New game- find the best example of ancient humor

In My Humble Opinion
1

I came up with the idea for this while reading *The Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity.[/ij]

In the section on Eastern Christendom, I stumbled upon the following passage, written by St. Gregory of Nyssa in the wake of the Arian controversy in the last couple of decades of the fourth century. Complaining that he was unable to get a straight answer to a practical question, he wrote the following:

St. Greg, who I have come to regard as the Mark Twain of Eastern Christendom, also finished off a progress report on the building of a church with the following plea for financial help. This was actually my original sig line when I first joined the SDMB community.

OK, since this is a game, there have to be rules. So I’m drawing the line at the Protestant Reformation. Any humorous quotes must predate Martin Luther. Aside from that, it’s a free-for-all. Got a great witty line from an obscure Greek philosopher? Go for it, but you must provide at least an approximate date. (circa 350 BC, etc.) Have a quote from an ancient Sumerian joker cracking wise about the ritualism of the religion of the day? here’s you forum.

If you make Thea giggle, you get a point. If Thea falls off her bed laughing, you get five points. If you make Thea pee her pants, Thea will be very annoyed at having to do laundry again.

Let the game begin…

2

There was alway’s Jesus’s comment about Peter: “On this rock I shall build my church.” “Peter” comes from the Greek “petros,” meaning rock. So the Son of God was a punster.

And, of course, there’s always Aristophanes.

3

Jesus’ comment about before taking a speck from your brother’s eye, remove the log from you own is considered pretty humorous.

4

Og Smash?

5

Aw, man, but there’s so much good stuff from the English Reformation.

6

“The golden hair that Gulla wears
Is hers–who would have thought it?
She swears tis true and true she swears
For I know where she bought it.”

Marcus Valierus Martialis, aka “Martial”
40-104 A.D.

more here

7

(1) He that blesseth his friend with a loud voice, rising early in the morning, it shall be counted a curse to him.
–Proverbs 27:14

(2) Some years ago I saw a BBC television show about the Valley of the Kings, where lived the men who made the tombs for the Pharaohs of ancient Egypt. The film showed a mural on a wall of this village of artisans, depicting a hundred or more tiny figures working on a huge tomb for their king. On the ground, one little man danced on one foot, holding the other in pain, and shaking his fist and yelling skyward. A mallet lay on the ground next to him. On the uppermost scaffold of the tomb, another laborer looked down and shrugged apologetically.

Could this be the world’s first comic panel?

8

Lysistrata. The whole damn play.

<< Game Over >>

9

OK, first off, Jesus’ “Thou art Peter” comment doesn’t qualify, because he wasn’t making a pun on Peter’s name, he was giving Simon bar-Jonas a new one.

Cicada2003, five points. I’m still laughing.

SnugtheJoiner, one point. Might have more impact if I could actually see the image, but if this is for real, it might score extra points for sheer ancientnessnessness.

Duke, maybe so, but I do have to draw a line on what is to be considered “ancient”, and I think I’m being pretty liberal by stopping it in the fifteenth century.

Manatte, link please?

10

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Oh, and gimme back that extra t, I may need it later.

11

Cicade beat me to Martial, so I’ll have to bring up Lucian. His stuff (in the hands of a competant translator) is surprisingly fresh and modern. I don’t have any examples here at work, but dig up one of the Penguin editions of his work.

Or Plautus. Shakespeare stole S Comedy of Errors from the Menaechni. They strip-mined several Plautus plays for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (including the characters of Pseudolus and Miles Gloriosus, complete with names).

For my money, these secular Roman humorists are wayyyy funnier than the ecclesisatical wits mentioned at the start of this thread. And they’re not by any means the oldest hunor, either.

12

Can’t date it, but Elijah uses a bit of sarcastic jibbing when confronting the priests of Baal. Of course, that begs the question of whether sarcasm is humorous…

Grim

13

There’s also Isaiah’s equally sarcastic jibes at pagans who use the same block of wood for both fuel and object of worship.

And, of course, there are the examples given in Cecil’s column, Are there any jokes in the Bible?

From the Talmud (Sukkah 23a), one of my favorites is this:

Two 1st-century scholars, Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Gamliel, where traveling together on a ship during the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. (A feature of this holiday is that we build a sukkah - a temporary structure with a roof of foliage or other plant material - and use it for eating, sleeping, and as much as possible of our regular home-based activities.) These two rabbis disagreed on whether a sukkah is needed at sea; Rabbi Akiva, in keeping with his opinion, went ahead and built one. Sure enough, during the night a gust of wind blew it away; next morning, Rabbi Gamliel turned to his colleague and said (and I always picture him saying this with a very innocent look on his face), “Akiva! Where’s your sukkah?”

14

I always thought Chaucer’s crack about taking the Pardoner’s testicles, wrapping them in a hog turd, and passing them off as a sacred relic was pretty funny. (written around 1390)

15

From Njal’s Saga (written down in the thirteenth century, but probably a century or two older in oral form):

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This (propbably apocryphal) exchange has been attributed to Michaelangelo, Pope Julius II and some unnamed cardinal during the painting of the Sistene Chapel:

One of the cardinals at St. Peter’s in Rome had offended Michaelangelo, for whatever reason, and in a depiction of Hell, Michaelangelo painted an excellent likeness of this cardinal suffering in the pits. The cardinal complained to Pope Julius II, hoping the pontiff would make Michaelangelo repaint the offending panel.

Julius II surveyed the painting, sighed and shook his head. “I can pray you out of Purgatory, but even I can’t get you out of Hell.”

According to Richard Zacks’ An Underground Education, Sappho’s “The Bridal Poem” contains a dick joke that, while under our radar today, was unmistakable to her contemporaries:

[QUOTE}Raise high the roof beam, Hymenaeus!
Like Ares comes the bridegroom, Hymenaeus!
Tow’ring as the Lesbian singer
'mong men of other lands,
Happy bridegroom, now is thy wedding come.
And thou hast the maiden of thy heart’s desire.[/QUOTE]

See, tey had to raise the roof higher because the horny groom’s giant, erect penis otherwise would keep him out of the temple, and… Oh forget it. Why do I expect a–THE–lesbian poetess to be more high-minded than all that?

The Book of Kells has many amazing, detailed illustrations and illuminated manuscripts. It also has a few drawings of half-naked monks chasing each other around and snapping wet towels at one another. And this was centuries before the ban on married clergymen.

17

“Rock fall on Thag’s head! snarf snarf snarf”

18

I find it rather amusing that the Great Pyramid in Giza reads, in Egyptian heiroglyphics:

“THIS SIDE UP”.

19

I agree with CalMeacham that secular ancient comedy is much better than witty religious authorities.

I laughed out loud in a lecture about Aristophanes’ The Clouds. I think it was just something about the Thinkery… but I checked the play again, and this is brilliant:

DISCIPLE Chaerephon of the deme of Sphettia asked him whether he
thought a gnat buzzed through its proboscis or through its anus.

STREPSIADES And what did he say about the gnat?

DISCIPLE He said that the gut of the gnat was narrow, and that, in
passing through this tiny passage, the air is driven with force towards
the breech; then after this slender channel, it encountered the rump,
which was distended like a trumpet, and there it resounded sonorously.

STREPSIADES So the arse of a gnat is a trumpet. Oh! what a splendid
arsevation! Thrice happy Socrates! It would not be difficult to succeed
in a law-suit, knowing so much about a gnat’s guts!

DISCIPLE Not long ago a lizard caused him the loss of a sublime thought.

STREPSIADES In what way, please?

DISCIPLE One night, when he was studying the course of the moon and
its revolutions and was gazing open-mouthed at the heavens, a lizard
crapped upon him from the top of the roof.

I’m not sure if anyone has yet mentioned the comedic/satirical Latin authors other than Martial: Juvenal, definitely, and sometimes Catullus. The funniest example of ancient humor, I think, is probably somewhere in those three; I’m not suggesting the low comedy above is the best of ancient times. But it’s about Socrates.

“Indeed it is. And if we are to determine which of all the jokes is the best at which for men to laugh, then how might we commence?”

“Perhaps we could start by an illogical metaphor, then make many successive suggestions that could not possibly ever work.”

“Yes, indeed.”

“And various people can agree with me in alternate posts.”

“A wise proposal, Roches.”

20

I do so love Elijah’s jabs at the priests of Baal. All these guys praying, crying out, some of them cutting themselves to draw blood, and Elijah in the middle of it all- “Hey, guys, shout louder! Maybe he’s meditating, or on a road trip, or maybe he’s taking a nap!” One point for grimpixie. I don’t find the Isaiah quote as entertaining. Sofis and Roches, five points each. [sub]lizard crap[/sub].

Krokidil gets two points, one for each of his contributions. And yes, I do believe the Michelangelo story is true. Mike was known for being on the tempremental side, and was frequently at loggerheads with Julius about how he should go about painting the Sistene. Julius finally resigned himself the the fact that Michelangel was going to be Michelangelo.