| 释义 |
vestal, a. and n.|ˈvɛstəl|
[ad. L. vestālis, f. Vesta Vesta. So Sp. and Pg. vestal, It. and F. vestale.]
A. adj.
1. vestal virgin, one of the priestesses (originally four, subsequently six in number) who had charge of the sacred fire in the temple of Vesta at Rome.
1432–50tr. Higden (Rolls) IV. 473 Cornelia, the most noble of virgynes vestalle,..was put in to therthe on lyve. 1533Bellenden Livy ii. xix. (S.T.S.) I. 202 Þai condampnit Oppia þe virgine vestal for hir Incest. 1600Holland Livy i. xx. 14 Numa..instituted also a Nunnerie as it were, of religious vestall virgines. Ibid. xxviii. xi. 676 The Vestall virgin who had the charge that night..was..throughly skourged. 1692tr. Sallust 20 Cataline had..Debauch'd a Lady of Noble Extraction, and a Vestal Virgin. 1710W. King Heathen Gods & Heroes ix. (1722) 26 The Vestal Virgin Claudia, whose..freedom of Behaviour had made her Modesty suspected. 1770Langhorne Plutarch (1851) II. 882/2 What is there in Rome so sacred and venerable as the vestal virgins who keep the perpetual fire? 1865Lecky Ration. (1878) I. 23 The miracles which clustered so thickly around the vestal virgins. 1891Farrar Darkn. & Dawn xlix, In defiance of every law..he had recently seized Rubria, one of the Vestal Virgins.
2. Of fire, etc.: Of or pertaining to Vesta.
1599Broughton's Let. xii. 40 They counted it vnlawfull to refresh the Vestall fire. 1627Drayton Sheph. Sirena 53 My coate with light should shine, Purer then the Vestall fire. 1697Dryden Virg. Georg. iv. 553 She sprinkl'd thrice, with Wine, the Vestal Fire. 1782V. Knox Ess. cxiv. (1819) II. 287 Those institutions..have still kept the light burning like the vestal fire. 1792S. Rogers Pleas. Mem. Poems (1839) 4 Oblivion steals upon her vestal-lamp. 1853Kane Grinnell Exp. xxxiv. (1856) 301 Three stoves and a cooking-galley, four Argand and three bear-fat lamps, burn with the constancy of a vestal shrine.
fig.1752Young Brothers i. i, Thou in whose eye, so modest, and so bright, Love ever wakes, and keeps a vestal fire. 1817Shelley Rev. Islam Ded. xi, Through thine eyes, even in thy soul I see A lamp of vestal fire burning internally. 1853Chr. Remembrancer Jan. 70 Then it was that the Jeromes and the Eustochiums retired..from a world whose light seemed on the eve of extinction, to nurse the vestal fire which was never to be really put out.
3. Resembling a priestess of Vesta in respect of chastity; chaste, pure, virgin.
1595Locrine v. iv. 54 Beleeue me, Locrine, but the girle is wise, And well would seeme to make a vestall Nunne. 1705Pope Jan. & May 202 Demure and chaste as any vestal Nun. 1749Fielding Tom Jones xv. ix, Jones had no reason to imagine the lady to have been of the vestal kind. 1821Shelley Epipsych. 390 The day is come, and thou wilt fly with me. To whatsoe'er of dull mortality Is mine, remain a vestal sister still. 1822W. Irving Braceb. Hall xviii, Mrs Hannah, the vestal gentlewoman of my Lady Lillycraft, has had long walks and talks with Phœbe.
transf.1806Moore Dream Antiq. i, Upon the bank awhile I stood, And saw the vestal planet weep Her tears of light on Ariel's flood. 1818Keats Endym. i. 874 Oft have I brought thee flowers, on their stalks set Like vestal primroses.
4. Pertaining to, characteristic of, a vestal virgin or virgins; marked by chastity or purity.
1592Shakes. Rom. & Jul. ii. ii. 8 Her Vestal liuery is but sicke and greene. 1594Drayton Min. Poems (1907) 4 Since holy Vestall lawes haue been neglected. 1612Two Noble K. v. i. 156 This is my last Of vestall office; I am bride habited, But mayden harted. 1729T. Cooke Tales, etc. 18 Young Men, and Virgins,..Attend a Song fit for a vestal Ear. 1813Shelley Q. Mab iii. 68 O dear and blessed peace! Why dost thou shroud thy vestal purity In penury and dungeons? 1825Scott Betrothed xvii, Necessarily introducing many male guests within those vestal precincts. 1847Tennyson Princ. ii. 204 Love whispers may not breathe Within this vestal limit.
B. n.
1. A vestal virgin.
1579–80North Plutarch's Lives, Numa (1612) 68 He also hath the keeping of the holy virgines which they call Vestales. Ibid. 69 [He] taketh out..the condemned Vestall, muffled vp close. 1616Bullokar Eng. Exp. s.v., These Vestals were first instituted by Numa Pompilius, or as some write, by Romulus. 1671Phillips (ed. 3) s.v. Vesta, Certain Virgins called Vestalls, who were to take care of the Vestal fire. 1722J. Richardson Acc. Statues, etc. Italy, etc. 135 The Head of the young Vestal was the most engaging thing I had seen in Italy. 1740J. Dupré Conform. Anc. & Mod. Cerem. 47 The Chief of the Vestals was called Maxima. 1774Goldsm. Nat. Hist. (1776) II. 265 A..face formed exactly like the Venus of Medicis, or the sleeping vestal. 1843Penny Cycl. XXVI. 286/1 The habits which the vestals had acquired during their priesthood. 1869Lecky Europ. Mor. I. iii. 433 note, The vestal Urbinia was buried alive on account of a plague.
fig. and transf.1594Drayton Min. Poems (1907) 4 Here Chastity that Vestall most diuine, Attends that Lampe with eye which neuer sleepeth. 1767Sterne Tr. Shandy ix. xvii, I keep neither man or boy,..or any thing that can eat or drink, except a thin, poor piece of a Vestal (to keep my fire in). 1828Hawthorne Fanshawe iv, A flame..which Hugh was so far a vestal as to supply with its necessary fuel at all seasons of the year.
2. A virgin; a chaste woman; a nun.
1590Shakes. Mids. N. ii. i. 158 A certaine aime he tooke At a faire Vestall, throned by the West. 1593Nashe Christ's T. 80 A grosse-pencild Painter, who..vnder colour of drawing of pictures, drawes more to his shady Pauilion, then depart thence pure Vestals. 1608Shakes. Per. iv. v. 7 Shall's go hear the vestals sing? 1717Pope Eloisa to Abelard 207 How happy is the blameless vestal's lot! The world forgetting, by the world forgot. 1784Cowper Task iv. 554 The stain Appears a spot upon a vestal's robe, The worse for what it soils. 1848Thackeray Van. Fair x, She was the most hospitable and jovial of old vestals, and had been a beauty in her day. 1879Gladstone Glean. II. i. 10 He states that he never knew souls more polluted than those of some of the professed vestals of the Church.
Hence ˈvestalship, the state or condition of being a vestal or virgin.
1893F. Thompson Poems 42 A mouth too red for the moon to buss it, But her cheek unvow its vestalship. |