magen.

?a1425 (?a1350) T. Castleford Chron. (1940) 25309 (MED) Þis ilke mages, pellite he hight, He cuth knau þoru foghles flight And ek yitte þoru þe curs of sternes Of þinges comande.

c1475 (?c1400) Apol. Lollard Doctr. (1842) 95 (MED) We callen þe magis þoo þat calculun bi þe sternis þingis to cum.

1586 T. Bowes tr. P. de la Primaudaye French Acad. I. 166 Plato after he was well instructed by Socrates sought out the Mages and wise Men of Egypt, by whose means he saw the books of Moyses.

1590 E. Spenser Faerie Queene iii. iii. sig. Dd8 The hardy Mayd..The dreadfull Mage there fownd Deepe busied bout worke of wondrous end.

1611 J. Donne Anat. World sig. B4^v Th'Egyptian Mages.

1739 G. West Canto of Fairy Queen xli. 9 Tho' to that old Mage they louted down.

1860 J. Forster Deb. Grand Remonstr. 68 Though such circumstances worked well for the Mage [sc. Henry VII] upon the English throne, he did not with all his craft [etc.].

1869 Ld. Tennyson Coming of Arthur 279 And there I saw mage Merlin.

1906 R. A. Knox Signa Severa 32 A process converse will perhaps intersperse (It is purely a matter of choice) Tollemache sage, and Descartes the mage, and Telephone's silvery voice.

1929 C. Aiken Sel. Poems 212 And then I saw how one by one Great mages filed before that throne.

1975 J. I. M. Stewart Young Pattullo iv. 112 I might be in the presence of a mage or wizard in disguise.

1991 Fantasy Spring 57/3 Whoever the mage or sorcerer was who'd enchanted the unicorn had been powerful.

1585 T. Washington tr. N. de Nicolay Nauigations Turkie iv. ii. 115 Their Mages..annoynted their sacrifice with oyle.

1594 R. Ashley tr. L. le Roy Interchangeable Course iii. f. 31^v As we will declare hereafter when we speake of the Persians, and of their Mages.

a1722 J. Toland Coll. Several Pieces (1726) I. 29 Druids..are also commonly put for Inchanters,..and especially for the Mages..that came from the east, to visit Jesus in his cradle.

1877 W. Smith & H. Wace Dict. Christian Biogr. I. 477/2 The author of that superstition was Masdec,..a mage, who gathered the credulous around him.

1989 W. Weaver tr. U. Eco Foucault's Pendulum xxviii. 184 It is as ancient as the world itself reaching back beyond Pythagoras, to the Brahmans of India, the Hebrews, the mages..even the barbarians of the far north.