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.
FROM THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY
Lucian
DARKNESS
“A blockhead bit by fleas put out the light,
And, chuckling, cried, ‘Now you can’t see to bite!’”
Crates
CURES FOR LOVE
“Hunger, perhaps, may cure your love,