Saracen (A), in Arthurian romance, means any unbaptized person, regardless of nationality. Thus, Priamus, of Tuscany, is called a Saracen (pt. i. 96, 97); so is Sir Palomides, simply because he refused to be baptized till he had done some noble deed (pt. ii.).—Sir T. Malory, History of Prince Arthur (1470).
Sara Carroll. Devoted daughter of Major Carroll and firm ally of her dainty stepmother, Madame Carroll, in the latter’s renewal of intercourse with her eldest son and concealment of his existence from her husband. Sara contrives that the mother shall be with the young man when he dies, and by becoming the go-between for the two, incurs the suspicions of her lover.—Constance Fenimore Woolson, For the Major.
Saragossa (The Maid of), Augustina Saragossa or Zaragoza, who, in 1808, when the city was invested by the French, mounted the battery in the place of her lover who had been shot. Lord Byron says, when he was at Seville, “the maid” used to walk daily on the prado, decorated with medals and orders, by command of the junta. Southey, History of the Peninsular War (1832).
Her lover sinks—she sheds no ill timed tear;
Her chief is slain—she fills his fatal post;
Her fellows flee—she checks their base career;
The foe retires—she heads the sallying host.
... the flying Gaul,
Foiled by a woman’s hand before a battered wall.
Byron, Childe Harold, i. 56 (1809).
Sardanapa´lus, king of Nineveh and Assyria, noted for his luxury and voluptuousness. Arbācês, the Mede, conspired against him, and defeated him; whereupon his favorite slave, Myrra, induced him to immolate himself on a funeral pile. The beautiful slave, having set fire to the pile, leaped into the blazing mass, and was burnt to death with the king, her master (B.C. 817).—Byron, Sardanapalus (1619).
Sardanapa´lus of China (The), Cheo-tsin, who shut himself up in his palace with his queen, and then set fire to the building, that he might not fall into the hands of Woo-wong (B.C. 1154-1122).
(Cheo-tsin invented the chopsticks, and Woo-wong founded the Tchow dynasty.)
Sardanapa´lus of Germany (The), Wenceslas VI. or (IV.), king of Bohemia and emperor of Germany (1359, 1378-1419).
Sarell Gately. Shrewd, “capable” girl who “lives out” on the Heybrook farm.
“She was a young woman to take up responsibilities as she went along. She liked them. She became naturally a part of whatever was happening in her Troy; and wherever her temporary Troy might be, there was pretty sure to be something happening.”—A. D. T. Whitney, Odd or Even? (1880).