Exact Words / Mythology & Religion

• Even the gods fall for this one occasionally. In Norse Mythology, Loki, the God of Mischief, made a bet with the dwarf Brokk; the bet was for his head, which at the time meant "the sum that your head is worth" (i.e. to ransom himself). When he lost, it turned out that Brokk wanted his head — literally — due to his cheating over the wager, but still losing. Loki, being who he is, still managed to turn the tables, however, by pulling some Exact Words right back: "My head may be yours, but my neck is not." Hence, Brokk couldn't decapitate him to "claim his prize" because they couldn't manage to define which part of Loki was his head and which was his neck. Brokk still got the last word, however, and sewed Loki's mouth shut to keep him from performing any more trickery, hence one of his nicknames, Loki Scar-lip.
• In Greek Mythology:
  • Apollo offered Sibyl her fondest wish if she agreed to sleep with him. She held up a handful of sand and asked to live for as many years as there were grains of sand in her hand. Apollo agreed but Sibyl still refused him. In response, Apollo cursed her by giving her the years she desired... but she would not be eternally youthful. After a few hundred years, she became a shriveled gnome.
    • Eos of the dawn once fell in love with a mortal and asked for him to be immortal... but this only resulted in him shrivelling into a grasshopper or cicada, as she forgot the youth. When Selene, Eos' sister was in a similar situation, she asked for her lover to remain the way he was when she first saw him forever, forgetting that she is the titaness of the moon, so Endymion was asleep at the time.
  • When Icarius' daughter Erigone was Driven to Suicide by hanging, she or Dionysus cursed the maidens of Athens to "swing" as she had. To save their children, the Athenians developed the Aiora rite, in which young women literally swung from the trees... safely, on rope swings.
  • A seer said that Psyche's mysterious betrothed "is a monster whom neither gods or men can resist". She was not speaking literally; Cupid is mostly human (except for his gorgeous angelic wings), attractive, and compassionate. He's a monster in the sense that he's the god of love. (As for the second part of the prophecy...she never said that gods or men would want to resist him in the first place, did she?)
  • When Thetys, the beautiful nereid, got to marriage age, a prophecy said her child will be more powerful than the father. Wanting to avoid the fate of his own father, Zeus with the agreement of the other gods hitches her with a mortal - since she is a goddess, the child would be a demigod, which would mean the child would be stronger than the father by definition. This almost backfired on Zeus though as Thetys tried to make her child immortal. Which would have made him certainly able to challenge the gods. She forgot his heel though. And forgot to stick around to make her child as arrogant as herself. In spite of his mother's wishes, Achilles chooses mortality and humanity when he goes to Troy.
  • The mother of Meleager asked the Fates how long he would live. The Fates told her that he would live until the top stick in the fireplace finished burning. She immediately grabbed the stick out of the fireplace and stowed it in a safe place. When Meleager later killed his uncles while hunting the Caledonyan Boar, his mother, enraged, threw the stick into the fire, and Meleager died on the spot.
• According to The Qur'an, Iblis, the Islamic equivalent of the Devil, fell from grace after falling foul of this trope. When Allah made a prophecy that one of His most devoted servants would rebel against Him, the Angels were greatly troubled and begged Iblis, one of the Djinn, to speak to Allah on their behalf; Iblis, who was loyal to Allah at the time, made Allah swear a promise that none of the Angels would be forced out of Allah's service. When the Angels and Djinn were commanded to bow before Allah's third creation, Adam, Iblis arrogantly objected, and was cursed for his disobedience; Allah had made no mention of Iblis or any of the Djinn in His promise.
• In The Bible, God tells Abraham to bring his son Isaac up to the mountain and offer him as a Human Sacrifice. That, it turns out, is all God wants—Isaac offered as a sacrifice. Once it's clear that the two have enough faith to go through with the killing, God sends an angel to stop it from actually taking place. (Abraham then spots a ram stuck in a nearby bush and sacrifices that to prove his seriousness—and possibly to get some mutton for his trouble. We don't know what happened to the ram, exactly.)
  • There's actually another version of the story though where Isaac appears to die. The story mentions no ram, and only chillingly says that "Abraham and his family" went home.
  • In some versions of the Biblical story of Jacob, this is pulled by Laban. Jacob was in love with Laban's daughter Rachel, and asked her father for her hand in marriage. Jacob couldn't produce the normal bride-price for Rachel, though, so Laban told him that he could work for him for seven years instead and afterwards, Jacob could marry his daughter. However, Laban had two daughters, and he never specified which one Jacob would marry, leaving Jacob with Rachel's sister Leah as his wife.
    • As the story continues, Jacob then worked another seven-years so that he could finally marry Rachel.
  • Elisha served this up with a side of Prophecy Twist in II Kings 8:7-15. A lot of translators have trouble with 8:10 because the Hebrew seems ambiguous, instructing Hazael either to lie or tell the truth to his master King Ben-Hadad about whether he'd recover from his illness. However, as the story goes on to reveal, what the prophecy really meant was "Tell him his illness won't kill him, although I'm telling you he's going to die anyway." Taking his cue from a further prophecy that he would soon be the new King, Hazael returned to Ben-Hadad and told him Elisha had promised he would recover; but the next day, he cured Ben-Hadad of his illness once and for all by suffocating him with a washcloth. Then he seized the throne for himself.
  • Jesus pulls a particularly effective one in Luke 20:25 when challenged by his opponents to take a stand on whether the Jews should pay taxes to the Romans. This should have put him on Morton's Fork: say yes, and his detractors could frame him for a boot-licking Roman collaborator; say no, and either Pontius Pilate or Herod Antipas would have to have him arrested for preaching sedition against Rome. However, "He said to them, 'Then give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's.'" Arguably, since he was pointing to a coin with Caesar's image on it at the time, that does amount to saying "Pay this tax." What he didn't actually say is what—other than the coin used in paying this particular tax—rightfully belongs to Caesar. People in the audience wouldn't have automatically assumed that anything they had rightfully belonged to a foreign pagan occupier such as Rome. Thus, no patriotic Roman listener could honestly claim Jesus had told anyone not to pay taxes, and no loyal Jew (even the Zealots, who were violently anti-Roman hardliners) could claim that Jesus had told them they had to pay any and every tax Rome might think to levy on them.
  • "The wages of sin are death" which means just about every human on Earth will die. But there's no rule saying that humans right with God cannot be brought back to life, afterwards, by Him.
• One of the origin stories of the Red Hand of Ulster, the symbol of the Irish province of Ulster, is said to be the result of this trope. The story goes that the Kingdom of Ulster was without an heir, so a boat race was held so that "whosoever's hand is the first to touch the shore of Ireland, so shall he be made the king". As one potential king was losing, he made use of this trope by cutting his right hand off and tossing the blood-soaked hand ashore. As his hand was the first to touch the shore, he was awarded the crown.
• King Conchobar of Ulster was honorbound to be the first man to sleep with any woman in his province on her wedding night^note In contrast to most examples of droit du seigneur, this was started by the populace as a means of "blessing" their new marriage.. One of these women he was obliged to sleep with was Emer, newlywed wife of Conchobhar's very tempermental and deadly nephew (or grandson; the myths vary) Cu Chulainn. Thus, Conchobor chose to interpret his obligation as literally as possible.
• Jupiter must have been in a bloodthirsty mood when Numa Pompilius, 2nd king of Rome, asked him how to "atone" a place hit by his lightning. Jupiter asked for a head. Numa said, "OK, head of an onion." Jupiter then further asked for a body part. Numa said, "OK, my cut off nails." Jupiter then further asked for something alive. Numa said, "OK, a small fish." Jupiter said something that's probably unprintable, but the deal stuck. (Sidenote: Numa's concubine was a demigoddess, it's not recommended for YOU to play silly bugger with Roman deities.)
• Also from Roman sagas; Tarpeia once offered to open the gates of Rome to the Sabines, who were besieging Rome at the time, in exchange for "what they bore on their left arms." She was referring to the gold bracelets the Sabines wore, but they instead threw their shields — normally carried on the left arm — on top of her, crushing her to death. Then they threw her body off a cliff.
• One ancient Roman myth details the founding of a city in an outpost of the empire. The occupants of the territory, angry at the intrusion, give the Romans a single cowhide and tell them that they're entitled to as much land as the skin can cover. After thinking about this, the Romans tear the cowhide into small pieces and scatter them across a huge field, allowing the group to build an enormous city—after all, they covered the ground with the skin, just as requested.
  • More commonly told about Carthage, Rome's archenemy.
• Cúchulainn in Celtic Mythology possessed three spears, each of which would kill a king when thrown. When he used them against Queen Maeve's army, they all missed, because there were no kings there. When they were thrown back, the first hit Laeg, considered a king among charioteers; the second hit Lia Macha, king among horses; and the third hit Cúchulainn himself, who was king of warriors.
• The Fair Folk of many mythologies Can Not Tell A Lie... so they became infamous for using Exact Words, and its related tropes of Rules Lawyering and Loophole Abuse. European mythology is especially rife with unfortunates getting swindled, cursed, and all-out killed by fairies because they were only telling the truth metaphorically.
• In Hindu Mythology, Shiva specifically promised Kama that no one, not even the highest gods, would be immune to Kama's arrows of love. When Kama shot Shiva with one, he was not pleased (though he later recognized that Kama had done nothing wrong, and apologized).
• In the legend of Tristan and Iseult, in order to discover if Isolde was having an affair with Tristan, she was forced into a ritual where she would swear and grab a hot iron, which would burn her if lying. She swore that the only men who had ever been between her legs were her husband and the peasant who carried her across the river, who tripped and accidentally landed with his head between her legs. She was telling the truth and thus the iron didn't burn her. She just didn't mention that the peasant was Tristan in disguise.
• In one of Aesop's Fables, two boys enter a butcher shop. One snatches an expensive piece of meat, then passes it to the other boy behind his back. When the butcher discovers the theft, the boys defend themselves using this trope: the one who stole it doesn't have it, and the one who has it didn't steal it. Since the butcher can't technically prove the theft, he is unable to punish the boys. In a subversion, though, he warns them that while human law is subject to exact wording, the law of the gods is not, and the deities will see through the trick and punish the boys severely.
  • Another story tells of the nobleman Xanthus who, while drunk, bets all his lands and his fortune on the notion that a single man could drink up the sea. Once sober, he realizes his error and goes to Aesop for help; the storyteller jerks him around for a while, but eventually concedes to help him. In order to get out of his wager, Aesop advises him to make use of this trope: He said he would drink up the sea; that doesn't include all the water from streams and rivers that's continually flowing into it, so unless someone found a way to stop up all of those or separate their flows, he couldn't reasonably go through with his end of the deal.
• In an ancient Urban Legend, a man entrusts his property to another while he's away, with the promise, once he returns, to give him back as much as he wishes. Upon the man's return, the other guy only gives him back a small amount, which he finds unfair, so he goes to the court. The judge states that the second man, as promised, is to give back as much as he wished... for himself.
• Conversely, an old French tale says that a man took out a loan and trickily promised to pay it back on St. Glinglin's day. There's no such saint (and "on St. Glinglin's day" is now an expression meaning "never.") Annoyed at being fooled, the creditor sued, and the judge ruled that the debt had to be paid on All Saints' Day.

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