Chapter Asmodeus to Astoreth of A by Brewer's Readers Handbook

in a fit of jealousy, turned her into a butterfly, and threw the flowers into the wings. Since then all butterflies have borne wings of many gay colours.—Spenser: Muiopotmos or the Butterfly’s Fate (1590).

Astolat, Guildford, in Surrey.

The Lily Maid of Astolat, Elaine, in Tennyson’s Idylls of the King.

Astolpho, the English cousin of Orlando; his fa ther was Otho. He was a great boaster, but was generous, courteous, gay, and singularly handsome. Ast olpho was carried to Alcina’s isle on the back of a whale; and when Alcina tired of him, she changed him into a myrtle tree, but Melissa disenchanted him. Astolpho descended into the infernal regions; he also went to the moon, to cure Orlando of his madness by bringing back his lost wits in a phial.—Ariosto: Orlando Furioso (1516).

Astolpho’s Book. The fairy Logistilla gave him a book, which would direct him aright in all his journeyings, and give him any other information he required.—Ariosto: Orlando Furioso, viii.

Astolpho’s Horn. The gift of Logistilla. Whatever man or beast heard it, was seized with instant panic, and became an easy captive.—Ariosto: Orlando Furioso, viii.

Aston (Sir Jacob), a cavalier during the Commonwealth; one of the partisans of the late king.—Sir W. Scott: Woodstock (period, Commonwealth).

Aston (Enrico). So Henry Ashton is called in Donizetti’s opera of Lucia di Lammermoor (1835). (See Ashton.)

Astorax, king of Paphos and brother of the princess Calis.—John Fletcher: The Mad Lover (1617).

Astoreth, the moon-goddess of Syrian mythology; called by Jeremiah, “the Queen of Heaven,” and by the Phœnicians, “Astartê.” (See Ashtaroth, p. 68.)

With these [the host of heaven] in troop
Came Astoreth, whom the Phœnicians called
Astartê, queen of heaven, with crescent horns.
   —Milton: Paradise Lost, i. 438 (1665).

(Milton does not always preserve the difference between Ashtaroth and Astoreth; for he speaks of the “moonèd Ashtaroth, heaven’s queen and mother.”)