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). AS'TORETH, the goddess-moon of Syrian mythology; called by Jeremiah, "The Queen of Heaven," and by the Phoenicians, "Astar'tê." With these [_the host of heaven_] in troop Came Astoreth, whom the Phoenicians called Astartê, queen of heaven, with crescent horns. Milton, _Paradise Lost_, i. 438 (1665). (Milton does not always preserve the difference between Ashtaroth and Ashtoreth; for he speaks of the "moonèd Ashtaroth, heaven's queen and mother.") AS'TRAGON, the philosopher and great physician, by whom Gondibert and his friends were cured of the wounds received in the faction fight stirred up by prince Oswald. Astragon had a splendid library and museum. One room was called "Great Nature's Office," another "Nature's Nursery," and the library was called "The Monument of Vanished Mind." Astragon (the poet says) discovered the loadstone and its use in navigation. He had one child, Bertha, who loved duke Gondibert, and to whom she was promised in marriage. The tale being unfinished, the sequel is not known.--Sir W. Davenant, _Gondibert_ (died 1668). ASTRE'A _(Mrs. Alphra Behn_), an authoress. She published the story of _Prince Oroonoka_ (died 1689). The stage now loosely does Astrea tread. Pope. ASTRINGER, a falconer. Shakespeare introduces an astringer in _All's Well that Ends Well_, act v. sc. 1. (From the French _austour_, Latin _austercus_, "a goshawk.") A "gentle astringer" is a gentleman falconer. We usually call a falconer who keeps that kind of hawk [the goshawk] an austringer.--Cowell, _Law Dictionary_.