Enough to pierce a Heart of an Adamant
This word adamant was used a little differently in 1759 before and after for awhile.
“The shocking Scenes which presented themselves in this Nights march are not to be described,” GW later wrote. “The dead—the dying—the groans—lamentation—and crys along the Road of the wounded for help . . .
were enough to pierce a heart of adamant.
The gloom & horror of which was not a little encreased by the impervious darkness occasioned by the close shade of thick woods which in places rendered it impossible for the two guides which attended to know when they were in, or out of the track but by groping on the ground with their hands” (GW Biographical Memorandum, c.1786, ViMtvL, photostat).
There's enough in this huge story to catch your attention.
But for now, that phrase, "heart of an adamant," catches ours.
Adamant, in modern usage, is used as an adjective, to describe hardness in resolve, hardness in opinion.
Here, adamant, is used as a noun.
Adamant, here, is a rock, a hard rock.
The Greek and Latin word for the hardest imaginable substance, whether applied to a legendary stone or an actual substance, such as diamond, was adamas.
Latin poets used the term figuratively for things lasting, firm, or unbending, and the adjective adamantinus was applied in similar contexts.
The English noun adamant (meaning "an unbreakable or extremely hard substance") as well as the adjective adamant ("inflexible" or "unyielding") came from adamas.
Adamantine, however—which has such figurative uses as "rigid," "firm," and "unyielding"—came from adamantinus.
Adamas is also the source of diamond. Diamas, the Latin term for diamond, is an alteration of adamas.
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Founders Online discusses the aftermath of the battle that defeated Braddock:
After enduring an intense cross fire in the open for much of the afternoon, Braddock’s surviving men began retreating without orders.
GW recalled many years later that he put the fatally wounded general “in a small covered Cart, which carried some of his most essential equipage,” and “with some of the best Troops” took him back across the lower of the two Monongahela fords that they had crossed earlier in the day.
While Braddock and some of his officers tried to make a stand near the lower ford with about 100 men, GW crossed the upper one to halt the many troops who had fled ahead of the general.
Finding Gage on the other side striving to rally a force, GW gave him Braddock’s order to stop the retreat and returned across the upper ford to inform the general of the situation.
It was after sunset when GW met Braddock on the road, traveling to the rear in a litter.
Most of the men at the lower ford had deserted him despite the fact that the French and Indians did not pursue beyond the river.
Braddock, having given up any thought of holding a position near the battlefield, now sent GW to Colonel Dunbar with orders for Dunbar to forward provisions, medical supplies, and wagons for the wounded to Gist’s plantation or some place farther, if possible.
GW, who was still very weak from his illness, traveled through the night and part of the next morning with two guides to reach Dunbar’s camp about 6 miles south of Gist’s plantation and about 50 miles from the battlefield. “The shocking Scenes which presented themselves in this Nights march are not to be described,” GW later wrote. “The dead—the dying—the groans—lamentation—and crys along the Road of the wounded for help . . . were enough to pierce a heart of adamant. The gloom & horror of which was not a little encreased by the impervious darkness occasioned by the close shade of thick woods which in places rendered it impossible for the two guides which attended to know when they were in, or out of the track but by groping on the ground with their hands” (GW Biographical Memorandum, c.1786, ViMtvL, photostat). Braddock received wagons and supplies from Dunbar at Gist’s plantation on the evening of 10 July 1755 and arrived at Dunbar’s camp late the next day.
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Compiled by Jim Moyer, first researched 2010, updated 7/30/2023, 7/23/2024
Another example of the use of Adamant as a noun,
Can the tender, the gentle Eliza whose soul is formed for domestick felicity, think, that the cause I gave her for not feeling happy “was the result of an imagination too prone to throw too great a shade upon the picture”;3—can she wonder at the cause. A heart of Adamant4
Letter written by Abigail Adams in 1783:
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More Examples
From Wikipedia
In mythology
Adamant is used as a translation in the King James Bible in Ezekiel 3:9 for the word שמיר(Shamir), the original word in the Hebrew Bible. [2][3]
In Greek mythology, Cronus castrated his father Uranus using an adamant sickle given to him by his mother Gaia.[4] An adamantine sickle or sword was also used by the hero Perseus to decapitate the Gorgon Medusa while she slept.
In the Greek tragedy Prometheus Bound (translated by G. M. Cookson), Hephaestus is to bind Prometheus "to the jagged rocks in adamantine bonds infrangible".
In Virgil's Aeneid, the gate of Tartarus is framed with pillars of solid adamant, "that no might of man, nay, not even the sons of heaven, could uproot in war"[5]
In John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost, adamant or adamantine is mentioned eight times. First in Book 1, Satan is hurled "to bottomless perdition, there to dwell in adamantine chains and penal fire" (lines 47–48). Three times in Book 2 the gates of hell are described as being made of adamantine (lines 436, 646 and 853). In Book 6, Satan "Came towring [sic], armd [sic] in Adamant and Gold" (line 110), his shield is described as "of tenfold adamant" (line 255), and the armor worn by the fallen angels is described as "adamantine" (line 542). Finally in book 10 the metaphorical "Pinns [sic] of Adamant and Chains" (lines 318–319) bind the world to Satan, and thus to sin and death.[6]
In some versions of the Alexander Romance, Alexander the Great builds walls of Adamantine, the Gates of Alexander, to keep the giants Gog and Magog from pillaging the peaceful southern lands.[citation needed]
In The Hypostasis of the Archons, Gnostic scripture from the Nag Hammadi Library refers to the Adamantine Land, an incorruptible place 'above' from whence the spirit came to dwell within man so that he became Adam, he who moves upon the ground with a living soul.[7]
In popular culture
In The Divine Comedy by Dante, completed 1320, the angel at purgatory's gate sits on adamant.[8]
In the Medieval epic poem The Faerie Queene, published 1590, Sir Artegal's sword is made of Adamant.
In the Holy Sonnet I, published 1620, John Donne states in line 14, "And thou like adamant draw mine iron heart".
In Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, the base of the fictitious flying island of Laputa (Part III of Gulliver's Travels) is constructed of Adamant.
In J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Nenya, one of the Three Rings of Power, is set with a gem of adamant; the fortress of Barad-dûr is also partly built from "adamant". The crown of Gondor is described as having "seven gems of adamant".
In the tabletop roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons, Adamantine is an exotic metal of great strength.
In His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman, in the third book, The Amber Spyglass (2000), Lord Asriel's tower is made of adamant.[9]
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