Ravens

Quoth the Raven "Nevermore!"

Ravens are any of several larger-bodied members of the genus Corvus. These species do not form a single taxonomic group within the genus, but share similar characteristics and appearances that generally separate them from other crows. The largest raven species are the common raven and the thick-billed raven.

Quotes

• Raven, raven, your eggs are shining bright!
  Raven bird, your eggs are shining bright!
  Where do people carry off your holy eggs?
  • Anonymous, Nanshe and the birds (Nanshe C), The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature.

• That Raven on yon left-hand oak
  (Curse on his ill-betiding croak)
  Bodes me no good.
  • John Gay, Fables (1727), The Farmer's Wife and the Raven.

• Despite all the caveats about the particular corvid or crow-like bird that may be called a "raven" (two species in North America, one in Europe, four in Africa, and three in Australia), in the public consciousness of Europe and America and in most of the extensive literature, raven refers to one species only: Corvus corax. It is this species that is the primary object of comment and observations in folklore ...
  The raven, C. corax, occupies an extraordinary geographical and ecological range. It is circumpolar, found even above the Arctic Circle and all the way south to the mountains of Central America.
  • Bernd Heinrich, Ravens in Winter. Simon & Schuster. 2014. p. 19. ISBN 1476794561.  (1st edition, 1989)

• Kahgahgee, the King of Ravens,
  Gathered all his black marauders,
  Crows and blackbirds, jays and ravens,
  Clamorous on the dusky tree-tops.
  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Song of Hiawatha (1855), Part XIII

• The Raven's house is built with reeds,—
  Sing woe, and alas is me!
  And the Raven's couch is spread with weeds,
  High on the hollow tree;
  And the Raven himself, telling his beads
  In penance for his past misdeeds,
  Upon the top I see.
  • Thomas D'Arcy McGee, The Penitent Raven; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 656.

• The raven once in snowy plumes was drest,
  White as the whitest dove's unsullied breast,
  Fair as the guardian of the Capitol,
  Soft as the swan; a large and lovely fowl
  His tongue, his prating tongue had changed him quite
  To sooty blackness from the purest white.
  • Ovid, Metamorphoses, Story of Coronis. Addison's translation; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 656.

• Ghastly, grim, and ancient Raven, wandering from the Nightly shore,—
  Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!
  Quoth the Raven "Nevermore!"
  • Edgar Allen Poe, The Raven (1844), Stanza 8.

• And the Raven, never flitting,
  Still is sitting, still is sitting
  On the pallid bust of Pallas
  Just above my chamber door;
  And his eyes have all the seeming
  Of a demon's that is dreaming,
  And the lamplight o'er him streaming
  Throws his shadow on the floor,
  And my soul from out that shadow,
  That lies floating on the floor,
  Shall be lifted—nevermore.
  • Edgar Allen Poe, The Raven (1844), Stanza 18.

• The croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.
  • William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1600-02), Act III, scene 2, line 264.

• The raven himself is hoarse
  That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
  Under my battlements.
  • William Shakespeare, Macbeth (1605), Act I, scene 5, line 40.

• O, it comes o'er my memory,
  As doth the raven o'er the infected house,
  Boding to all.
  • William Shakespeare, Othello (c. 1603), Act IV, scene 1, line 20.

• Did ever raven sing so like a lark,
  That gives sweet tidings of the sun's uprise?
  • William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus (c. 1584-1590), Act III, scene 1, line 158.

• In the centre of this grove there stood an oak, which, though shapely and tall on the whole, bulged out into a large excrescence about the middle of the stem. On this a pair of ravens had fixed their residence for such a series of years, that the oak was distinguished by the title of the Raven Tree. Many were the attempts of the neighbouring youths to get at this eyre: the difficulty whetted their inclinations, and each was ambitious of surmounting the arduous task. But when they arrived at the swelling, it jutted out so in their way, and was so far beyond their grasp, that the most daring lads were awed, and acknowledged the undertaking to be too hazardous. So the ravens built on, nest upon nest, in perfect security, till the fatal day arrived in which the wood was to be levelled. It was in the month of February, when those birds usually sit. The saw was applied to the but, the wedges were inserted into the opening, the woods echoed to the heavy blows of the beetle, or mallet, the tree nodded to its fall; but still the dam sat on. At last, when it gave way, the bird was flung from her nest; and, though her parental affection deserved a better fate, was whipped down by the twigs, which brought her dead to the ground.
  • Reverend Gilbert White, The Natural History of Selborne (3rd ed.). Allan Bell & Company. 1834. p. 6.  (with notes by Captain Thomas Brown)