those are keenest that arise from ambiguity. Yet they do not always move
to laughter, for they are oftener applauded as ingenious than as comic.
As was said a few days since by our friend messer Annibal Paleotto[214]
to someone who was recommending a tutor to teach his sons grammar, and
who, after praising the tutor as very learned, said that by way of
stipend the man desired not only money but a room furnished for living
and sleeping, because he had no _letto_ (bed): whereupon messer Annibal
at once replied: ‘And how can he be learned if he has not _letto_
(read)?’ You see how well he played upon the double meaning of the
phrase, _non aver letto_ [to have no bed, or, not to have read].
“But while this punning witticism has much sharpness, where a man takes
words in a sense different from that in which everyone else takes them,
it seems (as I have said) to excite wonderment rather than laughter,
except when it is combined with some other kind of saying.
“Now that kind of witticism which is most used to excite laughter, is
when we are prepared to hear one thing and the speaker says another, and
it is called ‘the unexpected.’ And if punning be combined with this, the
witticism becomes most spicy: as the other day, when there was a
discussion about making a fine brick floor (_un bel mattonato_) for my
lady Duchess’s closet, after much talk you, Giancristoforo, said: ‘If we
could fetch the Bishop of Potenza[215] and flatten him out well, it
would be the very thing, for he is the craziest creature born (_il più
bel matto nato_).’ Everyone laughed heartily, for by dividing the word
_matto-nato_ you made the pun. Moreover saying that it would be well to
flatten out a bishop and lay him in the floor of a room, was unexpected
to the listener; and so the sally was very keen and laughable.
59.—“But of punning witticisms there are many kinds; therefore we must
be careful and play very lightly with our words, and avoid those that
make the sally flat or that seem forced; and also those (as we have
said) that are too biting. As where several companions found themselves
at the house of one of their friends who was blind of one eye, and the
blind man bade the company stay to dinner, all took their leave save
one, who said: ‘I will stay with you because I see you have a vacant
place for one;’ and at the same time he pointed with his finger to the
empty socket. You see this is too bitter and rude, for it wounded
without cause, and the speaker had not first been stung himself.
Moreover he said that which might be said of all blind men; and such
universal things give no pleasure, because it seems possible that they
may have been thought out beforehand. And of this kind was that gibe at
a man without nose: ‘And where do you hang your spectacles?’[216] or
‘With what do you smell the roses in their season?’
60.—“But among other witticisms those have very good grace that are made
by taking the very words and sense from another man’s taunt and turning
them against him and striking him with his own weapons; as where a
litigant—whose adversary had said to him in the judge’s presence: ‘Why
do you bark so?’—at once replied: ‘Because I see a thief.’
“And another instance of this was when Galeotto da Narni,[217] on his
way through Siena, stopped in the street to ask for the inn; and a
Sienese, seeing how fat he was, said, laughing: ‘Other men carry their
wallets behind, but this one carries his in front.’ Galeotto at once
replied: ‘That is the way we do in a land of thieves.’
61.—“There is still another kind, which we call playing on words,[218]
and this consists in changing a word by either adding or omitting a
letter or a syllable; as when someone said: ‘You are better versed in
the Lat_r_in tongue than in the Greek.’ And you, my Lady, had a letter
addressed to you, ‘To my lady Emilia _Im_pia.’[219]
“Moreover it is a pleasant thing to quote a verse or two, applying it to
a purpose different from that which the author intends, or some other
familiar saw; sometimes to the same purpose, but changing some word. As
when a gentleman, who had an ugly and disagreeable wife, was asked how
he was, he replied: ‘Judge yourself of my state, when _Furiarum maxima
juxta me cubat_.’[220] And messer Geronimo Donato,[221] while going the
rounds of the _Stazioni_[222] at Rome in Lent with several other
gentlemen, met a bevy of beautiful Roman ladies; and one of the
gentlemen saying: ‘_Quot coelum stellas, tot habet tua Roma
puellas_,’[223] he at once replied: _Pascua quotque haedos, tot habet
tua Roma cinaedos_,[224] pointing to a company of young men who were
coming from the other direction.
[Illustration:
GALEOTTO MARZI DA NARNI
1427?-1490?
]
Enlarged from a cast, kindly furnished by M. Pierre Valton, of an
anonymous medal in his collection at Paris. See Armand’s _Les
Médailleurs Italiens_, ii, 35, no. 25.
“In like fashion messer Marcantonio della Torre[225] addressed the
Bishop of Padua. There being a nunnery at Padua in charge of a friar
reputed to be of very pure life and learned as well, it came to pass
that, as the friar frequented the convent familiarly and often confessed
the nuns, five of them (more than half of all there were) became
pregnant; and the affair being discovered, the friar wished to flee but
knew not how. The bishop had him taken into custody, and he soon
confessed that he had brought the five nuns to this pass, being tempted
of the devil; wherefore the bishop was firmly resolved to punish him
roundly. But as the man was learned, he had many friends who all tried
to help him, and along with the rest messer Marcantonio went to the
bishop to implore some measure of pardon for him. The bishop would in no
wise listen to them; and after they had pleaded hard, and recommended
the culprit, and urged in excuse the opportunities of his position, the
frailty of human nature, and many other things,—at last the bishop said:
‘I will do nothing for him, because I shall have to render God an
account of the matter.’ And when they repeated their arguments, the
bishop said: ‘What answer shall I make to God on the Day of Judgment,
when he says to me, _Give an account of thy stewardship_?’[226] Then
messer Marcantonio at once said: ‘My Lord, say that which the Evangelist
says: _Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents: behold I have gained
besides them five talents more_.’[227] Whereupon the bishop could not
keep from laughing, and greatly softened his anger and the punishment
intended for the offender.
62.—“It is also amusing to interpret names, and to pretend some reason
why the man who is spoken of bears such a name, or why something is
done. As a few days ago, when Proto da Lucca[228] (who is very amusing,
as you know) asked for the bishopric of Caglio, the Pope replied:
‘Knowest thou not that in the Spanish tongue _caglio_ means _I keep
silence_? And thou art a babbler; wherefore it would be unseemly for a
bishop never to be able to repeat his title without telling an untruth.
So be thou silent (_caglia_) now.’ Here Proto made a reply, which,
although it was not of this sort, yet was not less to the point; for
having several times repeated his request, and seeing that it was of no
avail, at last he said: ‘Holy Father, if your Holiness grant me this
bishopric, it will not be without advantage, for I shall leave your
Holiness two offices (_ufficii_).’ ‘And what offices have you to leave?’
said the Pope. Proto replied: ‘The full office (_ufficio grande_), and
the Madonna’s office (_ufficio della Madonna_).’[229] Then the Pope
could not keep from laughing, although he was a very grave man.
“Still another man at Padua said that Calfurnio[230] was so named
because he was accustomed to heat (_s_cal_dare_) ovens (_forni_). And
when I one day asked Fedra[231] why it was that on Good Friday, while
the Church offered prayer not only for Christians but even for pagans
and Jews, no mention is made of cardinals along with bishops and other
prelates,—he answered me that cardinals were included in that prayer
which says: ‘Let us pray for heretics and schismatics.’
“And our friend Count Ludovico said that the reason why I censured a
lady for using a certain cosmetic that gave a high polish, was because I
saw myself in her face, when it was painted, as in a mirrour; and being
ill favoured I could have no wish to see myself.
“Of this kind was that retort of messer Camillo Paleotto[232] to messer
Antonio Porcaro,[233] who, in speaking of a companion who told the
priest at confession that he fasted zealously, attended mass and the
sacred offices, and did all the good in the world, said: ‘The man
praises himself instead of owning his sins;’ to which messer Camillo
replied: ‘Nay, he confesses these things because he thinks it a great
sin to do them.’
“Do you not remember what a good thing my lord Prefect said the other
day? When Giantommaso Galeotto[234] was surprised at a man’s asking two
hundred ducats for a horse, because, as Giantommaso said, it was not
worth a farthing and among other defects was so afraid of weapons that
no one could make it come near them,—my lord Prefect (wishing to twit
the man with cowardice) said: ‘If the horse has this trick of running
away from weapons, I wonder that he does not ask a thousand ducats for
it.’
63.—“Moreover the very same word is sometimes employed, but in a sense
different from the usual one. As when my lord Duke,[2] being about to
cross a very rapid river, said to a trumpeter: ‘Cross over’ (_passa_);
and the trumpeter turned cap in hand, and said respectfully: ‘After your
Lordship’ (_passi la Signoria Vostra_).
[Illustration:
TOMMASO INGHIRAMI
“FEDRA”
1470?-1516
]
Reduced from Braun’s photograph (no. 42.171) of the portrait, in the
Pitti Gallery at Florence, long attributed to Raphael (1483-1520),
but pronounced by Morelli to be a copy, by a non-Italian painter, of
the original Raphael owned by the Inghirami family at Volterra and
now ruined by restoration.
“Another amusing kind of banter is where a man takes the speaker’s words
but not his sense. As was the case this year when a German at Rome,
meeting one evening with our friend messer Filippo Beroaldo,[235] whose
pupil he was, said: _Domine magister, Deus det vobis bonum sero_;[236]
and Beroaldo at once replied: _Tibi malum cito_.[237]
“Again, Diego de Chignones[238] being at the Great Captain’s[239] table,
another Spaniard, who was eating with them, said: ‘_Vino_,‘ meaning to
ask for drink; Diego replied: ’_Y no lo conocistes_,’[240] meaning to
taunt the man with being a heretic.[241]
“Another time messer Giacomo Sadoleto[242] asked Beroaldo,[235] who was
saying how much he wished to go to Bologna: ‘What is it that so presses
you at this time to leave Rome, where there are so many pleasures, to go
to Bologna, which is full of turmoil?’ Beroaldo replied: ‘On three
counts I am forced to go to Bologna,’ and lifted three fingers of his
left hand to enumerate three reasons for his going; when messer Giacomo
quickly interrupted him and said: ‘These three Counts that make you go
to Bologna are: first, Count Ludovico da San Bonifacio; second, Count
Ercole Rangone; third, the Count of Pepoli.’ Whereupon everyone laughed,
because these three Counts had been pupils of Beroaldo, and were fine
youths studying at Bologna.[243]
“Now we laugh heartily at this kind of witticism, because it carries
with it a response different from the one we are expecting to hear, and
in such matters we are naturally amused by our very mistake and laugh to
find ourselves cheated of what we expect.
64.—“But the modes of speech and the figures that are graceful in grave
and serious talk, are nearly always becoming in pleasantries and games
as well. You see that words set in opposition produce much grace, when
one contrasting clause is balanced by another. The same method is often
very witty. Thus a Genoese, who was very prodigal in spending, was
reproached by a very miserly usurer, who said to him: ‘When will you
ever cease throwing away your riches?’ And he replied: ‘When you cease
stealing other men’s.’
“And since, as we have said, the same situations that give opportunity
for biting pleasantries may also give opportunity for serious words of
praise,—it is a very graceful and becoming method in either case for a
man to admit or confirm what another speaker says, but to interpret it
in a manner different from what was intended. Thus a village priest was
saying mass to his flock not long since, and after he had announced the
festivals of the week, he began the general confession in the people’s
name, saying: ‘I have sinned by doing evil, by saying evil, by thinking
evil,’ and so forth, making mention of all the deadly sins. Whereupon a
friend and close familiar of the priest, in order to make sport of him,
said to the bystanders: ‘Bear witness all of you to what by his own
mouth he confesses he has done, for I mean to report him to the bishop.’
“This same method was used by Sallaza dalla Pedrada[244] in
complimenting a lady with whom he was speaking. First he praised her for
her virtuous qualities and then for still being beautiful; and she
replying that she did not deserve such praise because she was already
old, he said to her: ‘My Lady, your only sign of age is your resemblance
to the angels, who were the first and oldest creatures that God ever
made.’
65.—“Just as serious sayings are useful for praising, in like fashion we
find great utility also in jocose sayings for taunting, and in well
arranged metaphors, especially if they take the form of repartee, and if
he who replies preserves the same metaphor used by his interlocutor. And
of this kind was the answer made to messer Palla degli Strozzi,[245] who
being exiled from Florence, sent back a servant on a certain matter of
business and said to him rather threateningly: ‘Thou wilt tell Cosimo
de’ Medici from me that the hen is hatching.’[246] The messenger did the
errand commanded him, and Cosimo at once replied without hesitation:
‘And thou wilt tell messer Palla from me that hens cannot hatch well
away from their nests.’
[Illustration:
DJEM OTHMAN
1459-1495
]
Enlarged from Anderson’s photograph (no. 4268) of a part of the fresco,
“The Dispute of St. Catherine,” in the Borgian Apartments in the
Vatican, by Bernardino di Betto di Biagio, better known as
Pinturicchio, (1454-1513). For the iconographical identification of
this head, the translator is indebted to Professor Adolfo Venturi.
“Again, with a metaphor messer Camillo Porcaro[247] gracefully praised
my lord Marcantonio Colonna;[248] who, having heard that messer Camillo
had been extolling in an oration certain Italian gentlemen famous as
warriors, and had spoken very highly of him among the rest, he expressed
his thanks and said: ‘Messer Camillo, you have treated your friends as
some merchants treat their money when it is found to contain a false
ducat; for in order to be rid of it, they put the piece among many good
ones, and in this way pass it on. So you, to do me honour (although I am
of little worth), have put me in company with such worthy and excellent
cavaliers, that by virtue of their merit I shall perhaps pass as good.’
Then messer Camillo replied: ‘Those who forge ducats are wont to gild
them so well that they seem to the eye much finer than the good ones;
so, if there were forgers of men as there are of ducats, we should have
reason to suspect that you were false, being as you are of far finer and
brighter metal than any of the rest.’
“You see that this situation gave opportunity for both kinds of
witticism; and so do many others, of which countless instances could be
given and especially in serious sayings. Like the one uttered by the
Great Captain, who, being seated at table and all the places being
already taken, saw that there remained standing two Italian cavaliers
who had served very gallantly in the war; and he at once rose himself
and caused all the others to rise and make room for these two, saying:
‘Allow these cavaliers to sit at their meat, for had it not been for
them, the rest of us should now have no meat to eat.’ Another time he
said to Diego Garzia,[249] who was urging him to retire from a dangerous
position where the cannon shot were falling: ‘Since God hath put no fear
in your heart, do not try to put any in mine.’
“And King Louis,[250] who is to-day king of France, being told soon
after his accession that then was the time to punish his enemies who had
so grievously wronged him while he was Duke of Orleans, replied that it
was not seemly for the King of France to avenge the wrongs of the Duke
of Orleans.
66.—“Taunts are also often humourously uttered with a grave air and
without exciting laughter. As when Djem Othman,[251] brother to the
Grand Turk,[252] being a captive at Rome, said that jousting as we
practise it in Italy seemed to him too great a matter for play and too
paltry for earnest. And on being told how agile and active King
Ferdinand the Younger was in running, leaping, vaulting, and the
like,—he said that in his country slaves practised these exercises,
while gentlemen studied the liberal arts from boyhood, and prided
themselves thereon.
“Almost of the same kind, too, but somewhat more laughable, was what the
Archbishop of Florence said to the Alexandrian cardinal:[253] that men
have only their goods, their body, and their soul; their goods are put
in peril by the lawyers, their body by the physicians, and their soul by
the theologians.”
Then the Magnifico Giuliano replied:
“To this you might add what Nicoletto[254] said: that we seldom find a
lawyer who goes to law, a physician who takes physic, or a theologian
who is a good Christian.”
67.—Messer Bernardo laughed, then went on:
“Of these there are countless instances, uttered by great lords and very
weighty men. But we often laugh at similes also, such as the one that
our friend Pistoia[255] wrote to Serafino: ‘Send back the wallet that
looks like you;’ because, if you remember rightly, Serafino looked very
like a wallet.
“Moreover there are some who delight to liken men and women to horses,
dogs, birds, and often to chests, stools, carts, candle-sticks; which is
sometimes good and sometimes very flat. Therefore in this it is needful
to consider time, place, persons, and the other things that we have
mentioned so many times.”
Then my lord Gaspar Pallavicino said:
“An amusing comparison was the one that our friend my lord Giovanni
Gonzaga[256] made between Alexander the Great and his own son
Alessandro.”[257]
“I do not know it,” replied messer Bernardo.
My lord Gaspar said:
“My lord Giovanni was playing with three dice, and as was his wont had
lost many ducats and was still losing; and his son my lord Alessandro
(who, although only a lad, is as fond of play as the father is) stood
looking at him with great attention and seemed very sad. Count
Pianella,[258] who was present with many other gentlemen, said: ‘You
see, my Lord, that my lord Alessandro is little pleased at your losing,
and is waiting anxiously for you to win so that he may have some of your
winnings. Therefore put him out of his misery, and before you lose
everything give him at least a ducat, in order that he too may go and
play with his fellows.’ Then my lord Giovanni said: ‘You are wrong, for
Alessandro is not thinking of any such trifle. But as it is written that
when he was a boy, Alexander the Great began to weep on hearing that his
father Philip[259] had won a great battle and subdued some kingdom, and
when he was asked why he wept, he replied that it was because he feared
his father would subdue so many lands as to leave nothing for him to
subdue; in the same way my son Alessandro is now grieving and about to
weep, seeing that I his father am losing, because he fears I am losing
so much that I shall leave nothing for him to lose.’”
68.—After some laughter at this, messer Bernardo continued:
“Moreover we must avoid impiety in our witticism, (because from this it
is only a step to try to be jocular by blaspheming and to invent new
forms of blasphemy); otherwise we seem to seek applause by that for
which we deserve not only blame but heavy punishment, which is an
abominable thing. And therefore those of us who like to show their
pleasantry by little reverence to God, deserve to be chased from the
society of every gentleman.
“And they, no less, who are indecent and foul of speech, and show no
respect for ladies’ presence and seem to have no other pleasure than to
make them blush with shame, and who to that end are continually seeking
witticisms and _arguzie_. As in Ferrara this year at a banquet attended
by many ladies, there were a Florentine and a Sienese, who are usually
hostile, as you know. To taunt the Florentine, the Sienese said: ‘We
have married Siena to the Emperor and have given him Florence for
dowry.’ He said this because it was reported at the time that the
Sienese had given the Emperor a certain sum of money and that he had
taken their city under his protection. The Florentine quickly retorted:
‘Siena will first be possessed’ (he used the Italian word, but with the
French meaning); ‘then the dowry will be disputed at leisure.’[260] You
see that the retort was clever, but, being made in the presence of
ladies, it became indecent and unseemly.”
69.—Then my lord Gaspar Pallavicino said:
“Women delight to hear nothing else; and you would deprive them of it.
Moreover for my part I have found myself blushing with shame at words
uttered by women far oftener than by men.”
“Of such women I was not speaking,” said messer Bernardo; “but of
virtuous ladies, who deserve reverence and honour from every gentleman.”
My lord Gaspar said:
“We should have to invent a subtle rule by which to distinguish them,
for most often those who are seemingly the best, in fact are quite the
contrary.”
Then messer Bernardo said, laughing:
“If we had not present here my lord Magnifico, who is everywhere
accounted the champion of women, I should undertake to answer you; but I
am unwilling to do him wrong.”
Here my lady Emilia said, also laughing:
“Women have need of no champion against an accuser of so little weight.
So leave my lord Gaspar in his perverse opinion,—which arises from his
never having found a lady to look at him, rather than from any fault on
their part,—and go on with your talk about pleasantries.”
70.—Then messer Bernardo said:
“In truth, my Lady, methinks I have told of many situations from which
we can derive sharp witticisms, which then have the more grace the more
they are accompanied by fine narrative. Still many others might be
mentioned. As when, by overstatement or understatement, we say things
that outrageously exceed the probable; and of this sort was what Mario
da Volterra[261] said of a prelate, that he held himself so great a man
that when he entered St. Peter’s, he stooped in order not to strike his
head against the architrave of the portal. Again, our friend here the
Magnifico said that his servant Galpino was so lean and light that in
blowing the fire to kindle it one morning, the fellow had been carried
by the smoke all the way up the chimney to the very top; but happening
to be brought crosswise against one of the openings, he had the good
luck not to be blown away with the smoke.
“Another time messer Agostino Bevazzano[262] said that a miser, who had
been unwilling to sell his grain while it was dear, afterwards hanged
himself in despair from a rafter of his bedroom when he found that the
price had greatly fallen; and one of his servants ran in on hearing the
noise, saw the miser hanging, and quickly cut the rope and thus rescued
him from death. Then, having come to himself, the miser insisted that
his servant should pay him for the rope that had been cut.
[Illustration:
AGOSTINO BEVAZZANO
_Flor._ 1500
]
Reduced from Braun’s photograph (no. 43.161) of a part of the double
portrait once owned by Bembo and now in the Doria Gallery at Rome.
Although by some critics regarded as an old copy, the picture is
affirmed by both Morelli and Berenson to be the work of Raphael
(1483-1520), probably painted in April 1516.
“Of the same sort also seems to be what Lorenzo de’ Medici said to a
dull buffoon: ‘You would not make me laugh if you tickled me.’ And in
like fashion he answered another simpleton who had found him abed very
late one morning, and who had reproved him for sleeping so late, saying:
‘I have already been at the New Market and the Old, then outside the San
Gallo gate and around the walls for exercise, and have done a thousand
things besides; and you are still asleep?’ Then Lorenzo said: ‘What I
dreamed in one hour is worth more than what you accomplished in four.’