glove he threw it down in the middle of the hall, and the duke picked it up, saying, as he had said before, that he accepted the challenge in the name of his vassal, and fixed six days thence as the time, the courtyard of the castle as the place, and for arms the customary ones of knights, lance and shield and full armour, with all the other accessories, without trickery, guile, or charms of any sort, and examined and passed by the judges of the field.†   (source)
  • The charge I give him is to be careful how he governs his vassals, bearing in mind that they are all loyal and well-born.†   (source)
  • Not unless you go to sleep and haven't the wit or skill to turn things to account and sell three, six, or ten thousand vassals while you would be talking about it!†   (source)
  • "What are you talking about, Sancho, with your ladyships, islands, and vassals?" returned Teresa Panza—for so Sancho's wife was called, though they were not relations, for in La Mancha it is customary for wives to take their husbands' surnames.†   (source)
  • Who would have said that one who saw himself yesterday sitting on a throne, governor of an island, giving orders to his servants and his vassals, would see himself to-day buried in a pit without a soul to help him, or servant or vassal to come to his relief?†   (source)
  • The only thing that troubled him was the reflection that this kingdom was in the land of the blacks, and that the people they would give him for vassals would be all black; but for this he soon found a remedy in his fancy, and said he to himself, "What is it to me if my vassals are blacks?†   (source)
  • Do not by deserting me let my shame become the talk of the gossips in the streets; make not the old age of my parents miserable; for the loyal services they as faithful vassals have ever rendered thine are not deserving of such a return; and if thou thinkest it will debase thy blood to mingle it with mine, reflect that there is little or no nobility in the world that has not travelled the same road, and that in illustrious lineages it is not the woman's blood that is of account; and,…†   (source)
  • …oaths gave me his promise to become my husband; though before he had made an end of pledging himself I bade him consider well what he was doing, and think of the anger his father would feel at seeing him married to a peasant girl and one of his vassals; I told him not to let my beauty, such as it was, blind him, for that was not enough to furnish an excuse for his transgression; and if in the love he bore me he wished to do me any kindness, it would be to leave my lot to follow its…†   (source)
  • So having laid their plans and given instructions to their servants and vassals how to behave to Sancho in his government of the promised island, the next day, that following Clavileno's flight, the duke told Sancho to prepare and get ready to go and be governor, for his islanders were already looking out for him as for the showers of May.†   (source)
  • "That is plain speaking," said Sancho; "but let your worship take care to choose it on the seacoast, so that if I don't like the life, I may be able to ship off my black vassals and deal with them as I have said; don't mind going to see my lady Dulcinea now, but go and kill this giant and let us finish off this business; for by God it strikes me it will be one of great honour and great profit."†   (source)
  • …about to invade my kingdom, I was not to wait and attempt to defend myself, for that would be destructive to me, but that I should leave the kingdom entirely open to him if I wished to avoid the death and total destruction of my good and loyal vassals, for there would be no possibility of defending myself against the giant's devilish power; and that I should at once with some of my followers set out for Spain, where I should obtain relief in my distress on finding a certain…†   (source)
  • My parents are this lord's vassals, lowly in origin, but so wealthy that if birth had conferred as much on them as fortune, they would have had nothing left to desire, nor should I have had reason to fear trouble like that in which I find myself now; for it may be that my ill fortune came of theirs in not having been nobly born.†   (source)
  • In short, Sancho, I would have thee tell me all that has come to thine ears on this subject; and thou art to tell me, without adding anything to the good or taking away anything from the bad; for it is the duty of loyal vassals to tell the truth to their lords just as it is and in its proper shape, not allowing flattery to add to it or any idle deference to lessen it.†   (source)
  • …in speech to encourage or restrain his soldiers, ripe in counsel, rapid in resolve, as bold in biding his time as in pressing the attack; now picturing some sad tragic incident, now some joyful and unexpected event; here a beauteous lady, virtuous, wise, and modest; there a Christian knight, brave and gentle; here a lawless, barbarous braggart; there a courteous prince, gallant and gracious; setting forth the devotion and loyalty of vassals, the greatness and generosity of nobles.†   (source)
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