ABRIM
The range of hills stretching along the E. side of the Dead Sea, N. of the r. Arnon. The highest peak was Nebo or Pisgah. Milton, P.L. i. 408, describes the land of Moab as reaching "From Aroer to Nebo and the wild Of southmost A." The ridge of which Mt. Nebo forms part was the N. boundary of Moab, but it is wrongly called "southmost A." It was rather at the N. end of the range.
ABASSIN
(i.e. ABYSSINIAN). Abyssinia is a modern form of Abasine, the country lying S. of Nubia, on the W. of the Red Sea, included by the Elizabethan geographers in Ethiopia Superior. Milton, P. L. iv. 280, speaks of Mt. Amara, "where A. ks. their issue guard." See under Amara.
ABBANA or ABANA
(now the BARADA). A river rising in the Anti-Lebanon range which waters the plain of Damascus with its 7 streams, and dies away in a marsh some m. E. of the city. Milton, P. L. i. 469, speaks of "Fair Damascus, on the fertile banks Of A. and Pharphar, lucid streams." Cf. II Kings v. 12.
ABCHURCH LANE
A. st. in Lond., running from Cannon St. to Lombard St., now cut in two by K.
William St. Named from the ch, of St. Mary A., which stands on its S.E. side.
A certain Mother Wall kept a shop there for the sale of pies. In Haughton's Englishmen
iv. 1, Frisco says, "I have the scent of Lond. Stone as full in my nose as
A. L. of mother Wall's pasties." In Dekker's Northward
iv. 4, the Bawd says, "I will have . . . some of mother Wall's cakes."
ABEHUNDIS (or ABER HONDDHU)
The Welsh name for Brecknock, q.v.
ABERGANY
(i.e. ABERGAVENNY). A market town of some 5000 inhabitants in Monmouthsh.
It is supposed to be the old Roman station of Gobannium. It gives his title to
the Lord A. mentioned in H8 i.
1, 211; i. 2, 137. He was George Nevill, the 13d holder of the title, born 1471.
He married Mary, daughter of the D. of Buckingham, and was imprisoned in the Tower
for concealment of the D. 's treasonable words; but was soon released and restored
to favour. In 1530 he was the premier baron of England. He died in 1535. The 2nd
Baron, who was knighted at the battel of Tewkesbury, is mentioned in Ford's Warbeck
iii. 1. as George A. He died in 1491. Henry, the 4th Baron, is mentioned in
Stucley 153, where Newton tells
old Stucley, "Th' other day I saw him [young Stucley] come up Fleet st. with the
Lord Windsor and Lord Aburganny." His town house was at the N. end of Ave Mary
Lane. It was subsequently bought by the Stationers' Company for their Hall, and
was destroyed in the Gt. Fire. Jonson, in Wales, gives a string of Welsh names
beginning with Aber-, including A., Abercromy, Abertau, Aberdugledhaw, Aberhondhy,
and Aberconway.
ABIDAS, ABIDOS
See ABYDOS.
ABINGDON
An ancient town, the capital of Berks., at the junction of the Ock and Thames,
56 m. N.W. of Lond. It had a famous abbey, founded in the 12th cent., of which
one of the gateways may still be seen. It is the scene of Abington;
in ii. 2, Coomes boasts that he has "drunk all the alehouses in Abington dry."
Yellowhammer, in Middleton's Chaste Maid,
belongs to "the Yellowhammers in Oxfordsh. near A." A. is close to the boundary
between Oxfordsh. and Berks., some 5 or 6 m. S. of Oxford. There was a fine cross
in the Market Pl., set up in the reign of Henry VI; but it was destroyed by the
Puritans in the course of the Civil War of Charles I's time. In the Conference
between the Monarchs of France and Spain (1642), the K. of France says, "It is
buzzed abroad in England that the crosses shall all be pulled down; of which I
have heard that A. and Cheapside crosses excell all."
ABIS
See ABUS.
ABSYRTIDES
Two islands, now Cherso and Osero, in the N.E. corner of the Adriatic, at the
entrance of the Gulf of Flume. Said to have been called after Absyrtus, the brother
of Medea, reported to have been killed by her there. In T. Heywood's B.
Age iii., Homer says, "In memory of this inhuman deed These islands where
his slaughtered limbs lie spread Were called A."
ABUS (or ABY)
The old Roman name for the r. Humber, which falls into the N. Sea between Yorks.
and Lincs. In Locrine ii. 6, 25,
Humber, after his victory in Scotland over Albanact, calls on his Huns to march
"to Abis silver streams"; which, he says in iii. 2, 4, "shall be agnominated by
our name." In iv. 4, 31, Humber, abt. to drown himself in the r., says, "Gentle
Aby, take my troubled corpse." Spencer, F. Q. ii. x. 16, mentions "the ancient
A." and tells how Humber was drowned in it.
ABYDOS
(now Ammo). A city of Mysia, in Asia Minor, on the Asiatic side of the Hellespont,
a little E. of its narrowest part, where it is something less than 1 m. across.
According to the old Greek legend, which was very popular in Elizabethan times,
Leander used to swim across from A. to Sestos, where his mistress Hero lived;
a distance of abt. 3 m. He was at last drowned on one of these excursions. In
Taming of a Shrew, Haz. p. 529, Philema
says that if her lover were Leander, "With bended knees upon Abidas shore I would
. . . . Importune Neptune and the watery gods To send a guard . . . to be our
convoy." In Jonson's Barthol. v. 3, Leatherhead,
introducing his puppet-play of Hero and Leander, says, "Leander yet serves his
father, a dyer at Puddle-wharf Which place we'll make bold with to call it our
Abydus; At the Bankside is our Sestos; and let it not be denied us." Marlowe begins
his poem Hero and Leander thus: "In view and opposite to two cities stood, The
one A., the other Sestos hight." Nash, in Lenten, p. 317, says of Leander, "At
Sestos was his soul and he could not abide to tarry in A." W. Smith, in Chloris
xxv. 10 (1596), says, "Love made Leander pass the dreadful flood Which Cestos
from A. doth divide." In B. & F. Wife
v. 3, Valerio says, "A. brought me forth": suggesting that he has come over
to seek the love of Evanthe. See also SESTOS.
ACADEME
(Gk. Academeia). A garden on the N. side of Athens, abt. 1 m. from the walls,
where Plato taught. The name came to be applied to any place where Philosophy
was cultivated, as in L. L. L. i.
1, 13: "Our court shall be a little A." Biron thinks that "women's eyes are the
books, the arts, the a.s That show, contain, and nourish all the world," L.
L. L. iv. 3, 352. In Massinger's Believe
i. 1, Antiochus, in exile, is exhorted to "Practise the golden principles
read to you In the Athenian Academy." In Histrio
iv. 152, Chrisogonus Laments the decay of learning; "pale Artizans Pine in the
shades of gloomy A.'s, Faint in pursuit of virtue and quite tired, For want of
liberal food for liberal art"; which is intended as a satire upon the Universities
of Oxford and Cambridge. In the old Timon
ii. 1, Gelasimus says, "By Jupiter, I am no Academian, no fool." Middleton, lamenting
the poverty of scholars, says in Hubburd (1604), p. 101, "No A. makes a rich alderman."
In preface to Tiberius the publisher
says of the author: "By his speech it should seem that his father was an Academian,"
i.e. a university man. Marston, in Scourge of Villanie ii. 6, 201, says,
"Then straight comes Friscus, that neat gentleman, that new discarded Academian."
In Greene's Friar ii. 6, Bacon addresses
the University dons: "Now, masters of our Academic state, That rule in Oxford."
Milton, P. R. iv. 244, says, "See there the olive-grove of A, Plato's retirement,
where the Attic bird Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long." In B. &
F. Elder B. v. 1, Eustace speaks
of the Court "That is the abstract of all academies To teach and practise noble
undertakings." Note that the word is here accented on the 3rd syllable.
ACANTHA
Mentioned in Marlowe Tamb. B. ii. 1,
along with Belgasar, Antioch, and Caesarea, as places to which the Turk had sent
his forces after the battle of Nicopolis. Probably Acanthus is meant: a town on
the E. side of the peninsula between Acte and the mainland on the E. coast of
Greece. It was a place of some importance in ancient times; the modern vill. of
Erisso occupies its site.
ACARNANIA
District on W. coast of Greece, between the Gulf of Arta and the Gulf of Corinth.
It is a hilly and forest-covered land. In Com. Cond. (A. P. iv. p. 210), Nomides
says, "Clotted hard Acarnan's frost doth freeze on dale and hill." In T. Heywood's
Dialogues iv. 3285, Demeas praises Timon for his valour "when he against the Achernenses
fought." He never did any such thing, as he himself protests, the Acarnanians
being on the Athenian side in the Peloponesian war. In his B.
Age i. 1, the r-god Achelous says, "Ne'er let my streams wash A.'s banks .
. . till . . . we lodge bright Deianeira in our art." The Achelous is the boundary
between A. and AEtolia.
ACARON
See ACHERON.
ACCARON
(i.e. EKRON). One of the cities of the Philistine Pentapolis, now Akir, 24 m. W. of Jerusalem. Milton, P. L. 1, 466, says that Dagon was "dreaded through the coast Of Palestine in Gath and Ascalon, And A. and Gaza's frontier bounds." In S.A. 981, Dalila says, "In Ecron, Gaza, Ashdod, and in Gath I shall be named among the famousest Of women."
ACHAIA
Originally a small dist. in the North of the Peloponesus in Greece. After the formation of the Achaean League 280 B.C. the name was applied to all the dist. which it included; and after the Roman conquest the S. Province, comprising the Peloponesus and the greater part of Greece proper, was called Achaea. The dramatists of our period use it in this wider sense.
The hero of Massinger's Believe
is Antiochus the Gt., who fought unsuccessfully against the Romans in Greece
in 191 B.C. and was defeated at Thermopylae. In i. 1, he tells us how the "bodies,
gashed with wounds, Which strowed A.'s bloody plains," haunt him, "exacting
a strict account of my ambition's folly." In i. 2, a Greek merchant, complaining
of the tyranny of the Romans, exclaims. "O Antiochus! Thrice happy were the
men whom Fate appointed To fall with thee in A." In B. & F. Corinth
iii. 1, Crates charges Euphanes with putting up the tithes "of every office
through A." In Barry's Ram i., Teiresias
is referred to as "the blind An. prophet"; as a matter of fact, he was a Theban.
In Hercules iv. 2, 2255, Jove says,
"I [am] that Amphitruo that slew those outlaws . . . who with their piracy awed
all Archaia"where Archaia is an obvious misprint for A. In Tiberius
2151, Maximius relates how Germanicus, on his way to Armenia in A.D.18, "sailed
to Brundusium, So to A., and from thence to Rhodes." In York M. P. xlvi. 292,
Andrew undertakes to go "To A. full lely that lede for to leche." According
to the consensus of tradition Andrew was martyred at Patrae, on the coast of
A., where a ch. dedicated to him preserves his memory.
ACHARON, ACHARUSIAN
See ACHERON, ACHERUSIAN MARSH.
ACHE
See AIXLACHAPELLE.
ACHELOUS
A r. of ancient Hellas, now the Aspropotamo, rising in the Pindus range and flowing
S. between AEtolia and Acarnania to the Ionian Sea. The r.-god was widely worshipped
throughout Greece. The story of his fight with Heracles for the hand of Deianeira,
the daughter of OEneus, K. of Calydon, is the subject of Act I of T. Heywood's
B. Age. He speaks of himself as
"eldest son Unto the grave and old Oceanus And the nymph Nais, born on Pindus
Mt."
ACHERNENSES
See ACARNANIA.
ACHERON
Properly a r. of Epeirus, in Thesprotia, supposed to be the entrance to the lower
world. The name was later transferred in other legends to other regions; and ultimately
to one of the r. of the lower world itself. Homer, Odyss. x. 513, says, "There
into A. Cocytus glides, streaming from Styx, and Pyriphlegithon." In Tit.
iv. 3, 44, Titus says, "I'll dive into the burning lake below, And pull her out
of A. by the heels." In Mac. iii.
5, 15, Hecate summons the witches to meet her "at the pit of A." In M.
N. D. iii. 2, 357, Oberon commands Puck to cover up the starry welkin "With
drooping fog as thick as A." The Renaissance writers all identified the Greek
with the Christian underworld, for which they could quote Dante's warrant. According
to him, the A. is the stream over which Charon ferries the departed souls and
which encircles the mouth of Hell. The Styx fills the 5th circle. The Phlegethon
is a r. of boiling blood; and all the waters of Hell collect into the frozen lake
of Cocytus. In Locrine iv. 2, 67,
Humber speaks of "The hunger-bitten dogs of A. Chased from the ninefold Puriflegiton."
In Span. Trag. v., we find "the
loathsome pool of A."; and "boiling A." In Marlowe's Faustus
vii, Faust swears by "the kingdoms of infernal rule, Of Styx, of A., and the fiery
lake of ever-burning Phlegethon." In Mason's Mulleasses
i. 2, 579, Eunuchus proposes to kill Bordello, "whose humorous soul Shall in his
passage over A. Make Charon laugh." Massinger, in Parl.
Love, v. 1, speaks of a sulphur brand plucked from "burning A." In B. & F.
Fair Maid I. iii. 1, Forobosco threatens
to "call a host up from the Stygian lakes Shall waft thee to the Acherontic fens."
Hall, in Satires iii. 6, 2, tells how the drunkard Gullion, when he died, wanted
to drink; but Charon was afraid lest he "would have drunk dry the r. A." Milton,
P. L. ii. 578, calls it" Sad A. of sorrow, black and deep." In Philotus 123, Flavius
conjures the spirits "By Matthew, Mark, by Luke and John, By Lethe, Stix, and
A." Hence A. is often used without any specific reference to the r. as a synonym
for Hell. In Locrine iv. 4, Humber
appeals to the "damned ghosts of joyless A." In Kyd's Cornelia ii., Cornelia says,
"I am an offering ft for A." In Brewer's Lovesick
King iv., Grim talks of raking "hell and Phlegitan, Acaron and Barrathrum."
In Chapman's D'Olive iv. 1, Vandome
arrests St. Anne "in the names Of Heaven and Earth and deepest A." In Barnes'
Charter i. 4, Pope Alexander says, "In spite of grace, conscience, and A., I will rejoice and triumph in my charter";
and in iii. 5, Bagnioli addresses Frescobaldi as "foul fend of A." In W. Rowley's
All's Lost iv. 1, 119, Julianus says,
"I brought thee to a shame Stains all the way twixt earth and A." In Milton's
Comus 604, the Elder Brother speaks of "all the grisly legions that troop Under
the sooty flag of A." Barnes, in Trans. of Moschus Idyl i., says of Cupid: "Even
so far as A. he shooteth."
ACHERUSIAN MARSH
A small lake in Campania, between Cumae and Cape Misenum. The name was probably
given to it in consequence of its propinquity to Acheron, whose reputation for
being connected with the infernal world in shared. There were several lakes of
this name in Greece, the best known being the one in Thesprotia, through which
the Acheron flowed. In Richards' Messalina
ii. 821, Messalina prays that she may "win the misty souls of men And send them
tumbling to th' A. fen." In Mason's Mulleasses
1835, Borgias speaks of "Those mists felt by the souls of men When they descend
to th' A. fen."
ACON
(better known as ACRE or, more fully, ST. JEAN D'ACRE). The ancient Accho, a port
on the coast of Palestine, at the N. extremity of the Bay of Acre, immediately
N. of Mt. Carmel. It received the name of Ptolemais from Ptolemy Soter. It was
taken from the Saracens in 1110 by the Crusaders, recovered by Saladin in 1187,
retaken in 1191 by Richd. I, and handed over to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem,
who held it for exactly a century. In 1271 it was visited by Prince Edward, afterwards
Edward I, and his Q. Elinor, who is reported to have saved his life there by sucking
the poison from a wound made by an envenomed dagger. Here his daughter Joan was
born. Edward says, in Peele's Ed. I,
p. 37, that when Elinor "progressed in the sts. of A. and the fair Jerusalem"
she walked on nothing but arras, tapestry, and silk. Later, p. 50, Elinor pleads
with the K.: "Good Ned, let Joan of A. be his (Gloster's) bride." In Trouble. Reign Robert relates how his father was knighted "at kingly Richd.'s hands in
Palestine, When as the walls of A. gave him way" (Hazlitt's edn., p. 227). In
Downfall Huntington iv. 1, John
says, "Richd. is a k. In Cyprus, A., Acre, and rich Palestine." A. and Acre are
the same, and the sense as well as the metre requires the omission of Acre from
the line; it was, no doubt, a gloss on the less familiar A. Later in the same
scene Leicester says, "Thus did Richd. take The coward Austria's colours in his
hand And thus he cast them under A. walls." Drayton, in Barone Wars ii. 45, speaks
of the English barons "Who summoned A." with an English drum.
ACROCERAUNIA
A promontory in the Ionian Sea on the coast of Epirus; also applied to the mtn.
range in N. Epirus, which terminates in the promontory. In the old Timon
i. 2, Eutrapelus swears "by the An. mtns." And Abyssus retorts, "Thou shalt not
fright me with thy bugbear words, thy mtns. of A."
ACTEAN
In Greene & Lodge's Looking Glass
v. 5, 2261, England is addressed as "more fruitful than A. plains." The earliest
k. of Athens, according to Pausanias, was Actaeus; so possibly the meaning is
"the plains of Attica." The name Acte was given to the most easterly of the 3
promontories of Chalcidice; but it is hard to see how this could be regarded as
specially fruitful.
ACTIACK SEA
The portion of the Adriatic near Actium, q.v. In May's Agrippina
iii. 210, Seneca speaks of the civil discords which dyed "the A. and Sicilian
seas" with Roman blood. The reference is to the defeat of Antony by Octavian 31
B.C.
ACTIUM
A promontory in Acarnania on the W. coast of Greece to the S. of the Bay of Previsa,
where the decisive battle was fought between Octavian and Antony 31 B.C. A.
& C. iii., Scenes 710, are laid here. "Our overplus of shipping we will
burn," says Antony (iii. 7, 52), "And with the rest full-manned, from the head
of A. Beat the approaching Caesar." F. i. reads "action," but Pope's emendation
"A." is generally accepted. Chaucer's glorious description of the battle in Leg.
Fair Wom. 624 seq. should be read. In Antonie iii.1114, Antony cries, "One disordered
act at A . . . . my glory hath obscured."
ADAM AND EVE
The sign of the first shop in Goldsmiths' Row on the S. of Cheapside. In Marston,
Malcontent Prol., Sly says, "I'll
lay 100 pound I'll walk but once down by the Goldsmiths' Row in Cheap, take notice
of the signs and tell you them with a breath instantly . . . . They begin, as
the world did, with A. and E.; there's in all just 5 and 50." It was also a bookseller's
sign. Middleton's Old Law was
"Printed for Edward Archer at the sign of the A. and E. in Little Britaine. 1656."
ADEA
A country in E. Africa, placed by Heylyn between Ade and Habassia (Abyssinia);
it was therefore on the E. and S.E. of Abyssinia. Pory (1600) places it on the
E. coast between Cape Guardafui and Zanzibar. In Cockayne's Obstinate
iii. 3, Corionil, disguised as a negro, professes to be ambassador "from the Emperor
of both the Ethiopias and of the mighty kingdoms and vast countries of Goa, Caffares,
Fatigar, Angola, Barns, Balignosa, A., Vagne, and Goyame." This is identical with
the list of the titles of the Emperor of Ethiopia, given by Heylyn in the section
on AEthiopia Superior.
ADDLE HILL
A st. in Lond., running from Upper Thames St. to Gt. Carter Lane. The S. tad of
it was demolished by the formation of Q. Victoria St. Here Dekker's Shoemaker's
was printed by Valentine Sims "at the foot of Adling H. near Baynards Castle at
the sign of the White Swan."
ADERSTOE
In the True Trag., p. 113, Richmond
says, "Therefore let us towards A. amaine . . . . From thence towards Lichfield
we will march next day." Atherstone, a town in Warwicksh., is intended. It is
exactly 100 m. from Lond., Liverpool, and Lincoln, and 8 m. S.W. of Bosworth Field.
ADIABENE
Province of the Assyrian Empire, lying between the Tigris and the Zab, near to Nineveh. Milton, P. R. iii. 320, speaks of troops "From Atropatia, and the neighbouring plains Of A."
ADRIA
See ADRIATIC.
ADRIAN (SAINT)
See HADRIAN.
ADRIANOPLE
The 2nd city in the Turkish Empire. It was enlarged sad embellished by the Emperor Hadrian, from whom it took its name. It lies on the Maritza (the ancient Hebrus), some 75 m. from its mouth and 135 m. N.W. of Constantinople. Taken by the Sultan Murad I in 1360, it has since remained in the Turkish Empire. In Selimus 518, Mustapha exhorts Baiazet, "Make haste, my Lord, from Adrinople walls And let us fly to fair Bizantium." This was in 1512, when Selim rebelled against his father Baiazet and deposed him.
ADRIATIC SEA
Between Italy and Illyria. In Shr.
i. 2, 74, Petruchio says, "She moves me not. .: were she as rough As are the swelling
A. Seas": a natural simile for an Italian. Herrick, in Dial. between Horace and
Lydia (1627), makes Lydia call Horace "Rough as the Adriatick S. In K.
K. Hon. Man, D. 3, Sempronio speaks of Venice as "Built in an angle of the
Andrie arctic sea": a curious miswriting or misprint. In Marlowe Jew
i. 1, Barabas conjectures that the, Turkish fleet which bas been sighted intends
"to pass along Towards Venice by the A. Sea." In Jonson's Ev.
Man I. ii. 2, Brainworm claims, "I have been at Marseilles, Naples, and the
A. Gulf, a gentleman-slave in the gallies." Prisoners-of-war were employed both
by the Venetians and the Turks as galley-slaves. Spenser, F. Q. ii. 7, 14, tells
of the evils endured by the man "Who in frail wood on Adrian gulf doth fleet."
Milton, P. L. i. 520, speaks of the Greek gods "who with Saturn old Fled over
Adria to the Hesperian fields."
ADRUMENTUM (or HADRUMETUM)
A spt. on the N. coast of Africa, 80 m. S. of Carthage; extensive ruins at Suss
marked its site; but even these have mostly disappeared. In Nabbes' Hannibal
iv. a, a messenger, an account of the battle of Zama, says, "500 only live of
40,000, which to A. Are fled with Hannibal."
AEAS (or AOUS)
Chief r. of Epirus, rising in Mt. Lacmaon in the, N. part of the Pindus Range, and flowing N.W. into the Adriatic, close to Apollonia.
In T. Heywood's Dialogues 5245, Io mentions the A. amongst the rs. in the
neighbourhood of the Vale of Tempe. In Chapman's Caesar
ii. 5, 24, Caesar, who is at Apollonia, says, "This r. Anius (in whose mouth
now lies A pinnace I would pass in to fetch on My army's dull rest from Brundusium)
That is at all times else exceeding calm By reason of a purling wind that flies
Off from the shore each morning, driving up The billows far to sea, in this
night yet Bears such a terrible gale put off from sea, . . . that no boat dare
stir." The description of the r. is taken from Plutarch's Caesar 38. The A.
or Aous is almost certainly the r. intended by Anius, though some have taken
it to be the Apsus, a river falling into the Adriatic abt. 11 m. N. of the mouth
of the Aous.
AEGEAN SEA
The part of the Mediterranean now called Archipelago, between Asia Minor and Greece.
In Chapman's `s Caesar v. 1, Pompey
is at Lesbos "compassed in With the AE. sea that doth divide Europe from Asia."
In Caesar's Rev. i. 6, Caesar says,
"To chase the flying Pompey have I cut The great Ionian and Egean seas." This
was after the defeat of Pompey at Pharsalia in 48 B.C. In T. Heywood's Gold.
Age iii, Tytan says, "From the AE. Sea That of our son AEgeon bears the name
We have assembled infinites of men." In Randolph's Muses
v. 1, Mediocrity speaks of the Isthmus of Corinth as "the small isthmus That suffers
not the AE. tide to meet The violent rage of the Ionian wave." In Hercules
iv. 3, 2.256, Jove claims to have overthrown the pirates who "awed . . . the Ionian,
AEgaean, and Cretick seas." Spenser, F.Q. iii. 7, 26, says, "Not half so fast,
to save her maidenhead, Fled fearful Daphne on the AE. strond," i.e. the
shore of Thessaly. Milton, P. L. i. 746, calls Lemnos "the AE. isle." In P.R.
iv. 238, he says, "behold Where on the AE. shore a city stands. . Athens." Tofte,
in Laura (1597) iv. 1, says, "In the Egean dangerous sea of love . . . . A new
Arion, there myself I find."
AEGEON'S HELL
Mt. AEtna, so called from the legend which affirmed that after the war between
the Gods and the Giants Zeus buried AEgaeon, or Briareus, under this mtn. In Middleton's
Family iv. 2, Gerardine speaks of
"the Titanian god when M. H. 'a mounts in triumph."
AEGERIAN WOOD
A grove in a valley at Rome, S. of the Coelian Hill, just outside the Porta Capena.
It was so called from the legend that the nymph Egeria used to meet Numa Pompilius
there. In Tiberius 2663, Tiberius
directs "Me to the altars, the AE. W."
AEGINA
An island of Greece, in the Saronic Gulf, over against the Piraeus. In the early days of Greece a great centre of trade, it originated the AEginetan standard of weights and measures generally adopted throughout Greece, the rival standard being the Euboic; the former was abt. one-sixth larger than the latter. In T. Heywood's Dialogues iv. 3499, Thrasicles begs from Timon "but 2 AE. bushels [of gold], that's all."
AELFT
In Larum A3, Danila says, "From AE.
2000 more [Spanish troops] Follow the conduct of Emanuell." Later on (B2) he calls
it Alft. The author's spelling is very erratic, and he probably means Delft; he
may have taken the initial "D" for the French preposition, and thought the town
was called D'AElft. See DELFT.
AEMATHIA
See EMATHIA.
AEMILIAN PLACE
The Basilica Fulvia et AEmilia in the middle of the N.E. side of the Forum at
Rome. Built by M. Fulvius Nobilior and M. AEmilius Lepidus in 179 B.C. restored
in 54 B.C. by L. AEmilius Paullus, and again restored and decorated by Paullus
AEmilius Lepidus in A.D. 22. Pliny considered it one of the most beautiful buildings
in the world. In Jonson's Sejanus
i. 2, the Emperor approves 6f the grant of the Senate to Lepidus "for his repairing
the AE. P. And restoration of those monuments."
AEMILIAN ROAD
One of the great Roman rds., constructed by M. AEmilius Lepidus 187 B.C. It started at Ariminum, and proceeded by way of Placentia, Mediolanum, and Aquileia. At Ariminum it joined the Via Flaminia from Rome. It was the chief artery of communication with N. Italy. In Milton P. R. iv. 69, the Tempter points out embassies to Rome "In various habits, on the Appian rd., Or on the AE."
AENON
Mentioned in Gospel of John iii. 21 as a place where John the Baptist exercised his ministry, because there was much water there. It has been identified by Conder with Ainun, in the Wady Farah, 7 m. from Salim. Milton, P. R. ii. a 1, describes the disciples seeking for Jesus "in Jericho, The city of palms, AE., and Salem old."
AEOLIANS
One of the 4 tribes into which the Hellenes are usually divided. Apparently their original settlement was in the centre of Thessaly; but later they migrated into Boeotia, and established colonies in Lesbos, where the Aeolian dialect was spoken in its standard form and immortalized by the lyrics of Sappho and Alcaeus. Milton, P. R. iv. 257, speaks of "various measured verse, Aeolian charms and Dorian lyric odes"; "Aeolian charms" is a translation of Horace's "Aeolium carmen," meaning the lyrics of Sappho.
AESQUILINE
See ESQUILINE.
AETHIOPIA
See ETHIOPIA.
AETNA (or ETNA)
The largest volcano in Europe, in N.E. Sicily, near the coast. Of its 60 recorded
eruptions, 17 occurred during the 16th and 17th cents., the most memorable being
that Of 1537, which continued for a year and shook the whole island. As Vesuvius
had been quiescent ever since the great eruption in which Pompeii and Herculaneum
were destroyed in A.D. 79 until it once more gave signs of its inward fires in
1631, and as Hecla was below the horizon of our dramatists, AE. was practically
the only active volcano they knew anything about, and had to do heavy duty as
the stock figure for passionate feeling of any kind, whether of love or of agony.
The breath of Lucrece "Thronging through her lips, so vanisheth As smoke from
AE., that in air consumes "(Lucrece 1042). Falstaff (M.
W. W. iii. 5, 129) protests, "I will be thrown into AE., as I have been into
Thames, ere I will leave her thus." Marcus (Tit.
iii. 1, 242) prays, "Now let hot AE. cool in Sicily, And be my heart as ever-burning
hell." In Peele's Ed. I, p. 42, the
Lady Elinor will follow Lluellen even if he builds his bower "on AE.'s tops."
Argalio, in Kirke's Champions iv.
1, talks of "The black compounded smoke the Cyclops send From the foul sulphur
of hot AE.'s forge," alluding to the ancient legend that the Cyclopes were the
assistants of Vulcan, who had his forge beneath the mtn. Tamburlaine speaks of
"AE. breathing fire" (Tamb. B v. 3).
Fowler, in Shirley's Fair One iii.
4, would "rather take a nap on the ridge of E." than endure a visit from a physician.
Sciarrha, in Shirley's Traitor iv.
2, wishes that he "could vomit consuming flames, or stones, like E." to destroy
Lorenzo. Sim, in W. Rowley's Match Mid.
iv. 1, speaks of "the parboyled AE." of Randal's bosom, who is in love with Moll.
Bassanes, in Ford's Heart iv. 2,
prays: "Fall on me, if there be a burning AE., and bury me in flames." Aretus,
in B. & F. Valentin. v. 1, "swells
and burns like flaming AE." In Massinger's Milan
v. 2, Sforza, poisoned by Francisco, feels "an AE. in his entrails."
"Princes' discontents," says Janin in Chapman's Trag.
Byron iii. 1, "Being once incensed, are like the flames of AE., Not to be
quenched or lessened." In his Bussy
iii. 1, Montsurry threatens to strike D'Ambois "under the AE. of his pride":
with reference to the story of the giant Enceladus, on whom AE. was flung in
the war between the Giants and Zeus. In Jonson's New World, the Herald announces
that there are 3 ways of going to the moon: "the third, old Empedocles' way;
who, when he leaped into AE., the smoke took him and whift him up into the moon."
In T. Heywood's Dialogues xvi. 4606, Menippus asks Empedocles, "What was the
cause Thou threw'st thee headlong into AE.'s jaws?" Milton, P. L. iii. 470,
refers to him "who, to be deemed A god, leaped fondly into M.'s flames, Empedocles."
In Looking Glass iii., the Magus
describes an eruption of AE.: "The hill of Sicily Sometime on sudden doth evacuate
Whole flakes of fire and spews out from below The smoky brands that Vulcan's
bellows drive"; and in v, the Usurer anticipates the Day of Judgement as "a
burden more than AE." In Marston's Insatiate
iv., Guido says, "Love is AE. and will ever burn." In Greene's Orlando
ii. 1, 6 18, Orlando says, "AE., forsake the bounds of Sicily For now in me
thy restless flames appear." In Alimony 1, 3, Haxter tells how he caught the
Neapolitan disease (syphilis): "ever since which hot AEthnaean service my legs
have been taught to pace iambics." In Davenant's U.
Lovers v. 4, there is a song containing the lines "If you want fire, fetch
a supply From AE. and Puteoli." In Lady
Mother i. 2, the Lady says, "I have shed tears enough to extinguish AE."
In Chapman's Usher i. 2, Strozza
describes the charge of a boar "With the enraged AE. of his breath Firing the
air." In Swetnam ii, Lisandro professes
his readiness to "scale the flaming AE.'s top Whose sulphurous smoke kills with
infection," to win his lady. In Dekker's Babylon
ii. 271.1 in the description of the defeat of the Spanish Armada, the 3rd K.
cries, at the sight of the fire-ships: "The sulphurous AE. belcheth on our ships."
Spenser, F. Q. i. ii, 44, describes how "burning AE. from his boiling stew Doth
belch out flames and rocks in pieces broke." Milton, P. L. i. 233, speaks of
"a hill Torn . . . from the shattered side of thundering AB." In Mason's Mulleasses
183 1, Borgias prays that he may "be thrown Like AEn. balls from heaven and
strike you down." Watson, in Tears of Fancie (1593) xviii. 7, speaks of his
heart "like AE. Burning" with love. Barnes, in Parthenophil lxxv. 11, asks whether
the father of Cupid was "Vesuvius, else for was it E. rather?" Lodge, in Phillis
(159.3), asks the sea-nymphs "To quench the flames from my heart's AE. streaming."
W. Smith, in Chloris (1596), says of his love, "The flames of E. are not half
so hot."
AETOLIA
A dist. of ancient Greece lying N. of the Corinthian Gulf between Locris and Acarnania.
The AEns. took part in the Trojan war. In Marlowe's Dido
iii., Sergestus recognizes one of Dido's suitors as "a Persian born; I travelled
with him to AE. In T. Heywood's B. Age
i. 1, "OEneus the AEns' K." presides over the contest between Achelous and Heracles
for the hand of his daughter Deianeira. He was K. of Calydon (q.v.) in
AE. Diomedes was of AEn. descent, and being expelled from Argos after the siege
of Troy returned thither and there died. In his Iron
Age B. i., Cressida speaks of him as "Diomed K. of AE. which is not strictly
correct. In Hercules iv. 3, 2256,
Jove claims to have overcome the pirates who "awed all Archaia; AE., Phocis."
AFRICA
(usually spelt AFFRICK; Ac. = Afric, Afk. = Affrick, An. = African). The An. countries
on the coast of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea were well known; and the Portuguese
navigators had explored most of the coastline. The interior was almost a terra
incognita. It was believed to be mainly a huge desert, fertile in uncouth monsters,
and rich in gold and gems and spices. To the Elizabethans A. meant chiefly the
states on the S. coast of the MediterraneanEgypt, Tripoli, Tunis, Algiers,
Fez, and Morocco, all the inhabitants of which, except the Egyptians, are classed
together as Moors. In Marlowe's Tamb. A.
iii. 3, Tamburlaine describes the pirates of Argier as "the scum of A.," and he
repeatedly declares his intention of conquering A., by which the N. states only
are meant. In v. 1, he speaks of his dominions as including "Egyptians, Moors,
and men of Asia, From Barbary unto the Western India"; and says, "From the bounds
of Ac. to the banks Of Ganges shall his mighty arm extend." He speaks a little
before of being with his triumphant host "in Ac. where it seldom rains." In i.
1, Ortygius proclaims Cosroe "D. of A. and Albania." In Faustus
vii., Mephistopheles mentions "the high pyramides Which Julius Caesar brought
from A.": where Egypt is meant. Greene, in Friar
ix., talks of "rich Alexandria drugs Found in the wealthy strand of A." In Faustus
iii, one of the projects of Faustus is "To join the hills that bound the Ac. shore
And make that country continent to Spain." In his Dido
iii., Dido is called the "Q. of Ac. In Rowley's All's
Lost i. 1, 24, Medina speaks of "the streights of Gibralter whose watery divisions
their Affricke bounds from our Christian Europe."
In Temp. ii. 1, 71, Gonzalo declares,
"Our garments are now as fresh as when we put them on first in Ac., at the marriage
of the K.'s fair daughter Claribel to the K. of Tunis"; and in ii. 1, 125, Sebastian
reproaches the K. with having lost his daughter "to an An." Milton, P. L. i.
585, speaks of the troops "whom Biserta sent from Ac. shore When Charlemagne
with all his peerage fell By Fontarabbia." In P. R. ii. 347, he mentions amongst
table delicacies "fishes caught on Ac. coast." In P. L. ii. 199, he speaks of
Scipio Africanus as "He surnamed of A," and in iii. 101, says of him, "Young
An. for fame His wasted country feed from Punic rage." In Sonn. xvii. 4, he
calls Hannibal "the An. bold." Barnes, in Parthenophil (1593) lxxv. 4, says
to Cupid: "Hence into Ac.! There seek out thy kin Amongst the Moors!"
The English traded with the countries on the N. and W. coasts, particularly
with Barbary and Guinea. In Cowley's Cutter
i. 5, Jolly speaks of the time "when my brother the merchant went into Ak, to
follow his great trade there." It appears later that he went to Guinea. H. Shirley's
Mart. Soldier tells the story of
Genseric the Vandal's conquest of Carthage, his persecution of the Christians,
and his death. It deviates very much from historical accuracy. Genseric is represented
as a heathen, whereas he was an Arian Christian, and the objects of his persecution
were the orthodox Catholics. Belisarius is introduced as one of his generals,
and is put to death by him for becoming a Christian; whereas he does not come
upon the scene until A.D. 533, more than 50 years after the death of Genseric,
and then as the opponent and vanquisher of the Vandals in A. In i. 1, Genseric
speaks of the perfecting of his great work in Afk., the "general sacrifice of
Christians." In B. & F. Valentin.
i. 3, the soldiers pray to be sent to "Egypt Or sandy Ac., to display our valours."
This was at the time of Genseric's invasion of A.
It is interesting to note that the usual course taken by seamen for America
was to go S. till they sighted A., and then strike across the Atlantic. So in
Jonson's (and others) Eastward iii.
3, Seagull, speaking of Virginia, says the voyage thither will take "Some 6
weeks; and if I get to any part of the coast of A. I'll sail thither with any
wind." The heat of the An. deserts was proverbial. In Troil.
i. 3, 370, Ulysses says, "We were better parch in Ac. sun Than in the pride
and salt scorn of his eyes." In Stucley
2569, it is stated, "The sands of Ac. are so parching hot That when our blood
doth light upon the earth The drops do seethe like caldrons as they stand."
Their vast extent made them a type of utter loneliness. In Cym.
i. 1, 167, Imogen wishes that Posthumus and Cloten "were in Ac. both together,
Myself by with a needle, that I might prick The goer-back."
A. was rich in spices and gold. In H4
B. v. 3, 104, Pistol, bringing the news of Prince Hal's accession, says,
"I speak of A. and golden joys." In Taming
of a Shrew Haz. p. 532, Philotus speaks of "rich Afk. spices "In Ford's
Sun. iii. 2, Folly rays, "I drop like a cobnut out of A."
A. was full of fierce and venomous beasts. In Cor.
i. 8, 3, Aufidius declares, "Not Ac. owns a serpent I abhor More than thy fame."
In the old Timon iv. 2, Timon prays,
"Me transform into a dire serpent Or grisly lion, such a one as yet Ne'er Lybia
or A. hath seen." In Nabbes' Hannibal
iv. 5, Scipio says of Hannibal: "We'll hunt this Afk. lion into a stronger toil."
Above all, it was the home of strange monsters. Pliny, in Hist. Nat. viii. 16,
had said, "Semper novi aliquid affert A." In Fraunce's Victoria 2165, Onophrius
asks, "Quid novi affert A.?" Jonson, Ev.
Man O. iii. 1, speaks of "some unknown beast, brought out of A." Antiochus,
in Massinger Believe ii. 2, asks,
"[Why do] you gaze upon us As some strange prodigy ne'er seen in A.!" and in
Guardian ii. 2, says that for a
woman to love a man "is no Ac. wonder." In B. & F. Fair Maid I. iv. 2, Forobosco thinks that the exhibition of an English ox roasted
whole in Madrid would bring in more money "than all the monsters of Ac.," and
in Cupid's Rev. iii. 4, Dorilaus
maintains that, a good woman is "stranger than all the monsters in Ac." In Massinger's
Emperor iv. 5, the jealous Theodosius
will show his wife to be "a prodigy Which Ac. never equalled." In the old Timon
iii. 5, Timon speaks of woman-kind as "more monstrous than any monster bred
in A," and in v. 2, he speaks of "Some strange monster hatched in A." In Shirley's
Duke's Mist. iv. 1, Valerio says,
"Unless this face content you, you may stay Till Ac. have more choice of monsters
for you." In Milton's Comus 606, the Elder Brother speaks of "all the monstrous
forms Twixt A. and Ind." In Brewer's Lingua iii. 6, Phantastes says, "Either
A. must breed more monsters or you make fewer gentlemen, Mr. Herald, for you
have spent all my devices already": i.e. in coats-of-arms for new knights.
In Brome's Queen's Exch. ii. 2,
Jeffrey exclaims, "What monsters are bred in Affrica! I take you but for one."
R. Linche, in Diella (1596) xxx. 5, asks who can count "What misshaped beasts
vast A. doth yield?" Gosson, in preface to Ephemerides of Phialo (1579), says,
"There is ever a new knack in a knave's hood, or some kind of monster to be
seen in Affrik." Bacon, in Sylva v. 476, says, "It is held that that proverb,
A. semper aliquid monstri, cometh, for that the fountains of waters there being
rare, divers sorts of beasts come from several parts to drink; and so, being
refreshed, fall to couple, and many times with several kinds." In Cowley's Cutter
iv. 6, Worm says, "He was a stranger thing than any monster in Afk. where he
traded."
AGANIPPE
A spring dedicated to the Muses on the slopes of Mt. Helicon in Boeotia. It may
still be found, midway between Paleo-panaghia and Pyrgaki. In T. Heywood's Mistress
i. 1, Apuleius says, "Can'st thou conduct my wandering steps to A.'s spring!"
Sir P. Sidney, in Astrophel (1581) lxxiv. 1, says, "I never drank of A.'s well."
AGIDON
(probably a misprint for ALGIDON). Mt. Algidus is meant, in the N.E. art of the
Alban Range in Latium, abt. 20 m. S. E. of Rome. Here the AEquians had their camp
in the war in the time of Appius Claudius the Decemvir. In Webster's A.
& Virginia i. 1, Appius says, "The army that doth winter 'fore A. Is much
distressed, we hear."
AGINCOURT (or AZINCOUR)
A vill. in France in Pas-de-Calais department on the rd. from Abbeville to St.
Omer. Here Henry V inflicted a great defeat on the French on St. Crispin's Day,
25 October, 1415. The scene of H5
iii. 7, iv., and v. 1, is laid in the French or English camps at A. It is mentioned
in prol. 15: "May we cram Within this wooden O the very casques That did affright
the air at A.?" iv. prol. 52, "We shall much disgrace With 4 or 5 most vile and
ragged foils . . . the name of A."; and iv. 7, 92, "What is this castle called
that stands hard by?" "They call it A.""Then call we this the field
of A." Holinshed says, "He [Henry] desired of Mountjoie to 4, understand the name
of the castell neere adjoining"; when they had told him that it was called A.,
he said, "Then shall this conflict be called the battell of A." Jonson, in Prince
Henry's Barriers, says that the very name of Henry V "made head against his foes;
and here at A., where first it rose, It there hangs still a comet over France,
Striking their malice blind." In Middleton's Quiet
Life v. 1, George Cressingham declares, "It was no impeachment of the glory,
won at A.'s great battle that the achiever of it in his youth had been a purse-taker."
In Chapman's D'Olive iv. 1, D'Olive
says that after his embassy "A. battle shall grow out of use "for the dating of
events, which will all be reckoned as so many years from the great ambassage.
In T. Heywood's Ed. IV A. 52,
there is a three-man song: "Agencourt! Agencourt! know ye not Agencourt! Where
the English slew and hurt All the French foemen." Drayton, in Ballad of Agincourt
(1606) 11, says that K. Harry, "taking many a fort Furnished in warlike sort Marcheth
towards A. In happy hour."
AGINER
Mentioned in Stucley 2461 as one
of the towns held in Africa by the Portuguese. The list runs "A., Zahanra, Seuta,
Penon, Melilla." The last 3 are on the coast of Morocco, close to the Straits
of Gibraltar; and I am disposed to think that A. is a misprint or mis-spelling
of Tangier; which would come 1st in a list running from W. to E. along the coast.
Moreover, Tangier was one of the ports in Africa which had been retained by the
previous K. of Portugal, John III. In the Coventry M. P. of The Nativity, the
Angel addresses the 3 Ks. as "K. of Taurus, Sir Jaspar, K. of Araby, Sir Balthasar,
Melchior, K. of Aginar." I suppose Tangier may be meant here also.
AGORA
The market-place of Athens, lying W. of the Acropolis and S. of the Areopagus. In Davenant's Rutland, p. 200, Diogenes, who should have known better, says to the Athenians, "When you meet in the A. to make up the body-politic, 'tis like the meeting of humours in the natural body." The Athenian assembly did not meet in the A., but at the Pnyx to the W. of it.
AGRA
Capital of the N.W. Provinces, India. It lies on the Jumna, 740 m. W. of Calcutta. It was made the capital of the Mogul Empire by Akbar the Gt. (died 1603). Its chief glory is the Taj Mahal, built by Shah Jehan abt. the middle of the 17th cent. as a memorial to his favourite wife. Milton, P. L. xi. 391, mentions amongst the seats of mighty empire "A. and Lahore of Gt. Mogul."
AGRIPPA (BATHS of)
The 1st public baths in Rome, built by Agrippa 21 B.C. They were in the Campus
Martius, just S. of the site of the Pantheon. The building was magnificent, and
was adorned with costly paintings and statues. The water was the coldest and freshest
in Rome, and the Baths were in use until the 6th cent. Some ruined fragments still
survive. In May's Agrippina i. 339,
Vitellius mentions "A.'s Baths and Pompey's Theater" amongst the greatest buildings
of Rome.
AGRIVARII
(a misprint for ANGRIVARII), A tribe of Germans dwelling between the Weser and
the Elbe. They revolted against the Romans in A.D. 16, but were conquered by Germanicus
in 2 battles. See TACITUS, Ann. ii. 1924. In Tiberius
"31, Germanicus says, "The savage A. kept their den, Who ranging now and then
would snatch their prey"; and he then tells the story of the battle in which "The
savage A. all were drowned"; though he turns the Weser absurdly into "great Danubius."
AGUILEME (or ANGOULEME)
The capital of Angoumois Province, France, on the Carente, 250 m. S.W. Of Paris.
Angoumois was ceded to England by the Treaty of Bretigny 1360, but was recovered
by Charles V. In T. Heywood's Ed.
IV B. 94, Edward claims from France "all these Dukedoms following: Aquitaine,
Anjou, Guyen, A."
AIALON (or AJALON)
Valley of. In S. Palestine, leading down from the foothills to the plain of Philistia, abt. 12 m. N.W. of Jerusalem. Scene of the victory of Joshua over the Canaanites recorded in Joshua x. 12, 13. Milton, P. L. xii. 266, quotes Joshua's command, "Sun, in Gibeon stand, And thou moon, in the vale of A."
AIXLACHAPELLE
(the German AACHEN). An ancient city in the Province of the Lower Rhine, 80 m.
S.E. of Brussels and 38 W. of Cologne. Charlemagne made it the capital of the
N. portion of his empire, and his favourite residence during the latter part of
his reign. His tomb may still be seen in the cathedral. The Emperors of Germany
were often crowned here. Now chiefly famous for its medicinal baths. In Chapman's
Alphonsus ii. 3, 28, Richd. of Cornwall
says to himself, "Here rest thee, Richd . . . . And vow never to see fair England's
bounds Till thou in Aix be crowned Emperor." Burton, A.M. iii. 2, 2, 5, says Charlemagne
" . . . dwelt at Ache, built a fair house in the midst of the marsh, and a temple
by it where after he was buried, and in which city all his posterity ever since
used to be crowned."
ALADULE
Armenia Major, so called from its last K., Aladules. It is marked Aliduli in Hexam's Mercator (1636). Milton, P. L. x. 435, says that the Tartar, retreating from his Russian foe, "Leaves all waste beyond The realm of A."
ALANI
A Scythian tribe, first found living partly round the Sea of Azov, partly on the
Danube in the Sarmatian country. They joined with the Goths and Vandals in the
invasion of the W. Empire. Of their language only one word has been preserved,
"Ardaba," which means the city of the 7 gods. In Glapthorne's Wit
ii. 1, Thorowgood, pretending to be a scholar, says to Grace, "I'll read the dialect
of the Alanits, or Ezion Geber."
ALARKES
"Approved A." are mentioned in Stucley
2471 as amongst the "brave resolved Turks and valiant Moors "in the army of Abdelmelek
at the battle of Alcazar. Heylyn (s.v. BARBARIE) mentions Alarach as one
of the 6 principal towns of Morocco. I should guess it to be El Araish or Larash
at the mouth of the r. of the same name a little S. of Tangier.
ALBA LONGA
An ancient city of Latium, on E. side of Lake Alban, on the N. side of Alban Mt. Said to have been founded by Ascanius, the son of AEneas, and thus became the mother city of Rome. Destroyed in the reign of Tullus Hostilius. In Peele's Polyhymnia 174, we read of "The 3 Horatii in the field Betwixt the Roman and the An. camp." Spenser, F. Q. iii. 9, 43, says that Iulus, i.e. Ascanius, "in Long A. placed his throne apart."
ALBAN (SAINT) HALL
University of Oxford, named after Robertus de Sancto Albano, who owned the property in John's reign. The Hall is one of the oldest in Oxford, and stands on the S. side of King St., next to Merton. Massinger, the dramatist, was entered at St. A. H. in 1602.
ALBANIA
A country on E. coast of the Adriatic Sea, between Montenegro and the N. boundary
of Greece. After belaying in turn to Bulgaria and the Normans, the Ass. achieved
their independence, but in spite of the heroic resistance of the national idol,
George Castriote, called by the Turks Iskander, or Scander-beg (died 1466), the
country was finally conquered by the Turks in 1478. Castriote was the hero of
the lost play "Scanderbeg." In Jonson's Ev.
Man I. i. 2, Stephen calls the servant "Whoreson Scanderbeg rogue." Scanderbeg's
life appeared in an English translation in 1596. Spenser, F.Q. iii. 12, 10, describes
Doubt as having "sleeves dependent Albanesewise."
ALBANIA
Ancient country of Asia at the E. end of the Caucasus, now part of Russian Georgia.
Subdued by Pompeius 65 B.C. In Marlowe Tamb.
A. ii. 2, the Persian, Meander promises, "He that can take or slaughter Tamburlaine
Shall rule the province of A."; and in i. 1, Cosroes is crowned "D. of Africa
and A." In the account of Pompey's conquests in Chapman's Trag.
Byron v. 1, it is said, "The An. ks. he from their kingdoms chased And at
the Caspian Sea their dwellings placed." As a matter of fact, though Pompey conquered
them, he was only able to exact from them a nominal submission. In Greene's Alphonsus
iii. 2, Amurack commands Bajazet to "post away apace to Siria, Scythia, and A."
In B. & F. Friends iii. 2, the scene of which is laid in the time of the ks. of
Rome, Titus says that his mistress will appear "a white An. amongst AEthiops set."
Probably it was the idea that the word was derived from albus (white) that suggested
the comparison. Mandeville (ch. xiii.) falls into the same error: "After is A.,
a full great realm; so called because the people are whiter there than in other
countries thereabout."
ALBANIA (or ALBANY)
The old name for all Gt. Britain N. of the Humber; later used for Scotland. Holinshed,
i. 396, says, "The 3rd and last part of the island he [Brutus] allotted unto Albanecte
his youngest son. This latter parcel at the first took the name of Albanactus,
who called it A." Spenser, F. Q. ii. 10, T4, says, "Albanact had all the N. part,
Which of himself A. he did call." Really the name is derived from the root Alp,
which means a mtn. The husband of Goneril in Lear is the D. of A., in Sackville's
Ferrex v. 2, we read, "Pergus, the mighty d. of A., Is now in arm." In Locrine
ii. 6, Humbert decorates Hubba with a wreath for his chivalry "declared against
the men of A."; which was the kingdom of Albanact. In Peele's Ed.
I ix., Baliol addresses the Scottish peers as "Lords of A."; and throughout
the play A. is used for Scotland. In Fisher's Fuimus i. 3, Cassibelanus says,
"Haste you to the Scots and Picts, 2 names which now A.'s kingdom share." In Hughes'
Misfort. Arth. ii. 3, Gawin is described as the Alban k., i.e. the k. of
Scotland. Albanois is used for a Scotchman. In Dekker's Babylon
237, Palmio says to Paridel, an Englishman, "I'll bring you to a gentleman next
neighbour to your country, an Albanois."
ALBAN'S, ST.
(A. = Alban, A.'s = Alban's). A town in Herts., on the Ver, a tributary of the Colne. Close by is the site of the old Roman town of Verulam, from which Lord Bacon took his title. A., the British proto-martyr, suffered death here in the persecution of Diocletian in A.D. 297, and in his honour a Benedictine monastery was erected by Offa of Mercia in 796. The story of the martyrdom of A, or Albon, is told in W. Rowley's Shoemaker: in v. 2, 186, Crispin says, "A ch. then and a beauteous monastery On Holmhurst Hill, where Albon lost his head, Offa shall build; which I'll St. A. name In honour of our 1st English martyr's fame." There is a wrong identification here of Offa, the son of Alured, and the later Offa of Mercia. The modern town was founded by Ulsig, the 6th Abbot. It lies 24 m. N.W. of Lond., with which it is connected by the old Roman Wading St. 5 m. E. is Hatfield, which Henry VIII made into a royal palace. The old Abbey Ch., with its embattled tower and the longest Gothic nave in the world (284 ft.), still remains. In St. Michael's Ch., dating from the 10th cent, is the tomb of Lord Bacon.
Falstaff (H4 A. iv. 2, 50), on his march through Coventry, tells us that the
only shirt amongst his tatterdemalions was stolen "from my host at St. A.'s
or the red-nosed innkeeper of Daventry." Both places are on the rd. from Lond.
to Coventry. Shakespeare may probably enough have gone that way sometimes from
Warwicksh. to Lond. Poins (H4 B.
ii. 2, 185) w=ants Prince Hal that Doll Tearsheet was "as common as the way
between St. A.'s and Lond.," this being the rd. upon which all travellers from
Lond. to the N. would necessarily go. In H6 B. i. 2, 57, Gloucester is summoned
"to ride unto St. A.'s Whereas the k. and q. do mean to hawk"; and Sc. 1,
Act II is laid there . . . . We are told in i. 4, 76, that the K." is now 'm
progress towards St. A.'s," and on his arrival the hawking takes Place, followed
by the incident, taken from Sir T. More, of the pretended miracle wrought on
a blind man "at St. A.'s shrine," which Gloucester discovers, and then orders
the Masters of St. A.'s to flog the imposter out of town. It is a curious coincidence
that this very D. of Gloucester was buried in the Abbey Ch. near the shrine
of St. A., where his monument may stiff be seen. Indeed, his body was disinterred
in the 18th cent. and found to be almost perfectly preserved.
Two battles in the Wars of the Roses were fought at St. A.'s: the 1st on 22 May, 455, in which the Yorkists were victorious, Somerset was killed, and Henry VI taken prisoner; the and on Shrove Tuesday, 1461, in which Margaret defeated the Yorkists under the Earl of Warwick and retook K. Henry. The 1st is described in H6 B. v. 2 & 3: "St. A.'s battle won by famous York Shall be eternized in all age to come "(v. 3, 30). The 2nd is reported by Warwick in H6 C. ii. 1, 111141. In ii. 2, 103, Margaret taunts Warwick, "When you and I met at St. A.'s last, Your legs did better service than your hands"; and in iii. 2, 1, K. Edward relates how "at St. A.'s field This lady's husband, Sir Richd. Grey, was slain, His lands then seized on by the conqueror"; and adds that "in quarrel of the house of York This worthy gentleman did lose his life." These statements are plurally inaccurate; for the gentleman's name was John, not Richd.; he was fighting on the Lancastrian side; and it was Edward himself who seized his lands. Gloucester corrects one of these errors in 61 i. 3, 130, where he says to the unhappy Elizabeth, "Was not your husband In Margaret's battle at St. A.'s slain!" During the 1st battle of St. A.'s the D. of Somerset was killed under the sign on the Castle Inn (H6 B. v. 2, 68), "Underneath an alehouse, paltry sign, the Castle in St. A.'s, Somerset Hath made the wizard famous in his death." Hall, Chron., p. 233, says that Somerset "long before was warned to eschew all castles." The inn has disappeared, but was most likely in Holywell St.
There were many inns in the town, on account of its position on the rd. to
Lond. Most of Act V of Oldcastle takes place at St. A.'s, where Oldcastle takes
refuge in a carriers' inn called the Shears (v. 5). In Abington
i. 1, the boy says to Coomes, "Thou stand'st like the Bull at St. A 's"; "Boy
ye lie," says Coomes, "the Horns." I am not able to find any trace of these
3 inns; the last seems like a mere joke. In Randolph's Muses,
Banausus, amongst other projects, proposes to build a pyramid at St. A.'s "upon
whose top I'll set a hand of brass with a scrowl in it, to shew the way to Lond.,
for the benefit of travellers "(iii. 1). There was already a signpost there,
for in Shirley's Fair One iv.
6, Brains says, "I have asked her 2 or 3 questions, and she answers me with
holding out her hand, as the post at St. A.'s that points the way to Lond."
In B. & F. Wit Money iii. 1, Humphry prays, "At St. A.'s let all the inns be
drunk, not an host sober to bid her worship welcome." By the Ver are still visible
the ruins of Sopwell Nunnery, founded abt. 1100, where it is stated by Camden
that Henry VIII was married to Anne Boleyn. Dame Juliana Berners was once its
Prioress: she who wrote the Boke of Sainte Alban's. In B. & F. Thomas iv. 2,
Sebastian, anxious to be satisfied that his son is no Puritan, asks him about
his amours, and Thomas plays up to him. At List he inquires if he has seduced
the Sisters of St. A.'s; in reply he holds up 5 fingers."All 5," cries the delighted
father; "dat's my own boy l" 1a B. & F. Wit Money iii. 4, Lance sarcastically
asks if Valentine's troubles are to make the whole town shake, "Wits blasted
with your bulls, and Taverns withered as though the term lay at St. A's." I
take him to mean that if the law courts were to be removed to St. A.'s the taverns
of the City of Lond. would be withered for lack of the patronage of the lawyers.
Dekker, Lanthorn, says, "The m. between Hell and any place upon earth [are]
shorter than those between Lond. and St. Albones." James Shirley was at one
time a teacher at the Grammar School at St. A.'s.
ALBIA
See ALBION.
ALBIGENSES
A religious sect deriving its name from the city of Albi, in France, on the Tam, 347 m. S. Of Paris. After being condemned by several Councils, the A. wire practically exterminated in the terrible crusade during the early years of the 13th cent. In Bale's Johan, p. 219, Dissimulation says, "The A. like heretics detestable shall be brent because against our father they babble."
ALBION
The earliest name for Gt. Britain as distinguished from Ireland. Aristotle, De
Mundo 3, says, "Beyond the pillars of Hercules the ocean flows round the earth,
and in it are 2 very large islands called British, A. and Ierne, lying beyond
the Keltoi." The word is used appropriately enough in the pseudo-Chaucerian prophecy
attributed by the Clown to Merlin in Lear iii. 2, 91: "Then shall the realm of
A. Come to great confusion." The D. of Bourbon speaks contemptuously of "that
nook-shotten isle of A." (H5 iii.
5, 14). Margaret appeals to Suffolk in the name of "the royalty of "A.'s k." (H6
B. i. 3, 48). Later on (iii. 2, 113) she speaks of "A.'s wished coast." In H6 C. iii. 3, 7, she declares, "I was great A.'s Q. in former golden days"; and in
the same scene (49) Warwick announces himself as the messenger to K. Lewis "from
worthy Edward, K. of A." The word is commonly used as a poetical name for England."
Now t' eternize A.'s champions Comes lovely Edward from Jerusalem "(Peele Ed.
I i. .); English warriors "conquered Spain And made them bow their knees to
A." (Span. Trag. i. 5); "Welcome,"
says K. Henry, "To England's shore whose promontory cleeves Show A. is another
little world" (Greene, Friar iv.). The
erroneous derivation of the word is given at Heywood's Prentices, Sc. 15: "England
Whose walls the ocean washeth white as snow, For which you strangers call it A.";
and in Peele's Old Wives i. i. we find "the chalky cliffs of A." Spenser, F.Q.
ii. 10, 6, says that the mariner, "Learning his ships from those white rocks to
save . . . . For safety that same his sea mark made, And called it A.," but in
iv. 11, 15, he derives the name from "Mighty A.," the son of Neptune, who was
"father of the bold And warlike people which the Britaine Islands hold."
The form Albia occurs in Greene and Lodge's Looking
Glass i. 1, 100: "I'll fetch from Albia shelves of margarites." So in Greene's
Orlando i. 1, 77, Brandemart speaks
of "orient pearl More bright of hue than were the margarets That Caesar found
in wealthy A." See Suetonius Vit. Caesaris 47. In Caesar's
Rev. i. 3, Antony refers to Caesar's conquest of Britain: "Thou in maiden
A. shore The Roman eagle bravely didst advance." In T. Heywood's Challenge ii.
1, Bonavide says, "This A., That fitly bears name of his chalky cliffs, Breeds
wondrous choice of beauties, wise and lovely, Scarce to be matched in all the
world besides." In Skelton's Magnificence the famous K. is called "Arthur of
Albyan." In Trouble. Reign, p. 319, the Dolphin says, "It boots not me, Nor
any prince nor power of Christendon, To seek to win this island A."
ALBRACCA
The capital of Gallaphrone, K. of Cathay, besieged by Agricane, K. of Tartary, in order to win the fair Angelica, Gallaphrone's daughter. The story is told in Boiardo's Orlando Inamorato i. 10, where Agricane is represented as bringing into the field 2,200,000 men. Milton, P. R. iii. 339, says "Such forces met not . . . . When Agrican with all his N. powers Besieged A., as romances tell, The city of Gallaphrone." So Cervantes, in Don Quix., speaks of "men more numerous than those that came to A. to win Angelica the Fair."
ALCAIRO
See CAIRO.
ALCANTARA
City in Estramadura in New Castile, at junction of the Tagus and Alagon. The commendador of A. is mentioned in Middleton's Gipsy ii. i. It was the seat of an order of knighthood, founded by Ferdinand of Leon in the 12th cent.; their dress was a white robe with a green cross on the breast.
ALCAZAR (or ALKASR)
Town in Morocco abt. 60 m. S. of Tangier. Some 6 m. N. of the town was fought in 1578 the famous battle in which Don Sebastian of Portugal was defeated and slain by the, Moors. Sir Thomas Stukeley, who was on his 'way with a body of mercenaries to free Ireland from Elizabeth, was persuaded by Sebastian to join him, and was also killed in the battle. Sir Ruinous Gentry, in B. & F. Wit S. W. i. 2, says, "The first that fleshed me a soldier was that great battle at A. in Barbary where the noble English Stukeley fell, and where that royal Portugal Sebastian ended his untimely days." Peele's Alcazar and Stucley (2656) tell the story of the fight: "Thus of A. battle in one day 3 ks. at once did lose their hapless lives." T. Heywood, in I.K.M. B., speaks of "that renowned battle, Swift Fame desires to carry round the world, The battle of A.; wherein a ks., Besides this K. of Barbary, was slain . . . . With Stukely that renowned Englishman That had a spirit equal to a K." Nash, in Lenten, p. 326, says of certain gaping fools: "With them it is current that Don Sebastian, slain 20 years since with Stukely at the Battle of A., is raised from the dead, like Lazarus, and alive to be seen at Venice."
ALDERMANBURY
A Lond. st., running N. from Gresham St., opposite the corner of Milk St, to Lond. Wall. So called from the fact that the original Guildhall stood on its E. side, to the W. of the present Hall built in 1411. In Alderman Garroway's Speech (1642), he says, "I have been Lord Mayor myself and should have some share stiff in the government; before God, I have no more authority in the City than a porter, not so much as an A. porter." Woodes' Conf. Cons. was "Printed by Richarde Bradocke dwelling in A, a little above the Conduict, 1581." The conduit was in the middle of the st., and was erected by William Eastfield in 1471, the water being brought from Tyburn. Henry Condell, joint-editor of the 1st Folio of Shakespeare, was a sidesman of the parish of St. Mary's A. Swanston, the actor, "took up the trade of a jeweller and lived in A."
ALDERMARY CHURCH
A very ancient ch. of St. Mary, on the S. side of Budge Row and the E. side of Cordwainer St., now at the corner of Bow Lane and Q. Victoria St., Lond. Rebuilt early in the 16th cent., destroyed in the Gt. Fire, and rebuilt by Wren. Richd. Chaucer, vintner, gave the ch. his tenement and tavern, and was buried there in 1348. He was the grandfather of the poet Chaucer; not the father, as Stow says. There was a printing house in the churchyard, from which Mandeville's Travels were issued in the form of a chapbook: "Printed and sold in A. Ch.-Yard, Lond."
ALDERSGATE
One of the 4 oldest gates of Lond., lying between Cripplegate and Newgate, near the Charter House, close to the Castle and Falcon Inn, now at 62 A. St. It was rebuilt in 1618, with a figure over the central arch of James I to commemorate his entrance into Lond. in 1603. It was pulled down in 1761. Here lived John Day, the famous printer, who issued the edition of Matthew's Bible in 1549, Foxe's Actes and Monuments, and other religious works. Cartwright, in The Ordinary iii. 1, discusse's the derivation of the name: "A. Is gotten so from one that Aldrich hight; Or else, of elders, that is, ancient men; Or else of aldern trees which growden there; Or else, as Heralds say, from Aluredus." But most probably it simply means the old gate. A. St. ran S. from the gate to St. Martin's-le-Grand, and so into the W. end of Cheapside. Here was Master Francklin's house, where Arden lodged on his visit to Lond." He is now at Lond., in A. ste.," says Greene (Feversham ii. 1, The town houses of the Earls of Northumberland, Westmorland, and Thanet, and of the Marquis of Dorchester, were in this st. There was "a cook's feast in A. St. yearly upon Holy Rood Day "(Laneham's Letter, p. 39). In Deloney's Gentle Craft ii. ii, one says to the green k. of $t. Martin's, "I dwell at A. and am your near neighbour." Heywood's Witches was "Printed by Thomas Harper for Benjamin Fisher and are to be sold at his shop at the sign of the Talbot without A., 1624."
Dekker, in Seven Sins (1606), makes Candlelight enter Lond." at A., for though the st. be fair and spacious, yet few lights in misty evenings use there to thrust out their golden heads." John Milton lived in A. St. from 1640 to 1645. The house was on the E. side of the st., where Maidenhead Court now is.
ALDGATE
One of the principal gates of the old City of Lond., between the Tower Postern and Bishopsgate. It was granted to Chaucer in 1374, and he lived in the rooms over the gate whilst he was writing the Canterbury Tales. It was pulled down in 1606, and a new one built with figures of Peace and Charity copied from 2 Roman coins, which had been unearthed in digging for the foundations. This new Gate took 2 years to build." How long," says Truewit, "did the canvas hang afore A.? Were the people suffered to see the City's Love and Charity while they were rude stone, before they were painted and burnished?" (Jonson Epicoene i. 1, Donne, in Elegy xv. (1609), says he talked with a citizen "of new built A." This gate was removed in 1760 and re-erected by a Mr. Mussell in the grounds of his own house at Bethnal Green.
"Little Ned of A." is referred to by The Citizen in B. & F. Pestle v. 1, as
a drummer of the train-bands. Moll Bloodhound, in Rowley's Match
Mid. iv. 1, is described as "dwelling near A. and Bishop's-gate just as
between hawk and buzzard"; this last phrase is explained in Janua Linguarum
(1662) 146 as meaning between a good thing and a bad of the same kind; the reference
appears to be to the splendour of the newly erected A. as compared with the
more ancient Bishopsgate. A. being at the extreme E. and Temple Bar at the extreme
W. of the City, "as far asunder as Temple Bar and A." is used in Marmion's Companion
v. 2 to express the greatest possible remoteness. In Middleton's Quarrel i.
1, Chough lodges "at the Crow at A.", probably because his name is Chough. Possibly
the Pye Inn is intended, mentioned as the Pie at A. in Book of New Epigrams
(1659). In B. & F. Thomas iv. 1, there is a capital description of the painting
of the town red by a company of young bloods; the watchman's shoes are stolen,
signboards sent to Erebus; curs and pigs set loose in outparishes: "Oh, the
brave cry we made as high as A. I "that is, as far as A., where at last a constable
of the City takes a hand. In Lyly's Pappe With an Hatchet, p. 73, the author
says, "We hope to see him [Martin Marprelate] stride from A. to Ludgate, and
look over all the City at Lond. Bdge," i.e. be carted from end to end
of the City and his head stuck up on Lond. Bdge., after execution. In Day's
B. Beggar iii., Canby reports, "As I was passing through A. this morning, I
saw the Shreeves set towards to Newgate to fetch your father." In Heywood's
Ed. IV A. 13, the Recorder says
that the rebels will "either make assault at Lond.-Bdge. or else at A., both
which entrances were good they should be strongly fortified." In the same play,
B. 161, Mrs. Shore is condemned to walk in a white sheet "from Temple Barre
until you come to A., barefooted." Dekker, in Seven Sins (1606), makes Cruelty
enter the City "at All-gate, being drawn that way by the smell of blood abt.
the Bars." Evidently there were Shambles near A.
In W. Rowley's Match Mid. iii.
1, the Widow bids her maid, "Pray go to A., to my sempstress, for my ruff."
The famous A. Pump stood at the corner of Leadenhall St. and Fenchurch St. It
was replaced by a drinking-fountain in 1876.
ALEIAN PLAIN
A barren wilderness in Cilicia, into which, according to Homer Ii. vi. 200, Bellerophon was flung from the back of Pegasus. Homer doubtless connected the name with the Greek Ale, wandering. Milton, P. L. vii. 19, prays for help, "Lest from this flying steed unreined (as once Bellerophon, though from a lower clime), Dismounted, on the A. field I fall, Erroneous there to wander and forlorn."
ALEMPHA
Mentioned in H. Shirley's Mart. Soldier
as one of the fortresses in which Huneric the Vandal K. has Christian slaves confined.
I have not succeeded in identifying it.
ALENÇON
The chief town of the department of Orne, France, situated near the confluence
of the Sarthe and the Briante, abt. 108 m. W. by S. from Paris. The castle was
founded in the 10th cent., and 3 of its massive towers still remain. Towards the
end of the 14th cent. it was created a duchy by Charles VI. The D. of A. is one
of the peers summoned by Charles VI to fight against Henry V (H5
iii. 5, 42). Henry says (iv. 7, 161), after the battle of Agincourt, "When A.
and myself were down together, I plucked this glove from his helm; if any man
challenge this, he is a friend to A." Fluellen wears the glove, and in the next
scene is challenged by Williams as a friend of the D. of A.'s (H5
iv. 8, 19). John, D. of A., is in the list of the dead given H5
iv. 8, 101. This was John I: he was succeeded by his son John IL who was condemned
to death for treasonable communication with the English in 1458, and again for
assisting Charles the Bold against Lewis XI in 1474. He was pardoned on both occasions,
but died in prison in 1476. In H6 A. i. 1, 95, it is reported that "the dauphin
Charles is crowned K. in Rheims; The D. of A. flieth to his side." He is blamed
by Charles for the success of the English attack on Orleans: "D. of A., this was
your default "(H6 A. ii. 1, 60). Talbot (H6 A. unto thee A., and the rest; will
ye, like soldiers, come and fight it out?" to which A. answers, "Signior, no."
He is spoken of in iv. 1, 173 "Charles, A, and that traitorous rout." He is still
fighting along with Charles in iv. 4, 27, and Talbot, in the battle near Bordeaux
"beat down A., Orleans, Burgundy "(iv. 6, 14). He was present at the espousal
by Suffolk of Margaret of Anjou to Henry VI (H6 B. i. 1, 7). In H8 iii. 2, 85,
Wolsey declares his intention of marrying Henry VIII "to the Duchess of A., the
French k.'s sister," after his divorce from Katharine of Arragon. This was Margaret,
daughter of Charles of Orleans, who in 1509 married Charles, D. of A, and in 1527
became the wife of Henry of Navarre, 5 months befbre Wolsey set out on his embassy
to secure a wife for his royal master. Still, he may have thought of gaining her
hand for Henry before her marriage made it impossible.
In L.L.L. ii. 1, 61, Katharine says that she has seen Dumain "at the D. A.'s once"; and later on (ii. 1, 195) Boyet tells Dumain that Katharine is the heir of A.; the Ff. and Qq. all read "Rosaline," but the editors are unanimous in correcting the reading to "Katharine." Shakespeare took the names, but not the characters, of his French Lords in L.L.L. from contemporary history in this case from the Duc d'A., who was brother to Henry III and at one time suitor to Elizabeth.
ALEPPO
A city of Syria, 70 m. from the Mediterranean, at N.W. entrance of the Syro-Arabian
desert. By the port of Iskanderun it used to have a great trade with the W., It
came into the possession of the Turks in 1517. Heylyn, in his Microcosmus, says,
"This town is famous for a wonderfull confluence of merchants from all parts who
come hither to traffique." Its population has much decreased, but still numbers
100,000. The sailor whose wife has insulted the witch in Macbeth "has to A. gone,
the master of the Tiger "(Mac. i.
3, 7). In Hakluyt's Voyages, mention is made of a trading expedition to A. in
a vessel called the Tiger, which sailed in 1158, and disembarked at Tripoli. Othello
(v. 2, 352) says, "In A. once, Where a malignant and a turban'd Turk Beat a Venetian
and traduced the state, I took by the throat the circumcized dog And smote him,
thus." The action of Othello is supposed to take place in 1570, so that A. was
then in the hands of the Turk. Brainworm (Jonson, Ev.
Man I. ii. 2) was "twice shot at the taking of A.," i.e. in 1517. It
is suggested that Sir Pol should be shipped away "to Zante or A." (Jonson, Volpone
v. 2). Evidently there was trade between A. and Venice. In Davenant's Wits iv.
1, Delph, Leghorn, A., and the Venetian Isles are mentioned as places where a
Lond. merchant would be likely to have factors. In Mayne's s Match i. 4, it is made
a mark of a merchant that he wears a "velvet jacket which has seen A. twice, is
known to the great Turk, hath 'scaped 3 shipwrecks." Dekker, in Lanthorn, makes
a prostitute say, in order to entrap merchants, that "she is wife to the Master
of a ship and they bring news that her husband put in at the Straytes, or at Venice,
at A., Alexandria or Scanderoon." A. is mentioned as furnishing a contingent to
the Turkish Army which opposed Tamburlaine (Marlowe, Tamb.
B. iii. 1). It is used as a synonym for great wealth in B. & F. Malta v. 1,
where Miranda says, "I would not, for A., this frail bark no better steersman
had than has Montferrat's," i.e. for all the wealth of A. The Basha of
A. is one of the principal characters in Massinger's Renegado. In Marston's Parasitaster
(1606) i. 2, Hercules, being asked why he thin of the D.'s overture of marriage,
says, "May I speak boldly, as at A.?" i.e. at a place outside of his jurisdiction.
There, may be. a reminiscence of the passage in Othello, quoted above, in which
the Turk traduces Venice at A.
ALEXANDRIA
A city of Egypt founded by Alexander the Gt. 332 B.C., on the Mediterranean12
m. W. of the Canopic mouth of the Nile, and opposite the island of Pharos, with
which it was connected by a mole abt. 1 m. long. It was the capital of Egypt under
the Ptolemies, and the following scenes in A.
& C. are laid there, either in the Palace of Cleopatra or in the Roman camps
near the city: i.1,2,3; ii. 5; iii. 3,11, 13; iv.and v. It is mentioned 5 times
in the course ()f the play as the scene of Antony's intrigue with Cleopatra. In
Brandon's Octavia 2226, Byllius relates "how Antony abode at A. with this fearful
Q.," i.e. Cleopatra, after the battle of Actium. In Marlowe, Tamb.
B. i. 1, Tamburlaine is represented as "Marching from Cairo northward to A.";
and Callapine, the son of Bajazeth, is with him as a prisoner, and in 1, 3 attempts
to escape by means of a Turkish galley lying in A. Bay. As a matter of fact, Tamburlaine
defeated Farag, the Sultan of Egypt, in Syria in 1400, but he never actually entered
Egypt. A. was a port of great commercial importance in the 116th cent. Barabas
had an "Argosy from A. Laden with riches and exceeding store Of Persian silks,
of gold, and orient pearl "(Marlowe, Jew
i. f); and he has "at A. merchandise untold "(iv. 1). In Greene's Friar
ix. 261, the Friar promises the Emperor Frederick "for thy cates, rich A. drugs
[i.e. spices] Fetched by carvels from AEgypt's richest streights." In K.K.K. vi. 570, Alfrida speaks of "arras hanging, fetched from A."
Dekker, in Lanthorn, makes a prostitute who wants to catch a merchant say
that "she is wife to the Master of a ship, and they bring news that her husband
put in at the Straytes, or at Venice, at Aleppo, A., or Scanderoon etc." The
scene of B. & F. False One is laid at A. in the time of Cleopatra, and describes
the visit of Julius Caesar there in 48 B.C. In Kyd's Soliman 1439, "Augustus
spared rich A. for Arrius' sake." The famous Library is said to have been burnt
by the Arabs when they took the city in Am. 640; and Jonson, in his Execration
upon Vulcan (Underwoods 61), compares the destruction of Paul's steeple by fire
to "your fireworks had at Ephesus or A." Laneham, in Letter, p. 48, speaks of
"The Egyptian Pharos relucent unto all the An. coast." This father of Lighthouses
was built by Ptolemy Soter on the E. end of the Island of Pharos, and was 400
ft. high. In Chapman's Blind Beggar the scene is laid in A. Clearchus relates
in Sc. X. that Leon has "cast his desperate body From th' An. tower into the
sea." The Pharos is doubtless intended. In Caesar's
Rev. i. 6, Caesar says, after the battle of Pharsalia, "Now wend we lords
to A., Famous for those wide-wondered Piramids." The Pyramids are, however,
at Ghizeh, more than 100 m. from A. In Wilson's Pedler 473, the Pedler boasts,
"I can tell what is done at Alexandry," i.e. in the remotest part of
the world.
ALGIERS
See ARGIER.
ALICANTE
A spt. of Valencia on E. coast of Spain. It gave its name to a kind of wine of a deep blood-red colour, made from the mulberries which grow plentifully there.
Matheo, in Dekker's Hon. Wh. A. i. 1, warns Hipolito that if he kills the
D's 3 officers he will "blood 3 pottles of Aligant." In B. & F. Fair Maid I. iv. 2, we read of "buttered beer, coloured with Aligant." In W.
Rowley's Match Mid. v. 1, Sim,
trying to prevent a quarrel, says, "There's Alegant i' the house; pray set no
more abroach." In Taylor's Life of Thomas Parr (1635) we are told: "The vintners
sold no Alicant, nor any other wines but white and claret, till the 33rd year
of HVIII (1543)." In B.&F. Chances "your brats, got out of A." means children
which were the result of ken incontinence. The Nomenclator translates Vinum
atrum by "Redde wine or Allegant "(1585). In Barnes' Charter
iii. 5, Bagnioli swears "by purple Aligant the bloody giant." When Quickly,
in M. W.W. ii. 2,69, speaks of "alligant terms," she is using the name of a
wine for a less familiar word; just as above she says "canaries "for "quandary."
In Richards' Messalina i., the
Bawd mentions as provocatives to lust, "snails, oysters, alligant." In the old
Timon ii. 5, Pseudocheus says, "In Ganges Isles 130 rs. saw Filled with sweet nectar . . . 30 rs. more With
Aligaunt." In Kirke's Champions
i. 1, the Clown says, "My hogshead runs alegant and your nursling broached it";
i.e. broke my head and made it bleed. The scene of Middleton's Changeling
is laid in A.
ALLGATE
See ALDGATE.
ALLHALLOWS
The following Lond. Chs. Were dedicated to A.:- Barking, q.v.
- A., Bread St., at the corner of Watling St. Here Milton was baptized. It was deconsecrated and destroyed in 1876.
- A. the Great, or A. in the Ropery, in Upper Thames St.; destroyed in the Gt. Fire, rebuilt by Wren, and restored in 1877. Was finally removed in 1893, and its site occupied by a brewery.
- Two were destroyed in the Fire (1666) and not rebuilt:
- A. the Less, in Upper Thames St.; and
- A., Honey Lane, near the Standard in Cheapside.
- A. Grass Ch., in Ball Alley, with its entrance in Lombard St. Rebuilt by Wren after the Fire. Thersites was "Imprinted at Lond. By John Tysdale, and are to be sold at his shop in the upper end of Lombard St., in A. Churchyard, near unto Grace Ch."
- A. in the Wall, in Lond. Wall. It escaped the Fire, but was removed and a new ch. Built in 1767.
- A. Staining, in Mark Lane; it escaped the Fire, but fell down in 1761. It was removed, all but the tower, in 1870, and the site bought by the Clothworkers Company.
In T. Heywood's Ed. IV A. 63,
one Cheapside Prentice asks another, "What is't aclock?" and is answered, "6 by
Allhallowes": either the Bread St. or Honey Lane ch. is meant.
Nash, in his Burlesque on Gabriel Harvey's Encomium Lauri in Hexameters, has the lines: "O thou weathercock, that stands on the top of All Hallows, Come thy ways down if thou darst for thy crown, and take the walls on us."
ALLHALLOWS, BARKING
Ch. in Lond. on N. side of Gt. Tower St., near Seething Lane. The ch. derives its name from its having been originally connected with the Abbey of B., in Essex. It escaped the Gt. Fire. From its proximity to the Tower it was used as a temporary place of interment for many persons executed there, notably the Earl of Surrey, Bp. Fisher, and Archbp. Laud. In Dekker's Edmonton iii. 1, Cuddy, who has been attended by the Witch's dog, says to him, "If ever we be married, it shall be at B. Ch., 'm memory of thee; now come behind, sweet cur." Ile Ch. had a fine peal of bells. In Fair Women ii. 209, Old John says, "I dreamed that I heard the bells of B. as plain to our town of Woolwich as if I had lain in the steeple."
ALL HALLOWS, NEWCASTLE
(better known as ALL SAINTS). A ch. about the centre of N. It was rebuilt in the
14th cent. by Roger Thornton, the Mayor of the city; and he was buried there in
1430, where his brass still remains. In Brewer's Lovesick
King iv., Thornton says, "I will re-edify Alhallows ch."
ALLIA
A small r. flowing into the Tiber on its left bank, abt. 11 m. N. of Rome; probably the modem Fonte di Papa. The scene of the terrible defeat of the Romans by Brennus and his Gauls in 390 B.C. on July 16, the Dies Alliensis, ever afterwards regarded as an unlucky day. In Nero iii. 3, Seneca, lamenting the tyranny of the Emperor, cries: "Let Cannae come, Let A.'s waters turn a again to blood; To these will any miseries be light. In Fisher's Fuimus (Induction), Brennus taunts Camillus, "Doth A. yet run clear?" (i.e. from Roman blood). In ii. 8, the Britons sing a war song: "Black A.'s day And Cannae's fray Have for a third long stayed."
ALLIGANT, ALLEGANT
See ALICANTE.
ALLOBROGES
A Gallic tribe living on E. bank of the Rhone, between the Rhone and the Isere. They sent an embassy to Rome in 63 B.C.; and when Catiline and his fellow-conspirators tried to engage them in their plot they revealed the whole affair to Cicero. In Jonson's Catiline iv. 2, the arrival of these "ambassadors from the A." is described; and in v. 4, their revelation of the plot is related.
ALL SOULS COLLEGE (OXFORD)
Founded in 1438 by Chiclele, Archbp. of Canterbury. It stands on the N. side of High St., between St. Mary's and Q.'s College. The constitution provides for a warden, 20 fellows, 20 scholars, and 2 chaplains. Armin, in the preface to his Ninnies, says, "I was admitted in Oxford to be of Christ's Ch., while they of Alsoules gave aim"; i.e. apparently he migrated from A.S. to Christ Ch.
ALMAIN
(a German). From the name of one of the principal German tribes known to the Romans,
the Allemanni. Iago makes merry over the prowess of the Englishman in drinking,
declaring, "He drinks you with facility your Dane drunk; he sweats not to overthrow
you're a." (Oth. ii. 3, 86). In Peele's Ed.
I i. 1, the Q.mother Elinor tells her son, "your brave uncle, Ae.'s Emperor,
is dead." This was Richd. of Cornwall, the brother of Henry III, who was elected
Emperor in 1257, though some of the Electors afterwards went back on their decision
and elected Alfonso X of Castile. He died in 1272, 7 months before the K. In Greene's
Friar vii., "Frederick, the A. emperor,"
visited Oxford to hear a dispute between Vandermast and Roger Bacon. Apparently
Frederick 11 (12121250), the grandson of the great Barbarossa, is intended;
though Prince Edward was only 11 when he died, and therefore hardly ripe for the
flirtation with Margaret of Fressingfield which forms the plot of the play. He
was interested in philosophical and religious questions, and was regarded as a
heretic and placed by Dante in hell (Inferno, canto x.). In Ed. III i. 1, the
K. begs the D. of Hainault to solict the Emperor of Almaigne. Valdes promises
Faust that the spirits shall attend on him "like A. rutters [i.e. reiters:
knights] with their horsemen's staves," or lances (Marlowe, Faustus
i. 1)." A. rutters "are among the Christian enemies of Orcanes of Natolia (Marlowe,
Tamb. B. i. 1). Lady Ample undertakes,
unless she can fool Engine and his fellows, to "cry flounders and walk with my
petticoat tucked up like a long maid of Ay "(Davenant, Wits ii.). Presumably she
means a German fish-wife. A. is one of the. long list of countries in which Hycke-Scorner
claims to have travelled. In Dekkers Fortunatus i. 1, "Frederick Barbarossa, Emperor
of A. once, but by Pope Alexander now spurned and trod on when he takes his horse,"
is instanced as an example of the fickleness of Fortune.
A. is the name for Germany in Experience's lecture on the map of the world
in Elements, Haz. i. 32. In Caesar's
Rev. v. 1, Caesar's ghost recalls his exploits in "Spain, Brittain, Almayne,
and France." In Brome's Sparagus m. 4, Wat tells of the wonders the precious
plant Asparagus "hath wrought in Burgundy, Ae., Italy, and Languedoc." Borde,
in Intro. of Knowledge (1542) xiv., heads the chapter, "Of high Almayne or high
Doch land." In Larum F. 2, Stuppe
says, "A those Aes. I they cried Live Spaniards I they were called high Aes.
but they are low enough now. You may call them blanched Aes. [quasi almonds
.11 and you will, for their guts are blanched abt. their heels." [High A. =
High German, as opposed to the Low Germans of the Netherlands.] In Kyd's Cornelia
iv., Cassius says of Caesar, "The restful As. with his cruelty He rashly stirred
against us without cause." In Brome's Novella iv. 2, Nicolo says that Fabritio
"appears 29 like the noted Ae. late come to town, if he had but his beard."
See under German for an account of this notorious person, who was an expert
fencer.
The A. was the name of a stately dance of German origin. In Peele's Arraignment
ii. 1, the direction is, "Enter 9 knights treading a warlike a. by drum and
fife." In Jonson's Devil i. 1, Satan mocks at the Vice's ideas of making a sensation:
"at the tail of a sheriffs dinner he will take his A.-leap into a custard."
In Tancred and Gismunda, the 3rd act is introduced by the hautbois sounding
"a lofty A." In Two Gent., between acts iv. and v., "The consort soundeth a
pleasant Allemaigne." In Phillip's Grissill 969, the Marques enters "singing
to the tune of the latter A."I suppose the last A. which the band had
played. In Chapman's Alphonsus
iii. 1, 151, Bohemia says, "We Germans have no changes in our dances, An A.
and an up-spring, that is all." In Hercules
i. 8, 467, Dromio, describing his experiences at sea, says, "We in the ship
practised the Amond leap, from one end to the other."
ALMONRY
The almshouses for poor men and women respectively, erected by Henry VII and his mother, the Lady Margaret. They were W. of Westminster Abbey, the great A. being in 2 parallel parts running E. and W. with the entrance from Dean's Yard; and the little A. at its E. end, running S. It was in the great A. that Caxton set up the first printing press in England, from which he issued in 1474 The Game and Playe of Chesse. His house was on the N. side of the A., in Little Dean St., close to the present Westminster Palace Hotel. It was a narrow 3-storey building with a gable and attic, and was in existence tiff t845, when it was removed along with the other buildings of the A. Here Caxton died in1490, and was buried in the neighbouring ch. of St. Margaret. The word was, and is, popularly pronounced Ambry. Jonson, in Staple, makes gossip Mirth say that she knows "all the news of Tuttle-st., and both the Alm'ries, the 2 Sanctuaries, long and round Woolstaple, with King's st. and Canon-row to boot "(iii. 2).
ALPHEUS
The largest r. in the Peloponesus, rising in S.E. Arcadia and flowing W. through Arcadia and Elis to the Ionian Sea. Near Tegea it disappears underground for a certain distance; and this gave rise to the legend that the river flowed beneath the sea to join its waters with thou of the fountain of Arethusa in the Island of Ortygia, near Syracuse, in Sicily, owing to the passion of the r.-god for that nymph. In Milton's Arcades 30, the Genius sings of "divine A. who by secret sluice Stole under seas to meet his Arethuse." Spenser, F. Q. iv. 11, 21, calls it "A. still immaculate"; i.e. unmixed with the waters of the sea, through which it was supposed to have passed to Sicily. In Lycidas 132, Milton says, "Return, A.; the dread voice. is past That shrunk thy streams; return, Sicilian Muse," where A. is regarded as the patron of pastoral poetry, interrupted by the stem speech of St. Peter. Hall, in Satires (1597) iv. 3, 75, says, "A. waters nought but olives wild."
ALPS
(Ae. = Alpine). The mtns. separating France, Switzerland, and Austria from Italy.
Travellers visited them in Shakespeare's day, and talked of the A. and Apennines,
The Pyrenean and the r. Po "(K.J. i. 1, 202). Mowbray is prepared "to run afoot
Even to the frozen ridges of the A.," to meet and fight Bolingbroke (12 i. 1,
64). The French K. describes Henry V as rushing on with his. army "as doth the
melted snow Upon the valleys, whose low vassal seat The A. doth spit and void
his rheum upon "(H5 iii. 5, 52).
Note the use of the word as a singular. Following Plutarch's authority, Caesar
tells how, after the battle of Modena, Anthony suffered the greatest privations:
"On the A., it is reported, thou didst eat strange flesh Which some did die to
look on" (A. & C. i. 4, 66). To the
traveller the A. stood for the boundary between the culture of Italy and the illiteracy
of the rest of Europe. In Jonson's Cynthia i. 1, Amorphus protests, "Since I trod
on this side the A. I was not so frozen in my invention." In Webster's Law Case
i. 1, Contarino says, "I have heard of divers that, in passing of the A, have
but exchanged their virtues at dear rate for other vices." The snow of the A.
furnished an obvious hyperbole for whiteness. In Tomkins' Albumazar ii. 4, the
hero speaks of "Two sucking lambs, white as the Ae. snow." Their bulk was also
impressive." Though you were in compass thick as the A.," says Palatine (Davenant,
Wits ii.), "I must embrace you both"; and in Day's Parl. Bees ch. iii., we read
of "Ae. hills of silver." In Massinger's Madam v. 3, Luke says, "The rain That slides
down gently from his flaggy wings [shall sooner] O'erflow the A. than tears .
. . Shall wrest compunction from me."
In Ret. Pernass. iv. 3, there is a burlesque allusion to Kemp's famous feat
of dancing the Morris from Lond. to Norwich: "God save you, M. Kemp; welcome,
M. Kemp, from dancing the morrice over the Alpes." William Kemp was the well-known
comedian who created the parts of Dogberry in Much
Ado, and Peter in R. & J. Sciarrha, in Shirley's Traitor
ii. 1, has breath "hot enough to thaw the A." The prologue to Marlowe's Jew
is spoken by Machiavel, who begins by saying, "Albeit the world thinks Machiavel
is dead, Yet was his soul but flown beyond the A. . .. to view this land." In
Nero v. 1, "a courier from beyond the A." brings letters from Gaul to the Emperor.
In B. & F. Shepherdess ii. 2, Thenot speaks of Clorin's body, "which as pure
doth show in maiden-whiteness as the Alpen-snow." In Wild Goose i. 2, Mirabel
affirms that "our women o' this side the A. are nothing but mere drolleries.
. ." In Trouble. Reign (Haz. p. 315) the K., tormented by the poison, cries:
"Oh for the frozen A. To tumble on and cool this inward heat." "Here's a peacock,"
says Montsurry in Chapman's Bussy
iii. 1, "seems to have devoured one of the A., she has so swelling a spirit
and is so cold of her kindness." In Lyly's Endymion v. 3, Endymion swears that
the affections of Tellus are to his own "as valleys to A., ants to eagles."
In the old Taming of a Shrew, p.
534, Aurelius wishes that he had charge "to make the topless Alpes a champion
field To kill untamed monsters with my sword.", In Val. Welsh. i. 1, the Bard
speaks of "man's highest A., intelligence." Jonson, in Wales, makes Evan claim
for the Welsh mtns. the title of the "British Aulpes." In Killigrew's Parson
i. 3, Jolly asks the Capt.: "Have you ventured o'er the A. to see the seat of
the Caesars?" In S. Rowley's When You A. 3, Wolsey says, "Hannibal with oil
did melt the A. To make a passage into Italy." The reference is to Hannibal's
crossing of the A. in 218 B.C. Livy tells the impossible story of the softening
of the rocks by the use of vinegar (not Oil), Livy xxi. 37. In Milkmaids ii.
2, Raymond speaks of his aged head "wrapt like the Alpes in snow." In Kyd's
Cornelia v., the Messenger speaks of N. winds "that beat the homed A." In Dekker's
If it be, p. 331, Shackle-soul says, "The Ae. snow at the sun's beams does melt;
So let your beauties thaw his frozen age." In his Wonder iii. 1, Torrenti says,
"I wish there were 10 worlds, yet not to conquer but to sell For Ae. hills of
silver." In Cockayne's Obstinate
i. 1, Carionil says of his lady, "The Alpian snows are not more cold." In Greene
& Lodge's Looking Glass v. 2, 2009,
Rasni cries: "Oh had I tears like to the silver streams That from the Ae. mtns.
sweetly stream." Milton's sonnet On the late Massacre in Piedmont begins, "Avenge,
O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones Lie scattered on the Ae. mtns. cold."
Alp is used as a generic name for a mtn. Milton, P. L. ii. 620, says, "They
passed . . . . O'er many a frozen, many Alp." In S. A. 628, he speaks of "breath
of vernal air from snowy Alp." In Tetrarch. 182, he speaks of "This adamantine
alp of wedlock."
ALSATIA
A name applied to the sanctuary of Whitefriars, q.v. The 1st example of this use of the word is in 1623 in Thomas Powell's Wheresoe'er you See Me, Trust unto yourself; but it did not come into common use tiff the end of the 17th cent. A. was a kind of no-man's land between France and Germany; and consequently the laws of either country were inoperative there, as the laws of England were inoperative in Whitefriars.
ALTHORP PARK
Seat of Earl Spencer, near Northampton. Here Sir Robert Spencer entertained the Q. and eldest son of James I on their way from Scotland to Lond. in 1603, when Jonson's 1st masque, The Satyr, was produced.
ALTOMONTE
The highest point of the mtn. mass of Aspromonte, in Calabria, at the extreme
S. of Italy. In Barnes' Charter i.
4, Pope Alexander allots to Caesar Borgia the provinces from Tuscany, "even to
Monte Alto in Calabria."
AMALEKITES
A nomad tribe inhabiting the desert between the S. of the kingdom of Judah and the Sinaitic Peninsula. They attacked the Israelites on their way from Egypt, and were subsequently almost exterminated by Saul. The remnant of them seems to have settled in the mountainous dist. of Edom. In Bale's Promises iv., the Almighty says, "Over Amalech I gave them the victory." Milton, Trans. PS. lxxxiii. 26; speaks of "hateful Amalec." Blount, in Glossographia, s.v., says, "Enemies to the children of God or good people, or enemies to good proceedings, are commonly called A."
AMALFI, or MALFI
A town and archiepiscopal see in the Campania region, in the province of Salerno,
Amalfi sits on the Gulf of Salerno (Golfo di Salerno), 38 m. S.E. of Naples.
From the 9th to 11th centuries Amalfi rivaled Venice, Pisa, and Genoa as a maritime
republic. Its Maritime Code, the Tavola Amalfitana (Table of Amalfi), was
recognized throughout the Mediterranean until 1570. It is here that the early
scenes of Webster's Malfi are set. At
the time Webster wrote his play, it was still widely believed that the maritime
compass was invented by Gioia at Amalfi. The Italian word for compass, Bussola,
might have inspired Webster to name his character Bosola. [ed note: this entry
is a modern addendum to Sugden. For Sugden's mistaken entry, see under MALFI.]
AMARA
See GAMARA.
AMASIA
A town in Asia Minor on the Irmak, 60 m. from its mouth in the Black Sea. Birthplace
of Strabo, who describes the tombs of the ks. excavated in the rock below the
castle. It was regarded as the metropolis of Pontus, and is mentioned in Marlowe,
Tamb. B. iii. 1, as supplying forces
to the K. of Trebizond to fight against Tamburlaine. In Selimus 966, Acomat, the
brother of Selim, is addressed as "Acomat, Soldan of A." In 2391 Selim takes A.
and murders his brother's wife. This was in 1512. Heylyn (s.v. CAPPADOCIA) says
that the Turkish emperors send their eldest sons to A." Immediately after their
circumcision; whence they never return again till the death of their fathers."
AMATHON
(more commonly AMATHUS). Town on S. coast of Cyprus, some 50 m. E. of Paphos.
A famous seat of worship of Aphrodite (Venus). In T. Heywood's B.
Age ii. 2, Venus says, "Adonis, thou that makest Venus leave Paphos and A."
AMAZONIA, or AMAZONE
(An. = Amazon, Aan. _ Amazonian). The country inhabited by the Ans., a legendary
race of female warriors, usually located in the neighbourhood of the Caucasus
on the Thermodon, near Trebizond. Glanville, De prop. rerum xv., says, "A., Women's
land, is a country, part in Asia, part in Europe, and is nigh unto Albania." The
9th labour of Hercules was the capture of the girdle of the Q. of the Ans. He
went to the Thermodon, and there killed h" and took her girdle. In Marmion's Leaguer
iii. 4, Trimalchio says he is going to the Leaguer "upon the same employment that
Hercules did once against the Ans."; i.e. to vanquish the women there.
The Athenian hero Theseus married Antiope, sister of Hippolyta, Q. of the Ans.,
who was presented to him by Hercules after his conquest of these warlike ladies.
Shakespeare, however, follows Chaucer in making Hippolyta herself the wife of
Theseus." The bouncing An. To Theseus must be wedded," says Titania (M.
N. D. ii. 1, 70). The Bastard represents the women of England arming to resist
the French invader, "like Ans. tripping after drums "(K.J. v. 2, 155). "Thou
art an An." says Charles to Joan of Arc, "And fightest with the sword of Deborah
"(H6 A. i. 2, 104). When Edward hears of the warlike purpose of Q. Margaret he
exclaims, "Belike she minds to play the An." (H6 C. iv. 1, 106); and York calls
her "an Aan. trull "(H6 C. i. 4, 1314).
As the Ans. had no beards, Aan. is used in the sense of beardless: "At 16
years Coriolanus with his Aan. chin drove The bristled lips before him "(Cor.
ii. 2, 95).
The word is often used for a woman who acts independentlythe "new woman
"of modern phrase. Thus, in B. & F. Prize ii. 2, Bianca and Livia propose "to
seek out a land Where, like a race of noble Ans, We'll root ourselves . . .
and despise base men." The scene of B. & F. Sea Voyage is laid in an island
where certain Portuguese ladies have fled for refuge from the French, and have
resolved "thus shaped like Ans., to end our lives "(v. 4). In B. & F. Woman Hater ii. 1, Gondarino says, "The much praised Ans. made of themselves a people,
and what men they take amongst them they condemn to die, perceiving that their
folly made them ft to live no longer that would willingly come in the worthless
presence of a woman." In Massinger's Lover i. 2, Hortensio thinks, if Gonzaga
gives his daughter to the D. of Tuscany against her will, "The women will turn
Ans., as their sex in her were wronged." Jonson introduces "Penthesilea, the
brave An," into his Queens: and in a learned note explains that she was present
at the siege of Troy and "was honoured in her death to have it the act of Achilles."
In T. Heywood's Iron Age iv., AEneas announces "Penthisilea Q: of Ans. With
mighty troops of virgin warriors . . . for the love of Hector . . . are entered
Troy"; in act v. Pyrrhus kills her and brings in on his lance's point "the An.'s
lopt off head." In Locrine ii.
190, Hubba tells how "the warlike q. of An., Penthisilea . . . cooped up the
faintheart Graecians in the camps." In Greene's Alphonsus iii. 3, 1047, Fausta
says, "My sword with help of all Amazones Shall make him soon repent." In Barnes'
Charter iv. 4, Caesar Borgia speaks
of Katharine of Forli as "that proud Aan. Katherine," because she dared to hold
Forli against him. In Brome's Covent G. iv. 1, Anthony addresses Bet and Francisca
as "ye Aan. trulls." In Webster's Law Case iii. 2, Leonora says, "Like an An.
Lady, I'll cut off this right pap that gave him suck, to shoot him dead." The
Ans. were said to cut off their right breasts in order to free the hand for
shooting with the bow. Milton, P. L. ix. 1111, says that Adam and Eve's figleaves
were "broad as Aan. targe." In Day's Gulls, Lisander appears disguised as an
An. Marlowe, following another tradition, locates the Ans. in Africa, somewhere
between the Upper Nile and Zanzibar. He speaks of "A. under Capricorn "(Tamb.
B. i. 1), and tells how Techelles, on his way from Machda on the Upper Nile
to Zanzibar, marched to Cazates, "Where Aans. met me in the field, With whom,
being women, I vouchsafed a league "(Tamb.
B. i. 3). In the map prefixed to Leo's Africa, translated by Pory (1600),
the Ans. are marked in the centre of Africa, opposite N. Madagascar.
AMBOISE
Town in France, on the left bank of the Loire, 12 m. E. of Tours and 110 m. S.W.
of Paris. Its ancient castle was used as a royal residence by several of the French
ks. It was here that the name Huguenots was first used of the Calvinist Protestants
in 1560. From it Bussy dAmbois, the hero of Chapman's Bussy
and The Rev. Bussy, took his title. In Barnes' Charter
ii. 1, Guicchiardine, as chorus, says, "Meanwhile K. Charles sick of an apoplexy
Dies at Ambois." This was Charles VIII of France, who died at A. in 1498. In Chapman's
Bussy iii. 2, 79, Guise says to Bussy,
"Th'art not nobly born, But bastard to the Cardinal of Ambois." This was Georges
d'Ambois, Archbp. of Rouen, who died in 1510, 39 years before the birth of Bussy.
AMBOYNA
One of the Molucca Islands, lying between Celebes and Papua. It belonged first
to the Portuguese, but they were dispossessed by the Dutch in 1605. In 16l5 the
English formed a settlement there, but the Dutch destroyed it in 1623, when the
famous A. massacre was perpetrated. It is rich in spices, particularly in pepper
and cloves. In B. & F. Fair Maid I. iv. 2, Forobosco threatens to send the Clown "to Greenland for a haunch of
venison . . . thence to A. i' th' E. Indies for pepper to bake it." "To A.?" answers
the Clown, "so I might be peppered!"The reference is to the A. massacre. In Davenant's
Plymouth v. 1, when Bumble, the Dutch capt., threatens the English skipper, "Ick
sall meet you at sea," he replies: "Ay, or in A.; There you shall swing for 't."
In Shirley's Honoria (a.k.a. Honor and Riches) i. 2, Conquest says to Alamode, "Thou wilt sell thy countrymen
to as many persecutions as the devil, or Dutchmen, had invented at A." In Webster's
Law Case iv. 2, the Surgeon remonstrates with Contarina, who is proposing to go
to the E. Indies: "So many Hollanders gone to fetch sauce for their pickled herrings
1 Some have been peppered there too lately." In Jonson's Staple iii. 2, when one
prays for a blessing on Buz, the Dutchman the Register adds: "Yes, for A., and
the justice there!"
AMBRACIA
A very hilly dist. on the E. coast of the Adriatic Sea, to the N. of the Gulf of A.; now the S. part of Albania. In Nash's Summers (Dods. 70), Christmas says, "I must rig ship . . . to A. for goats." In the list of table dainties given by Sensuality in Nabbes' Microcosmus iii. we find "An. kids."
AMERICA
The W. continent discovered by Columbus in 1492. The name was suggested by Waldseemuller in his Cosmographiae Introductio (1507): "A 4th part of the world, which, since Amerigo found it, we may well call Amerige or A.," and again: "Now a 4th part has been found by Amerigo Vespucci, and I do not see why we should be prevented from calling it Amerige or A." Columbus thought that the islands he found were connected with India, and consequently the usual name for A. in the 16th cent. was "the Indies"; and the name still survives in the words "W. Indies "for the islands and "Red Indians" for the aboriginals of N. A. The earliest use of "An." in English is quoted in the N.E.D. from Frobisher's voyage, 1578. Heylyn, in Microcosmus, says, "The most usuall & yet somewhat improper name is A., because Americus Vespucius discovered it . . . . The most improper name of all, yet most usuall among Marriners, is the Westerne Indies" (1621). lie divides it into 2 parts, Mexicana and Peruana. In Elements, Haz. 1, 32, Experience, lecturing on the map of the world, says, "But this new lands found lately been called A., because only Americus did first them find." He gives a long and interesting account of A. just previously, and laments that the Frenchmen have found the trade, and bring large quantities of fish thence. The inhabitants know neither God nor devil, but worship the sun. They have no iron, and though there is copper there, they do not dig for it. They have great abundance of woods, mostly fir and pine-apple; and they have abundance of fish. In the S. they go naked, but in the N. they dress in skins. Shakespeare only uses the word once, in Err. iii. 2, 136, "Where," asks Antipholus of Dromio, interrogating him abt. his cookmaid, was "A., the Indies?" to which Dromio answers: "Oh, Sir, upon her nose, all o'er embellished with carbuncles, sapphires, declining their rich aspect to the hot breath of Spain." What it suggested to Shakespeare and his contemporaries was Mexico and Peru with their fabulous treasures of gold and silver and gems, contributing to the wealth and glory of Spain. Spenser, F. Q. ii. 10, 72, says of Elfin, "Him all India obeyed, And all that now A. men call."
The natives were supposed to be cannibals; so Jonson, Staple iii. 1, tells
of "a colony of cooks to be set ashore on the coast of A. for the conversion
of the cannibals." In Gamester iii., Europe, Asia, Afric, and A. are named as
the 4 parts of the world. In Randolph, Muses
iii. 4, Eiron professes to know all the languages of Europe, Asia, and Africa;
"but in A. and the newfound world I very much fear there be some languages that
would go near to pu=le me." In Webster's [ed. note Marston's] Malcontent
ii. 4, the powder of pearl of A. is one constituent of a universal restorative
of which the receipt is given. By a more than usually daring anachronism, Brutus,
in Locrine i. ii, the date of which
is shortly after the siege of Troy, speaks of his daughter as "a gift more rich
Than are the wealthie mines Found in the bowels of A." Valdes promises Faust
(Marlowe, Faustus i.) that the spirits
shall drag "from A. the golden fleece That yearly stuffs old Philp's treasury";
and Callapine (Marlowe, Tamb. B. i.
2) offers to his keeper as the price of his freedom "i 1000 galleys, which Shall
bring armadoes from the coasts of Spain Fraughted with gold of rich A." The
reference is to the annual plate-fleet, which Raleigh nearly captured in 1596.
In Dekker's Fortunatus v. 1, Andelocia, posing as a French doctor, asks for
money that he may buy for his medicine "many costly dat grow in Arabia, in Asia,
in A." In B. & F. Malta v. 2, Norandine says of the Moorish woman Zanthia, the
paramour of Montferrat, "Do you snarl, you black Gill? She looks like the picture
of A." The reference would seem to be to some picture of an An. Indian, represented
as a black, malevolent savage; but I have not been able to find any other account
of it. In their Fair Maid I. ii.
2, mention is made of "bawdy E. Indian pictures worse than ever were Aretine's."
This picture of A. may have been something of the same kind. In Marlowe's Massacre,
p. 240, the D. of Guise affirms, "Philip, K. of Spain, Ere I shall want, will
cause his Indians To rip the golden bowels of A." Taylor, Works (1659) 36, says,
"The barbarous Brasilians, Ans., and Virginians do adore the devil." Lodge wrote
his Margarite of A. (1596) on a voyage to the W., and began it in the Straits
of Magellan. In K.K.K. vi. 557, Dunstan says that ks.' favours are "like the
violets in A., that in summer yield an odoriferous smell, and in winter a most
infectious savour." In Grim ii. 1, Castiliano says, "Now shall you see a Spaniard's
skill Who from the plains of new A. Can find out sacred simples of esteem."
In Massinger's Madam iii. 3, Luke says to the supposed Red Indians, "You are
learned Europeans and we worse than ignorant Ans." In Shirley's Riches iii.,
Riches says, "My mother was a Clod; she married rich Earth of A. where I was
born." The reference is to the fortunes made in A. Milton, P. L. ix. 1116, says
that Adam and Eve after the Fall, and their construction of garments of fig-leaves,
were such as "of late Columbus found the An., so girt With feathered cincture,
naked else and wild." Barnes, in Parthenophil (1593) xlviii. 4, speaks of "rubies
of A., dear sold." Davies, in Nosce, says that the sun "makes . . . The An.
tawny." Barnefield, in Praise of Pecunia (1598) 6, calls Pecunia "The famous
Q. of rich A." Donne, in Elegies (1633) xx. 27, addresses his mistress, "O my
A., my Newfoundland!" In Shirley's Love Tricks ii. 2, Rufaldi says to Selina,
"O my dove, my A., my new-found world!"
AMESBURY
A very ancient town in Wilts., on the Avon, 8 m. N. of Salisbury. In King and Queen's Entertainment at Richmond (1636), 214, Richd., a Wilts. man, says, "Chill so veeze the Taylor of Amsburies coat at the next wake."
AMIAS
See EMMAUS.
AMIENS
An ancient episcopal city of France, the capital of Picardy, 92 m. N. of Paris.
The cathedral, founded in 1220, is one of the most glorious Gothic churches in
the world." My lord of A." is one of the characters in As You Like It ii. 1, 29. It is only
abt. 100 m. W. of the forest of Arden, which may have suggested the choice of
the name. It is mentioned in B. & F. Prize as on the rd. from England to Paris.
Jaques says (v. a), "We'll get us up to Paris with all speed; For, on my soul,
as far as A. She'll carry blank." A. was taken by the Spaniards in 1597, but recovered
by Henri IV of France after a short siege. In Chapman's Consp. Byron iii. 1, v.
r; and Trag. Byron i. 1, v. 1, Byron
claims to have actually taken the city: "I alone Took A. in these arms and held
her fast." In Consp. Byron iii. 2, 168, Byron, describing his proposed statue,
says, "Within my left hand win I hold a city Which is the city A., at whose siege
I served so memorably." There is an Earl of A. in B. & F. Hon. Man. In Day's B. Beggar i. 1, Playnsey brings the letter," Sent from A. to Momford," which charges
him falsely with the surrender of Guynes. Donne, in Satire iv. (1597), mentions
"all states and deeds that have been since The Spaniards came, to the loss of
A.," i.e. from 1588 to 1597. The rhyme with "since "gives the pronunciation
of A.
AMMONITES
A Semitic tribe living E. of the Jordan, around the sources of the Jabbok. The capital was Rabbah, now called Amman. In Conf. Cons. ii. 3, Hypocrisy says, "Joab was glad the A. in Rabah to confusion to bring." The story is told in II Sam. xxii. In Bale's Promises v., David says of Israel, "They were 18 years vexed of the cruel A." (see Judges x. 8). The war between the A. and David is the background of Peele's Bethsabe. Milton, in Trans. PS. lxxxiii. 25, says, "Gebal and Ammon there conspire And hateful Amalec." In P. L. i. 396, he says of Moloch, "Him the Ammonite Worshipped in Rabba and her watery plain." In S. A. 285, the Chorus recalls how Jephtha "Defended Israel from the Ammonite "(see Judges xi.).
AMOND
See ALMAIN.
AMORITES
One of the peoples of pre-Hebraic Palestine. Sihon, K. of the A., ruled over the dist. E. of the Jordan, between the Jabbok and the Arnon. In the Puritan slang of the 16th cent. the A. meant the worldly and unsanctified enemies of the true people of God. Hence, in B. & F. Prize iii. 2, Jaques speaks of "those A. That came to back her cause, those heathen whores:'
AMPHRISUS
A small r. in Thessaly, flowing into the Pagasaean Gulf near Alus. It was on its
banks that Apollo fed the flocks of Admetus. In T. Heywood's Dialogues 5245, Io,
speaking of the vale of Tempe, says, "Next poplar-shadowed Enipeus glides; Not
far A., AEas." In his B. Age iii.,
Medea says, "Thence must I fly unto A. fords And gather plants."
AMPTHILL
A market town in Beds, 45 m. N.W. of Lond. A. Castle was near the town, and was the residence of Katharine of Arragon during the divorce proceedings. The site of the castle is marked by a cross erected in 1773 by the Earl of Upper Ossory. In H8 iv. 1, 28, a Gentleman says, "The Archbp. Of Canterbury . . . Held a late court at Dunstable, 6 m. off from A., where the princess [i.e. Katharine] lay."
AMSTERDAM
The capital of Holland, on the Amstel. It was the most important commercial centre in Europe in the 16th cent. It became the refuge of all sorts of Puritan sectaries, who took refuge there from the persecution of Elizabeth's reign; most of the references in the dramatists are to the extreme types of Puritanism which flourished there.
In Haughton's Englishmen iii. 2, Vandal, the Dutchman, instead of making love to Laurentia, informs her, "The men of A. have lately made a law that none but Dutch may traffic there." This was at the time of the Union of the Netherlands in 1579. It was a place of refuge for insolvents from England. In Brome's Moor i. 2, Theophilus complains, "Crafty merchants often wrong theft credits and Londoners fly to live at A." A lost play by Fletcher, Massinger, and Field was entitled The Jeweller of A. In Glapthorne's Hollander i. 1, Sconce boasts, "My ancestors kept the Inquisition out of A." This was in the time of the D. of Alva and the Revolt of the Netherlands.
In Jonson's Alchemist ii. 1, Subtle talks of "the holy brethren Of A., the exiled saints"; and in v. 3 Lovewit says to Ananias, "I shall send you To A., to your cellar." In his Staple iii. 1, one of the items is "The Grand Signior is turned Christian . . . and means to visit the ch. at A . . . . and quit all marks of the beast." In Middleton's Witch i. 1, Almalchides says to Amoretta, "A. swallow thee for a Puritan and Geneva cast thee up again!" In his Chaste Maid iii. 2, one of the Puritan women rejoices that Mrs. Allwit's baby has been "well kursenned i' the right way, without idolatry or superstition, after the pure manner of A." In his Queenborough v. 1, when Simon compels Oliver, the Puritan, to stay and see a play, Oliver exclaims: "O devil! I conjure thee by A." Dekker, in Catchpol(16I3), says, "Hypocrisy was put to nurse to an Anabaptist of A." In Sampson's Vow. iii. 2, 53, we are told that "our learned brother Abolt Cabbidge, Cobler of A.," has decided that vessels used to cook meat on Sunday are unclean. In Cockayne's Trapolin iv. 1, Bulflesh says of a Puritan, "He hath writ a paltry book against the bps., printed it in A. in decimo sexto." Donne, in The Will (1633), says, "I give . . . all my good works unto the Schismatics of A." Heylyn quotes a proverb, "If a man hath lost his religion let him to A., and he shall be sure to find it, or else believe it is vanished." Burton, A. M. iii. 4, 31, 5, says, "In Europe, Poland, and A. are the common sanctuaries."
Gazet, in Massinger's Renegado i. 1, does not approve the doctrine "as your
zealous cobbler and learned botcher preach at A." In Shirley's Venice iii. 1,
Malipiero affirms, "If I live, I will to A., and add another schism to the 200,
fourscore, and odd." In his Bird iv. 1, Bonamico, exhibiting his birds, says,
"This was a rail, bred up by a zealous brother in A. Name but Rome, and straight
she gapes as she would eat the Pope." Taylor, ii. 231, says, "From dogs our
Separatists and Amsterdamans may see their errors"; and in iii. 3, "May the
Separatists live and die at Amster and be damned." In Brome's Covent G. iv.
2, the Puritan Gabriel says, "I may suppose you brought this well-disposed gentlewoman
from A." In Glapthorne's Wit ii.
1, Thorowgood speaks of "opinions far more various Than all the Sectaries of
A. Have ever vented." Again, in v. 1, the watchman says the Inquisition is a
monster such as will swallow "all the brethren at A." In Middleton's Tennis,
Simplicity says, "The first brick in A. was Laid with fresh cheese and cream
because mortar made of lime and hair was wicked and committed fornication."
There is a double allusion: 1st, to the cheese and butter for which Holland
was famous; and then to the austere morals of A. In John Hacket's Latin Comedy
Loiola (1623), one of the characters is Martinus, a canting elder of A.; the
scene is laid there. In Wise Men i. 1, Proberio says, "What if I should read
a sermon preached at A. by a man of most pure profession, of the right cut of
Carolstadius?" Andrew Bodenstein, of Carlstadt, was an extreme Protestant, and
was chiefly responsible for the Ordinances of Wittenberg (1522), in which the
new evangelical ideas were stated and made law in that city.
One of the sects which originated in Holland in the 16th cent. was that of
the Familists or Family of Love: a kind of free lovers. In Brome's Ct. Beggar
iii. 1, Ferdinand says to the doctors, "When you have found simples to cure
the lunacy Of Love, administer it unto the Family at A." Middleton's Family
is a satire on them.
AMWAS
See EMMAUS.
AMWELL HEAD
One of the principal sources of the New R., lying a m. or two E. of Ware in Herts. See NEW RIVER. In Middleton's Triumphs Truth, a masque written for performance at the letting in of the water to the New R. Head at Clerkenwell, the title speaks of "the running stream from Amwell-Head into the cistern at Islington, being the sole cost of Mr. Hugh Middleton of Lond. 16l3:'
AMYENS
See AMIENS.
ANCALITES
A British tribe, living in the basin of the Thames, possibly in Oxfordsh. In Fisher's Fuimus iv. 4, Mandubratius says to Caesar, "By me the Trinobants submit and A." See CAESAR, B. G. V. 21.
ANCONA
An ancient spt. of Italy on the Adriatic, 132 m. NIL of Rome. In Webster's Malfi
iii. 2, Antonio is sent by the Duchess from Malfi across the sea to A, which was
in the Papal States, and so outside the jurisdiction of her brother Ferdinand
of Calabria; and she is advised by Bosola to "feign a pilgrimage to our Lady of
Loretto, scarce 7 leagues [really only abt. 15 m. "from fair A," in order to rejoin
Antonio. But through the influence of the Cardinal he is "banished A." (iii. 5).
Barabas, in Marlowe's Jew iii. 4, tells
how he bought a poisonous powder from "an Italian in A."which he had doubtless
visited in the course of trade. In Barnes' Charter
iv. 5, Bernardo tells how he "knew a noble Frenchman at Anchona 20 years since
at tennis took his death with over heating of himself at play." In Cockayne's
Trapolin ii. 3, Horatio speaks of "A., praised for the Port Loyal." It was the
only decent port on the Adriatic between Venice and Manfredonia, and belonged
to the Papal States. In Laelia iii. 1, 13, Petrus says, "Ego hic fui cum legato
de A. consors a duce datus."
ANCYRUS
In Alimony i. 2, Trillo desires that "all crop-eared histriomastixes who cannot endure a civil, witty comedy . . . may be doomed to A., and skip there amongst satyrs." The reference is to Prynne, who published his Histrio-mastix in 1632, and was condemned to stand in the pillory and have both his ears cut off. A. is probably a mistake or a misprint for Anticyra, q.v.
ANDALUSIA
A dist. in S. Spain. The inhabitants have a good deal of Moorish blood in their
veins, and smugglers and robbers are plentiful among them. In B. & F. Cure iv.
3, the Alguazier says of Pachieco and his companions, "They are pilfering rogues
of A. that have perused all prisons in Castile." In their Pilgrimage some of the
scenes are laid in A. (ii. 1, iii. 3). In World Child, Haz. i. 251, Manhood claims
to have conquered clean "Salerno and Samers and Andaluse"; referring to the conquest
of A. from the Moors by Ferdinand of Spain in 1492. In Alimony iv. 2, Madam Medler
says, when the Vintress asks the ladies to take a turn in the garden "to procreate
yourselves," "Does she take us for A. studs [i.e. mares] that can breed
by the air, or procreate of ourselves?" Fuller, Church Hist. (1656) i. 5, 32;
speaks of the Spanish mares "impregnated by the wind alone." In T. Heywood's I.K.M. B. 335, Ricaldus mentions "11 tall ships of Andelosia "as forming part of
the Gt. Armada. In W. Rowley's All's
Lost i. 1, 25, Medina speaks of "the Straights of Gibraltar whose watery divisions
their Affricke bounds from our Christian Europe in Granado and A." In B. & F.'s
Wit Money i. 1, Valentine speaks of the "singing shepherds "that "Andeluzia breeds."
ANDREN
Hall and Holinshed's spelling of Ardres, adopted by Shakespeare, H8 i. 1, 7. Speaking, of the Field of the Cloth of Gold, Buckingham says, "An untimely ague Stayed me a prisoner in my chamber when Those suns of glory, those two lights of men, Met in the vale of A."; to which Norfolk adds, "Twixt Guines and Arde "Arde being another variant spelling of the same name. Ardres is a vill. 10 m. S. of Calais, and in the valley between it and Guisnes the famous meeting of the Ks, Francis and Henry, was held in 1519.
ANDREW'S, ST.
There were 3 churches dedicated to this saint in old Lond.: - one on the S. side of Holborn Hill, now Holborn Viaduct, next door to the City Templecompletely rebuilt by Wren in 1687;
- another, known as St. A.'s Wardrobe from its proximity to the Royal. Wardrobe, on the E. side of Puddledock Hill, now St. A.'s Hill; and
- the 3rd, and most interesting, St. A.'s Undershaft, at the corner of Leadenhall St. and St. Mary Axe. Here the May Pole used to be set up every year until the riot of 1517 caused its abolition. The Pole, which was higher than the ch. steeple, was stored for 52 years afterwards on hooks in front of the houses of Shaft Alley, and was then destroyed as an idol by the Puritans. The ch. fortunately escaped the Gt. Fire, and contains a monument to that prince of antiquarians John Stow, who was buried there in 1605.
It is to one of the 2 latter churches that reference is made in Middleton's Michaelmas i. 1, "Against St A.'s, at a painter's house, there's a fair chamber ready furnished to be let." John Webster, the dramatist, is said to have been for a time the clerk of St. A.'s, Holborn. But this is a late and unsupported statement.
ANDREWS, SAINT
An ancient city in Fifesh, on St. A. Bay, 40 m. N.E. of Edinburgh. Its university is the oldest in Scotland, and was founded in 1411. In Greene's James IV iii. 2, Ateukin says, "Come, wend we to St. Andrewes, where his Grace is now in progress." The Bp. of St. A. is one of the characters in the play.
ANGEL [1]
The sign of many taverns in Lond. - At No. 1 High St., Islington, was a famous house where travellers lodged on their 1st night out of Lond. The old inn was pulled down in 1819.
- On the S. side of St. Giles St, now 61 High St., next St. Giles' Ch.; the half-way house on the rd. to Tyburn, where the convicts had a parting draught on their way to execution.
- In the Strand, behind St. Clement's.
ANGEL [2]
A common booksellers' sign in Lond.- Of Andrew Wise's bookshop in Paul's Churchyard, where the 1st and 2nd quartos of H4 A. and R3 were published.
- Of a bookshop without Newgate. Alimony was "Printed by Tho. Vere and William Gilbertson and are to be sold at the A. without New-gate 1659."
- Of another bookshop in Popes-Head-Alley. T. Heywood's Fortune was, "Printed for John Sweeting at the A. in Popes-head-Alley 1655."
ANGEL [3]
The sign of an inn in Ferrara. In Gascoigne's Supposes iv. 4, Philogano "lighted at the A. sad left his horses there." The gate on the N. of Ferrara is the Porta degli Angeli, and the inn was probably near by.
ANGEL [4]
A tavern in Gravesend. In Look About vi., Skink says, "My Lady lies this night at Gravesend at the A."
ANGELO (CASTLE and BRIDGE of ST.)
In Rome. The castle was originally built as a Mausoleum by the Emperor Hadrian
A.D. 130, but was subsequently converted into a fortress during the 5th cent.
Also used as a, prison. It stands on the right bank of the Tiber, and is reached
by the Ponte St. A., which is the old Pons AElius. In Marlowe's Faustus
vii., Mephistopheles says, "Upon the bdge. called Ponte A. Erected is a castle
passing strong Within whose walls such stores of ordnance are And double cannons,
framed of carved brass, As match the days within one complete year." In Webster's
White Devil v. 4, Flamineo speaks of "a gentlewoman 2n taken out of her bed and
committed to Castle A." But as this scene is laid in Padua it is a strange oversight.
In Nash's Lenten, p. 324, when K. Red-Herring was carried in procession through
Rome, "the ordnance at the Castle of St. A. went off." In Barnes' Charter
ii. 1, the Pope, on the approach of Charles VIII, "coops himself in Castle A,"
and the latter part of the scene takes place before its walls. It was used as
a residence by the Popes. In Tarlton's News out of Purgatory (1590), we are told
that Boniface, after being made Pope, "departed home to Castle A." In Day's Travails,
p. 40, the Pope says, "First to St. A. thus band in hand." Latimer, in Sermon
v. before K. Edward ( 1549), tells of a "lord mayor of Rome" who was suddenly
"cast in the castle Angel."
ANGELO (FORTRESS of ST.)
A castle of great strength on the point of the Dockyard Creek in Malta, between Fort St. Elmo and Fort Ricasoli. In B. & F. Malta i. 1, Astorius announces, "6 fresh gallies I in St. A. from the promontory this mom descried."
ANGIERS (or ANGERS)
The capital of Anjou Province, in France, built on a hill on the left bank of the Mayenne, 218 m. S.W. of Paris. Has a fine cathedral, in which Margaret of Anjou was buried, and a strongly situated castle which was the residence of the Ds. of Anjou. Here Shakespeare lays the scene of K.J. II and III, following the Trouble. Reign. As a matter of fact, iii. 2 and 3 Ought to be 2 years later, and the scene should be Mirabeau; but Shakespeare places them all continuously at A. and in the plains near A. In Dist. Emp. ii. 1, Didler speaks of Orlando as the Earl of Angeres. The scene of B. & F. Triumph Death (in Four Plays in One) is laid at A.
ANGLESEY
An island off N.W. coast of Wales on the other side of the Menai Straits. It was
an ancient seat of Druidical worship, and was annexed to the English Crown along
with the rest of Wales by Edward I. In Peele's Ed.
I, p. 5 1, the "proud Lord of A." is one of the 4 Barons of Wales who come
to congratulate the k. on the birth of the Prince of Wales, afterwards Edward
II." Noble Morgan," Earl of A., comes to help Octavian against the traitor Monmouth
in Val. Welsh. i. 2.
ANGLES, EAST
The inhabitants of E. Anglia, which included the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. In Massinger's Virgin v. 1, Theophilus reads from his dispatches, "E. A.; bandogs . . . . worried 1000 British rascals." The reference is to the persecution of the Christians by Diocletian A.D. 303, in the course of which St. Alban was killed and 1000 citizens of Verulam suffered martyrdom in the same place. But this was at least 150 years before the A. came to England. Spenser, F.Q. iii. 3, 56, speaking of a fictitious Saxon virgin Angela, says, "The other Saxons . . . do, for her sake And love, themselves of her same A. call." Puttenham, Art of Poesie ii. 5, says, "Ryme is a borrowed word from the Greeks by the Latins and French, from them by us Saxon A."
ANGLETERRE
The French word for England. Used in the dialogue between Princess Katharine and
Alice in H5 iii. 4, 1, 41; by the
French soldier in H5 iv. 4, 61;
and in the articles of agreement between the English and French. ks. in H5
v. 2, 368.
ANGLIA
Latin for England. In H5 v. 2, 369,
the English k. is called "Henricus rex Angliae."
ANGLIS
A form of English used by a Fleming in Webster's Weakest ii. 5, where Jacob says, "Mein liever broder, A. beer 4 "
ANGLOIS
Used for the English language. In H5
iii. 4, 5, Katharine asks: "Comment appelez-vous la main en A.?" (see also lines
13, 21). In v. 2, 200, she says to the K., "Le François que vous parlez, il est
meilleur que l'A. lequel je parle."
ANGOLA
A country on W. coast of Africa, between the rs. Dando and Coanza; but often used
for the whole dist. S. of Cape Lopez as far as Benguela. It was discovered by
the Portuguese in 1486; the capital, San Paolo de Loanda, was built by them in
1578. The Dutch held it from 1640 to 1648, when it was recovered by the Portuguese.
In Cockayne's Obstinate iii. 3, Carionil,
disguised as a negro, professes to be the ambassador of the "Emperor of both the
Ethiopias, and of the mighty kingdoms of Goa, Caffares, Fatigar, A., etc." Amongst
the kingdoms shown in vision to Adam in Milton, P. L. xi. 401, are "the realm
Of Congo, and A. farthest S."
ANGUS
A dist. in Forfarsh., Scotland, which gave its name to an Earldom in the Douglas family, now extinct. The A. mentioned in H4 A. i. 1, 73, was George Douglas, only son of William, 1st Earl of Douglas, by Margaret Stewart, his 3rd wife, who was Countess of A. in her own right. He was one of the prisoners taken by Hotspur at Holmedon. Holinshed calls him "Roberte earle of A." A. is one of the minor characters in Macbeth.
ANHALT
A duchy of Germany in the middle of Prussian Saxony. Its capital is Dessau. In
Marlowe Faustus xi, Faust is invited to
visit "the D. of Vanholt"; and responds, "The D. of Vanholt! an honourable gentleman
to whom I must be no niggard of my cunning." Scene iii is laid at the court of
the D. of Vanholt, which was probably at the castle of Ascharien, near Ascherslenen.
The Last letter of of was transferred in a softened form to the beginning
of A.
ANIUS
See AEAS.
ANJOU
A province of France, practically the same as the modern department of Maine-et-Loire.
It was bounded on the N. by Maine; on the E. by Touraine; on S. by Poitou; and
on W. by Brittany. The 1st authentic D. of A. is Ingelgar (circ. 870). Geoffrey
Plantagenet was D. of A., and his son Henry II of England inherited the dukedom,
which remained in the possession of the Ks. of England till it was forfeited to
Philip Augustus by John in 1204. The last D. was René, father of Q. Margaret of
A., the wife of Henry VI of England. The duchy was taken from him and annexed
to the Crown of France in 1481. Since then the title has been borne by several
members of the French Royal Family, but without any territorial rights. Its capital
was: Angers, q.v. In K.J. i. 1, 12, Philip claims it for Arthur in the
right of his descent from Geoffrey Plantagenet, and repeats the claim in ii. 1,
152. In ii. 1, 528, John surrenders it to Lewis, the Dauphin, on his marriage
with Blanche. In H6 A. i. 1, 94, it is announced that Reignier, D. of A., has
taken the side of the Dauphin Charles. The FL read "Reynold"; René is meant. Reignier
himself appears in H6 A. v. 3 on the walls of Angiers, and offers to give Margaret
in marriage to Henry on condition that he may quietly enjoy his own, "the country
Maine and A." These terms are repeated and confirmed in H6 B. i. 1, 50, to the
indignation of Gloucester and Warwick, who exclaims (i (119), "A. and Maine! myself
did win them both; Those provinces these arms of mine did conquer." Apparently
Shakespeare has confused Richd. Neville, the "Kingmaker," who is here speaking,
with his father-in-law, Richd. Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, who was deputy-regent
of France in 1425 and regent in 1437. Neville was only 17 at the time of Henry's
marriage, and was not made Earl of Warwick tiff 1449, 5 years after. In H6 B.
iv. 1, 86, Suffolk is charged by the Capt. with having sold A. and Maine to France.
It was through him that the negotiations for the marriage of Henry were carried
on. The D. of A. is one of the characters in Marlowe's Massacre. He was the brother
of K. Charles IX, and succeeded to the throne in 1574 as Henri III. He and his
sister Margaret of Navarre were at first warm adherents of the Huguenot cause,
but through the influence of their mother, Catherine de Medici, they went over
to the side of Rome. He was elected K. of Poland in 1573. He was driven by the
Guises into the arms of Henry of Navarre; and it was through him that the Guises
were assassinated in 1588. He joined with Navarre in the siege of Paris in 1589,
and was there murdered by the Dominican Friar, Jaques Clement. In Webster's Weakest,
prol., "The D. of A., fatally inclined Against the family of Bullen, leads A mighty
army into Burgundy." This was Charles of A., brother of Louis IX. In Barnes' Charter
i. 1, Sforza hails Charles VIII of France as "heir unto the crown of Naples by
lawful right of that great house of A." He based his claim on the fact that Joanna
1, Q. of Naples, had adopted Louis of A., brother of Charles V of France, as her
heir. In spite of the Angevin claim, Alphonso of Arragon had seized Naples in
1442 and reunited it to Sicily, though the support of the Pope was given to the
Angevins. In T. Heywood's Ed. IV B.
94, Edward claim from France "all these Dukedoms following: Aquitaine, A., etc.,
etc." In Davenport's Matilda i. 2, Fitzwater reproaches K. John with delivering
up to Philip of France "A., Brittain, etc., etc." In Mason's Mulleasses
652, Borgias, an imaginary D. of Florence, speaks of "the Cardinal of A, my kinsman."
ANKOR
R. in Warwickshire, falling into the Tame at Tamworth. It flows past Hartshill, the birthplace of Michael Drayton. Drayton, in Idea (1594) xxxii. 13, says, "Arden's sweet A., let thy glory be That fair Idea only fives by thee"; and in liii. 14, Thou, sweet A., art my Helicon."
ANNE'S (ST.)
There was a ch. of St. Anne within the precinct of Blackfriars, near the theatre, to the N. of Glasshouse Yard, which was new-built and enlarged in 1597. It was destroyed in the Fire and not rebuilt. It is possible that this is the ch. by which the Clown's house stood (Tw. N. iii. 1, 7), and that it was therefore natural for him to swear by St. Anne, as he does ii. 3, 125.
ANNE'S (SAINT) CROSS
A cross in the city of Julio, the scene of Whetstone's Promos. Whetstone transfers many Lond. sts. to Julio; and by St. A. C. I think he means the Cheapside Cross, q.v. The name was suggested by St. A. Ch. and St. A. Lane, which are close to the Cross. In the same play, B. i. 4, Phallax, arranging for a city pageant, directs; "Let pour man at. Saynt A. C., out oŁ hand, Erect a stage that the Wayghts in sight may stand."
ANNE'S (ST.) LANE
Lond., named after the Ch. of St. Anne-in-the-Willows, which stood at the corner of it. It ran from Gresham St. to Falcon St., between St. Martin's and Noble St. The ch. was destroyed in the Gt. Fire and rebuilt by Wren. It contained a monument to Peter Heywood, the man who apprehended Guy Fawkes. It is now the Ch. of St. Anne and St. Agnes." Faith Harrie," says Robin in More ii. 1, "the head drawer at the Miter by the great Conduit called me up and we went to breakfast into St. A. L." The Mitre was in Bread St., close to Cheapside, where the great Conduit stood, and therefore only a few steps from St. A. L.
ANNET (or ANET)
French town near Dreux on the Eure, 70 m. E. of Paris. The superb castle was built in 1552 by Henri II for Diana of Poitiers, and demolished in the Revolution; part of the facade was, however, reerected at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris. In Chapman's Consp. Byron i. 1, Byron relates that "the D. d'Aumale had his goodly house at A. razed the earth "for his disloyalty to the K. This D. was Charles de Lorraine, who had joined the League, but subsequently became reconciled to the K.
ANNIS A CLEARE
A spring in Hoxton, near Shoreditch, afterwards made into an open-air bathing pool. In Nichols' Discourse of Marriage (1615), the origin of the name is given." An Alderman's wife of Lond.". . being deserted by her 2nd husband, "went into a spring near Shoreditch, and there ended her days and sorrows by drowning; which font to this day is christened by her name . . . and called by her name Dame A. a Clare." In Greene's Thieves Falling Out (1637), Kate, a woman of the town, defends her profession thus: "The suburbs should have a great miss of us; and Shoreditch would complain to Dame Anne a C. if we of the sisterhood should not uphold her jollity." In Brome's M. Beggars ii. 3, Patrico speaks of his wife as having "a throat as clear as was dame Annisses of the name." In Tarlton's News out of Purgatory, we have, "Upon Whitson Monday last I would needs to the Theatre to a play, where when I came I found such a concourse of unruly people that I thought it better solitary to walk in the fields. Feeding my humour I stepped by dame Anne of Cleeres well, and went by the backside of Hogsdon." In Dekker's Satiro. iii. 1, 2481, Tucca says to Miniver, "Thou shalt, my sweet dame A. a cleere, thou shalt, for I'll drown myself in thee." In Wilkins' Enforced Marriage ii. 2, the Clown, who is weeping, says, "O mistress, if ever you have seen Demoniceaclear, look into mine eyes," where Dame A. a C. is meant. In Jonson's Barthol. iii. 1, Whit, the Irish Bawd, promises Mrs. Littlewit, "Tou shalt ha' de clean side o' de tableclot, and di glass vashed with phatersh of Dame Annesh C."
ANN'S (SAINT)
A ch., apparently in Nottingham or Clifton; I can find no other reference to it. In Sampson's Vow. iii. 2, 61, Joshua asks his cat, "Hast thou not seen the whole conventicle of brothers and sisters walk to St. Anns, and not so much as a fructifying kiss on the high[day]"; i.e. Sunday.
ANTARCTIC POLE
Usually spelt Antartick; the S. Pole. Tamburlaine, in urging his sons to extend
his empire after his death, bids them "from the A. P. eastward behold as much
more land, which never was descried, Wherein are rocks of pearl" (Marlowe, Tamb.
B. v. 3). In Histrio. iii. 40,
we read of "merchants, that from E. to W., From the A. to the Arctic Poles "bring
treasures. In Shirley's Courtier iv. 1, Depazzi says, "I'll toss the a. p. with
like ease as Hercules could a bullrush." In Val. Welsh. v. 5, Caradoc says, "Were
Caesar lord of all the spacious world, Even from the Articke to the Antarticke
poles, I'd keep my legs. ht." In Ret. Pernass. iv. 2, Furor says, "I'll make the
antarticke p. to kiss thy toe." In Milton, P. L. ix. 79, Satan is described as
searching sea and land first to the north, and then "Downward as far a." Barnes,
in Parthenophil canz. 3, speaks of "that great monarch, Charles [i.e. the
Emperor Charles V], whose power did strike From the Arctic to the A."
ANTELOPE
A tavern in Milan, at which Matheo, in Dekker's Hon. Wh. A. ii. 1, arranges for a supper; "for there's wine and good boys." But most likely Dekker was thinking of the A. Inn on the W. side of W. Smithfield, Lond.
ANTENORIDES
The 6th Gate of Troy. Troil, prol. 17, "Priam's six-gated city, Dardan, and Tymbria, Helias, Chetas, Troien, and AL Ff. read "Antenonidus," but the emendation is certain, the list being taken from Caxton's Destruction of Troy iii.: "in this city were 6 gates; the one was named Dardane, the 2nd Timbria, the 3rd Helias, the 4th Chetas, the 5th Troyen, and the 6th A." Lydgate (A.D. 1555) calls it "Antinorydes." The name is obviously formed from that of Antenor, one of the sons of Priam.
ANTHEDON
Evidently meant for some r. in E. Thessaly, near Lake Boebeis; the only A. I can
find in Hellas is, however, the town on the Euripus, on the coast of Boeotia.
In T. Heywood's B. Age iii., Medea
goes to gather simples "where rushy Bebes and A. flow."
ANTHOLINS (ST.)
An ancient ch. in Watling St, on N. side of Budge Row, Lond. Destroyed in the
Gt. Fire and rebuilt by Wren with a curious composite column at the top of the
spire. It was pulled down in 1874, but the site is marked by a memorial. A number
of clergymen of Puritan views established a morning lecture here in 1599, the
bell for which began to ring at 5 a.m. and was a great nuisance to the neighbourhood.
Dugdale says, "it was the grand nursery whence most of the seditious preachers
were after sent abroad throughout all England to poyson the people with their
antimonarchical principles." Baneswright, in Mayne's s Match iv. 5, describes Madam
Aurelia: "She will outpray a preacher at St. Ant'lin's and divides the day in
exercises." Mrs. Flowerdew, a Puritan lady who has come to criticize the play
at the Salisbury Court Theatre, says, "This foppishness is wearisome; I could
at our St. Andins, sleeping and all, sit 20 times as long" (Randolph, Muses
ii. 4). In Mayne's s Match i. 5, Seathrift, the brother of the virtuous Dorcas,
says, "Do you think I'll all days of my life frequent St. Andins, like my sister?"
Openwork, in Middleton's R.G. ii. 1, complains that his wife has a tongue "will
be heard further in a still morning than St. Antling's bell." In the Puritan the
2 servants of Lady Plus, the widow of Wading St., are named Nicholas St. Antlings
and Simon St. Mary-Overies., They enter (i. 3) "in black scurvy mourning coats,
with books at their girdles, as coming from ch."; and are addressed by Corporal
Oath as "Puritanical scrape shoes, flesh-o'good-Fridays." In Cartwright's Ordinary
i. 5, Hearsay hopes to have "all sorts repair as duly to us as the barren wives
of aged citizens do to St. A." Davenant, in Plymouth i. 1, speaks of "these 2
disciples of St. Tantlins that rise to long exercise before day." John, in Heywood's
I.K.M. B. 255, says, "Instead of tennis court my morning exercise shall be at
St. Andins." Quomodo, in Middleton's Michaelmas v. 1, knew "a widow about St.
Antling's so forgetful of her first husband that she married again within the
12 months." In Brome's Damoiselle iii. 2, Magdalen, the wife of Bumpsey, says,
"we'll find Lecture-tmes [to take lessons in dancing] or baulk St. Antlin's for
't the while."
ANTHONY (SAINT)
San Antonio, the 2nd largest of the Cape Verde Islands. In T. Heywood's I.K.M. B. 333, the Chorus tells how "Francis Drake and Christopher Carlisle set on Cap de Verd, then Hispaniola; setting on fire the towns of S. A. and S. Dominick." This was in the famous Island Voyage Of 1585.
ANTHONY'S (ST.)
Mentioned in Middleton's Women Beware iv. 1, as a ch. in Florence. Two ladies are discussing the time. One has set her watch by St. Mark's, the other affirms that "St. A., they say, goes truer." "That's your opinion," retorts the other, "because you love a gentleman o' the name." There is a ch. of San Marco in Florence, but none of San Antonio as far as I can ascertain. Probably both names are introduced at random and the 2nd for the sake of the little joke. In the 1st draft of Jonson's Ev. Man I., the scene of which is laid in Florence, Dr. Clement's house is said to be "yonder by St. A."
ANTHONY'S (ST.) GATE [1]
Mentioned in Gascoigne's Supposes iv. as one of the gates of Ferrara. Erostrato, going for a ride into the fields, "passed the ford beyond St. A. G." Probably the present Porta di Roma, at the S. E. corner of the city, is the one intended; the Bastion di San Antonio is close by it.
ANTHONY'S (ST.) GATE [2]
One of the old gates of Paris, in the Faubourg de St. Antoine, close to the Bastille.
Byron, confined in the Bastille, hears "the cries of people," and is informed
"'tis for one wounded in fight here at St. A. G." (Chapman, Trag.
Byron v. 1).
ANTHONY'S (ST.) HOSPITAL
Almshouse and free school in Lond., founded in the reign of Henry III on the site of a Jewish synagogue on N. side of Threadneedle St. Originally a cell of St. A. in Vienna, but in the reign of Edward IV was annexed to St. George's, Windsor. The proctors, remembering that St. A. was the special protector of pigs, used to rescue starved or diseased pigs from the markets, tie a bell round their necks, and let them feed about the place; and "if the pig grew to be fat . . . the Proctor would take him up to the use of the Hospital." So Stow testifies from personal observation. In his time, however, the hospital was dissolved and the chapel assigned to the use of the French Protestants of Lond. It was pulled down about 1840.
In Bale's Laws viii. 6, Infidelity says, "Good Christen people, I am come
hither verily as a true Proctor of the house of S. A."; and amongst the charms
he boasts of possessing is "a bell to hang upon your hog, and save your cattle
from the biting of a dog." In Bale's Johan 262, Sedition says, "Let S. A. hog
be had in some regard." In Chapman's Usher
iv. 2, Poggio says to Vincentio, "I have followed you up and down like a Tantalus
pig": a curious perversion of St. A. pig. The school was a famous one, and had
among its pupils Sir Thomas More and Archbp. Whitgift. It was the rival of St.
Paul's, and there were many fights between the "A. pigs "and the "Paul's pigeons,"
as the boys nicknamed one another. The Bank of England now occupies its site.
Laneham, in Letter 61, says, "I went to school forsooth both at Pollez and also
at St. Antoniez."
ANTHONY'S ORDINARY
An eating-house in Lond. See ANTONY'S. In B. & F. Wit S. W. iv. 1, Gregory says to Cunningham, "I have been seeking for you i' the bowling green; Enquired at Nettleton's and A. o."
ANTHROPOPHAGI
Cannibals, of whom many stories were brought home by travellers. Oth. i. 3, IE45:
"The cannibals that each other eat, the A." The Host, in M.W.W. iv. 5, 10, bids
Simple knock at Sir John's door and warns him, "He will speak like an Anian. unto
thee"; meaningif he means anythingthat he will give him a savage reception
if he disturbs him. In Dekker's Satiro. iv. 2, 87, Tucca says to Horace (Jonson),
"Art not famous enough yet for killing a player but thou must eat men alive? thy
friends, thou Ate.?" In Locrine.
iii. 6, Humber speaks of the shore "where the bloody A. With greedy jaws devours
the wandering wights." He is thinking of Polyphemus and the Cyclops.
ANTICYRA
Town in Phocis, on the N. shore of the Corinthian Gulf. Famous in antiquity as the place where the best hellebore was grown; and as hellebore was the recognized specific for madness, it was commonly said of a foolish person "Naviget Am."" Let him sail to A." The town lay on a peninsula which is often erroneously described as an island. Jonson, in Fortun. Isls., says, "This fool should have been sent to A., the isle of Hellebore." Burton, A. M. ii. 4, 2, 2, says, "The ancients . . . sent all such as were crazed or that doted to the Ae . . . . where this plant [hellebore] was in abundance to be had." In Cowley's Riddle v., Alupis says, "He's mad beyond the cure Of all the herbs that grow in A," See also ANCYRUS.
ANTIOCH [1]
The capital of Syria, on the Orontes, founded by Seleucus Nicator 300 B.C., and
named after his father Antiochus. Enlarged and embellished by subsequent ks.,
and became one of the greatest and most famous cities of the East. Here is laid
Sc. I of Pericles. Gower says, prol. 17, "This A. then; Aus. the Gt. Built up
this city for his chiefest seat." The supposed time of the play is the beginning
of the 2nd cent. B.C. Aus. the Gt. reigned 228187 B.C. It is mentioned in
Marlowe's Tamb. B. ii. 1, as one of
the Syrian towns which the K. of Natolia has gone to defend against Tamburlaine.
In B. & F. Hum. Lieut. v. 4, Seleucus laments "the fortune I lost in A. when my
uncle perished"; and again, "you both knew mine uncle Enanthes I lost in A. when
the town was taken, mine uncle slain; Antigonus had the sack on't." Seleucus must
have had a short memory, for he himself founded A. in 300 B.C, the year after
Antigonus was slain at the battle of Ipsus; nor had he any uncle as far as history
relates. In Day's Travails, p. 50, Sultan Ahmed I claims to be "Emperor of Babilon,
Catheria, AEgipt, Ae." In Tiberius
2020, Germanicus, leaving Armenia, says, "Farewell, good Piso, I'll to Ae." He
went there, and died, as it was suspected, of poison administered by Piso. Christianity
was early introduced into A., as related in Acts xi. 19, and it is said "The disciples
were called Christians first in A." (Acts xi. 26). In Tiberius
2182, Maximus says of Germanicus, "We marched to the city Ae., Whereas my lord
had heard were Christians, Judean priests, the which did magnify An unknown god,
in daily piety." As this was in A.D. 19 the anachronism is rather extraordinary.
Milton, P. R. iii. 297, says of the E. kingdoms, "All these the Parthian . . .
under his dominion holds From the luxurious ks: of A. won." In Heming's Jewes Trag. 590, Titus says!at the ammunition "is brought from A. within a day's journey
of Gamala." Bacon, in Sylva x. 936, says, "Groves of bays do forbid pestilent
airs; which was accounted a great cause of the wholesome air of Aia."
ANTIOCH [2]
The capital of the Roman province of Pisidia. It lay in the S. of the Phrygio-Galatic dist., abt. 250 m. E. of Smyrna. In Conf. Cons. iv. 5, Suggestion says, "Paul at A. dissembled to be dead." The reference is to the incident recorded in Acts xiv. 19; but it took place at Lystra, not at A.; though Jews from A. were amongst the instigators of the assault on the Apostle.
ANTIPODES
Those who live on the opposite side of the globe, so that their feet are planted
over against ours. The 1st quotation given in the N.E.D. is from Trevisa (1398):
"Yonde in Ethiopia ben the A., men that have theyr fete ayenst our fete." Benedict
will go "on slightest errand now to the A." to escape from Beatrice (Ado ii. 1,
273). Hermia thinks that "this whole earth may be bored and that the moon May
through the centre creep and so displease Her brother's noontide with the A."
sooner than Lysander would leave. her (M.N.D. iii. 2, 55). Bassanio greets Portia
on her return: "We should hold day with the A. If you would walk in absence of
the sun "(Merch. v. 1, 127). Richd. complains that Bolingbroke "all this while
hath revelled in the night Whilst we were wandering with the A." (12 iii. 2, 49).
York abuses Q. Margaret: "Thou art as opposite to every good As the A. are unto
us "(H6 C. i. 4, 135). Tamburlaine urges his sons to prosecute his conquests still
further after his death, "whereas the sun, declining from our sight, Begins the
day with our A." (Marlowe, Tamb. B.
v. 3); and Callapine speaks of the starry night as "That fair veil that covers
all the world When Phoebus leaping from the hemisphere Descendeth downward to
the A." (ibid. B. 1, 2).
In Kirke's Champions the A. are
regarded as a region of perpetual darkness, and Calib, speaking of his gloomy
cave, says, "We are sunk in these A., so choked with darkness that it can stifle
the day "(i. 1)."Above the A." is used in Massinger's Virgin iv. 2, meaning
"on this side of the world." Brome has a play called The A., in which everything
is turned topsy-turvy, and, amongst other things, "all the poets are Puritans."
In l. 231 he speaks of his soul being "hurried to the Antip(dian strand." Laneham
(Letter, p. 48) says that Kenilworth was so radiant during Elizabeth's visit,
"at though Phoebus for his ease would rest him in the Castle and not every night
go to travel down unto the A." We gain much information about the A. from Pseudolus,
who lived there "about 3 years, 6 months, and 4 days"; they are about 100 m.
from the fields Gurgustidonian; and he wears a ring which the K. of the A. gave
him (Timon i. 4). In Shirley's Courtier i. 1, Orsino says to Volterre, "Thou
hast been a traveller and conversed with the A." In his Ct. Secret ii. 2, Mendoza
speaks of hurricanes boisterous enough to strike a ship "clean through o' t'other
side to the A." In Chaunticleers i., Bristle says, "I'd dig to the A. with my
nails, but I'd find a mine." In Davenant's Britannia it is pronounced with a
long "o, "and the accent is on the 3rd syllable, as the rhyme shows: "I'll strike
thee till thou sink where the abode is Of wights that sneak below, cared Antip(des."
In Brome's Lovesick Ct. v. 1, Philargus says, "Rather I'll travel to th' A.
than here linger the vain impediment of your joys." In Cockayne's Obstinate
ii. 1, Lorece says, "They at the A. hear with their noses, smell with their
ears, see by feeling, but taste with all their senses, and feel not anything,
for they cannot be hurt." Constable, in Diana ii. 3, 4, says of the sun, "Though
from our eyes his beams be banished Yet with his light the A. be blest."
ANTIUM
An ancient city of Latium on a promontory on the sea-cast, 38 m. from Rome. It
still survives as Porto d'Anzo. It became the leading city of the Volscians, and
engaged vigorously in their wars against the Romans. Here Shakespeare places the
house of Tullus Aufidius, and the scene of Cor.
iv. 4, 5, v. 6 is laid in A. See Cor.
iii. 1, I i; and iv. passim. It is at A. that Coriolanus is killed (488 B.C.).
ANTLING'S, SAINT
See ANTHOLINS (ST.).
ANTOINE, RUE DE SAINT
A st. in Paris, running E. from the Place de la Bastille to the Place de la Nations In Davenant's Rutland, p. 223, the Londoner, in his description of Paris, says, "Lae Rue St. A., St. Honoré, and St. Denis are large enough for the Vista." Fyne. Moryson, in Itinerary i. 2, 188, says of Paris, "The sts. are somewhat large, and among them the fairest is that of St. Dennis, the 2nd St. Honoré, the 3rd St. A., and the 4th St. Martine."
ANTONY'S
Another name for the Rose Tavern in Russell St., Lond., close to Drury Lane, Antony
being apparently the name of the host. A room in the Rose is depicted in the 3rd
plate of Hogarth's Rake's Progress. It had an evil reputation as a gambling hell
and a haunt of women of the town. In Barry's Ram,
Capt. Puff declares it to be his ambition, if he can get hold of a rich wife,
to eat at Clare's Ordinary and dice at A. (iii. 1). In Shirley's Hyde Park iii.
1, when Venture and Bonavent begin to quarrel and draw their swords, Lord Bonvile
comforts the agitated ladies by assuring them that "A cup of sack, and A. at the
Rose Will reconcile their furies." In B.'& F. Wit S. W. iv. 1, Gregory says to
Cunningham, "I have been seeking for you 1, the bowling green; Enquired at Nettleton's
and A. ordinary."
ANTWERP (or ANTWERPEN, ANVERS)
One of the greatest spts. of the 16th cent., lying on the right bank of the Scheldt, abt. 50 m. from the open sea. It had a population of 200,000, and 2000 vessels could be seen at one time in the harbour. The English wool trade was largely carried on through A., and in 1296 an English factory received its charter. In 1550 an English Bourse was established, and in 1558 the Hop van Lyere was given to the English merchants. It was known as Dives A.-ia., and its fairs attracted merchants from all parts of Europe. For the Exchange see under BURSE. The Castle, or Citadel of the S., was built by Alva in 1567
A. was involved in the Spanish wars of the later 16th cent. It was taken by
the Spaniards in 1576, and given up to a 3 days' pillage, known as the Spanish
Fury. It was again besieged by the D. d'Alençon in 1583; and after an obstinate
resistance was taken by the D. of Parma in August 1585. Larum
is concerned with the siege of 1576 though Alva, who in the play appears as
the general of the Spaniards, had left Holland in 1574. During the siege of
15845 a fire-ship launched by the besieged effected a breach in the D.
of Parma's bdge. over the Scheldt, to the astonishment of Europe. In Marlowe's
Faustus i. 91, Faust says, "I'll . .
. chase the Prince of Parma from our land . . . Yea, stranger engines for the
burnt of war Than was the fiery keel at A.'s bdge. I'll make my servile spirits
to invent." Act II of Cromwell is laid in A., during Cromwell's tenure of the
office of secretary to the English factory. In ii. 1, prol., the Chorus says,
"Now, gentlemen, imagine that young Cromwell [is] In Antwarpe leiger for the
English merchants." In the alliterative nonsense-rhymes in Thersites i. 218,
the couplet occurs, "Andrew AllKnave, alderman of A., Hop will with hollyhocks
and harken Humphrey's harp." Is there a possible reminiscence of the Hop van
Lyere? In Marlowe's Jew iv. 1, Barabas
has debts owing in all the great trade centres of Europe, including A. In Haughton's
Englishmen iii. 2, Laurentia complains that when her Dutch lover comes to court
her all he has to say is that "cloth is dear at A." In Peele's Alcazar ii. 4,
70, the D. of Barceles is sent to A. by Sebastian "To hire us mercenary men-at-arms."
In Gascoigne's Government iv. 5, Eccho says, "There are not many towns in 'Europe
that maintain more jollity than Ae." In Larum
A. 3, Danila says that A. is "the flower of Europe"; and that she is in "every
part so rich and sumptuous As India's not to be compared to her." In Middleton's
No Wit i. 3, the Dutch Merchant says of Grace, "I saw that face at A. in an
inn." Dekker, in induction to Seven Sins (1606), says, "A., the eldest daughter
of Brabant, Hath fallen in her pride."
In T. Heywood's I.K.M. B. 296, a lord, speaking of Gresham's Exchange, says,
"The nearest, that which most resembles this, Is the great Burse in A., yet
not comparable Either in height or wideness, the fair cellarage, Or goodly shops
above." In Coryat's 4 Crudities (1611), Vadianus, in prefatory verses, says,
"Galdbreech Fame rode bare-ridge To spread the news in Ae. Pawne." In Larum
i. 1, the scene is laid in the castle which commands "the S. Port." From it
the Spaniards fire a shot which strikes the state-house, or Hotel de Ville,
and so begin the attack on the unsuspecting city. Spenser, F. Q. v. 10, 25,
describes the Spanish oppression of A., and says that the Spaniard "had defaced
clean Her stately towers and buildings, sunny sheen, Shut up her havens, marred
her merchants' trade, Robbed her people that full rich had been, And in her
neck a Castle huge had made." Borde, in Intro. of Knowledge (1542) x., says
that "Handwarp is a well-favoured merchant town; it has a curious ch.-spire,
the fairest flesh-market in Christendom, and a fine Burse." In Ford's Warbeck
iv. 3, Durham says, "The English merchants, Sir, have been received with general
procession into A." This is a slight ante-dating of the treaty of commerce made
with the Flemings by Henry VII in 1506. A lost play by Dekker and Haughton,
produced in 1601, was called Friar Rush and the Proud Woman of A. The scene
of Gascoigne's Government is laid in A.
AONIA
The dist. around Thebes, in Boeotia. The Soldan, in Marlowe's Tamb.
A. iv. 3, refers to the hunting of the wolf, "that angry Themis sent to waste
and spoil The sweet An. fields," by Cephalus and the Theban youth. This wolf,
or fox, was fated never to be overtaken by any pursuer; and Amphitryon, in order
to catch it, borrowed the dog of Cephalus which was fated to overtake any animal
it pursued. Fate got over this problem of the irresistible force arid the immovable
mass by turning both animals into stone. Milton, P. L. i. 15, uses "An. Mt." for
Mt. Helicon, which was in this part of Boeotia.
AOUS
See AEAS.
APENNINES
The chain of mtns. running down the centre of Italy. In K.J. i. 1, 202, the Bastard
scoffs at the travellers who talk of "the Alps and A., the Pyrenaean and the r.
Po." In Dekker's Hon. Wh. A. i. 3, the D. of Milan swears that he will starve
his daughter "on the Appenine "ere Hi Hipolito shall marry her. In Marlowe's Tamb.
B. i. 1,. Sigismund says, "My royal host . . . seems as vast and wide . .
. as the ocean to the traveller That rests upon the snowy A." In B. & F. Bonduca
iii. 2, Suetonius says to the Roman soldiers, "Loud Fame calls ye Pitched on the
topless Apennine." In Nabbes' Hannibal
i. 3, Hannibal boasts, "We will triumph, or I'll level all the rugged A." In the
old Shrew, Haz., p. 513, Ferando addresses Kate, "Thou whiter than are the snowy
Apenis." In Caesar's Rev. v. 1, Cassius
says he will with mangled bodies "make such hills as shall surpass in height The
snowy Alps and aery Appenines." Beaumont, in The Glance 28, says, "Those glances
work on me like the weak shine The frosty sun throws on the Appenine." Daniel,
in prol. to Cleopatra, pleads for the extension of England's literary influence,
so that "we May plant our roses on the Apinines." In Mason's Mulleasses
2239, Mulleasses speaks of a love "cold as the white head of the A."
APHERYCA
A curious spelling of Africa in Stucley
1563.
APIDANUS
A r. in Thessaly, rising in Mt. Othrys in Phthia, and flowing N. into the Enipeus.
Said to be the only r. in Thessaly which was not drunk dry by the army of Xerxes.
In T. Heywood's Dialogues 5243, 10, speaking of Thessaly, says, "There old A.
steals murmuring by." In his B. Age
iii., Medea says, "What simples grow iii Mt. Pindus, Otheris, Ossa, Appidane,
I must select."
APOLLO
The name of the room where Jonson's Tavern Academy used to meet, in the Devil Tavern in Fleet St., next to Temple Bar. It was on the 1st floor at the back.
The Latin rules of the Academy are given in full in Gifford's edition of Jonson.
Marmion, in Companion, puts a bit of his own experience into the mouth of Careless,
who, in ii. 4, enters drunk and says, "I am full of oracles; I am come from
A. . .. From the heaven Of my delight where the boon Delphic God Drinks sack
and keeps his Bacchanalias, And has his incense and his altars smoking, And
speaks in sparkling prophecies: "thence do I come." In Shirley's Love Maze i.
2, Caperwit says, "If I meet you in A., a pottle of the best ambrosia in the
house shall wait upon you." In his Fair
One iii. 4, Fowler says, "To the Oracle, boys, Come, we'll have thy story
in A." In Brome's Moor ii. 1, the Boy cries: "Jerome! draw a quart of the best
Canary into the A." In Jonson's Staple ii. 5, Pennyboy Canter advises his nephew,
"Dine in A. with Pecunia, At brave D. Wadloos"; and he replies, "Content, i'
faith . . . . Simon the K. Will bid us welcome." Simon Wadloe was the Host of
the Devil Tavern, q.v. Accordingly, Act IV, Sc. I is laid "In the Devil
Tavern, The A." The bust of A. which adorned the room is still preserved in
Child's Bank. In Herbert's Travels (1639), the word is used in the sense of
a Banqueting Hall: the sultan was ushered into his A. where upon rich carpets
was placed a neat and costly banquet."
APOLLO, TEMPLE OF
Erected on the Palatine Hill at Rome by Augustus after the victory of Actium,
and dedicated in 28 B.C. It was frequently used for meetings of the Senate, and
Jonson's Sejanus v. 10, is laid here."
The consuls . . . shall hold a Senate in the temple of A. Palatine."
APOLLONIA
(now POLLONA). City of Illyria, on the Aous, some 8 m. from the sea. In Misogonus, the twin brother of Misogonus is carried off while an infant and last; but it subsequently appears that he is in Apolonia or Polona. I suppose the Illyrian A. is meant; but there are As. in Sicily and Chalcidice and Crete and Asia Minor and half a dozen other places.
APOTHECARIES' HALL
In B. & F. Prize ii. 6, Livia, says to Moroso, "There is no other use of thee now extant But to be hung up, cassock, cap and all, For some strange monster at A." The A. H. in Water Lane, Blackfriars, was not erected till 1670; up to that time the a. were connected with the Grocers' Company. I suspect that in this passage the Barber-Surgeons' Hall is intended, where certainly "anatomies," or skeletons, were preserved and exhibited. See under BARBERSURGEONS' HALL, for instances.
APPIAN WAY
The most famous of the ancient Roman rds., connecting the capital with Brundusium, by way of Capua. It was commenced by Appius Claudius Caecus 312 B.C., and completed abt. the middle of the 1st cent. B.C. It entered Rome by the Porta Capena. For some m. outside the city it is lined with tombs. In B. & F. Prophetess iii. 1, Geta inquires of a petitioner, "What's your bill? For gravel for the A. W. and pills? Is the way rheumatic?" Milton, P. R. iv. 68, describes embassies coming to Rome "In various habits, on the A. road Or on the AEmilian."
APPIDANE
See APIDANUS.
APULIA
Dist. of ancient Italy, on the E. coast, E. of Samnium and Lucania. Venusium, the birthplace of Horace, was on the borders of A. and Lucania. In Jonson's Poetaster iii. 2, Horace says, "Lucanian or An., I not [i.e. know not] whether, For the Venusian colony ploughs either." See Hor. Sat. ii. 1, 35.
AQUILEIA
A Roman colonia founded 181 B.C., near the head of the Adriatic, 21 m. N.W. of Trieste. Its walls were12 m. in circumference, and it became a great trading centre. It was one of the oldest bishoprics in Italy and, according to tradition, St. Mark was its 1st bp. and wrote his Gospel there. Destroyed in A.D. 452 by Attila and his Huns.; the remnant of the inhabitants fled to the islands at the mouth of the Brenta and founded Venice. In Marmion's Antiquary iii., the hero tells of certain MSS. which he possesses, "which were digged out of the ruins 'ms of A. after it was sacked by Attila."
AQUINUM
(now AQUINO). A town of the Volscians, lying on the Via Latina, abt. 70 m. S.E. of Rome, birthplace of the satirist Juvenal. Hall, in Satires iv. 1, 2, asks, "Who dares upbraid these open rhymes of mine With blindfold Aquines or dark Venusine?" i.e. with the obscure satires of Juvenal or Horace.
AQUITAINE
The subject of dispute between the Ks. of France and Navarre in L.L.L. It lies
in S.W. France, between the Garonne and the Pyrenees. Shakespeare regards it as
part of the kingdom of France at the date of the play, for the K. of France has
mortgaged it to the K. of Navarre as security for his payment of 200,000 crowns
which he had promised him for his services in his wars. Its chief towns were Bordeaux
and Toulouse. Corineus, the brother of the legendary Brutus who gave his name
to Britain, claims, with a fine disregard of chronological conditions, to have
conquered "all the borders of great A." (Locrine
i. 1). Drayton, is Polyolb. i. 437, says, "In A. at last the Ilion race arrive,"
and proceeds to describe the defeat of Groffarius of A. by Corineus. Jonson, in
Blackness, characterizes it as "rich A." The D. of A. is one of the characters
in Greene's Orlando. In Middleton's
Chess v. 3, the Black Knight, in a list of table-dainties, mentions salmons from
A. Pliny, Hist. Nat. iv. 32, says, "In Aquitania salmo fluviatilis marinis omnibus
praefertur." In Brewer's Lingua iii. 6, the Herald says that the 3 lions in the
English arms "are 1 coat made Of 2 French dukedoms, Normandy and Aquitain." In
T. Heywood's Ed. IV B. 94, Edward
claims from France "all these Dukedoms following: A., Anjou, etc."
ARABIA
(Ab. = Arab, Ay. = Araby, An. = Arabian). The peninsula between the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, and the Persian Gulf. The ancients divided it into 3 parts: Petraea in the N., Deserta in the centre, and Felix in the S.W. A., however, only comes into prominence as the result of the work of Mahomet (A.D. 622632). After effecting the religious reformation of A., he pro ceeded to conquer in succession Syria, whose capital, Damascus, is still an Ab. city; Persia, Egypt, N. Africa, and Spain. Hence Ab. is used for the inhabitants of all these countries, and is often equivalent to Moor. From 750 onward the greatness of A. began to decline, until in the early part of the 16th cent. it became part of the Ottoman Empire, and remained so until 1919.
Historical and local allusions. Milton, P. L. iii. 537, speaks
of "Beersaba, where the Holy Land Borders on Egypt and the An. Shore." In A.
do C. iii. 6, 73, "K. Malchus of A." is one of the ks. summoned by Cleopatra
to help Antony. F. i., following North's Plutarch, reads "Manchus"; but the
real title of this monarch was Malchus, the Hebrew Melech, i.e. K.; he
ruled over A. Petraea. An An. K., Silleus (Syllaeus), is one of the characters
in Mariam. In Greene's Alphonsus iv. 2, 1315, Carinus, pretending to be an An.,
says, "I still [am] desirous, as young gallants be, To see the fashions of A.
My native soil." Cracon, K. of A., is one of the characters in this play; he
is entirely imaginary, as is the Rhesus "K. of sweet A.," who, in Chapman's
Blind Beggar ix., is marching against Ptolemy. In Coventry M. P. of The Nativity,
Balthasar, one of the Three Kings, is called "K. of Ay." In York M. P. xvii.
16, the 2nd K. of the three who come from the East says he has come "Out of
my realm, rich Arabie." In Marlowe's Tamb.
B. iv. 4, Tamburlaine sets the bounds of his Empire thus: "The Euxine Sea,
N. to Natolia; The Terrene, W.; the Caspian, N.N.E.; And on the S., Sinus Arabicus."
In Marlowe's Tamb. B. iii. 5, we
read of troops from "A. Desert." In Massinger's Virgin iv. 3, Dorothea says,
"The Power I serve Laughs at your Happy Ay." In his Great Duke ii. 3, Sanazzaro
speaks of "those smooth gales that glide O'er Happy Ay. or rich Sabaea." In
Mariam i. 4, Salome says, "Oh, blest A. I in best climate placed!" Milton, P.
L. iv. 163, speaks of "Sabaean odours . . . from Ay. the Blest." The Abs. were
believed to be good archers; but they were credited with a savage disposition,
and, like the modern bedouin, were reputed thieves. In Caesar's
Rev. iv. 2, Cassius enumerates amongst his allies "The warlike Mede and
the An. Boe "where "Boe "is meant for "Bow", i.e. archer. In Kirke's
Champions iii., Ormandine speaks
of the "cruel Tartar and An. Ks." Ithamar, the villain of Marlowe's Jew
(ii. 3), was "born in Thrace; brought up in A."; i.e. was savage both
by birth and education. In Davenant's Rutland, p. 227, the Londoner says that
at Pont Neuf, in Paris, "robbery is as constant a trade as amongst the Abs."
Heylyn (s.v. A.) says, "The people hereof are greatly addicted to theft, which
is the better part of their maintenance." A. seems to the Elizabethans a vast
and desolate region. In Cor. iv.
2, 24, Volumnia wishes that "my son Were in A., and thy tribe before him, His
sword in his hand"; i.e. that he could fight Sicinius and his tribe singlehanded
without fear of interruption. In Merch. ii. 7, 42, Morocco says, "The vasty
wilds Of wide A. are as thoroughfares now For princes to come view fair Portia."
Milton, P. R. iii. 274, says, "To S. the Persian bay And, inaccessible, the
An. drouth."
A. was, par excellence, the land of spices. In Mac.
v. 1, 57, Lady Macbeth cries: "AU the perfumes of A. will not sweeten this little
hand." In Oth. v. 2, 350, Othello speaks of eyes dropping tears "as fast as
the An. trees Their medicinal gum." In Dekker's Fortunatus v. i. Andelocia,
pretending to be a physician, says, "I must buy many costly tings dat grow in
A., in Asia, and America" for the making of his medicine. In Tiberius
2248, Agrippina, hearing that Germanicus is poisoned, says, "Mine eyes shall
drizzle down An. myrrh To garnish all Armenian infections." In B. & F. Philaster
iii. i. Arethusa's breath is described as being "Sweet as An. winds when fruits
are ripe." In Davenant's Italian iv. 4, Sciolto says, "I'll be as calm as are
An. winds." In Lyly's Sapho prol., he says, "The Ans., being stuffed with perfumes,
burn hemlock, a rank poison." In his Gallathea v. 2, Haebe says, "Whoso cutteth
the incense-tree in A. before it fall, committeth sacrilege." In Marmion's Leaguer
v. i. Philautus says, "Let happiness Distil from you as the An. gums." In Skelton's
Magnificence, fol. xviii., Magnificence says, "There is no balm, no gum of Arabe
More delectable than your language to me." In Tiberius
150, Asinius speaks of "the An. spices." Greene, in Mourn. Gar. 9, speaks of
"The Arabick tree that yields no gum but in the dark night." In H. Shirley's
Mart. Soldier ii. 3, Bellizarius
says, "Indian Aramaticks nor An. gums Were nothing scented unto this sweet bower."
In Dist. Emp. iv. 3, Richd. says, "The ravens which in A live Having flown all
the field of spices o'er Seize on a stinking carcass." In Milkmaids v. 1, Ranoff
compares his lady's breasts to "lemons of A. which make the vessel so sweet
it can never smell of the cask." Milton, P. R., ii. 364, says, "Winds Of gentlest
gale An. odours fanned From their soft wings." Barnes, in Parthenophil (1593),
Ode xvii., speaks of "rich An. odours." A. is the abode of the Phoenix; the
belief being that there was only one phoenix at a time, which lived in A for
500 or 600 years, and then cremated itself on a pyre of spices from which a
young phoenix arose. It is "the bird of loudest lay On the sole An. tree "in
Phoenix 2 In A. & C. iii. 2, 12,
Agrippa ironically exclaims, "O Antony! O thou An. bird I" In Temp.
iii. 3, 22, Sebastian, after seeing Prospero's spirits, professes that he "will
believe . . . that in A. There is one tree, the phoenix throne, one phoenix
At this hour reigning there." In Cym.
i. 6, 17, Iachimo, at first sight of Imogen, declares, "She is alone the An.
bird." In Dekker's Fortunatus ii. 2, Andelocia says, "He that would not be an
An. Phoenix to burn in these sweet fires, let him live like an owl for the world
to wonder at." In Ford's Trial ii. 1, Guzman declares that his lady "Shall taste
no delicates but what are dressed With costlier spices than the An. bird Sweetens
her funeral bed with." In Histrio.
iii. 1, Pride bids her attendants "Fetch me the feathers of th' An. bird!" In
Lyly's Endymion iii. 4, Eumenides complains, "Friends to be found are like the
An. phoenix, But one." In Selimus 2010, we read: "Thus after he hath 5 long
ages lived, The sacred Phoenix of A Loadeth his wings with precious perfumes
And on the altar of the golden Sun Offers himself a grateful sacrifice." In
T. Heywood's Challenge ii., Isabel says, "He's perhaps travelled to A. Felix
and from thence to bring the Phoenix hither." In Nash's Summers, p. 70, Christmas
proposes to send "to A. for phoenixes." An Am. woodcock is one of the birds
exhibited by Bonamico in Shirley's Bird iv. 31. In Tiberius
100, Tiberius says, "One only phoenix in A. Presents a sacrifice to heaven's
eye." In Milton's S. A. 1700, the Chorus speaks of "that self-begotten bird
In the An. woods embost That no second knows nor third, And lay erewhile a holocaust
. . . . And though her body die, her fame survives A secular bird, ages of Iives."
A. was believed to be rich in gold and gems (see Psalm lxxii.
15); though it really had no mineral wealth Those precious things, however,
came thence in the course of trade. Barabas, in Marlowe's Jew
i. 1, says, "Well fare the Ans. who so richly pay The things they traffic for
with wedge of gold." In Calisto 231, Calisto speaks of Meliboea's hair as "far
shining beyond fine gold of Ay." Barnes, in Parthenophil (1593), xlviii. 1,
says, "I wish no rich refined An. gold." Silks were also brought from the East
by way of A. In the old Shrew, Haz. p. 532, Philotus promises to fraught the
ships of Alfonso "with An. silks."
The wild asses of the An. deserts were proverbial for recklessness and
folly. In the old Timon
i. 4, the arms of Gelasimus are described as bearing "3 gilded thistles"; and
"3 fat asses Drawn out the deserts of A."
The great physicians of the Middle Ages were mostly Ans., belonging
to the Moorish kingdoms in Spain See the list of physicians in Chaucer, C. T.
A. 429. In Brewer's Lingua i. 1, Lingua speaks of "The An physical." In Chapman's
[Glapthorne's?] Rev. Hon. i. 1, 125, Selinthus alleges, as authorities on a point of physiology,
"Averroes and Avicen, With Abenhuacar, Baruch, and Abolhafi, And all the Arabic
writers." In Jonson's Tub iv. 1, Scriben says, "One Rasis was a great Arabic
doctor." The Arabic language was only known to a very few scholars. In B. &
F. Elder B. i. 2, when Brisac scornfully
calls his son's manuscript "pot-hooks and and irons," he replies: "I much pity
you; it is the Syrian character or the Arabic." In Glapthorne's Wit
ii. 1, Thorowgood, affecting to be a scholar, says to Grace, "I'll Court you
in the Chaldean or Arabick tongues." The pillar raised by Tamburlaine (B. iii.
21) in memory of Zenocrate has an inscription in "An., Hebrew, Greek." In Cowley's
Cutter i. 5, Worm says that Cutter
writes "in such vile characters that most men take 'em for An. pot-hooks."
The opening of Com. Cond. is laid in A. It is also the scene of Chapman's [Glapthorne's?] Rev. Hon., where A. stands for the whole Turkish Empire; it is altogether unhistorical.
ARACHOSIA
A province of E. Persia, lying immediately W. of the Indus, and corresponding roughly to the modem Afghanistan. Milton, P. R. iii. 316, mentions A. as the first of the Eastern provinces, the hosts of which are shown to our Lord by Satan.
ARAGON
See ARRAGON.
ARAIN
See ARRAN.
ARANIS
(a misprint for ARARIS). See under ARAR.
ARAR
The ancient name of the r. Saone in France. It rises in the Vosges, and has a
S. course of abt. 300 m. till it joins the Rhône at Lyons. It was the boundary
between the Sequani on the E. and the AEdui on the W. In Caesar's
Rev. iii. 2, Caesar boasts, "A. and proud Saramna speaks my praise." In Lyly's
Endymion ii. 1, Endymion says, "That fish (thy fish, Cynthia, in the flood Araris)
which at thy waxing is as white as the driven snow, and at thy waning as black
as deepest darkness." It is misprinted Aranis in Fairholt's edition, but that
Araris is right is shown by a passage in Euphues Anat. Wit 74, "The fish Scolopidus
in the flood Araris at the waxing of the moon is as white as the driven snow,
and at the waning as black as the burnt coal." The original of this idea is found
in the pseudo-Plutarchian De Fluviis vi.
ARARIS
A r. mentioned in Marlowe, Tamb. A.
ii. 1, as the rendezvous of the forces of Tamburlaine and Cosroes in the war with
the Parthian K.; later, in ii. 3, Tamburlaine says, "The host of Xerxes . . .
is said to have drank the mighty Parthian A." Either, therefore, we must suppose
that Marlowe has simply coined the name; or that in each case we should read Araxis,
which, though not in Parthia, is perhaps sufficiently near it for poetic purposes.
The chief objection to the latter supposition is the accent, which, in both cases,
falls on the 1st syllable. Marlowe is capable of dealing freely with the accents
on foreign names ("Oh! Pythagóras' Metempscýchosis "towards the end of Faustus).
But in this case the accentuation seems very unnatural. The former supposition
seems therefore the more probable. The r. said by Herodotus to have been drunk
dry by Xerxes' army is neither Araris nor Araxes, but the Lissus, in Thrace.
ARAXES
A r. flowing E. through Armenia into the Caspian Sea. Spenser, F. Q. iv. 11, 21, speaks of "Ooraxes, feared for great Cyrus fate." Cyrus crossed the Araxes before his fatal encounter with Q. Thomyris. Milton, P. R. iii. 271, speaks of "A. and the Caspian Lake "as the bounds of the empire of Assyria. In Strode's Float. Isl. iv. 9, Irato says, "Stop A. floods, Then mayst thou stop my wrath." Virgil, En. viii. 728, calls it "pontem indignatus A."
ARAYS
I cannot find this place. Is it a misprint for "Araby "? In Lyly's Endymion iii. 4, Eumenides speaks of birds called Philadelphi "in A.," of which never above 2" coexista sort of embroidery on the phoenix legend.
ARBILA
(or ARBELA, now ARBIL). City of Adiabene in Assyria, between the Greater and the Lesser Zab, abt. 50 m. S.E. of Nineveh. The last battle between Alexander the Gt. and Darius is often cared the battle of Arbela, though it was actually fought at Gaugemela, some 20 m. N.W. In Bacchus the 12th guest was "Gilbert Goodfellow, from A., an Assyrian; this Gilbert was a butcher." In the argument to the Tragedy of Darius, Sir W. Alexander writes: "He [Darius] fought beside Arbella, with no better fortune than before."
ARCADIA
(Ay. = Arcady, An. = Arcadian). A dist. of ancient Greece, in the centre of the Peloponesus. Isolated from the seacoast and from its neighbours by its rugged mtns., it became proverbial amongst the Greek and Latin poets for its rusticity and simplicity. Sannazaro and Sir Philip Sidney idealized it into a land of pure pastoral happiness unaffected by the vices of civilization; and in the Elizabethan dramatists it has this connotation. Thus, in Ret. Pernass. v. 2, Studioso proclaims, "Not any life to me can sweeter be Than happy swaines in plaine of Ay." In Day's Gulls, Basilius has "unclothed us of our princely government in A." in order to retire to the desert island which is the scene of the play (i. 1). In Marmion's Antiquary iii. 2, the D. describes a circle of literary ladies" where every waitingwoman speaks perfect A."; i.e. talks in the style of Sidney's novel. The scene of Jonson's Pan is laid in A, and the masque consists of a contest between "the best and bravest spirits of A." and a company of Boeotians, representing respectively the poets and the Philistines, at the conclusion of which the latter are bidden to "carry their stupidity into Boeotia whence they brought it . . . . This is too pure an air for so gross brains." Daniel's Queen's Arcadia is supposed to take place in that romantic country. Shirley also wrote a dramatized version of Sidney's novel, called The Arcadia. The scenes of Milton's Arcades, Lyly's Love's Meta., Glapthorne's Argalus, and Rutter's Shepherd Hol. are Laid in A.
An. is used also in the sense of rustic, boorish. In the old play of Timon
i. 2, Eutrapelus calls Abyssus "Thou log, thou stock, thou An. beast." And in
ii. 5, Laches says of Gelasimus: "There's not an ass in all A. so very an ass
as thou." In v. 3, Paedio says to Gelasimus, "I took you for an Athenian; I
see now thou art become an An."
In Davenant's Italian iv. 4, Altamont says, "The An. wrestler Told young Theseus
so; but he did yield As if his sinews had been made of silk." The reference
is to Cercyon of Eleusis, who compelled all passers-by to wrestle with him,
and was overcome and slain by Theseus. In Lyly's Maid's Meta. i. 1, Atalanta
is called "the An. dame [who] came to hunt the boar of Calydon." There were
2 versions of the Atalanta story. One calls her an An., and connects her with
the hunting of the boar; the other calls her a Boeotian, and makes the centre
of interest her race with Melanion, who won her hand by dropping the golden
apples. One of the characters in Chapman's Blind Beggar is an imaginary Doricles,
Prince of A. In Lyly's Midas iv. 1, Pan says, "My temple is in A." In T. Heywood's
Gold. Age iii., Jupiter says to
Archas, "Let that clime henceforth Be called A. and usurp thy name." Archas
was the son of Jupiter by Calisto, and was made K. of Pelasgia, the name being
changed to A.
In T. Heywood's Mistress i.,
Admetus says, "Change your An. notes to Lidian sounds; Sad notes are sweetest";
where An. notes means cheerful, rustic music. In Hercules
iv. 2, 2013, Amphitruo says, "'Tis even here I fear me as it was in Arcadie
where men were changed into beasts and never returned to their former shape
again." In Greene's Orlando ii.
1, 662, Orlando says, "Lend me your plaints, you sweet An. nymphs, That wont
to wail your new departed loves." Linche, in Diella (1596) iii. 4, speaks of
"The pure soft wool An. sheep do bear." In Tiberius
3228, Macro says, "Diana's gift to Cephalps Yearned to outrun the beast of Archadie."
The author is confusing the stories of Atalanta and Cephalus; the scene of the
latter was Boeotia, not A. The refrain of a song in Milton's Arcades 95, runs:
"Such a rural q. All A. hath not seen." Milton, P. L. ii. 132, describes the
Cherubim as "more wakeful than to drowse Charmed with An. pipe." The reference
is to the story of Hermes charming Argus to sleep with his music. In Arcades
28, the Genius says to the swains, "Of famous Ay. ye are." In Comus 341, the
Elder Brother says, "Thou shalt be our Star of Ay. Or Tyrian Cynosure." The
Star of Ay. is the Gt. Bear; the legend was that Calisto, the daughter of the
An. K. Lycaon, was changed into this constellation. In Mason's Mulleasses
2315, Mulleasses speaks of "the sun. backed on the An. beast," singeing the
gardens of Adonis. Probably he means the sun when in the constellation Leo;
which was supposed to be the Nemean lion slain by Herakles. Nemea was not actually
in A., but was not far from its N.E. boundary.
ARCEDAN
(an obvious misprint for ARCENAL, the old spelling for the ARSENAL, q.v.,
at Venice). Here was kept, until its destruction in 1824, the Bucentoro, the barge
on which the Doges annually performed the ceremony of Wedding the Adriatic on
Ascension Day. In K. K. Hon. Man
D. 3, Sempronio says, "This is the festival of Holy Mark; This day our Lords of
Venice wonted be To sacrifice in triumph to the sea, And march in pomp unto the
A." St. Mark's Day is April 25, and could never coincide with Ascension Day.
ARCHADIE
See ARCADIA.
ARCHAIA
See ACHAIA.
ARCHANIANS
In Cyrus B. 1, Cyrus says to Gobrias, "Be thou lieut. of the A." I cannot identify these people. May it be a mistake for Achaemenians a Achaemenia was the name of a Persian tribe; and Achaemenas was the ancestor of the Persian kings.
ARCHELAIS
A city in Cappadocia, on the Halys, abt. 100 m. N.W. of Tarsus. In Bacchus the 9th guest was "a jolly gentlewoman, named Mrs. Merigodown. She came from A., a city in Cappadocia." I imagine the name was chosen because of its containing Lais, the name of the famous Corinthian courtesan.
ARCHES
(more fully the COURT of A.). The Ecclesiastical Court of Appeal for the province
of Canterbury. It was so called because it sat in the Ch. of St. Mary de Arcubus
(St. Mary of the A.) in Cheapside, q.v. It took cognizance of all matters
coming under Ecclesiastical Law, such as marriage and divorce, wills, abuses in
the Ch., etc. The judge was called the Dean of A. In B. & F. Pestle iv. i, the
worthy citizen has a trick in his head shall lodge Jasper "in the A. for one year";
where evidently the prison of the Court is meant. In their Scornful iv. 2, when
the Widow tries to persuade young Loveless to behave decently and cast off his
riotous companions, the Capt. cries: "Let him be civil And eat i' th' A., and
see what will come on 't!" "To eat in the A." may mean to "eat his terms in
the Court of A."; i.e. to practise Canon Law. The Canon Law was built upon
the Civil (roman) Law; the professors of the one were often, perhaps commonly,
professors also of the other; and for these and other historical reasons the 2
things came to be confounded in popular speech: as here, where (a few lines lower)
"Civilian "is plainly used for "Canonist." Throughout the passage the changes
are rung upon various meanings of Civil; i.e. Civilian Canonist, and the
ordinary meaning, decent. In Jonson's Barthol. Induction, we are informed that
"Master Littlewit, the Proctor, plays one of the A., that dwells abt. the Hospital."
Here, again, is a pun: Littlewit was a proctor of the Court of A., and he is going
to Bartholomew Fair, near which was the Hospital of St. Bartholomew with its cloisters
of a. In Oldcastle i. 2, the Bp. of Rochester urges the k." to summon Sir John
unto the A., where such offences have their punishment"; his offence being heresy.
In Brome's Couple i. 1, Saleware, threatening to compel Careless to marry his
kinswoman, says, "There is Law to be found for money, and friends to be found
in the A." In Middleton's Quiet Life
iv. 1, 114, George says, "We have a most lamentable house at home; nothing to
be heard in't but separation and divorces, and such a noise of the spiritual court,
as if it were a tenement upon Lond. Bdge. and built upon the A."; i.e.
the noisy arches of Lond. Bdge. and the Court of A., where divorces were tried.
Latimer, in Serm. to Convocation ii. (1536), after commenting on the abuses in
the Ch., asks indignantly, "What is done in the A.? Nothing to be amended?"
ARCHEPELAGO
A sea studded with islands; most often used of the AEgean Sea, but also applied
to other seas with groups of islands. It is used of the Malay group by Parmentier
(1529), and Hakluyt; and this seems to be the meaning in Marlowe's Tamb.
B. i. 1, where Orcanes says, "From Amazonia under Capricorn And thence as
far as A. All Afric is in arms with Tamburlaine."
ARCTIC POLE
(often spelt ARTIC). The N. P., both of the earth and of the sky. In Glapthorne's Hollander iii. 1, Dr. Artless says, "The loadstone causes the needle of the ship-guiding compass to respect the cold pole Artick." In Davenant's Albovine i. 1, the Governor compares Albovine's breath to "a rough blast that posts From the cold A. P." In Brewer's Lingua iv. 8, Lingua says, "My enchanting tongue can in a moment fall From the P. A. to dark Acheron." In Brome's Lovesick Ct. iv. 3, Disanius says, "You may as soon believe The Artic and Antartick poles can meet In opposition amidst the firinament"; where the N. and S. Poles of the sky are meant. Milton, P. L. ii. 710, compares Satan to a comet "That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge In the a. sky." Ophiuchus is a constellation in the N. sky. Barnes' in Parthenophil (1593) xciii. 3, says of Love, "For alms he 'mongst cold A. folk doth wait." One of the questions propounded by Burton, A. M. ii. 2, 3, is "Whether the sea be open and navigable by the P. artick." Heylyn, Intro., says, "The Artick circle . . . passeth through Norway, Muscovy, Tartary," etc. See also under ANTARCTIC.
ARDE
See ANDREN.
ARDEA
An ancient town of Latium, 24 m. S. of Rome and 4 from the sea. It still retains its old name. It was at the siege of Ardea by Tarquinius Superbus that the events took place which led to the expulsion of the ks. from Rome. In Lucr., arg. 4, we are told, "Lucius Tarquinius went to besiege A." The poem opens: "From the besieged A. all in post . . . Lust-breathed Tarquin leaves the Roman host." In 1332 it is said of Lucrece, "Her letter now is seated and on it writ At A. to my lord with more than haste." In T. Heywood's Lucrece, ii. 2 and 4, and iv. 6 are laid at A.
ARDEN (FOREST of)
The scene of the greater part of As, viz. ii. 1, 47; iii. 25; iv.
and v. It is a forest in Belgium and France, between the Sambre and the Moselle,
and covers abt. 1,000,000 acres, of which 383,000 are still uncultivated. Heylyn,
(s.v. FRANCE) says, "Here is the forest of Ardenia, once 500 m. compass; now scarce
go m. round; of which so many fabulous stories are told." Shakespeare took the
name from Lodge's Rosalind; and though his forest contains lions and palm-trees
and serpents, the scenery is that of an English woodland. It is to be noted 'that
there is a forest of A. N. of Stratford, in Warwickshire. Camden says, "Warwickshire
is divided into 2 parts, the Feldon and Woodland (or A.); that is, into a plain
champaign and a woody country; which parts the Avon, running crookedly from N.E.
to S.W., doth, after a sort, sever one from the other." The name was doubly familiar
to Shakespeare, because his mother was Mary A., and belonged to a family whose
home was in the A. dist. In As You Like It i. 1, 121, Charles tells Oliver that the old D."
is already in the f. of A."; in i. 3, 109, Celia resolves "to seek my uncle in
the forest of A."; in ii. 4, 14, Rosalind sighs, "Well, this is the Forest of
A."; to which Touchstone punningly responds: "Ay, now am I in A. (quasi a den!)
the more fool I." In the masque in Chapman's Trag.
Byron i. 1, the nymphs are "part of the scattered train of friendless virtue
living in the woods of shady A.," and Cupid advises those who can live "with little
sufficed "to "leave the Court and live with them in A." The reference to As You Like It is
unmistakeable. In his Bussy i. 2, there
is a comparison drawn from an oak which the speaker has seen in A.; and in his
Rev. Bussy iii. 1, Charlotte says, "which of the desperatest ruffians, Outlaws
in A., durst have tempted thus One of our blood and name?" In a passage in Greene's
Orlando ii. 1, 589, Orlando says
of Angelica, "No name of hers, unless Zephyrus blow Her dignities alongst Ardenia
woods." In Trag. Richd. II. iv. 2, 102, Cinthia, leading in the Masquers, says,
"The groves of Calidon and A. woods Of untamed monsters, wild and savage herds,
We and our knights have freed." Spenser, in Astrophel 96, calls it "famous Ardeyn."
In F. Q. iv. 3, 45, he refers to "that same water of Ardenne The which Rinaldo
drunk in happy hour." The famous Spa was on the edge of the Forest of 4., and
gave rise to the legend of the magic fountain made by Merlin for Sir Tristram,
by which Love was turned to Aversion. There was another fountain which had the
opposite effect; both are mentioned in Ariosto, Orl. Fur. i. 78. Rinaldo drank
of the 1st one only.
Drayton, in Polyolb. xiii. 13234, sings the praises of the Warwickshire A., "Her one hand touching Trent, the other Severn's side." For this see under ANKOR.
ARDRES
A variant of Andren, q.v. In Webster's Weakest iii. 5, Lodowick says, "The sexton's place of A. I now profess." He has just told Ferdinand, "Part of the base country of France it is; the vill. name is A. in Picardy." In Nash's Wilton, Jack concludes his adventures "at the K. of England's camp 'twixt A. and Guines in France."
AREOPAGUS
(Aae. = Areopagitae). The famous court in Athens that took cognizance of matters
of religion and morals. It sat upon the Hill of Ares, or Mars, W. of the Acropolis.
Tradition carried back its origin into immemorial antiquity: in the Eumenides
of AEschylus, Orestes appears before it to answer for the murder of his mother,
Clytemnestra. The judges were called Aae., and were credited with supreme gravity
and wisdom. In Ford's Heart i. 1,
Croton says to Orgilus, "Wilt thou became an Ae. And judge in cases touching the
commonwealth?" Massinger [ed. note Middleton], in Old
Law i. it, accepts the opinion often entertained in antiquity that Solon was
the founder of "his honourable senate of Aae.," though tradition points to its
existence at a much earlier period. In the old Timon
i. 3, Paedio tells Gelasimus that he is "as grave as a severe Ae. with his contracted
eyebrows." In v. 5, Demeas reads "the decree that I have written concerning thee
before the Aaes." In T. Heywood's Dialogues ii. 934, Mary says, "The Aae. grammar-skilled
In this cannot evince us."
ARETHUSA
A spring in the island of Ortygia, close to Syracuse, on the E. coast of Sicily. It took its name from the Nereid A., to whom it was dedicated. In Webster's Thracian i. 2, Palaemon says of Serena, "See where she comes, like to Diana going To sport by A.'s fount." The god of the r. Alpheus, in Arcadia, was said to have pursued the nymph A. under the sea and mingled his waters with her spring. In Milton's Arcades 31, the Genius sings of "Divine Alpheus who by secret sluice Stole under seas to meet his Arethuse." In T. Heywood's S. Age iii., A. says, "My streams issue forth From Tartary [i.e. Tartarus] by the Tenarian isles; My head's in Hell where Stygian Pluto reigns." The reference is to the source of the fountain in Peloponesus, before its supposed disappearance under the sea to rise again in Syracuse. Milton, in Lycidas 85, apostrophizes, "O fountain Arethuse, and thou honoured flood, Smooth-sliding Mincius"; A. being regarded as the Muse of the Pastoral Poetry, which originated in Sicily.
AREZZO
A city of Tuscany, on the rd. between Florence and Rome, and abt. 120 m. N.W. of the latter. For a long time it held its own against the growing power of Florence, but had finally to submit to its brilliant neighbour. The birthplace of Guido the musician, Petrarch the poet, and many other distinguished men. It is one of 12 Italian cities which Trapdoor, in Middleton's R.G. v. 1, professes to have "ambled over."
ARGENTINE
The Latinized form of the name given by the Spaniards to the r. and dist. around its mouth, discovered by Juan de Solis in 1512. It was wrongly supposed to be rich in silver, and so was christened Rio de la Plata; i.e. Silver R. The r. debouches into the Atlantic on the E. coast of S. America, S. of Uruguay. Buenos Aires was founded at the head of the estuary in 1534, when a fort was built there by De Mendoza; but the city itself dates from 1580. Nash, in Lenten, says that the herring "made Yarmouth for argent to put down the city of A."
ARGIAN (or ARGIVE)
Used for the whole body of the Greeks who besieged Troy. In Caesar's
Rev. i. 3, Dolobella says, "Hector from the Grecian camp With spoils of slaughtered
As. returned."
ARGIER
(the old form of ALGIERS). Heylyn, Microcosmos. 708, gives the name of the country as "Algirs, Algeirs, or Tesesine"; but the name of the capital tows as "As, a town not so large as strong, and not so strong as famous," its fame being due (1) to its being the headquarters of the Moor pirates; (2) for the shipwreck of the fleet of Charles V in the harbour. In Purchas his Pilgrimage (ed. 1614), it is called Algier; but in the later edition of 1625 the form A. occurs. It lies on the N. coast of Africa, between Tunis on the E. and Morocco on the W.
Sycorax was born in A., and "For mischiefs manifold and sorceries terrible
. . . from A. . .. was banished "(Temp.
i. 2, 261, 265). This fact, and the circumstance that the k. was wrecked on
the magic island on his way from Tunis to Naples, shows that Shakespeare conceived
of the scene of the play as somewhere in the Mediterranean.
In Marlowe's Tamb. A. iii. 1, is
described the capture of A. from Bajazeth, and Tamburlaine declares it to be
his intention to liberate the Christian captivesthe "captive pioneers
of A.," who are set by Bajazeth to cut off the water to Constantinople which
he is besieging" I will first subdue the Turk," he says (iii. 3), "and
then enlarge Those Christian captives which you keep as slaves . . . . That
naked row abt. the Terrene sea . . . And strive for life at every stroke they
give. These are the cruel pirates of A., That damned train the scum of Africa."
Massinger, in The Guardian v. 4,
speaks of the "pirates of Tunis and As.," and in Unnat. Com. i. 1, of "the pirates
of As. and Tunis." In Vox Borealis (1641), the Bishops are called "hellish pirates
worse than Tunnes and Algeir." In Davenant's Favourite iii. 1, Eumena has redeemed
a number of slaves "from the gallies of Algiers." In Alimony iii. 3, there is
an old seaballad be ginning, "To Tunis and to As., boys, Great is our want,
small be our joys: Let's then some voyage take in hand To get us means by sea
or land." In Peele's Alcazar i., the Moor's son says, "Rubin near to A. encountered
Abdilmelec." Milton, P. L. xi. 404, enumerates, "The kingdoms of Almansor, Fez
and Sus, Marocco and Algiers, and Tremisen," in N. Africa. Cowley, Cutter
prol, says, "The Midland Sea is no where clear From dreadful fleets of Tunis
and A."; and later he addresses the critics as "Gentlemen criticks of A."
ARGOB
A dist. in Bashan, possibly the modern El-Leja, lying some 40 m. E. of the N. end of the Sea of Galilee. Milton, P. L. i. 398, says of Moloch: "Him the Ammonite Worshipped. . .. In A. and in Basan." It really belonged rather to the Amorites than the Ammonites.
ARGOLETS
Mentioned amongst "the brave resolved Turks and valiant Moors "in the army of
Abdelmelek, in Stucley 2471"
Approved Alarkes, puissant A." Peele's Alcazar throws some light on this obscure
word. In i. 2 the Moor orders Pisanio to "take a comet of our horse, As many a.
and armed pikes"; and in iv. 1, we read of "2000 a. and 10,000 horse." In Spon's
Hist. of Geneva (1687), argoulets are defined as light horsemen; and they were
probably in the first instance bowmen on horseback. It looks as if the author
of Stucley had mistaken the word
for a national name. The meaning is made clear by a passage in Orders meet to
be observed in Foreign Invasion (1642): "Whereas you have great numbers of hackneys
or hobblers, I could wish that upon them you mount as many of the highest and
nimblest shot as you can; the which arguliteers shall stand you in as great stead
as horse of better account."
ARGOS
One of the most ancient cities of Greece, situated abt. 3 m. from the sea in the
plain of Argolis in the N.E. of the Peloponesus. Here Agamemnon reigned, who was
recognized as the leading chief of the Greeks in the Trojan War. Its tutelary
goddess was Hera (Juno), and 2 temples in her honour adorned the city. In Nero
i. 3, "Junonian A." is mentioned as one of the places visited by the Emperor in
his tour through Greece. In Marlowe, Tamb.
A. iv. 3, the Soldan speaks of the "brave Argolian knights "who joined in
the hunting of the Calydonian boar. Amphiaraus was the chief representative of
A. on that occasion. In Ford's Heart,
Nearchus, "Prince of A.," becomes K. of Sparta by the dying bequest of the heroine
Calantha. Of course, the story is imaginary, and impossible in any period of Greek
history. Similarly, in Barclay's Lost Lady i. 1, we are told of a war between
Thessaly and Sparta in which "The D. of A. did command the Spartan." In Andromana
we have a war between the Iberians and the Argives, in which "the Argives, 50,000
strong, Have, like a whirlwind, borne down all before them "(ii. 1). This is all
pure fiction. In T. Heywood's Dialogues 5394, Juno says, "A. bred a golden Danae."
Danae was the slaughter of Acrisius, K. of A. The story of Jove's love for her
is told in his Gold. Age, where
Acrisius is called "the brave Arges K." i. B. & F. Corinth,
Agenor, Prince of A, has been at war with Corinth and is a suitor for the hand
of Merione. The whole story is imaginary. In Wilson's Cobler 1369, the Argives
and Thessalians are said to have made an attack on Boeotia; this is again unhistorical.
ARGYLE, or ARGUILE
A county on the S.W. coast of Scotland. For some 5 cents. it was under Norwegian control; but it was conquered by the K. of Scotland in the 14th cent. It was then held as an almost independent kingdom by the Macdonalds; but their constant rebellions caused it to be transferred to the Campbells abt. 1457; and the dukedom still continues in that clan. Archibald, 5th earl, appears in Sampson's Vow as one of the leading supporters of the Scots against the English in 1560. He is called Arguile.
ARIADAN
Probably Er-Riad, the capital of the pro vince of Ared, in Central Arabia, is
intended. It lies due E. of Mecca, abt. 420 m. away. In Marlowe's Tamb.
B. iii. 5, Callapine invests Almeda, "X. of A, Bordering on Mare Roso near
to Mecca."
ARIMASPIANS
A legendary race of Scythians, described by Herodotus as a one-eyed tribe in N. Europe who purloined gold from the griffins who guarded it. Pliny repeats the story and locates them near the Scythians, "toward the pole arcticke." They probably lived near the gold-mines of the Ural Mtns., whence the legend took its rise. Milton, P. L. ii. 945, speaks of Satan flying "As when a gryphon through the wilderness . . . pursues the Arimaspian, who by stealth Had from his wakeful custody purloined The guarded gold."
ARMAGNAC
A dist. in Gascony, in S. France, giving their title to the Counts of A. Under Count Bernard VII the name As. came to be used of the party of the house of Orleans in opposition to the Burgundians. John IV is the Earl of A. mentioned in H6 A. v. 1, 2, 17Gloucester says, "The Earl of A. near knit to Charles, A man of great authority in France, Proffers his only daughter to your grace In marriage." In H6 A. v. 5, 44, Suffolk urges the marriage of the K. to Margaret, daughter, of Rend of Anjou, on the ground that "His alliance will confirm our peace And keep the Frenchmen in allegiance"; to which Gloucester replies: "And so the Earl of A. may do, Because he is near kinsman unto Charles." Suffolk succeeded, and the k. married Margaret 1445.
ARMENIA
(An. = Armenian). A country in Western Asia, extending from the Caucasus to the
mountains of Kurdistan, and from the Caspian Sea to the E. boundary of Asia Minor.
It was divided by the Euphrates into Greater A. to the E. of the r. and Lesser
A. to the W. A. came under the dominion of Alexander the Gt. When he conquered
the Persians, and after a short period of revolt submitted to the Seleucid ks.
of Syria in 2.84 B.C. In 190 B.C. it became independent under Artaxias, and a
succession of ks. followed, the most famous being Tigranes II. He submitted to
Pompeius in 66 B.C. but his son Artavasdes rebelled against Rome and was taken
prisoner by Antonius and beheaded in Alexandria 30 B.C. In A.D. 18 Germanicus
was sent to settle the affairs of A. and the East, and crowned Zeno k. in place
of the deposed Vonones, but died near Antioch the next year, poisoned, as was
suspected, by Piso. The whole story is told in Tiberius.
During the 2nd cent. the country was Christianized, and has remained Christian
in spite of successive persecutions by the Persians and Turks up to the present
day. Tamburlaine conquered the country at the end of the 14th cent, but it was
subsequently recovered by the Persians. It is now divided between Russia, Turkey,
and Persia. Heylyn, s.v., says of the modern Ans., "They are generally
good archers, merry, careless of honour, desiring ease, great bodied, comely,
and willing to be soothed. The women tall but homely, kind to their children,
poor, and incontinent."
Historical allusions. In Chapman's Trag.
Byron v. 1, Byron refers to Pompey, who "Reduced into th' imperial power
of Rome A., Pontus, and Arabia." In A.
& C. iii. 6, 13, Octavius says of Antony, Great Media, Parthia, and A. He
gave to Alexander "i.e. his son by Cleopatra. Later, in line 33, Octavius
says, "For what I have conquered I grant him [Antony] part; but in his A . .
. . I demand the like." In Caesar's
Rev. iii. 4, Caesar says, "I'll fill An. plains and Medians hills With carcases
of bastard Scythian brood." In Mariam v. 1, Herod, referring to his campaign
against the K. of Arabia 'in 34 B.C. says, "No Arabian host nor no An. guide
hath used me so." The scene of Act I of B. & F. King is laid in A. in the reign
of Tigranes II, abt. the middle of the 1st cent. B.C. In Tiberius
859, Tiberius says, "Let A. feel the force of Rome." Germanicus is sent there,
and his exploits and death are described in later scenes of the play. In May's
Agrippina iv. 688, the ambassadors
announce, 11 The princes of A., Vologeses And Tiridates, greet your majesty
By us." Tacitus mentions this embassy to Nero. In Greene's Alphonsus iii. 2,
Amurack orders Bajazet to "post away apace To Asia, A., and all other lands
Which owe their homage to high Amurack." This is Amurath 1, who died A.D. 1389.
In Marlowe's Tamb. A. i. 1, Cosroe
(Chosroes) is described as "Great Lord of Media and A."; he at first enters
into alliance with Tamburlaine, but subsequently revolts and is slain.
In Gen. viii. 4, it is said that after the Flood the ark rested on the mtns. of Ararat, the highest peak of the mtn. range in A. It became a place of pilgrimage in the Middle Ages. Maundeville says, "There is a hill that men clepen Ararathe where Noe's ship rested . . . and men may see it afar in clear weather; and that mtn. is well a 7 m. high." The Palmer, in J. Heywood's Four PP. i. 1, had visited "the hills of Armeny where I saw Noe's ark." In Killigrew's Parson iii. 2, the Capt. speaks of "Signior Ricardo Digones, one of the ancient house of the An. ambassadors." I cannot find any record of these An. ambassadors,; but suspect a pun is intended on Arminian, and the whole passage is a hit at the Dutch Arminians, whose opinions had been largely accepted in England. The same confusion occurs in Jonson's Magnetic i. i. Mrs. Polish says that Placentia, the Puritan, can "find out the Ans." Rut corrects her, "The Arminians," but she stands to it, and says, "The Ans. are worse than Papists."
The fauna of A. was but vaguely known. In Selimus 1135, Belierbey
says, "Like an An. tiger that hath lost Her loved whelps, so raveth Acomat."
Montsurry, in Chapman's Bussy iv.
1, declares of Bussy d'Ambois, "Such another spirit Could not be 'stilled from
all the An. dragons." Parrot suggests that Chapman was thinking of the gold-guarding
griffins of Scythia mentioned in Herodotus iv. 27. In H. Shirley's Mart.
Soldier iii. 4, the Physician exhibits "a Magisterial made of the horn A.
so much boasts of"; that is, the unicorn's horn, supposed to be a specific against
poison.
ARMORICA
The Latin name for Brittany, on the W. coast of France. The name is derived from the Celtic Ar, upon, and Mor, the sea. Milton, P. L. 1, 581, describes K. Arthur as "Uther's son Begirt with British and Armoric knights." Brittany, or Lyones, is closely connected, with the Arthurian legend.
ARNAM
See ARNHEIM.
ARNHEIM
The old capital of Gelderland, on the Rhine, 50 m. S.E. of Amsterdam. It was one of the old Hanse towns. In Barnavelt ii. 2, Leidenberge announces, "Arnam and Roterdam have yielded him [Barnavelt] obedience."
ARNO
R. in Tuscany, rising in the Apennines, and flowing past Florence and Pisa to
the Mediterranean, after a course Of 155 m. In Barnes' Charter
i. 1, Alexander allots to Caesar Borgia the provinces "In Tuskany within the r.
Narre And fruitful A." It was in the marshy lands about the A., near Lucca and
Pisa, that Hannibal lost one of his eyes in his march through Italy in the spring
Of 217 B.C. In Nabbes' Hannibal iv.
2, Hannibal says, "I waded with my army through the fens Of gloomy Arnus in whose
fogs I lost One of my body's comfortable lights." In Day's Law Tricks i. 1, Polymetis
relates how his sister was captured by Turkish pirates "In Sancta Monta, neighbour
to Sardinia, Where silver A. in her crystal bosom Courts the fresh banks with
many an amorous kiss."
ARNON
A r. formed by the junction of a streams rising in the desert of Midian, and flowing past Aroer into the Dead Sea, abt. midway down its E. coast. The natural boundary between the Ammonites to the N. and the Moabites to the S. Milton, P. L. i. 399, says of Moloch, "Him the Ammonite Worshipped . . . . In Argob and in, Basan to the stream Of utmost A:'
AROER
A town on the Arnon, abt. 14 m. E. of the Dead Sea. It was an Amorite city, but was conquered by the Moabites in the 7th cent. B.C. Milton, P. L. i. 407, speaks of Moab as extending "From A. to Nebo"; but this was rather Amorite territory; Moab lay S. of the Arnon.
ARONDEL
See ARUNDEL.
ARPINUM
An ancient Volscian city in the valley of the Liris, some 60 m. S.W. of Rome. The birthplace of C. Marius and M. Tullius Cicero. In Jonson's Catiline iv. 2, Catiline refers contemptuously to Cicero as "a burgess' son of A." In Kyd's Cornelia iii. chor., we have "Noble Marius, Arpin's friend."
ARQUES
A town. of Normandy, near Dieppe, go m. N.E. of Paris. Scene of the great victory of Henri IV over the army of the League under Mayenne in 1589. In Chapman's Consp. Byron v. 1, Byron boastfully says, "I will see That none but I and my renowned sire Be said to win the memorable fields Of A. and Dieppe."
ARRAGON, or ARAGON
A province and formerly a kingdom in N. Spain, between the Pyrenees and Valencia. The Ebro divides it into .2 almost equal parts. It was part of the Roman province of Hispania Tarraconensis. In the 5th cent. it was subjugated by the Visigoths; and with the rest of Spain it fell into the hands of the Moors in 711. In the 11th cent. Sancho III recovered a large part of it; and in 1035 it became a Christian kingdom under his son Raymir. It so continued till 1516, when it was united to the crown of Spain by the marriage of its K. Ferdinand to Isabella Df Castile. In B. & F. Thierry ii. 31, Thierry calls his contracted wife "Ordella, daughter of wise Datarick, The K. of A." The time is the latter part of the 6th cent.; Datarick probably means Theodoric. In Much Ado Don Pedro of A. is one of the personages; he comes to Messina after a successful campaign. Shakespeare took the name from Bandello's Timbreo di Cardona, in which the date of the story is given as 1283, and the Don Pedro is Pedro III, who claimed Sicily through his marriage with Constance, the daughter of the K. of Sicily, and, after a successful expedition to the island, was crowned at Palermo 1283. His visit to Messina in Much Ado is evidently just after this victory, as Scene 1 shows. A Prince of A. is one of Portia's suitors Merch ii. 9. He is not to be identified with any particular prince. Q. Katharine, the divorced wife of Henry VIII, is generally known as Katharine of A., though she is not so called in the play. She was the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, and aunt of the Emperor Charles V. In Middleton's Gipsy iii. 2, Alvarez, who has been banished from Spain, "lives a banished man . . . some say in A."; which was then a separate kingdom. In Mucedorus the heroine Amadine is "the kinges daughter of A," and most of the scenes are laid either in the court or forests of that country. Hycke, p. 88, has travelled in "Erragoyne "and a score other places. In Dekker's Fortunatus ii. chorus, we learn that between Acts I and II Fortunatus has been imprisoned in A." by a covetous Earl." The scene of Shirley's Cardinal is laid in Navarre; and in i. 1, Alphonso brings word that "the Aians. are now in arms, violating their confederate oath and league." In Webster's White Devil, the election of Pope Paul IV is announced by the "Lord of A." (iv. 2). This looks like deliberate mystification; for Montalto, whose nephew married Vittoria, was not Paul IV, but Shaw V. There can be no doubt that he is the man intended: Montecelso is an obvious synonym for Montalto. The election took place in 1585.
In Webster's Malfi we have a Ferdinand who is called the D. of Calabria, and
a cardinal who is his brother. The Cardinal (ii. 5) claims "the royal blood
of A. and Castile," and is styled, in iii. 4, the Cardinal of A. Ferdinand V
of Spain is the only monarch who combines the blood of A., the kingship of Calabria,
and the name of Ferdinand. The allusion to the battle of Pavia (iii. 3), which
took place in 1525, is inconsistent with this identification, as Ferdinand died
in 1516. But the supposed date of the play is definitely stated in ii. 3 to
be 1504, 12 years before Ferdinand's death. In B. & F. Double Mar. i. 1, there
is "an Aian. tyrant, Farrand," who is described in the dramatis personae as
the libidinous Tyrant of Naples. The play is unhistorical, but the name Farrand
seems to have been suggested by that of Ferdinand V. The hero of Greene's Alphonsus
is apparently intended for Alfonso, 1st of Naples arid 5th of A. (13851454);
but there is little or nothing historical in the play. The scene of Habington's
Arragon is laid in that country. Leonardo, Prince of A., is one of the characters
in Shirley's Doubtful. Ford's Queen is laid in A., and the name of the k. is
Alphonsus; but there is nothing historical in the story. In Dekker's Match me
ii., the Lady says, "A woman's tongue is like the miraculous bell in A. which
rings out without the help of man."
ARRAN
An island off the S.W. coast of Scotland, in Buteshire. The Countess of A. is one of the characters in Greene's James IV.
ARRAS
The capital of Artois Province France, 134 m. from Paris. The great centre of
tapestry weaving, it gave its name to cloth of A., which was used for the hanging
of rooms and afforded a place of concealment. The executioners (K.J. iv. 1, 2),
Borachio (Ado i. 3,163), Falstaff (M.W.W. iii. 3, 97; H4 A. ii. 4, 549), and
the unlucky Polonius (Ham. ii. 2, 163, and iii. 3, 28) hide themselves behind
the a. Iachimo notices "the a.figures why, such and such, and the contents o'
the story "(Cym. ii. 2, 26) in Imogen's
bed-chamber. Gremio has stored in cypress chests his a. counterpoints, or, as
we should say, counterpanes (Shrew ii. 1, 353). In Marlowe's Faustus
vi., Pride "will not speak another word except the ground were perfumed and covered
with cloth of A." In Tamb. B. i. 2,
Callapine promises his keeper, as the price of his liberty, that, amongst much
else, "Cloth of A. shall be hung about the walls "when he rides in triumph through
the streets. In Spenser's F. Q. iii. 1, 34, the walls of Castle Joyeous are "round
about apparelled With costly cloths of A. and of Toure." Further examples of the
use of a. hangings for concealment may be found in B. & F. Women Pleased ii. 6;
Gentleman iii. 4; Friends iv. 4.
ARSENAL
At Venice in the E. of the city. Built between 1307 and 1320, and abt. 2 m. in circuit, it includes 4 basins surrounded by dry-docks, workshops, and armouries. In Jonson's Volpone iv. 1, Sir Politick has a plan for forbidding the use of tinder boxes; for an illaffected person might, with one in his pocket, "go into the A." and set it on fire. In Brome's Novello iii. 1, Piso speaks of "many good handy craftsmen in the A., bred from such mothers that ne'er could boast their fathers." See also ARCEDAN.
ARTAXATA
The ancient capital of Armenia, lying on the Araxes, abt. 250 m. W. of the Caspian Sea. Built under the superintendence of Hannibal, when he took refuge at the Court of Artaxias; destroyed by Corbulo A.D. 58; and rebuilt by Tiridates under the name of Neronia. Milton, P. R. iii. 292, mentions among the great cities of the world shown in vision to our Lord by Satan "A., Teredon, Ctesiphon."
ARTILLERY GARDEN
In Teasel Close, now A. Lane, Bishopsgate St. Without, Lond. The City Trainband,
established in 1585 to resist the Spanish invasion, met here to practise; and
here the Tower gunners came to do their exercises, firing their brass pieces of
great artillery at earthen butts. When Stephen, in Jonson's Ev.
Man I. iii. 3, hesitates to swear, "as I am a soldier," Wellbred reminds him
that his name "is entered in the A. G.," which gives him that privilege. The dramatists
are never tired of poking fun at the city soldiers, though, when the Civil War
came, the Lond. Trainbands showed that they were not to be despised. Thus Fowler,
in Shirley's Fair One v. 1, describes
"a spruce capt. that never saw service beyond Finsbury or the A. G." In Webster's
White Devil v. 6, Flamineo, mocking Vittoria and Zanche, who have shot at and
failed to kill him, says, "How cunning you were to discharge! do you practise
at the A.-yard?" Jonson, in Underwoods 62, pays the grounds a well-deserved compliment:
"Well, I say, thrive, thrive, brave A.-yard! Thou seed plot of the war; that hast
not spared Powder or paper to bring up the youth Of Lond. in the military truth."
In Shirley's Doubtful i. 1, a citizen says, "War is no A. G. where you come off
with 'As you were.'" In Middleton's Quiet
Life i. 1, Water-Camlet says, "Being at the A. G., one of my neighbours with
his musket set afire my breeches." In Lady
Mother iii. 1, Suckett says, "Here are men that has seen service," and Bunch
adds: "At a mustering or i' th' A. G." In Marmion's Leaguer iii. 4, Capritio disclaims
the character of a soldier: "I'll hardly trust myself," he says, "in the a.-yard,
for fear of mischief." In B. & F. Cure iii. 2, Piorato says, "I gave him then
3 sweats In the a.-yard, 3 drilling days." The scene is in Seville, but the authors
are thinking of Lond.
ARTILLERY WALK
A row of houses in Lond. along a passage which led by the side of the A. Grounds, towards Bunhill Fields. Here Milton lived from 1664 to 1674, completed P. L., wrote P. R. and S. A., and died at the age of 66.
ARTOIS
A province in N. France. Its capital was Arras, q.v. it came into the possession of the House of Burgundy by the marriage of Matilda, daughter of Robert II, to Otho IV. Hence Talbot addresses the D. of Burgundy: "Redoubted Burgundy, By whose approach the regions of A, Wallon, and Picardy are friends to us "(H6 A. ii. 1. 9). In Ed. III i. 1, the K. opens the play, "Robert of Artoys, banisht though thou be From Fraunce, thy native country, yet with us Thou shalt retayne as great a Seigniorie; For we create thee Earle of Richmond heere." This Robert had been deprived of the County of A. by the sentence of Philip the Fair; and when he attempted to recover what he considered as his right he was banished and came to England, where Edward III gave him a warm welcome. He pressed upon Edward the claim that K. had to the Crown of France, on the ground of his descent from Isabel, the daughter of Philip the Fair. In Hector iii. 2, 776, the Bastard sends Mendoza and Vandome to England to consort "with the Earle of Artoys." In Chapman's Consp. Byron v. 1, Byron claims for himself the whole credit of the victories won for the K. in the Spanish War: "Only myself married to Victory, Did people A . . . . with her triumphant issue." He invaded and conquered A. in September 1596. In World Child, A. 6, Manhood claims to have conquered clean "Picardy and Pontoise, and gentle A." The reference is apparently to the victories of Edward III. In Trag. Richd. II. i. 1135, Lancaster tells of the victories won by the Black Prince "At Cressy field, Poyteeres, Artoyse, and Mayne." During nearly the whole of our period A. was not in France, but in the Spanish Netherlands.
ARUNDEL
A town in Sussex, 55 m. from Lond. Above the town stands the ancient castle which gives their title to the Earls of A. It dates from the time of Alfred the Gt., and belongs to the D. of Norfolk, whose eldest son now bears the tide. Scene of the conspiracy of 1397 to dethrone Richd. I I. The passage (12 ii. 1, 280) referring to this conspiracy is corrupt. It runs: "Harry, D. of Hereford, Rainold Lord Cobham, That late broke from the D. of Exeter, His brother, Archbp. late of Canterbury, etc." Lord Cobham never broke from the D. of Exeter, nor was he any relation to the late archbp.; but from Holinshed we learn that the man referred to is Thomas, the son of Richd., Earl of A.; Thomas, the brother of the said Richd, being the late Archbp. The insertion of the line after "Lord Cobham," "The son of Richd. Earl of A.," is absolutely necessary to the sense of the passage. Richd. was beheaded in 1397 for his complicity in the plot, the Archbp. fled to Cologne, and Thomas was placed in the custody of the D. of Exeter, from which he escaped and joined his uncle in Cologne. His titles were restored in1400. Richd., Earl of A., is a prominent character in the Trag. Richd. II. The town house of the As. was in Botolph Lane, Billingsgate; but after the death of the Protector Somerset they bought his house in the Strand, and it became A. House. It was taken down at the end of the 17th cent., and the present A, Surrey, Howard, and Norfolk Sts. were built upon its site. The Earl of A. is one of the characters in Webster's Wyat.
ARVE
A river rising in the valley of Chamounix, close to Mt. Blanc, sad flowing N.W. into the Rhone, just after it leaves Lake Geneva. Daniel, in Epist. Ded. to Cleopatra 75, claims that English poets should "To lberus, Loyce, and A. teach That we part glory with them."
ARWENNEK
An ancient manor, coextensive with the parish of Falmouth, in S. Cornwall. It was from the time of Richd. II the seat of the Killigrew family. In Cornish M. P. i. 2592, Solomon gives to the Carpenter "An Enys hag A."; i.e." Enys and A."
ARZIL
Seaport on W. coast of Morocco, 30 m. S. of Cape Spartel and 40 m. N. of Alcazar. In Peele's Alcazar iv. 1, 67, Abdilmelec says, "Toward A. will we take our way."
ASANT (or ZANTE)
One of the Ionian Islands, the Zacynthus of the ancients, off the W. coast of
the Peloponese. The capital lies at the head of a good bay on the E. coast. Tamburlaine
proposes that the pirate ships which he is going to capture shall "lie at anchor
in the isle A," and be joined there by a fleet from the E., to dominate the W.
seas (Marlowe, Tamb. A. iii. 3). See
also ZANTE.
ASCALON
A spt. town in Palestine, 40 m. S.W. of Jerusalem. Originally one of the 5 Philistine
cities, it occupies a prominent place in the history of the Crusades. Now in ruins
and deserted; though the name is perpetuated in the village of Scalona, N. of
the old city. In Marlowe's Tamb. B.
iii. 1, the K. of Jerusalem brings troops "from Judaea, Gaza, and Scalonia's bounds
"to fight against Tamburlaine. In Peele's Bethsabe ii. 1, David says, "The plains
of Gath and Askaron rejoice, And David's thoughts are spent in pensiveness." Cf.
II Sam. i. 20; Askaron should be A. Later in the play (ii. 3), David says that
the blood of Saul and Jonathan "Watered the dales and deeps of Askaron With bloody
streams that from Gilboa ran In channels through the wilderness of Ziph." The
geographical knowledge of Peele was very confused. Gilboa, the scene of Saul's
death, is 80 m. from A. Milton, P. L. i. 465, describes Dagon as being "dreaded
through the coast Of Palestine, in Gath and A." In S. A. 1187, Harapha charges
Samson with the "Notorious murder of those 30 men at A." See judges xiv. 19. In
138 the Chorus says that in the presence of Samson "The bold Ascalonite Fled from
his lion ramp"; i.e. from his lionlike spring. The reference is to the
same incident.
ASCOLI
(the old ASCULUM). Town in Italy on the Tronto, go m. N.E. of Rome. It is surrounded by a wall. In Cockayne's Trapolin ii. 3, Horatio describes it as "round A."
ASCRA
(now PYRGAKI). A town in Boeotia, on Mt. Helicon, where the poet Hesiod was born. In T. Heywood's Dialogues iii. 1511, Earth says, "Had I as many words As by the Ascraean poet we may guess The ancient gods lived days." One of Hesiod's poems was the Theogonia, or Generations of the Gods. Spenser, in Virgil's Gnat 149, celebrates "that Ascraean bard, whose fame now rings Through the wide world."
ASDOD
(more commonly ASHDOD). The most powerful city of the Philistine Pentapolis, in S.W. Palestine, 24 m. W. of Jerusalem and 3 from the coast. Now a small village called Es-Dud. In Milton's S. A. 981, Dalila says, "In my country, where I most desire, In Ecron, Gaza, A., and in Gath, I shall be named among the famousest Of women."
ASHBRIDGE (or ASHRIDGE)
A park in the extreme E. of Bucks., 9 m. E. of Aylesbury. Here Elizabeth retired on the accession of Mary. In T. Heywood's I. K. M. A 197, Mary commands, "Fetch our sister, young Elizabeth, from A., where she lies, to Lond."
ASHERHOUSE
(generally spelt ESHER H.). A country h. near Hampton Court, 15 m. from Lond., where Wolsey lived for 3 or 4 weeks after his fall. All that is left of it is the old gatehouse. It belonged at that time to the Bp. of Winchester. H8 iii. 2, 231, "Hear the K.'s pleasure, Cardinal, who commands you To render up the great seal presently Into our hands; and to confine yourself To A-H., my Lord of Winchester's."
ASHFORD
A mkt. town in Kent, 53 m. S.E. of Lond. The birthplace of Jack Cade. H6 B. iii. 1, 357, York says, "I have seduced a headstrong Kentishman, John Cade of A., to make commotion." Dick, the butcher of A., was another of the rebels. H6 B. iv. 3, 1, "Where's Dick, the butcher of A.?" The scene of Lyly's Bombie is partly laid in a tavern "here in Kent, in A." (iii. 5).
ASHUR
See ASSYRIA.
ASIA
Originally the name used by the Greeks for the dists. on the W. coast of A. Minor, with which they became acquainted by their settlements there. The later Greek geographers extended it to cover the whole continent from the Tanais and the mouths of the Nile to the coast of China, and distinguished between A. Major, the whole continent, and A. Minor, the country W. of the Upper Euphrates. When Attalus in 133 B.C. bequeathed his kingdom to the Romans, they formed it into the Province of A., which included Phrygia, Mysia, Caria, Lydia, and the coastal islands.
- Asia in the sense of the whole continent. In Much Ado ii. 1, 275, Benedick "will
fetch you now a tooth-picker from the furthest inch of A." to escape from
Beatrice. In Marlowe's Tamb. B.
iv. 4, 1, Tamburlaine, who has harnessed the Ks. of Soria (Syria) and Trebizond
to his chariot, calls to them: "Holla, ye pampered jades of A.! What, can
ye draw but 20 m. a day?" The scene struck the imagination of the Elizabethans,
and the phrase is quoted more than once. Thus Pistol, in H4
B. ii. 4, 187, speaks of the "hollow pampered jades of A."; in B. & F.
Coxcomb ii. 2, Dorothy says to Viola, "Wee-hee, M, pampered jade of A."; in
Ford's Sun iii. 2, Folly says, "I sweat like a pampered jade of A."; in Fleire
ii. 98, Felecia sings, "Holla, holla, ye pampered jades of A. And can ye draw
but 20 m. a day!" In A. & C.
i. 2, 105, the messenger brings word that "Labienus hath with his Parthian
force Extended A. from Euphrates "where 11 extended "means 11 seized." Note
that A. is a trisyllable, and Euphrates is accented on the 1st syllable. In
Marlowe's Tamb. A. i. 1, Tamburlaine
is said to have hoped "mislead by dreaming prophecies To reign in A."; he
so far succeeded that before his death he was master of all the continent
except China and further India. In Respublica (Lost Plays 199), after a good
deal has been said of Reformation and Deformation, Avarice says, "Was ever
the like ass born, in all nations?" and Adultery adds." A pestle [e pest]
on him, he comes of the Asians"; a sufficiently poor pun. Milton, P. L. x.
310, tells how Xerxes "Over Hellespont Bridging his way, Europe with A. joined."
In P. R. iii. 33, he says, 'The son of Macedonian Philip had ere these Won
A." In iv. 73, he speaks of "the An. ks. From India and the Golden Chersonese
And . . . Taprobane."
- Asia Minor. In Greene's Alphonsus iii. 2, Amurack bids Bajazet "Post away
apace to A., Armenia . . . and all other lands Which owe their homage to high
Amurack." In Err. i. 1, 134, AEgeon says, "Five summers have I spent in furthest
Greece, Running clean through the bounds of A. And coasting homeward came
to Ephesus." In W. W.'s translation of the Menaechmi, which was one of the
sources of Shakespeare's Err., Messenio says, "six years now have we roamed
about thus, Istria, Hispania, Massilia, Illyria, all the Upper Sea, all High
Greece, all haven towns in Italy." It looks as if Shakespeare interpreted
High Greece in this passage (Lat. Graeciam exoticam) as meaning the Greek
cities of A. Minor and the Levant. In Sackville's Ferrex iii. 1, 5, Gorboduc,
speaking of the Trojan War, describes the "Phrygian fields made rank with
corpses dead Of An. ks. and lords." In Locrine
iii. 1, 44, Locrine calls Priam "Grand Emperor of barbarous A." Spenser, F.
Q. iii. 3, 22, speaks of the "An. rivers," stained with the blood of the Trojans.
- The Roman province of Asia. In May's Agrippina
iv. 280, Silanus is described as "Proconsul of A." In York M. P. xlvi. 297,
John says, "To Assia will I go." John was the president of the ch. at Ephesus
towards the end of the 1st cent., and died there.
- Asia Major and Minor distinguished. In Marlowe's Tamb.
B. iv. 4, Tamburlaine says, "Now crouch, ye ks. of greatest A." In iii.
5, the K. of Trebizond speaks of "Trebizond in A. the Less." In i. 1, Orcanes
says, "All A. Minor, Africa, and Greece Follow my standard." In Massinger's
Believe ii. 2, Antiochus suggests
as his epitaph, "This is the body of Antiochus, K. of the Lower A."
The inhabitants are called Ans. or Asiatics; Massin. ger (ibid.) using both forms.
A. is regarded as very wealthy in gold and gems. Fletcher, in Licia (1593) xii. 12, says, "I do esteem . . . A.'s wealth too mean to buy a kiss."
ASKARON
See ASCALON.
ASKE
A small vill. in the parish of Easby, Yorks., a m. N. of Richmond. A. Hall is the seat of the Marquis of Zetland. In George v, Prince Edward affirms, "When I have supped, I'll go to Ask And see if Jane a Barley be so fair."
ASOPUS
A river of Boeotia, rising in Mt. Cithaeron, and flowing E. into the Euripus. Homer, 11. iv. 383, describes it ts deep-grown with rushes. Hall in Satires iv. 3, 76, says, "Asopus breeds big bulrushes alone."
ASPARAGUS GARDEN
A pleasure resort in Upper Ground St., Southwark. In Massinger's Madam iii. ii, Shav'em complains that she is starved in her pleasures; "the heat-house for musk-melons and the gs. where we traffic for a. are to me in the other world." In Shirley's Hyde Park, Mrs. Carol stipulates with her lover, "I'll not be bound from Spring-Garden and the 'Sparagus "(ii. 4). Brome has a play entitled Sparagus Garden, where, in i. 31 Striker says to Moneylacks, "I heard you had put in for a share at the A. G.; or that at least you have a pension thence to be their gather-guest and bring 'em custom." Pepys confides to his diary of April 1668 that he went "over to the Sparagus G." In St. Hilary's Tears (1642), we read of ladies "who had wont to be hurried in coaches to the taverns and a. gs., where 10 or 20 pounds suppers were but trifles with them." In Alimony iv. 2, Madam Caveare says, "Let us imagine ourselves now to be planted in the Sparagus G., where, if we want anything, it is our own fault."
ASPHALTIC POOL
The Dead Sea, so called from the bitumen which is found in it. A lake in S. Palestine, abt. 50 m. from the coast. It receives the R. Jordan, but has no outlet. It lies 1300 ft. below sea-level, and is 47 m. long from N. to S. Its waters are extremely salt. Milton, P. L. i. 411, says that the worship of Chemosh extended beyond "Eleale to the A. P." See also DEAD SEA.
ASPHALTIS
(also LIMNASPHALTIS). The huge artificial lake constructed by Nitocris, according
to the story of Herodotus, N. of Babylon. It was 420 stades, or abt. 50 m., in
circumference, and was filled from the Euphrates. The name is derived from the
bitumen which abounds in Babylonia, and is found in flakes in the waters of the
river. In Marlowe's Tamb. B. v. 1, Tamburlaine
tells how "The stately buildings of fair Babylon Being carried thither by the
cannons' force Now fill the mouth of Limnasphaltis' lake." He will not ransom
the Governor of Babylon, "though A. lake were liquid gold And offered me as ransom
for thy life." Thousands of men during the siege have been "drowned in A.' lake."
All this is pure fiction; for Babylon was a deserted ruin in the 14th cent.
ASPRAMONT
A castle in the extreme S.E. of France, 6 m. N. of Nice. It is still to be seen, and figured in the old romances as one of the places where Orlando distinguished himself. Milton, P. L. i. 583, speaks of all the knights who "jousted in A. or Montalban."
ASPURGE (or ASBERG)
A town in Wurtemberg. Near it is the castle of Hohen-Asberg, the only strong place in the kingdom. In B. & F. Wit Money ii. 4, Valentine suggests to Lance that he should get a living by writing news; to which Lance responds, "Dragons in Sussex; or fiery battles seen in the air at A.?" A "strange monstrous serpent "was seen in Sussex in 1614; and the 30 Years' War began in 1618, during which the kingdom of Wurtemburg was frequently ravaged. Weber conjectures Augsburg or Hapsburg as the correct reading; but there is no need to make any change. In B. & F. Prize i. 4, Rowland says, "This is news, Stranger than armies in the air."
ASSIA
See ASIA.
ASSYRIA
(An. = Assyrian). The Latinized form of Assur, or Ashur, the old capital of the
country, which lay W. of the Tigris, abt. 60 m. due S. of Nineveh. A. proper lay
E. of the Tigris to the W. of the Zagros Mtns., and extended from 35 to 37 N.
lat. Abt. 1100 B.C. Ashurbel-kala made Nineveh the capital, and under a succession
of warlike ks. A. became the mistress of the E. world, and subjugated its mother-city,
Babylon, to its sway. Its supremacy lasted about 400 years, until 666 B.C., when
Nineveh was destroyed and A. became part of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Milton
locates the Garden of Eden in A.; in P. L. iv. 126, he relates how Uriel's
eye pursued Satan down to Eden, "and on the An. mt. Saw him disfigured." In iv.
285, he says that Mt. Amara, in Abyssinia, was "wide remote From this An. garden."
In P. R. iii. 270, Satan says to our Lord, "Here thou behold'st A. and her empire's
ancient bounds, Araxes and the Caspian Lake." In Greene's James IV i. 3, Oberon
speaks of "Simeramis the proud An. queen," who was conquered by Strabobates. The
reference is to the story in Diodorus Siculus ii. 16. The name Semiramis seems
to be the An. Sammuramat, the mother, or possibly the wife, of the great Adad-Nirari
III (811783 B.C.). In Bale's Promises vi., God says of Israel, "Either the
Egyptians have them in bondage or else the Ans." The Ans. destroyed Samaria and
carried the 10 N. tribes of Israel into captivity 722 B.C. Milton, Trans. Psalm
lxxxiii. 29, says of the enemies of Israel, "With them great Ashur also bands."
In his P. R. iii. 436, our Lord says of Israel, "He . . . may bring them back
. . . And at their passing cleave the An. flood"; i.e. the Euphrates. See
Isaiah xi. 15, 16. In P. L. i. 721, he recalls the days "when Egypt with A. strove
In wealth and luxury." In Greene & Lodge's Looking
Glass A. is used quite accurately for the country of which Nineveh was the
capital; and the story of Jonah's mission to Nineveh is related, Nineveh being
regarded as a type of Lond. In H. Shirley's Mart.
Soldier ii. 2, Bellizarius says that the Ans." had as many gods as they had
days." This is sheer nonsense.
There is frequent confusion between A. and Babylon. In Cyrus, in which the
taking of Babylon by Cyrus is related, the k. is called "Antiochus k. of A.";
a double mistake, for his name was Nabo-nahid, and he was K. of Babylon. In
H5 iv. 7, 65, Henry says of the
French, "We will make. them skirr away as swift as stones Enforced from the
old An. slings." The reference may be to the book of Judith, where Nebuchadnezzar
is called the K. of the Ans., though he was really the K. of Babylon; and in
iii. 7, it is said, "The Ans. trust in shield and spear and bow and slings."
In Davenant's Love Hon. i. 1, Alvaro says, "I would thy nimble motion could
o'ertake The arrow from the An. bow." In Marlowe's Tamb.
B. v. 1, Tamburlaine, describing his conquest of Babylon, says that his
chariot wheels "have burst the Ans.' bones And in the streets, where brave An.
dames Have rid in pomp . . . My horsemen brandish their unruly blades." Spenser,
in Ruines of Time 496, calls Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, "th' An. tyrant." A.
is also confused with Syria; though the words have no connection at all, Syria
being derived from Sur, the old name of Tyre. In Comus 1002, Milton speaks of
Venus as "th' An. queen." He was plainly thinking of the Syrian goddess Astarte.
The Adonis legend belongs to Phoenicia (Syria), not A.; and one is disposed
to suggest an emendation, "the Syrian queen," especially as in P. L. i. 448
it is "the Syrian damsels" who lament the fate of Adonis. Barnes, in Parthenophil,
Elegy i. 3, says, "Th' An. hunter's blood, why hath it flourished The rose with
red?" The allusion is to the legend that roses became red through the blood
of Thammuz (Adonis) falling upon them. Again Syrian would be more accurate.
A. stands in a vague way for Eastern. In B. & F. False One i. 1, we read of "Pontick, Punick, and An. blood "making up one crimson lake at the battle of Pharsalia. In Davenant's Platonic iii. 5, Theander asks, "Where are those fumes of sweet An. nard?" Spenser, in Virgil's Gnat 98, speaks of a fleece "twice steeped in An. dye." Davies, in Nosce (1599), says of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, "This rich An. drug grows everywhere."
An An. is used to mean an astrologer or fortuneteller; probably through confusion
between the Ans. and the Chaldaeans. In Marston's Malcontent
v. 1, Maquerelle says, "Look ye, a Chaldean or an An., I am sure 'twas a most
sweet Jew, told me, Court any woman in the right sign, you shall not miss."
An., like Trojan, Lacedaemonian, and other similar words, is used for a jolly
good fellow. In Dekker's Shoemaker's
i. 1, Eyre calls. apprentices "my fine dapper An. lads." In Bacchus, the 12th
of the topers is "One Gilbert Goodfellow, from Arbila, an An." When Falstaff,
in H4 B. v. 3, 105, addresses
Pistol, "O base An. knight, what is thy news?" he is simply playing up to Pistol's
extravagant vein; possibly the line may be a quotation from some old ballad.
In Cowley's Cutter ii. 3, Puny
calls his rival Truman "that An. crocodile." In May's Agrippina
iv. 4, 68, Petronius, quoting from his Satire, says, "Pearls in the Assirian lakes
the soldiers love." The original reading in the Latin is "aes Ephyreiacum."
May must have seen some variant like "Assuriae concham"; in which case An. must
have been used vaguely for Eastern, or Orient; a stock epithet for pearls.
ASSYS, SAINT
(i.e. ST. ASAPH). A city in N. Wales, on the border of Flintsh. and Denbighsh., 24 m. W. of Chester. In Bale's Johan 1363, Private Wealth declares that the Interdict shall be published in Wales and Ireland by "The Bp. of Landaffe, Seynt A., and Seynt Davy." Drayton, in Polyolb. x. 120, celebrates "Sacred Asaph's see, his hallowed temple."
ASTRACAN
Province in SM. Russia, on N.W. coast of Caspian Sea. The capital, also called A. or Astrakhan, lies at the mouth of the Volga. The use of the word for lamb's wool does not occur till the middle of the 18th cent. Milton, P. L. x. 432, describes the Tartar retreating from the Russian "By A., over the snowy plains."
ATHENS
(An. = Athenian). The capital of Attica in ancient times, and now the capital of Greece. It lies in the central plain of Attica, between 4 and 5 m. from the sea, nestling round the Acropolis.
A. is the scene of M.N.D. and of Tim. The former belongs to the legendary
days of Theseus; the latter to the 4th cent. B.C. In M.N.D. i. 1, 41, Egeus
appeals to "the ancient privilege of A.," which entitles him to put his daughter
to death if she refuses to obey him in the matter of her marriage; but from
i. 1, 162, we learn that this "sharp An. law "did not extend beyond the limits
of the city, and that the lovers could escape from it by going to a place 7
leagues remote. If Shakespeare was thinking of Solon's law, by which parents
were given power of life and death over their children, he had forgotten that
his play was long antecedent to the time of that legislator. In ii. 1, 265,
Puck is to know Demetrius "By the An. garments he hath on"; at first sight one
might suppose that the suggestion is that Lysander had fled in disguise; but
when, in ii. 214, Puck finds Lysander, he tells us, "Weeds of A. he doth wear."
Evidently, therefore, by "An. garments "Oberon means the clothes of a citizen
as contrasted with those of a rustic or forester. Both Lysander and Demetrius
appeared, as a matter of fact, in trunk-hose, doublet, and cloak, like Lond.
gentlemen of the 16th cent. Similarly, the artisans who take part in the burlesque
play were sketched from Lond. tradesmen, and the An. stalls (iii. 2, 10), at
which they worked for bread, were like those in Cheapside. The An. eunuch, .who
proposes to sing the Battle of the Centaurs to the harp (v. 11, 45) was suggested
by the Italian castrati who sang in the Papal choir at Rome in the 16th cent.
Similarly, there is no attempt to give a Greek setting for Timon. The names
of the characters are almost all Roman, and we find even a Flamen mentioned;
whilst the phrase, "You shall see him a palm in A. again "(v. 1, 13), recalls
the Psalmist's "The righteous shall flourish like: a palm-tree." The siege of
A. by Alcibiades is, of course, quite unhistorical, and his glove (v. 4, 54)
an amusing anachronism. Shakespeare's history is still inaccurate when, in Troil.
prol. 3, he makes the princes orgulous, who have vowed to ransack Troy, send
their ships in the first instance to the port of A., and then put forth on the
An. bay, presumably the Piraeus. On the other hand, Antony's proposal to visit
A. (A. & C. iii. 1. 35), his leaving
A. for Egypt without letting his wife Octavia know (iii. 6, 64), and his request,
after his defeat, to be allowed to live as a private citizen in A. (iii. 12,15)
are all based upon Plutarch's Life of Antony; and Scenes IV and V of Act III
are laid at A. in Antony's house. It is significant that Shakespeare has next
to no allusions to any of the great names that have made A. illustrious. Socrates
is mentioned once as the husband of Xanthippe (Shrew i. 2, 4); Aristotle twice
(Shrew i. 1, 32 and Troil. ii.
2, 166a well-known anachronism), but these almost exhaust the list. Ben
Jonson was evidently right as to the "less Greek."
Historical and mythological allusions. Milton, in Ode on Death
of Fair Infant 9, says, "Aquilo . . . By boisterous rape the An. damsel got."
The damsel was Oreithyia, daughter of Erectheus, K. of A. In Locrine
iii. 1, 54, Camber calls Niobe "fair A.'queen." This is a slip: Niobe was a
Theban princess. In T. Heywood's Gold.
Age iv., Neptune says, "Great A., The nurse and fortress of my infancy,
I have instructed in the seaman's craft; Besides, the unruly jennet I have tamed."
Neptune gave to the Ans. the art of navigation and seamanship. In Marlowe's
Dido iii. Cloanthus identifies
the picture of one of Dido's suitors as an old acquaintance: "I in A. with this
gentleman Unless I be deceived, disputed once "a singular anachronism.
In Pickering's Horestes D. 4, the hero goes 11 to Nestor's town that A. hight
"to stand his trial. Orestes was tried before the Areopagus at A.; but Nestor
had nothing to do with A. In Chapman's Bussy
iv. 2, Tamyra refers to Hercules, "Who raised the chaste An. prince [Theseus]
from hell." In Kyd's Cornelia iv. chor., we have, "So the 2 Ans. that from their
fellow-citizens Did freely chase vile servitude, shall live For valiant prowess
blest." The reference is to Harmodius and Aristogeiton, who slew the tyrant
Hipparchus 514 B.C. In Edwards' Damon x. p. 82, Eubulus says, "Upon what fickle
ground all tyrants do stand Athenes and Lacedemon can teach you." In Val. Welsh.
iii. 2, Gald advises Caradoc, "Use the An.'s breath, Grave Solon, 'No man's
happy until death.'" So Solon is reported to have said to Croeses. Chapman,
in Bussy i. 1, says, "If Themistocles
Had lived obscured thus in th' An. state, Xerxes had made both him and it his
slaves." In his Caesar iii. 1,
125, Pompey speaks of the Ans.' genius as being "great by sea alone." In Rev. Bussy iii. 1, he says, "Demetrius Phalerius . . . So great in A. grew that he
erected 300 statues of him." Lyly's Campaspe is laid partly in A. in the time
of Alexander the Gt. In i. 3, Alexander describes himself as "coming from Thebes
to A., from a place of conquest to a palace of quiet."
Philosophy and Learning. Lear (iii. 4, 185), who has already,
referred to Edgar as a philosopher, addresses him: "Come, good An.!" In the
old Timon v. 3, Paedio says to
Gelasimus, "I took you for an An., I see now thou art become an Arcadian"; i.e.
a rustic simpleton. In Massinger's Believe
i. 1, the Stoic counsels Antiochus to put into practice "the golden principles
read to you in the An. Academy." In Ford's Lover's Melan. v. 1, Eroclea says,
"If earthly treasures Are poured in plenty down from heaven on mortals, They
rain amongst those oracles that flow In schools Of sacred knowledge; such is
A." Again, in Heart v. 1, Ford
describes A. as "the nursery of Greece for learning and the fount of knowledge."
In B. & F. Mad Lover iii. 2, Memnon, resenting the good advice of Polydore,
says, "None of your A., good sweet Sir, no philosophy!" In Emperor
i. 1, Massinger speaks of A. as 'f the nurse of learning." In this play Amasia,
one of the candidates fox the hand of Theodosius, is described as "sister to
the D. of A." Of course there was no such person. In Pickering's Horestes, E.
3, it is stated," In A. dwelled Socrates, the philosopher divine, who has a
wife named Exantyp, both devilish and ill"; Exantyp is Xanthippe. Milton's fine
eulogy of A., in P. R. iv. 240284, which begins, "A., the eye of Greece,
mother of arts," should be read; it is too long for quotation.
Athenian Poets and Orators. Milton, in Son. iii. 14, tells how "the repeated air Of sad Electra's poet had the power To save the An. walls from ruin bare." It was said that Lysander, when he had taken A. in 404 B.C., was moved to save it from destruction by some verses firm a chorus by Euripides, the author of Electra. In P. L. ix. 671, he compares Satan to "some orator renowned In A. or old Rome." He is thinking of Demosthenes, Isocrates, and the other Attic orators of the 4th cent. B.C. A. is used as a pseudonym for Cambridge in Club Law; and for Oxford in Lyly's Sappho and Euphues Anat. Wit, p. 127 (Croll's ed.). Massinger, in Bondman iv. 1, relates, "the Athenian mules, that from the quarry drew marble, hewed for the temples of the gods, the great work ended, were dismissed and fed at the public cost." The scenes of Kinsmen and of Shrew are laid at A.
ATHOL
A dist. in N. Perthsh., Scotland. The Earl of A is mentioned as one of Hotspur's prisoners at Holmedon Hill (H4 A. i. 1, 72). David, D. of Rothesay, held the title from 1398 to 1403; as the battle was in 1402, he must be the person intended.
ATHOS
(now HAGION OROS, or MONTE SANTO). Properly the most E. of the 3 prongs of the peninsula of Chalcidice, in Macedonia; but commonly applied to the whole peninsula. It is mountainous and well wooded. In Lyly's Endymion iii. 4, Eumenides says, "Mistresses are as common as hares in Atho." Hares are common is Greece. In Barclay's Lost Lady i. 1, in the course of an imaginary war between Thessaly and Sparta, Lysicles does marvels of valour; and "as the common voice reached him [the K. of Thessaly] in A., there's none he looks on with greater demonstration of his love." Spenser, in Virgil's Gnat 46, tells how "Mt. A. through exceeding might Was digged down"; the reference is to the canal cut through the peninsula by Xerxes for the passage of his fleet. In Florio's Montaigne i. 4, it is said that "Xerxes writ a cartel of defiance to the hill A." Puttenham, Art of Poesie (1589) iii. 24, tells the story how Dinocrates wanted to carve "the mtn. A. in Macedonia "into a colossal statue of Alexander the Gt.
ATLANTIC SEA
The sea W. of the Atlas Mtns. in N. Africa. The name was gradually extended to
cover the ocean between Europe and America; but it was not till the 18th cent.
that this latter use prevailed It is in the former sense that Mahamet speaks,
in Stucley 2449, of "those lands
That stretch themselves to the A. S. And look upon Canaries wealthy isles." Similarly,
Byron, in Chapman's Trag. Byron
v. 1, speaks of the Roman conquest of the part of Spain "Which stood from those
parts where Sertorius ruled Even to the A. S." Jonson, in Pleasure Reconciled,
speaks of "Hesperus, The brightest star, that from his burning crest Lights all
on this side of the A. seas As far as to thy pillars, Hercules." In, Milton's
Comus 97, Comus says, "The gilded car of day His glowing axle doth allay In the
steep A. stream." In Richards' Messallina ii., 977, Lepida laments "the noble
minds of chastity Whose innocent blood, like the A. S., Looks red with murder."
It is used for the Mediterranean Sea in Greene's Orlando
i. 1, 25, where the Sultan of Egypt has "cut the ak. seas "in order to reach the
court of Marsilius in Africa. Blount, in Glossographia (1656), defines the A.
S. as "The Mediterranean, or a part thereof, lying westward." Milton, P. L. iii.
559, describes Satan as surveying the earth "from E. point Of Libra to the fleecy
star that bears Andromeda far off A. seas Beyond the horizon." Libra (The Balance)
is directly opposite to Aries (The Ram), which lies just below Andromeda.
ATLANTIS
An imaginary country in the W. Atlantic Ocean, supposed to have been sunk in the ocean in prehistoric times. Bacon, in Essay on Vicissitude of Things, says, "The AEgyptian priest told Solon concerning the island of A., that it was swallowed by an earthquake." (See Plato, Timm= 2425.) Bacon, in New A., describes it as being W. of Per, on the way to China and Japan.
ATLAS
The mtn. ranges in N.W. Africa. The name was given to them from the ancient mythological
hero A., who was fabled to hold the heavens on his shoulders. The Elizabethans
mostly use the word in its mythological sense; and this is the only use in Shakespeare.
"Thou art no A. for so great a weight," says Warwick to Edward IV when he claims
to be K. 6f England (H6 C. v. 1, 36). The geographical use is found in Stucley
2449, where the dominions of Muly Hamet are described as extending "From mighty
A. over all those lands That stretch themselves to the Atlantic sea 11; and the
scene of Jonson's Pleasure Reconciled is laid at the mtn. A., represented by an
old man with white hair, who in the antimasque is transformed to the Welsh mountain
of Craig-Eriri, which Evan declares is "of as good standing and as good discent
as the proudest Adlas christened." The original Globe Theatre had for its sign
A. bearing the world on his shoulders, which may help to account for the very
frequent references to that mythological giant in the plays.
In Fisher's Fuimus ii. 1, Caesar sends a dispatch to Cassibelanus which begins,
"Since Romulus' race by will of Jove Have stretched their Empire wide from Danube's
banks By Tigris swift, unto Mt. A. side." In Brome's Ct. Beggar iv. 3, Ferdinand
cries, "Heap yet more mtns., mtns. upon mtns., Pindus on Ossa, A. on Olympus."
In T. Heywood's S. Age i., Perseus tells how the head of Medusa "Hath changed
great A. to a mt. so high That with his shoulders he supports the sky." In Nabbes'
Hannibal ii. 5, Sophonisba says, "'Twere but as if they pared a molehill from the earth, to place an A. in its
stead." In Milton P. L. iv. 987, Satan "dilated stood, Like Teneriff or A.,
unremoved." In P. L. xi. 402, Adam is shown the kingdoms of Africa "from Niger
flood to A. mt." Milton, P. R. iv. 115, describes the feasts of the Romans,
"On citron tables or Atlantic stone"; i.e. Numidian marble from Mount
A.
ATROPATIA
The N.W. province of Media, lying between the Caspian Sea and Lake Urumiyeh. It is more commonly called Atropatene. Milton, P. R. iii. 319, p. describes amongst the kingdoms shown to our Lord by the Tempter armies "From A., and the neighbouring plains Of Adiabene."
ATTICA
(Ac. = Attic). The peninsula in ancient Greece, on the E. coast, N. of the Saronic Gulf. Its chief town was Athens. In Jonson's Catiline i. 1, Catiline, describing the luxury of the Roman nobles, says, "They buy rare Ac. statues, Tyrian hangings." Spenser, in Virgil's Gnat, recalls "how the East with tyrannous despight Burnt th' Ack. towers"; the reference being to the invasion of A. by Xerxes. Milton, 11. Pens. 124, speaks of Mom appearing "Not tricked and frounced as she was wont With the Ac., boy to hunt." The Ac. boy is Cephalus, the lover of Eos, and grandson of Cecrops, K. of Athens. In P. R. iv. 245, Milton calls the nightingale "the Ac. bird," from the legend that Philomela, an Athenian princess, was turned into a nightingale. Ac. comes to be used for artistic, refined. Milton, in Sonn. to Lawrence 10, asks, "What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice, Of Ac. taste?"
AUBERGE
The name given to the palaces of the 8 "languages" of the Knights of St. John in Malta. They stand in the Strada Reale, Strada Ponente, Strada Mercanti, and Strada Mezzodi. In B. & F. Malta v. 1, Miranda announces, "The A. sits to-day"; i.e. the council of one of the "languages."
AUGSBURG
A city of Bavaria, 34 m. W. of Munich. It was founded by Augustus 14 B.C. under the name of Augusta Vindelicorum. After being in turn under the Frankish and Swabian governments, it became a free imperial city in 1276, and retained that status till 1806. In Middleton's Chess v. 3, the Black Knight speaks of a letter from "Heildrick, Bp. of A," to Pope Nicholas I (858867). Heildrick is Udalricus. In Dekker's Northward ii. 1, Hans says, "Min fader heb schonen husen in Ausburgh. Min fader bin de grotest fooker in all Ausburgh." When Doll mistakes the word, he explains, "Fooker is en groet min her, he's en elderman van city." The reference is to the Fuggers, a family of famous bankers at A. at the beginning of the 16th cent.; the great charitable institution called the Fuggerai, founded in 1519, still keeps their name alive. It contains over 100 sour houses, let at low rents to the poor, and has a ch. of its own.
AULIS
A town on the coast of Boeotia, in ancient Greece, where the Greek fleet assembled
for the attack upon Troy. In Marlowe's Dido
v., the forsaken Queen, speaking of AEneas, says, "Tell him, I never vowed at
A.' Gulf The desolation of his native Troy." In Peele's Alcazar iii. 3, 40, the
Governor says, "He storms as great Achilles, erst Lying for want of wind in A.
gulf." The Greeks were windbound at A. till Agamemnon had sacrificed Iphigeneia
to Artemis. In T. Heywood's Iron Age
B. v, Helen, looking at her face in a mirror, says, "Is this the beauty That
launched a thousand ships from A. gulf?" In Davenant's New Trick iv. 3, the Devil
says, "To thee she shall seem No whit inferior to that Graecian queen That launched
1000 ships from A. gulf And brought them to the fatal siege of Troy."
AULON
A hill, now Monte Melone, in S. Italy, near the coast of the Gulf of Tarentum,
abt. 8 m. S.E. of Tarentum. Horace, Od. ii. 6, 18, calls it "Amicus fertili Baccho
"on account of the excellence of its wines. In Nabbes' Hannibal
i. 1, Maharball says of the Carthaginians at Capua, "We drink No wine but of Campania's
Mascicus, Or grape-crowned A." In his Microcosmus iii., Sensuality promises, "Shalt
drink no wine but what Falernus or Calabrian A. yield from their grapes."
AUMALE
See AUMERLE.
AUMERLE
(another form of AUMALE, from Lat. Alba Marla). French town on the Bresle, in
the department of Seine-inférieure, some 70 m. N.W. of Paris. It gives his title
to the D. of A., son of Edmund of Langley, D. of York. He was deprived of his
title by Henry IV's 1st Parliament, but became D. of York on the death of his
father in 1402 and led the vanguard at Agincourt in 1415, where he was slain.
He was present at the meeting of Bolingbroke and Mowbray in the lists at Coventry
(R2 i. 3, 1). He is on Mowbray's side (249), and escorts Bolingbroke towards the
coast with great satisfaction (12 i. 4). He is present at Ely House at the deathbed
of Gaunt (ii. 1). He is with Richd. in Wales (iii. 2) and at Flint Castle (iii.
3). In iv. 1, Bagot charges him with complicity in Gloucester's murder. In v.
2, his father discovers his share in the plot against Bolingbroke and hastens
to inform him of it; and in v. 3, with his mother's help, he wins his pardon from
the new k. He, now D. of York, is granted the leading of the vaward at Agincourt
(H5 iv. 3, 130), and his death is
described by Exeter (H5 iv. 6).
The title was conferred in 1696 on Arnold Joost van Keppel, and is still in the
Keppel family. There is a Capt. A. in Chapman's Rev. Bussy; and a D. d'A. in Consp. Byron: this was Charles de Lorraine, who died 1631.
AURAN
(usually spelt HAURAN). A dist. in Palestine, E. of the Sea of Galilee, abt. 50 m. S. of Damascus. Milton, P. L. iv. 211, says, "Eden stretched her line From A. eastward to the royal towers Of Seleucia."
AURELIAN WAY
(or VIA AURELIA). The Roman rd. leading from Rome to Pisa, and thence along the coast of Liguria to the Maritime Alps. In Jonson's Catiline iv. 2, Cicero, urging Catiline to join his friends in Etruria, says, "[They] tarry for thee in arms, And do expect thee on the A. W."
AUSBURGH
See AUGSBURG.
AUSONIA
The Ans. were one of the ancient races of central Italy; but the Alexandrian poets used A. as equivalent to Italy, and the Latin poets followed their lead. In Kyd's Cornelia 180, "the An. fame "means the fame of Italy. Milton, P. L. i. 739, says of Hephaestus, "in An. land Men called him Mulciber."
AUSTIN FRIARS
In Old Broad St., Lond., close to the corner of Throgmorton St. The priory of the A. F. was founded by Humphrey Bohun in 1243. At the dissolution of the monasteries the house and grounds were granted to Sir William Paulet, who built his town house on the site, but spared the old ch. It was granted by Edward VI to the Dutchmen of Lond. for their services, and is still used by them. It survived the Gt. Fire, and the old nave is one of the few buildings in the city which were there in Shakespeare's lifetime. Here are buried the barons who fell in the Battle of Barnet, Hubert de Burgh, the beheaded Earls of Arundel and Oxford, and the equally unfortunate D. of Buckingham of Henry VIII's time.
AUSTIN'S GATE
On the S.E. of St. Paul's Churchyard, Lond., leading to the Ch. of St. Augustine at the corner of Watling St. and Old Change. Near here was the Fox bookshop at which several of the Shakespeare Qq. were published. See Fox. Chivalry was "Printed by Simon Stafford for Nathaniel Butter and are to be sold at his shop in Paules Churchyard near St. Austens gate. 1605."
AUSTIN'S (SAINT) MONASTERY
A monastery in Seville. In W. Rowley's All's
Lost i. 3, 110, Antonio sends for "a friar in St. A. M."
AUSTRACIA
The N.E. division of the Frankish Empire, which on the death of Clovis in A.D. 511 fell to Theodoric. It lay between the Meuse and the Rhine, and Metz was its capital. B. & F. Thierry deals with the story of Brunhalt, Q. of A. at the end of the 6th cent., and her 2 sons (or rather grandsons), Thierry (Theodoric II) and Theodoret (Theodobert II); and the scene Ls aid partly in A., partly in Paris.
AUSTRALIA
It is generally supposed that the 1st visit of Europeans to A. was that of Cornelius Wytfliet in 1598; unless, indeed, Mr. Petherick, the librarian of the An. Library at Parliament House, be correct in his view that Amerigo Vespucci reached A. nearly zoo years earlier, and that it ought to have been called America. (See his paper in Proc. Austral. Ass. Adv. Sc. 1913.) Certainly De Torres, the lieut. of Ferdinand de Quiros, was on the mainland near Cape York in 1606, and christened it Terra Australis. To him Burton refers (A. M. ii. 2, 3) in a passage of truly prophetic inspiration: "I shall soon perceive," he says, assuming that he can achieve the power of flight and survey the whole world in that way, "whether Guinea be an island or part of a continent, or that hungry Spaniard's [De Quiros] discovery of Terra Australis Incognita, or Magellanica, be as true as that of Mercurius Brittanicus . . . . And yet in likelihood it may be so, for without all question it being extended from the tropic of Capricorn to the circle Antarctic, and lying as it doth in the temperate zone, cannot choose but yield in time some flourishing kingdoms to succeeding ages, as America did to the Spaniards." Burton (iii. 2, 5, 5) again says, "They do not consider . . . how many colonies into America, Terra Australis incognita, Africa, may be sent." In iii. 4, 1, 2, he says that Gentiles and idolators inhabit "all Terra Australis incognita." I have only found one reference to A. in the Elizabethan dramatists. In Nabbes' Bride v. 7, Horten boasts that he has in his museum "the talon of a Bird in terra austral incognita which the inhabitants call their great god Ruc, that preys on elephants."
AUSTRIA
Country in S. Central Europe. It was originally a Margravate under the Emperor,
but in 1156 it was raised to be a Duchy. Shakespeare, in K.J., follows the Trouble. Reign in blending into one two distinct persons, under the name of Lymoges, D.
of A. Lymoges was Vidomar, Viscount of Lymoges, in the siege of whose castle at
Chaluz Richd. I met his death. He was killed by Falconbridge in 1220. The D. of
A. who took Richd. prisoner at Vienna in 1192 was Leopold V. He died in 1194,
5 years before Richd., and his successor, Leopold VI, had nothing to do with Richd.'s
death. This twofold personage comes with his army to Angiers to assist Philip
of France, and is described as the Archd. of A.another mistake, as A. was
not made an Archduchy till 1453. He is dressed in the lion's skin which he is
supposed to have taken from Richd, and is unmercifully chaffed by Falconbridge
(K. 1. ii. i. He appears again in iii. i. and is bidden to hang a calfskin on
those recreant limbs; and in iii. 2, Falconbridge enters with A.'s head and the
lion skin, and flings it down, exclaiming, "A.'s head, lie there." In Downfall
Huntington iv. i. Lancaster refers to the quarrel between Leopold of A. and
Richd. I at the siege of Acre, when Richd. had the D.'s banner thrown into the
common sewer: "Thus did Richd. take The coward A.'s colours in his hand And thus
he cast them under Acon walls." In Jonson, Prince Henry's Barriers, Merlin says
of Richd., "The An. colours he doth here deject With too much scorn." In Alt's
i. 2, 5, the French King has received "a certainty, vouched from our cousin A.,"
that the Florentines and Siennese are at war: the date is the middle of the 13th
century, but neither the K. nor the D. can be positively identified. In Marlowe's
Tamb. B. i. 1, Orcanes, K. of Natolia,
claims to have so shaken Vienna with his cannon that Sigismund, "The K. of Boheme
and the Austric D . . . . desired a truce." The reference is apparently to the
conquest of Servia by Bajazet 1, and the defeat by him of the K. of Hungary and
his allies at Nicopolis in 1396. The D. of A. at this time was Albert IV, but
I find no evidence that he was at Nicopolis. Certainly Bajazet did not reach Vienna.
Marlowe was perhaps thinking of the later siege of Vienna (1529).
In 1463 A. came into the hands of Frederick III and continued till 1918 in the Hapsburg family. In S. Rowley's When You, the Emperor Charles V is called "gt. Charles the An." In Webster's Law Case iv. 2, Crispino asks, "When do we name Don John of A., the Emperor's son, but with reverence?" This was the bastard son of Charles V by Barbara Blomberg. He was Admiral of the Christian fleet at the famous victory of Lepanto in 1577; and died suddenly at Namur the next year, not without suspicion of poisoning by Philip II. He is also referred to in iv. 2, where it is said that Jolenta's brother means to marry her expected child "if it be a daughter, to the D. of A.'s nephew." Albert, Archduke of A. (15591621), son of Maximilian II and son-in-law of Philip of Spain, is one of the characters in Chapman's Consp. Byron.
The members of the House of Hapsburg have always been characterized by their thick lips. In Jonson's Alchemist iv. 1, Mammon cries to Doll, "This lip! that chin! Methinks you do resemble one of the Austriac princes." In Shirley's Hyde Park iii. 2, Mrs. Carol says to her lover, "Your lip is An. and you do well to bite it." In Strode's Float. Isl. Prol., we have "The royal race Of A. thinks the swelling lip a grace." Burton, in A.M., uses the An. lp as an example of hereditary transmission. In Massinger's Renegado i. 1, Gazet is prepared to swear that one of the pictures his master has bought "is an An. princess by her Roman nose." The Waldgebirge (Forest Mtns.) extend for abt. 160 m., and wild boars abound there. In Ford's Trial ii. 1, Guzman claims to have rescued "the Infanta from the Boar near to the An. forest." In Deloney's Reading xiii., Robert says, "There is no country like A. for ambling horses." In Nash's Summers, p. 70, Christmas says, "I must rig ship to . . . A. for oysters where the verbal jingle suggested the phrase.
AUTUN
The ancient Bibracte, a city of France on the Arroux, 179 m. S.E. of Paris. It was taken by the Marshal de Byron in 1594 in the war between Henri IV and Spain, as related in Chapman's Consp. Byron ii. 1., "He did take in . . . A. and Nuis in Burgundy."
AUVERGNE
A province of Central France, between Aquitaine and Burgundy. The Countess of A., who endeavours unsuccessfully to trap Talbot (H6 A. ii. 3), seems to be a fictitious personage, and the story has no historical foundation. The Prince d'A., mentioned in Chapman's Consp. Byron iv. 1, as one of the ambassadors to England, was Charles, Count of Valois, who was twice arrested for treasonous plots against Henri IV and twice pardoned by the K. He was involved in Byron's conspiracy. The Auvergnians take part in the defence of Rhodes against the Turk in Davenant's Rhodes A. One of the songs begins, "The Auvergnian colours high were raised."
AVENTINE
One of the hills on which Rome was built. It lies at the S.W. corner of the city
After the murder of Virginia 449 B.C., the Plebeians seceded to the A. and forced
the Decemvirs to resign; and it remained up to the time of the Gracchi the stronghold
of the Plebeian party. Hence the reference in B. & F. Double Mar. v. 2, "Ferrand
fled . . . into the castle's tower, The only A. that now is left him"; i.e.
the only place of refuge. In Massinger's Roman Actor i. 1, Paris says, "My strong A.
is That great Domitian will once return." In Fisher's Fuimus v. 1, Hulacus says
to Caesar, "Throw Palatine on Esquiline, on both heap A., to raise a pyramid for
a chair of estate." The cave of the giant Cacus, who stole the oxen of Hercules
and was slain by that hero, was shown on the N. side of the A., near the Porta
Trigemina. In T. Heywood's B. Age
v., Hercules says, "Find me a Cacus in a cave of fire, I'll drag him from the
mtn. Aventino." In Chapman's Rev. Bussy iv. 4, 51, Guise speaks of "Cacusses That
cut their too large murtherous thieveries to their dens' length still." Evidently
Guise is confusing Cacus with Procrustes. Spenser, in Ruines of Rome iv., pictures
Rome as buried under her hills, and says, "Both her feet Mt. Viminal and A. do
meet."
AVERNUS
(the modern LAGO D'AVERNO). A lake in Campania in Italy, near Naples. It fills
the crater of an extinct volcano, and is abt. 11/2 miles in circumference and
very deep. The mephitic exhalations from the lake were said to kill the birds
that attempted to fly over it, and it was regarded as the entrance to the infernal
regions. The Elizabethans use it freely as a synonym for hell. Tamburlaine fixes
his eyes on the earth "as if he meant to pierce A.' darksome vaults To pull the
triple-headed dog from hell" (Marlowe, Tamb.
A. i. 2). Bajazeth invokes the Furies to "Dive to the bottom of A.' pool And
in your hands bring hellish poisons up And squeeze it in the cup of Tamburlaine
"(iv. 4). Argalio can by his charms fetch forth "The slimy mists of dark A.' lake
"(Kirke, Champions iv. 1). The ghost
of Andrea tells how Charon passed him over to the slimy strand "That leads to
fell A.' ugly waves"a mistake in infernal geography, for A. is on the hither
side of Styx (Span. Trag. i. 1).
Ralph threatens to send the soul of the Barber of Waltham "to sad A." (B. 4 F.
Pestle iii. 4). Humber calls on the "coleblack divels of A. pond "to rend his
arms and rip his bowels up (Locrine
iv. 4). Aretus declares that "all the poets' tales of sad A. are to his pains
less than fictions" (B. & F. Valentin.
v. 2). Jonson, in The Famous Voyage, transfers the name to the Fleet Ditch, on
the bank of which lay Bridewell, q.v., ." A dock there is, that called
is A., of some Bridewell." In Greene's Alphonsus i. 1, 187, Albinius calls Pluto
"k. of dark Averne." In Selimus 1314, Baiazet invokes "A. jaws and loathsome Taenarus
to send out their damned ghosts "to punish his revolting son Acomat. In Barnes'
Charter iii. 5, Bagnioli speaks of
"Charon, ferryman of black Averne." In Peele's Alcazar i., the Presenter says,
"Nemesis calls the Furies from A. crags." In Chapman's Consp. Byron iii. 390,
Byron, referring to A., speaks of "the most mortal vapours That ever stifled and
struck dead the fowls That flew at never such a sightly pitch." Content, in Sonnets
after Astrophel i., says of Proserpina, "They that have not yet fed On delight
amorous, She vows that they shall lead Apes in A." To lead apes in hell was the
recognized doom of old maids. Bacon, in Sylva x. 918, says, "There are also certain
lakes and pits, such as that of A., that poison birds, as is said, which fly over
them."
AVEROS (or AVEIRO)
A spt. of Portugal on the estuary of the Vouga, 35 m. S. of Oporto. Ferdinand,
D. of A., or Averro, is named in Stucley
2673 as one of the lords killed at the battle of Alcazar. In Peele's Alcazar iv.
4, 59, Sebastian says, "D. of Avero, it shall be your charge To take the muster
of the Portugals." A. is the scene of part of Shirley's Maid's Trag. [ed. note: Sugden likely means Shirley's Maid's Rev.]
AVON
- The Upper, or Warwicksh, A. is one of 5 rivers of the same name in England. It rises in Northants., flows past Warwick, Stratford, and Evesham, and falls into the Severn at Tewkesbury. It is crossed at Stratford by a fine stone bdge. of 14 arches, built at the beginning of the 16th cent. by Hugh Clopton, a native of Stratford who became Lord Mayor of Lond. in 1492. In Jonson's verses To the memory of my beloved master William Shakespeare, the poet is styled "Sweet Swan of A."
- The Bristol A., Spenser, F. Q. iv.11, 31, says, "A. marched in more stately path, Proud of his Adamants with which he shines (the so-called Bristol diamonds] And glisters wide, as also of wondrous Bath, And Bristow fair, which on his waves he builded hath." Milton, Vac. Ex. 97, calls it "rocky A."
- The Wilts. A. Daniel, in Delia (1594) liii. 11, says, "A., poor in fame, and poor in waters, Shall have my song, where Delia hath her seat. A. shall be my Thames, and she my song." This was the Wilts. A., which rises near Devizes and flows S., through Wilts., into the Channel at Christchurch Bay. Drayton, in Idea (1594) xxxii. 4, says, "A.'s fame to Albion's cliffe is raised." As the other rivers mentioned in this sonnet are Thames, Trent, and Severn, the Bristol A. is clearly intended.
AWROER
In Wilson's Pedler, 1096, the Pedler says, "The Mariner hath promised the Traveller to carry him as far as the river A. in which he shall find the stones wherewith all thing that they touch shall be turned into gold." The Pedlar's geography is largely imaginative; and I suspect that the A. is meant for the golden river, from the Latin aurum.
AXE INN
A tavern in Lond. Part I of Oldcastle ii. 1 is laid in a room in the A. I., without Bishop-gate. There was an A. I. in Aldermanbury, next to the ch., in 1700, which is still there in Nuns Court, but I have failed to find any trace of an A. I. in Bishopsgate.
AYTON
Town in Scotland, some 6 m. N. of Berwick. Ford's Warbeck iv. 1, is laid in the English camp near A., on the borders." Can they look," says Surrey, "on this, The strongest of their forts, old A.-Castle, Yielded and demolished?" Bacon, in Henry VII, tells how Surrey took "the castle of Aton, one of the strongest places then esteemed, between Berwick and Edinburgh."
AZAMOR
Town on N.W. coast of Morocco. The K. of Morocco tells Tamburlaine, "From A. to
Tunis near the sea Is Barbary unpeopled for thy sake" "(Marlowe, Tamb.
B. i. 3).
AZORES
A group of 9 islands in the M. Atlantic Ocean, abt. 800 m. due W. of the coast of Portugal. T. Heywood's Maid of West A. ii. 1 and 4 are laid at Fayal, one of the islands of this group, at the time of Essex's expedition thither in 1597. Milton, P. L. iv. 592, speaks of the setting sun as "now fallen Beneath the A." Milton pronounces it as 3 syllables (Azores), as does Tennyson in the Ballad of the Revenge." At Flores in the A., Sir Richd. Grenville lay."
AZOTUS
The Hellenistic Greek name for Asdod, or Ashdod, q.v. Milton, P. L. i. 464, says that Dagon "had his temple high Reared in A."
AZZA
(a Hellenistic form of GAZA, q.v.). Milton, S.A. 147, tells how Samson "by main force pulled up, and on his shoulders bore, The gates of A." See Judges xvi. 13.