No orifice for a point
  As subtle as Arachne’s broken woof
  To enter.

Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, act v. sc. 2 (1602).

ARAGNOL, the son of Arachne (the “most fine-fingered of all workmen,” turned into a spider for presuming to challenge Minerva to a contest in needlework).  Aragnol entertained a secret and deadly hatred against prince Clarion, son of Muscarol the fly-king; and weaving a curious net, soon caught the gay young flutterer, and gave him his death-wound by piercing him under the left wing.—­Spenser, Muiopotmos or The Butterfly’s Fate (1590).

ARAMIN’TA, the wife of Moneytrap, and friend of Clarissa (wife of Gripe the scrivener).—­Sir John Vanbrugh, The Confederacy (1695).

ARANZA (The duke of).  He marries Juliana, eldest daughter of Balthazar.  She is so haughty, arrogant, and overbearing, that after the marriage he takes her to a mean hut, which he calls his home, and pretends to be only a peasant who must work for his living, and gives his bride the household duties to perform.  She chafes for a time, but firmness, manliness, and affection win the day; and when the duke sees that she loves him for himself, he leads her to his castle, and reveals to her that the peasant husband is after all the duke of Aranza.—­J.  Tobin, The Honeymoon (1804).

AR’APHIL or AR’APHILL, the poetic pseudonym of Win.  Habington.  His lady-love, Miss Lucy Herbert, he calls Castara.

ARAS’PES (3 syl.), king of Alexandria, who joined the Egyptian armament against the crusaders.—­Tasso, Jerusalem Delivered (1575).

ARBA’CES (3 syl.), king of Ibe’ria, in the drama called A King or no King, by Beaumont and Fletcher (1619).

ARBATE (2 syl.), governor of the prince of Ithaca, in Moliere’s comedy La Princesse d’Elide (1664).  In his speech to “Euryle” prince of Ithaca, persuading him to love, he is supposed to refer to Louis XIV., then 26 years of age.

  Je dirai que l’amour sied bien a vos pareil ... 
  Et qu’il est malaise que, sans etre amoureux
  Un jeune prince soit et grand et genereux.

  Act i. 1.

Arbate, in Racine’s drama of Mithridate (1673).

AR’BITER EL’IGANTIAE.  C. Petro’nius was appointed dictator-in-chief of the imperial pleasures at the court of Nero, and nothing was considered comme il faut till it had received the sanction of this Roman beau Brummel.

  Behold the new Petronius of the day,
  The arbiter of pleasure and of play.

  Byron, English Bards and Scottish Reviewers.

ARBRE SOL foretold, with audible voice, the place and manner of Alexander’s death.  It figures in all the fabulous legends of Alexander.

ARBUTUS, sturdy yeoman usually known as “Bute,” in Bayard Taylor’s novel Hannah Thurston. Rugged and sound as the New England granite underlying the farm he tills.