Aurora (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

• With gentle hand, as seeming oft to pause,
  The purple curtains of the morn she draws.
  • William Julius Mickle, The Lusiad (1776), Book I, line 433. Quoted in Herman Melville's White-Jacket (1850), Ch. LXXIV.

• 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.
  • William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream (c. 1595-96), Act III, scene 2, line 379.

• 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.
  • William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing (1598-99), Act V, scene 3, line 25.

• 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.
  • James Thomson, Castle of Indolence (1748), Canto II, Stanza 3.

• 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.
  • Edward de Vere, The Paradise of Dainty Devices (1576)

• 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!
  • Earl of Stirling, Aurora (1604)

• Mercury: I’le rowle me in Auroras Dew,
  • Aurelian Townshend, Albion’s Triumph, a Masque (1631)

• See how Aurora throws her fair
  Fresh-quilted colours through the air:
  • Robert Herrick, "Corinna’s going a-Maying"
  • Hesperides (1648)

• 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 darlings of Aurora’s bed,
  • Richard Crashaw, "The Weeper"

• 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.
  • Charles Cotton, "Morning Quatrains"

• 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.
  • Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "Tithonus" (1860)

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

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.
  • John Dryden, Palamon and Arcite, Book I, line 186.

• 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.
  • Charles Kingsley, The Longbeards' Saga.

• Zephyr, with Aurora playing,
  As he met her once a-Maying.
  • John Milton, L'Allegro, line 19.