(Both Glueck and Rossini have taken the story of Armida as the subject of an opera.)

Armida’s Girdle.  Armida had an enchanted girdle, which, “in price and beauty,” surpassed all her other ornaments; even the cestus of Venus was less costly.  It told her everything; “and when she would be loved, she wore the same.”—­Tasso, Jerusalem Delivered (1575).

ARM’STRONG (John), called “The Laird’s Jock.”  He is the laird of Mangerton.  This old warrior witnesses a national combat in the valley of Liddesdale, between his son (the Scotch chieftain) and Foster (the English champion), in which young Armstrong is overthrown.—­Sir W. Scott, The Laird’s Jock (time, Elizabeth).

Armstrong (Grace), the bride-elect of Hobbie Elliot of the heugh-foot, a young farmer.—­Sir W. Scott, The Black Dwarf (time, Anne).

Armstrong (Archie), court jester to James I., introduced in The Fortunes of Nigel, by Sir Walter Scott (1822).

AR’NAUT, an Albanian mountaineer.  The word means “a brave man.”

Stained with the best of Arnaut blood.  Byron, The Giaour, 526.

ARNHEIM (2 syl.).  The baron Herman von Arnheim, Anne of Geierstein’s grandfather.

Sibilla of Arnheim, Anne’s mother.

The baroness of Arnheim, Anne of Geierstein.—­Sir W. Scott, Anne of Geierstein (time, Edward IV.).

ARNOLD, the deformed son of Bertha, who hates him for his ugliness.  Weary of life, he is about to make away with himself, when a stranger accosts him, and promises to transform him into any shape he likes best.  He chooses that of Achilles, and then goes to Rome, where he joins the besieging army of Bourbon.  During the siege, Arnold enters St. Peter’s of Rome just in time to rescue Olimpia, but the proud beauty, to prevent being taken captive by him, flings herself from the high altar on the pavement, and is taken up apparently lifeless.  As the drama was never completed, the sequel is not known.—­Byron, The Deformed Transformed.

Ar’nold, the torch-bearer at Rotherwood.—­Sir W. Scott, Ivanhoe (time, Richard I.).

Ar’nold of Benthuysen, disguised as a beggar, and called “Ginks.”—­Beaumont and Fletcher, The Beggar’s Bush (1622).

ARNOLD BRINKWORTH, frank, whole-souled sailor, in love with and betrothed to Blanche Lundie.  Through his friendship for the man who has betrayed Anne Silvestre, and desire to serve the hapless woman, he is the bearer of a message to her from Geoffrey Delamayne, and is mistaken for her husband.  Through this blunder he finds himself married by Scotch law to Anne, while he is engaged to Blanche.—­Wilkie Collins, Man and Wife.

ARNOL’DO, son of Melchtal, patriot of the forest cantons of Switzerland.  He was in love with Mathilde (3 syl.), sister of Gessler, the Austrian governor of the district.  When the tyranny of Gessler drove the Swiss into rebellion, Arnoldo joined the insurgents, but after the death of Gessler he married Mathilde, whose life he had saved when it was imperilled by an avalanche.—­Rossini, Guglielmo Tell (1829).