History of English Humour Volume I Part 2

Before the time of aesop, though not perhaps of his fables, Homer related a few laughable occurrences of so simple a character as to require little ingenuity. In this respect he is not much better than a man who recounts some absurd incident he has witnessed without adding sufficient to it to show that he has a humorous imagination. His mirth, except when merely that of pleasure, is of the old hostile character. In Iliad, xi, 378, Paris, having hit Diomed, from behind a pillar with an arrow in the foot, springs forth from his concealment and laughs at him, saying he wished he had killed him. In Iliad, xxi, 407, where the G.o.ds descend into the battle, Minerva laughs at Mars when she has struck him with a huge stone so that he fell, his hair was draggled in the dust, and his armour clanged around him. In the Odyssey, Ulysses speaks of his heart laughing within him after he had put out Polyphemus' eye with a burning stick without being discovered. And in Book xviii, Ulysses strikes Irus under the ear and breaks his head, so that blood pours from his mouth, and he falls gnashing and struggling on the ground, at which, we are told, the suitors "die with laughter."

From this hostile phase the transition was easy to ridiculing personal defects, and so Homer tells us that when the G.o.ds at their banquet saw Vulcan, who was acting as butler, "stumping about on his lame leg," they fell into "unextinguishable laughter."

Thersites is described as "squint-eyed, lame-legged, with bent shoulders pinched over his chest, a pointed head, and very little hair on it."

Homer may merely have intended to represent the reviler of kings as odious and despicable, but there seems to be some humour intended.

Ridicule of personal defects must always be of an inferior kind, being a matter of sight, and of small complexity. As the first advance of the ludicrous was from the hostile to the personal, so the beginning of humour seems to have been the representation of personal defects.[7]

In accordance with this, we find that the only mention of laughter made by Simonides of Amorgos is where he says that some women may be compared to apes, and then gives a very rude description of their persons. This subservience to the eye can also be observed in the appreciation of monkeys and dancing horses, already mentioned, the latter forming a humorous exhibition, as the animals were trained with a view to amuse.

We have marks of the same optical tendencies in the appreciation of antics and contortions of the body, either as representing personal deformity, or as a kind of puzzling and disorderly action. A little contemporary story related by Herodotus shows that these pantomimic performances were now becoming fashionable in Athens. Cleisthenes, tyrant of Sicyon, was even at this date so much in favour of compet.i.tive examinations, that he determined to give his daughter to the most proficient and accomplished man. On the appointed day the suitors came to the examination from every quarter, for the fair Agariste was heiress to great possessions. Among them was one Hippocleides, an Athenian, who proved himself far superior to all the rest in music and dissertation.

Afterwards, when the trial was over, desiring to indulge his feelings of triumph and show his skill, he called for a piper, and then for a table, upon which he danced, finishing up by standing on his head and kicking his legs about. Cleisthenes, who was apparently one of the "old school,"

and did not appreciate the manners and customs of young Athens, was much offended by this undignified performance of his would-be son-in-law, and when he at last saw him standing on his head, could no longer contain himself, but cried out, "Son of Tisander, thou hast danced away thy marriage." To which the other replied with characteristic unconcern: "It's all the same to Hippocleides,"--an expression which became proverbial. In this story we see the new conception of humour, though of a rude kind, coming into collision with the old philosophic contests of ingenuity, which it was destined to survive if not to supersede.

We have another curious instance about this date of an earnest-minded man being above the humour of the day, (which, no doubt, consisted princ.i.p.ally of gesticulation), and he was probably voted an unsociable, old-fashioned fellow. Anacharsis, the great Scythian philosopher, when jesters were introduced into his company maintained his gravity, but when afterwards a monkey was brought in, he burst into a fit of laughter, and said, "Now this is laughable by Nature; the other by Art."

That amus.e.m.e.nt should be thus excited by natural objects denotes a very eccentric or primitive perception of the ludicrous, seldom now found among mature persons, but it is such as Diodorus, quoting no doubt from earlier histories, attributed to Osiris--"to whom," he says, "when in Ethiopia, they brought Satyrs, (who have hair on their backs,) for he was fond of what was laughable."

But a further development of humour was in progress. As people were at that time easily induced to regard sufferings as ludicrous, the idea suggested itself of creating mirth by administering punishment, or by indulging in threats and gross aspersions. A very slight amount of invention or complexity was here necessary. The origin of the comic drama furnishes an ill.u.s.tration of this. It commenced in the harvest homes of Greece and Sicily--in the festivals of the grape-gatherers at the completion of the vintage. They paraded the villages, crowned with vine-leaves, carrying poles and branches, and smeared with the juice of grapes. Their aim was to provoke general merriment by dancing, singing, and grotesque att.i.tudes, and by giving rein to their coa.r.s.e and pugnacious propensities. Spectators and pa.s.sers by were a.s.sailed with invectives, pelted with missiles, and treated to all that hostile humour which is a.s.sociated with practical joking. So vile was their language and conduct that "comedy" came to signify abuse and vilification. As the taste for music and rhythm became general in that sunny clime, even these rioters adopted a kind of verse, by which rustic genius could give additional point to scurrility. Thus arose the Iambic measure used at the festivals of Ceres and Bacchus, and afterwards fabled to have been invented by Iambe, the daughter of the King of Eleusis. Hence, also, came the jesting used in celebrating the rites of Ceres in Sicily, and the custom for people to post themselves on the bridge leading to Eleusis in Attica, and to banter and abuse those going to the festivals.

The story of Iambe only marks the rural origin of the metre, and its connection with Ceres, the G.o.ddess of Harvest. Eleusis was her chosen abode, and next in her favour was Paros; and here we accordingly find the first improvement made upon these uncouth and virulent effusions.

About the commencement of the 7th century, Archilochus, a native of this place, harnessed his ribaldries better, and put them into a "light horse gallop." He raised the Iambic style and metre so as to obtain the unenviable notoriety of having been the first to dip his pen in viper's gall. Good cause had he for his complaints, for a young lady's father, one Lycambes, refused to give him his daughter's hand. There was apparently some difficulty about the marriage gifts--the poet having nothing to give but himself. Rejected, he took to writing defamatory verses on Lycambes and his daughters, and composed them with so much skill and point that the whole family hanged themselves. Allusions, which led to such a catastrophe, could not now be regarded as pleasantries; but at that time he obtained a high reputation, and perhaps the suicide of the wretched Lycambes was considered the best joke of all.[8] The fragments which remain to us of Archilochus'

productions seem melancholy enough, and the only place where he speaks of laughter is where he calls Charilaus "a thing to be laughed at,"--an expression which would seem to point to some personal deformity--we are told, however, by later writers, that he was a glutton. In another remaining pa.s.sage Archilochus says that "he is not fond of a tall general walking with his legs apart, with his hair carefully arranged, and his chin well shaven;" where we still detect the same kind of caricature, and in default of any adequate specimen of his "gall," we may perhaps be excused for borrowing an ill.u.s.tration from Alcaeus, who lived slightly later; and who, speaking of his political opponent Pittacus, calls him a "bloated paunch-belly," and a "filthy splay-footed, crack-footed, night fellow."

Archilochus lived in the fable age, and the most perfect of the small fragments remaining of his works are of that allegorical description.

But he may be regarded as a representative of the dull and bitter humour of his time--a large proportion of which, as in his writings, and those of Simonides and Hesiod, was ungallantly directed against the "girls of the period."[9]

But Archilochus' humour, though rude and simple, opened a new mine of wealth, and if it was not at first very rich, it was enough to indicate the golden treasure beneath. Sonorous narratives about heroes and demi-G.o.ds were to be gradually supplanted by the bright contrasts of real life. Archilochus' ingenuity had introduced light metres suited for flippant and pointed allusions. The conceit was generally approved, and though the new form could not exactly be called humorous, it occurred to Hipponax, in the next century, that he could make it so by a slight alteration. Perhaps this "Father of Parody" intended to mimic Archilochus; at any rate, by means of a change in termination, he manufactured "limping" Iambics. We must suppose that he produced something better than this, but look in vain into his lines for any instances of real pungency. He was a sort of Greek Samson, his best jokes seem to have been connected with great strength, and to judge from what remains of his works, we should conclude that he was more justly famous for "tossing an oil cruise" than for producing anything which we should call humour. But, were we asked whether in that age his sayings would have been amusing, we may reply in the affirmative; they certainly had severity, for his figure having been caricatured by the sculptors of Chios, Bupalus and Anthermus, he repaid them so well in their own coin, that they also duly hanged themselves. It must be admitted that the fact of the same kind of death having been chosen by them, and by the objects of Archilochus' derision, does not increase greatly the credibility of the stories.

We now come to consider what we may call a serious source of humour.

Already we have noticed the tendency in ancient times to exercises of ingenuity in answering hard questions. These led to deeper thought, to the aphoristic wisdom of the seven wise men, and the speculations of those who were in due time to raise laughter at the follies of mankind.

This introduces the era of the philosophers--a remarkable cla.s.s of men, who grew up in the mercurial atmosphere of Greece. One of the most distinguished of them was Democritus, born 460 B.C. He came of n.o.ble descent, and belonged to so wealthy a family of Abdera that his father was able to entertain Xerxes on his return to Asia. The King left some Chaldean Magi to instruct his son, who, early in life, evinced a great desire for the acquisition of knowledge, and after studying under Leucippus, travelled to Egypt, Persia, and Babylon. He almost seemed a compound of two different characters, uniting the intellectual energy of the sage with the social feelings of a man of the world. Living in ease and opulence, he was not inclined to be censorious or morose; having mingled much in society, he was not very emotional or sympathetic; not tempted to think life a melancholy scene of suffering, but callous enough to find amus.e.m.e.nt in the ills he could not prevent. He regarded man, generally, as a curious study, as remarkable for not exercising the intellect with which he was endowed--not so much from censurable causes as from some obliquity in mental vision. Not that he regarded him as unaccountable--a fool in the ordinary acceptation of the word, is always a responsible being, and not synonymous with an idiot.

The humour of this laughing sage, grounded upon deep philosophy, was so little understood in his day that none were able to join in his merriment, nor did he expect that they should be; if he was humorous to himself, he was not so, and did not aim at being so, to others. On the contrary, he was thought to be mad, and Hippocrates was directed to inquire into his disorder, but the learned physician returned answer that not he, but his opponents were deranged. Whether this story be a fabrication or not, we may regard it as a testimony that wise men saw much truth in his philosophy. Montaigne, in his Essay on Democritus and Herac.l.i.tus, gives his preference to the former, "Because," he observes, "men are more to be laughed at than hated," showing that he regarded him as imputing folly to men rather than vice.

Even Socrates, whom we are accustomed to regard as the most earnest of philosophers was by no means a melancholy man. Fully aware of the influence exercised by humour, he often put his teachings into an indirect form, and he seems to have first thus generally attracted attention. He introduced what is called irony[10]--the using expressions which literally mean exactly the opposite to what is intended. A man may be either praised or blamed in this way, but Socrates' intention was always sarcastic. He put questions to men, as if merely desiring some information they could easily give him, while he knew that his inquiries could not be answered, without overthrowing the theories of those he addressed. Thus, he gave instruction whilst he seemed to solicit it. In various other ways he enlivened and recommended his doctrines by humorous ill.u.s.tration. It is said that he even went to the theatre to see himself caricatured, laughed as heartily as any, and stood up to show the audience how correctly his ill-favoured countenance had been reproduced. This story may be questioned, and it has been observed that he was not insensible to ridicule, for he said shortly before his death that no one would deride him any longer. We are told that he spent some of his last days in versifying the fables of aesop.

We now return from theoretical to practical life, from the philosophers to the public. Nothing exhibits more forcibly the variable character of humour than that, while philosophers in their "thinking shops" were laughing at the follies of the world, the populace in the theatre were shaking their sides at the absurdities of sages. Ordinary men did not appreciate abstract views, nor understand abstruse philosophic humour, indeed it died out almost as soon as it appeared, and was only contemporary with a certain epoch in the mental history of Greece. Every popular man is to a great extent a reflection of the age in which he lives, "a boat borne up by a billow;" and what, in this respect is true generally, is especially so with regard to the humorist, who seeks a present reward, and must be in unison with the characters of those he has to amuse. He depends much on hitting the current fancies of men by small and subtle allusions, and he must have a natural perception of fitness, of the direction in which he must go, and the limits he must not transgress. The literature of an epoch exhibits the taste of the readers, as well as that of the authors.

We shall thus be prepared to find that the mind of Aristophanes, although his views were aristocratic, harmonized in tone with that of the people, and that his humour bears the stamp of the ancient era in which he lived. The ill.u.s.trations from the animal world in which he constantly indulges remind us of the conceits of old times, when marvellous stories were as much admired as the monstrous figures upon the Persian tapestry. Would any man at the present day produce comedies with such names as "The Wasps," "The Frogs," and "The Birds."[11] But we here meet with our feathered and four-footed companions at every corner.

The building of the bird's city is a good ill.u.s.tration of this. Thirty thousand cranes brought stones for the foundations from Libya, and ten thousand storks made bricks, the ducks with ap.r.o.ns on carried the bricks, and the swallows flew with trowels behind them like little boys, and with mortar in their beaks.

We also notice in Aristophanes a simple and rude form of the ludicrous, scarcely to be called humour, much in favour with his immediate predecessors. I refer to throwing fruits and sweatmeats among the audience. Trygaeus (Vintner), celebrating a joyous country festival in honour of the return of peace and plenty, takes occasion to throw barley among the spectators. In another place Dicaepolis, also upon pacific deeds intent, establishes a public treat, and calls out, "Let some one bring in figs for the little pigs. How they squeak! will they eat them?

(throws some) Bless me! how they do munch them! from what place do they come? I should say from Eaton."

In this scrambling fun there would be good and bad fortune, and much laughter would be occasioned, but mostly of an emotional character. Some of the jokes of Hegemon, who first introduced dramatic parody, were of a similar description, but more unpleasant. On one occasion he came into the theatre with his robe full of stones, and began to throw them into the orchestra, saying, "These are stones, and let those who will throw them." Aristophanes makes great use of that humour which is dependent upon awakening hostile and combative feelings. Personal violence and threats are with him common stage devices. We have here as much "fist sauce," and shaking of sticks, and as many pommellings, boxings of ears, and threats of a.s.sault and battery as in any modern harlequinade.

Next in order, we come to consider some of the many instances in Aristophanes of what may be called optical humour--that in which the point princ.i.p.ally depends upon the eye. Thus he makes Hercules say he cannot restrain his laughter on seeing Bacchus wearing a lion's skin over a saffron robe. A Megarian reduced to extremities, determines to sell his little daughters as pigs, and disguises them accordingly.[12]

In the Thesmophoriazusae, there is a shaving scene, in which the man performed upon has his face cut, and runs away, "looking ridiculous with only one side of his face shaven." In another play where the ladies have stolen the gentlemen's clothes, the latter come on the stage in the most ludicrous attire, wearing saffron-coloured robes, kerchiefs, and Persian slippers. In another, the chorus is composed of men representing wasps, with waists pinched in, bodies striped with black and yellow, and long stings behind. The piece ends with three boys disguised as crabs, dancing a furious breakdown, while the chorus encourages them with, "Come now, let us all make room for them, that they may twirl themselves about. Come, oh famous offsprings of your briny father!--skip along the sandy sh.o.r.e of the barren sea, ye brothers of shrimps. Twirl, whirl round your foot swiftly, and fling up your heels in the air like Phrynicus, until the spectators shout aloud! Spin like a top, pa.s.s along in circle, punch yourself in the stomach, and fling your leg to the sky, for the King himself, who rules the sea, approaches, delighted with his children!"

The greater the optical element in humour, the lower and more simple it becomes, the complexity being more that of the senses than of intellect.

It may be said there is always some appeal to both, but not in any equal proportions, and there is manifestly a great difference between the humour of a plough-boy grinning through a horse-collar, and of a sage observing that "when the poor man makes the rich a present, he is unkind to him." Caricature drawings produce little effect upon educated people, unless a.s.sisted by a description on which the humour largely depends. We can see in a picture that a man has a grotesque figure, or is made to represent some other animal; by gesticulation we can understand when a person is angry or pleased, or hungry or thirsty; but what we gain merely through the senses is not so very far superior to that which is obtained by savages or even the lower animals, except where there has been special education.

Next to optical humour may be placed acoustic--that of sound--another inferior kind. The ear gives less information than the eye. In music there is not so much conveyed to the mind as in painting, and although it may be lively, it cannot in itself be humorous. We cannot judge of the range of hearing by the vast store of information brought by words written or spoken, because these are conventional signs, and have no optical or acoustic connection with the thing signified. We can understand this when we listen to a foreign language.

Hipponax seems to have been the first man who introduced acoustic humour by the abrupt variation in his metre. Exclamations and strange sounds were found very effective on the stage, and were now frequently introduced, especially emanating from slaves to amuse the audience.

Aristophanes commences the knights with a howling duet between two slaves who have been flogged,

"Oh, oh--Oh, oh--Oh, oh--Oh, oh--"

In another play, there is a constant chorus of frogs croaking from the infernal marshes.

"Brekekekex, coax, coax, brekekekex, coax, coax."

In "The Birds," the songsters of the woods are frequently heard trilling their lays. As they were only befeathered men, this must have been a somewhat comic performance. The king of birds, transformed from Tereus, King of Thrace, twitters in the following style.

"Epopopopopopopopopopoi! io! io! come, come, come, come, come. Tio, tio, tio, tio, tio, tio, tio! trioto, trioto, totobrix! Torotorotorotorolix!

Ciccabau, ciccabau! Torotorotorotorotililix."

Rapidity of utterance was also aimed at in some parts of the choruses, and sometimes very long words had to be p.r.o.nounced without pause--such as green-grocery-market-woman, and garlic-bread-selling-hostesses. At the end of the Ecclesiazusae, there is a word of twenty-seven syllables--a receipt for a mixture--as multifarious in its contents as a Yorkshire pie.

We may conclude that there was a humour in tone as well as of rhythm in fashion before the time of Aristophanes, and we read that there was a certain ventriloquist named Eurycles; but Aristophanes must be content to bear the reproach of having been the first to introduce punning. He probably had accomplices among his contemporaries, but they have been lost in obscurity. Playing with words seems to have commenced very early. The organs of speech are not able to produce any great number of entirely different sounds, as is proved by the paucity of the vowels and consonants we possess. To increase the vocabulary, syllables are grouped together by rapid utterance, and distinctions of time were made.

Similarities in the length and flow of words began soon to be noticed, and hence arose the idea of parallelism, that is of poetry--a similarity of measure. A likeness in the tone of words, in the vowel and consonant sounds, was afterwards observed, and became the foundation of punning.

The difference between rhythm and puns is partly that of degree--and the latter were originally regarded as poetical. Simonides of Ceos called Jupiter Aristarchus, _i.e._, the best of rulers; and aeschylus spoke of Helen as a "h.e.l.l,"[13] but neither of them intended to be facetious.

Aristotle ranked such conceits among the ornaments of style; and we do not until much later times find them regarded as ludicrous.

With Aristophanes they are humorous, and his ingenuity in representing things as the same because their names were so, would not have been unworthy of a modern burlesque writer. They, perhaps, were more appreciated at that time from their appearing less common and less easily made. But there is a worse direction than any above mentioned, in which Aristophanes truckled to the low taste of his day. The modern reader is shocked and astounded at the immense amount of indelicacy contained in his works. It ranges from the mild impropriety of saying that a girl dances as nimbly as a flea in a sheepskin, or of naming those other industrious little creatures he euphemistically calls "Corinthians," to a grand exhibition of the blessings of Peace under the form of a young lady, the liberal display of whose charms would have petrified a modern Chamberlain. In one place, Trygaeus is riding to heaven on a dung-beetle, and of course a large fund of amus.e.m.e.nt is obtained from the literal and metaphorical manipulation of its food.

Socrates' disciples are discovered in a kneeling posture, with their heads on the ground. "What are they doing?" inquires the visitor. "They are in search of things below the earth." "And why are their backs up in the air?" "With them they are studying astronomy."

These pa.s.sages will give some faint idea, though not an adequate one, of the coa.r.s.eness of Aristophanes' humour. The primitive character of it is marked by the fact that the greater portion has no reference to the s.e.xes.

It is a crumb of comfort to know that women were not generally present at performances of comedies, and Aristotle says that young men should not be allowed to attend them until they are old enough to sit at table and get drunk. Moreover, to be humorous the comedian must necessarily have exceeded the bounds of ordinary usage. Aristophanes occasionally deplores the degeneracy of his times,--the youth of the period making "rude jests," but his own writings are the princ.i.p.al evidence of this depravity. His allusions are not excusable on the ground of ignorance; they are intentionally impure. There was once an age of innocence--still reflected in childhood, and among some unprogressive races--in which a sort of natural darkness hung over the thoughts and actions of men,--but it was in reality an age of ignorance. When light broke forth delicacy sprang up, and when by degrees one thing after another had been forbidden and veiled from sight by the common consent of society, there was a large borderland formed outside immorality upon which the trespa.s.ser could enter and sport; and much could be said which was objectionable without giving serious offence. Before the days of Aristophanes and the comic performances for which he wrote, very little genius or enterprise was directed into the paths of humour, but now every part of them was explored. Indelicacy would here afford great a.s.sistance, from the attraction it possesses for many people and the ease with which it is understood. Something perhaps is due to the fact that Greece had now reached the highest point of her prosperity, and that a certain amount of lawlessness prevailed as her brilliancy began to tremble and fade. From whatever cause it arose, Aristophanes stands before us as one of the first to introduce this base ornamentation. The most remarkable circ.u.mstance connected with it is that he a.s.signs a large part of his coa.r.s.e language to women. His object was to amuse a not very refined audience, and one that relished something preposterous.

Thus Aristophanes lowered his style to the level of his audience, but in his brighter moments, forgetting his failings and exigencies, he disowns expedients unworthy of the comic art. He says he has not like "Phrynicus, Lycis, and Amisias" introduced slaves groaning beneath their burdens, or yelping from their stripes; he comes away, "a year older from hearing such stage tricks." "It is not becoming," he observes in another place for a dramatic poet to throw figs and sweetmeats to the spectators to force a laugh, and "we have not two slaves throwing nuts from a basket." In _his_ plays "the old man does not belabour the person next him with a stick." He claims that he has made his rivals give up scoffing at rags and lice, and that he does not indulge in what I have termed optical humour. He has not, like some of his contemporaries, "jeered at the bald head," and not danced the Cordax. He seems in the following pa.s.sage even to despise animal ill.u.s.trations--

_Bdelycleon._ Tell me no fables, but domestic stories about men.

_Philocleon._ Then I know that very domestic story, "Once on a time there was a mouse and a weazel."

_Bdel._ "Oh, thou lubberly and ignorant fellow," as Theogenes said when he was abusing the scavenger. Are you going to tell a story of mice and weazels among men?

Like most humorists he blames in one place what he adopts in another.

Plato had so high an opinion of Aristophanes that, in reply to Dionysius of Syracuse, he sent him a copy of his plays as affording the best picture of the commonwealth of Athens. This philosopher is also said to have introduced mimes--a sort of minor comedy--from Sicily, and to have esteemed their composer Sophron so highly that he kept a copy of his works under his pillow. Plato appreciated humour, was fond of writing little amatory couplets, and among the epigrams attributed to him is the following dedication of a mirror by a fading beauty, thus rendered by Prior:--

"Venus, take this votive gla.s.s, Since I am not what I was!

What I shall hereafter be, Venus, let me never see!"

Plato objected to violent laughter as indicative of an impulsive and ill-regulated temper, observing "that it is not suitable for men of worth, much less for the G.o.ds," the first part of which remark shows that he was not emotional, and the second that a great improvement in critical taste had taken place since the early centuries of Homer and David.

As youth is romantic, and old age humorous, so in history sentiment precedes criticism and poetry attained a high degree of excellence, while humour was in its infancy. Comedy is said to have been produced first in Sicily by Susarion in 564 B.C., but we have only two or three lines by which to judge of his work, and they are on the old favourite topic. "A wife is an evil, but you can't live in a house without one." As it is said his wife left him, it must be considered doubtful whether this was not meant seriously. He was succeeded by Epicharmus, whose humour seems to have been of a very poor description.