Crocodile tears, or superficial sympathy, is a false, insincere display of emotion such as a

hypocrite Hypocrisy is the practice of engaging in the same behavior or activity for which one criticizes another or the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform. In moral psychology, it is the ...

crying fake tears of grief. The phrase derives from an ancient belief that

crocodiles Crocodiles (family Crocodylidae) or true crocodiles are large semiaquatic reptiles that live throughout the tropics in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Australia. The term crocodile is sometimes used even more loosely to include all extant memb ...

shed tears while consuming their prey, and as such is present in many modern languages, especially in Europe where it was introduced through

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

. 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. However, evidence suggests this could also be triggered by feeding. Bogorad's syndrome, a condition which causes sufferers to shed tears while consuming food, has been labelled "crocodile tears syndrome" in reference to the legend.

History and usage

The expression comes from an ancient anecdote that crocodiles weep for the victims they are eating. A collection of proverbs attributed to

Plutarch Plutarch (; grc-gre, Πλούταρχος, ''Ploútarchos''; ; – after AD 119) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for hi ...

suggests that the phrase "crocodile tears" was well known in antiquity: comparing the crocodile's behaviour to people who desire or cause the death of someone, but then publicly lament for them.Arnaud Zucker (ed), ''Physiologos: le bestiaire des bestiaires'', Jérôme Millon, 2004, p.300. The story is given a Christian gloss in the '' Bibliotheca'' by early medieval theologian

Photios Photios I ( el, Φώτιος, ''Phōtios''; c. 810/820 – 6 February 893), also spelled PhotiusFr. Justin Taylor, essay "Canon Law in the Age of the Fathers" (published in Jordan Hite, T.O.R., & Daniel J. Ward, O.S.B., "Readings, Cases, Materia ...

. Photios uses the story to illustrate the Christian concept of repentance. The story is repeated in bestiaries such as ''De bestiis et aliis rebus''. 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."Sax, Boria, ''The Mythical Zoo: An Encyclopedia of Animals in World Myth, Legend, and Literature, ABC-CLIO, 2001, p.70. In this version, the crocodile pretends to be in distress to lure prey into a false sense of security. However, Topsell also refers to the older story that crocodiles wept during and after eating a man, repeating the standard Christian moral that this signified a kind of fake repentance like

Judas Judas Iscariot (; grc-x-biblical, Ἰούδας Ἰσκαριώτης; syc, ܝܗܘܕܐ ܣܟܪܝܘܛܐ; died AD) was a disciple and one of the original Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ. According to all four canonical gospels, Judas betr ...

weeping after betraying Jesus.

In literature

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

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. He also refers to the version about tricking prey in ''

Henry VI, Part 2 ''Henry VI, Part 2'' (often written as ''2 Henry VI'') is a Shakespearean history, history play by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1591 and set during the lifetime of King Henry VI of England. Whereas ''Henry VI, Part 1'' ...

'', Act III, Scene i, in which a character refers to the faked emotions of the Duke of Gloucester: "Gloucester's show / Beguiles him, as the mournful crocodile / With sorrow, snares relenting passengers." In '' Antony and Cleopatra'', Act II, Scene vii, Mark Antony chides Lepidus, who has asked him what crocodiles are like, with a meaningless description ending with the words "And the tears of it are wet". Shakespeare's contemporary Edmund Spenser also refers to the story in ''

The Faerie Queene ''The Faerie Queene'' is an English epic poem by Edmund Spenser. Books IIII were first published in 1590, then republished in 1596 together with books IVVI. ''The Faerie Queene'' is notable for its form: at over 36,000 lines and over 4,000 sta ...

'', writing of the "cruel crafty" creature "which, in false grief, hiding his harmful guile / Doth weep full sore, and sheddeth tender tears. In Henry Purcell's 1688 opera ''

Dido and Aeneas ''Dido and Aeneas'' (Z. 626) is an opera in a prologue and three acts, written by the English Baroque composer Henry Purcell with a libretto by Nahum Tate. The dates of the composition and first performance of the opera are uncertain. It was com ...

'', (librettist

Nahum Tate Nahum Tate ( ; 1652 – 30 July 1715) was an Irish poet, hymnist and lyricist, who became Poet Laureate in 1692. Tate is best known for ''The History of King Lear'', his 1681 adaptation of Shakespeare's ''King Lear'', and for his libretto for ...

), when Aeneas tells Dido he must abandon her to found Rome on the Italian Peninsula, she proclaims, "Thus on the fatal banks of Nile, / Weeps the deceitful crocodile."

Actual crocodile behaviour

While crocodiles can and do generate tears, the tears are not linked to emotion. The fluid from their tear ducts functions to clean and lubricate the eye, and is most prominent and visible when crocodiles have been on dry land for a while. In the case of American crocodiles and saltwater crocodiles, the tears help rid of the excess salt that they take in with their food. According to Adam Britton,

It is difficult to trace the origin of this particular myth, but it's easy to see why it has become so popular – for an apparently remorseless creature such as a crocodile to actually weep over its victims is a memorable irony which has inspired considerable prose and created a phrase which is still popular today.

In 2006, neurologist Malcolm Shaner, assisted by Kent Vliet, a researcher at the University of Florida, decided to test the story that crocodiles or their close relatives alligators and caimans were likely to "weep" while feeding. Studying animals in Florida's St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park, Vliet recorded seven caimans feeding. He chose to use caimans rather than crocodiles because at the sanctuary they could be observed feeding on dry land. Five of the seven animals were seen "weeping", leading to the conclusion that the story describes a real phenomenon. The researchers suggest that the "weeping" may be caused by the hissing of warm air during feeding, which is forced through the sinuses, stimulating the animals' tear glands into emptying fluid into the eye.

Bogorad's syndrome

The phrase gives its name to Bogorad's syndrome, colloquially "crocodile tears syndrome", an uncommon consequence of recovery from Bell's palsy where faulty regeneration of the

facial nerve The facial nerve, also known as the seventh cranial nerve, cranial nerve VII, or simply CN VII, is a cranial nerve that emerges from the pons of the brainstem, controls the muscles of facial expression, and functions in the conveyance of taste ...

causes sufferers to shed tears while eating. Russian neuropathologist F. A. Bogorad, who first described the condition in 1926, did so in an article entitled "syndrome of the crocodile tears" (also translated as "the symptom of crocodile tears"). Bogorad argued that the tears were caused by the act of salivation.Lester Allen Russin, "Paroxysmal Lacrimation During Eating as a Sequal of Facial Palysyndrome of Crocodile Tears", JAMA. 1939;113(26):2310-2311.

References

External links