Part i. AGAMEMNON, king of the Argives and commander-in-chief of the allied Greeks in the siege of Troy. Introduced by Shakespeare in his _Troilus and Cres'sida_. _Vixere fortes ante Agamem'nona_, "There were brave men before Agamemnon;" we are not to suppose that there were no great and good men in former times. A similar proverb is, "There are hills beyond Pentland and fields beyond Forth." AGANDECCA, daughter of Starno king of Lochlin [_Scandinavia_], promised in marriage to Fingal king of Morven [_north-west of Scotland_]. The maid told Fingal to beware of her father, who had set an ambush to kill him. Fingal, being thus forewarned, slew the men in ambush; and Starno, in rage, murdered his daughter, who was buried by Fingal in Ardven [_Argyll_]. The daughter of the snow overheard, and left the hall of her secret sigh. She came in all her beauty, like the moon from the cloud of the east. Loveliness was around her as light. Her step was like the music of songs. She saw the youth, and loved him. He was the stolen sigh of her soul. Her blue eyes rolled in secret on him, and she blessed the chief of Morven.--_Ossian_ ("Fingal," iii.) AGANIP'PE (4 syl.), fountain of the Muses, at the foot of mount Helicon, in Boeo'tia. From Helicon's harmonious springs A thousand rills their mazy progress take. Gray, _Progress of Poetry_. AG'APE (3 syl.) the fay. She had three sons at a birth, Primond, Diamond, and Triamond. Being anxious to know the future lot of her sons, she went to the abyss of Demogorgon, to consult the "Three Fatal Sisters." Clotho showed her the threads, which "were thin as those spun by a spider." She begged the fates to lengthen the life-threads, but they said this could not be; they consented, however, to this agreement-- When ye shred with fatal knife His line which is the eldest of the three, Eftsoon his life may pass into the next: And when the next shall likewise ended be, That both their lives may likewise be annext Unto the third, that his may so be trebly wext. Spenser, _Faëry Queen_, iv. 2 (1590). AGAPI'DA _(Fray Antonio_), the imaginary chronicler of _The Conquest of Granada_, written by Washington Irving (1829). AGAST'YA (3 _syl._), a dwarf who drank the sea dry. As he was walking one day with Vishnoo, the insolent ocean asked the god who the pigmy was that strutted by his side. Vishnoo replied it was the patriarch Agastya, who was going to restore earth to its true balance. Ocean, in contempt, spat its spray in the pigmy's face, and the sage, in revenge of this affront, drank the waters of the ocean, leaving the bed quite dry.--Maurice. AG'ATHA, daughter of Cuno, and the betrothed of Max, in Weber's opera of _Der Freischütz._--See _Dictionary of Phrase and Fable._