> as lemmas

1624 J. Reynolds Votivæ Angliæ sig. E If you wil couragiouslie resolve to cut this Gordion knot with Alexander, and to passe this Rubicon with Cæsar, you shall then trulie and tryumphantlie participate of the ones Fame, and of the others Glorie.

1626 Let. 3 Dec. in R. F. Williams Birch's Court & Times Charles I (1848) (modernized text) I. 180 Queen Dido did never more importune Æneas's stay at Carthage, than his mother and sister do his continuance here at London... But now he is past the Rubicon.

1644 K. Digby Two Treat. ii. ix. 415 Here we haue passed the Rubicon of experimentall knowledge: we are now out of the boundes that experience hath any iurisdiction ouer.

1672 J. Dryden Conquest Granada i. iii. i. 26 This noyse may chill your Blood, but mine it warms: We have already past the Rubicon.

1690 J. Crowne Eng. Frier v. 42 I'le be hang'd if this fellow got me. Some Cæsar Pass'd my Mother's Rubicon, wou'd I had his Commentaries.

1723 D. Defoe Hist. Col. Jack (ed. 2) 252 Giving her to understand..that she had pass'd the Rubicon, that..she had taken such a step of her own Accord.

1727 D. Defoe Tour Great Brit. III. iii. 21 Having thus passed the Rubicon (Trent) and set my Face Northward.

1771 ‘Junius’ Stat Nominis Umbra (1772) II. liv. 241 The very soliloquy of Lord Suffolk, before he passed the Rubicon.

1829 S. Smith Wks. (1859) II. 29/2 The moment the punishment passes this Rubicon, it becomes less and less, instead of greater and greater.

1847 C. Brontë Jane Eyre I. vii. 118 A pause—in which I began to steady the palsy of my nerves, and to feel that the rubicon was passed.

1862 M. E. Braddon Lady Audley's Secret II. vii. 117 He was behindhand in his education, and had not yet passed the intellectual Rubicon of words of two syllables.

1899 North Adams (Mass.) Evening Transcript 22 May 3/4 This naive girl had innocently played into his hands, and now the Rubicon must be crossed.

1937 D. L. Sayers Busman's Honeymoon i. 49 Well, Harriet, we've passed the Rubicon.

1951 L. P. Hartley My Fellow Devils xxxiv. 358 That's that, she thought, almost as if she had crossed some rubicon.

1980 B. Van Der Horst in O. Davies Omni Bk. of Paranormal & Mind v. xxiv. 255 During peak hallucinatory periods, subjects frequently crossed the Rubicon of complete hallucination.

1995 Maturity Feb. 27/1 When I put the canoe down at the water's edge I knew I had crossed my Rubicon.