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

with a class of Athenian lawyers called sycophants,
who were known to blackmail their clients with
the threat of revealing their guilt, thereby “shaking
the fi g tree” to obtain money or other favors. Once
in power the young king disposed of the aged counselors
who had advised his mother and surrounded himself with
sycophants.
Sydney Carton See it is a far, far better thing
that i do.
Sylvester Stallone See rambo.
Symplegades (simplegbdeez) Rocks or other
obsta cles that may prove treacherous to passing vessels.
<strong>The</strong> Symplegades (meaning “clashing ones”)
were two moving rocks located at the entrance to
the Black Sea. According to legend, these rocks
would press together when a ship came between
them, crushing it to pieces. <strong>The</strong> Argonauts successfully
negotiated this obstacle by the ruse of sending
a bird through the gap and then slipping through as
the rocks opened again, sustaining only minor damage
to the stern of the ship as they went through.
Ever since then the Symplegades, sometimes called
the Cyanean rocks, have been fused as one. “I saw
fastened to a shed near the light- house a long new
sign with the words ‘Anglo Saxon’ on it in large gilt
letters, as if it were a useless part which the ship
could afford to lose, or which the sailors had discharged
at the same time with the pi lot. But it interested
somewhat as if it had been a part of the Argo,
clipped off in passing through the Symplegades”
(Henry David Thoreau, Cape God, 1865).
syrinx See panpipes.
syrinx
451