Don't kill the messenger
Alex Chernavsky
Which messenger? What was his name? Did he really get killed?
(This is not a teaser, either. I really want to know.)
--
Alex Chernavsky
al...@astrocyte-design.com
see sig
>From: "Alex Chernavsky" al...@astrocyte-design.com
>Date: 5/30/00 4:35 PM Eastern Daylight Time
>Message-id: <oCVY4.9949$Fm1....@typhoon.nyroc.rr.com>
>
>"Don't kill the messenger."
>
>Which messenger? What was his name? Did he really get killed?
>
>(This is not a teaser, either. I really want to know.)
What a coincidence. I just asked a similarly worded question here about "the
Butler did it." Great minds, and all that, eh?
Good question. I'd always imagined it harked back to Ancient Greece. Some play
or myth, though it is a timeless expression in that the inspiration for
hermecide can be found in each of our hearts, unlike suspicion of butlers'
culpability in murder.
--
Perchprism
(southern New Jersey, near Philadelphia)
Panelist, Totally Official aue Summer Doldrums Competition
(pe...@totally-official.com)
Robert M. Wilson
"Alex Chernavsky" <al...@astrocyte-design.com> wrote in message
news:oCVY4.9949$Fm1....@typhoon.nyroc.rr.com...
> "Don't kill the messenger."
>
> Which messenger? What was his name? Did he really get killed?
It goes back to Ancient Greece. The Persian king reputedly killed the
messenger who brought bad news.
also:
Sophocles says in *Antigone*:
"None loves the messenger who brings bad news."
and
see last act of *Macbeth*.
Donna Richoux
> "Alex Chernavsky" <al...@astrocyte-design.com> wrote in message
> news:oCVY4.9949$Fm1....@typhoon.nyroc.rr.com...
> > "Don't kill the messenger."
> >
> > Which messenger? What was his name? Did he really get killed?
>
> It goes back to Ancient Greece. The Persian king reputedly killed the
> messenger who brought bad news.
I don't suppose you could give any reference for this, please? What
king, what message, what historian?
Brewer's Faze and Phrable gives nothing. They are pretty good at
reporting old Greek stories.
The Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs gives "Messengers should
neither be headed nor hanged" from 1628. It has a 1721 quote of Latin,
"Legatus nec violatur, nec laeditur," but no clue as to how old the
Latin is. (Isn't "legate" more like ambassador, anyway?)
> also:
>
> Sophocles says in *Antigone*:
> "None loves the messenger who brings bad news."
The On-line Books Page has this version of Antigone:
http://classics.mit.edu/Sophocles/antigone.html
A guard reports that a corpse has been mysteriously defiled and goes on
to say:
"[Someone's] counsel was that this deed must be reported to thee, and
not hidden. And this seemed best; and the lot doomed my hapless self to
win this prize. So here I stand,-as unwelcome as unwilling, well I wot;
for no man delights in the bearer of bad news."
The guard and his superior even go on to have a conversation about this,
the guard pointing out his blamelessness in the matter.
Although I agree this is the heart of the same message as today's "Don't
shoot the messenger," it's still a far cry from saying that it ever
*was* anyone's policy to kill bearers of bad news.
> and
>
> see last act of *Macbeth*.
Okay, the Shakespeare site gives this from Act 5, Scene 5:
MACBETH
If thou speak'st false,
Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive,
Till famine cling thee:
May I point out that that has nothing whatever to do with the case.
Threatening to kill a messenger because he brings *false* news is an
entirely different matter than threatening to kill him because he
brought *bad* news.
ODEP gives Shakespeare, A.Y. (As You Like It?) "Pardon me; I am but as a
guiltless mesenger." Like Sophocles, this at least does mention the
guilt or innocence of the messenger, although nothing about killing.
The last thing I want to say is that the saying about not shooting the
messenger who brings bad news has become more frequent in each decade of
my life. It's an everyday notion now, but it was not back in the 60s.
To express regret at bringing bad news is old, of course.
--
Best --- Donna Richoux
Frances Kemmish
I didn't think that the point was that it was *policy* to kill the
messenger who brings bad news, but that it was recognised as a risk.
The story, as I recollect it (and, no, I don't have a reference for
you) was that the king who was brought the bad news slew the
messenger in anger.
> > and
> >
> > see last act of *Macbeth*.
>
> Okay, the Shakespeare site gives this from Act 5, Scene 5:
>
> MACBETH
>
> If thou speak'st false,
> Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive,
> Till famine cling thee:
>
> May I point out that that has nothing whatever to do with the case.
> Threatening to kill a messenger because he brings *false* news is an
> entirely different matter than threatening to kill him because he
> brought *bad* news.
>
> ODEP gives Shakespeare, A.Y. (As You Like It?) "Pardon me; I am but as a
> guiltless mesenger." Like Sophocles, this at least does mention the
> guilt or innocence of the messenger, although nothing about killing.
>
> The last thing I want to say is that the saying about not shooting the
> messenger who brings bad news has become more frequent in each decade of
> my life. It's an everyday notion now, but it was not back in the 60s.
>
> To express regret at bringing bad news is old, of course.
>
Fran
Donna Richoux
> It appears to me that according to Herodotus'
> account, it was the Athenians and Spartans who
> were mistreating Darius' messengers. His son
> Xerxes refused to even the score, rejecting the
> opportunity to kill two Spartans who had
> volunteered to sacrifice themselves for the good of
> their people and to placate the god of heralds,
> Talthybios.
Thanks, Michael, that's super. Yes, it is tough reading, isn't it? But I
agree with your interpretation above. Furthermore, it says there was a
general policy among all people not to kill heralds. The Athenians and
Spartans killed some messengers from Darius -- and it wasn't because
they were bearing bad news, because they weren't. They were merely
asking for some earth and water (for a ceremony?). I guess the reason
the Greeks killed them was more simply that they hated the Persians.
After the Athenians and Spartans suffered some bad luck, they decided
they better make amends and got some volunteers to go to Xerxes, who, as
you say, refused to kill them in return.
So the original poster did, unfortunately, have it backwards, if this is
the incident he was thinking about. It was not the Persian king who
killed any messengers.
Furthermore, we still don't have any examples of messengers being slain
because they brought bad news.
I would think with all the zillions of messengers that must have gone
back and forth in those days, there is still a chance of such an event
occuring somewhere. But I'm not holding my breath until it surfaces.
mag...@rahul.net
<al...@astrocyte-design.com> wrote:
>"Don't kill the messenger."
>
>Which messenger? What was his name? Did he really get killed?
>
>(This is not a teaser, either. I really want to know.)
http://www.shu.ac.uk/web-admin/phrases/bulletin_board/3/messages/521.html
<quote>
It was the custom in Ancient Greece and later in Rome to employ
messengers to carry the news throughout the city/state/empire.
This news was not always to the liking of the recipients but the
laws decreed that these messengers where to pass unharmed from
place to place and city to city to deliver whatever message they
were commanded to spread amongst the population.
Hence the expression ‘Don’t kill the messenger’: or rather its
Greek or Latin equivalent.
I’m sure there’s a better explanation from some quotable source
but the above remains the case irrespective of more detail.
</quote>
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/6297/nm088.html
<quote>
In ancient Rome, they used to kill the messenger who brought bad
news.
</quote>
jc
Alex Chernavsky
>Furthermore, we still don't have any examples of
>messengers being slain because they brought bad news.
Apparently, there's an incident involving Ivan the Terrible:
"It was on that Red Staircase, 400 years ago, that Ivan the Terrible killed
the messenger, who brought him bad news..."
http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~powellm/grand.html
I tried to find out more details, but Google didn't turn up anything. Does
anybody here know anything about Russian history and could perhaps
elaborate, or even just provide some more keywords for further web searches?
--
Alex Chernavsky
al...@astrocyte-design.com
Michael West
comments at length on the treatment of heralds and
messengers during the Greco-Persian campaigns. I
haven't the energy to condense and paraphrase;
perhaps someone else can take this chunk of ore
and transform it into polished metal.
The full text is available at the Project Gutenberg
website.
Mike West
Melbourne, Australia
____
THE HISTORY OF HERODOTUS
Translated into English
by G. C. MACAULAY, M.A.
Formerly Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. II
BOOK V
THE FIFTH BOOK OF THE HISTORIES, CALLED TERPSICHORE
Then when they had resisted this, next they spoke these words or
words to this effect: "O king of the Medes, the Lacedemonians sent us
in place of the heralds who were slain in Sparta, to pay the penalty
for their lives." When they said this, Xerxes moved by a spirit of
magnanimity replied that he would not be like the Lacedemonians; for
they had violated the rules which prevailed among all men by slaying
heralds, but he would not do that himself which he blamed them for
having done, nor would he free the Lacedemonians from their guilt by
slaying these in return. 137. Thus the wrath of Talthybios ceased for
the time being, even though the Spartans had done no more than this
and although Sperthias and Bulis returned back to Sparta; but a long
time after this it was roused again during the war between the
Peloponnesians and Athenians, as the Lacedemonians report. This I
perceive to have been most evidently the act of the Deity: for in that
the wrath of Talthybios fell upon messengers and did not cease until
it had been fully satisfied, so much was but in accordance with
justice; but that it happened to come upon the sons of these men who
went up to the king on account of the wrath, namely upon Nicolaos the
son of Bulis and Aneristos the son of Sperthias (the same who
conquered the men of Halieis, who came from Tiryns, by sailing into
their harbour with a merchant ship filled with fighting men),--by this
it is evident to me that the matter came to pass by the act of the
Deity caused by this wrath. For these men, sent by the Lacedemonians
as envoys to Asia, having been betrayed by Sitalkes the son of Teres
king of the Thracians and by Nymphodoros the son of Pythes a man of
Abdera, were captured at Bisanthe on the Hellespont; and then having
been carried away to Attica they were put to death by the Athenians,
and with them also Aristeas the son of Adeimantos the Corinthian.
These things happened many years after the expedition of the king; and
I return now to the former narrative.
Michael West
account, it was the Athenians and Spartans who
were mistreating Darius' messengers. His son
Xerxes refused to even the score, rejecting the
opportunity to kill two Spartans who had
volunteered to sacrifice themselves for the good of
their people and to placate the god of heralds,
Talthybios.
MW
Michael West
I should have placed this passage first, as it
sets the stage for Xerxes' magnaminity in
refusing to kill Sperthias and Bulis.
MW
==================================
133. Thus ran the oath which was taken by the Hellenes:
Xerxes however had not sent to Athens or to Sparta heralds to demand
the gift of earth, and for this reason, namely because at the former
time when Dareios had sent for this very purpose, the one people threw
the men who made the demand into the pit[115] and the others into a
well, and bade them take from thence earth and water and bear them to
the king. For this reason Xerxes did not send men to make this demand.
And what evil thing[116] came upon the Athenians for having done this
to the heralds, I am not able to say, except indeed that their land
and city were laid waste; but I do not think that this happened for
that cause: 134, on the Lacedemonians however the wrath fell of
Talthybios, the herald of Agamemnon; for in Sparta there is a temple
of Talthybios, and there are also descendants of Talthybios called
Talthybiads, to whom have been given as a right all the missions of
heralds which go from Sparta; and after this event it was not possible
for the Spartans when they sacrificed to obtain favourable omens. This
was the case with them for a long time; and as the Lacedemonians were
grieved and regarded it as a great misfortune, and general assemblies
were repeatedly gathered together and proclamation made, asking if any
one of the Lacedemonians was willing to die for Sparta, at length
Sperthias the son of Aneristos and Bulis the son of Nicolaos, Spartans
of noble birth and in wealth attaining to the first rank, voluntarily
submitted to pay the penalty to Xerxes for the heralds of Dareios
which had perished at Sparta. Thus the Spartans sent these to the
Medes to be put to death.
"Michael West" <mbw...@remove.bigpond.com> wrote in message
news:h1aZ4.9716$c5.1...@newsfeeds.bigpond.com...
Michael West
>
> Furthermore, we still don't have any examples of messengers being slain
> because they brought bad news.
As I understand it, the earth and water business was
symbolic of the Persians' domination over the Greeks. One
could argue that this was "bad news" to Athens and Sparta --
it represented the end of independance from Persia.
> I would think with all the zillions of messengers that must have gone
> back and forth in those days, there is still a chance of such an event
> occuring somewhere. But I'm not holding my breath until it surfaces.
Killing heralds and messengers must have been a powerful
taboo, because the temptation for warriors to kill an enemy in
time of war would have been hard to resist; and no doubt it
occasionally could not be resisted.
Mike West
Melbourne
Donna Richoux
> On Tue, 30 May 2000 20:35:32 GMT, "Alex Chernavsky"
> <al...@astrocyte-design.com> wrote:
>
> >"Don't kill the messenger."
> >
> >Which messenger? What was his name? Did he really get killed?
> >
> >(This is not a teaser, either. I really want to know.)
>
> http://www.shu.ac.uk/web-admin/phrases/bulletin_board/3/messages/521.html
>
> <quote>
> It was the custom in Ancient Greece and later in Rome to employ
> messengers to carry the news throughout the city/state/empire.
> This news was not always to the liking of the recipients but the
> laws decreed that these messengers where to pass unharmed from
> place to place and city to city to deliver whatever message they
> were commanded to spread amongst the population.
>
> Hence the expression ‘Don't kill the messenger': or rather its
> Greek or Latin equivalent.
>
> I'm sure there's a better explanation from some quotable source
> but the above remains the case irrespective of more detail.
> </quote>
The above seems reasonable -- just as I said the other day, there is an
old Latin phrases meaning messengers should not be harmed.
I see that the above site is called the "Phrase Derivations Discussion
Forum." I'll keep an eye on it; maybe it will have some good resources
for discussions we have here, and maybe it would be a place to foist,
uh, transfer some of the less productive discussions.
> http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/6297/nm088.html
>
> <quote>
> In ancient Rome, they used to kill the messenger who brought bad
> news.
> </quote>
That one is an off-hand remark in a piece about modern Macedonia,
without any supporting details (I know, you would have quoted them if
there were.)
It looks like the guy got it backward. The ancient Romans never had a
policy of killing messengers who brought bad news, they (along with the
Greeks, Persians, etc) had a policy of NOT killing messengers, period.
But I admit that somebody, once in a while, or in prehistoric times,
must have killed a messenger or two, or else the policy would not have
been needed.
--
Best wishes --- Donna Richoux
Donna Richoux
> Donna Richoux wrote, in part:
>
> >Furthermore, we still don't have any examples of
> >messengers being slain because they brought bad news.
>
> Apparently, there's an incident involving Ivan the Terrible:
>
> "It was on that Red Staircase, 400 years ago, that Ivan the Terrible killed
> the messenger, who brought him bad news..."
>
> http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~powellm/grand.html
>
> I tried to find out more details, but Google didn't turn up anything. Does
> anybody here know anything about Russian history and could perhaps
> elaborate, or even just provide some more keywords for further web searches?
>
I searched on the phrase "Ivan the Terrible" in Metacrawler and looked
at a few of the pages. I didn't find such a story. This one has a lot of
gruesome stories, maybe I missed it:
http://www.dana.edu/~dwarman/kmaas.htm
But yeah, I think we may need a specialist with a large biography.
Of course, it is a bit discouraging to think that even if we can find
evidence that some king once killed some messenger for bearing bad news,
that won't prove the modern saying came from that incident.
--
Sadly --- Donna Richoux
Frances Kemmish
>
> <mag...@rahul.net> wrote:
>
> > On Tue, 30 May 2000 20:35:32 GMT, "Alex Chernavsky"
> > <al...@astrocyte-design.com> wrote:
> >
> > >"Don't kill the messenger."
> > >
> > >Which messenger? What was his name? Did he really get killed?
> > >
> > >(This is not a teaser, either. I really want to know.)
> >
<lotsasnipping>
> I see that the above site is called the "Phrase Derivations Discussion
> Forum." I'll keep an eye on it; maybe it will have some good resources
> for discussions we have here, and maybe it would be a place to foist,
> uh, transfer some of the less productive discussions.
>
>
> But I admit that somebody, once in a while, or in prehistoric times,
> must have killed a messenger or two, or else the policy would not have
> been needed.
>
There doesn't seem to have been any shortage of occasions (or
stories anyway) of messengers being killed for bringing bad, or
unwelcome, news. I did a few cursory searches, using "kill" "slay"
or "slain" "blame" and "punish" with "messenger", and got
references relating to Greek, Islamic, Welsh and Jewish history and
literature.
It seems that it was not an uncommon reaction to bad news.
I did find this:
Copreus
The messenger who was killed for bearing bad news. He brought orders
from King Eurystheus to Heracles;
displeased by the task assigned to him, Heracles, in a fit of pique,
killed the messenger.
on this site:
http://www.cybercomm.net/~grandpa/grkgdscd.html
but I did not find any evidence to support the idea - Copreus is the
character in the Euripides play who says that heralds should not be
killed, though.
Here is a text of "The Heracleidae" by Euripededes which includes
remark that heralds should not be killed.
http://classics.mit.edu/Euripides/heracleidae.html
I think that looking for a particular event to explain the saying is
going to be unsuccessful.
Fran
Larry Preuss
> > > >"Don't kill the messenger."
> > > >
> > > >Which messenger? What was his name? Did he really get killed?
> > > >
> > > >(This is not a teaser, either. I really want to know.)
> > >
Is "Don't shoot the piano player" closely related?
LP
--
Alan Jones
"Alex Chernavsky" <al...@astrocyte-design.com> wrote in message
news:oCVY4.9949$Fm1....@typhoon.nyroc.rr.com...
|
| Which messenger? What was his name? Did he really get killed?
There's a scene in Shakespeare's 'Anthony & Cleopatra' where one of C's
servants brings her the news that her lover A has married Octavius Caesar's
sister. Before even hearing his message, C threatens, if the news is bad,
"The gold I give thee will I melt and pour / Down thy ill-meaning throat."
When he finally tells her of A's marriage, she "strikes him down", again
"strikes him", and then "hales him up and down" by the hair. Though he
protests "Gracious [!] madam, / I that do bring the news made not the
match", she finally exclaims "Rogue, thou has lived too long" and draws a
knife. He makes his escape, but keeps a wary distance when C's maidservant
eventually fetches him back. (These are modernised spellings of the actual
Folio directions, not editorial imaginings).
From a later passage, it's clear that messengers were customarily rewarded
(or rather recompensed, because they usually had to bear the costs of the
journey - in this case from Rome to Alexandria.) Or at least Sh thought so.
I've sometimes wondered whether C's behaviour here is modelled on Queen
Elizabeth I.
It's worth noting that the threatened killing is of C's own servant/spy, not
of the herald or ambassador sent by an enemy power. I've always assumed that
the saying relates to the prospective killer's own man or at least some
neutral person.
Incidentally, harking back to a much earlier thread about "Enter Hamlet",
the Folio stage direction here for C's final threat is in the form "Draw a
knife".
Alan Jones
Donna Richoux
> "Alex Chernavsky" <al...@astrocyte-design.com> wrote in message
> news:oCVY4.9949$Fm1....@typhoon.nyroc.rr.com...
> | "Don't kill the messenger."
> |
> | Which messenger? What was his name? Did he really get killed?
>
>
> There's a scene in Shakespeare's 'Anthony & Cleopatra' where one of C's
> servants brings her the news that her lover A has married Octavius Caesar's
> sister. Before even hearing his message, C threatens, if the news is bad,
> "The gold I give thee will I melt and pour / Down thy ill-meaning throat."
> When he finally tells her of A's marriage, she "strikes him down", again
> "strikes him", and then "hales him up and down" by the hair. Though he
> protests "Gracious [!] madam, / I that do bring the news made not the
> match", she finally exclaims "Rogue, thou has lived too long" and draws a
> knife. He makes his escape, but keeps a wary distance when C's maidservant
> eventually fetches him back. (These are modernised spellings of the actual
> Folio directions, not editorial imaginings).
I looked it up at the MIT Shakespeare site. It is Act 2, Scene 5, and
anyone wanting to read it can find it here:
http://tech-two.mit.edu/Shakespeare/Tragedy/antonyandcleopatra/antonyand
cleopatra.2.5.html
It's quite a scene, as you say.
--
Best wishes -- Donna Richoux