Character Sketches of Romance Volume I Part 20

_Arges'tes_ (3 _syl_.), the north-east wind; Cae'cias, the north-west; Bo'reas, the full north.

Boreas and Caecias and Argestes loud ... rend the woods, and seas upturn.

Milton, _Paradise Lost_, x. 699, etc. (1665).

AR'GILLAN, a haughty, turbulent knight, born on the banks of the Trent. He induced the Latians to revolt, was arrested, made his escape, but was ultimately slain in battle by Solyman.--Ta.s.so, _Jerusalem Delivered_, viii. ix. (1575).

ARGON AND RURO, the two sons of Annir, king of Inis-thona, an island of Scandinavia. Cor'malo, a neighboring chief, came to the island, and asked for the honor of a tournament. Argon granted the request, and overthrew him, and this so vexed Cormalo that during a hunt he shot both the brothers with his bow. Their dog Runo, running to the hall, howled so as to attract attention, and Annir, following the hound, found his two sons both dead. On his return he discovered that Cormalo had run off with his daughter. Oscar, son of Ossian, slew Cormalo in fight, and restored the daughter to her father.--_Ossian_ ("The War of Inis-thona").

ARGONAUTS, heroes and demi-G.o.ds, who sailed to Colchis in quest of the golden fleece, guarded by a sleepless dragon. Jason was their leader.

_Argonauts (The)_. t.i.tle applied to adventurers who, in 1849, sought gold in California. Bret Harte has seized upon the name as the theme of tales and ballads of the "Forty-niners."

AR'GUS, the turf-writer, was Irwin Willes, who died in 1871.

ARGYLE _(Mac Callum More, duke of_), in the reign of George I.--Sir W.

Scott, _Rob Roy_ (1818).

_Mac Callum More, marquis of Argyle_, in the reign of Charles I., was commander of the parliamentary forces, and is called "Gillespie Grumach;" he disguises himself, and a.s.sumes the name of Murdoch Campbell.--Sir W. Scott, _Legend of Montrose_ (1819).

(Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Argyle are introduced also in the _Heart of Midlothian_, by Sir W. Scott, 1818.)

ARIAD'NE (4 _syl_.), daughter of Minos king of Crete. She gave Theseus a clew of thread to guide him out of the Cretan labyrinth. Theseus married his deliverer, but when he arrived at Naxos _(Dia)_ forsook her, and she hung herself.

Surely it is an Ariadne.... There is dawning womanhood in every line; but she knows nothing of Naxos.--Ouida, _Ariadne_, i. 1.

AR'IBERT, king of the Lombards (653-661), left "no male pledge behind," but only a daughter named Rhodalind, whom he wished duke Gondibert to marry, but the duke fell in love with Bertha, daughter of As'tragon, the sage. The tale being unfinished, the sequel is not known.--Sir W. Davenant, _Gondibert_ (died 1668).

ARIDEUS _[A.ree'.de.us]_, a herald in the Christian army.--Ta.s.so, _Jerusalem Delivered_ (1575).

A'RIEL, in _The Tempest_, an airy spirit, able to a.s.sume any shape, or even to become invisible. He was enslaved to the witch Syc'orax, mother of Caliban, who overtasked the little thing, and in punishment for not doing what was beyond his strength, imprisoned him for twelve years in the rift of a pine tree, where Caliban delighted to torture him with impish cruelty. Prospero, duke of Milan and father of Miranda, liberated Ariel from the pine-rift, and the grateful spirit served the duke for sixteen years, when he was set free.

And like Ariel in the cloven pine tree, For its freedom groans and sighs.

Longfellow, _The Golden Milestone_.

_A'riel_, the sylph in Pope's _Rape of the Lock_. The impersonation of "fine life" in the abstract, the nice adjuster of hearts and necklaces. When disobedient he is punished by being kept hovering over the fumes of the chocolate, or is transfixed with pins, clogged with pomatums, or wedged in the eyes of bodkins.

_A'riel_, one of the rebel angels. The word means "the Lion of G.o.d."

Abdiel encountered him, and overthrew him.--Milton, _Paradise Lost_, vi. 371 (1665).

ARIELLA, an invalid girl, the daughter of Malachi and Hagar his wife, in _Come Forth_, by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and Herbert D. Ward. Her name signifies STRENGTH OF G.o.d. She has lain a helpless cripple for nine years, when she is healed by a word from The Christ (1891).

ARIMAN'ES (4 _syl_.), the prince of the powers of evil, introduced by Byron in his drama called _Manfred_. The Persians recognized a power of good and a power of evil: the former Yezad, and the latter Ahriman (in Greek, Oroma'zes and Ariman'nis). These two spirits are ever at war with each other. Oromazes created twenty-four good spirits, and enclosed them in an egg to be out of the power of Arimanes; but Arimanes pierced the sh.e.l.l, and thus mixed evil with every good.

However, a time will come when Arimanes shall be subjected, and the earth will become a perfect paradise.

ARIMAS'PIANS, a one-eyed people of Scythia, who adorned their hair with gold. As gold mines were guarded by Gryphons, there were perpetual contentions between the Arimaspians and the Gryphons. (See GRYPHON.)

Arimaspi, quos diximus uno oculo in fronte media in signes; quibus a.s.sidue bellum esse circa metella c.u.m gryphis, ferarum volucri genere, quale vulgo traditur, eruente ex cuniculis aurum, mire cupiditate et feris custodientibus, et Arimaspis rapientibus, multi, sed maxime ill.u.s.tres Herodotus et Aristeas Proconnesius scribunt.--Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ vii. 2.

AR'IOCH ("_a fierce lion_"), one of the fallen angels overthrown by Abdiel.--Milton, _Paradise Lost_, vi. 371 (1665).

ARIODAN'TES (5 _syl_.), the beloved of Geneu'ra, a Scotch princess.

Geneura being accused of incontinence, Ariodantes stood forth her champion, vindicated her innocence, and married her.--Ariosto, _Orlando Furioso_ (1516).

ARI'ON. William Falconer, author of _The s.h.i.+pwreck_, speaks of himself under this _nom de plume_ (canto iii). He was sent to sea when a lad, and says he was eager to investigate the "antiquities of foreign states." He was junior officer in the _Britannia_, which was wrecked against the projecting verge of cape Colonna, the most southern point of Attica, and was the only officer who survived.

Thy woes, Arion, and thy simple tale O'er all the hearts shall triumph and prevail.

Campbell, _Pleasures of Hope_, ii. (1799).

_Ari'on_, a Greek musician, who, to avoid being murdered for his wealth, threw himself into the sea, and was carried to Tae'naros on the back of a dolphin.

_Ari'on_, the wonderful horse which Hercules gave to Adrastos. It had the gift of human speech, and the feet on the right side were the feet of a man.

(One of the masques in Sir W. Scott's _Kenilworth_ is called "Arion.")

ARIO'STO OF THE NORTH, Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832).

And, like the Ariosto of the North, Sang ladye-love and war, romance and knightly worth.

Byron, _Childe Harold_, iv. 40.

ARISTae'US, protector of vines and olives, huntsmen and herdsmen. He instructed man also in the management of bees, taught him by his mother Cyrene.

In such a palace Aristaeus found Cyrene, when he bore the plaintive tale Of his lost bees to her maternal ear.

Cowper, _The Ice Palace of Anne of Russia_.

ARISTAR'CHUS, any critic. Aristarchus of Samothrace was the greatest critic of antiquity. His labors were chiefly directed to the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ of Homer. He divided them into twenty-four books each, marked every doubtful line with an obelos, and every one he considered especially beautiful with an asterisk. (Fl. B.C. 156; died aged 72.)

The whole region of belle lettres fell under my inspection.... There, sirs, like another Aristarch, I dealt out fame and d.a.m.nation at pleasure.--Samuel Foote, _The Liar_, i. 1.

"How, friend," replied the archbishop, "has it [_the homily_] met with any Aristarchus [_severe critic_]?"--Lesage, _Gil Blas_, vii. 4 (1715).

ARISTE (2 _syl_.), brother of Chrysale (2 _syl_.), not a _savant_, but a practical tradesman. He sympathizes with Henriette, his womanly niece, against his sister-in-law Philaminte (3 _syl_.) and her daughter Armande (2 _syl_.), who _femmes savantes_.--Moliere, _Les Femmes Savantes_ (1672).

ARISTE'AS, a poet who continued to appear and disappear alternately for above 400 years, and who visited all the mythical nations of the earth. When not in the human form, he took the form of a stag.--_Greek Legend_.

ARISTI'DES (_The British_), Andrew Marvell, an influential member of the House of Commons in the reign of Charles II. He refused every offer of promotion, and a direct bribe tendered to him by the lord treasurer. Dying in great poverty, he was buried, like Aristides, at the public expense (1620-1678).

ARISTIP'POS, a Greek philosopher of Cyre'ne, who studied under Soc'rates, and set up a philosophic school of his own, called "he'donism" (_[Greek: aedonae]_ "pleasure").

[Ill.u.s.tration] C. M. Wieland has an historic novel in German, called _Aristippus_, in which he sets forth the philosophical dogmas of this Cyrenian (1733-1813).

An axiom of Aristippos was _Omnis Aristippum decuit color, et status, et res_ (Horace, _Epist_. i. 17, 23); and his great precept was _Mihi res, non me rebus subjungere_ (Horace, _Epist_. i. I, 18).

I am a sort of Aristippus, and can equally accommodate myself to company and solitude, to affluence and frugality.--Lesage, _Gil Blas_, v. 12 (1715).

ARISTOBU'LUS, called by Drayton Aristob'ulus (_Rom._ xvi. 10), and said to be the first that brought to England the "glad tidings of salvation." He was murdered by the Britons.