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, to cure Orlando of his madness by bringing back his lost wits in a phial.—Ariosto, Orlando Furioso (1516).
As'ton (Sir Jacob), a cavalier during the Commonwealth; one of the partisans of the late king.—Sir W. Scott, Woodstock (period, Commonwealth).
As'ton (Enrico). So Henry Ashton is called in Donizetti's opera of Lucia di Lammermoor (1835). (See ASHTON.)
As'torax, king of Paphos and brother of the princess Calis.—Beaumont and Fletcher, The Mad Lover (before 1618).