[In the following excerpt, Plass evaluates Martial's obscene epigrams in terms of Freud's commentary on the function and effectiveness of wit. Plass calls attention to the way Martial manipulates syntax and word play to subvert codes of propriety, confound logic, and amuse his audience.]

I

In De Amicitia (37) Cicero mentions the following exchange between Laelius and Blossius on political loyalty:

L. Etiamne, si te in Capitolium faces ferre vellet?

B. Numquam voluisset id quidem, sed si voluisset, paruissem.

L. [Would you] actually [have done it], if he [Tiberius Gracchus] had wanted you to set fire to the Capitol?

B. He never would have wanted that, but if he had, I would have done it.

Laelius dismisses the reply as shocking (nefaria) without remarking on its most interesting aspect: Blossius' "yes" reflects the private code of friendship that was so powerful a factor in ancient ethics, but at the same time it is set against another, public code (Tiberius' "no"). The result is a statement with a slightly odd (as well as nefarious) sound to it. We await the answer with considerable interest, and when we hear what it is, its internal tension ("No … but yes") is sharp enough to be surprising. If we go beyond Laelius' shock we realize that the tension is due to subtle incoherence. We expect either unambiguous assertion of the public code ("He wouldn't have wanted that, and if he had, I wouldn't have done it") or unambiguous assertion of the private code ("He might have wanted that, and if so I would have done it"). Instead Blossius comes down between two stools, or rather sits on two at once: he asserts one code of morality on behalf of Tiberius, but he does not say "no" and promptly compromises the code on his own behalf by saying "yes."

Martial has an epigram (IV.71) which uses a somewhat similar pattern:

Quaero diu totam, Safroni Rufe, per urbem,
   si qua puella neget: nulla puella negat.
tamquam fas non sit, tamquam sit turpe
  negare,
   tamquam non liceat: nulla puella negat.
Casta igitur nulla est? Sunt castae mille. Quid
  ergo
   casta facit? Non dat, non tamen illa negat.

A. 'I've looked all over town for a woman who says "no," Rufus. There isn't any! It's as though it were illegal, indecent, improper: not one says "no"!

B. You mean there isn't a single chaste woman around?

A. Oh, no. There are thousands.

B. Well, what do they do?

A. They don't say "yes"—but they don't say "no" either.

In a companion piece (IV.81) he complains about a woman who has read his epigram and does say nothing but "no" to him, i.e., is chaste. In view of this, the point of the first poem seems to be that women are either promiscuous or coy, and the latter (those who don't say "yes" or "no") cynically straddle the issue by borrowing from the rules of both chastity and promiscuity. This is a witticism or joke because of the amusingly self-canceling sound of the last line. Blossius' reply is not amusing nor does anything suggest that Cicero thought of it even as epigrammatic; Laelius, at any rate, treats it as mere hypocrisy or outright political immorality. But it does have a "funny" sound; its structure is very similar to that of Martial's epigram and it could easily serve as a cynical political joke: "We wouldn't think of committing political crimes—unless we want to." Tacitus, in fact, uses just such bitter epigrammatic wit: "They call it a crime and—do it" (Hist. 3.25.3).

Epigram, joke, witticism, humor or striking remark are not easily distinguished, and what they often have in common is unexpected illogic of one sort or another. In outright joking the potential incoherence of "no … but yes" is simply given extreme form and becomes arresting nonsense. For example:

A. Is this the place where the Duke of Wellington spoke those words?

B. Yes, it's the place—but he never spoke the words.

A. I'm on a Chinese diet.

B. What's that?

A. You eat with—one chopstick.

The dialogue of the last joke is built around the contrast "[Yes,] you eat [but] with one chopstick" and illustrates nicely an essential feature of wit: "funniness," i.e., peculiarity which violates the code defining our expectation of what is reasonable. Dieting and starving are mutually exclusive, and since it is not possible to eat with one chopstick, the reply is logically incoherent. But it is also witty because its matter-of-fact verbal form is a façade concealing the incoherence. The façade is especially ingenious because the contrast between eating with two sticks and with one suggests something that is a natural part of dieting—reduction of intake. We instinctively think of a reduction by fifty percent; in fact, it is one hundred percent, and the joke is all the more effective because it also calls up the comic picture of someone trying to eat with one chopstick. Since conversation through question and answer is a basic way in which we express our sense of reality in dealing with others, the casually unreasonable reply is particularly startling (that is true of the Duke of Wellington joke as well). Moreover, ordinarily we instantly understand what others say and need not spend time in reflection. The brevity of the wit here exploits that fact: the illogic of the reply is obvious and stupid when spelled out, but when sprung suddenly it is superficially reasonable enough to create an odd kind of tension between sense and nonsense which is gratifying rather than annoying or pointless.

All of this brings us to Freud's reflections on wit. It is probably fair to say that of all of his proposals none matches the theory of wit in immediate appeal. It lends itself to empirical testing which is both easy and highly entertaining, as anyone who has read Freud's own collection of jokes knows. What is more, for all its sophistication it recommends itself to common sense, since it is plausible in light of familiar facts and not simply in light of theoretical considerations. There is something "funny" and "wrong" about jokes; indeed, the phrase "something funny" is in its peculiar ambivalence implicitly Freudian (Blossius' reply is not funny [amusing], but it is to Laelius a funny [strange] avowal of aggression).

I propose to use the theory in its most general form as a point of reference for the epigrammatic style of Martial and Tacitus, a style which is itself notably "witty" in as much as its precise metrical and linguistic forms are designed to give elegant point to the content. In the case of poetry, since much of the content was occasional or commonplace, epigrammatic wit depended largely on the skill with which writers could work within restrictions. The epigram could thus be an exercise more in form than in substance, and Latin was for this purpose an especially appropriate medium because its complex inflection combined with absence of the definite article naturally creates opportunity for play with words.

Freud's discussion of the nature of wit covers a wide area and touches on many points, but what is of interest for our purposes is the central thesis that he advances. In ordinary language we observe the rules of logic which reflect public standards of what is real and proper. Such standards prevent the aggressive, selfish pleasure principle from expressing itself in direct action and reducing society to a madhouse, but the pleasure principle can come out in a socially tolerable way under the guise of joking language, which is "funny" in the dual sense that, on the one hand, it expresses improper ways of behaving and, on the other hand, does so through illogical ways of thinking and amusingly odd ways of talking. And all of this is usually deliberate; as Quintilian notes in his discussion of wit, things which are clever when said deliberately are stupid when they slip out (Institutio VI.III.23). We might compare the following inept effort at informed sympathy as a joke and as actual dialogue:

An officer inspecting his infirmary sees a very sick man and asks what is wrong with him. 'He has typhus.' 'Ah, very bad, very bad. Had it myself—you either die or lose your mind.'

Public rules of one sort or another are always a factor in wit, as we can see from the fact that wit is notoriously risky because in some forms (sexual, ethnic, political) normally restrained factors may reach an offensively overt level. As one person's religion is another's superstition, so one person's joke is another's insult.

In general terms, then, social life depends on a variety of codes which establish expectations and thus permit us to relax our guard against surprise (e.g., surprise at learning that inspecting officers are either mad or dead; as we shall see, Tacitus does aim at surprising us with the realization that some emperors were mad). Conflict arises when codes and expectations are violated, and if we think of codes as embodiments of logic and patterns of sanity, violation may entail nothing less than a threat to our sense of reality. Language itself is one of the very deepest of codes depending on establishment and satisfaction of grammatical expectations. We can "feel" that after a plural subject a plural verb will shortly and properly come along, and we are satisfied when it does, much as we derive satisfaction from resolution of a musical sequence in accordance with a musical code. Verbal wit, then, creates pleasure through illogical, unexpected modes of thought and expression.

II

Martial's epigrams make up a corpus of wit which invites comparison with Freud's scheme. The most important aspect of their structure is, of course, literary, and that has often been studied in its own right, recently also with some reference to Freudian and other theories of wit.¹ Greek and Roman epigrammatists wrote poetry, not jokes, yet there is some value in setting literary factors aside to focus exclusively on the psychological structure of wit in order to see it from a special point of view—as an exercise in subverting codes. Freud distinguishes "tendentious" from "innocent" jokes and uses the former in particular to show that joking is analogous to dreaming.² Having made this point empirically by a running analysis of jokes, he moves on to his major psychological conclusion: like dreams, jokes release repressed tendentious (sexual, aggressive) material in disguised form. Martial's wit is clearly tendentious in this sense, and the most common violation of polite codes is the obscene joke. Obscene epigrams are, in fact, a major sub-form of ancient epigrammatic literature, and they will play a large role in our discussion. They are pertinent because their literary value often does not go beyond their formal wit, and they thus typify the importance of structure relative to content. The stock of obscenities is limited, and readers are not really interested in what they are but in how they work. Since translations of epigrams as poetry are usually unsuccessful because of the intricacy of language and meter, I will turn my examples from Martial into prose which follows as closely as possible familiar forms of jokes. Poetic form is lost, but the point of the epigram as well as its mechanism is preserved intact, and that is what we are interested in.

The effect of a joke, then, is determined in the first instance by the degree of its departure—ranging from subtle to gross—from a code. Excessively gross violation destroys wit because it is pointless as wit—it is simply an indecent or stupid remark. Absence of violation has the same effect: the remark simply deals with reality as it is. But a joke like "Why did the chicken cross the road?/ To get to the other side" seems not to violate any code, yet it is witty and illustrates an interesting point. Though wit involves violation of a social code, it has a social setting in so far as it is socially acceptable. In fact, it becomes a code itself, and its illogic is, in a sense, not unexpected since as a joke it signals us to expect the unexpected. One major signal of joking is the use of questions to set up minidialogues and thus elicit answers which lead to the joke; there is little wit in the statement, "The chicken crossed the road to get to the other side." Dozens of Martial's epigrams are cast in the form of brief dialogues given direction by leading questions. This formal aspect of wit is illustrated by the chicken joke; the question is, in effect, a set riddle whose answer, however, seems to be witless because it is mere information. But precisely by not being unexpected but banal the answer is, after all, unexpected. It is witty because it misses the point of the question in so far as such a question signals a joke. That is to say, the form of the wit is the wit, and this technique has been inelegantly but conveniently called "metajoking"—joking which disappoints expectation of wit as such.³ We can also think of a metajoke as anti-climax or deflation, and ancient rhetorical theory recognized a technique of "suspension" followed either by anti-climax or by a climax that goes beyond what is expected (Quintilian, IX.II.22/23).

I am not aware of a true metajoke in Martial and suspect that in pure form it would not often have seemed witty to Greeks or Romans. But it is at least useful as an ideal type for considering some closely related Roman jokes. The principle "stupid question, stupid answer"⁴ is illustrated by a witticism in Quintilian (VI.III.71): when a man coming out of a theater is asked whether he has been watching a play he replies, "No, I was playing ball in the orchestra." "Yes" would be mere information, "no" would be false. In so far as its content is odd the answer is not metawit; since it is unreasonable to play ball in the theater, the answer is not banal. On this score it is, if anything, a reverse metajoke: the question is banal, the answer odd, and Quintilian himself remarks that the answer "makes the question stupid." "Why did the chicken cross the road?" is clearly not stupid in the way it is stupid to ask what someone was doing in a theater. Yet both jokes are witty by not being "witty" in the ordinary sense because they are pointless exchanges. One of Martial's most famous epigrams has very much the same effect:

1.32 Non amo te, Sabidi, nec possum dicere
   quare:
  hoc tantum possum dicere, non amo te.

A. I don't like you, Sabidius.

B. [Why is that?]

A. I don't really know; all I can say is that—I don't like you.

We may see the point of this as a sober observation about the unaccountable chemistry of human relations. At the same time, it begins with a provocative remark, and its subsequent pointlessness allows us to detect the flavor of a true metajoke:

A. Do you know why I don't like you, Sabidius?

B. No, why?

A. Don't ask me.

Here is a similar joke from Freud.⁵

A. Life is a suspension bridge.

B. Why is that?

A. How should I know?

With these complications in mind we can turn to several other epigrams.

IV.65 Oculo Philaenis semper altero plorat.
 quo fiat istud quaeritis modo? lusca est.

A. Philaenis always cries from one eye.

B. Oh? Why is that?

A. She has only one eye.

The initial statement with its suggestion of medical oddity triggers the expectation that the answer will be witty. The wit, then, is the lack of wit; obviously, one-eyed persons cry from one eye, and our expectation is momentarily deflated. But only momentarily, for it is surprising that she has only one eye: the epigram in fact ridicules deformity, and so there is a point, though we reach it through a banal answer.

IV.43 Non dixi, Coracine, te cinaedum:
     non sum tam temerarius nec audax
     nec mendacia qui loquar libenter.
     si dixi, Coracine, te cinaedum,
     iratam mihi Pontiae lagonam,
     iratum calicem mihi Metili:
     iuro per Syrios tibi tumores,
     iuro per Berecyntios furores.
     Quid dixi tamen? Hoc leve et pusillum,
     quod notum est, quod et ipse non
      negabis:
     dixi te, Coracine, cunnilingum.

A. I didn't call you a queer, Coracinus—I'm not that kind of person and I don't tell lies. I swear that I didn't call you a queer.

B. Well, what did you call me?

A. Nothing much, nothing you wouldn't say of yourself; you're a—cunt-licker.

This illustrates the other facet of "suspension": the climax by which expectation is outdone. We are led to expect not an insult but rather a soothing, anti-climactic disclaimer, and the joke is the provocative insolence. Two other epigrams play climax against anti-climax more subtly:

IX.4 Aureolis futui cum possit Galla duobus
  et plus quam futui, si totidem addideris,
Aureolos a te cur accipit, Aeschyle, denos?
 non fellat tanti Galla. Quid ergo? Tacet.

A. Galla can be screwed for $50, and she'll do more than that for $100.

B. What do you get for $250?

A. For that she keeps her mouth shut.

XII.26 A latronibus esse te fututam
       dicis, Saenia: sed negant latrones.

Saenia, you say that robbers raped you; they say they didn't.

Here interplay invites a category error. In the first, some sort of climactically shameless sexual act turns out to be nothing more than Saenia's talk—but that is her greatest indecency; in the second, formal banality conceals climax when "we didn't rape her" is seen actually to be "we didn't rape," i.e., either "we did much worse" or "she went along willingly."

The joke at Coracinus' expense is a convenient place to start ranking Martial's epigrams in terms of codes. Its brutally blunt language is at the farthest remove from the code of ordinary decency, and as we have noted, violation may be so gross as not properly to be wit at all:

IV.50 Quid me, Thai, senem subinde dicis?
     nemo est, Thai, senex ad irrumandum.
     Why do you always call me old, Thais?
     Nobody is old—for sucking.

In the following epigrams impropriety is turned into genuine wit through a more subtle violation of expectation:

IV.56 Munera quod senibus viduisque ingentia
  mittis,
  vis te munificum, Gargiliane, vocem?
sordidius nihil est, nihil est te spurcius uno,
  qui potes insidias dona vocare tuas:
sic avidis fallax indulget piscibus hamus,
  callida sic stultas decipit esca feras.
quid sit largiri, quid sit donare docebo,
  si nescis: dona, Gargiliane, mihi.

A. It's disgusting, Gargilianus, the way you send gifts to flatter old men and widows. You call that a gift? It's nothing but a hook to catch fish.

B. How should I give gifts?

A. To—me.⁶

This is still fairly heavy-handed; impropriety can be more effectively veiled through (apparent) irrelevance:

X.8 Nubere Paula cupit nobis, ego ducere
  Paulam
  nolo: anus est. Vellem, si magis esset anus.

Paula wants to marry me, but I won't have her because she's too old. I would, if she were—older.

Freud's example of this technique has an even more incoherent sound: "A wife is like an umbrella—sooner or later one takes a cab."⁷ The initial sound of logical inconsequence masks and thereby turns improperly candid greed or lust into wit (the older she is, the sooner she will die and leave her money; marriage takes care of most sexual needs, but emergencies call for public means).

1.10 Petit Gamellus nuptias Maronillae

    et cupit et instat et precatur et donat.
    Adeone pulchra est? Immo foedius nil
est.
    Quid ergo in illa petitur et placet?
Tussit.

A. Gemellus is absolutely crazy about marrying Maronilla. He asks her all the time, sends gifts, begs, insists.

B. She's really pretty, eh?

A. Oh, no; ugly as Satan.

B. What does he like about her then?

A. Her cough.

The answer to the first question appears grossly illogical and sets up a puzzle resolved when we grasp the point of the second answer: a cough is a sign of consumption, of imminent death and of—inheritance. The violation of expectation is thus two-fold: the logical connection between "cough" and "money" is disguised and made to seem unreasonable; when we see that there is a connection, we also realize that it is improper.

We have noted that questions help channel a line of thought in the direction necessary to spring the joke. Freud discusses how a series of repeated statements can work in the same way by locking in a train of thought—making it "automatic"—so that critical resistance is lulled and the result is incongruity or unintended congruity.⁸ In the following instance a violation of neutrality is wittily played out in a verbal lock-step:

In the Second World War an English bomber strays over Switzerland.

A. You are in Swiss airspace.

B. We know it.

A. If you don't leave immediately we will shoot.

B. We know it.

A. We're going to shoot.

B. We know it.

A. We're shooting.

B. You missed.

A. We know it.

The epigrams' rigid metrical pattern lends itself especially well to this kind of joke:

1.77 Pulchre valet Charinus et tamen pallet,
     parce bibit Charinus et tamen pallet,
     bene concoquit Charinus et tamen pallet,
     sole utitur Charinus et tamen pallet,
     tingit cutem Charinus et tamen pallet,
     cunnum Charinus lingit et tamen pallet.

   Charinus has good health—and yet is
pale.
   Charinus doesn't drink much—and yet is
pale.
   Charinus eats sensibly—and yet is pale.
   Charinus takes the sun—and yet is pale.
   Charinus uses cosmetics—and yet is
pale.
   Charinus licks cunt—and yet is pale.

II.33 Cur non basio te, Philaeni? calva es.
     cur non basio te, Philaeni? rufa es.
     cur non basio te, Philaeni? lusca es.
     haec qui basiat, o Philaeni, fellat.

Why don't I kiss you, Philaenis? You're bald.
Why don't I kiss you, Philaenis? You're red.
Why don't I kiss you, Philaenis? You're one-
 eyed.
    Anyone who kisses that, Philaenis—
 sucks.

In the last line Charinus is pale because he is effeminate or so shameless that he cannot blush; in the former case, paleness is incongruous within its line, though congruous in form and content with the other lines; in the latter case, it is congruous within its line, while the line itself, though congruous in form with the previous lines, is incongruous with their content. The Philaenis epigram is very close to riddle jokes ("What is bald, red and one-eyed?"), and we are carried by the hypnotic pattern (as we are in the first epigram) irresistibly into the (in)congruity of the answer, which depends on the sustained double entendre of a description that up to this point has been quite innocent.

XI.47 Omnia femineis quare dilecta catervis
 balnea devitat Lattara? Ne futuat.
Cur nec Pompeia lentus spatiatur in umbra
 nec petit Inachidos limina? Ne futuat.
Cur Lacedaemonio luteum ceromate corpus
 perfundit gelida Virgine? Ne futuat.
Cum sic feminei generis contagia vitet,
 cur lingit cunnum Lattara? Ne futuat.

Why does Lattara avoid the women at the
 public baths?
So as not to screw.
Why does he avoid the red-light district?
So as not to screw.
Why does he bathe in cold water?
So as not to screw.

Well, if he hates women so, why does he—
 lick cunt?
So as not to screw.

The last answer is incongruous with the earlier flow of thought: rejecting ordinary sexual activity turns out to be not a sign of chastity but of an abnormal practice, and the ambivalence is again set up by the fixed syntax which freezes expectation in order to betray it.

Before taking up the direct ambivalence of word play we can consider several other examples of syntactical ambivalence generated by a sudden shift in the emphasis of a statement.

In Nazi Germany Adolph Stinkfuss goes to the registrar's office and requests permission to change his name. The official takes his name down and agrees with a knowing laugh that a change is in order.

'Now, then,' he says, 'What new name do you want?'

'Moritz Stinkfuss.'

IV.84 Non est in populo nec urbe tota
     a se Thaida qui probet fututam,
     cum multi cupiant rogentque multi.
     Tam casta est, rogo, Thais? Immo fellat.

A. Nobody in town can claim to have screwed Thais, though they wish they could.

B. Is she really that chaste?

A. Oh no—she sucks.

Xl.62 Lesbia se iurat gratis numquam esse
  fututam.
  Verum est. Cum futui vult, numerare solet.

Lesbia swears that she has never been screwed for free. And it's true—she always pays for it.

In one way or another these jokes initially misdirect our attention so that we grasp the statement at the wrong point only to have everything snap into place at the end. The effect is like that of two people speaking past each other. ⁹

When the shift in how a sentence can be construed depends on a single word rather than on a broader instability in syntax the wit is double entendre.

V.47 Numquam se cenasse domi Philo iurat,
  et hoc est:
  non cenat, quotiens nemo vocavit eum.

Philo swears that he never dines at home. And it's true; when he's not invited out, he has nothing to eat at home.

X11.79 Donavi tibi multa quae rogasti;
       donavi tibi plura quam rogasti:
       non cessas tamen usque me rogare.
       Quisquis nil negat, Atticilla, fellat.

I gave you all you asked, I gave you more than you asked, but you always want more; a man who doesn't say "no" to anything, Atticilla—sucks.

X1.49 (50) Nulla est hora tibi qua non me,
  Phylli, furentem
  despolies: tanta calliditate rapis.
nunc plorat speculo fallax ancilla relicto,
  gemma vel a digito vel cadit aure lapis;
nunc furtiva lucri fieri bombycina possunt,
  profertur Cosmi nunc mihi siccus onyx;
amphora nunc petitur nigri cariosa Falemi,
  expiet ut somnos garrula saga tuos;
nunc ut emam grandemve lupum mullumve
  bilibrem,
  indixit cenam dives amica tibi.
Sit pudor et tandem veri respectus et aequi:
  nil tibi, Phylli, nego; nil mihi, Phylli, nega.

Phyllis, you've got a bottomless bag of tricks to fleece me—a lost ring to replace, an empty perfume bottle, some wine, a big dinner. Come on! Be fair! I don't deny you anything—don't you deny me anything.

The last two epigrams use different senses of "say no" or "deny"—mercenary and sexual—and the ambivalence is resolved abruptly in the former by the last word, which is primarily sexual ("to say no to nothing" suggests willingness to do anything) though also appropriate to the mercenary situation (never "to refuse the demands" of a greedy person is to be a "sucker" = "fool").¹⁰ The joke about the parasite who dines at others' expense happens to work perfectly in English because "have to eat" = "eat/possess food."

Double entendre is, of course, easily the most common and in many ways most effective sexual joke because it adds to the forbidden sexual allusion the pleasure of blurring logic through equivocation and distorting language through verbal cleverness. Sexual double meaning is potentially present almost anywhere in language. In addition, the specifically sexual, alternative vocabulary which every language creates opens up an even wider range of word play (e.g., "Dick is a four-letter word"), and because one of the meanings is innocent, double entendre stays close to the public code.¹¹

II.56 Gentibus in Libycis uxor tua, Galle,
  male audit

  inmodicae foedo crimine avaritiae.
sed mera narrantur mendacia: non solet ilia
  accipere omnino. Quid solet ergo? Dare.

Gallus, in Libya your wife has a reputation for taking [favors]. But it's all lies; she never takes [favors], she—gives them.

III.79 Rem peragit nullam Sertorius, inchoat
  omnes.
        hunc ego, cum futuit, non puto
  perficere.

It's always 'go' on all sorts of projects with Sertorius, but never 'come'—and that's true when he screws, too. ¹²

XII.20 Quare non habeat, Fabulle, quaeris
       uxorem Themison? habet sororem.

Do you want to know why Themison doesn't have a wife, Fabullus? He's got a sister [euphemism for "mistress" with a hint at incest].

As a form of equivocation word play brings out the subversion of logic and language in wit. The more ingenious and complex the pun, the more dramatic the confusion in reality, and we can end with one of Martial's best:

II.17 Tonstrix Suburae faucibus sedet primis,
      cruenta pendent qua flagella tortorum
      Argique Letum multus obsidet sutor.
      sed ista tonstrix, Ammiane, non tondet,
      non tondet, inquam. Quid igitur facit?
  Radit.

A. The lady barber who has a shop in the redlight district doesn't give you a hair cut, Ammianus.

B. What does she do?

A. She gives you a shave.

The word for "shave" can also mean "clip" in the sense of "rob" (cf. our "clip joint") as well as "skin" in an obscene sense, and the triple entendre is the more effective because the trigger word "shave" is on the initial, innocent level a simple alternative to "hair cut."¹³

Notes

¹ Burnikel 1980; Siedschlag 1977; cf. Richlin 1983.59 f. for the pertinence of Freud's theory to Roman humor in general. I would like to thank my colleagues Barry Powell and Martin Winkler for their suggestions.

² Freud 1905.90 ff.

³ Marfurt 1977.44 (note 5); 89 for Metawitz and Unsinnwitz, also discussed as "shaggy dog" jokes by Stewart 1978.78 f. (Most of the modern jokes not taken from Freud which I cite come from Marfurt). Another example is the familiar "Have you heard the latest joke?/ No/Neither have I." Anti-climax (which we will deal with shortly) is very clear in this instance, as it is in several other jokes in Freud (92): "Not only did he disbelieve in ghosts, he was not even frightened by them."

⁴ Cf. Freud 1905.69: "Can you dye a horse blue? / Yes, if he can stand boiling." Freud (57) also quotes a proverb turned into a stupid statement: "Never to be born would be the best thing for mortal men, but this happens to scarcely one person in a hundred thousand."

⁵ Freud 1905.139.

⁶ V.32 is a less effective version of the same joke: "Crispus didn't leave anything to his wife/To whom did he leave it?/ To himself."

⁷ Freud 1905.110.

⁸ Freud 1905.64 f. deals with automatism in jokes; for a somewhat different type cf. Burnikel 1980.121.

⁹ Cf. Freud 1905.70: Frederick the Great heard of a preacher in Silesia who had the reputation of being in contact with spirits. He sent for the man and received him with the question, "You can conjure up spirits?" The reply was, "At your Majesty's command. But they won't come." (Hotspur makes the same joke in Henry IV, part I, Act 3, Scene 1).

¹⁰ For "suck" (fello) used as a general term of contempt or empty abuse as it is in English cf. Adams 1982.130 f.

¹¹ Cf. Freud 1905.100 for the social topography of wit: "The greater the discrepancy between what is given directly in the form of smut and what it necessarily calls up in the hearer, the more refined becomes the joke and the higher, too, it may venture to climb into good society."

¹² The Latin is literally, "Sertorius finishes nothing, begins everything/I don't think he even finishes screwing." Perficere ("finish") evidently has a specifically sexual sense.

¹³ Freud 1905.72 cites an epigram of Lessing based on a Greek epigram also imitated by Martial and turned into another exceptionally effective word play, which in addition reverses the usual order of question/answer to force the hearer to spring the joke: "Fabulla swears that the hair she buys is her own—and she's not really lying is she, Paulus?" (VI. 12); cf. Burnikel 1980.52 f.…

Bibliography

Adams, J. N. 1982. The Latin Sexual Vocabulary. London.…

Burnikel. W. 1980. Untersuchungen zur Struktur des Witzepigramms bei Lukillios und Martial. Wiesbaden.

Freud, S. 1905. Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious. Standard Edition, vol. VIII (1960). London.

Marfurt, B. 1977. Textsorte Witz. Tubingen.…

Siedschlag, E. 1977. Zur Form von Martials Epigrammen. Berlin.

Stewart, S. 1978. Nonsense. Baltimore and London.