In the Odyssey, xvii. 541-7., we have, imitating the hexameters, the following passage:
"Thus Penelope spake. Then quickly Telemachus sneez'd loud,
Sounding around all the building: his mother, with smiles at her son, said,
Swiftly addressing her rapid and high-toned words to Eumæus,
'Go then directly, Eumæus, and call to my presence the strange guest.
See'st thou not that my son, ev'ry word I have spoken hath sneez'd at?[[5]]
Thus portentous, betok'ning the fate of my hateful suitors,
All whom death and destruction await by a doom irreversive.'"
Dionysius Halicarnassus, on Homer's poetry (s. 24.), says, sneezing was considered by that poet as a good sign (σύμβολον ἀγαθόν); and from the Anthology (lib. ii.) the words οὐδὲ λέγει, Ζεῦ σῶσον, ἐὰν πταρῇ, show that it was proper to exclaim "God bless you!" when any one sneezed.
Aristotle, in the Problems (xxxiii. 7.), inquires why sneezing is reckoned a God (διὰ τί τὸν μὲν πταρμὸν, θεὸν ἡγούμεθα εἴναι); to which he suggests, that it may be because it comes from the head, the most divine part about us (θειοτάτου τῶν περὶ ἡμᾶς). Persons having the inclination, but not the power to sneeze, should look at the sun, for reasons he assigns in Problems (xxxiii. 4.).