Crocodile Tears: The Fascinating Myths Behind Hypocrisy! #learn idioms
#crocodile tears
#ancient myths #language history
#fake tears #superficial emotion
#historical phrases #crocodile myths #trendy pupil #daily ideas
#daily tips #crocodile
#vocabulary #how to learn vocabulary
#speak fluent english
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.
The expression comes from an ancient anecdote that crocodiles weep for the victims they are eating.
This tale was first spread widely in english in the stories of the travels of Sir John Mandeville in the 14th century.
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."
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.
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.
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