From emonc@erols.com Sat Nov 6 11:15:39 1999 Received: from mxu4.u.washington.edu (mxu4.u.washington.edu [140.142.33.8]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.09/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id LAA35722 for ; Sat, 6 Nov 1999 11:15:38 -0800 Received: from smtp4.erols.com (smtp4.erols.com [207.172.3.237]) by mxu4.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.09/8.9.3+UW99.08) with ESMTP id LAA02036 for ; Sat, 6 Nov 1999 11:15:38 -0800 Received: from erols.com (209-122-204-166.s547.tnt4.lnh.md.dialup.rcn.com [209.122.204.166]) by smtp4.erols.com (8.8.8/smtp-v1) with ESMTP id OAA07734 for ; Sat, 6 Nov 1999 14:15:34 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <38247E31.7ADA4ADD@erols.com> Date: Sat, 06 Nov 1999 14:14:57 -0500 From: Ernest Moncada X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.51 [en] (Win98; I) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: classics@u.washington.edu Subject: Re: Ancient Greek sneezes References: <199911060240.VAA05450@pelican.sps.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-7 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Alison Barker wrote: > > Does anyone happen to know if the Greeks had an expression that they used > in response to hearing a person sneeze? It would come in handy in class > sometimes! Thanks for any suggestions. > > Alison Barker Why do we bless those who sneeze? "Me demandez vous d'ou vient cette coustume de benire ceux qui estrenuent? Nour produisons trois sortes du vent: celuy qui sorte par embas est trop sale; celui qui sorte par la bouche porte quelque reproche de gourmandise; et troisiesme est l' estrenuement; et parce qu'il vient de la teste et est sans blasme, nous luy faisons cet honneste recueil. Ne vous moquez pas de cette subtilite; elle est (dict-on) d' Aristote (Problemata 33.9). Mont. Essais. III.vi. An anonymous writer on Proclus: oude legei Zeu sOson ean ptarE. Nor does he say, "God preserve us" when he sneezes. A.G. XI 268. 3. See Brewer, s.v. Sneeze for samples and explanations of blessings upon sneezing. EJM .