Peace is in good hands
QUESTION When was the first recorded handshake?
The earliest recorded depiction of a handshake comes from a relief on the Throne Dais of the Assyrian King Shalmaneser III, dated to around 846-845 BC. It depicts him shaking hands with King Marduk-zakir-shumi I of Babylon.
The scene commemorates Shalmaneser’s support of Marduk-zakir- shumi against his rebellious brother, Mardukbel-usati and the ascent of Marduk-zakirshumi to the throne.
handshaking was common practice among the Ancient Greeks. It was depicted on Greek pottery, and Ancient Greek tombstones would often show a carved handshake as a bond between the living and the dead.
handshakes of the era conveyed peace between combatants. It was a way to demonstrate that there were no concealed weapons or intentions.
The poet homer depicted the clasping of hands in this way in The Iliad, during a meeting between Diomedes and Glaucus. The two men, on opposing sides in the Trojan War, realise they have a mutual bond through their grandfathers. They exchange armour and ‘clasped each other’s hands as a pledge of their good faith’.
The Romans used the handshake in a similar manner. Such handshakes feature on Roman coinage and the Roman poet Ovid described how the Sabine women persuaded their fathers and husbands to stop fighting: ‘The men let their weapons and their mettle fall, and, having laid by their swords, the fathers-in-law shake hands with their sons-in-law and receive their handshake.’
The handshake’s modern usage is thought to be derived from the Quaker movement of the 17th century. They viewed a simple handclasp as a more egalitarian alternative to bowing or tipping a hat.
Carrie Goode, Salisbury, Wilts.
QUESTION Which was the first storm to be named?
The formal naming of storms (tropical cyclones) began in the 1950s in the U.S.
The practice wasn’t adopted by the Met Office until November 2015, when Abigail became our first named storm. From the 19th century, storms were named intermittently, usually after the particular saint’s day on which the hurricane occurred. For example, there was hurricane Santa Ana which struck Puerto Rico with exceptional violence on July 26, 1825; and San Felipe, which hit Puerto Rico on September 13, 1876.
The first systematic naming process was established by the Australian meteorologist Clement Wragge in 1895. he established weather stations on Mount Wellington (Tasmania) and Mount Kosciuszko, mainland Australia’s tallest mountain in New South Wales.
Wragge began by naming storms after the letters of the Greek alphabet (alpha, beta, gamma etc). he later began naming them after Australian politicians such as James Drake, edmund Barton and Alfred Deakin, or figures from history such as Xerxes and hannibal.
Wragge’s system did not catch on, and it was only in 1950 that the National hurricane Centre in Florida began naming storms. At first, they used the U.S. phonetic alphabet (Able, Baker, Charlie, etc) but this method was changed in 1953 in favour of using alphabetised female names. Names were considered useful as they allowed the quick identification of storms in warning messages — names are easier to remember than technical terms.
The first tropical storm to receive a name was Tropical Storm Alice in 1953. Alice hit Florida, Cuba and Central America in late May and early June of that year. In 1978, men’s names joined the U.S. storm list, alternating with the female names. In 2015, the UK Met Office and the Republic of Ireland weather service, Met Éireann, decided to follow in the footsteps of their U.S. counterparts, launching a ‘Name Our Storms’ public awareness campaign.
Martin P. Gold, Crewe, Cheshire.
QUESTION Which quotes are most commonly misattributed to Shakespeare?
‘YOU could fill a book with what Winston Churchill didn’t say,’ remarked his colleague Rab Butler, and much the same applies to William Shakespeare, where quotes about love or life are routinely attributed to the Bard.
A classic example is, ‘hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.’ This is wrong on two counts: first, the actual quote is preceded by, ‘heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned’, and second it comes from William Congreve’s tragedy The Mourning Bride (1697).
The aphorism, ‘The pen is mightier than the sword’ was not written by Shakespeare but came from the pen of the Victorian writer edward Bulwer-Lytton, in his 1839 play Richelieu: Or The Conspiracy.
Another common misattribution is, ’Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all.’ This comes from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem In Memoriam A.h.h., 1850. The line is often quoted in response to lost romantic love, but it was actually grieving the loss of Tennyson’s close friend, fellow poet Arthur henry hallam, who died suddenly at the age of 22.
Likewise, the beautiful Shakespearean sounding sentiment, ‘how do I love thee? Let me count the ways . . .’ came from the pen of the english poet elizabeth Barrett Browning, in her Sonnets From The Portuguese, 1850.
The saying, ‘Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive’ feels as if it could come from any Shakespeare play, but in fact came from Walter Scott’s historical romance poem Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field(1808).
Countless Shakespeare quotes have been abridged or distorted: a well-known example is ‘Gilding the lily’ (to exaggerate), from King John, which was originally ‘To gild refined gold, to paint the lily . . . is wasteful and ridiculous excess.’
James Owens, Wareham, Dorset.