Literary notes about ENVOY (AI summary)
Literary works employ "envoy" in diverse ways, consistently highlighting its role as a representative or messenger with official authority. In classical epics, such as the various translated passages of the Rámáyan ([1], [2], [3]), the envoy carries messages imbued with symbolic and practical significance, acting as a bridge between sovereign power and the people. At the same time, works of satire and drama—seen in the playful turns of phrase by Shakespeare and his contemporaries ([4], [5], [6])—use the term with wit and double entendre, underscoring its layered meanings. In historical and diplomatic narratives ([7], [8], [9]), the envoy is portrayed as an essential diplomatic figure whose presence and actions influence grand state affairs, reflecting the term’s evolution in literature from a mere messenger to a conduit of political nuance.
- Again the Vánar envoy spoke, And with his words new rapture woke: “Queen, ere this sun shall cease to shine Thy Ráma's eyes shall look in thine.
— from The Rámáyan of Válmíki, translated into English verse by Valmiki - Think not of bonds and capture; fear No loss of life, no peril here: For, captive, helpless and unarmed, An envoy never should be harmed.
— from The Rámáyan of Válmíki, translated into English verse by Valmiki - King Rávaṇ, by his pleading moved, The counsel of the chief approved: “Thy words are wise and true: to kill An envoy would beseem us ill.
— from The Rámáyan of Válmíki, translated into English verse by Valmiki - Doth the inconsiderate take salve for l'envoy, and the word 'l'envoy' for a salve?
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare - A good l'envoy, ending in the goose; would you desire more?
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare - To sell a bargain well is as cunning as fast and loose; Let me see: a fat l'envoy; ay, that's a fat goose.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare - And he delivered this statement with as much careful precision as if he had been a diplomatic envoy whose words would be attended with results.
— from Middlemarch by George Eliot - "It was I who brought about the separation between Irene Adler and the late King of Bohemia when your cousin Heinrich was the Imperial Envoy.
— from His Last Bow: An Epilogue of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle - The Athenians, however, kept grasping at more, and dismissed envoy after envoy without their having effected anything.
— from The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides
