ANSELME (2 syl.), father of Valere (2 syl.) and Mariane (3 syl.).  In reality he is don Thomas d’Alburci, of Naples.  The family were exiled from Naples for political reasons, and being shipwrecked were all parted.  Valere was picked up by a Spanish captain, who adopted him; Mariane fell into the hands of a corsair, who kept her a captive for ten years, when she effected her escape; and Anselme wandered from place to place for ten years, when he settled in Paris, and intended to marry.  At the expiration of sixteen years they all met in Paris at the house of Har’pagon, the miser.  Valere was in love with Elise (2 syl.), the miser’s daughter, promised by Harpagon in marriage to Anselme; and Mariane, affianced to the miser’s son Cleante (2 syl.), was sought in marriage by Harpagon, the old father.  As soon as Anselme discovered that Valere and Mariane were his own children, matters were soon amicably arranged, the young people married, and the old ones retired from the unequal contest.—­Moliere, L’Avare (1667).

ANSELMO, a noble cavalier of Florence, the friend of Lothario.  Anselmo married Camilla, and induced his friend to try to corrupt her, that he might rejoice in her incorruptible fidelity.  Lothario unwillingly undertook the task, and succeeded but too well.  For a time Anselmo was deceived, but at length Camilla eloped, and the end of the silly affair was that Anselmo died of grief, Lothario was slain in battle, and Camilla died in a convent.—­Cervantes, Don Quixote, I. iv. 5, 6; Fatal Curiosity (1605).

AN’STER (Hob), a constable at Kinross village.—­Sir W. Scott, The Abbot (time, Elizabeth).

ANSTISS DOLBEARE, heroine of Mrs. A.D.T.  Whitney’s novel, Hitherto, a sensitive, imaginative, morbid, motherless girl who is “all the time holding up her soul ... with a thorn in it” (1872).

ANTAE’OS, a gigantic wrestler of Libya (or Irassa).  His strength was inexhaustible so long as he touched the earth, and was renewed every time he did touch it.  Her’cules killed him by lifting him up from the earth and squeezing him to death. (See MALEGER.)

  As when earth’s son Antaeus ... in Irassa strove
  With Jove’s Alcides, and oft foiled, still rose,
  Receiving from his mother earth new strength,
  Fresh from his fall, and fiercer grapple joined,
  Throttled at length in the air, expired and fell.

Milton, Paradise Regained, iv. (563).

[Illustration] Similarly, when Bernardo del Carpio assailed Orlando or Rolando at Roncesvalles, as he found his body was not to be pierced by any instrument of war, he took him up in his arms and squeezed him to death.

N.B.—­The only vulnerable part of Orlando was the sole of his foot.

ANTE’NOR, a traitorous Trojan prince, related to Priam.  He advised Ulysses to carry away the palladium from Troy, and when the wooden horse was built it was Antenor who urged the Trojans to make a breach in the wall and drag the horse into the city.—­Shakespeare has introduced him in Troilus and Cressida (1602).