Crocodile tears

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Bogorad's syndrome[edit]


History and usage[edit]

The expression comes from an ancient anecdote that crocodiles weep in order to lure their prey, or that they cry for the victims they are eating, first told in the Bibliotheca by Photios.[3] The story is repeated in bestiaries such as De bestiis et aliis rebus. This tale was first spread widely in English in the stories of the travels of Sir John Mandeville in the 14th century.[4]


However, while crocodiles can and do generate tears, they do not actually cry.[5]

One prominent use of the expression is by Shakespeare in Othello, Act IV, Scene i

O devil, devil!

If that the earth could teem with woman's tears,

Each drop she falls would prove a crocodile.

Out of my sight!

Again, Shakespeare, in an earlier play, Henry VI, Part 2, Act III, Scene i

...and Gloucester's show

Beguiles him as the mournful crocodile

With sorrow, snares relenting passengers;

And in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, Act II, Scene vii

LEPIDUS: What manner o' thing is your crocodile?

ANTONY: It is shaped, sir, like itself; and it is as broad as it hath breadth: it is just so high as it is, and moves with its own organs: it lives by that which nourisheth it; and the elements once out of it, it transmigrates.

LEPIDUS: What colour is it of?

ANTONY: Of it own colour too.

LEPIDUS: 'Tis a strange serpent.

ANTONY: 'Tis so. And the tears of it are wet.

See also[edit]


  1. ^ Morais Pérez D, Dalmau Galofre J, Bernat Gili A, Ayerbe Torrero V (1990). "[Crocodile tears syndrome]". Acta Otorrinolaringol Esp (in Spanish; Castilian) 41 (3): 175–7. PMID 2261223. 

Further reading[edit]

  • D. Malcolm Shaner and Kent A. Vliet, 2007. Crocodile Tears: And thei eten hem wepynge, BioscienceVol. 57, No. 7, Pages 615–617

External links[edit]