It is probable that this custom, so universally prevalent, originated in some ancient superstition; it seems to have excited inquiry among all nations.
"Some Catholics," says Father Feyjoo, "have attributed the origin of this custom to the ordinance of a pope, Saint Gregory, who is said to have instituted a short benediction to be used on such occasions, at a time when, during a pestilence, the crisis was attended by _sneezing_, and in most cases followed by _death_."
But the rabbins, who have a story for everything, say, that before Jacob men never sneezed but _once_, and then immediately _died_: they assure us that that patriarch was the first who died by natural disease; before him all men died by sneezing; the memory of which was ordered to be preserved in _all nations_, by a command of every prince to his subjects to employ some salutary exclamation after the act of sneezing. But these are Talmudical dreams, and only serve to prove that so familiar a custom has always excited inquiry.
Even Aristotle has delivered some considerable nonsense on this custom; he says it is an honourable acknowledgment of the seat of good sense and genius--the head--to distinguish it from two other offensive eruptions of air, which are never accompanied by any benediction from the by-standers. The custom, at all events, existed long prior to Pope Gregory. The lover in Apuleius, Gyton in Petronius, and allusions to it in Pliny, prove its antiquity; and a memoir of the French Academy notices the practice in the New World, on the first discovery of America. Everywhere man is saluted for sneezing.
An amusing account of the ceremonies which attend the _sneezing_ of a king of Monomotapa, shows what a national concern may be the sneeze of despotism.--Those who are near his person, when this happens, salute him in so loud a tone, that persons in the ante-chamber hear it, and join in the acclamation; in the adjoining apartments they do the same, till the noise reaches the street, and becomes propagated throughout the city; so that, at each sneeze of his majesty, results a most horrid cry from the salutations of many thousands of his vassals.
When the king of Sennaar sneezes, his courtiers immediately turn their backs on him, and give a loud slap on their right thigh.
With the ancients sneezing was ominous;[1] from the _right_ it was considered auspicious; and Plutarch, in his Life of Themistocles, says, that before a naval battle it was a sign of conquest! Catullus, in his pleasing poem of Acme and Septimus, makes this action from the deity of Love, from the _left_, the source of his fiction. The passage has been elegantly versified by a poetical friend, who finds authority that the gods sneezing on the _right_ in _heaven_, is supposed to come to us on _earth_ on the _left_.
Cupid _sneezing_ in his flight,
Once was heard upon the _right_,
Boding woe to lovers true;
But now upon the _left_ he flew,
And with sporting _sneeze_ divine,
Gave to joy the sacred sign.
Acme bent her lovely face,
Flush'd with rapture's rosy grace,
And those eyes that swam in bliss,
Prest with many a breathing kiss;
Breathing, murmuring, soft, and low,
Thus might life for ever flow!
"Love of my life, and life of love!
Cupid rules our fates above,
Ever let us vow to join
In homage at his happy shrine."
Cupid heard the lovers true,
Again upon the _left_ he flew,
And with sporting _sneeze_ divine,
Renew'd of joy the _sacred sign_!
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 1: Xenophon having addressed a speech to his soldiers, in which he declared he felt many reasons for a dependence on the favour of the gods, had scarcely concluded his words when one of them emitted a loud sneeze. Xenophon at once declared this a spontaneous omen sent by Jupiter as a sign that his protection was awarded them.
"O, happy Bridegroom! thee a lucky sneeze
To Sparta welcom'd."--_Theocritus_, Idyll xviii.
"Prometheus was the first that wished well to the sneezer, when the man which he had made of clay fell into a fit of sternutation upon the approach of that celestial fire which he stole from the sun."--Ross's _Arcana Microcosmi_.]
[The end]
Isaac D'Israeli's essay: On The Custom Of Saluting After Sneezing