(Vol. viii., pp. 366. 624.; Vol. ix., p. 63.)
I can add another item of the folk lore to those already quoted. One of the
salutations, by which a sneezer is greeted amongst the lower class of
Romans at the present day, is _Figli maschi_, "May you have male children!"
The best essay on _sneezing_, that I am acquainted with, is to be found in
Strada's _Prolusions_, book iii. Prol. 4., in which he replies at some
length, and not unamusingly, to the Query, "Why are sneezers saluted?" It
seems to have arisen out of an occurrence which had recently taken place at
Rome, that a certain _Pistor Suburranus_, after having sneezed twenty-three
times consecutively, had expired at the twenty-fourth sneeze: and his
object is to prove that Sigonius was mistaken in supposing that the custom
of saluting a sneezer had only dated from the days of Gregory the Great,
when many had died of the plague in the act of sneezing. In opposition to
this notion, he adduces passages from Apuleius and Petronius Arbiter,
besides those from Ammianus, Athenaeus, Aristotle, and Homer, already
quoted in your pages by MR. F. J. SCOTT. He then proceeds to give five
causes from which the custom may have sprung, and classifies them as
religious, medical, facetious, poetical, and augural.
Under the first head, he argues that the salutation given to sneezers is
not a mere expression of good wishes, but a kind of veneration: "for," says
he, "we rise to a person sneezing, and humbly uncover our heads, and deal
reverently with him." In proof of this position, he tells us that in
Ethiopia, when the emperor sneezed, the salutations of his adoring
gentlemen of the privy chamber were so loudly uttered as to be heard and
re-echoed by the whole of his court; and thence repeated in the streets, so
that the whole city was in simultaneous commotion.
The other heads are then pursued with considerable learning, and some
humour; and, under the last, he refers us to St. Augustin, _De Doctr.
Christ._ ii. 20., as recording that--
"When the ancients were getting up in the morning, if they chanced to
sneeze whilst putting on their shoes, they immediately went back to bed
again, in order that they might get up more auspiciously, and escape
the misfortunes which were likely to occur on that day."
One almost wishes that people now-a-days would sometimes consent to follow
their example, when they have "got out of bed the wrong way."