Selim, son of the Moorish king of Algiers. [Horush] Barbarossa, the Greek renegade, having made himself master of Algiers, slew the reigning king, but Selim escaped. After the lapse of seven years, he returned under the assumed name of Achmet, and headed an uprising of the Moors. The insurgents succeeded, Barbarossa was slain, the widowed Queen Zaphīra was restored to her husband’s throne, and Selim, her son, married Irēnê, daughter of Barbarossa.—J. Brown, Barbarossa (1742 or 1755).
Selim, friend of Etan (the supposed son of Zamti, the mandarin).—Murphy, The Orphan of China (1759).
Sel´ima, daughter of Bajazet, sultan of Turkey, in love with Prince Axalla, but promised by her father in marriage to Omar. When Selima refused to marry Omar, Bajazet would have slain her; but Tamerlane commanded both Bajazet and Omar to be seized. So every obstacle was removed from the union of Selima and Axalla.—N. Rowe, Tamerlane (1702).
Selima, one of the six Wise Men from the East, led by the guiding star to Jesus.—Klopstock, The Messiah, v. (1771).
Se´lith, one of the two guardian angels of the Virgin Mary, and of John the Divine.—Klopstock, The Messiah, ix. (1771).
Sellock (Cisly), a servant girl in the service of Lady and Sir Geoffrey Peveril, of the Peak.—Sir W. Scott, Peveril of the Peak (time, Charles II.).
Selvaggio, the father of Sir Industry, and the hero of Thomson’s Castle of Indolence.
In Fairy-land there lived a knight of old,
Of feature stern, Selvaggio well y-clept;
A rough, unpolished man, robust and bold,
But wondrous poor. He neither sowed nor reaped;
No stores in summer for cold winter heaped.
In hunting all his days away he wore—
Now scorched by June, now in November steeped,
Now pinched by biting January sore.
He still in woods pursued the libbard and the boar.
Thomson, Castle of Indolence, ii. 5 (1745).
Sem´ele (3 syl.), ambitious of enjoying Jupiter in all his glory, perished from the sublime effulgence of the god. This is substantially the tale of the second story of T. Moore’s Loves of the Angels. Liris requested her angel lover to come to her in all his angelic brightness; but was burnt to ashes as she fell into his embrace.
For majesty gives nought to subjects, ...
A royal smile, a guinea’s glorious rays,
Like Semelê, would kill us with its blaze.
Peter Pindar [Dr. Wolcot], Progress of Admiration (1809).