Serbonian Bog

Serbonian Bog (Arabic: مستنقع سربون‎‎) relates to Lake Serbonis (Sirbonis or Serbon) in Egypt, as described by Herodotus. Because sand blew onto it, the Serbonian Bog had a deceptive appearance of being solid land, but was a bog. The term is metaphorically applied to any situation in which one is entangled from which extrication is difficult.

The Serbonian Bog is identified as Sabkhat al Bardawil, one of the string of "Bitter Lakes" to the east of the Nile's right branch. It was described in ancient times as a quagmire in which armies were fabled to be swallowed up and lost.

A gulf profound as that Serbonian bog...
Where armies whole have sunk.

Milton's description was quoted as the epigraph to the chapter "Markets with non-convex preferences and production" presenting Starr (1969) in Arrow & Hahn (1971, p. 169).

Edmund Burke used it in his Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790):

"The whole of the power obtained by this revolution will settle in the towns among the burghers and the monied directors who lead them. ... Here end all the deceitful dreams and visions of the equality and rights of men. In ‘the Serbonian bog’ of this base oligarchy they are all absorbed, sunk, and lost for ever."

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo used it in a dissenting opinion, stating:

"The attempted distinction between accidental results and accidental means will plunge this branch of the law into a Serbonian Bog."

This statement was echoed by another Supreme Court Justice, Sandra Day O'Connor:

"We recognise that any standard requiring Courts to distinguish causes that are "accidents" from causes that are "occurrences" requires drawing a line, and we realise that "reasonable [people] may differ widely as to the place where the line should fall"... We draw this line today only because the language of Article 17 and 18 requires it, and not because of any desire to plunge into the "Serbonian Bog" that accompanies attempts to distinguish between causes that are accidents and injuries that are accidents... Until Article 17 of the Warsaw Convention is changed by the signatories, it cannot be stretched to impose carrier liability for injuries that are not caused by accidents."

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Wikipedia