Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.

We may note therefore that jests which turn on the meaning of things are at once more pointed and more elegant. In such cases resemblances between things produce the best effects, more especially if we refer to something of an inferior or more trivial nature, as in the jests of which our forefathers were so fond, when they called Lentulus Spinther and Scipio Serapio. [*]( From their resemblances to Spinther, a bad actor, and to Serapio, a dealer in sacrificial victims. ) But such jests may be drawn not merely from the names of men, but from animals as well; for example when I was a boy, Junius Bassus, one of the wittiest of men, was nicknamed the white ass.

And Sarmentus [*]( Sarmentus, a favourite of Augustus, cp. Hor. Sat. I. v. 56, where the story is given. ) compared Messius Cicirrus to a wild horse. The comparison may also be drawn from inanimate objects: for example Publius Blessius called a certain Julius, who was dark, lean and bent, the iron buckle. This method of raising a laugh is much in vogue to-day.

Such resemblances

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may be put to the service of wit either openly or allusively. Of the latter type is the remark of Augustus, made to a soldier who showed signs of timidity in presenting a petition,

Don't hold it out as if you were giving a penny to an elephant.

Some of these jests turn on similarity of meaning. Of this kind was the witticism uttered by Vatinius when he was prosecuted by Calvus. Vatinius was wiping his forehead with a white handkerchief, and his accuser called attention to the unseemliness of the act. Whereupon Vatinius replied,

Though I am on my trial, I go on eating white bread all the same.

[*]( The accused habitually wore mourning. Calvus suggested that Vatinius should not therefore have a white handkerchief. Vatinius retorts, You might as well say that I ought to have dropped eating white bread. )

Still more ingenious is the application of one thing to another on the ground of some resemblance, that is to say the adaptation to one thing of a circumstance which usually applies to something else, a type of jest which we may regard as being an ingenious form of fiction. For example, when ivory models of captured towns were carried in Caesar's triumphal procession, and a few days later wooden models of the same kind were carried at the triumph of Fabius Maximus, [*]( Legatus of Caesar in Spain. The wooden models were so worthless compared with those of ivory that Chrysippus said they must be no more than the boxes in which Caesar kept the latter. ) Chrysippus [*]( Probably Chrysippus Vettins, a freedman and architeot. Presumably the poet Pedo Albinovanus. ) remarked that the latter were the cases for Caesar's ivory towns. And Pedo [*]( Probably Chrysippus Vettins, a freedman and architeot. Presumably the poet Pedo Albinovanus. ) said of a heavy-armed gladiator who was pursuing another armed with a net and failed to strike him,

He wants to catch him alive.

Resemblance and ambiguity may be used in conjunction: Galba for example said to a man who stood very much at his ease when playing ball,

You stand as if you were one of Caesar's candidates.

[*]( A candidate recommended by the emperor was automatically elected. I have borrowed Watson's translation of the pun. Petere is the regular word for standing for office. Petere pilam probably means to attempt to catch the ball. ) The

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ambiguity lies in the word stand, while the indifference shewn by the player supplies the resemblance.

I need say no more on this form of humour. But the practice of combining different types of jest is very common, and those are best which are of this composite character. A like use may be made of dissimilarity. Thus a Roman knight was once drinking at tile games, and Augustus sent him the following message,

If I want to dine, I go home.

To which the other replied,

Yes, but you are not afraid of losing your seat

Contraries give rise to more than one kind of jest. For instance the following jests made by Augustus and Galba differ in form. Augustus was engaged in dismissing an officer with dishonour from his service: the officer kept interrupting him with entreaties and said,

What shall I say to my father?

Augustus replied,

Tell him that I fell under your displeasure.

Galba, when a friend asked him for the loan of a cloak, said,

I cannot lend it you, as I am going to stay at home,

the point being that the rain was pouring through the roof of his garret at the time. I will add a third example, although out of respect to its author I withhold his name:

You are more lustful than a eunuch,

where we are surprised by the appearance of a word which is the very opposite of what we should have expected. Under the same heading, although it is quite different from any of the preceding, we must place the remark made by Marcus Vestinus when it was reported to him that a certain man was dead.

Some day then he will cease to stink,

was his reply.

But I shall overload this book with illustrations and turn it into a common jest-book, if I continue to quote each jest that was made by our forefathers.

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All forms of argument afford equal opportunity for jests. Augustus for example employed definition when he said of two ballet-dancers who were engaged in a contest, turn and turn about, as to who could make tile most exquisite gestures, that one was a dancer and the other merely interrupted the dancing.

Galba on the other hand made use of partition when he replied to a friend who asked him for a cloak,

It is not raining and you don't need it; if it does rain, I shall wear it myself.

Similar material for jests is supplied by genus, species, property, difference, conjugates, [*](See v. x. 85.) adjuncts, antecedents, consequents, contraries, causes, effects, and comparisons of things greater, equal, or less, [*]( See v. x. 55 sqq. ) as it is also by all forms of trope.

Are not a large number of jests made by means of hyperbole? Take for instance Cicero's [*](cp. de Orat II. lxvi. 267, where the jest is attributed to Crassus. ) remark about a man who was remarkable for his height,

He bumped his head against the Fabian arch,

or the remark made by Publius Oppius about the family of the Lentuli to the effect, that since the children were always smaller than their parents, the race would

perish by propagation.

Again, what of irony?

Is not even the most severe form of irony a kind of jest? Afer made a witty use of it when he replied to Didius Callus, who, after making the utmost efforts to secure a provincial government, complained on receiving the appointment that he had been forced into accepting,

Well, then, do something for your country's sake.

[*](i.e. sacrifice your own interests and serve your country or its own sake. ) Cicero also employed metaphor to serve his jest, when on receiving a report of uncertain authorship to the effect that Vatinius was dead, he remarked,

Well, for the meantime I shall
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make use of the interest.

[*]( The report may be false, but I will enjoy the hope it arouses in me. The capital on which I receive a dividend may be non-existent, but I will enjoy the interest. )