Smile

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Tue Sep 10 13:32:05 EDT 2002


At 12:55 PM -0400 9/10/02, Bart Ehrman wrote:
>   Why does GELAW mean to laugh, but PROSGELAW to smile (accd. to the
>lexica).  Couldn't PROSGELAW mean "to laugh at" someone?  (cf. Infancy
>Gospel of Thomas 8.1 -- GELAW -- and 15.4 -- PROSGELAW)

Although I note that LSJ offers only "smile (upon)," I can think of no
reason why it couldn't mean "laugh at." Moreover I can think of one Latin
passages where there's a similar situation of an infant smiling/laughing
(at his mother):

Vergil, Eclogue 4. (the "Messianic" eclogue!)

 60	incipe, parve puer, risu cognoscere matrem
 61	(matri longa decem tulerunt fastidia menses)
 62	incipe, parve puer: qui non risere parenti,
 63	nec deus hunc mensa, dea nec dignata cubili est. :
-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
Most months:: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu OR cwconrad at ioa.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/



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