Character Sketches of Romance Volume I Part 3

Shakespeare has a poem called _Venus and Adonis_. Sh.e.l.ley calls his elegy on the poet Keats _Adona'is_, under the idea that the untimely death of Keats resembled that of Adonis.

(_Adonis_ is an allegory of the sun, which is six months north of the horizon, and six months south. Thammuz is the same as Adonis, and so is Osiris).

ADONIRAM PENN, the obstinate and well-to-do farmer in Mary E.

Wilkins's _Revolt of "Mother_". He persists in building a new barn which the cattle do not need instead of the much-needed dwelling for his family. In his absence, "Mother," who was wont to "stand before her husband in the humble fas.h.i.+on of a Scripture woman," moves household and furniture into the commodious barn.

"Adoniram was like a fortress whose walls had no active resistance, and went down the instant the right besieging tools were used" (1890).

AD'ORAM, a seraph, who had charge of James the son of Alphe'us.--Klopstock, _The Messiah_, iii. (1748).

ADOSINDA, daughter of the Gothic governor of Auria, in Spain. The Moors having slaughtered her parents, husband, and child, preserved her alive for the captain of Alcahman's regiment. She went to his tent without the least resistance, but implored the captain to give her one night to mourn the death of those so near and dear to her. To this he complied, but during sleep she murdered him with his own scymitar.

Roderick, disguised as a monk, helped her to bury the dead bodies of her house, and then she vowed to live for only one object, vengeance.

In the great battle, when the Moors were overthrown, she it was who gave the word of attack, "Victory and Vengeance!"--Southey, _Roderick, etc._, iii. (1814).

ADRAM'ELECH _(ch=k)_, one of the fallen angels. Milton makes him overthrown by U'riel and Raphael (_Paradise Lost_, vi. 365). According to Scripture, he was one of the idols of Sepharvaim, and Shalmane'ser introduced his wors.h.i.+p into Samaria. [The word means "the mighty magnificent king."]

The Sepharvites burnt their children in the fire to Adramelech.--2 _Kings_ xvii. 31.

Klopstock introduces him into _The Messiah_, and represents him as surpa.s.sing Satan in malice and guile, ambition and mischief. He is made to hate every one, even Satan, of whose rank he is jealous, and whom he hoped to overthrow, that by putting an end to his servitude he might become the supreme G.o.d of all the created worlds. At the crucifixion he and Satan are both driven back to h.e.l.l by Obad'don, the angel of death.

ADRASTE' (_2 syl_.), a French gentleman, who inveigles a Greek slave named Isidore from don Pedre. His plan is this: He gets introduced as a portrait-painter, and thus imparts to Isidore his love, and obtains her consent to elope with him. He then sends his slave Zade (_2 syl_.) to don Pedre, to crave protection for ill treatment, and Pedre promises to befriend her. At this moment Adraste appears, and demands that Zade be given up to him to punish as he thinks proper. Pedre intercedes; Adraste seems to relent; and Pedre calls for Zade. Out comes Isidore instead, with Zade's veil. "There," says Pedre, "take her and use her well." "I will do so," says the Frenchman, and leads off the Greek slave.--Moliere, _Le Sicilien, ou L'Amour Peintre_ (1667).

ADRIAN'A, a wealthy Ephesian lady, who marries Antiph'olus, twin-brother of Antipholus of Syracuse. The abbess Aemilia is her mother-in-law, but she knows it not; and one day when she accuses her husband of infidelity, she says to the abbess, if he is unfaithful it is not from want of remonstrance, "for it is the one subject of our conversation. In bed I will not let him sleep for speaking of it; at table I will not let him eat for speaking of it; when alone with him I talk of nothing else, and in company I give him frequent hints of it. In a word, all my talk is how vile and bad it is in him to love another better than he loves his wife" (act v. sc. 1).--Shakespeare, _Comedy of Errors_ (1593).

ADRIA'NO DE ARMA'DO _(Don)_, a pompous, fantastical Spaniard, a military braggart in a state of peace, as Parolles (3 _syl_.) was in war. Boastful but poor; a coiner of words, but very ignorant; solemnly grave, but ridiculously awkward; majestical in gait, but of very low propensities.--Shakespeare, _Love's Labour Lost_ (1594).

(Said to be designed for John Florio, surnamed "The Resolute," a philologist. Holofernes, the pedantic schoolmaster, in the same play, is also meant in ridicule of the same lexicographer.)

You may remember, scarce five years are past Since in your brigantine you sailed to see The Adriatic wedded to our duke.

T. Otway, _Venice Preserved_, i. 1 (1682).

AD'RIEL, in Dryden's _Absalom and Achitophel_, the earl of Mulgrave, a royalist.

Sharp-judging Adriel, the Muses' friend; Himself a muse. In sanhedrim's debate True to his prince, but not a slave to state; Whom David's love with honours did adorn, That from his disobedient son were torn.

Part i.

(John Sheffield, earl of Mulgrave (1649-1721) wrote an _Essay on Poetry_.)

ADRIENNE LECOUVREUR, French actress, said to have been poisoned by flowers sent to her by a rival. Died in 1730.

AE'ACUS, king of Oeno'pia, a man of such integrity and piety, that he was made at death one of the three judges of h.e.l.l. The other two were Minos and Rhadaman'thus.

AEGE'ON a huge monster with 100 arms and 50 heads, who with his brothers, Cottus and Gyges, conquered the t.i.tans by hurling at them 300 rocks at once. Homer says _men_ call him "Aege'on," but by the _G.o.ds_ he is called Bri'areus (3 _syl_.).

Briareos or Typhon, whom the den By ancient Tarsus held.

--Milton, _Paradise Lost_, I. 199.

_Aege'on_, a merchant of Syracuse, in Shakespeare's _Comedy of Errors_ (1593).

AEMYLIA, a lady of high degree, in love with Am'yas, a squire of inferior rank. Going to meet her lover at a trysting-place, she was caught up by a hideous monster, and thrust into his den for future food. Belphoebe (3 _syl_.) slew "the caitiff" and released the maid (canto vii.). Prince Arthur, having slain Corflambo, released Amyas from the durance of Paea'na, Corflambo's daughter, and brought the lovers together "in peace and joyous blis" (canto ix.).--Spencer, _Faery Queen_, iv. (1596).

AEMIL'IA, wife of Aege'on the Syracusian merchant, and mother of the twins called Antiph'olus. When the boys were s.h.i.+pwrecked, she was parted from them and taken to Ephesus. Here she entered a convent, and rose to be the abbess. Without her knowing it, one of her twins also settled in Ephesus, and rose to be one of its greatest and richest citizens. The other son and her husband aegeon both set foot in Ephesus the same day without the knowledge of each other, and all met together in the duke's court, when the story of their lives was told, and they became again united to each other.--Shakespeare, _Comedy of Errors_ (1593).

AENE'AS, a Trojan prince, the hero of Virgil's epic called _Aeneid._ He was the son of Anchi'ses and Venus. His first wife was Creu'sa (3 _syl_.), by whom he had a son named Asca'nius; his second wife was Lavinia, daughter of Latinus king of Italy, by whom he had a posthumous son called Aene'as Sylvius. He succeeded his father-in-law in the kingdom, and the Romans called him their founder.

According to Geoffrey of Monmouth "Brutus," the first king of Britain (from whom the island was called _Britain_), was a descendant of aeneas.

AENE'ID, the epic poem of Virgil, in twelve books. When Troy was taken by the Greeks and set on fire, Aene'as, with his father, son, and wife, took flight, with the intention of going to Italy, the original birthplace of the family. The wife was lost, and the old father died on the way; but after numerous perils by sea and land, aeneas and his son Asca'nius reached Italy. Here Latnus, the reigning king, received the exiles hospitably, and promised his daughter Lavin'ia in marriage to aeneas; but she had been already betrothed by her mother to prince Turnus, son of Daunus, king of Ru'tuli, and Turnus would not forego his claim. Latinus, in this dilemma, said the rivals must settle the dispute by an appeal to arms. Turnus being slain, aeneas married Lavinia, and ere long succeeded his father-in-law on the throne.

Book I. The escape from Troy; aeneas and his son, driven by a tempest on the sh.o.r.es of Carthage, are hospitably entertained by queen Dido.

II. aeneas tells Dido the tale of the wooden horse, the burning of Troy, and his flight with his father, wife, and son. The wife was lost and died.

III. The narrative continued. The perils he met with on the way, and the death of his father.

IV. Dido falls in love with aeneas; but he steals away from Carthage, and Dido, on a funeral pyre, puts an end to her life.

V. aeneas reaches Sicily, and celebrates there the games in honor of Anchises. This book corresponds to the _Iliad_, xxiii.

VI. aeneas visits the infernal regions. This book corresponds to _Odyssey_, xi.

VII. Latinus king of Italy entertains aeneas, and promises to him Lavinia (his daughter) in marriage, but prince Turnus had been already betrothed to her by the mother, and raises an army to resist aeneas.

VIII. Preparations on both sides for a general war.

IX. Turnus, during the absence of aeneas, fires the s.h.i.+ps and a.s.saults the camp. The episode of Nisus and Eury'alus.

X. The war between Turnus and aeneas. Episode of Mezentius and Lausus.

XI. The battle continued.

XII. Turnus challenges aeneas to single combat, and is killed.

N.B.--1. The story of Sinon and taking of Troy is borrowed from Pisander, as Macrobius informs us.

2. The loves of Dido and aeneas are copied from those of Medea and Jason, in Apollonius.

3. The story of the wooden horse and the burning of Troy are from Arcti'nus of Miletus.

AE'OLUS, G.o.d of the winds, which he keeps imprisoned in a cave in the aeolian Islands, and lets free as he wishes or as the over-G.o.ds command.

Was I for this nigh wrecked upon the sea, And twice by awkward wind from England's bank Drove back again unto my native clime?...

Yet Aeolus would not be a murderer, But left that hateful office unto thee.

Shakespeare, 2 _Henry VI_. act v, sc. 2 (1591).