The White Bull
By Voltaire
3.5/5
()
About this ebook
Voltaire
Born in Paris in 1694, François-Marie Arouet, who would later go by the nom-de-plume Voltaire, was a French Enlightenment philosopher, poet, historian, and author. Voltaire’s writing was often controversial, and in 1715 he was sent into his first exile in Tulle after a writing a satirical piece about the Duke of Orleans, the Regent of France. It was during this time that he produced his first major work, the play Oedipus. Although allowed to return to Paris a year later, Voltaire’s writing continued to land him in trouble. He was jailed in the Bastille two more times and was exiled from Paris for a good portion of his life. Throughout these troubles, Voltaire continued to write, producing works of poetry, a number of plays, and some historical and political texts. His most famous work is the satirical novel Candide, and many of his plays, including Oedipus and Socrates, are still performed today. Voltaire died in 1778.
Read more from Voltaire
The Philosophy of History Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings50 Great Love Letters You Have To Read (Golden Deer Classics) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Candide: Bilingual Edition (English – French) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPhilosophical Dictionary Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tratado sobre la tolerancia Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Candide: The Original Unabridged And Complete Edition (Voltaire Classics) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Complete Works of Voltaire Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCandide: Illustrated Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Voltaire Collection Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Harvard Classics: All 71 Volumes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVoltaire: Treatise on Tolerance Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTHE AGE OF LOUIS XIV Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsZadig and Other Stories Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Age Of Louis XIV (Complete Edition) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCandide (Warbler Classics Annotated Edition) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPhilosophical Letters: (Letters Concerning the English Nation) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Candide: Bilingual Edition (English – German) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to The White Bull
Titles in the series (100)
Poems by Emily Dickinson Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTales of Dostoyevsky Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSentimental Education Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Deluge Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSchiller's Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSentimental Education Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPoems by Emily Dickinson Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Gold-Bug and Other Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Door in the Wall Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Poems by Emily Dickinson Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Black Cat and Other Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDemons Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tales From The Jazz Age Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFlappers and Philosophers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Deluge Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSchiller's Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSchiller's Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe King in Yellow Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStories of Leo Tolstoy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings100%: The Story of a Patriot Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Tell-Tale Heart and Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This Side of Paradise Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Beautiful and Damned Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKing Coal: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSalammbo Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIn Search of the Unknown Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDon Quixote Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gentle Spirit: A Fantastic Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Moneychangers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Raw Youth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related ebooks
Salvador Puig Antich: Autonomous Workers and Anticapitalist Guerrillas in Francoist Spain Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFresh Fruit, Broken Bodies: Migrant Farmworkers in the United States, Updated with a New Preface and Epilogue Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWithin Me Without Me Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStone Heart: The Ailigh Wars Saga, #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Kiss of Death: Contagion, Contamination, and Folklore Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Insurrection: The Bloody Events of May 1937 in Barcelona Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDeep Care: The Radical Activists Who Provided Abortions, Defied the Law, and Fought to Keep Clinics Open Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsApparition Lit, Issue 1: Apparition (January 2018) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Road to Sinharat Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Lush and Seething Hell: Two Tales of Cosmic Horror Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Diabolical Plots Year Five: Diabolical Plots Anthology Series, #4 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLove, Sorrow, And Rage Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCarmilla Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsI'll Forget It When I Die!: The Bisbee Deportation of 1917 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWho Killed Berta Cáceres?: Dams, Death Squads, and an Indigenous Defender’s Battle for the Planet Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAgainst the Machine: The Hidden Luddite Tradition in Literature, Art, and Individual Lives Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5We Hear Only Ourselves: Utopia, Memory, and Resistance Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLovely Asunder: Poems Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Foxes Unearthed: A Story of Love and Loathing in Modern Britain Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Tale of Two Cities Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Importance of Mutual Aid Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSelected Works of Voltairine de Cleyre Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsI Stole You: Stories From the Fae Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAgainst the Grain Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWe Modern People: Science Fiction and the Making of Russian Modernity Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Male Chauvinist Pig: A History Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBohemian Society Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5At the Mountains of Madness Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWho Speaks for Nature?: On the Politics of Science Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Philosophy For You
The Art of War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sun Tzu's The Art of War: Bilingual Edition Complete Chinese and English Text Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Meditations: Complete and Unabridged Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Four Loves Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lying Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Questions for Deep Thinkers: 200+ of the Most Challenging Questions You (Probably) Never Thought to Ask Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Republic by Plato Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beyond Good and Evil Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Loving Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar...: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Denial of Death Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Courage to Be Happy: Discover the Power of Positive Psychology and Choose Happiness Every Day Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Experiencing God (2021 Edition): Knowing and Doing the Will of God Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Course in Miracles: Text, Workbook for Students, Manual for Teachers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Inward Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tao Te Ching: A New English Version Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Human Condition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bhagavad Gita (in English): The Authentic English Translation for Accurate and Unbiased Understanding Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mindfulness in Plain English: 20th Anniversary Edition Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Bhagavad Gita - The Song of God Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Complete Papyrus of Ani Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Buddha's Guide to Gratitude: The Life-changing Power of Everyday Mindfulness Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The City of God Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Be Here Now Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related categories
Reviews for The White Bull
3 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
The White Bull - Voltaire
XI.
CHAPTER I.
HOW THE PRINCESS AMASIDIA MEETS A BULL.
The princess Amasidia, daughter of Amasis, King of Tanis in Egypt, took a walk upon the highway of Peluaium with the ladies of her train. She was sunk in deep melancholy. Tears gushed from her beautiful eyes. The cause of her grief was known, as well as the fears she entertained lest that grief should displease the king, her father. The old man, Mambres, ancient magician and eunuch of the Pharoahs, was beside her, and seldom left her. He was present at her birth. He had educated her, and taught her all that a fair princess was allowed to know of the sciences of Egypt. The mind of Amasidia equaled her beauty. Her sensibility and tenderness rivaled the charms of her person; and it was this sensibility which cost her so many tears.
The princess was twenty-four years old, the magician, Mambres, about thirteen hundred. It was he, as every one knows, who had that famous dispute with Moses, in which the victory was so long doubtful between these two profound philosophers. If Mambres yielded, it was owing to the visible protection of the celestial powers, who favored his rival. It required gods to overcome Mambres!
Amasis made him superintendent of his daughter’s household, and he acquitted himself in this office with his usual prudence. His compassion was excited by the sighs of the beautiful Amasidia.
O, my lover!
said she to herself, my young, my dear lover! O, greatest of conquerors, most accomplished, most beautiful of men! Almost seven years hast thou disappeared from the world. What God hath snatched thee from thy tender Amasidia? Thou art not dead. The wise Egyptian prophets confess this. But thou art dead to me. I am alone in the world. To me it is a desert. By what extraordinary prodigy hast thou abandoned thy throne and thy mistress?—thy throne, which was the first in the world—however, that is a matter of small consequence; but to abandon me, who adores thee! O, my dear Ne—
She was going on.
Silence
Tremble to pronounce that fatal name,
said Mambres, the ancient eunuch and magician of the Pharoahs. You would perhaps be discovered by some of the ladies of your court. They are all very much devoted to you, and all fair ladies certainly make it a merit to serve the noble passions of fair princesses. But there may be one among them indiscreet, and even treacherous. You know that your father, although he loves you, has sworn to put you to death, should you pronounce the terrible name always ready to escape your lips. This law is severe; but you have not been educated in Egyptian wisdom to be ignorant of the government of the tongue. Remember that Hippocrates, one of our greatest gods, has always his finger upon his mouth.
The beautiful Amasidia wept, and was silent.
As she pensively advanced toward the banks of the Nile she perceived at a distance, under a thicket watered by the river, an old woman in a tattered gray garment, seated on a hillock. This old woman had beside her a she-ass, a dog, and a he-goat. Opposite to her was a serpent, which was not like the common serpents; for its eyes were mild, its physiognomy noble and engaging, while its skin shone with the liveliest and brightest colors. A huge fish, half immersed in the river, was not the least astonishing figure in the group; and on a neighboring tree were perched a raven and a pigeon. All these creatures seemed to carry on a very animated conversation.
Amasidia—"O, my lover! my young, my dear lover! O,
greatest of conquerors, most accomplished, most beautiful of men! Amasidia—
O, my lover! my young, my dear lover!