“Now we laugh heartily at this kind of witticism, because it carries with it a response different from the one we are expecting to hear, and in such matters we are naturally amused by our very mistake and laugh to find ourselves cheated of what we expect.
64.—“But the modes of speech and the figures that are graceful in grave and serious talk, are nearly always becoming in pleasantries and games as well. You see that words set in opposition produce much grace, when one contrasting clause is balanced by another. The same method is often very witty. Thus a Genoese, who was very prodigal in spending, was reproached by a very miserly usurer, who said to him: ‘When will you ever cease throwing away your riches?’ And he replied: ‘When you cease stealing other men’s.’
“And since, as we have said, the same situations that give opportunity for biting pleasantries may also give opportunity for serious words of praise,—it is a very graceful and becoming method in either case for a man to admit or confirm what another speaker says, but to interpret it in a manner different from what was intended. Thus a village priest was saying mass to his flock not long since, and after he had announced the festivals of the week, he began the general confession in the people’s name, saying: ‘I have sinned by doing evil, by saying evil, by thinking evil,’ and so forth, making mention of all the deadly sins. Whereupon a friend and close familiar of the priest, in order to make sport of him, said to the bystanders: ‘Bear witness all of you to what by his own mouth he confesses he has done, for I mean to report him to the bishop.’
“This same method was used by Sallaza dalla Pedrada[[244]] in complimenting a lady with whom he was speaking. First he praised her for her virtuous qualities and then for still being beautiful; and she replying that she did not deserve such praise because she was already old, he said to her: ‘My Lady, your only sign of age is your resemblance to the angels, who were the first and oldest creatures that God ever made.’
65.—“Just as serious sayings are useful for praising, in like fashion we find great utility also in jocose sayings for taunting, and in well arranged metaphors, especially if they take the form of repartee, and if he who replies preserves the same metaphor used by his interlocutor. And of this kind was the answer made to messer Palla degli Strozzi,[[245]] who being exiled from Florence, sent back a servant on a certain matter of business and said to him rather threateningly: ‘Thou wilt tell Cosimo de’ Medici from me that the hen is hatching.’[[246]] The messenger did the errand commanded him, and Cosimo at once replied without hesitation: ‘And thou wilt tell messer Palla from me that hens cannot hatch well away from their nests.’
DJEM OTHMAN
1459-1495
Enlarged from Anderson’s photograph (no. 4268) of a part of the fresco, “The Dispute of St. Catherine,” in the Borgian Apartments in the Vatican, by Bernardino di Betto di Biagio, better known as Pinturicchio, (1454-1513). For the iconographical identification of this head, the translator is indebted to Professor Adolfo Venturi.
“Again, with a metaphor messer Camillo Porcaro[[247]] gracefully praised my lord Marcantonio Colonna;[[248]] who, having heard that messer Camillo had been extolling in an oration certain Italian gentlemen famous as warriors, and had spoken very highly of him among the rest, he expressed his thanks and said: ‘Messer Camillo, you have treated your friends as some merchants treat their money when it is found to contain a false ducat; for in order to be rid of it, they put the piece among many good ones, and in this way pass it on. So you, to do me honour (although I am of little worth), have put me in company with such worthy and excellent cavaliers, that by virtue of their merit I shall perhaps pass as good.’ Then messer Camillo replied: ‘Those who forge ducats are wont to gild them so well that they seem to the eye much finer than the good ones; so, if there were forgers of men as there are of ducats, we should have reason to suspect that you were false, being as you are of far finer and brighter metal than any of the rest.’
“You see that this situation gave opportunity for both kinds of witticism; and so do many others, of which countless instances could be given and especially in serious sayings. Like the one uttered by the Great Captain, who, being seated at table and all the places being already taken, saw that there remained standing two Italian cavaliers who had served very gallantly in the war; and he at once rose himself and caused all the others to rise and make room for these two, saying: ‘Allow these cavaliers to sit at their meat, for had it not been for them, the rest of us should now have no meat to eat.’ Another time he said to Diego Garzia,[[249]] who was urging him to retire from a dangerous position where the cannon shot were falling: ‘Since God hath put no fear in your heart, do not try to put any in mine.’