Xantippe Dousing Socrates
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
Xantippe Dousing Socrates, also known as the chamberpot episode, is an event in the life of Greek philospher Socrates and his wife Xanthippe. Its most cited version stems from St. Jerome's "Against Jovinianus" treatise, which probably quotes a lost work of Seneca On Marriage (De Matrimonio).
- On one occasion when he opposed Xantippe, who from above was heaping abuse upon him, the termagant soused him with dirty water, but he only wiped his head and said, "I knew that a shower must follow such thunder as that." (tr. W.H. Fremantle)
- Quodam autem tempore cum infinita convicia ex superiori loco ingerenti Xanthippae restitisset, aqua perfusus immunda nihil amplius respondit quam capite deterso: "sciebam, inquit, futurum, ut ista tonitrua imber sequeretur."
Chaucer alludes to the story in the Wife of Bath's Tale:
- How Xantippa caste pisse upon his heed,
- This sely man sat stille as he were deed;
- He wipte his heed, namoore dorste he seyn,
- But 'Er that thonder stynte, comth a reyn!'
[edit]
See also
- Xanthippe
- Dousing
- Xanthippe empties the chamber-pot over the head of Socrates
- Socrates, his Wives and Alcibiades, by Reyer van Blommendael
Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Xantippe Dousing Socrates" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.
