The Ascent of the Blessed, Detail from a Panel of an Alterpiece Thought to be of the Last Judgement Giclee Print
Bosch, Hieronymus
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Ariel
The name of a spirit. Used in cabalistic angelology, and in Heywood Hierarchie of the Blessed Angels ( 1635) for one of the seven angelic "princes" who rule the waters; by Milton for one of the rebel angels ( Paradise Lost, vi. 371); by Pope ( Rape of the Lock) for a sylph, the guardian of Belinda; but especially by Shakespeare, in The Tempest, for "an ayrie spirit." 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 pinerift for twelve years. On the death of Sycorax, Ariel became the slave of Caliban, who tortured him most cruelly. Prospero liberated him from the pinerift, and the grateful fairy served him for sixteen years, after which lie was set free.
Shelley frequently referred to himself as ' Ariel and the name was adopted by his friends. André Maurois was the author of a life of Shelley, entitled Ariel ( 1925).
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