Tit for tit and tat for tat is a 500ad greek poem
“I Am Echo”
I am echo if you say that
then I’ll say that
Tit for tit and tat for tat
If you’ll be silent then I must
Tit for tit and tat for tat
now who could have a tongue more just
LINK TO COLUMN: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/924/whats-the-origin-of-tit-for-tat
Presumably a poem from AD 500 wasn’t in English. Were “Tit” and “Tat” the words used in the original Greek, or a modern translation? And if a translation, was the translation before or after the origin of the English expression?
Welcome to the Straight Dope Message Boards, Mr Quatro, we’re glad to have you with us. For future ref, it’s helpful to other readers to provide a link to the column under consideration. Saves search time and helps keep us on the same page. Yes, “tit for tat” is currently on the home page, but will soon sink into the Archives. Anyhow, no big deal, I’ve added the link at the bottom of your post.
We also like folks to provide some cites that verify their (otherwise unsupported) statement. We’re a suspicious lot here, and (especially with word and phrase origins), we’ve seen lots of interesting ex post facto “origins” that have no basis in fact. So, indicating where you learned about this ancient Greek poem would be helpful.
There was a young woman named Pat
Who had triplets named Rat, Bat, and Tat.
They were fun in the breeding
But hell in the feeding
When she found there was no …
Strange that this poem appears no where else on the internet except this thread.
Not so. I found it (similarly unattributed, but dated to 500BC, rather than 500AD) in an entry on another forum dated 2007.
However, the Greek language simply doesn’t allow it. “Τιτ [for] τιτ και τατ [for] τατ” isn’t possible in Greek, even if there are such words as τιτ and τατ (and I don’t believe there are), no matter what word is used to translate “for”, because the words would have to be in different cases. And, of course, Ancient Greek doesn’t employ rhyme to begin with.
It is possible that there is an old Greek poetic fragment of which this English is a decent translation all the same, but it is no good citing the English version as a source.
Thank you for adding the link …
Yes, now I remember reading it in a small library in El Cajon, California 1984 I think it was.
It was with a lot of other old poems and it was 500bc I never could remember if it was ad or bc
till now and it was attributed to a Greek poet. (his name I have forgotten)
but I never forgot the message of echo, almost like going up and down the steps
of a temple
How the greek language came up with a ryhme using tit for tat this I do not know
Why would a Greek poem rhyme when translated to English?
Because a translator worked to make it so. There are such things as rhyming translations of foreign language works, you know.
This particular example is most likely arrant nonsense, but simply rhyming isn’t evidence of that. Kennedy’s comment about case seems to me to be one of the more salient points.
This may be the same poem as quoted in “The Greek Anthology: The Garland of Philip, and Some Contemporary Epigrams”
(Which would date it in the period from 90 BC to 40 AD)
It is not the same translation, but it seems very similar.