By four great piers each moat is spanned Where lines of deadly engines stand.
— from The Rámáyan of Válmíki, translated into English verse by Valmiki

If hereafter anatomizing this surly humour, my hand slip, as an unskilful 'prentice I lance too deep, and cut through skin and all at unawares, make it smart, or cut awry, [815] pardon a rude hand, an unskilful knife, 'tis a most difficult thing to keep an even tone, a perpetual tenor, and not sometimes to lash out; difficile est Satyram non scribere , there be so many objects to divert, inward perturbations to molest, and the very best may sometimes err; aliquando bonus dormitat Homerus (some times that excellent Homer takes a nap), it is impossible not in so much to overshoot;— opere in longo fas est obrepere, summum .
— from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

Ad laudem omnipotentis dei et sanctissime uirginis matris eius, totiusque curie celestis.
— from An Essay on Colophons, with Specimens and Translations by Alfred W. (Alfred William) Pollard

I believe he's got a touch of the devil, too—which Tristram senior may or may not have had—and a lot of dangerous explosive stuff in his head which might go off any minute.
— from The Hermit Doctor of Gaya: A Love Story of Modern India by I. A. R. (Ida Alexa Ross) Wylie

"There's an old buckle that I lost one day ever so many years ago," he exclaimed suddenly, and reached down to pick it up.
— from The Life of Nancy by Sarah Orne Jewett

The King of Cashel alone gave to the chief of the Eugenians, as part of his annual stipend, ten bondmen and ten women; to the lord of Bruree, seven pages and seven bondwomen; to the lord of Deisi, eight slaves of each sex, and seven female slaves to the lord of Kerry; among the items which make up the tribute from Ossory to Cashel are ten bondmen and ten grown women; and from the Deisi, eight bondmen and eight "brown-haired" women.
— from A Popular History of Ireland : from the Earliest Period to the Emancipation of the Catholics — Volume 1 by Thomas D'Arcy McGee

The words had been nothing superficially; but when in the light of deepening experience she had looked into them they had then appeared portentous.
— from The Portrait of a Lady — Volume 2 by Henry James

Instead, with the wrathful face of the Latin, he burst out at Francis: “One does not expect shame in a murderer, but at least one does expect simple decency.”
— from Hearts of Three by Jack London