Chapter Annir to Antiope of A by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Ants have mind, etc. “In formica non modo sensus, sed etiam mens, ratio, memoria.”—Pliny.

Ant (Solomon’s), one of the ten animals admitted into paradise, according to the Koran, ch. xxvii. (See Animals, p. 45.)

Ants lay up a store for the winter. This is an error in natural history, as ants are torpid during the winter.

Antæos, a gigantic wrestler of Libya (or Irassa). His strength was inexhaustible so long as he touched the earth, and was renewed every time he did touch it. Herculês killed him by lifting him up from the earth and squeezing him to death. (See Maleger.)

As when earth’s son Antæus … in Irassa strove
With Jove’s Alcidês, and oft foiled, still rose,
Receiving from his mother earth, new strength,
Fresh from his fall, and fiercer grapple joined,
Throttled at length i’ the air, expired and fell.
   —Milton: Paradise Regained, iv. (1671).

Similarly, when Bernardo del Carpio assailed Orlando or Rowland at Roncesvallês, as he found his body was not to be pierced by any instrument of war, he took him up in his arms and squeezed him to death.

N.B.—The only vulnerable part of Orlando was the sole of his foot.

Antenor, a traitorous Trojan prince, related to Priam. He advised Ulyssês to carry away the palladium from Troy; and when the wooden horse was built, it was Antenor who urged the Trojans to make a breach in the wall and drag the horse into the city.—Shakespeare has introduced him in Troilus and Cressida (1602).

Anthia, the lady beloved by Abrocomas in the Greek romance called De Amoribus Anthiœ et Abrocomœ, by Xenophon of Ephesus, who lived in the fourth Christian century.

This is not Xenophon, the historian, who lived B.C. 444-359.

Anthony, an English archer in the cottage of farmer Dickson, of Douglasdale.—Sir W. Scott: Castle Dangerous (time, Henry I.).

Anthony, the old postillion at Meg Dods’s, the landlady of the inn at St. Ronan’s Well.—Sir W. Scott: St. Ronan’s Well (time, George III.). (See Antonio.)

Antidius, bishop of Jaen, martyred by the Vandals in 411. One day, seeing the devil writing in his pocket- book some sin committed by the pope, he jumped upon his back and commanded his Satanic majesty to carry him to Rome. The devil tried to make the bishop pronounce the name of Jesus, which would break the spell, and then the devil would have tossed his unwelcome burden into the sea; but the bishop only cried, “Gee up, devil!” and when he reached Rome he was covered with Alpine snow. The chronicler naïvely adds, “the hat is still shown at Rome in confirmation of this miracle.”—General Chronicle of King Alphonso the Wise.

Antigone , daughter of Œdipos and Jocastê, a noble maiden, with a truly heroic attachment to her father and brothers. When Œd ipos had blinded himself, and was obliged to quit Thebes, Antigonê accompanied him, and remained with him till his death, when she returned to Thebes. Creon, the king, had forbidden any one to bury Polynicês, her brother, who had been slain by his elder brother in battle; but Antigonê, in defiance of this prohibition, buried the dead body, and Creon shut her up in a vault under ground, where she killed herself. Hæman, her lover, killed himself also by her side. Sophoclês has a Greek tragedy on the subject, and it has been dramatized for the English stage.

Then suddenly—oh! … what a revelation of beauty! forth stepped, walking in brightness, the most faultless of Grecian marbles, Miss Helen Faucet as “Antigonê.” What perfection of Athenian sculpture! the noble figure, the lovely arms, the fluent drapery! What an unveiling of the statuesque! … Perfect in form; perfect in attitude.—De Quincey (1845).