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Dec 14, 2009
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Dictionary of Phrase and Fable—A

Ariel

A spirit of the air and guardian of innocence. He was enslaved to the witch Sycorax, who overtasked him; and in punishment for not doing what was beyond his power, shut him up in a pine-rift for twelve years. On the death of Sycorax, Ariel became the slave of Caliban, who tortured him most cruelly. Prospero liberated him from the pine-rift, and the grateful fairy served him for sixteen years, when he was set free.

(Shakespeare. Tempest.)

Ariel.
The sylph that watched over Belinda. (Pope: Rape of the Lock, i.)
Ariel.
One of the angels cast out of heaven. The word means lion of God. (Milton: Paradise Lost, book vi. 371.)

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
Aries
Arideus
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