From: Nichael Cramer (nichael@sover.net)
Date: Thu Jul 02 1998 - 14:53:43 EDT
Jim West wrote:
> >Right, I understand that; my question was would "inner room" ever be used
> >as a euphemism for a privy? I.e. (and this is genuine question) were
> >privies ever _inner_ rooms in, as it were, sitz in leben? And as such
> >would the intended audience have ever made the necessary connection?
> Yes it is- I am thinking in particular of the story in Judges where Ehud
> goes into the toilet to stab Eglon! In Hebrew, the text is quite clear that
> Eglon is sitting on the toilet- Ehud comes in, Eglon stands up (in a quite
> compromising way!!) and he is gutted!
Not to belabor a point, but since I don't have anyting better to do[**]:
Jim, how in heaven's name do you get Eglon into a privy??!? The text says
explicitly that he was sitting in his "cool upper chamber" (NRSV & NJPS;
KJV: "a summer parlor"). The only thing at all scatlogicial in the
passage is the "filth" that "spilled out" after Eglon was eviscerated.
Setting aside the fact that --as the NJPS notes-- the meaning of the
Hebrew of the term is uncertain, the emergence of such "filth" certainly
does not, under the circumstances, require a privy.
> [...] If the
> story in Judges is any indication, the toilet was in the inner room and a
> chamber pot was most likely used to dispense with the waste.
Likewise, the presence of a chamber-pot doth not a privy make. (Again in
her younger days my grandmother slept with a chamberpot under her bed;
and --trust me on this one-- you would have been taking your life in your
hands had you compared her bedroom to a privy!) cf. Leopold Bloom's trip
the --outdoor-- privy and Molly's late-night use of the chamberpot.
In any case, to restate the initial point, this is an *archaeological*
question. Did dwellings of this time and place have privies indoors?
Does anyone here actually know?
(Quite frankly, given 1] the climate of the region and 2] given the
relative scarcity of this building practice elsewhere, I would be rather
surprised if they had!)
Nichael
[** Well, actually, yes I do; but it's absolutely beautiful out.
As well as this is the first day in about three weeks that
it's not been pouring here in Vt and wrangling about this stuff
is much more fun than doing work.]
--- B-Greek home page: http://sunsite.unc.edu/bgreek You are currently subscribed to b-greek as: [cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu] To unsubscribe, forward this message to unsubscribe-b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu To subscribe, send a message to
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:39:53 EDT