Aurora (mythology)

goddess of dawn in Roman mythology

Aurora is the Latin word for dawn, and the goddess of dawn in Roman mythology and Latin poetry. Her Greek equivalent is Eos.

Quotes

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  • For night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast,
    And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger;
    At whose approach ghosts, wandering here and there,
    Troop home to churchyards.
  • The wolves have prey'd: and look, the gentle day,
    Before the wheels of Phœbus, round about,
    Dapples the drowsy east with spots of grey.
  • At last, the golden orientall gate
    Of greatest heaven gan to open fayre,
    And Phœbus, fresh as brydegrome to his mate,
    Came dauncing forth, shaking his dewie hayre;
    And hurls his glistring beams through gloomy ayre.
    • Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene (1589-96), Book I, Canto V, Stanza 2.
  • You cannot rob me of free nature's grace,
    You cannot shut the windows of the sky
    Through which Aurora shows her brightening face.
  • The lively lark stretched forth her wing,
    The messenger of morning bright,
    And with her cheerful voice did sing
    The day’s approach, discharging night,
      When that Aurora, blushing red,
      Descried the guilt of Thetis’ bed.
  • As faire Aurora in her morning gray,
      Deckt with the ruddie glister of her love
            Is faire Samela;
    • Robert Greene, Menaphon (1589)
  • Her cheekes are like the blushing clowde
    That beautefies Auroraes face,
    • Thomas Lodge, "Rosalyndes description"
    • Rosalynde (2nd ed., 1592)
  • O happy Tithon! if thou know’st thy hap,
      And valuest thy wealth, as I my want,
      Then need’st thou not—which ah! I grieve to grant—
    Repine at Jove, lull’d in his leman’s lap:
      That golden shower in which he did repose—
        One dewy drop it stains
        Which thy Aurora rains
        Upon the rural plains,
      When from thy bed she passionately goes.
    Then, waken’d with the music of the merles,
      She not remembers Memnon when she mourns:
      That faithful flame which in her bosom burns
    From crystal conduits throws those liquid pearls:
      Sad from thy sight so soon to be removed,
        She so her grief delates.
        —O favour’d by the fates
        Above the happiest states,
      Who art of one so worthy well-beloved!
  • See how Aurora throws her fair
    Fresh-quilted colours through the air:
  • Whose head, befringed with bescattered tresses,
    Shows like Apollo’s when the morn he dresses,
    Or like Aurora when with pearl she sets
    Her long, dishevell’d, rose-crown’d trammelets:
    • Robert Herrick, "The Description of a Woman"
    • Poems not included in Hesperides
    • Variants: "blesses" for "dresses" (MS.)
  • The Morning Curtains now are drawn,
    And now appears the blushing dawn;
    Aurora has her Roses shed,
    To strew the way Sol’s steeds must tread.
  • Once more the old mysterious glimmer steals
    From thy pure brows, and from thy shoulders pure,
    And bosom beating with a heart renew’d.
    Thy cheek begins to redden thro’ the gloom,
    Thy sweet eyes brighten slowly close to mine,
    Ere yet they blind the stars, and the wild team
    Which love thee, yearning for thy yoke, arise,
    And shake the darkness from their loosen’d manes,
    And beat the twilight into flakes of fire.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

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Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 46.
  • Aurora had but newly chased the night,
    And purpled o'er the sky with blushing light.
  • But when Aurora, daughter of the dawn,
    With rosy lustre purpled o'er the lawn.
    • Homer, Odyssey, Book III, line 621. Pope's translation.
  • Night's son was driving
    His golden-haired horses up;
    Over the eastern firths
    High flashed their manes.
  • Zephyr, with Aurora playing,
    As he met her once a-Maying.
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