An outline of humor / Being a true chronicle from prehistoric ages to the twentieth century

by Unknown

MIDDLE DIVISION

PART I
GREECE

In essaying an Outline of the World’s Humor, the greatest obstacle to our work is the insufficiency of data.

While we are sure there was humor in the early days, we cannot get much of it for publication. The Fables and Folk Tales that come down to us are of uncertain origin and date. Traditions have been traced to their inception but the tracery is of vague and shadowy lines.

Wherefore it is well nigh impossible to formulate or systematize our chronology.

The simple division of Ancient, Middle and Modern must serve for a main arrangement, with the subdivision of the Middle into Greece, Rome, and the Mediæval Ages.

Greece will include generally the time from 500 B.C. to 500 A.D., although its traditions reach farther back into antiquity.

The whole Middle Division must include all from 500 B.C. to about 1300 A.D.

So, we see the boundaries are inevitable if not entirely satisfactory.

Greece was the primeval European civilization, and in the year 500 B.C. it already had its own literature and the Iliad and Odyssey were even then antique.

These, at this time, were traditionally ascribed to Homer as they have ever since remained. But Homer’s individual existence is a matter of doubt, and his history and personality are as unknown as those of the ancient patriarchs of the Old Testament.

Even from this distant viewpoint the humor of antiquity is, like beauty, in the eye of the beholder.

Coleridge says definitely, “Amongst the classic ancients there was little or no humor.” But, on the other hand, that eminent antiquarian, William Hayes Ward says, “The Greeks were the maddest, jolliest race of men that ever inhabited our planet. As they loved games and play, they loved the joke.”

So, as more than any other human emotion, humor is a matter of opinion, we must dig up whatever nuggets we can and not assay them too meticulously.

Like Homer, Æsop, is wrapped in mystery. Like Homer, too, various cities claimed the honor of being his birthplace. The truth is not known.

Tradition places Æsop in the sixth century, B.C. and makes him a dwarf and, originally, a slave.

Though probably not a historic personage, his name is inseparably connected with the Fables that have been known to us for centuries; and, according to scholars, some of them were known a thousand years earlier to the Egyptians.

Of these things we cannot speak positively, but Æsop’s Fables certainly come at or near the beginnings of Greek Literature, and their place is here.

ÆSOP’S FABLES

THE LION, THE BEAR, THE MONKEY, AND THE FOX

The Tyrant of the forest issued a proclamation, commanding all his subjects to repair immediately to his royal den. Among the rest, the Bear made his appearance; but pretending to be offended with the steams which issued from the Monarch’s apartments, he was imprudent enough to hold his nose in his Majesty’s presence. This insolence was so highly resented, that the Lion in a rage laid him dead at his feet. The Monkey, observing what had passed, trembled for his carcass; and attempted to conciliate favor by the most abject flattery. He began with protesting, that for his part he thought the apartments were perfumed with Arabian spices; and exclaiming against the rudeness of the Bear, admired the beauty of his Majesty’s paws, so happily formed, he said, to correct the insolence of clowns. This fulsome adulation, instead of being received as he expected, proved no less offensive than the rudeness of the Bear; and the courtly Monkey was in like manner extended by the side of Sir Bruin. And now his Majesty cast his eye upon the Fox. “Well, Reynard,” said he, “and what scent do you discover here?” “Great Prince,” replied the cautious Fox, “my nose was never esteemed my most distinguishing sense; and at present I would by no means venture to give my opinion, as I have unfortunately got a terrible cold.”

Reflection

It is often more prudent to suppress our sentiments, than either to flatter or to rail.

THE PARTIAL JUDGE

A Farmer came to a neighbouring Lawyer, expressing great concern for an accident which he said had just happened. “One of your oxen,” continued he, “has been gored by an unlucky bull of mine, and I shall be glad to know how I am to make you a reparation.” “Thou art a very honest fellow,” replied the Lawyer, “and wilt not think it unreasonable that I expect one of thy oxen in return.” “It is no more than justice,” quoth the Farmer, “to be sure: but what did I say!—I mistake—It is your bull that has killed one of my oxen.” “Indeed,” says the Lawyer, “that alters the case: I must inquire into the affair; and if”—“And if!” said the Farmer, “the business I find would have been concluded without an if, had you been as ready to do justice to others as to exact it from them.”

Reflection

The injuries we do, and those we suffer, are seldom weighed in the same scales.

It is all very well for some wiseacres to say, “Humor came in with civilization,” for others to say, “Humor took its rise in the Middle Ages,” or to set any other arbitrary time.

The truth is that Humor, is an innate emotion, and in a general sense, it is the child of religion.

The primitive religions were conducted with Festival Ceremonies, whose celebrations were of such symbolic nature, and later, such burlesque of symbolism that gaiety ensued and then ribaldry.

The worship of the god Dionysus,—later mixed up in tradition with Bacchus,—was responsible for much reckless license that was the earliest form of comedy.

Dionysus, being deity of the vineyard, as well as of phallic worship, lent himself readily to the grotesque representations and hysterical orgies of his followers and Greek Comedy was probably the outcome of this.

In these Dionysiac festivals the processions and parades represented everything imaginable that was bizarre or ridiculous.

As in all ages, before and since, the mummers clothed themselves in the likeness of animals, and invented horrible masks.

Comedy came to be abuse, ridicule and parody of sacred things.

Notwithstanding Coleridge’s comment, laughter was universal in Greece and Plato declared the agelastoi or non-laughers to be the least respectable of mortals.

Small wonder then that their mirth exhibited itself in drawings and paintings. These mediums were easier to come by than writings, and the early grotesques and caricatures of the Greeks are drawings on Greek vases which show the playfulness as well as the serious purpose of the artist-potter. The first and greatest of Greek poets adds strokes of wit to his stories of the Trojan war. When Ulysses returns from the siege of Ilium he stops at the island of Sicily, and he and his companions are caught by the one-eyed giant Polyphemus and imprisoned in his cave. Then comes the story of the crafty leader’s escape, after some of his companions had been slain and eaten by the monster. It is a most amusing story, told with all Greek humor, how the giant was blinded with the burnt stick which gouged out his eye while in a drunken sleep; how the Greeks escaped through the entrance by clinging under the bodies of his sheep, while he felt of them one by one to see that not a Greek escaped. Then comes the giant’s howling call to his distant companions, and in answer to their question, who had blinded him, his telling them that “Outis” (Nobody) had done it, Outis (Nobody) being the name Ulysses had given the giant as his own. “If nobody has done it”, replied his companions, “then it is the act of the gods”, and they left him to endure his loss. Thus the Greeks escape to their ships and taunt the monster as they flee away, followed by his vain pursuit. Homer relieves the wisdom of Ulysses and the dignity of Agamemnon with the gibes of Thersites or the rude humor of the suitors of Penelope, the trick of whose embroidery is itself an amusing story.

Greece, of course, was the cradle of all that we now call art. Landscape painters, painters of animals and portrait limners, as well as still life artists and sculptors and workers in mosaics reached a high state of perfection.

Then naturally the caricaturists and comic artists could not be wanting there. Burlesque affected their pencils and brushes as it had their speech and caricature and parody were rampant.

A marvelous example is the parody or caricature of the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi. It is taken from an oxybaphon which was brought from the Continent to England, where it passed into the collection of Mr. William Hope. The oxybaphon, or, as it was called by the Romans, acetabulum, was a large vessel for holding vinegar, which formed one of the important ornaments of the table, and was therefore very susceptible of pictorial embellishment of this description. It is one of the most remarkable Greek caricatures of this kind yet known, and represents a parody on one of the most interesting stories of the Grecian mythology, that of the arrival of Apollo at Delphi. The artist, in his love of burlesque, has spared none of the personages who belonged to the story. The Hyperborean Apollo himself appears in the character of a quack doctor, on his temporary stage, covered by a sort of roof, and approached by wooden steps. On the stage lies Apollo’s luggage, consisting of a bag, a bow, and his Scythian cap. Chron is represented as labouring under the effects of age and blindness, and supporting himself by the aid of a crooked staff, as he repairs to the Delphian quack doctor for relief. The figure of the centaur is made to ascend by the aid of a companion, both being furnished with the masks and other attributes of the comic performers. Above are the mountains, and on them the nymphs of Parnassus, who, like all the other actors in the scene, are disguised with masks, and those of a very grotesque character. On the right-hand side stands a figure which is considered as representing the epoptes, the inspector or overseer of the performance, who alone wears no mask. Even a pun is employed to heighten the drollery of the scene, for instead of ΠΥΘΙΑΣ, the Pythian, placed over the head of the burlesque Apollo, it seems evident that the artist had written ΠΕΙΘΙΑΣ, the consoler in allusion, perhaps, to the consolation which the quack-doctor is administering to his blind and aged visitor.

The comic and grotesque led on to the representation of the monstrous, and queer, strange figures became part of their art and architecture. Out of these, perhaps, grew the hideous masks and strange distortions of the human figure.

Perhaps this is why Æsop was represented as a dwarf and a hunchback.

But the whole trend of the grotesque and monstrous in religious ornamentation grew and flourished on into the Middle Ages and later, and the gargoyles of our latest churches show the persisting influence.

The old comedy of Greece has been called the comedy of caricature, and hand in hand, verbal and pictorial parody have come to us down the centuries.

Pictorial burlesque, however, was not placed on the public monuments, but lent itself more readily to objects of common usage or individual belongings. It is found abundantly on the pottery of Greece and Rome and abounded in the wall paintings of Herculaneum and Pompeii.

This is not the place to discuss the identity of Homer. Whether a real man, a group of men or a myth, the works of Homer are immortal and, for the most part serious.

Our task is to find anything humorous in the Greek epics.

It is not easy, indeed, it is almost impossible. But we subjoin an extract which, we may say, comes the nearest to humor in Homer.

THE BEATING OF THERSITES

Ulysses’ ruling thus restrained

The host from flight; and then again the Council was maintained

With such a concourse that the shore rang with the tumult made;

As when the far-resounding sea doth in its rage invade

His sandy confines, whose sides groan with his involved wave,

And make his own breast echo sighs. All sate, and audience gave.

Thersites only would speak all. A most disordered store

Of words he foolishly poured out, of which his mind held more

Than it could manage; anything with which he could procure

Laughter, he never could contain. He should have yet been sure

To touch no kings; t’oppose their states becomes not jesters’ parts.

But he the filthiest fellow was of all that had deserts

In Troy’s brave siege. He was squint-eyed, and lame of either foot;

So crookbacked that he had no breast; sharp-headed, where did shoot

(Here and there ’spersed) thin, mossy hair. He most of all envied

Ulysses and Æacides, whom still his spleen would chide.

Nor could the sacred king himself avoid his saucy vein;

Against whom since he knew the Greeks did vehement hates sustain,

Being angry for Achilles’ wrong, he cried out, railing thus:

“Atrides, why complain’st thou now? What wouldst thou more of us?

Thy tents are full of brass; and dames, the choice of all, are thine,

With whom we must present thee first, when any towns resign

To our invasion. Want’st thou, then, besides all this, more gold

From Troy’s knights to redeem their sons, whom to be dearly sold

I or some other Greek must take? Or wouldst thou yet again

Force from some other lord his prize, to soothe the lusts that reign

In thy encroaching appetite? It fits no prince to be

A prince of ill, and govern us, or lead our progeny

By rape to ruin. Oh, base Greeks, deserving infamy,

And ills eternal, Greekish girls, not Greeks, ye are! Come, flee

Home with our ships; leave this man here to perish with his preys,

And try if we helped him or not. He wronged a man that weighs

Far more than he himself in worth. He forced from Thetis’ son,

And keeps his prize still. Nor think I that mighty man hath won

The style of wrathful worthily; he’s soft, he’s too remiss;

Or else, Atrides, his had been thy last of injuries.”

Thus he the people’s pastor chid; but straight stood up to him

Divine Ulysses, who, with looks exceeding grave and grim,

This bitter check gave: “Cease, vain fool, to vent thy railing vein

On kings thus, though it serve thee well; nor think thou canst restrain,

With that thy railing faculty, their wills in least degree;

For not a worse, of all this host, came with our king than thee,

To Troy’s great siege; then do not take into that mouth of thine

The names of kings, much less revile the dignities that shine

In their supreme states, wresting thus this motion for our home,

To soothe thy cowardice; since ourselves yet know not what will come

Of these designments, if it be our good to stay, or go.

Nor is it that thou stand’st on; thou revil’st our general so,

Only because he hath so much, not given by such as thou,

But our heroes. Therefore this thy rude vein makes me vow,

Which shall be curiously observed, if ever I shall hear

This madness from thy mouth again, let not Ulysses bear

This head, nor be the father called of young Telemachus,

If to thy nakedness I take and strip thee not, and thus

Whip thee to fleet from council; send, with sharp stripes, weeping hence

This glory thou affect’st to rail.” This said, his insolence

He settled with his scepter; struck his back and shoulders so

That bloody wales rose. He shrunk round, and from his eyes did flow

Moist tears, and, looking filthily, he sate, feared, smarted, dried

His blubbered cheeks; and all the press, though grieved to be denied

Their wished retreat for home, yet laughed delightsomely, and spake

Either to other: “Oh, ye gods, how infinitely take

Ulysses’ virtues in our good! Author of counsels, great

In ordering armies, how most well this act became his heat,

To beat from council this rude fool. I think his saucy spirit

Hereafter will not let his tongue abuse the sovereign merit,

Exempt from such base tongues as his.”

—The Iliad.

Attributed to Homer by many, and stoutly denied by others, is a comedy called The Battle of the Frogs and Mice.

Again we note the device of animals masquerading as human beings.

Samuel Wesley, himself a humorist, calls this the oldest burlesque in the world, and he also dubs it, The Iliad in a Nutshell. He holds that Homer wrote it as a parody of his own masterpiece, while, conversely, Statius contends that it is a work of youth, written by Homer before he wrote The Iliad. Chapman deems it the work of the poet’s old age, and as none may decide when doctors disagree, many scholars deny a Homeric authorship to it at all. Plutarch asserts the real author was Pigres of Halicarnassus, who flourished during the Persian war.

This first burlesque known to literature has the following plot.

A mouse, while slaking his thirst on the margin of a pond, after a hot pursuit by a weasel, enters into conversation with a frog on the merits of their respective modes of life. The frog invites the mouse to a nearer inspection of the abode and habits of his own nation, and for this purpose offers him a sail on his back. When the party are at some distance from land, the head of an otter suddenly appears on the surface. The terrified frog at once dives to the bottom, disengaging himself from his rider, who, with many a struggle and bitter imprecations on his betrayer, is involved in a watery grave. Another mouse, who from the shore had witnessed the fate of his unfortunate comrade, reports it to his fellow-citizens. A council is held, and war declared against the nation of the offender.

“Jupiter and the gods deliberate in Olympus on the issue of the contest. Mars and Minerva decline personal interference, as well from the awe inspired by such mighty combatants as from previous ill-will towards both contending powers, in consequence of injuries inflicted by each on their divine persons or properties. A band of mosquitoes sound the war-alarum with their trumpets, and, after a bloody engagement, the frogs are defeated with great slaughter. Jupiter, sympathising with their fate, endeavours in vain by his thunders to intimidate the victors from further pursuit. The rescue of the frogs, however, is effected by an army of land-crabs, who appear as their allies, and before whom the mice, in their turn, are speedily put to flight.”

The Battle of the Frogs and Mice, then, is well described as the earliest and most successful extant specimen of the “mock-heroic,” the double object of which is, according to Barrow’s famous definition, to debase things pompous and elevate things mean. An amusing version of this Homeric jeu d’esprit was published in 1851 by an author who gave himself out as the “Singing Mouse,” “the last minstrel of his race.” “The theme,” he says, “belongs to that heroic age of which history has recorded that the very mountains laboured when a mouse was born.” The metre of this translation has been altered from the stately elegance of the original to one which is perhaps better fitted to the subject in itself than to its special object as a travestie on the epic style of the Iliad. The names of the heroes are happily rendered; but it will be seen that some difference exists between this author and the one just cited as to certain of the zoological terms in the poem.

THE MEETING

I

It fell on a day that a mouse, travel-spent,

To the side of a river did wearily win;

Of the good house-cat he had baffled the scent,

And he thirstily dipt his whiskered chin;

When, crouched in the sedge by the water’s brink,

A clamorous frog beheld him drink.

“And tell me, fair sir, thy title and birth,

For of high degree thou art surely come;

I have room by my hearth for a stranger of worth,

And a welcome to boot to my royal home.

For, sooth to speak, my name is Puffcheek,

And I come of Bullfrog’s lordly line;

I govern the bogs, the realm of the frogs,

A sceptred king by right divine.”

II

Then up and spake the mighty mouse:

“And, courteous stranger, ask’st thou, then,

What’s known alike to gods and men,

The lineage of Crumplunderer’s house?

Me Princess Lickfarina bare,

Daughter of good King Nibble-the-flitch,

And she weaned me on many a dainty rare,

As became great Pie-devourer’s heir,

With filberts and figs and sweetmeats rich.

III

“Never mortal mouse, I ween,

Better versed in man’s cuisine;

Not a bun or tartlet, graced

With sweeping petticoat of paste,

Not an oily rasher or creamy cheese,

Or liver so gay in its silver chemise;

Not a dish by artiste for alderman made,

Ever escaped my foraging raid

For when the mice pour on pantry and store,

In foray or fight, I am aye to the fore.

IV

“I fear not man’s unwieldy size,

To his very bedside I merrily go;

At his lubberly length the ogre lies,

And sleep never leaves his heavy-sealed eyes

Though I pinch his heel and nibble his toe.

But enemies twain do work my bane,

And both from my inmost soul I hate,

The cat and the kite, who bear me spite;

And, third, the mouse-trap’s fatal bait;

And the ferret foul I abhor from my soul,

The robber! he follows me into my hole!”

Wesley’s rendering of the dénouement is a thoroughly good specimen of the mock-heroic style which runs through the original:

The Muses knowing all things list not show

The Wailings for the Dead and Funeral Rites,

To blameless Æthiopians must they go

To feast with Jove for twelve succeeding nights.

Therefore abrupt thus end they. Let suffice

The gods’ august assembly to relate,

Heroic Frogs and Demigods of Mice,

Troxartes’ vengeance and Pelides’ fate.

Hosts routed, lakes of gore, and hills of slain,

An Iliad, work divine! raised from a day’s campaign.

By this time Greece was ready for definite mirth and laughter. What has come to be known as the Old Comedy was to the Athenians, we are told, what is now shown in the influences of the newspaper, the review, the Broadside, the satire, the caricature of the times and manners.

Nor were cartoons missing, for the grotesque pictures were as important a factor as the verbal or written words.

The Old Comedy is marked by political satire of a virulent personality. This is prohibited in the Middle Comedy, and replaced by literary and philosophical criticism of the ways of the citizens. The New Comedy, more repressed still, is the comedy of manners, and its influence continued to the Roman stage and further.

Of the Old Comedy, save for a few lesser lights, Aristophanes is the sole representative.

At the festivals of the god Dionysus, two elements were present. One the solemn rites, which developed into tragedy, and the other the grotesque and ribald orgies which were equally in evidence and which culminated in the idea of comedy.

The license of these symbolic representations was unbridled and all rules of decorum and decency were violated in the frenzied antics.

Doubtless many writings now lost to us were filled with the broad humor of the day, but we have only the plays of Aristophanes left.

Of the life of this Athenian not much is known. He was born after 450 B.C. and it was after the Peloponnesian War that he wrote his plays.

The principal and best known of his eleven extant plays is The Frogs.

Of this, two clever translations are given.

One, is thus introduced by a writer in The Quarterly Review:

“One of the temples or theatres appropriated to the service of Bacchus in Athens, and in which the scenic performances of the old Greeks took place, was situated near a part of that metropolis usually called ‘The Marshes,’ and those who know by experience what tenants such places commonly harbour in more southern climates will think it not impossible that the representatives of the stage, and more particularly in theatres which were generally without a roof, were occasionally disturbed, to the great annoyance of the dramatists, by the noisy vociferations of these more ancient and legitimate Lords of the Marshes. One of them was not a man to be offended with impunity by biped or quadruped; and wherever the foes of Aristophanes were to be found, on land or in water, he had shafts both able and willing to reach them.

“In his descent to the lower world, the patron of the stage is accordingly made to encounter a band of most pertinacious and invincible frogs; and the gradations through which the mind of Bacchus runs, after the first moments of irritation have subsided, from coaxing to bullying, from affected indifference to downright force, are probably a mere transcript of the poet’s own feelings under similar circumstances.”

Scene.—The Acherusian Lake—Bacchus at the oar in Charon’s Boat—Charon—Chorus of Frogs—In the background a view of Bacchus’s Temple or Theatre, from which are heard the sounds of a Scenic Entertainment.

Semich.1. Croak! croak! croak!

Semich.2. Croak! croak! croak!

[In answer, with music 8ve lower.

Full Chorus. Croak! croak! croak!

Leader of the Chorus. When flagons were foaming,

And roysterers roaming,

And bards flung about them their gibe and their joke;

The holiest song

Still was found to belong

To the Sons of the Marsh with their—

Full Chorus.Croak! croak!

Leader.Shall we pause in our strain,

Now the months bring again

The pipe and the minstrel to gladden the folk?

Rather strike on the ear,

With a note sharp and clear,

A chant corresponding of—

Chorus.Croak! croak!

Bacchus (mimicking). Croak! croak! By the Gods, I shall choke

If you pester and bore my ears any more

With your croak! croak! croak!

Leader.  Rude companion and vain,

Thus to carp at my strain,

But keep in the vein,

And attack him again

With a croak! croak! croak!

Chorus (crescendo). Croak! croak! croak!

Bacchus (mimicking). Croak! croak! Vapour and smoke!

Never think it, old huff,

That I care for such stuff

As your croak! croak! croak!

Chorus (fortissimo). Croak! croak! croak!

Bacchus. Now fires light on thee

And waters soak,

And March winds catch thee

Without any cloak.

For within and without,

From the tail to the snout,

Thou’rt nothing but—

Croak! croak! croak!

Leader. And what else, captious newcomer, say, should I be?

But you know not to whom you are talking, I see.

[With dignity.

I’m the friend of the Muses, and Pan with his pipe

Loves me better by far than a cherry that’s ripe:

Who gives them their tone and their moisture but I?

And therefore for ever I’ll utter my cry

Of—

Chorus.Croak! croak! croak!

Bacchus. I’m blistered, I’m flustered, I’m sick, I’m ill.

Chorus.Croak! croak! croak!

Bacchus. My dear little bull-frog, do prithee keep still.

Chorus.Croak! croak! croak!

Bacchus. ’Tis a sorry vocation, that reiteration;

I speak on my honour, most musical nation

Of croak! croak! croak!

Leader (maestoso). When the sun rides in glory and makes a light day

’Mid lilies and plants of the water I stray;

Or when the sky darkens with tempest and rain,

I sink like a pearl in my watery domain.

But sinking or swimming I lift up my song,

Or drive a gay dance with my eloquent throng.

Then hey, bubble, bubble,

For a knave’s petty trouble

Shall I my high charter and birthright revoke?

Nay, my efforts I’ll double

And drive him like stubble

Before me with—

Chorus.Croak! croak! croak!

Bacchus.I’m ribs of steel, I’m heart of oak,

Let us see if a note

Can be found in this throat,

To answer their (croaks loudly) croak! croak! croak!

Leader.Poor vanity’s son!

And dost think me undone

With a clamour no bigger

Than a maiden’s first snigger?

But strike up a tune

[To Chorus.

He’ll not forget soon

Of our croak! croak! croak!

Chorus (with discordant crash of music). Croak! croak! croak!

Bacchus.I’m cinder, I’m coke!

I have got my death-stroke.

O that ever I woke

To be galled by the yoke

Of this croak! croak! croak!

Leader. Friend, friend, I may not be still,

My destinies high I must needs fulfil.

And the march of creation, despite reprobation,

Must proceed with—,

[To Chorus.

My lads, may I make application

For a—

Chorus.Croak! croak! croak!

Bacchus (in a minor key). Nay, nay! Take your own way,

I’ve said out my say,

And care nought by my fai’

For your croak! croak! croak!

Leader. Care or care not, ’tis the same thing to me;

My voice is my own, and my actions are free.

I have but one note, and I chant it with glee,

And from morning to night that note it shall be

Chorus. Croak! croak! croak!

Bacchus.Nay then, old rebel,

I’ll stop your treble

With a poke! poke! poke!

[Dashing at the Frogs.

Take this from my rudder, and that from my oar,

And now let us see if you’ll trouble us more

With your croak! croak! croak!

Leader.You may batter and bore,

You may thunder and roar,

Yet I’ll never give o’er

Till I’m hard at death’s door—

This rib, by the way, is confoundedly sore).

Semich. 1. With my croak! croak! croak!

Semich. 2 (dim.). Croak! croak! croak!

Full Chorus (in a dying cadence). Croak! croak! croak!

[The Frogs disappear.

Bacchus (looking over the boat’s edge). Spoke! spoke! spoke!

[To CHARON.

Pull away, my old friend,

For at last there’s an end

To their croak! croak! croak!

[BACCHUS pays his two oboli and is landed.

THE PASSAGE OF THE STYX

CHARON, BACCHUS, and XANTHIAS

Charon.Hoy! Bear a hand there! Heave ashore!

Bacchus.What’s this?

Xanthias.The lake it is—the place he told us of.

By Jove! and there’s the boat—and here’s old Charon!

Bacchus.Well, Charon! Welcome, Charon! Welcome kindly!

Charon.Who wants the ferryman? Anybody waiting

To leave the pangs of life? A passage, anybody?

To Lethe’s wharf? To Cerberus’ reach?

To Tartarus? To Tænarus? To Perdition?

Bacchus.Yes, I.

Charon.Get in then.

Bacchus.Tell me, where are you going?

To perdition, really?

Charon.Yes, to oblige you, I will—

With all my heart. Step in there.

Bacchus.Have a care!

Take care, good Charon! Charon, have a care!

(Getting into the boat.)

Come, Xanthias, come!

Charon.I take no slaves aboard,

Except they’ve volunteer’d for the naval victory.

Xanthias.I could not; I was suffering with sore eyes.

Charon.Off with you, round by the end of the lake.

Xanthias.And whereabouts shall I wait?

Charon.At the Stone of Repentance,

By the Slough of Despond, beyond the Tribulations.

You understand me?

Xanthias.Yes, I understand you—

A lucky, promising direction, truly.

Charon (to BACCHUS). Sit down at the oar. Come, quick, if there are more coming!—

Hullo! what’s that you’re doing?

(BACCHUS is seated in a buffoonish attitude in the side of the boat where the oar was fastened.)

Bacchus.What you told me.

I’m sitting at the oar.

Charon.Sit there, I tell you,

You fatguts; that’s your place.

Bacchus (changes his place).Well, so I do.

Charon.Now ply your hands and arms.

Bacchus (makes a silly motion with his arms). Well, so I do.

Charon.You’d best leave off your fooling. Take to the oar,

And pull away.

Bacchus.But how shall I contrive?

I’ve never served on board; I’m only a landsman;

I’m quite unused to it.

Charon.We can manage it.

As soon as you begin you shall have some music;

That will teach you to keep time.

Bacchus.What music’s that?

Charon.A chorus of frogs—uncommon musical frogs.

Bacchus.Well, give me the word and the time.

Charon.Whooh, up, up! Whooh, up, up!

CHORUS OF FROGS

Brekeke-kesh, koash, koash!

Shall the choral quiristers of the marsh

Be censured and rejected as hoarse and harsh,

And their chromatic essays

Deprived of praise?

No; let us raise afresh

Our obstreperous brekeke-kesh!

The customary croak and cry

Of the creatures

At the theaters

In their yearly revelry.

Brekeke-kesh, koash, koash!

Bacchus (rowing in great misery).

How I’m maul’d!

How I’m gall’d!

Worn and mangled to a mash—

There they go! Koash, koash!

Frogs.Brekeke-kesh, koash, koash!

Bacchus.Oh, beshrew,

All your crew!

You don’t consider how I smart.

Frogs.Now for a sample of the art!

Brekeke-kesh, koash, koash!

Bacchus.I wish you hanged, with all my heart!

Have you nothing else to say?

Brekeke-kesh, koash, all day!

Frogs.We’ve a right,

We’ve a right,

And we croak at ye for spite.

We’ve a right,

We’ve a right,

Day and night,

Day and night,

Night and day,

Still to creak and croak away.

Phœbus and every Grace

Admire and approve of the croaking race;

And the egregious guttural notes

That are gargled and warbled in their lyrical throats.

In reproof

Of your scorn,

Mighty Pan

Nods his horn;

Beating time

To the rime

With his hoof,

With his hoof.

Persisting in our plan,

We proceed as we began.

Brekeke-kesh, brekeke-kesh,

Koash, koash!

Bacchus. Oh, the frogs, consume and rot ’em!

I’ve a blister on my bottom!

Hold your tongues, you noisy creatures!

Frogs.  Cease with your profane entreaties,

All in vain forever striving;

Silence is against our natures;

With the vernal heat reviving,

Our aquatic crew repair

From their periodic sleep,

In the dark and chilly deep,

To the cheerful upper air.

Then we frolic here and there

All amid the meadows fair;

Shady plants of asphodel

Are the lodges where we dwell;

Chanting in the leafy bowers

All the livelong summer hours,

Till the sudden gusty showers

Send us headlong, helter-skelter,

To the pool to seek for shelter.

Meager, eager, leaping, lunging,

From the sedgy wharfage plunging

To the tranquil depth below,

There we muster all a-row;

Where, secure from toil and trouble,

With a tuneful hubble-bubble,

Our symphonious accents flow.

Brekeke-kesh, koash, koash!

Bacchus. I forbid you to proceed.

Frogs.  That would be severe, indeed,

Arbitrary, bold, and rash—

Brekeke-kesh, koash, koash!

Bacchus. I command you to desist—

Oh, my back, there! Oh, my wrist

What a twist!

What a sprain!

Frogs.  Once again

We renew the tuneful strain—

Brekeke-kesh, koash, koash!

Bacchus. I disdain—hang the pain!—

All your nonsense, noise, and trash.

Oh, my blister! Oh, my sprain!

Frogs.  Brekeke-kesh, koash, koash!

Friends and frogs, we must display

All our powers of voice to-day.

Suffer not this stranger here,

With fastidious, foreign ear,

To confound us and abash

Brekeke-kesh, koash, koash!

Bacchus. Well, my spirit is not broke;

If it’s only for the joke,

I’ll outdo you with a croak.

Here it goes—(very loud) “Koash, koash!”

Frogs.  Now for a glorious croaking crash,

(still louder)

Brekeke-kesh, koash, koash!

Bacchus (splashing with his oar).

I’ll disperse you with a splash.

Frogs.  Brekeke-kesh, koash, koash!

Bacchus. I’ll subdue

Your rebellious, noisy crew—

Have among you there, slap-dash!

(Strikes at them.)

Frogs.  Brekeke-kesh, koash, koash!

We defy your oar, and you.

Charon. Hold! We’re ashore. Now shift your oar.

Get out. Now pay your fare.

Bacchus. There—there it is—the twopence.

—The Frogs.

Another play of Aristophanes is The Birds.

The plot of this is simply that two Athenians, disgusted with the state of things in their native city, form the idea of building a city where the birds shall regain their old traditional supremacy.

The proposal is happily received by the birds and the city of Nephelococyggia, or Cloud-cuckoo-town is the result.

It was merely a burlesque on the Athenians who were given to building castles in the air.

Lack of space forbids further quotation from Aristophanes, but his comedies are available to all who wish to read them.

Among the predecessors of Aristophanes was Cratinus, who was an enemy of water drinkers, and expressed the dictum that no verses written by abstainers could ever please or live!

Another, whose fragmentary lines have a certain modern ring, is Simonides, who left us a poem of the ladies, which, it has been said, gave the tone to all the Greek pasquinades of the same class. He compares the different types of ladies to various members of the lower orders in creation; and the “Fine Lady” is represented by a high-bred steed.

THE FINE LADY. BY SIMONIDES.

Next in the lot a gallant dame we see,

Sprung from a mare of noble pedigree;

No servile work her spirit proud can brook,

Her hands were never taught to bake or cook;

The vapour of the oven makes her ill,

She scorns to empty slops or turn the mill.

To wash or scour would make her soft hands rough,

Her own ablutions give pursuit enough;

Three baths a day, with balms and perfumes rare,

Refresh her tender limbs. Her long rich hair

Each time she combs and decks with blooming flowers.

No spouse more fit than she the idle hours

Of wealthy lords or kings to recreate,

And grace the splendour of their courtly state;

For men of humbler sort no better guide

Heaven in its wrath to ruin can provide.

Two more examples of the wit of Cratinus follow:

“Apollo, of fine verses here’s a gush!

They come, like springs and fountains, with a rush.

A river’s in his windpipe! Turn the tap;

This spouting, if not stopped, will cause some dire mishap.”

“How can one stop him from this thirst for drink?

How can one? Well, I’ve found a way, I think.

For every cup and every mug I’ll smash,

His flasks and pitchers into fragments dash,

Shiver all kinds of pots that come to table,

And not one crock to keep shall he be able.”

Plato Comicus (as distinguished from the philosopher), who carried on a poetic contest with Aristophanes, ranks among the best of the poets of the Old Comedy, but only a few fragments of his work remain.

Here are two of them:

“Henceforth no four-legged creature should be slain,

Except the pig; of this the reason’s plain.

Its use—unless for food—man vainly seeks;

It only gives him bristles, dirt, and squeaks.”

“We’re swamped with ‘public men’; for one scamp dead,

Two louder talkers, greater scamps, instead

Spring up like Hydra’s heads: the more’s the pity

We have no Iolaus in the city

To singe the necks from which these pests arise,

In whom foul lives alone secure the prize.”

As students of the Classics themselves find great difficulty in drawing strict boundaries between the Old and Middle Comedy, we need not pay careful attention to exact dates, but accept the general idea that one passed into the other at about the time the Peloponnesian War ended.

This was 404 B.C. and Middle Comedy may be said to extend from that date until the overthrow of the Athenians by Philip of Macedon in 338 B.C.

The most distinguished poet of the Middle Comedy was Antiphanes, who lived in the Fourth Century, B.C.

His lines are epigrammatic and frequently refer to the prevailing theme of drunkenness.

“No trade more pleasant is, no art,

Than ours who play the flatterer’s part.

The painter overworked gets cross,

Your farmer learns his risk by loss;

While care and pains each workman takes,

“Laugh and get fat” our motto makes.

Fun, laughter, banter, drink, I hold

Are life’s chief pleasures—next to gold.”

“I have a vintner near who keeps a shop,

The only man who, when I want a drop,

Mixes my grog to suit my special taste;

Not neat,—nor letting water run to waste.”

“Wives are bad property, I’d have you know,—

Except in countries where grapes do not grow.”

“’Tis life in paradise to find a host

To dine with, where you’ve not to count the cost.

And so new shifts to try I shall not pause,

To get a bite that’s toothsome for my jaws.”

“One single thing I trust a woman saying,

To other statements no attention paying:

‘When I am dead, I won’t return to grieve you.’

Till death takes place, in naught else I’ll believe you.”

“What! when you court concealment, will you tell

The matter to a woman? Just as well

Tell all the criers in the public squares!

’Tis hard to say which of them louder blares.”

“Married? He’s done for! Ah! I had misgiving.

And yet I only lately left him living.”

“Two states there are that we can always prove,—

If one’s in liquor, and if one’s in love.

Both words and looks these two conditions show;

By these if the denial’s false we know.”

Another epigrammatist was

Anaxandriades

He who composed the ditty, “Health is best,

Good looks come next, then money,” and the rest,

Right in the first, in the other two was wrong.

None but a madman could have made that song!

Next after “health” comes “wealth”; your handsome face,

When pinched by famine, loses all its grace.

A man who doubts if he should marry,

Or thinks he has good cause to tarry,

Is foolish if he takes a wife,

The source of half the plagues in life!

A poor man to a rich wife sold

Exchanges liberty for gold.

If she has nothing, then, ’tis true,

There is a different ill to rue;

For now he has, with all his need,

Two mouths instead of one to feed.

Perhaps she’s ugly; married life

Thenceforth is never-ending strife!

Perhaps she’s pretty; then your boast

Is made by all your friends their toast.

Does ugly, handsome, poor, or rich,

Bring most ill luck?—I know not which.

One course in life there is that’s hard to roam,

Back from a husband’s to a father’s home;

And every decent wife should fear to tread it;

The “homing heat” wins nothing but discredit.

Other Greek wits offer these:

Eubulus

He who first drew or modelled Love with wings

Might paint a swallow; but how many things

In Love are different from a bird! Not light

To him who bears the weight, nor quick in flight,

Unmoved the imp upon his shoulders sits.

How can a thing have wings that never flits?

For sober folk three bowls alone I mix,

For health, cheer, sleep; the order thus I fix.

The first they toss off; that’s for stomach’s sake.

The next, for love and pleasure, all may take.

The third, the few who are with wisdom blessed;

It sends them home to bed, to take their rest.

The fourth’s no longer mine! ’tis “drinkers’ bowl.”

A fifth they call for; then they shout and howl.

The sixth sends forth the party for a lark.

The seventh to fight and bear the drunkard’s mark.

Lawsuits the eighth. The ninth breeds furious talking;

The tenth, to rave and lose the power of walking.

Small though the bowl, much wine, if poured in neat,

The head at first affects, and last the feet.

Aristophon

Bad luck to him who second came to wed!

The first I blame not; home a wife he led

Not knowing what a curse a wife might prove,

What deadly feuds oft spring from miscalled love.

But he who married next, in haste unwise

Rushed to his fate with fully opened eyes.

Alexis

Your Sophists say, it is not Love almighty

That roams on wings, but lovers that are flighty.

Love wrongly bears the blame; ’twas one who knew

Nought of his ways who first winged Cupids drew.

A drunken party coming up! To evade them I must try.

My sole chance now to keep my cloak is having wings to fly.

Old Chaerephon some trick is always trying,

As now, to dine without his share supplying,

Early he goes to shops which cooks beset,

To whom by contract crockery is let,

And when he sees one choosing dishes, “Say,”

He cries, “what house do you cook for to-day?”

So, when the door’s left gaping, he contrives

To slip in as the first guest that arrives.

In wine and man this difference appears:

The old man bores you, but the old wine cheers.

Men do not, like your wine, improve by age;

The more their years, the less their ways engage.

Aristotle, though the first to put into words the definition of the ridiculous, can furnish no extracts which come within our present scope.

Indeed the great teacher considered comedy from its dramatic side rather than as mere humor.

One of his pupils, Theophrastus, left us some fragments, especially a short collection of character sketches which show both wit and humor.

OF SLOVENLINESS

This vice is a lazy and beastly negligence of a man’s person, whereby he becomes so filthy as to be offensive to those who are about him. You’ll see him come into a company when he is covered all over with a leprosy or scurf, or with very long nails, and he says those distempers are hereditary, that his father and grandfather had them before him. He will speak with his mouth full, and gurgle at his cup in drinking. He will intrude into the best company in ragged clothes. If he goes with his mother to the soothsayers, he cannot even then refrain from coarse and profane expressions. When he is making his oblations at the temple, he will let the dish fall out of his hand, and laugh as at some jocular exploit. At the finest concert of music he cannot forbear clapping his hands and making a rude noise. He will pretend to sing along with the singers, and rail at them when they leave off.

—The Characters.

OF LOQUACITY

If we would define loquacity, it is an excessive affluence of words. The prater will not suffer any person in company to tell his own story, but, let it be what it will, tells you you mistake the matter, that he takes the thing right, and that if you will listen, he will make it clear to you. If you make any reply, he suddenly interrupts you, saying, “Why, sir, you forget what you were talking about; it’s very well you should begin to remember, since it is most beneficial for people to inform one another.” Then presently he says, “But what was I going to say? Why, truly, you very soon apprehend a thing, and I was waiting to see if you would be of my sentiment in this matter.” And thus he always takes such occasions as these to prevent the person he talks with the liberty of breathing. After he has thus tormented all who will hear him, he is so rude as to break into the company of persons met to discuss important affairs, and drives them away by his troublesome impertinence. Thence he goes into the public schools and places of exercise, where he interrupts the masters by his foolish prating, and hinders the scholars from improving by their instruction. If any person shows an inclination to go away, he will follow him, and will not part from him till he comes to his own door. If he hears of anything transacted in the public assembly of the citizens, he runs up and down to tell it to everybody. He gives you a long account of the famous battle that was fought when Aristophanes the orator was governor, or when the Lacedæmonians were under the command of Lysander; then tells you with what general applause he made a speech in public, repeating a great deal of it, with invectives against the common people, which are so tiresome to those that hear him that some forget what he says as soon as it is out of his mouth, others fall asleep, and others leave him in the midst of his harangue. If this talker be sitting on the bench, the judge will be unable to determine matters. If he’s at the theater, he’ll neither let you hear nor see anything; nor will he even permit him that sits next to him at the table to eat his meat. He declares it very hard for him to be silent, his tongue being so very well hung that he’d rather be accounted as garrulous as a swallow than be silent, and patiently bears all ridicule, even that of his own children, who, when they want to go to rest, request him to talk to them that they may the sooner fall asleep.

—The Characters.

One of the Characters described by Theophrastus is The Stupid Man, and runs thus:

“The stupid man is one who, after doing a sum and setting down the total, will ask the person next him, ‘What does it come to?’”

It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that this is the beginning or at least the popularizing of the class of jests known as Noodles or Noodle Stories.

For all nations and races have folk-lore that details the sayings and doings of the witless or silly.

The Literature of the Orient abounds in these tales and European stories of the same sort are equally abundant.

The collection of jokes ascribed to Hierocles, may or may not have been gathered by that Alexandrian philosopher. The only form in which we may read them is said to have been made not earlier than the Ninth Century, but the stories themselves are among the very earliest of the traditional jests of all time.

Some of these old jokemongers’ witticisms are capital—so good, in fact, that the parentage of many of them has been claimed by modern wits. No doubt we shall recognise some old friends as we read:

I. A pedant (for so we must probably translate, in conventional phrase, the pervading Scholastichus of the old jokemonger) wishing to teach his horse not to eat much, gave him no food. Eventually the horse died of starvation; and he complained to his friends, “I have suffered a great loss, for just when I had taught my horse to live upon nothing he died.”

II. A pedant having bought a cask of wine, sealed it. But his slave bored a hole and stole the wine. The master was amazed to find that, though his seals were unbroken, the wine gradually diminished. Someone suggested that he should examine whether it had been taken out from the bottom. “Fool,” he replied, “it isn’t the lower part that’s gone. It’s the upper.”

III. A pedant suffered shipwreck in a tempest, and seeing the passengers tie themselves to different articles on board, fastened himself to one of the anchors.

IV. Another had to cross a river, and went on board the ferry-boat on horseback. Somebody asked him why he did so, and he replied because he was in a hurry.

V. Yet another, anxious to know whether he looked well when he was asleep, stood before a looking-glass with his eyes shut to see.

VI. A landlord, who had a house to sell, went about amongst his friends, carrying a brick as a specimen.

In connection with these stories may be cited the following, from a Persian jest-book: A poor wrestler, who had passed all his life in forests, resolved to try his fortune in a great city, and as he drew near it he observed with wonder the crowds on the road, and thought, “I shall certainly not be able to know myself among so many people if I have not something about me that the others have not.” So he tied a pumpkin to his right leg and, thus decorated, entered the town. A young wag, perceiving the simpleton, made friends with him, and induced him to spend the night at his house. While he was asleep, the joker removed the pumpkin from his leg and tied it to his own, and then lay down again. In the morning, when the poor fellow awoke and found the pumpkin on his companion’s leg, he called to him, “Hey! get up, for I am perplexed in my mind. Who am I, and who are you? If I am myself, why is the pumpkin on your leg? And if you are yourself, why is the pumpkin not on my leg?”

Modern counterparts of the following jest are not far to seek: Quoth a man to a pedant, “The slave I bought of you has died.” Rejoined the other, “By the gods, I do assure you that he never once played me such a trick while I had him.” The old Greek pedant is transformed into an Irishman, in our collections of facetiæ, who applied to a farmer for work. “I’ll have nothing to do with you,” said the farmer, “for the last five Irishmen I had all died on my hands.” Quoth Pat, “Sure, sir, I can bring you characters from half a dozen gentlemen I’ve worked for that I never did such a thing.” And the jest is thus told in an old translation of Les Contes Facetieux de Sieur Gaulard: “Speaking of one of his Horses which broake his Neck at the descent of a Rock, he said, Truly it was one of the handsomest and best Curtalls in all the Country; he neuer shewed me such a trick before in all his life.”

Equally familiar is the jest of the pedant who was looking out for a place to prepare a tomb for himself, and on a friend indicating what he thought to be a suitable spot, “Very true,” said the pedant, “but it is unhealthy.” And we have the prototype of a modern “Irish” story in the following: A pedant sealed a jar of wine, and his slaves perforated it below and drew off some of the liquor. He was astonished to find his wine disappear while the seal remained intact. A friend, to whom he had communicated the affair, advised him to look and ascertain if the liquor had not been drawn off from below. “Why, you fool,” said he, “it is not the lower, but the upper, portion that is going off.”

It was a Greek pedant who stood before a mirror and shut his eyes that he might know how he looked when asleep—a jest which reappears in Taylor’s Wit and Mirth in this form: “A wealthy monsieur in France (hauing profound reuenues and a shallow braine) was told by his man that he did continually gape in his sleepe, at which he was angry with his man, saying he would not belieue it. His man verified it to be true; his master said that he would neuer belieue any that told him so, except (quoth hee) I chance to see it with mine owne eyes; and therefore I will have a great Looking glasse at my bed’s feet for the purpose to try whether thou art a lying knaue or not.”

Not unlike some of our “Joe Millers” is the following: A citizen of Cumæ, on an ass, passed by an orchard, and seeing a branch of a fig-tree loaded with delicious fruit, he laid hold of it, but the ass went on, leaving him suspended. Just then the gardener came up, and asked him what he did there. The man replied, “I fell off the ass.”—An analogue to this drollery is found in an Indian story-book, entitled Kathȧ Manjari: One day a thief climbed up a cocoanut tree in a garden to steal the fruit. The gardener heard the noise, and while he was running from his house, giving the alarm, the thief hastily descended from the tree. “Why were you up that tree?” asked the gardener. The thief replied, “My brother, I went up to gather grass for my calf.” “Ha! ha! is there grass, then, on a cocoanut tree?” said the gardener. “No,” quoth the thief; “but I did not know; therefore I came down again.”—And we have a variant of this in the Turkish jest of the fellow who went into a garden and pulled up carrots, turnips, and other kinds of vegetables, some of which he put into a sack, and some into his bosom. The gardener, coming suddenly on the spot, laid hold of him, and said, “What are you seeking here?” The simpleton replied, “For some days past a great wind has been blowing, and that wind blew me hither.” “But who pulled up these vegetables?” “As the wind blew very violently, it cast me here and there; and whatever I laid hold of in the hope of saving myself remained in my hands.” “Ah,” said the gardener, “but who filled this sack with them?” “Well, that is the very question I was about to ask myself when you came up.”

The Greek Anthology brings together short poems and epigrams written during the thousand years between Simonides’ time and the sixth century A.D.

Collected shortly before the beginning of the Christian Era and added to later, they comprise about four thousand five hundred specimens, by three hundred authors. Few of these are witty, as, indeed, few are epigrammatic, but of them we quote some which seem most appurtenant.