THEIR WIT AND PLEASANTRY
THE heads of different families, in order to excite the laughter of their
guests, and gain credit by their sayings, make use of great facetiousness
in their conversation; at one time uttering their jokes in a light, easy
manner, at another time, under the disguise of equivocation, passing the
severest censures. For the sake of explanation I shall here subjoin a
few examples. Tegeingl is the name of a province in North Wales, over
which David, son of Owen, had dominion, and which had once been in the
possession of his brother. The same word also was the name of a certain
woman with whom, it was said, each brother had an intrigue, from which
circumstance arose this term of reproach, “To have Tegeingl, after
Tegeingl had been in possession of his brother.”
At another time, when Rhys, son of Gruffydd, prince of South Wales,
accompanied by a multitude of his people, devoutly entered the church of
St. David’s, previous to an intended journey, the oblations having been
made, and mass solemnised, a young man came to him in the church, and
publicly declared himself to be his son, threw himself at his feet, and
with tears humbly requested that the truth of this assertion might be
ascertained by the trial of the burning iron. Intelligence of this
circumstance being conveyed to his family and his two sons, who had just
gone out of the church, a youth who was present made this remark: “This
is not wonderful; some have brought gold, and others silver, as
offerings; but this man, who had neither, brought what he had, namely,
iron;” thus taunting him with his poverty. On mentioning a certain house
that was strongly built and almost impregnable, one of the company said,
“This house indeed is strong, for if it should contain food it could
never be got at,” thus alluding both to the food and to the house. In
like manner, a person, wishing to hint at the avaricious disposition of
the mistress of a house, said, “I only find fault with our hostess for
putting too little butter to her salt,” whereas the accessory should be
put to the principal; thus, by a subtle transposition of the words,
converting the accessory into the principal, by making it appear to
abound in quantity. Many similar sayings of great men and philosophers
are recorded in the Saturnalia of Macrobius. When Cicero saw his
son-in-law, Lentulus, a man of small stature, with a long sword by his
side: “Who,” says he, “has girded my son-in-law to that sword?” thus
changing the accessary into the principal. The same person, on seeing
the half-length portrait of his brother Quintus Cicero, drawn with very
large features and an immense shield, exclaimed, “Half of my brother is
greater than the whole!” When the sister of Faustus had an intrigue with
a fuller, “Is it strange,” says he, “that my sister has a spot, when she
is connected with a fuller?” When Antiochus showed Hannibal his army,
and the great warlike preparations he had made against the Romans, and
asked him, “Thinkest thou, O Hannibal, that these are sufficient for the
Romans?” Hannibal, ridiculing the unmilitary appearance of the soldiers,
wittily and severely replied, “I certainly think them sufficient for the
Romans, however greedy;” Antiochus asking his opinion about the military
preparations, and Hannibal alluding to them as becoming a prey to the
Romans.