Chapter Saragossa to Satyr of S by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Saragossa to Satyr

Saragossa, a corruption of Cæsarea Augusta. The city was rebuilt by Augustus, and called after his name. Its former name was Salduba or Saldyva.

Saragossa (The Maid of), Augustina Zaragossa or Saragoza. When, in 1808, the city was invested by the French, she 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).

Sardanapalus, king of Ninev eh and Assyria, noted for his luxury and voluptuousness. Arbacês the Mede conspired against him, and defeated him; whereupon his favourite slave Myrra induced him to immolate himself on a funeral pile. The beautiful slave, having set fire to the pile, jumped into the blazing mass, and was burnt to death with the king her master (B. C. 817).—Byron: Sardanapalus (1819).

Sardanapalus 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.)

Sardanapalus of Germany (The), Wenceslas VI. (or IV.) king of Bohemia and emperor of Germany (1359, 1378–1419).

Sardoin Herb (The), the herba Sardon’ia; so called from Sardis, in Asia Minor. It is so acrid as to produce a convulsive spasm of the face resembling a grin. Phineas Fletcher says the device on the shield of Flattery is—

The Sardoin herb…the word [motto] “I please in
killing.”
   —The Purple Island, viii. (1633).

Sardonian Smile or Grin, a smile of contempt. Byron expresses it when he says, “There was a laughing devil in his sneer.”

But when the villain saw her so afraid,
He ’gan with guileful words her to persuade
To banish fear, and with Sardonian smile
Laughing at her, his false intent to shade.
   —Spenser: Faërie Queene, v. 9(1596).

Sarmatia, Poland, the country of the Sarmatæ. In 1795 Poland was partitióned between Russia, Prussia, and Austria.

Oh, bloodiest picture in the book of Time!
Sarmatia fell unwept, without a crime,
Found not a generous friend, a pitying foe,
Strength in her arms, nor mercy in her woe
   —Campbell: Pleasures of Hope, i. (1799).

Sarra (Grain of), Tyrian dye; so called from sarra or sar, the fish whose blood the men of Tyre used in their purple dye.—Virgil: Georgics, ii. 506.

A military vest of purple…
Livelier than…the grain
Of Sarra, worn by kings and heroes old
In time of truce.
   —Milton: Paradise Lost, xi. 243 (1665).

Sarsar, the icy wind of death, called in Vathek “Sansar.”

The Sarsar from its womb went forth,
The icy wind of death.

Southey: Thalaba the Destroyer, i. 44(1797).