~1590 — A statelier pyramis to her I 'll rear / Than Rhodope's of Memphis ever was; / In memory of her when she is dead, / Her ashes, in an urn more precious / Than the rich-jewel'd coffer of Darius, / Transported shall be at high festivals / Before the kings and queens of France. — William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part I, Act 1, Scene 6
~1605 — Though bladed corn be lodged and trees blown down; / Though castles topple on their warders' heads; / Though palaces and pyramids do slope / Their heads to their foundations; though the treasure / Of nature's germens tumble all together, / Even till destruction sicken; answer me / To what I ask you. — William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 4, Scene 1
~1606 — Thus do they, sir: they take / the flow o' the Nile / By certain scales i' the pyramid; they know, / By the height, the lowness, or the mean, if dearth / Or foison follow: the higher Nilus swells, / The more it promises: as it ebbs, the seedsman / Upon the slime and ooze scatters his grain, / And shortly comes to harvest. — William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, Act 2, Scene 7
~1606 — Nay, certainly, I have heard the Ptolemies' pyramises are very / goodly things; without contradiction I have heard that. — William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, Act 2, Scene 7
~1606 — Rather a ditch in Egypt / Be gentle grave unto me! rather on Nilus' mud / Lay me stark-nak'd, and let the water-flies / Blow me into abhorring! rather make / My country's high pyramides my gibbet, / And hang me up in chains! — William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, Act 5, Scene 2
1667 — High on a Hill, far blazing, as a Mount / Rais'd on a Mount, with Pyramids and Towrs / From Diamond Quarries hew'n, & Rocks of Gold, — John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 2
1667 — With fresh alacritie and force renew'd / Springs upward like a Pyramid of fire / Into the wilde expanse, and through the shock — John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 5
1843 — The ascent was by a flight of steps, at an angle of the pyramid, on the outside. — William H. Prescott, History of the Conquest of Mexico, Book 1, Chapter 3
1843 — As the sad procession wound up the sides of the pyramid, the unhappy victim threw away his gay chaplet of flowers, and broke in pieces the musical instruments with which he had solaced the hours of captivity. — William H. Prescott, History of the Conquest of Mexico, Book 1, Chapter 3
1843 — But the miracle of nature was the great Mexican aloe, or maguey, whose clustering pyramid of flowers, towering above their dark coronals of leaves, were seen sprinkled over many a broad acre of the tableland. — William H. Prescott, History of the Conquest of Mexico, Book 1, Chapter 5
1843 — With great alacrity they rolled the colossal monsters down the steps of the pyramid, amidst the triumphant shouts of their own companions, and the groans and lamentations of the natives. — William H. Prescott, History of the Conquest of Mexico, Book 2, Chapter 8
1843 — It had the form common to the Mexican teocallis, that of a truncated pyramid, facing with its four sides the cardinal points, and divided into the same number of terraces. — William H. Prescott, History of the Conquest of Mexico, Book 3, Chapter 6
1843 — The perpendicular height of the pyramid is one hundred and seventy-seven feet. Its base is one thousand four hundred and twenty-three feet long, twice as long as that of the great pyramid of Cheops. — William H. Prescott, History of the Conquest of Mexico, Book 3, Chapter 6
1843 — High above the rest rose the great "Pyramid of Cholula," with its undying fires flinging their radiance over the capital, and proclaiming to the nations that there was the mystic worship-alas! how corrupted by cruelty and superstition-of the good deity who was one day to return and resume his empire over the land. — William H. Prescott, History of the Conquest of Mexico, Book 3, Chapter 6
1843 — In despair they flung themselves into the wooden turrets that crowned the temple, and poured down stones, javelins, and burning arrows on the Spaniards, as they climbed the great staircase, which, by a flight of one hundred and twenty steps, scaled the face of the pyramid. — William H. Prescott, History of the Conquest of Mexico, Book 3, Chapter 7
1843 — This had a most imposing effect in the religious ceremonials, when the pompous procession of priests with their wild minstrelsy came sweeping round the huge sides of the pyramid, as they rose higher and higher in the presence of gazing multitudes, towards the summit. — William H. Prescott, History of the Conquest of Mexico, Book 4, Chapter 2
1843 — When these arrangements were completed, the whole army moved in solemn procession up the winding ascent of the pyramid. — William H. Prescott, History of the Conquest of Mexico, Book 4, Chapter 5
1843 — It consisted of a stone building on the usual pyramidal basis; and the ascent was by a flight of steep steps on one of the faces of the pyramid. — William H. Prescott, History of the Conquest of Mexico, Book 4, Chapter 7
1843 — It was not, therefore, till the 7th of July that they reached the heights commanding the plains which stretched far away towards the territory of Tlascala, in full view of the venerable pyramids of Teotihuacan, two of the most remarkable monuments of the antique American civilisation now existing north of the Isthmus. — William H. Prescott, History of the Conquest of Mexico, Book 5, Chapter 4
1843 — The latter, jumping into the shallow water, scaled the opposite bank without further resistance, and drove the enemy along the street towards the square, where the sacred pyramid reared its colossal bulk high over the other edifices of the city. — William H. Prescott, History of the Conquest of Mexico, Book 6, Chapter 5
1843 — A few priests, clad in their usual wild and blood-stained vestments, were to be seen lingering on the terraces which wound round the stately sides of the pyramid, chanting hymns in honour of their god, and encouraging the warriors below to battle bravely for his altars. — William H. Prescott, History of the Conquest of Mexico, Book 6, Chapter 5
1843 — They there beheld a long procession winding up the huge sides of the pyramid; for the camp of Alvarado was pitched scarcely a mile from the city, and objects are distinctly visible, at a great distance, in the transparent atmosphere of the tableland. — William H. Prescott, History of the Conquest of Mexico, Book 6, Chapter 6
1843 — The body of the slaughtered victim was then hurled down the steep stairs of the pyramid, which, it may be remembered, were placed at the same angle of the pile, one flight below another; and the mutilated remains were gathered up by the savages beneath, who soon prepared with them the cannibal repast which completed the work of abomination! — William H. Prescott, History of the Conquest of Mexico, Book 6, Chapter 6
1843 — This temple, dedicated to the dread war-god, was inferior only to the pyramid in the great square; and on it the Spaniards had more than once seen their unhappy countrymen led to slaughter. — William H. Prescott, History of the Conquest of Mexico, Book 6, Chapter 7
1843 — They drove the enemy up the heights of the pyramid, and, reaching the broad summit, a fierce encounter followed in mid-air,-such an encounter as takes place where death is the certain consequence of defeat. — William H. Prescott, History of the Conquest of Mexico, Book 6, Chapter 7
1843 — It ended as usual, in the discomfiture of the Aztecs, who were either slaughtered on the spot still wet with the blood of their own victims, or pitched headlong down the sides of the pyramid. — William H. Prescott, History of the Conquest of Mexico, Book 6, Chapter 7
1847 — Everywhere the land teemed with evidence of agricultural wealth, from the smiling valleys along the coast to the terraced steeps of the sierra, which, rising into pyramids of verdure, glowed with all the splendors of tropical vegetation. — William H. Prescott, History of the Conquest of Peru, Book 1, Chapter 4
1908 — These great works will be the form their expenditure of the surplus will take, and in the same way that the ruling classes of Egypt of long ago expended the surplus they robbed from the people by the building of temples and pyramids. — Jack London, The Iron Heel, Chapter 14
1994 — What the pyramids were to ancient Egyptian civilization, the Oxford English Dictionary is to English-language scholarship – the most impressive collective achievement of our civilization. — Richard Lederer
