Chapter Shonou to Sibyls of S by Brewer's Readers Handbook

such conditions, gave up the claim, but was heavily fined for seeking the life of a Venetian citizen.—Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice (1598).

(It was of C. Macklin (1690–1797) that Pope wrote the doggerel—

This is the Jew
That Shakespeare drew;

but Edmund Kean (1787–1833) was unrivalled in this character.)

According to the kindred authority of Shylock, no man hates the thing he would not kill.—Sir W. Scott.

Paul Secchi tells us a similar tale: A merchant of Venice, having been informed by private letter that Drake had taken and plundered St. Domingo, sent word to Sampson Ceneda, a Jewish usurer. Ceneda would not believe it, and bet a pound of flesh it was not true. When the report was confirmed, the pope told Secchi he might lawfully claim his bet if he chose, only he must draw no blood, nor take either more or less than an exact pound, on the penalty of being hanged.—Gregorio Leti: Life of Sextus V. (1666).

The same tale is told of “Gernutus a Jewe, who, lending to a merchant a hundred crowns, would have a pound of his fleshe because he could not pay him at the time appointed.” The ballad is inserted in Percy’s Reliques, series i. bk. ii. II.

Sibbald, an attendant on the earl of Monteith.—Sir W. Scott: Legend of Montrose (time, Charles I.).

Siber, i. e. Siberia. Mr. Bell of Antermony, in his Travels, informs us that Siberia is universally called Siber by the Russians.

From Guinea’s coast and Siber’s dreary mines.
   —Campbell: Pleasures of Hope, i. (1799).

Siberian Climate (A), a very cold and rigorous climate, winterly and inhospitable, with snow-hurricanes and biting winds. The valley of the Lena is the coldest reign of the globe.

Sibylla, the sibyl. (See SIBYLS.)

And thou, Alecto, feede me wyth thy foode…
And thou, Sibilla, when thou seest me faynte,
Addres thyselfe the gyde of my complaynte.
   —Sackville: Mirrour for Magistraytes (“Complaynte,” etc., 1557).

Sibyls. Plato speaks of only one sibyl; Martian Capella says there were two (the Erythræan or Cumæan sibyl, and the Phrygian); Pliny speaks of the three sibyls; Jackson maintains, on the authority of Ælian, that there were four; Shakespeare speaks of the nine sibyls of old Rome (I Henry VI. act i. sc. 2); Varro says they were ten (the sibyls of Libya, Samos, Cumæ (in Italy), Cumæ (in Asia Minor), Erythræa, Pe rsia, Tiburtis, Delphi, Ancyra (in Phrygia), and Marpessa), in reference to which Rabelais says, “she may be the eleventh sibyl” (Pantagruel, iii. 16); the mediæval monks made the number to be twelve, and gave to each a distinct prophecy respecting Christ. But whatever the number, there was but one “sibyl of old Rome” (the Cumæan), who offered to Tarquin the nine Sibylline books.