The History of Court Fools. Dr. Doran

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ tyrant.

      There, indeed, his wit may be said to have failed him, and he acted with less presence of mind than the philosopher Zeno, when the latter was in a precisely similar situation. When the inventor of dialectics lay nearly bruised to death under the pestles of the executioners employed by Nearchus, he called the latter to him as if he had something of importance to communicate. Nearchus bent over the lip of the mortar to listen, and Zeno, availing himself of his opportunity and his excellent teeth, bit off the ear of the tyrant close to his head. Hence “a biting remark, like that of Zeno,” passed into a proverb.

      In a later page, it will be seen how the famous jester, Gonella, had the boldness of speech, but lacked the boldness of soul, of Anaxarchus and Zeno. There was a saying of Gonella’s that very nearly resembles one of Hippias, a free-spoken philosopher of Elis, who pleasantly made virtue consist in the entire freedom of man from all and every sort of dependence upon his fellow-men. Again, in Anaximenes—not that philosopher who maintained that the stars were the heads of bright nails driven into the solid concave of the sky, but the pupil of Diogenes—we find a parallel with Chicot, the celebrated jester of the French Kings Henry III., the last Valois, and Henry IV., the first Bourbon. Both were occasionally engaged in affairs of political importance, and Anaximenes, on one of these occasions, did capital service to his employers. Lampsacus was being besieged by Alexander. It had nobly resisted; but, unable to hold out any longer, the authorities deputed the philosopher to make terms with the besieger. As soon as the latter beheld Anaximenes, guessing his errand, he exclaimed, in a burst of foolish rage, “I entirely refuse, beforehand, to grant what you are about to ask.” Chicot used to call Henry III. a “simpleton,” but Anaximenes only laughed pleasantly in the face of Alexander, as he said, “May it please your irresistible godship, the favour then which I have to ask is, that you will destroy the city of Lampsacus, enslave the citizens, and ruin their delegate who stands before you.” The conqueror laughed in his turn, and well rewarded the ready wit of a man who was for some years attached to his person.

      The poets were not less free than the philosophers. When King Antigonus once caught his favourite Rhodian poet, Antagoras, cooking fish, he asked the bard whether Homer condescended to dress meals while he aspired to register the deeds of Agamemnon. “I cannot say,” answered the Rhodian, “but I very strongly believe this, that the king did not trouble himself as to whether any man in his army boiled fish or left it alone!”

      The boldness of some of the old poets was quite on a par with their wit. Their absolute freedom of speech, like that of their official successors, the fools, was as useful and fearless as the modern freedom of the press. There were very few of the parasites and jesters of Dionysius who would venture to tell that disagreeable person beneficial truths. Antiphon, his poet, was an exception. The monarch once asked him, “What brass was the best?” and Antiphon answered, “That of which the statues of Aristogiton and Harmodius were made.” Considering that these were two patriots who rescued Athens from the tyranny of the Pisistratidæ, the answer was as daring as it was witty. Dionysius disregarded the wit, and resented the audacity;—in a sneaking way, however, for he put Antiphon to death because he refused to praise the writings of the despot. In one respect, Dionysius was like Cardinal Richelieu, he looked with spiteful feelings on every man who ventured to doubt his ability for writing tragedies. But in another sense, the “tyrannus” was superior to the cardinal, for he at least wrote his own tragedies, whereas those of Richelieu were written for him by his buffoon, Boisrobert, who might well afford to praise them. For a better reason than that which induced Richelieu to patronize Boisrobert (who, buffoon as he was, founded the French Academy), Philadelphus patronized the comic poet Aristonymus, whom the king made Keeper of the Library at Alexandria, and who kept the king in good humour by his joyous conversation. Aristonymus did not forget that he held a double office; and as the Bards censured as well as commended the behaviour of the people, so he scattered eulogy or blame on the conduct of his patron, according to the latter’s deserts.

      We shall find, in subsequent pages, instances of kings going into mourning on the death of their fools, and of the royal patrons raising tombs to them. In ancient times we also have instances of a whole people cherishing their poets quite as fondly as some monarchs did their jesters. I will only cite the case of Eupolis, that comic poet of Athens, whose unlicensed wit was so very little to the taste of Alcibiades, and who ultimately perished in a naval engagement between the Athenians and the Lacedemonians. His countrymen were so afflicted at losing a man whose wit and poetry were as new life to them, that they passed a decree whereby it was ordered that no poet should ever afterwards go to war. Artaxerxes did not mourn more truly for his witty but then deceased slave Tiridates, than the Athenians mourned for Eupolis. But Artaxerxes did not mourn half so long. He sat weeping, indeed, for three days, but he found consolation when Aspasia offered her ivory shoulder to support his aching head. So Henry II., of France, mourned for his dead jester Thony, even commissioning Ronsard to write his epitaph, but forgetting poet, fool, and epitaph in contemplating the mature beauty of Diana of Poictiers.

      Less forgetful of a favourite dead wit was the patron of the comic poet, Timocreon of Rhodes; famous alike for his sharp appetite and verses, and for his power of pouring out wit and pouring in wine. It was a brother wit who would not venture to praise him, but who contrived to make the dead jester censure, by celebrating, himself in the apparently autograph lines,

      “Multa bibens, et multa vorans, mala denique dicens

       Multis, hîc jaceo Timocreon Rhodius.”

      “Having drunk much, eaten much, and spoken much evil, here I lie, Timocreon of Rhodes.” This heathen jester lived nearly five centuries before the Christian era; I might perhaps, had I a right to act “Censor,” suggest that his epitaph would not be unsuitable over many a serious but defunct gentleman, born since that era commenced.

      Let me rather do justice to the wit and independence of the old poets, generally. While doing so, I cannot but add my conviction that the philosophers were, on the whole, more independent in their jests than the poets. When Apollonius repaired from Chalcis to Rome, to become the tutor of Marcus Antoninus, he refused to go to the palace at all, saying that it was fitter for the pupil to come to the house of the instructor than for the latter to go to the dwelling of the pupil. The imperial hint, good-humouredly conveyed, that he had himself commenced this latter process by repairing from Chalcis to Rome, could not move him.

      It has been usual, and FlögelA has done it, among others, to rank the elder Aristippus among the ancient court wits. Inasmuch as that he was the chief flatterer of Dionysius of Sicily, and loved Epicurean voluptuousness, the founder of the Cyrenaic sect may be allowed to pass under that title, but he had little in common with the court jester of more modern times. He was as different from the latter in some respects, as he was from Crassus, the grandfather of Crassus the Rich, who according to Pliny was never known to laugh—not even when his best friend broke his thigh.

       It is certain that Dionysius treated his flatterers as later sovereigns did their official jesters—allowing for the difference of manners, morals, and customs. The poor jester whose head was placed on the executioner’s block by the sportive order of the ducal sovereign of Ferrara, proved indeed to be even worse off than the parasite Damocles, when Dionysius seated him on his throne, beneath an unsheathed sword suspended from a horse-hair.

      Again, the freedom which the court fool subsequently held by right of office, we find fearlessly exercised by the philosophic Demochares, the Athenian ambassador, who being asked, by King Philip of Macedonia, to whom he was sent, what the king could do to most gratify the Athenians, replied, “The most gratifying thing you could do would be to hang yourself.” The courtiers murmured with indignation, but Philip dismissed the envoy, with the remark, that he hoped the Athenians would perceive he had more wit than their representative, seeing that he could take with indifference such a joke as that flung at him by Demochares.

      There are two philosophers whose names now occur to me, and of whom some erroneous notions appear to be entertained СКАЧАТЬ