Читать книгу The History of English Humor - A. G. K. L'Estrange - Страница 11

People. How is a trireme a "dog fox?"

Sausage Seller. Because the trireme and the dog are swift.

People. But why fox?

Sausage Seller. The soldiers are little foxes, for they eat up the grapes in the farms.

The simplicity of some of the ancient riddles may be conjectured from the fact that the same word "griphus" included such conceits as verses beginning and ending with a certain letter or syllable.

An instance of the emblematic character of early riddles is seen in that proposed by the Sphinx to Œdipus. "What is that which goes on four legs in the morning, on two in the middle of the day, and on three in the evening?" And in the riddle of Cleobulus, one of the seven wise men:

"There was a father, and he had twelve daughters; each of his daughters had thirty children; some were white and others black, and though immortal they all taste of death."

Also in the following griphi, which are capable of receiving more than one answer.

The first two are respectively by Eubulus and Alexis—writers of the "New Comedy"—who flourished in the first half of the 4th century, B.C.

"I know a thing, which while it's young is heavy,

But when it's old, though void of wings, can fly,

With lightest motion out of sight of earth.

"It is not mortal or immortal either

But as it were compounded of the two,

So that it neither lives the life of man

Nor yet of god, but is incessantly

New born again, and then again

Of this its present life invisible,

Yet it is known and recognised by all."

From Hermippus:—

"There are two sisters, one of whom brings forth,

The other and in turn becomes her daughter."

Diphilus, in his Theseus, says, there were once three Samian damsels, who on the day of the festival of Adonis delighted themselves with riddles. One of them proposed, "What is the strongest of all things?" Another answered, "Iron, because it is that with which men dig and cut." The third said, "The blacksmith, for he bends and fashions the iron." But the first replied, "Love, for it can subdue the blacksmith himself."

The following is from Theadectes, a pupil of Isocrates, who lived about 300 B.C., and wrote fifty tragedies—none of which survive.

"Nothing which earth or sea produces,

Nought among mortals hath so great increase.

In its first birth the largest it appears,

Small in its prime, and in old age again,

In form and size it far surpasses all."[17]

To make a riddle, that is a real test of ingenuity for all, and which but one answer satisfies, shows an advanced stage of the art. The ancient riddles were almost invariably symbolical, and either too vague or too learned. They seem to us not to have sufficient point to be humorous, but no doubt they were thought so in their day.

It may not be out of place here to advert to those light compositions called Silli, about which we have no clear information, even with regard to the meaning of the name. From the fragments of them extant, we find that they were written in verse, and contained a considerable amount of poetical sentiment; indeed, all that has come down to us of Xenophanes, the first sillographer, is of this character. We are told that he used parody, but his pleasantry, probably, consisted much of after-dinner jests and stories, for we find that although he praises wisdom, and despises the fashionable athletic games, he rejoiced in sumptuous banquets, and said that the water should first be poured into the cup, then the wine. But the most celebrated sillographer was Timon the Phliasian—intimate with Antigonus and Ptolemy Philadelphus—who wrote three books of Silli, two in dialogues, and one in continuous narrative. He was a philosopher, and the principal object of his work was to bring other sects into ridicule and discredit. A few reflections of general application are scattered through it, but they are in general quite subsidiary and suggested by the subject matter.