Cothurnus

COTHURNAL, from "cothurnus," a particular boot worn by actors in Greek tragedy. ❋ Ben Jonson (1605)

The host whose dust inurned has slumbered treads not on week – days the cothurnus. ❋ Unknown (2008)

The _baxa_ was a coarse sandal made of twigs, used by philosophers and comic actors; the _calcæus_ was a shoe that covered the foot, though the toes were often exposed; and the _cothurnus_, a laced boot worn by horsemen, hunters, men of authority, and tragic actors, and it left the toes likewise exposed. ❋ Arthur Gilman (N/A)

Coppe's sandals were no more durable than the fleeting rose, and whenever a fair dame came to show her torn cothurnus to the great Coppe he replied sadly, "The evil is irremediable: madame has been walking!" ❋ Various (N/A)

The Jack Pudding suddenly drew the _cothurnus_ over his clogs. ❋ Various (N/A)

At the same epoch the ladies who had fallen in love with Greek and Roman fashions had abandoned the old-fashioned shoe in order to adopt the cothurnus; and ❋ Various (N/A)

In their tragedies they become heavy without grandeur, like Jonson, or mistake the stilts for the cothurnus, as Chapman and Webster too often do. ❋ Various (N/A)

The countenances have an impassive and fixed expression, as the tragic actor, in the Greek theatre, assumed mask and cothurnus, and chanted the solemn lines to a recitative. ❋ 1840-1916 (1913)

He stepped off the high-heeled cothurnus, and came down into common life; he held out his great hearty arms, and embraced us all; he had a bow for all women; a kiss for all children; a shake of the hand for all men, high or low; he showed us Heaven’s sun shining every day on quiet homes; not gilded palace roofs only, or court processions, or heroic warriors fighting for princesses and pitched battles. ❋ Unknown (1906)

This one giant form on his canvas obliges him to mount all his figures on the cothurnus, and thus impart ❋ Kuno Francke (1892)

In toga and cothurnus I had to read a pompous prologue, and did it amid shouts of "Basta! basta!" from the audience. ❋ Maurice Hewlett (1892)

Like the Greek actor before masks were invented, the Chinese actor paints his face, and the thick-soled boot which raises the Chinese tragedian from the ground is very much the counterpart of the cothurnus. ❋ Herbert Allen Giles (1890)

His is a muse which never lays aside the _cothurnus_, and a royalty which never puts off its crown, even in sleep. ❋ Henri Fr��d��ric Amiel (1885)

They never speak except _ore rotundo_, in _cothurnus_, or sometimes on stilts. ❋ Henri Fr��d��ric Amiel (1885)

The tragic mask, the mouth of which was provided with metal tongues that increased the sound of the voice; the cothurnus, which raised the actors to the height of gods; the tragic majesty and the splendid verses that used to be sung, have all gone. ❋ Anatole France (1884)

The thick woollen bands round their feet and legs resembled a rude cothurnus, and the sight of these uncouth figures reminded one who had seen the bas-reliefs on ❋ John Morley (1880)

Some of the quiet characters away from the centre of great affairs are as well worth our attention as those who in high-heeled cothurnus stalk across the foreground. ❋ John Morley (1880)

He who wants to look tall on it wears the cothurnus, and is not a mountain the highest vantage ground that a man can find for the sole of his foot? ❋ Georg Ebers (1867)