"A lie has often, I have known before,

More weight than truth, and people trust it more.”

"Don't talk of birth and family; all of those
Who have no natural worth on that repose.
Blue blood, grand pedigree, illustrious sires
He boasts of, who to nothing more aspires.
What use long ancestry your pride to call?
One must have had them to be born at all!
And those who have no pedigree to show,
Or who their grandsires were but scantly know,"

"From change of homes or lack of friends at need,
And so have lost all record of their breed,

Are not more "low-born" than your men of blood;
A nigger's well-born, if he makes for good!"

The following are a few more epigrammatic bits from the writings of less noted contemporaries.

PHILIPPIDES

'Tis easy, while at meals you take your fill,

To say to sickly people, Don't be ill!

Easy to blame bad boxing at a fight,
But not so for oneself to do it right.
Action is one thing, talk another quite.

Your fortune differs as to bed and board;
Your wife-if ugly-can good fare afford.

DIPHILUS

Learn, mortal, learn thy natural ills to bear:
These, these alone thou must endure; but spare
A heavier load upon thyself to bring

By burdens that from thine own follies spring.

When I am asked by some rich man to dine,
I mark not if the walls and roofs are fine,

Nor if the vases such as Corinth prizes,-
But solely how the smoke from cooking rises.
If dense it runs up in a column straight,
With fluttering heart the dinner-hour I wait.
If, thin and scant, the smoke-puffs sideway steal,
Then I forebode a thin and scanty meal.

So plain is she, her father shuns the sight:
She holds out bread; no dog will take a bite.
So dark is she, that entering a room
Night seems to follow her, and all is gloom.

APOLLODORUS

Sweet is a life apart from toil and care;
Blessed lot, with others such repose to share!
But if with beasts and apes you have to do,
Why, you must play the brute and monkey too!

In youth I felt for the untimely doom

Of offspring carried to an early tomb.
But now I when old men's death I see;
That moved my pity; this comes home to me.

weep

Seek not, my son, an old man's ways to spurn;
To these in old age you yourself will turn.
Herein we fathers lose a point you gain;
When you of "father's cruelty" complain,
"You once were young," we tauntingly are told.
We can't retort, "My son, you once were old."

PART II

ROME

THE Roman Juvenal observed, "All Greece is a comedian." But he could not say the same of his own country.

Though there was Roman Comedy and Roman Satire, the real and spontaneous spirit of fun was conspicuously lacking in the tastes and tendencies of the Romans.

Glory is attributed to Greece and grandeur to Rome, and it may be the "sudden glory" of humor was an integral part of the Grecian nature.

Yet we must not differentiate too carefully between the two, for the literature of Greece and Rome is so fused and intermingled that only a historian may take up the chronological tabulation.

For our purpose it is well to let the literature of the two countries merge and continue the consideration of classic comedy without over cautious regard for dates.

The Greek influence on literature of all ages will never disappear, but the Greek spirit of pure joy and gaiety will, probably never reappear.

From the beginnings of Greece, on through the existence of Rome, and down through the Medieval Ages, the world of letters was self-contained, a single proposition. From 500 B.C. to 1300 A.D. the traditions of primal Greece and Rome continued to be the common possession of all Europe.

After that, literature became diverse and divergent among the countries. It was independent as well as interdependent,

but this condition makes an inevitable division of time.

Greece, Rome, Medieval Times,-these are the three sections of the Middle portion of this book.

Rome, then, considered by herself, brought forth little quotable humorous literature, and what we have to choose from is ponderous and heavy.

Like Greece, the first germs of Roman comic literature may be traced to the religious festivals, which were marked by an admixture of religious rites and riotous Bacchanalian orgies, where as the crowds danced and sang and feasted, they became first hilarious and then abusive and indecent.

Like the Greeks, the Romans used grotesque masks, large enough to represent face and hair, too, the duplicates of which we see decorating our theater proscenium arches and drop curtains to this day.

It would seem these masks were universally made use of in their dramatic performances, for all caricatures and grotesque drawings show them.

In the burlesque entertainments there was a Buffoon, corresponding to our clown, called a Sannio, from the Greek word meaning a fool.

Later, undoubtedly, the Court Fool and the King's Jester were the natural successors of this character.

In all these masks the features were exaggerated and made monstrous of form and size. But one reason for the greatly enlarged mouth is that it was so shaped in order to form a sort of speaking trumpet, that the actors' voices might be heard at greater distance.

In contrast to the grotesquerie of enlargement, there was also a branch of caricature which depicted the pigmies.

The legend of the pigmies and cranes is as ancient, at least, as Homer, and many examples are found in the buried cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii.

Comic Literature was not plentiful in the days of Early Rome. Up to the second century B.C. we can glean but the two names, Plautus and Terence.

These two, nearly contemporary, founded their plays on the comedies of Menander and a few other earlier dramatic writers.

Perhaps twenty plays are left us from the hands of these two Romans, and these, though pronounced amusing by

scholars who can read the original text, are not what the modern layman deems very humorous. A few examples of them will suffice.

PLAUTUS

MILITARY SWAGGER

PYRGOPOLINICES, ARTOTROGUS, and SOLDIERS

Pyrgopolinices. Take care that the luster of my shield is more bright than the rays of the sun when the sky is clear, that, when occasion comes, the battle being joined, 'mid the fierce ranks right opposite it may dazzle the eyesight of the enemy. But I must console this saber of mine, that it may not lament nor be downcast in spirits, because I have thus long been wearing it keeping holiday, though it so dreadfully longs to make havoc of the enemy. But where is Artotrogus?

Artotrogus. Here he is; he stands close by the hero, valiant and successful, and of princely form. Mars could not dare to style himself so great a warrior, nor compare his prowess with yours.

Pyrgopolinices. Him you mean whom I spared on the Gorgonidonian plains, where Bumbomachides Clytomestoridysarchides, the grandson of Neptune, was the chief commander?

Artotrogus. I remember him; him, I suppose you mean, with the golden armor, whose legions you puffed away with your breath, just as the wind blows away leaves or the reedthatched roof.

all.

Pyrgopolinices. That, by my troth, was really notning at

Artotrogus. Faith, that really was nothing at all in comparison with other things I could mention (aside) which you never did. If any person ever beheld a more perjured fellow than this, or one more full in vain boasting, let him have me for himself: I'll become his slave.

Pyrgopolinices. What are you saying?