On Sunday, May 15, 2016 at 8:51:02 AM UTC-4, Ed Cryer wrote:
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http://tinyurl.com/zczh66m
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> According to this the Greeks said "Zeus save you" and the Romans "salve".
> Both peoples held it as a superstition; a sneeze foretold something bad.
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> Ed
Sneezes could maybe also bode well. Philippus Silvius, the Delphini commentator on Catullus, remarks, “Sternutationem namque habebant pro signo confirmandi augurii et amoris.”
Here’s Theocritus.
Σιμιχίδᾳ μὲν ῎Ερωτες ἐπέπταρον: ἦ γὰρ ὁ δειλὸς
τόσσον ἐρᾷ Μυρτοῦς, ὅσον εἴαρος αἶγες ἐρᾶντι.
Simichidae Amores sternutaverunt: nam miser
tam amat Myrtonem, quam caprae ver amant.
(7.96-97; trans. Theophilus Christophorus Harles, 1780)
He’s echoed by Catullus.
Hoc ut dixit, Amor, sinistra ut ante
dextra sternuit approbationem.
(“De Acme et Septimio,” 45.8-9; 45.17-18).
And also by Propertius.
Non tibi nascenti primis, mea vita, diebus
candidus argutum sternuit omen Amor?
(2.3.23-24)
But I wouldn’t take very seriously anything either of these two Roman boys said.
Lucky sneezing, though, goes all the way back to Homer. It’s only when Telemachus lets out a sneeze—a great sneeze, a truly heroic sneeze—that Penelope gets the idea that the geezer Eumaeus has just dragged in might turn out to be more than he seems.
Sic dixit. Telemachus autem alte sternuit, circumque domus
horrendum resonuit. Risit vero Penelope,
statimque deinde Eumaeum verbis alatis allocuta est.
“Vade mihi, hospitem coram huc voca.
Nonne vides, quod mihi filius sternuit ad omnia verba?
Ideo et non imperfecta mors procis fiat
omnibus prorsus, neque quisquam mortem et fatum vitet.”
(Odyssey 17.541-547; trans. Samuel Clarke, 1758)
--Patricio