History of English Humour, Vol. 1 / With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour

by A. G. K. L'Estrange

Solomon's strictures with regard to money may also be regarded as of somewhat uncertain value:—"How much better is it to get wisdom than gold," sounds very well, although Solomon must have known that many men would prefer the latter, and history seems to say that he was not averse from it himself. "He that is despised and hath a servant is better than he that honoureth himself, and lacketh bread," shows at least some appreciation of the usefulness of wealth. Ecclesiastes makes a more decided statement. "Money answereth all things." I should imagine Solomon was as much alive to the two sides of the question, as was the Greek who on being asked scoffingly "why philosophers followed rich men, but rich men never followed philosophers," replied, "Because philosophers know what they want, but rich men do not."

In one place Solomon shows his consciousness that his proverbs may be viewed as true or false. He gives two opposite propositions—"Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him," and, "Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit." Shortly afterwards, he observes, as if the idea of perverting and turning proverbs was in his mind, "The legs of a lame man are not equal, so is a parable in the mouth of fools."

There was another form besides that of Proverbs, in which during earlier ages moral and political teachings were expressed. One of the first comparisons man learned to draw was that between himself and the lower animals; and the separation between reason and instinct would not appear to be at first so clearly defined as it is at present. Before the growth of cities, and the increased intercourse and accumulated experience resulting from their formation, the mental development of man was so small as not to offer any very strong contrast to the sagacity of other animals. The greatest men of ancient times were merely nomad chiefs living on the wild pasture plains, often tending their own flocks, and, no doubt, like the Arabs of the present day, making companions of their camels and horses. By the rivers and in the jungles, they often encountered beasts of prey, became familiar with their habits, and formed a higher opinion of their intelligence than we generally hold. At that time, when strength was more esteemed than intellectual gifts, there was sometimes a tendency to consider them as rather above than below the human race. The lion, the eagle, and the stag possessed qualities to which it was man's highest ambition to aspire, and, in some cases, he even went so far as to worship them. In the ancient civilisation of Egypt we find the most numerous traces of this culture and feeling—gods, kings, rulers, and disembodied spirits being represented entirely or partially under the forms of what we call the lower animals. The strange allegorical figures found at Nineveh may also be considered illustrations in point. There was evidently no caricature intended in these representations, and it is worthy of notice that such as are grotesque are not earlier than Roman times.

It is unnecessary to recapitulate the beautiful comparisons of this character which are profusely scattered through Holy Writ, but we should especially notice the blessing given by Jacob to his sons on his death-bed; in which we seem almost to discover the first origin of heraldry. Another remarkable comparison is that of Nathan, aptly made, and likely to sink with weight into the heart of the Shepherd-King. The same respect for animals survived in the time of the earliest Greek writers.

Homer in his solemn epic has numerous instances of it:—Hector in "Iliad" xi, 297, is setting the Trojans on "like dogs at a wild boar or lion." In xi, 557, Ajax retreating slowly from the Trojans is compared to an ass who has gone to feed in a field, and whom the boys find great difficulty in driving out, "though they belabour him well with cudgels." Agamemnon is compared to a bull, Sarpedon and Patroclus in deadly combat to two vultures, and Diomed and Ulysses pursue Dolon as two fleet hounds chase a hare. All these were evidently intended to be most poetical, if not elevating similes; their dignity would have been lost could they possibly have been regarded as humorous.

Simonides of Amorgos in the seventh century B.C., is remarkable for this kind of illustration. After some lamentations about human life, he observes that nothing is better than a good wife, or worse than a bad one, and he proceeds to compare women to various animals. He is also evidently very serious over the subject, and regards it as no joke at all. Perhaps there was also something to be said on the other side, for he remarks that a gadding wife cannot be cured, even if you "knock out her teeth with a stone." He likens them to pigs and polecats, horses and apes; and only praises the descendant of the bee. In a passage undoubtedly of early date, and attributed to Xenophanes, the founder of the Eleatic school of philosophy, (540-500) the writer enumerates the various ways, in which other animals are superior to man. "If by the will of God there were an equality and community in life, so that the herald of the Olympian games should not only call men to the contest, but also bid all animals to come, no man would carry off a prize; for in the long race the horse would be the best; the hare would win the short race; the deer would be best in the double race. No man's fleetness would count for anything, and no one since Hercules would seem to have been stronger than the elephant or lion; the bull would carry off the crown in striking, and the ass in kicking, and history would record that an ass conquered men in wrestling and boxing."

But the light in which the lower animals were regarded, produced other fanciful combinations. Not only were men given the attributes of animals, but animals were endowed with the gifts peculiar to man. All things were then possible. Standing as he seemed in the centre of a plain of indefinite or interminable extent, how could any man limit the productions or vagaries of Nature, even if he possessed far more than the narrow experience of those days? Moreover, the boundary lines were vague between the natural and supernatural, and the latter was supposed to be constantly interposing in the ordinary affairs of life. Among other beliefs then prevalent, was one in the existence of a kind of half nature, such as that in Centaurs, dragons, and griffins. In the Assyrian cuneiform inscriptions lately deciphered, we read, of one Heabani, a semi-bovine hermit, supposed to have lived 2,200 B.C. Thus the accounts in Scripture of the serpent accosting Eve, and of Balaam arguing with his ass, would not have seemed so remarkable then as they do to us. In an Egyptian novel—the oldest extant, cir. 1,400 B.C.—a cow tells Bata that his elder brother is standing before him with his dagger ready to kill him. He understood, we are told, the language of animals, and was afterwards transformed into a bull. Greek tradition as recorded by Plato, Xenophon, Babrius, and others, speaks of an early golden age in which men and animals held colloquies together "as in our fables;" whence we should conclude this much—that there was a time when poets very commonly introduced them as holding conversations, and when philosophers illustrated their doctrines from the animal world.

The fable, we are told, was "an invention of ancient Assyrian men in the days of Ninus and Belus," and in confirmation of its Eastern origin, we may observe that the apologues of Lokman are of Indian derivation. He is supposed, by Arabian writers, to have been either a nephew of Abraham or Job, or a counsellor of David or Solomon.

The first specimen we have of an ordinary fable, i.e., of one in which the interlocutors are lower animals, is found in Hesiod, who is placed about a century after Homer. It runs thus:—

"Now I will tell the kings a fable, which they will understand of themselves. Thus spake the hawk to the nightingale, whom he was carrying in his talons high in air, 'Foolish creature! why dost thou cry out? One much stronger than thou hath seized thee, though thou art a songster. I can tear thee to pieces, or let thee go at my pleasure.'"