Chapter Amin to Amphitryon of A by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Amin to Amphitryon

Amin (Prince), son of the c aliph Haroun-al-Raschid; he married Aminê, sister of Zobeide, the caliph’s wife.—Arabian Nights’ Entertainments (“The History of Amine”).

Amina, an orphan, who walked in her sleep. (For the tale, see Sonnambula.)—Bellini: La Sonnambula (an opera, 1831).

Amine, half-sister of Zobeidê, and wife of Amin, the caliph’s son. One day she went to purchase a robe, and the seller told her he would charge nothing if she would suffer him to kiss her cheek. Instead of kissing he bit it, and Amine, being asked by her husband how she came by the wound, so shuffled in her answers that he commanded her to be put to death—a sentence he afterwards commuted to scourging. One day she and her sister told the stories of their lives to the caliph Haroun-al-Raschid, when Amin became reconciled to his wife, and the caliph married her half-sister.—Arabian Nights’ Entertainments (“History of Zobeide and History of Amine”).

Amine or Amines, the beautiful wife of Sidi Nouman. Instead of eating her rice with a spoon, she used a bodkin for the purpose, and carried it to her mouth in infinitesimal portions. This went on for some time, till Sidi Nouman determined to ascertain on what his wife really fed, and to his horror discovered that she was a ghoul, who went stealthily by night to the cemetery, and feasted on the fresh-buried dead.—Arabian Nights’ Entertainments (“History of Sidi Nouman”).

N.B.—Amine was so hard-hearted that she led about her three sisters like a leash of greyhounds.

One of the Amine’s sort, who pick up their grains of food with a bodkin.—O. W. Holmes: Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table.

Amintor, a young nobleman, the troth-plight husband of Aspatia, but by the king’s command he marries Ev adne. This is the great event of the tragedy of which Amintor is the hero. The sad story of Evadne, the heroine, gives name to the play.—Beaumont and Fletcher: The Maid’s Tragedy (1610).

(Till the reign of Charles II., the kings of England claimed the feudal right of disposing in marriage any one who owed them feudal allegiance. In All’s Well that Ends Well, Shakespeare makes the king of France exercise a similar right, when he commands Bertram, count of Rousillon, to marry against his will Helena, the physician’s daughter.)

Amis the Priest, the hero of a comic German story, in verse (thirteenth century). He was an Englishman, whose popularity excited the envy of the higher clergy; so they tried to depose him on the score of ignorance. Being brought before them, they demand answers to such questions as these: “How many days is it since Adam was placed in paradise?” but Amis fools them with his wit. The poem reminds one of the Abbot of Canterbury, and the Abbé de St. Gall.—Stricker of Austria (fourteenth century).

Amlet (Richard), the gamester in Vanbrugh’s Confederacy (1695). He is usually called “Dick.”

I saw Miss Pope for the second time, in the year 1790, in the character of “Flippanta,” John Palmer being “Dick Amlet,” and Mrs. Jordan “Corinna.”—James Smith.

Mrs. Amlet, a rich, vulgar, tradeswoman, mother of Dick, of whom she is very proud, although she calls him a “sad scapegrace,” and swears “he will be hanged.” At last she settles on him £10,000, and he marries Corinna, daughter of Gripe the rich scrivener.

Ammonian Horn (The), the cor nucopia. Ammon king of Libya gave to his mistress Amalthea (mother of Bacchus) a tract of land resembling a ram’s horn in shape, and hence called the “Ammonian horn” (from the giver), the “Amalthean horn” (from the receiver), and the “Hisperian horn” (from its locality).