Symplegades

The Symplegades (pronounced: /sɪmˈplɛɡədiːz/; Greek: Συμπληγάδες, Sumplēgades) or Clashing Rocks, also known as the Cyanean Rocks, were, according to Greek mythology, a pair of rocks at the Bosphorus that clashed together randomly. They were defeated by Jason and the Argonauts, who would have been lost and killed by the rocks except for Phineus' advice. Jason let a dove fly between the rocks; it lost only its tail feathers. The Argonauts rowed mightily to get through and lost only part of the stern ornament. After that, the Symplegades stopped moving permanently.
The European rock is usually identified with an islet, about 20m wide and 200m long, which stands about 100m off the shore of a village called Rumeli Feneri ('Lighthouse of Rumeli), and is connected to it by a modern concrete jetty. At its highest point, there is an ancient altar known as the Pillar of Pompey, though it has nothing to do with Pompey. Dionysius of Byzantium mentions a Roman shrine to Apollo on one of the Cyanean Rocks, and the 16th-century French traveller Petrus Gyllius thought the altar was a remnant of that shrine.Hilary Sumner-Boyd and John Freely, Strolling through Istanbul, 2010 ISBN 978-1-84885-154-2. p. 447
The Asian rock is probably a reef off the Yum Burnu (north of Anadolu Feneri 'Lighthouse of Anatolia'), described by Gyllius:
==Names==
The Romans called them cyaneae insulae 'blue islands' and in Turkish they are called Öreke Taşı 'Distaff Rock' or 'Midwife's Stool'.
==In literature==
Lord Byron refers to the Symplegades in the concluding stanzas of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage:
:And from the Alban Mount we now behold
:Our friend of youth, that ocean, which when we
:Beheld it last by Calp's rock unfold
:Those waves, we follow on till the dark Euxine roll'd
:Upon the blue Symplegades …
The New Critic I.A. Richards refers to 'Symplegades' in his epoch making work Practical Criticism. In Chapter 2, 'Figurative Language' he refers to as dangers of misinterpretations in reading poems.
" These twin dangers - careless, 'intuitive' reading and prosaic, 'over-literal' reading - are the Symplegades, the 'justling rocks', between which too many ventures into poetry are wrecked."
In his 1961 novel Jason, Henry Treece depicts the Symplegades as icebergs that drifted downriver into the Black Sea.
==The Wandering Rocks==
The Symplegades are sometimes identified with (or confused with) the Planctae (Ancient Greek: Πλαγκταί) or Wandering Rocks, which are mentioned in the Odyssey and Apollonius of Rhodes' Argonautica. In Apollonius's telling, the Symplegades were encountered on the way to the Golden Fleece and the Planktai were encountered on the return voyage.
The similarities and differences between the Wandering Rocks and the Symplegades has been much debated by scholars, as have potential locations for them.
==References==
==Bibliography==
*Apollonius of Rhodes. Argonautica II, 317-340, 549-610; IV 795-979
*Homer. Odyssey XII, 55-72.
*E. V. Rieu. "Glossary" in The Voyage of Argo - The Argonautica - A new translation by E.V. Rieu (London; Penguin Books, 1959)
*Tim Severin The Ulysses Voyage: The search for the Odyssey (London; Arrow Books, 1987) pages 200-214
Category:Greek Mythology