The Dead Sea Apes is a fable of dwellers by the Dead Sea who, according to the Muslim tradition, were transformed into apes because they turned a deaf ear to God's message to them by the lips of Moses. It is also a metaphor used, for instance by Carlyle, describing people in modern times to whom the universe, with all its serious voices, seems to have become a weariness and a humbug. See "Past and Present", Bk. iii. chap. 3.
Famous quotes containing the words dead, sea and/or apes:
“Only this shimmeriness is the real living. The shape is a dead crust. The shimmer is inside really.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever,
One foot in sea and one on shore,
To one thing constant never:
Then sigh not so, but let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into Hey nonny, nonny.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“It disturbs me no more to find men base, unjust, or selfish than to see apes mischievous, wolves savage, or the vulture ravenous for its prey.”
—Molière [Jean Baptiste Poquelin] (1622–1673)