=Syc´orax=, a foul witch, the mistress of Ariel, the fairy spirit, by whom for some offence he was imprisoned in the rift of a cloven pine tree. After he had been kept there for twelve years, he was liberated by Prospero, the rightful duke of Milan, and father of Miranda. Sycorax was the mother of Caliban.--Shakespeare, _The Tempest_ (1609). If you had told Sycorax that her son, Caliban, was as handsome as Apollo, she would have been pleased, witch as she was.--Thackeray. Those foul and impure mists which their pens, like the raven wings of Sycorax, had brushed from fern and bog.--Sir W. Scott, _The Drama_. =Syddall= (_Anthony_), house-steward at Osbaldistone Hall.--Sir W. Scott, _Rob Roy_ (time, George I.). =Sydenham= (_Charles_), the frank, open-hearted, trusty friend of the Woodvilles.--Cumberland, _The Wheel of Fortune_ (1779). =Syl=, a monster like a basilisk, with human face, but so terrible that no one could look on it and live. =Sylla= (_Cornelius_), the rival of Ma´rius. Being consul, he had, _ex-officio_, a right to lead in the Mithridatic war (B.C. 88), but Marius got the appointment of Sylla set aside in favor of himself. Sylla, in dudgeon, hastened back to Rome, and insisted that the “recall” should be reversed. Marius fled. Sylla pursued the war with success, returned to Rome in triumph, and made a wholesale slaughter of the Romans who had opposed him. As many as 7000 soldiers and 5000 private citizens fell in this massacre, and all their goods were distributed among his own partisans. Sylla was now called “Perpetual Dictator,” but in two years retired into private life, and died the year following (B.C. 78). Jouy has a good tragedy in French called _Sylla_ (1822), and the character of “Sylla” was a favorite one with Talma, the French actor. In 1594, Thomas Lodge produced his historical play called _Wounds of Civil War, lively set forth in the True Tragedies of Marius and Sylla_. =Sylli= (_Signor_), an Italian exquisite, who walks fantastically, talks affectedly, and thinks himself irresistible. He makes love to Cami´ola, “the maid of honor,” and fancies, by posturing, grimaces, and affectation, to “make her dote on him.” He says to her, “In singing, I am a Siren,” in dancing, a Terpsichŏrê. “He could tune a ditty lovely well,” and prided himself “on his pretty spider fingers, and the twinkling of his two eyes.” Of course, Camiŏla sees no charms in these effeminacies; but the conceited puppy says he “is not so sorry for himself as he is for her” that she rejects him. Signor Sylli is the silliest of all the Syllis.--Massinger, _The Maid of Honor_ (1637). (See TAPPERTIT.)