"Et n'esternuay point regardant le soleil."
"And did not sneeze as he looked upon the sun."
Ronsard, tom. v. p. 158., quoted in Southey's
Common Place Book, 3rd series, p. 303.
Here, not to sneeze appears to be looked on as an ill omen.
Ammianus has an epigram upon one whose nose was so long that he never heard it sneeze, and therefore never said Ζεῦ σῶσον, God bless.—Notes on the Variorum Plautus (ed. Gronov., Lugd. Bat.), p. 720.
Athenæus, says Potter in his Archæologia Græca, proves that the head was esteemed holy, because it was customary to swear by it, and adore as holy the sneezes that proceeded from it. And Aristotle tells us in express terms that sneezing was accounted a deity: "Τὸν Πταρμὸν θεὸν ἡγούμεθα"—Archæol. Græc. (5th ed.), p. 338.
"Oscitatio in nixu letalis est, sicut
Sternuisse a coitu abortivum."