city in sight to obtain provisions. Here he was entrapped by an
old fire-worshipper, who offered him hospitality, but cast him into a
dungeon, intending to offer him up a human victim on the "mountain
of fire." The ship in which he was sent being driven on the coast of
queen Margiana, Assad was sold to her as a slave, but being recaptured
was carried back to his old dungeon. Here Bosta'na, one of the old
man's daughters, took pity on him, and released him, and ere long
Assad married queen Margiana, while Amgiad, out of gratitude, married
Bostana.--_Arabian Nights_ ("Amgiad and Assad").

ASTAG'ORAS, a female fiend, who has the power of raising
storms.--Tasso, _Jerusalem Delivered_ (1575).

ASTAR'TE (3 _syl_.), the Phoenician moon-goddess, the Astoreth of the
Syrians.

With these
Came Astoreth, whom the Phoenicians called
Astarte, queen of heaven, with crescent horns.
Milton, _Paradise Lost_, i. 438 (1665).

_As'tarte_ (2 _syl_.), an attendant on the princess Anna
Comne'na.--Sir W. Scott, _Count Robert of Paris_ (time, Eufus).

_Astarte_ a woman, beloved by Manfred.--Byron, _Manfred_.

We think of Astarte as young, beautiful, innocent,--guilty, lost,
murdered, judged, pardoned; but still, in her permitted visit to
earth, speaking in a voice of sorrow, and with a countenance yet pale
with mortal trouble. We had but a glimpse of her in her beauty and
innocence, but at last she rises before us in all the moral silence of
a ghost, with fixed, glazed, and passionless eyes, revealing death,
judgment, and eternity.--Professor Wilson.

The lady Astarte his? Hush! who
comes here? (iii. 4.)
...The same Astarte? no! (iii. 4.)

AS'TERY, a nymph in the train of Venus; the lightest of foot and most
active of all. One day the goddess, walking abroad with her nymphs,
bade them go gather flowers. Astery gathered most of all; but Venus,
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 colors.--Spenser, _Muiopotmos or the Butterfly's Fate_
(1590).

ASTOL'PHO, the English cousin of Orlando; his father was Otho. He was
a great boaster, but was generous, courteous, gay, and singularly
handsome. Astolpho was carried to Alci'na'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,