Sciro´nian Rocks, between Meg´ara and Corinth. So called because the bones of Sciron, the robber of Attica, were changed into these rocks when Theseus (2 syl.) hurled him from a cliff into the sea. It was from these rocks that Ino cast herself into the Corinthian bay.—Greek Fable.
Scirum. The men of Scirum used to shoot against the stars.
Like ... men of wit bereaven,
Which howle and shoote against the lights of heaven.
Wm. Browne, Britannia’s Pastorals, iv. (1613).
Scogan (Henry), M.A., a poet, contemporary with Chaucer. He lived in the reigns of Richard II., Henry IV., and probably Henry V. Among the gentry who had letters of protection to attend Richard II. in his expedition into Ireland, in 1399, is “Henricus Scogan, Armiger.”—Tyrwhitt’s Chaucer, v. 15 (1773).
Scogan? What was he?
Oh, a fine gentleman and a master of arts
Of Henry the Fourth’s time, that made disguises
For the king’s sons, and writ in ballad royal
Daintily well.
Ben Jonson, The Fortunate Isles (1626).
Scogan (John), the favorite jester and buffoon of Edward IV. “Scogan’s jests” were published by Andrew Borde, a physician in the reign of Henry VIII.
The same Sir John [Falstaff], the very same. I saw him break Skogan’s head at the court-gate, when he was a crack not thus high.—Shakespeare, 2 Henry IV. act iii. sc. 2.
*** Shakespeare has confounded Henry Scogan, M.A., the poet, who lived in the reign of Henry IV., with John Scogan, the jester, who lived about a century later, in the reign of Edward IV.; and, of course, Sir John Falstaff, could not have known him when “he was a mere crack.”
Scogan’s Jest. Scogan and some companions, being in lack of money, agreed to the following trick: A peasant, driving sheep, was accosted by one of the accomplices, who laid a wager that his sheep were hogs, and agreed to abide by the decision of the first person they met. This, of course, was Scogan, who instantly gave judgment against the herdsman.
A similar joke is related in the Hitopadesa, an abridged version of Pilpay’s Fables. In this case, the “peasant” is represented by a Brahmin carrying a goat, and the joke was to persuade the Brahmin that he was carrying a dog. “How is this, friend,” says one, “that you, a Brahmin, carry on your back such an unclean animal as a dog?” “It is not a dog,” says the Brahmin, “but a goat;” and trudged on. Presently another made the same remark, and the Brahmin, beginning to doubt, took down the goat to look at it. Convinced that the creature was really a goat, he went on, when presently a third made the same remark. The Brahmin, now fully persuaded that his eyes were befooling him, threw down the goat and went away without it; whereupon the three companions took possession of it and cooked it.