Part 138 (2/2)

971 (1647).

=Sapphi'ra=, a female liar.--_Acts_ v. 1.

She is called the village Sapphira.--Crabbe.

=Sappho=, Greek poetess of the sixth century B.C., called ”The Tenth Muse.” Fragments of her verse remain which are very beautiful. She was the victim of unrequited love, and leaped to her death from the Leucadian Rock into the sea.

_Sappho_ (_The English_), Mrs. Mary D. Robinson (1758-1800).

_Sappho_ (_The French_), Mdlle. Scuderi (1607-1704).

_Sappho_ (_The Scotch_), Catherine c.o.c.kburn (1679-1749).

=Sappho of Toulouse=, Clemence Isaure (2 _syl._), who inst.i.tuted, in 1490, _Les Jeux Floraux_. She is the auth.o.r.ess of a beautiful _Ode to Spring_ (1463-1513).

=Sapskull=, a raw Yorks.h.i.+re tike, son of Squire Sapskull, of Sapskull Hall. Sir Penurious Muckworm wishes him to marry his niece and ward, Arbella, but as Arbella loves Gaylove, a young barrister, the tike is played upon thus: Gaylove a.s.sumes to be Muckworm, and his lad, Slango, dresses up as a woman to pa.s.s for Arbella; and while Sapskull ”marries”

Slango, Gaylove, who a.s.sumes the dress and manners of the Yorks.h.i.+re tike, marries Arbella. Of course, the trick is then discovered, and Sapskull returns to the home of his father, befooled but not married.--Carey, _The Honest Yorks.h.i.+reman_ (1736).

=Saracen= (_A_), in Arthurian romance, means any unbaptized person, regardless of nationality. Thus, Priamus, of Tuscany, is called a Saracen (pt. i. 96, 97); so is Sir Palomides, simply because he refused to be baptized till he had done some n.o.ble deed (pt. ii.).--Sir T.

Malory, _History of Prince Arthur_ (1470).

=Sara Carroll.= Devoted daughter of Major Carroll and firm ally of her dainty stepmother, Madame Carroll, in the latter's renewal of intercourse with her eldest son and concealment of his existence from her husband. Sara contrives that the mother shall be with the young man when he dies, and by becoming the go-between for the two, incurs the suspicions of her lover.--Constance Fenimore Woolson, _For the Major_.

=Saragossa= (_The Maid of_), Augustina Saragossa or Zaragoza, who, in 1808, when the city was invested by the French, mounted the battery in the place of her lover who had been shot. Lord Byron says, when he was at Seville, ”the maid” used to walk daily on the prado, decorated with medals and orders, by command of the junta. Southey, _History of the Peninsular War_ (1832).

Her lover sinks--she sheds no ill timed tear; Her chief is slain--she fills his fatal post; Her fellows flee--she checks their base career; The foe retires--she heads the sallying host.

... the flying Gaul, Foiled by a woman's hand before a battered wall.

Byron, _Childe Harold_, i. 56 (1809).

=Sardanapa'lus=, king of Nineveh and a.s.syria, noted for his luxury and voluptuousness. Arbaces, the Mede, conspired against him, and defeated him; whereupon his favorite slave, Myrra, induced him to immolate himself on a funeral pile. The beautiful slave, having set fire to the pile, leaped into the blazing ma.s.s, and was burnt to death with the king, her master (B.C. 817).--Byron, _Sardanapalus_ (1619).

=Sardanapa'lus of China= (_The_), Cheo-tsin, who shut himself up in his palace with his queen, and then set fire to the building, that he might not fall into the hands of Woo-wong (B.C. 1154-1122).

(Cheo-tsin invented the chopsticks, and Woo-wong founded the Tchow dynasty.)

=Sardanapa'lus of Germany= (_The_), Wenceslas VI. or (IV.), king of Bohemia and emperor of Germany (1359, 1378-1419).

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