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

Almathea also personifies fertility. (Ammon is Ham, son of Noah, founder of the African race.) (See AMALTHEA.)

[Here] Amalthea pours,
Well pleased, the wealth of that Ammonian horn,
Her dower.
   —Akenside: Hymn to the Naiads.

Ammon’s Son. Alexander the Great called himself the son of the god Ammon, but others call him the son of Philip of Macedon.

Of food I think with Philip’s son, or rather
Ammon’s (ill pleased with one world and one father).
   —Byron: Don Juan, v. 31.

(Alluding to the tale that when Alexander had conquered the whole world, he wept that there was no other world to conquer.)

Amon’s Son is Rinaldo, eldest son of Amon or Aymon marquis d’Este, and nephew of Charlemagne.—Ariosto: Orlando Furioso (1516).

Amoret, a modest, faithful shepherdess, who plighted her troth to Perigot (t sounded) at the “Virtuous Well.” The wanton shepherdess Amarillis assumed her appearance and dress, but the deception being revealed by Corin, “the faithful shepherdess,” the lovers were happily married.—John Fletcher: The Faithful Shepherdess (1610). (See AMARILLIS, p. 33.)

Amoretta or Amoret, twin-born with Belphœbê, their mother being Chrysogonê . While the mother and her two babes were asleep, Diana took one ( Belphœbê) to bring up, and Venus the other. Venus committed Amoretta to the charge of Psychê, and Psychê tended her as lovingly as she tended her own daughter Pleasure, “to whom she became the companion.” When grown to marriageable estate, Amoretta was brought to Fairyland, a nd wounded many a heart, but gave her own only to sir Scudamore (bk. iii. 6). Being seized by Busirane, an enchanter, she was kept in durance by him because she would not “her true love deny;” but Britomart delivered her and bound the enchanter (bk. iii. II, 12), after which she became the tender, loving wife of sir Scudamore.

Amoret is the type of female loveliness and wifely affection, soft, warm, chaste, gentle, and ardent; not sensual nor yet platonic, but that living, breathing, warm-hearted love which fits woman for the fond mother and faithful wife.—Spenser: Faërie Queene, iii. (1590).

Amoury (Sir Giles), the Grand-Master of the Knights Templars, who conspired with the marquis of Montserrat against Richard I. Saladin cut off the Templar’s head while in the act of drinking.—Sir W. Scott: The Talisman (time, Richard I.).

Amperzand, a corruption of And-as-and, i.e. “&-as-and.” The symbol is the old Italian monogram et (“and”), made thus &, in which the first part is the letter e and the flourish at the end the letter t.

State epistles, so dull and so grand,
Mustn’t contain the shortened “and.”
O my nice little amperzand!
Nothing that Cadmus ever planned
Equals my elegant amperzand.
   —Quoted in Notes and Queries (May 5, 1877).

(Cadmus invented the original Greek alphabet.)

Amphibal (St.), conf essor of St. Alban of Verulam. When Maximianus Herculius, general of Diocletian’s army in Britain, pulled down the Christian churches, burnt the Holy Scriptures, and put to death the Christians with unflagging zeal, Alban hid his confessor, and offered to die for him.

A thousand other saints whom Amphibal had taught…
Were slain where Lichfield is, whose name doth rightly sound
(There of those Christians slain), “Dead-field” or burying-ground).
   —Drayton: Polyolbion, xxiv. (1622).