Crocodile tears

Last updated
A cartoon by Bernhard Gillam depicting Ulysses S. Grant courting Jewish voters by crying "crocodile tears" over the persecution of Jews in Russia. The cartoon contrasts Grant's expressions of outrage with his own earlier military order to expel Jews from within his lines. He received a majority of the Jewish vote in the 1868 presidential election and went on to place a record number of Jewish people into high office up to that point in time. Grant's crocodile tears.jpg
A cartoon by Bernhard Gillam depicting Ulysses S. Grant courting Jewish voters by crying "crocodile tears" over the persecution of Jews in Russia. The cartoon contrasts Grant's expressions of outrage with his own earlier military order to expel Jews from within his lines. He received a majority of the Jewish vote in the 1868 presidential election and went on to place a record number of Jewish people into high office up to that point in time.

Crocodile tears, or superficial sympathy, is a false, insincere display of emotion such as a hypocrite crying fake tears of grief. The phrase derives from an ancient belief that crocodiles shed tears while consuming their prey, and as such is present in many modern languages, especially in Europe where it was introduced through Latin. While crocodiles do have tear ducts, they weep to lubricate their eyes, typically when they have been out of water for a long time and their eyes begin to dry out. However, evidence suggests this could also be triggered by feeding.

Contents

Bogorad's syndrome, a condition which causes sufferers to shed tears while consuming food, has been labelled "crocodile tears syndrome" in reference to the legend.

History and usage

The expression comes from an ancient anecdote that crocodiles weep for the victims they are eating. A collection of proverbs attributed to Plutarch suggests that the phrase "crocodile tears" was well known in antiquity: comparing the crocodile's behaviour to people who desire or cause the death of someone, but then publicly lament for them. [1] The story is given a Christian gloss in the Bibliotheca by early medieval theologian Photios. [2] Photios uses the story to illustrate the Christian concept of repentance. [1] The story is repeated in bestiaries such as De bestiis et aliis rebus.

This tale was first spread widely in English in the stories of the travels of Sir John Mandeville in the 14th century. [3]

In that country and by all Inde be great plenty of cockodrills, that is a manner of a long serpent, as I have said before. And in the night they dwell in the water, and on the day upon the land, in rocks and in caves. And they eat no meat in all the winter, but they lie as in a dream, as do the serpents. These serpents slay men, and they eat them weeping; and when they eat they move the over jaw, and not the nether jaw, and they have no tongue.

Curious creatures in zoology

A later writer, Edward Topsell, provided a different explanation for the tears, saying "There are not many brute beasts that can weep, but such is the nature of the crocodile that, to get a man within his danger, he will sob, sigh, and weep as though he were in extremity, but suddenly he destroyeth him." [4] In this version, the crocodile pretends to be in distress to lure prey into a false sense of security. However, Topsell also refers to the older story that crocodiles wept during and after eating a man, repeating the standard Christian moral that this signified a kind of fake repentance like Judas weeping after betraying Jesus. [4]

In literature

"Crocodile tears for Syria", cartoon by Carlos Latuff illustrating the concept Crocodile tears for Syria.png
"Crocodile tears for Syria", cartoon by Carlos Latuff illustrating the concept

Shakespeare regularly refers to the concept. He uses both of Topsell's versions of the motive, as a trick and as fake repentance. A prominent example is in Othello , Act IV, Scene i, in which Othello convinces himself that his wife is cheating on him.

If that the earth could teem with woman's tears,
Each drop she falls would prove a crocodile.

He also refers to the version about tricking prey in Henry VI, Part 2 , Act III, Scene i, in which a character refers to the faked emotions of the Duke of Gloucester: "Gloucester's show / Beguiles him, as the mournful crocodile / With sorrow, snares relenting passengers." In Antony and Cleopatra , Act II, Scene vii, Mark Antony chides Lepidus, who has asked him what crocodiles are like, with a meaningless description ending with the words "And the tears of it are wet".

Shakespeare's contemporary Edmund Spenser also refers to the story in The Faerie Queene , writing of the "cruel crafty" creature "which, in false grief, hiding his harmful guile / Doth weep full sore, and sheddeth tender tears. [5]

In Henry Purcell's 1688 opera Dido and Aeneas , (librettist Nahum Tate), when Aeneas tells Dido he must abandon her to found Rome on the Italian Peninsula, she proclaims, "Thus on the fatal banks of Nile, / Weeps the deceitful crocodile." [6]

Actual crocodile behaviour

Saltwater crocodile eye Crocodylus porosus - Eye - Wilhelma.jpg
Saltwater crocodile eye

While crocodiles can and do generate tears, the tears are not linked to emotion. The fluid from their tear ducts functions to clean and lubricate the eye, and is most prominent and visible when crocodiles have been on dry land for a while. In the case of American crocodiles and saltwater crocodiles, the tears help rid of the excess salt that they take in with their food. According to Adam Britton,

It is difficult to trace the origin of this particular myth, but it's easy to see why it has become so popular – for an apparently remorseless creature such as a crocodile to actually weep over its victims is a memorable irony which has inspired considerable prose and created a phrase which is still popular today. [7]

In 2006, neurologist Malcolm Shaner, assisted by Kent Vliet, a researcher at the University of Florida, decided to test the story that crocodiles or their close relatives alligators and caimans were likely to "weep" while feeding. Studying animals in Florida's St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park, Vliet recorded seven caimans feeding. He chose to use caimans rather than crocodiles because at the sanctuary they could be observed feeding on dry land. Five of the seven animals were seen "weeping", leading to the conclusion that the story describes a real phenomenon. The researchers suggest that the "weeping" may be caused by the hissing of warm air during feeding, which is forced through the sinuses, stimulating the animals' tear glands into emptying fluid into the eye. [8] [9]

Bogorad's syndrome

The phrase gives its name to Bogorad's syndrome, colloquially "crocodile tears syndrome", an uncommon consequence of recovery from Bell's palsy where faulty regeneration of the facial nerve causes sufferers to shed tears while eating. [10] [11] Russian neuropathologist F. A. Bogorad, who first described the condition in 1926, did so in an article entitled "syndrome of the crocodile tears" (also translated as "the symptom of crocodile tears"). [12] Bogorad argued that the tears were caused by the act of salivation. [13]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carnivore</span> Organism that eats mostly or exclusively animal tissue

A carnivore, or meat-eater, is an animal or plant whose food and energy requirements derive from animal tissues whether through hunting or scavenging.

<i>Aeneid</i> Latin epic poem by Virgil

The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who fled the fall of Troy and travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. Written by the Roman poet Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, the Aeneid comprises 9,896 lines in dactylic hexameter. The first six of the poem's twelve books tell the story of Aeneas' wanderings from Troy to Italy, and the poem's second half tells of the Trojans' ultimately victorious war upon the Latins, under whose name Aeneas and his Trojan followers are destined to be subsumed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crocodile</span> Family of large reptilian carnivores

Crocodiles or true crocodiles are large semiaquatic reptiles that live throughout the tropics in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Australia. The term crocodile is sometimes used even more loosely to include all extant members of the order Crocodilia, which includes the alligators and caimans, the gharial and false gharial among other extinct taxa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tears</span> Clear liquid secreted from glands in eyes of mammals

Tears are a clear liquid secreted by the lacrimal glands found in the eyes of all land mammals. Tears are made up of water, electrolytes, proteins, lipids, and mucins that form layers on the surface of eyes. The different types of tears—basal, reflex, and emotional—vary significantly in composition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crocodilia</span> Order of mostly large, predatory, semiaquatic reptiles

Crocodilia is an order of mostly large, predatory, semiaquatic reptiles, known as crocodilians. They first appeared 94 million years ago in the Late Cretaceous period and are the closest living relatives of birds, as the two groups are the only known survivors of the Archosauria. Members of the order's total group, the clade Pseudosuchia, appeared about 250 million years ago in the Early Triassic period, and diversified during the Mesozoic era. The order Crocodilia includes the true crocodiles, the alligators and caimans, and the gharial and false gharial. Although the term 'crocodiles' is sometimes used to refer to all of these, crocodilians is a less ambiguous vernacular term for members of this group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alligator</span> Crocodilian in the genus Alligator of the family Alligatoridae

An alligator, or colloquially gator, is a large reptile in the Crocodilia order in the genus Alligator of the family Alligatoridae. The two extant species are the American alligator and the Chinese alligator. Additionally, several extinct species of alligator are known from fossil remains. Alligators first appeared during the Oligocene epoch about 37 million years ago.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American alligator</span> Large crocodilian reptile

The American alligator, sometimes referred to colloquially as a gator or common alligator, is a large crocodilian reptile native to the Southeastern United States. It is one of the two extant species in the genus Alligator, and is larger than the only other living alligator species, the Chinese alligator.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saltwater crocodile</span> Reptile of South Asia, Southeast Asia and Oceania

The saltwater crocodile is a crocodilian native to saltwater habitats, brackish wetlands and freshwater rivers from India's east coast across Southeast Asia and the Sundaic region to northern Australia and Micronesia. It has been listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List since 1996. It was hunted for its skin throughout its range up to the 1970s, and is threatened by illegal killing and habitat loss. It is regarded as dangerous to humans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Black caiman</span> Species of reptile

The black caiman is a crocodilian reptile endemic to South America. With a maximum length of around 5 to 6 m and a mass of over 450 kg (1,000 lb), it is the largest species of the family Alligatoridae, and the third-largest in the Neotropical realm. True to its common and scientific names, the black caiman has a dark greenish-black coloration as an adult. In some individuals, the pigmentation can appear almost jet-black. It has grey to brown banding on the lower jaw; juveniles have a more vibrant coloration compared to adults, with prominent white-pale yellow banding on the flanks that remains present well into adulthood. The banding on young animals helps with camouflage by breaking up their body outline, on land or in water, in an effort to avoid predation. The morphology is quite different from other caimans but the bony ridge that occurs in other caimans is present. The head is large and heavy, an advantage in catching larger prey. Like all crocodile-like animals, caimans are long, squat creatures, with big jaws, long tails and short legs. They have thick, scaled skin, and their eyes and noses are located on the tops of their heads. This enables them to see and breathe while the rest of their bodies are underwater.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nile crocodile</span> Reptile of Africa

The Nile crocodile is a large crocodilian native to freshwater habitats in Africa, where it is present in 26 countries. It is widely distributed throughout sub-Saharan Africa, occurring mostly in the central, eastern, and southern regions of the continent, and lives in different types of aquatic environments such as lakes, rivers, swamps, and marshlands. In West Africa, it occurs along with two other crocodilians. Although capable of living in saline environments, this species is rarely found in saltwater, but occasionally inhabits deltas and brackish lakes. The range of this species once stretched northward throughout the Nile, as far north as the Nile Delta. Generally, the adult male Nile crocodile is between 3.5 and 5 m in length and weighs 225 to 750 kg. However, specimens exceeding 6.1 m (20 ft) in length and 1,000 kg (2,200 lb) in weight have been recorded. It is the largest freshwater predator in Africa, and may be considered the second-largest extant reptile in the world, after the saltwater crocodile. Size is sexually dimorphic, with females usually about 30% smaller than males. The crocodile has thick, scaly, heavily armoured skin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American crocodile</span> Species of crocodile endemic to the Neotropics

The American crocodile is a species of crocodilian found in the Neotropics. It is the most widespread of the four extant species of crocodiles from the Americas, with populations present from South Florida and the coasts of Mexico to as far south as Peru and Venezuela.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Green anaconda</span> Species of snake

The green anaconda, also known as the giant emerald anaconda, common anaconda, common water boa or sucuri, is a boa species found in South America and the Caribbean island of Trinidad. It is the heaviest and one of the longest known extant snake species. No subspecies are currently recognized. Like all boas, it is a non-venomous constrictor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Orinoco crocodile</span> Species of reptile

The Orinoco crocodile is a critically endangered crocodile. Its population is very small, and they can only be found in the Orinoco river basin in Venezuela and Colombia. Extensively hunted for their skins in the 19th and 20th centuries, it is one of the most endangered species of crocodiles. It is a very large species of crocodilian; males have been reported up to 6.8 m in the past, weighing over 900 kg (2,000 lb), but such sizes do not exist today, 5.2 m being a more widely accepted maximum size. A large male today may attain 4.2 m in length and can weigh up to 450 kg (1,000 lb), while females are substantially smaller with the largest likely to weigh around 225 kg (496 lb). Sexual dimorphism is not as profound as in other crocodilian species. The coloration is light even in adults.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crocodile attack</span> Crocodile attacks on humans

Crocodile attacks on humans are common in places where large crocodilians are native and human populations live. It has been estimated that about 1,000 people are killed by crocodilians each year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cuvier's dwarf caiman</span> Species of reptile

Cuvier's dwarf caiman is a small crocodilian in the alligator family from northern and central South America. It is found in Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Trinidad and Venezuela. It lives in riverine forests, flooded forests near lakes, and near fast-flowing rivers and streams. It can traverse dry land to reach temporary pools and tolerates colder water than other species of caimans. Other common names for this species include the musky caiman, the dwarf caiman, Cuvier's caiman, and the smooth-fronted caiman. It is sometimes kept in captivity as a pet and may be referred to as the wedge-head caiman by the pet trade community.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colombian folklore</span>

Colombian folklore are beliefs, customs and cultural traditions in Colombia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spectacled caiman</span> Species of crocodilian native to the Neotropics

The spectacled caiman, also known as the white caiman, common caiman, and speckled caiman, is a crocodilian in the family Alligatoridae. It is brownish-, greenish-, or yellowish-gray colored and has a spectacle-like ridge between its eyes, which is where its common name come from. It grows to a length of 1.4–2.5 m and a weight of 7–40 kg (15–88 lb), with males being both longer and heavier than females. Its diet varies seasonally, commonly consisting of crabs, fish, small mammals, amphibians and snails. Breeding occurs from May to August and 14–40 eggs are laid in July and August. This crocodilian has a large range and population; it is native to much of Latin America, and has been introduced to the United States, Cuba, and Puerto Rico.

Philip de Thaun was the first Anglo-Norman poet. He is the first known poet to write in the Anglo-Norman French vernacular language, rather than Latin. Two poems by him are signed with his name, making his authorship of both clear. A further poem is probably written by him as it bears many writing similarities to his other two poems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Human uses of reptiles</span> Overview of humans uses of reptiles

Human uses of reptiles have for centuries included both symbolic and practical interactions.

References

  1. 1 2 Arnaud Zucker (ed), Physiologos: le bestiaire des bestiaires, Jérôme Millon, 2004, p.300.
  2. PHOTIUS (1977). Bibliothèque. Tome VIII : Codices 257-280 (in French and Ancient Greek). Texte établi et traduit par R. Henry. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. p. 93. ISBN   978-2-251-32227-8.
  3. John Ashton (2009). Curious creatures in zoology. ISBN   978-1-4092-3184-4.
  4. 1 2 Sax, Boria, The Mythical Zoo: An Encyclopedia of Animals in World Myth, Legend, and Literature, ABC-CLIO, 2001, p.70.
  5. Whyile, Dan. "Crocodile tears idiom origin". Theidioms.com. Retrieved 28 September 2018.
  6. Dido and Aeneas libretto
  7. Britton, Adam (n.d.). Do crocodiles cry 'crocodile tears'? Crocodilian Biology Database. Retrieved March 13, 2006 from the Crocodile Specialist Group, Crocodile Species List, FAQ.
  8. "No Faking It, Crocodile Tears Are Real." ScienceDaily, 4 October 2007
  9. Shaner, D. M. & Vliet, K. A.: "Crocodile Tears: 'And thei eten hem wepynge'", BioScience, 2007, Vol. 57, No. 7, pp.615–617
  10. Morais Pérez D, Dalmau Galofre J, Bernat Gili A, Ayerbe Torrero V (1990). "[Crocodile tears syndrome]". Acta Otorrinolaringol Esp (in Spanish). 41 (3): 175–7. PMID   2261223.
  11. McCoy, FJ; Goodman, RC (Jan 1979). "The crocodile tear syndrome". Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. 63 (1): 58–62. doi:10.1097/00006534-197901000-00010. PMID   432324. S2CID   24362510.
  12. F. A. Bogorad (trans Austin Seckersen), "The symptom of crocodile tears", Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 02/1979; 34(1):74-9.
  13. Lester Allen Russin, "Paroxysmal Lacrimation During Eating as a Sequal of Facial Palysyndrome of Crocodile Tears", JAMA. 1939;113(26):2310-2311.