AT’ALA, the name of a novel by Francois Auguste Chateaubriand.  Atala, the daughter of a white man and a Christianized Indian, takes an oath of virginity, but subsequently falling in love with Chactas, a young Indian, she poisons herself for fear that she may be tempted to break her oath.  The novel was received with extraordinary enthusiasm (1801).

(This has nothing to do with Attila, king of the Huns, nor with Atlialie (queen of Judah), the subject of Racine’s great tragedy.)

ATALANTA, of Arcadia, wished to remain single, and therefore gave out that she would marry no one who could not outstrip her in running; but if any challenged her and lost the race, he was to lose his life.  Hippom’enes won the race by throwing down golden apples, which Atalanta kept stopping to pick up.  William Morris has chosen this for one of his tales in Earthly Paradise (March).

In short, she thus appeared like another Atalanta.—­Comtesse D’Aunoy, Fairy Tales ("Fortunio,” 1682).

Atalanta, the central figure in Algernon Charles Swinburne’s poem after AEschylus Atalanta in Calydon (1864).

ATALI’BA, the inca of Peru, most dearly beloved by his subjects, on whom Pizarro makes war.  An old man says of the inca—­

The virtues of our monarch alike secure to him the affection of his people and the benign regard of heaven.—­Sheridan, Pizarro; ii. 4 (from Kotzebue),(1799).

Ate (2 syl.), goddess of revenge.

With him along is come the mother queen.  An Ate, stirring him to blood and strife.  Shakespeare, King John, act ii. sc.  I (1596).

Ate (2 syl.), “mother of debate and all dissension,” the friend of Duessa.  She squinted, lied with a false tongue, and maligned even the best of beings.  Her abode, “far under ground hard by the gates of hell,” is described at length in bk. iv.  I. When Sir Blandamour was challenged by Braggadoccio (canto 4), the terms of the contest were that the conqueror should have “Florimel,” and the other “the old hag Ate,” who was always to ride beside him till he could pass her off to another.—­Spenser, Faery Queen, iv. (1596).

ATH’ALIE (3 syl.), daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, and wife of Joram king of Judah.  She massacred all the remnant of the house of David; but Joash escaped, and six years afterwards was proclaimed king.  Athalie, attracted by the shouts, went to the temple, and was killed by the mob.  This forms the subject and title of Racine’s chef-d’oeuvre (1691), and was Mdlle.  Rachel’s great part.

(Racine’s tragedy of Athalie, queen of Judah, must not be confounded with Corneille’s tragedy of Attila, king of the Huns.)

ATHEIST’S TRAGEDY (The), by Cyril Tourneur.  The “atheist” is D’Amville, who murders his brother Montferrers for his estates.—­(Seventeenth century.)

ATH’ELSTANE (3 syl.), surnamed “The Unready,” thane of Coningsburgh.—­Sir W. Scott, Ivanhoe (time, Richard I.).