Institutio Oratoria
Quintilian
Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.
So, too, one lie may be defeated by another: Galba, for instance, when someone told him that he once bought a lamprey five feet long for half a denarius in Sicily, replied,
There is nothing extraordinary in that: for they grow to such a length in those seas that the fishermen tie them round their waists in lieu of ropes!Then there is the opposite of denial,
namely a feigned confession, which likewise may show no small wit. Thus Afer, when pleading against a freedman of Claudius Caesar and when another freedman called out from the opposite side of the court,
You are always speaking against Caesar's freedmen,replied,
Yes, but I make precious little headway.A similar trick is not to deny a charge, though it is obviously false and affords good opportunity for an excellent reply. For example, when Philippus said to Catulus,
Why do you bark so?the latter replied, [*](cp. Cic. de Or. II. liv. 220. )
I see a thief.
To make jokes against oneself is scarcely fit for any save professed buffoons and is strongly to be disapproved in an orator. This form of jest has precisely the same varieties as those which we make against others and therefore I pass it by, although it is not infrequently employed.
On the other hand scurrilous or brutal jests, although they may raise a laugh, are quite unworthy of a gentleman. I remember a jest of this kind being made by
I will smack your head, and bring an action against you for having such a hard skull!In such cases it is difficult to say whether the audience should laugh or be angry.
There remains the prettiest of all forms of humour, namely the jest which depends for success on deceiving anticipations [*](See IX. ii. 22.) or taking another's words in a sense other than he intended. The unexpected element may be employed by the attacking party, as in the example cited by Cicero, [*](de Or. II. lxx. 281. )
What does this man lack save wealth and—virtue?or in the remark of Afer,
For pleading causes he is most admirably—dressed.Or it may be employed to meet a statement made by another, as it was by Cicero [*](cp. § 68. ) on hearing a false report of Vatinius' death: he had met one of the latter's freedmen and asked him,
Is all well?The freedman answered,
All is well.To which Cicero replied,
Is he dead, then?
But the loudest laughter of all is produced by simulation and dissimulation, proceedings which differ but little and are almost identical; but whereas simulation implies the pretence of having a certain opinion of one's own, dissimulation consists in feigning that one does not understand someone else's meaning. Afer employed simulation, when his opponents in a certain case kept saying that Celsina (who was an influential lady) knew all about the facts, and he, pretending to believe that she was a man, said,
Who is he?
Cicero on the other hand employed dissimulation when Sextus Annalis gave evidence damaging to the client whom lie was defending, and the accuser kept pressing him with the question,
Tell me, Marcus Tullius, what have you to say about Sextus Annalis?
This kind of jest finds its most frequent opportunity in ambiguity,Enn. 174 [*]( (with oras for causas ).The question ( numquid, etc.) is treated by Cicero as meaning Can you quote anything from the sixth book of the Annals? ingentis is ace. plural. )
- Who may the causes vast of war unfold?
as for example, when Cascellius, [*]( A famous lawyer mentioned by Horace, A.P. 371. Cascellius pretends to take dividere literally ( i.e. cut in two); his client had meant to sell half his ship, i.e. take a partner in the venture. ) on being consulted by a client who said,
I wish to divide my ship,replied,
You will lose it then.But there are also other ways of distorting the meaning; we may for instance give a serious statement a comparatively trivial sense, like the man who, when asked what he thought of a man who had been caught in the act of adultery, replied that he had been too slow in his movements. [*](de Or. II. lxviii. 275. )
Of a similar nature are jests whose point lies in insinuation. Such was the reply which Cicero [*](ib. lxix. 278. ) quotes as given to the man who complained that his wife had hung herself on a fig-tree.
I wish,said someone,
you would give me a slip of that tree to plant.For there the meaning is obvious, though it is not expressed in so many words.
Indeed the essence of all wit lies in the distortion of the true and natural meaning of words: a perfect instance of this is when we misrepresent our own or another's opinions or assert some impossibility.
Juba misrepresented another man's opinion, when he replied to one who complained of being bespattered by his horse,
What, do you think I am a Centaur?[*]( The point of the jest, such as it is, is that Juba disclaims forming part of his horse. The reference is to Juba, historian and king of Mauretania, captured by Julius Caesar and restored by Augustus. ) Gaius Cassius misrepresented his own, when he said to a soldier whom he
Shew yourself a handy man with your fists, comrade.So too did Galba, when served with some fish that had been partially eaten the day before and had been placed on the table with the uneaten sides turned uppermost:
We must lose no time,he said,
for there are people under the table at work on the other side.Lastly there is the jibe that Cicero made against Curius, which I have already cited; [*](§73.) for it was clearly impossible that he should be still unborn at a time when he was already declaiming.