The Facts on File Dictionary of Allusions - Green Valley High School

which instance the word would signify “Solomon’s
girl.” “Love her, Esther! She was to me more than
the Shulamite to the singing king, fairer, more
spotless; a fountain of gardens, a well of living
waters, and streams from Lebanon” (Lew Wallace,
Ben Hur, 1880).
shut up the bowels of compassion See bowels
of compassion.
Shylock (shilok) A heartless, avaricious, moneygrasping
individual. <strong>The</strong> allusion is to the Jewish
moneylender Shylock who is a central character
in William Shakespeare’s play <strong>The</strong> Merchant of
Venice (1596). Shylock is highly resentful of the
prejudice he has endured from the Christians of
Venice and sees his opportunity to exact revenge
against a respected Christian merchant called
Antonio after the latter unwisely agrees to provide
security for Shylock’s loan to his friend Bassanio,
jokingly agreeing to allow the moneylender
to take a pound of fl esh from his body if Bassanio
defaults. When Bassanio fails to repay the
money, Shylock insists upon his rights to his
pound of fl esh, though he is fi nally outwitted in
this demand by Bassanio’s lover Portia, who
argues that though Shylock is entitled to his
pound of fl esh he is not entitled to the blood that
will inevitably be spilled when it is removed (see
also quality of mercy is not strained, the).
When it came to negotiating the contract her father
revealed himself to be a Shylock who put money before
all other considerations.
Siamese twins (sibmeez) Physically joined
twins, or two other people who act, speak, or
think in a noticeably similar way. Chang and Eng
were conjoined identical twins born in Bangkok,
Thailand, in 1811, when the country of their birth
was called Siam. <strong>The</strong>y became internationally
famous and toured the world before settling in
North Carolina, fi nally dying in 1874. <strong>The</strong>y remain
history’s best- known conjoined twins, hence the
term “Siamese twins,” which has only recently
fallen from favor in this literal sense. “ ‘Just because
you’re married doesn’t mean you’ve got to be Siamese
twins,’ I said loftily” (Bette Howell, Dandelion
Days, 1991).
Siberia (sibeereeb) A cold, inhospitable place,
especially one to which outcasts are sent. Siberia
in northern Rus sia is a frozen wasteland in which
life for most people is a matter of grim survival.
For many years, notably under Communist rule,
Siberia was a dreaded place of exile and imprisonment
for individuals who had offended the state. It
was like Siberia in the apartment after the heating system
broke down.
sibyl (sibbl) A witch, sorceress, or fortuneteller.
<strong>The</strong> word was originally applied in ancient
Greece and Rome to the prophetesses (between
four and 10 in number) who attended the oracles
of the ancient world and delivered messages from
the gods. <strong>The</strong> most famous of them was the sibyl of
Cumae, who advised Aeneas on his journey to the
underworld and was the supposed fount of the
sibylline books, a set of prophetic sayings offering
guidance in matters of policy and religion. <strong>The</strong>se
were kept in the temple of Jupiter on Capitoline
Hill in Rome until they were lost in a fi re in 83
b.c. “Poor Jotham, whose life paid the forfeiture of
his folly, acknowledged, before he died, that his
reasons for believing in a mine were extracted
from the lips of a sibyl, who, by looking in a magic
glass, was enabled to discover the hidden trea sures
of the earth” (James Fenimore Cooper, <strong>The</strong> Pioneers,
1823).
sibyl
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