Many there be who exercise their wits
In giving birth, by cutting jests, to laughter.
I hate the knaves whose rude unbridled tongues
Sport with the wise; and cannot for my life
Think they are men, though laughter doth become them,
And they have houses filled with treasured stores
From distant lands.[[774]]
But if Euripides found nothing desirable in laughter, there were those who had a clean contrary creed, and lamented nothing so much as the loss of their risible faculties. On this subject Semos has a story quite à propos. Parmeniscos, the Metapontine, having descended, he says, into the cave of Trophonios, became so extremely grave, that with all the appliances, and means to boot, furnished by wealth, and they were not a few, he thereafter found himself quite unable to screw up his muscles into a smile; which taking much to heart, as was natural, he made a pilgrimage to Delphi, to inquire by what means he might rid himself of the blue devils. Somewhat puzzled at the strangeness of the inquiry, the Pythoness replied,—
Poor mortal unmerry, who seekest to know
What will bid thy brow soften, thy quips and cranks flow,