Chapter Acestes to Adah of A by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Here she became the mother of Perseus (2 syl.), by Jupiter in the form of a shower of gold. The king of Argos now ordered his daughter and her infant to be put into a chest, and cast adrift on the sea, but they were rescued by Dictys, a fisherman. When grown to manhood, Perseus accidentally struck the foot of Acrisius with a quoit, and the blow caused his death. This tale is told by Mr. Morris in The Earthly Paradise April).

Actæ’on, a hunter, changed by Diana into a stag. A synonym for a cuckold.

Divulge Page himself for a secure and wilful Actæon
[cuckold].
   —Shakespeare: Merry Wives, etc., act iii. sc. 2 (1596).

Actea, a female slave faithful to Nero in his fall. It was this hetæra who wrapped the dead body in cerements, and saw it decently interred.

This Actea was beautiful. She was seated on the ground; the head of Nero was on her lap, his naked body was stretched on those winding-sheets in which she was about to fold him, to lay him in his grave upon the garden hill.—Ouida: Ariadné, i. 7.

Actius Sincerus, the pen-name of the Italian poet Sannazaro, called “The Christian Virgil” (1458–1530).

Actors (Female). In 1662 Charles II. first licensed women to act women’s parts, which up to that time had been performed by men and boys.

Whereas the women’s parts in plays have hitherto been acted by men in the habits of women, at which some have taken offence, we do permit and give leave for the time to come, that all women’s parts be acted by women.

Actors and Actresses. The last male actor that took a woman’s character on the stage was Edward Kynaston, noted for his beauty (1619–1687). The first female actor for hire was Mrs. Saunderson, afterwards Mrs. Betterton, who died in 1712.

Acts and Monuments, by John Fox, better known as “The Book of Martyrs,” published in one large vol, folio, 1563. It had an immense sale. Bishop Burnet says he had “compared the book with the records, and had not discovered any errors or prevarications, but the utmost fidelity and exactness.” The Catholics call the book “Fox’s Golden Legends.”

Ad, Adites . Ad is a tribe descended from Ad, son of Uz, son of Irem, son of Shem, son of Noah. The tribe, at the Confusion of Babel, went and settled on Al-Ahkâf [the Winding Sands], in the province of Hadramaut. Shedâd was their first king, but in consequence of his pride, both he and all the tribe perished, either from drought or the Sarsar (an icy wind).—Sale’s Koran, I.

Woe, woe, to Irem! Woe to Ad!
Death is gone up into her palaces!
They fell around me. Thousands fell around.
The king and all his people fell;
All, all, they perished all.
   —Southey: Thalaba the Destroyer, i. 41, 45 (1797).

Adah, wife of Cain. After Cain had been conducted by Lucifer through the realms of space, he is restored to the home of his wife and child, where all is beauty, gentleness, and love. Full of faith and fervent in gratitude, Adah loves her infant with a sublime eternal affection. She sees him sleeping, and says to Cain—

How lovely he appears! His little cheeks
In their pure incarnation, vying with
The rose leaves strewn beneath them.
And his lips, too.
How beautifully parted! No; you shall not
Kiss him; at least not now. He will awake soon—
His hour of midday rest is nearly over.
   —Byron: Cain.

According to Arabic tradition, Adah was buried at Aboucais, a mountain in Arabia.