Symplegades

[ sim-pleg-uh-deez ]

plural noun

, Classical Mythology.

1. a pair of rocky islands, at the entrance to the Black Sea, that often clashed together: Athena helped the Argonauts navigate them, after which they became fixed.

Example Sentences

He gave them wise advice, too, about the dangers before them, in especial about the Clashing Rocks, the Symplegades, that rolled perpetually against one another while the sea boiled up around them.

From Literature

But now I discovered an episode in the original that takes place well before the Argo sails through the Symplegades in search of the Golden Fleece, a tale of how the fearless captain and his crew of mighty heroes become trapped on Lemnos, an island of women who take the Argonauts on as lovers/sex slaves while they repopulate their nation.

From The New Yorker

Here we come back to the very beginnings of history, or before all history, into the dim twilight of fable and tradition; for through these straits, according to the ancient story, sailed Jason with his Argonauts in search of the Golden Fleece, and yonder are the Symplegades, the rocks which were the terror of navigators even in the time of Jason, if such a man ever lived, and around which the sea still roars as it roared thousands of years ago.

From Project Gutenberg

We escaped, and, I am obliged to say, without noticing them, the Cyane�, "the blue Symplegades," or "wandering islands," which, lying on the European and Asiatic side, floated about, or, according to Pliny, "were alive, and moved to and fro more swiftly than the blast," and in passing through which the good ship Argo had a narrow escape, and lost the extremity of her stern.

From Project Gutenberg

“Do not strive to make the passage of the Symplegades,” he said.

From Project Gutenberg