Lap, womb (Schoß)

Queen Ankhnes-meryre II and her son, Pepy II, c. 2200 BCE
Queen Ankhnes-meryre II and her son, Pepy II, c. 2200 BCE

Events are ‘in the lap of the gods’. There are stirrings ‘in the womb of the earth’. English speakers have no problem in recognising these idioms as literary constructs or poetic images. The fact that the same German word, Schoß, is used for both ‘lap’ and ‘womb’ does not mean that readers of German poetry have any difficulty distinguishing between the concepts, between gynaecology and laptops!

Descendant of: 

THE HUMAN BODY  


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