saturnalia/saturnian/saturnine/saturnism
The titan Saturn (equated with the Greek Cronus) castrated his
father, hated his children, devoured them, and was castrated and
overthrown by his son Zeus. After his defeat, Saturn ruled over
the Golden Age of the world; according to Roman mythology, he
fled to the west and brought a new golden time to Italy. Originally
Saturn was an old Italic diety of the harvest; the Roman's built
a temple to Saturn on the Capitoline hill and each December celebrated
the winter planting with the Saturnalia, a time of revelry
and the giving of presents. Saturnalia today denotes a
period of unrestrained or orgiastic revelry. Saturn gives
his name to the sixth planet from the sun, the second largest
planet in the solar system after Jupiter. Anyone born under the
influence of Saturn may have a saturnine temperament, which
is to say gloomy or melancholy, characteristics of the god who
castrated his father and was overthrown. Saturnian simply
means pertaining to the god or the planet Saturn. The planet Saturn
was also associated with the element lead, and so the term for
lead poisoning is saturnism.
satyr/satyriasis
Satyrs were male woodland deities with the ears and legs of a
goat, who worshipped Dionysus (Bacchus) god of wine, often in
a state of sexual excitement. A satyr today is nothing
more than a lecher. A man who has an excessive and uncontrollable
sexual drive suffers from satyriasis.. See nymph/nymphomania/nympholepsy.
Scylla and Charybdis
Scylla was once a beautiful maiden, who was transformed into a
hideous creature, with the heads of yapping dogs protruding from
her midriff. Charybdis was a terrible whirlpool. Both these dangers
were said to lurk in the Strait of Messina between Southern Italy
and Sicily, a terror to sailors who endeavored to navigate these
waters. The phrase between Scylla and Charybdis is much
like the English between a rock and a hard place; it denotes
a precarious position between two equally destructive dangers.
siren/siren song
The Sirens were nymphs (encountered by Odysseus) often depicted
with bird-like bodies, who sang such enticing songs that seafarers
were lured to their death. A siren has come to mean a seductive
woman. It can also denote a device which uses compressed steam
or air to produce a high, piercing sound as a warning. A siren
song refers to something bewitching or alluring that also
may be treacherous.
sisyphean
Sisyphus was a famous resident of Hades who was condemned to roll
an enormous rock up a hill only to have it fall back down, a punishment
for revealing the secret of one of Zeus' love affairs. A sisyphean
task has become a term for work that is difficult, laborious,
almost impossible of completion. See tartarean and tantalize..
sphinx
The sphinx terrorized Thebes before the arrival of Oedipus (see
Oedipal Complex). She was a hybrid creature with the head
of a woman, body of a lion, wings of an eagle, and the tail of
a serpent. She punished those who failed to answer her riddle
with strangulation (the Greek verb sphingein means to strangle).
At some point the Greek sphinx became associated with Egyptian
iconography, in which the sphinx had a lion's body and a hawk's
or man's head. When we liken someone to a sphinx, we have
in mind the great riddler of the Greeks and not the Egyptian conception.
A sphinx is an inscrutable person, given to enigmatic utterances
(the Greek word ainigma means a riddle).
stentorian
Stentor was the herald of the Greek army at Troy, who could speak
with the power of fifty men. Today we may liken a powerful orator
to Stentor and designate the effect of his voice as stentorian.
stygian
Across the river Styx, the "hateful" river that circles the realm
of the underworld, the ferryman Charon transports human souls
to Hades. The gods swear their most dread and unbreakable oaths
by invoking the name of the river Styx. Stygian describes
something to be linked with the infernal regions of hell, something
gloomy, or inviolable.
syringe
Syrinx ("pan-pipes") rejected the god Pan and was turned into
a bed of reeds from which he fashioned his pan-pipes. A syringe
is a device made up of a pipe or tube, used for injecting
and ejecting liquids. Syringa is a genus of plants used
for making pipes or pipestems.
