Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2018 July 22

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July 22

Manus manum lavat

I was reading some of our old pal Seneca and I found the familiar phrase "one hand washes the other." I thought, wow! That's Seneca? I thought that Jesus or Paul said that. I've only ever heard it used in religious contexts, meaning "we purify/support one another through solidarity and community" rather than the rawly quid pro quo as it appears in the Gourdification of Claudius.

I searched a little and couldn't find it in the Bible at all. Is it in there? If it isn't, how'd it come to be a churchy chestnut, or is my perception there totally off? Temerarius (talk) 15:29, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

There's a lot of washing of feet and clothes in the bible, and a few washings of hands and face, but no sentence in the bible has one hand washing the other. It's just a convenient metaphor picked up by church people (though I don't think I've ever heard it before -- I don't read Seneca!) Dbfirs 16:48, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

The Polish version of this phrase (ręka rękę myje) is very popular in Poland, but its connotation is rather negative. We use it to talk about shady deals between cronies. I've never heard it used in a positive sense that Temerarius talks about. — Kpalion^(talk) 11:15, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm not a church person so I don't know the religious connotations, but there's definitely a kind of not-very-Christian aspect to it. It's specifically a fair deal with no generosity to it. Related to quid pro quo or tit for tat or even the decidedly Old Testament (and even older) eye for an eye. I would definitely say it's got some shady meanings; I'm surprised it's become popular among the church crowd. (Or, cynically speaking, not surprised). Matt Deres (talk) 14:30, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Foramen gloriosum

In Miles_Gloriosus_(play), "...the wise Palaestrio has cut a hole in the wall so the two lovers can see one another." Um, really? I'm no Plautus scholar, but from a brief looksee into his work it seems to me much more likely that this hole would be bored for reasons baser than looking in each other's eyes. In the next graf of the WP article, people are crawling through the hole--was it enlarged in the meantime?

Question's pretty simple: is this the earliest attested glory hole in fiction? Is it simply a lovely coincidence that the play is called Miles Gloriosus? (And why haven't dictionaries done a better job recording the etymology of the sexual sense of the term glory hole? And is the title of this correct?) Temerarius (talk) 16:20, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

The sexual usage dates to the 1940s. The original term is way much older.[1] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:36, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

The idea of lovers communicating through a wall is a familiar trope. A famous example is Pyramus and Thisbe, whose story is mangled in the Mechanicals' play in A Midsummer Night's Dream. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 20:27, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

And the braggart soldier (Miles Gloriosus) is a stock character named without reference to the hole in question. - Nunh-huh 21:36, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

A violent prisoner serving a lengthy jail term remained behind bars during closely supervised visits from family members. One visit from the prisoner's wife resulted in the birth of a child nine months later. Prison officials were left wondering how this had come about. 86.133.26.146 (talk) 10:48, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Martha cacaturit

Does anyone have a codex of roman inscriptions handy? I can't find the Cacaturit graffito, in the House_of_the_Centenary, much less a photo of it. The English translation in Pompeii and Herculaneum Sourcebook is "This is Martha's dining room, as she shits in this dining room," while that WP page differs, giving note only to the one word "cacaturit," (being one-from-hapax,) translating as "wants to shit." It would be helpful to find it to create a page for it, it's an notable graffito in that it attests to Jewish presence in Pompeii, and provides an example of an idea midpoint between current-day "don't shit where you eat" and a similar sentiment in Deut. Temerarius (talk) 17:57, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

No idea, but what's the connection to Jews? --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 13:08, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Martha is a Jewish name. — Kpalion^(talk) 13:20, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

So's Elizabeth, but I'm not suggesting Her Majesty is Jewish. Wouldn't it prove the adoption of a Jewish name, rather than a Jewish person? --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 13:39, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Apparently it's number 4.5242 in the CIL, although I don't have a copy and it doesn't seem to be online. And yeah, in 79, there's no way a non-Jewish person would have been named Martha. The Romans just didn't name themselves that way. She could have converted to Judaism and changed her name, possibly. Or she could have been Christian, but that's also pretty unlikely in 79. Adam Bishop (talk) 17:08, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. Interestingly, hardly any of the notable Marthas at Martha (given name) are/were Jewish. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 14:38, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Because most notable Marthas lived after "Martha" had become a Christian name. — Kpalion^(talk) 09:52, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

Consider, for example, the chances of going to Norway and meeting a Christian or atheist local named Abdullah whose ancestors had lived in Trondheim since the Viking Age; no, if you meet an Abdullah in such a context, he's guaranteed to be a Muslim of non-Nordic ancestry. Nyttend (talk) 00:02, 28 July 2018 (UTC)