Quotessence
Home / Topics / Epic Poetry Quotes

Epic Poetry Quotes

Browse 38 quotes about Epic Poetry.

Epic Poetry Quotes

“Villicus Vadum: Soldier Of Fortune by Stewart Stafford I am the ghost of lupine Romulus, Founder of Rome, hear my tale, Of Villicus Vadum - young, driven, Steward to Senator Lucius Flavius. Villicus wanted Flavia, the senator’s daughter, But she was betrothed to Marcus Brutus; A consul of noble and virtuous stock, Villicus conspired to take Flavia's hand. Treachery and deception were his tools, Knavish peacock of Rome's epic stage, Sought to take Flavia from Marcus Brutus, To snatch and cage his treasured gem. Bribed a false soothsayer to trap her, Believing her beloved began with V, Flavia agreed to elope with him to Gaul, With Brutus vowing deadly vengeance. Fleeing to the bosom of Rome's enemy - Vercingetorix, at war with Julius Caesar, Villicus offered to spy on the Senate, While plotting to seize Gaul's throne. Queen Verica also caught his eye, Villicus was captured by Mark Antony, Taken to Caesar's camp as a traitor; Brutus challenged him to a duel. Brutus slashed him but spared his life, They dragged Villicus to Rome in chains, To try him for his now infamous crimes; Cicero in defence, Cato as prosecutor. Cicero argued Villicus acted out of love, And that his ambition merited mercy, Cato wanted death for his wicked threat, Julius Caesar pondered a final verdict. Villicus - pardoned but banished from Rome, Immediate death if he returned to Flavia, Villicus kissed the emperor's foot for naught, Flavia refused to join him in fallen exile. Now learn from this outcast's example, friends, That I, Romulus, warn you to avoid at your peril, Villicus Vadum, the wrath of the gods upon him, Until time ceases, sole spectre of night's edge. © Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.”

HistoryFateAdventureRoman EmpireAncient RomeEpic PoetryJulius CaesarEpic PoemRoman EmperorsRoman Poetry
Author:Stewart Stafford
Create image

“स्वार्थ ही यदि होगा आधार, होंगे बहुविवाह व व्यभिचार, कैकेयी का होगा उद्भव, षड़यंत्र तब लेंगे आकार, विमाता से ममता का, उतरेगा यदि आवरण, राम को वनवास तथा, दशरथ का होगा मरण।”

Human NatureFamily ConflictEpic PoetryRamayanaMoral DeclineDasharathaDharma And AdharmaExile Of RamaGreed And DesireKaikeyi
Book:त्रिकूट: धर्म का चक्रव्यूह
Create image

“A Ravaging Sentinel's Vow by Stewart Stafford State your love for me now — Agreed, a cracked heart pledge, Defying your many flaws, martyring me to betrayal's dredge. At your darkest dawn — My fealty oath holds true, when every back is turned, a redeeming ravager’s purview. A sentinel’s dust trail climbs high, hooves thunder; the sundial stops, A vow declared, enemies routed, disaster reined on teetering clifftops. © 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”

LovePoetryBetrayalLoyaltyRedemptionHeroismGothicDark PoetryVowsEpic Poetry
Author:Stewart Stafford
Create image

“والآن‎ في فصل الحنينِ وحين يعرى حزن أيلول ‎ لأنسام الشتاءْ ‎ ينتابني وجعٌ وأسئلةٌ لماذا الحزن مع عين السماءْ؟ ‎ ولأيّ قلبٍ كلّما انهمرت سماءٌ ‎ فوق أرضٍ ‎أشتهي حبّاً مضى... ‎ وتفوحُ رائحةُ النساءْ…”

Mahdi MansourBalladEpic PoetryOdeSonnetsGhazalVillanelleClassic PoetryRondel
Author:Mahdi Mansour
Create image

“أجمل تجليات الله، قلوب العاشقين… وأجمل تجليات العشق، عيون المؤمنين… هنا حيث العشق إيمان، والحجر كالشجر، والكلام كالسلام، يجد الشعر الضوء ليخرج بانسيابية من بين أنامل الأطفال وكسور الأفئدة…”

Mahdi MansourBalladEpic PoetryOdeGhazalVillanelleRondelPoetry AnthologyTerza RimaTriolet
Author:Mahdi Mansour
Create image

“لَكِ فُسْحَةٌ كُبْرى بِذاكِرَتي ‎فَتَحَفَّظي, أَرْجوكِ سَيّدَتي ‎لا تاجَ عِنْدي...لا قصور معي... ‎حَتّى تَكوني أَنْتِ مَمْلَكَتي ‎لا تُجْهِدي عَيْنَيْكِ بي فَأَنا ‎رَجُلٌ جِراحاتُ الهَوى لُغَتي ‎أُشْفى مِنِ امْرَأَةٍ بِإِمْرَأَةٍ ‎فَأَحُلُّ مُشْكِلَتي بِمُشْكِلَةِ…”

Mahdi MansourBalladEpic PoetryOdeGhazalVillanelleRondelPoetry AnthologyPoetry Collections
Author:Mahdi Mansour
Create image

“Novels aren’t about heroes. They’re about us. The novel is a literary form that arose at the same time as the middle class in Europe, those people of small business and property who are neither peasant nor aristocrat, and it has always treated of the middle class. Both lyric and epic poetry grew out of a time that was elitist, a time that believed in the innate rate of royalty to rule and the rest of us to amount to not very much. Hardly surprising, then, that both forms lean toward the aristocratic in subject matter and treatment. The novel, on the other hand, isn’t about them; it’s about us.”

BooksMiddle ClassNovelsEpic PoetryLyric PoetryWriting HistoryRelateableEveryday People
Book:How to Read Novels Like a Professor: A Jaunty Exploration of the World's Favorite Literary Form
Create image

“The Peacock & The Eagle: Cleopatra's Entry Into Tarsus by Stewart Stafford Cleopatra arrives, regal and mighty, From ocean spray as Aphrodite, Wealthy and waif, yearning for her, Dared all to defy her possessive aura. Mark Antony, struck by her sultry gaze, Lepidus, prisoner in a bureaucrat's maze, Sees power slipping from a friend’s hand, Ensnared by a siren from a scorched land. Lepidus was Caesar's trusted right hand; A granule falling through hourglass sand, Antony, headstrong military provocateur; Funeral orator from bloody crown auteur. Bargain's scorpion pincers; no longer twain: Cleopatra was Ceres, promising Rome grain, Antony was Mars' armed emissary, Business and pleasure's flood tributary. Antony: "Barge of emerald, Elysium's onyx! Beyond counsel words of sage sardonic, Gliding the Cydnus's silken seam, This Nile Helen shall be my queen." Lepidus: "Pleasure vessel of a floating whore, Yours for a sesterce on the Tiber's shore, Honour your oath, noble Roman creed, Lest passion’s shipwreck sets out to sea.” "This Venus virago on her mirage barge; Serpent prow, silver oars, rhythmic charge! What hubris to think she can equal, The bloody talons of our Roman eagle!" Antony: "Feast your eyes past peacock's bower, She speaks Rome's tongue of naked power. Mark it, that obsidian Sphinx stings - Human head, lion's body, eagle wings! "That is the form she takes to the public: I smell a perfumed alliance for the Republic! With Plebeians as her tickled cats, they hum, I crave her beauty and company. Come!" © 2024, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”

Historical FictionEpic PoetryRoman HistoryCleopatraPolitical PoetryCharacter StudyHistorical DramaAntony And CleopatraLove And PowerMark Antony
Author:Stewart Stafford
Create image

“As madcap whitecaps hammered at the hulls, the bowsprits breasting saw-toothed waves now high and mighty, now abject, the Sun looked down and watched the boats—so bantam, meek, and of no consequence—become engulfed by stormclouds smothering the sallow sea. A norther hurled its curses at the fleet as in return garboards and sheerstrakes groaned amidst the helter-skelter of loud shouts. With drenched and veiny arms the tillers clenched the quarter rudders, trying to prevent the roaring ocean, frothing at the mouth, from swallowing the ships they’d sworn to guide while thinking: Who, in the last instance, can withstand its infinite, digestive force? Anon this beast became a lesser cause for fear, supplanted by the high-pitched shrieks of something neither man nor animal that lurked beyond them in the ebon drear, its contour barely visible by turns when intermittent bolts transpierced the sky. (Canaäd, XV 271-91)”

PoetryNauticalLeviathanEpic PoetryMediterranean Sea
Author:D.A. Wood
Create image

“Chapter One: The Dawn and the Dread Heartbeat, heartbeat comes from Valhallan way, To meet down in judgment, to ply its trade. Two →swords← to join in worthy cross, Actions to be rendered, one to be lost. She did come now from ’yond northern slope, A day of reckoning did she again once hope. A devout meeting was her qwesterly bane, To stay her hand was to go insane. St. Kari of the Blade to meet her past, A wicked enemy, peerless of match. Rode Kari she her charger on down, Past the Dead Land where Gaul sat crowned. A killing job, yea, she desired to lastly kill, To set things right so her heart might lie still. Upon the mist and roaring plain, She entered in, a soul uncontained. A fierce wind in deed, and forever freed, Enemies she annihilhates (’tis hur’ creed). Her own advanced guard of a sort, Multitudes to follow in her report. Know this Valkyrie from on cold, An ancient maiden soft and bold. A warrior spirit from Ages past, A fragmented mind like broken glass. Solid in stature this eternal framed being, Yet crippled within from internaled bleedings. A sword saint so refined in the poetic art, A noble character yet with a banshee’s heart. Rhythmed horse now to the beats, Kari emboldened amid the sleet. Beyond the mountain she does come, Unto southern fields wherein rules hot sun. Far from that murderous Deadlands ground, The land up swells; the dead still abound. Traverses she those bygones of leprous civilizations Those cities crumbled by the exhalted of oblivions. Stark traces etched now bare in the land, That are no more again, save dust in the hand. A cool stream now in desert sans (Does more good when one is damned). Stopped she her mount to admire the flow, A lovely stream with skeletons packed below. Blue air whisps; dragon flied motion. Flintsteel striking!!! Sparked of commotion. Cold water chortles rushtish with tint, Told of past carnage, it whetted her glint. Fallen warriors, they are no more, Swirls and eddies mark their discord. Gurgled shouts slung and gathered, Faces glazed while steel lathered. Refreshing though it was to her mouth, She smelled an air; she flared about. Came up that ridge of loud, sanded hill, Below a man and his half-score of kills. Kari’s eyes waxed in smug contempt, Possibilities ran deep with no repent . . . On Kari, Valkyrie, Cold Steel Eternity Vol. II”

SpiritualityFantasyDramaGhostsHeroineEpic PoetryValkyries
Author:Douglas m. Laurent
Create image

“And now (admiring that proſpect) To Rome this ſpeech he did direct. O ſeate of Gods! could this men ſo Forſake thee, ere they ſaw a foe? If thou canſt not, what Citty can Deſerue to be fought for by man? Well haue the higher powers repreſt, The humors of the armed Eaſt, From ioyning with the Hungars ſtout And all that fierce outragious rout Of Dakes, of Getes, and Sarmatans, From bringing downe their bloudy bands To thee (poore Rome) by Fortune ſpar'd Whom fearefull Pompey durſt not gaurd. So weakely mand, more bleſt art farre With ciuill then with Forraigne warre. Thus ſaid, forthwith he did inveſt The Citty, then with feares poſſeſt: For ſure they thought, that (in his ire) All should haue beene conſum'd with fire, And Temples ſhould to ruine runne, As ſoone as hee the walles had wonne. Such was the meaſure of their fright, His will they conſtru'd by his might. And in ſuch ſudden mazements weare, That they their ſacred rites forbeare. The common ſort to ſportings bent, Their merry tunes turn'd to lament: No ſpleen they had, their ſprights were ſpent The Roman Fathers reuerend troope In Phabus Pallace fitting, droope: Not thither called at an houre, By order of the Senates powre. No Conſuls with their preſence grace Their ſacred ſeates in ſupreme place. Nor next to them the lawes to ſway The Prator ſate in his array. No Coches at the Senate gate, That thither bring the Peeres of ſtate. Caſar alone was all in all, His priuate voyce the Court doth thrall. The Fathers to his heſts giue way, Rady his pleasure to obay. Whether he Monarchy deſire, Or would to ſacred rites aſpire: Or liues of Senators would waſt, Or them into exile would caſt. But he (more modeſt and more milde) Did blush his power ſhould be defil'd More to command (with threatning feare) Then well the Roman ſtate could beare.”

Epic PoetryPoetry In TranslationLucan Pharsalia Civil War
Book:Civil War
Create image