Also called Symplegades or Kuaenai. Two easily movable rocks at the narrow entrance to the Axeinos Pontos ('stranger-less sea'), the place where the Bosporus and the Black Sea meet and where, according to legends, all Greeks were killed on sight.

The Symplagades were said to crush together when a ship tried to sail between them, thus destroying both the vessel and its unfortunate crew. It is reasonable to assume that this belief contibuted to the existence of various ship-devouring sea monsters (see Charybdis) in Greek mythology.

Cyanean rocks also feature in the Greek legend of the ship Argo and the travels of the Argonauts. Euripides starts his tragedy 'Medea' by letting the nurse lament that the Symplegades didn't crush Argo when it sailed between the two stones, thus eventually bringing doom to both Jason's family and Medea herself (for details, see Medea).

'Cyanean' means bluish green, 'symplegades' means 'dashes together' in Greek.

Translations provided by
The Wordsworth Dictionary of Phrase and Fable