Chapter Sing Out to Six of S by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Sinning One's Mercies Being ungrateful for the gifts of Providence.

“I know your good father would term this `sinning my mercies.' ”- Sir W. Scott: Redgauntlet.

Sinon A Greek who induced the Trojans to receive the wooden horse. (Virgil: AEneid, ii. 102, etc.) Anyone deceiving to betray is called “a Sinon.”

“And now securely trusting to destroy,
As erst false Sinon snared the sons of Troy.”
Camoëns: Lusiad, bk. i.

Sintram The Greek hero of the German romance, Sintram and his Companions, by Baron Lamotte Fouqué.
   Sintram's famous sword was called “Welsung.” The same name was given to Dietlieb's sword. (See Sword.)

Sir Latin, senex; Spanish, señor; Italian, signor; French, sieur; Norman, sire; English, sir. According to some, Greek anax is connected with Sir; on the analogy of em-mi (eiui) = Latin sum; ampereV = Latin semper; upoV = Latin sapa.
   Sir (a clerical address). Clergymen had at one time Sir prefixed to their name. This is not the Sir of knighthood, but merely a translation of the university word dominus given to graduates, as “Dominus Hugh Evans,” etc.

Sir Oracle (See Oracle .)

Sir Roger de Coverley An imaginary character by Addison; type of a benevolent country gentleman of the eighteenth century. Probably the model was William Boevey, lord of the manor of Flaxley.

Siren A woman of dangerous blandishments. The allusion is to the fabulous sirens said by Greek and Latin poets to entice seamen by the sweetness of their song to such a degree that the listeners forgot everything and died of hunger (Greek, sirenes, entanglers). In Homeric mythology there were but two sirens; later writers name three, viz. Parthenope, Ligea, and Leucosia; but the number was still further augmented by those who loved “lords many and gods many.”

“There were several sirens up and down the coast; one at Panormus, another at Naples, others at Surrentum, but the greatest number lived in the delightful Capreae, whence they passed over to the rocks [Sirenusae] which bear their name.”- Inquiry into the Life of Homer.

   Sirens. Plato says there are three kinds of sirens- the celestial, the generative, and the cathartic. The first are under the government of Jupiter, the second under the government of Neptune, and the third under the government of Pluto. When the soul is in heaven, the sirens seek, by harmonic motion, to unite it to the divine life of the celestial host; and when in Hades, to conform them to the infernal regimen; but on earth they produce generation, of which the sea is emblematic. (Proclus: On the Theology of Plato, bk. vi.)

Sirius The Dog-star; so called by the Greeks from the adjective seirios, hot and scorching. The Romans called it canicula; and the Egyptians, sothis.

Sirloin of Beef A corruption of Surloin. (French, surlonge.) La partie due boeuf qui reste après qu'on en a coupé l'épaule et la cuisse. In Queen Elizabeth's “Progresses,” one of the items mentioned under March 31st, 1573, is a “sorloyne of byf.” Fuller tells us that Henry VIII. jocularly knighted the surloin. If so, James I. could claim neither wit nor originality when, at a banquet given him at Hogton Tower, near Blackburn, he said, “Bring hither that surloin, sirrah, for 'tis worthy of a more honourable post, being, as I may say, not surloin, but sirloin.”

“Dining with the Abbot of Reading, he [Henry VIII.] ate so heartily of a loin of beef that the abbot said he would give 1,000 marks for such a stomach. `Done!' said the king, and kept the abbot a prisoner in the Tower, won his 1,000 marks, and knighted the beef.”- See Fuller: Church History, vi. 2, p. 299 (1655).