In time of mourning the Jews shaved their heads, and neglected
to trim their beards. The king of the Ammonites shaved off half the
beards of David’s ambassadors, which was the greatest insult he could
offer. This will appear from the regard which the easterns have ever
paid to the beard. D’Arvieux gives a remarkable instance of an Arab who,
having received a wound in his jaw, chose to hazard his life rather than
to suffer his surgeon to take off his beard. It was one of the most
infamous punishments of cowardice in Sparta, that they who turned their
backs in the day of battle were obliged to appear abroad with one half
of their beard shaved, and the other half unshaved. The easterns
considered the beard as venerable, because it distinguished men from
women, and was the mark of freemen in opposition to slaves. It was
still, in times comparatively modern, the greatest indignity that could
be offered in Persia. Shah Abbas, king of that country, enraged that the
emperor of Hindostan had inadvertently addressed him by a title far
inferior to that of the great shah-in-shah, or king of kings, ordered
the beards of the ambassadors to be shaved off, and sent them home to
their master. “One of the buffoons of the bashaw,” says Belzoni, “took
it into his head one day, for a frolic, to shave his beard, which is no
trifle among the Turks; for some of them, I really believe, would sooner
have their head cut off than their beard. In this state he went home to
his women, who actually thrust him out of the door; and such was the
disgrace of cutting off his beard, that even his fellow buffoons would
not eat with him till it was grown again.”
to trim their beards. The king of the Ammonites shaved off half the
beards of David’s ambassadors, which was the greatest insult he could
offer. This will appear from the regard which the easterns have ever
paid to the beard. D’Arvieux gives a remarkable instance of an Arab who,
having received a wound in his jaw, chose to hazard his life rather than
to suffer his surgeon to take off his beard. It was one of the most
infamous punishments of cowardice in Sparta, that they who turned their
backs in the day of battle were obliged to appear abroad with one half
of their beard shaved, and the other half unshaved. The easterns
considered the beard as venerable, because it distinguished men from
women, and was the mark of freemen in opposition to slaves. It was
still, in times comparatively modern, the greatest indignity that could
be offered in Persia. Shah Abbas, king of that country, enraged that the
emperor of Hindostan had inadvertently addressed him by a title far
inferior to that of the great shah-in-shah, or king of kings, ordered
the beards of the ambassadors to be shaved off, and sent them home to
their master. “One of the buffoons of the bashaw,” says Belzoni, “took
it into his head one day, for a frolic, to shave his beard, which is no
trifle among the Turks; for some of them, I really believe, would sooner
have their head cut off than their beard. In this state he went home to
his women, who actually thrust him out of the door; and such was the
disgrace of cutting off his beard, that even his fellow buffoons would
not eat with him till it was grown again.”