Crocodile tears

When we weep Crocodile tears we are said to be putting on an insincere show of grief. But why crocodiles? And do they really weep?

The idea that a crocodile weeps insincerely has a long pedigree. It was thought that crocodiles, while they were luring and devouring their prey, shed tears. As far back as classical times, a collection of proverbs attributed to Plutarch compares people who desire or cause the death of someone and then lament publicly afterwards with the behaviour of a crocodile. The concept was picked up by the mediaeval theologian, Photios, who gave it a Christian gloss and used it to exemplify the concept of repentance.

The mediaeval world was fascinated with stories of strange and exotic places and the fauna that went with them. One such account was written by Sir John Mandeville around 1400 in which he described the crocodile, comparing them to serpents. He goes on to write, “these serpents slay men, and they eat them weeping.” The reptile had become a symbol for hypocrisy. The naturalist Edward Topsell, writing in 1658, noted that “to get a man within his danger he [the crocodile] will sob, sigh and weep, as though he were in extremity, but suddenly he destroyeth him.” Topsell went on to remark that some authorities claim that the crocodile wept after noshing on a human, much as Judas did after betraying Christ.

For Topsell then, the crocodile used its tears both as a trick to lure its prey and as a sign of repentance. And this duality of motive for its lachrymose behaviour appears in the works of Shakespeare, some half a century earlier. In Othello the protagonist is convinced that his wife is cheating on him and declares “If that the earth could teem with woman’s tears,/ Each drop she falls would prove a crocodile.” – a clear usage of it to indicate fake repentance. On the other hand, in Henty Vi Part Two we have an example of its usage to indicate trickery; “Gloucester’s show / Beguiles him, as the mournful crocodile / With sorrow, snares relenting passengers.”

In the Faerie Queene, Edmund Spenser consolidates both senses when describing the reptile as “in false grief, hiding his harmful guile/ Doth weep full sore, and sheddeth tender tears”. Purcells’ opera, Dido and Aeneas, performed in 1688, contains the heart-rending scene where Aeneas tells his paramour that he must leave. Dido responds by saying “thus on the fatal banks of the Nile/ weeps the deceitful crocodile.” And this sense continued into modern times. Rudyard Kipling in his Just So Stories, published in 1902, wrote, “come hither, little one, said the Crocodile, for I am the Crocodile and he wept crocodile-tears to show it was quite true.”

And so the big question is, do crocodiles really cry? I’ve not been close enough to one to find out but I’m told that although they do not have tear ducts, the glands that moisten their eyes are adjacent to their throat. When they open their mouths and start chomping on their prey, the effort involved forces moisture from the glands and give the impression of tears. So there we are.

And as a post script, Bogorad’s syndrome, known colloquially as Crocodile Tears syndrome, is an unfortunate side effect of recovery from Bell’s palsy, causing the sufferer to shed tears when they eat. This side effect was first described in 1926 by the Russian scientist, F A Bogorad who gave his name to it. I much prefer the colloquialism.

Filed under: Culture, History Tagged: Bogorad syndrome, crocodile as symbol of hypocrisy, crocodile tears syndrome, Edward Topsell, F A Bogorad, Just So Stories, origin of crocodile tears, Photios, Rudyard Kipling, Sir John Mandeville, William Shakespeare