Reference > Brewer’s Dictionary > Asmode’us [the destroyer].

 Aslo.Asmode’us. 
CONTENTS · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.
 
Asmode’us [the destroyer].
 
The demon of vanity and dress, called in the Talmud “the king of devils.”   1
   The Asmode’us of domestic peace (in the Book of Tobit). Asmode’us falls in love with Sara, daughter of Rag’uel, and causes the death of seven husbands in succession, each on his bridal night. After her marriage to Tobit, he was driven into Egypt by a charm, made by Tobias of the heart and liver of a fish burnt on perfumed ashes, and being pursued was taken prisoner and bound.   2
       
“Better pleased
       
Than Asmode’us with the fishy fume
That drove him, though enamoured, from the spouse
Of Tobit’s son, and with a véngeance sent
From Media post to Egypt, there fast bound.”
       
Milton: Paradise Lost, iv. 167–71.
 


 Aslo.Asmode’us. 

 
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