In an effort to overcome the overwhelming boredom of his , stone-floored prison cell, Tobias exercised his knowledge by identifying each insect he saw by its Latin . The only alternative was to listen to the prisoner in the neighboring cell shout the same that had failed to convince the judge that he was innocent. In several weeks, the repetitive, daily rant began to sound like a[n] to Tobias, perhaps a spell that would melt the bars of the noisy prisoner’s cell. The two prisoners conversed occasionally. Tobias, a well-traveled, renowned explorer, related tales from his life, but the conversation inevitably returned to the topic of the other man’s wrongful imprisonment. Use:

stygian

brigand

incantation

cosmopolitan

carte blanche

nomenclature

sophistry