# Queen Sylvia Tereu — Jurgen character guide

> Queen Sylvia Tereu in Jurgen by James Branch Cabell.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Sylvia Tereu, Queen Sylvia, Sylvia

**First appearance:** 0028-xxiv-of-compromises-in-cocaigne

## Snapshot

Smoit's ninth wife, a ghost who shares his haunting and insists, with wounded dignity, that her murder was through no fault of hers.

## Who they are

Sylvia Tereu drifts through the White Turret beside the husband who killed her, her protestations of innocence delivered with the weariness of long practice. She vanishes at cockcrow, leaving Jurgen to explain her to Dame Anaïtis and to reckon with the absurdity of his own midnight company. Her patient grievance against Smoit gives the ghostly visitation its comic and faintly melancholy edge, and her disappearance marks the boundary between dream and daylight.

## In the story

### [XVI: Divers Imbroglios of King Smoit](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/chapters/xvi-divers-imbroglios-of-king-smoit)

Ghost of Smoit's ninth wife; assists in the haunting plan and offers Jurgen the potion.

### [XVII: About a Cock That Crowed Too Soon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/chapters/xvii-about-a-cock-that-crowed-too-soon)

Ghost of King Smoit's ninth wife; laments that her husband did not understand her and vanishes at cockcrow.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters/queen_sylvia_tereu
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters