Institutio Oratoria
Quintilian
Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.
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.
There is also a form of misrepresentation which has its basis in irony, of which a saying of Gaius Caesar will provide an example. A witness asserted that the accused attempted to wound him in the thighs, and although it would have been easy to ask him why he attacked that portion of his body above all others, he merely remarked,
What else could he have done, when you had a helmet and breastplate?
Best of all is it when pretence is met by pretence, as was done in the following instance by Domitius Afer. He had made his will long ago, and one of his more recent friends, in the hopes of securing a legacy if he could persuade him to change it, produced a fictitious story and asked him whether he should advise a senior centurion who, being an old man, had already made his will to revise it; to which Afer replied,
Don't do it: you will offend him.