Literary notes about Nine (AI summary)
The number nine is used in literature to denote both precise measurement and symbolic significance. Authors employ it as a marker of time or duration—such as indicating specific hours in a day ([1], [2], [3], [4]) and periods of episodes or quests ([5], [6])—while also using it to describe exact counts or divisions, whether referring to geographic sections ([7]), numerical groups ([8], [9], [10]), or repeated ceremonial actions ([11]). In more poetic or mythological contexts, nine carries an air of mystery and portent as seen in Shakespeare’s incantations in Macbeth ([12]) and in references to extraordinary events or objects ([13], [14]), suggesting a completeness or otherworldliness. In all these instances, the invocation of nine enriches the narrative by adding layers of structure, rhythm, and symbolic depth.
- It was nearly nine o’clock when he reached Goswell Street.
— from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens - It was nine o'clock when, with another embrace, he stood to deliver her up at her father's door.
— from Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy - In half an hour it would be nine o’clock.
— from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain - —Mr. Harker arrived at nine o’clock.
— from Dracula by Bram Stoker - It was nine days from the first wounding, in this miserable condition, without any refreshing of one nature or other, except a little cold water.
— from Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson by Mary White Rowlandson - The last nine hours have been unquestionably the most exciting of my life.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 1 by Edgar Allan Poe - Björgo settled in the Town of Christiana in section nine, Ole Gilderhus a little farther north in Deerfield Township.
— from A History of Norwegian Immigration to the United States by George T. Flom - The knowledge or memory of the nine taylors examined was too frequently failing them to bring guilt home to any brother of the craft.”
— from The Survey of London by John Stow - In the twelfth year of Achaz king of Juda, Osee the son of Ela reigned in Samaria, over Israel, nine years.
— from The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete - THE NINE SITUATIONS 1.
— from The Art of War by active 6th century B.C. Sunzi - L et them hymn it nine times nine.
— from Ulysses by James Joyce - Pour in sow's blood, that hath eaten Her nine farrow; grease that's sweaten From the murderer's gibbet throw Into the flame.
— from Macbeth by William Shakespeare - As quick as a flash there leaped to his mind nine Martian sounds, but as quickly faded as he answered that this was a secret he must not divulge.
— from A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs - By the nine gods he swore That the great house of Tarquin Should suffer wrong no more.’—Macaulay.
— from Helps to Latin Translation at Sight by Edmund Luce
