Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama Part 127

=Saadi= or =Sadi=, the Persian poet, called "The Nightingale of a Thousand Songs." His poems are _The Gulistan_ or "Garden of Roses," _The Boston_ or "Garden of Fruits," and _The Pend Nameh_, a moral poem. Saadi (1184-1263) was one of the "Four Monarchs of Eloquence."

=Saba= or =Zaba= (_The Queen of_), called Balkis. She came to the court of Solomon, and had by him a son named Melech. This queen of Ethiopia or Abyssinia is sometimes called Maqueda.--Zaga Zabo, _Ap. Damian. a Goes._

The _Koran_ (ch. xxvii.) tells us that Solomon summoned before him all the birds to the valley of ants, but the lapwing did not put in an appearance. Solomon was angry, and was about to issue an order of death, when the bird presented itself, saying, "I come from Saba, where I found a queen reigning in great magnificence, but she and her subjects worship the sun." On hearing this, Solomon sent back the lapwing to Saba with a letter, which the bird was to drop at the foot of the queen, commanding her to come at once, submit herself unto him, and accept from him the "true religion." So she came in great state, with a train of 500 slaves of each s.e.x, bearing 500 "bricks of solid gold," a crown, and sundry other presents.

=Sabbath-Breakers.= The fish of the Red Sea used to come ash.o.r.e on the eve of the Sabbath, to tempt the Jews to violate the day of rest. The offenders at length became so numerous that David, to deter others, turned the fish into apes.--Jallalo'ddin.--_Al Zamakh._

=Sabellan Song=, incantation. The Sabelli or Samnites were noted for their magic art and incantations.

=Sabine= (_The_). Numa, the Sabine, was taught the way to govern by Egerie, one of the Camenae (prophetic nymphs of ancient Italy). He used to meet her in a grove, in which was a well, afterwards dedicated by him to the Camenae.

Our statues--she That taught the Sabine how to rule.

Tennyson, _The Princess_, ii. (1830).

=Sablonniere= (_La_), the Tuilleries. The word means the "sand-pit." The _tuilleries_ means the "tile-works." Nicolas de Neuville, in the fifteenth century, built a mansion in the vicinity, which he called the "Hotel des Tuilleries," and Francois I. bought the property for his mother in 1518.

=Sabra=, daughter of Ptolemy, king of Egypt. She was rescued by St. George from the hands of a giant, and ultimately married her deliverer. Sabra had three sons at a birth: Guy, Alexander, and David.

Here come I, St. George, the valiant man, With naked sword and spear in han', Who fought the dragon and brought him to slaughter, And won fair Sabra thus, the king of Egypt's daughter.

_Notes and Queries_, December 21, 1878.

=Sabreur= (_Le Beau_), Joachim Murat (1767-1815).

=Sab'rin=, =Sabre=, or =Sabri'na=, the Severn, daughter of Locrine (son of Brute) and his concubine, Estrildis. His queen, Guendolen, vowed vengeance, and, having a.s.sembled an army, made war upon Locrine, who was slain. Guendolen now a.s.sumed the government, and commanded Estrildis and Sabrin to be cast into a river, since then called the Severn.--Geoffrey of Monmouth, _British History_, ii. 5 (1142).

(An exqusite[TN-142] description of Sabine, sitting in state as a queen, is given in the opening of song v. of Drayton's _Polyolbion_, and the tale of her metamorphosis is recorded at length in song vi. Milton in _Comus_, and Fletcher in _The Faithful Shepherdess_, refer to the transformation of Sabrina into a river.[TN-143]

=Sabrina= (_Aunt_). "Grim old maid in rusty bombazine gown and cap," whose strongest pa.s.sion is family pride in the old homestead and farm which "her grandfather, a revolted cobbler from Rhode Island, had cleared and paid for at ten cents an acre."--Harold Frederic, _Seth's Brother's Wife_ (1886).

=Sabrinian Sea= or _Severn Sea_, _i.e._ the Bristol Channel. Both terms occur not unfrequently in Drayton's _Polyolbion_.

=Sacchini= (_Antonio Maria Gaspare_), called "The Racine of Music,"

contemporary with Gluck and Piccini (1735-1786).

=Sacharissa.= So Waller calls the Lady Dorothea Sidney, eldest daughter of the earl of Leicester, to whose hand he aspired. Sacharissa married the earl of Sunderland. (Greek, _sakchar_, "sugar.")

=Sackbut=, the landlord of a tavern, in Mrs. Centlivre's comedy, _A Bold Stroke for a Wife_ (1717).

=Sackingen= (_The Trumpeter of_). Werner, a trumpeter, discourses such divine music upon his instrument as gains him access to a baronial castle, the good-will of the baron and the love of Margaret, the baron's daughter.--Victor Hugo, _The Trumpeter of Sackingen_.

=Sacred Nine= (_The_), the Muses, nine in number.

Fair daughters of the Sun, the Sacred Nine, Here wake to ecstasy their harps divine.

Falconer, _The Shipwreck_, iii. 3 (1756).

=Sacred War= (_The_), a war undertaken by the Amphictyonic League for the defence of Delphi, against the Cirrhaeans (B.C. 595-587).

_The Sacred War_, a war undertaken by the Athenians for the purpose of restoring Delphi to the Phocians (B.C. 448-447).

_The Sacred War_, a war undertaken by Philip of Macedon, as chief of the Amphictyonic League, for the purpose of wresting Delphi from the Phocians (B.C. 357).

=Sa'cripant= (_King_), king of Circa.s.sia, and a lover of Angelica.--Bojardo, _Orlando Innamorato_ (1495); Ariosto, _Orlando Furioso_ (1516).

With the same stratagem, Sacripant had his steed stolen from under him, by that notorious thief Brunello, at the siege of Albracca.--Cervantes, _Don Quixote_, I. iii. 9 (1605).

? The allusion is to Sancho Panza's a.s.s, which was stolen from under him by the galley-slave, Gines de Pa.s.samonte.

_Sacripant_, a false, noisy, hectoring braggart; a kind of Pistol or Bobadil.--Ta.s.so, _Secchia Rapita_ (_i.e._ "Rape of the Bucket").

=Sa'dak and Kalasra'de= (4 _syl._), Sadak, general of the forces of Am'urath, sultan of Turkey, lived with Kalasrade in retirement, and their home life was so happy that it aroused the jealousy of the sultan, who employed emissaries to set fire to their house, carry off Kalasrade to the seraglio, and seize the children. Sadak, not knowing who were the agents of these evils, laid his complaint before Amurath, and then learnt that Kalasrade was in the seraglio. The sultan swore not to force his love upon her till she had drowned the recollections of her past life by a draught of the waters of oblivion. Sadak was sent on this expedition. On his return, Amurath seized the goblet, and, quaffing its contents, found "that the waters of oblivion were the waters of death."

He died, and Sadak was made sultan in his stead.--J. Ridley, _Tales of the Genii_ ("Sadak and Kalasrade," ix. 1751).

=Sadaroubay.= So Eve is called in Indian mythology.

=Saddletree= (_Mr. Bartoline_), the learned saddler.

_Mrs. Saddletree_, the wife of Bartoline.--Sir W. Scott, _Heart of Midlothian_ (time, George II.).

=Sadha-Sing=, the mourner of the desert.--Sir W. Scott, _The Surgeon's Daughter_ (time, George II.).

=Saemund Sigfusson=, surnamed "the Wise," an Icelandic priest and scald. He compiled the _Elder_ or _Rythmical Edda_, often called _Saemund's Edda_.

This compilation contains not only mythological tales and moral sentences, but numerous sagas in verse or heroic lays, as those of Volung and Helge, of Sigurd and Brynhilda, of Folsungs and Niflungs (pt.

ii.). Probably his compilation contained all the mythological, heroic, and legendary lays extant at the period in which he lived (1054-1133).