Lucius Seneca - Yale Required Reading - Collected Works (Vol. 2)

"A humorous manner, too, and strokes of wit, give pleasure to an audience, and are often of great advantage to the speaker; qualities which, even if everything else can be taught by art, are certainly peculiar gifts of nature, and require no aid from instruction. In that department you, Caesar, in my opinion, far excel all other men; on which account you can better bear me testimony, either that there is no art in wit, or, if there be any, you will best instruct us in it." "I indeed," says Caesar, "think that a man who is not destitute of refined learning can discourse upon any subject more wittily than upon wit itself. Accordingly, when I met with some Greek books entitled 'On Jests,' I conceived some hope that I might learn something from them. I found, it is true, many laughable and witty sayings of the Greeks; for the Sicilians excel in that way, as well as the Rhodians and Byzantines, but, above all, the people of Attica. But they who have attempted to deliver rules and principles on that subject, have shown themselves so extremely foolish, that nothing else in them has excited laughter but their folly. This talent, therefore, appears to me incapable of being communicated by teaching. As there are two kinds of wit, one running regularly through a whole speech, the other pointed and concise; the ancients named the former humour, 21the latter jesting. Each sort has but a light name, and justly; 22for it is altogether but a light thing to raise a laugh. However, as you observe, Antonius, I have seen advantageous effects produced in pleadings by the aid of wit and humour; but, as in the former kind, I mean humour that runs through a speech, no aid from art is required, (for Nature forms and produces men to be facetious mimics or story-tellers; their look, and voice, and mode of expression assisting their conceptions;) so likewise in the other, that of occasional facetiousness, what room is there for art, when the joke ought to be uttered, and fixed in the mind of the hearer, before it appears possible to have been conceived? For what assistance could my brother here receive from art, when, being asked by Philippus why he barked so, he replied, Because he saw a thief? Or what aid could Crassus have received in that whole speech which he delivered before the centumviri, in opposition to Scaevola, or when he pleaded for Gnaeus Plancus against the accusation of Brutus? For that talent which you, Antonius, attribute to me, must be allowed to Crassus by the confession of all mankind; since hardly any person can be found besides him eminent in both these kinds of wit, that which runs through a continued discourse, and that which consists in smartness and occasional jokes. His whole defence in the case of Curius, in opposition to Scaevola, was full of a certain pleasantry and humour; but of those sharp short jests it had none; for he was wary of the dignity of his opponent, and in that respect maintained his own; though it is extremely difficult for men of wit and facetiousness to preserve a regard to persons and times, and to suppress what occurs to them when it may be expressed with most pungent effect. Accordingly, some jesters put a humorous interpretation upon the well-known words of Ennius; for he said, as they observe, that a wise man can more easily keep in flame while his mouth is on fire, than withhold 'good words' { bona dicta }; and they say that 'good words' mean witty sayings; for sayings are called dicta by an appropriate term.

"But as Crassus forbore to use such jests in his speech against Scaevola, and sported throughout that case and discussion with that other type of humour in which there are no stings of sarcasm; so in that against Brutus, whom he hated, and thought deserving of insult, he fought with both kinds of wit. How many severe things did he say about the baths which Brutus had lately sold? how many on the loss of his paternal estate? And they were concise; as when Brutus, speaking of himself, said that he sweated without cause. 'No wonder that you sweat,' said Crassus, 'for you are just turned out of the baths.' There were innumerable things of this kind in the speech, but his continuous vein of pleasantry was not less amusing; for when Brutus had called up two readers, and had given to one the speech of Crassus upon the colony of Narbo, to the other that on the Servilian law, to read, and had compared together the contradictory sections on public affairs contained in each, our friend very facetiously gave the three books of Brutus's father, written on the civil law, to three different persons to read. Out of the first book was read this sentence, 'It happened by chance that we were on my estate at Privernum.' On which clause Crassus made this observation, 'Brutus, your father testifies that he left you an estate at Privernum.' Again, out of the second book, 'My son Marcus and I were at my Alban villa;' when Crassus remarked, 'This wise man, who was justly ranked among the wisest in our city, had evidently some foreknowledge of this spendthrift's character, and was afraid, that when he came to have nothing, it might be imagined that nothing was left him.' Afterwards out of the third book, with which the author concluded his work, ( for that number of books, as I have heard Scaevola say, are the genuine compositions of Brutus, ) 'It chanced that my son Marcus and myself were sitting in my villa near Tibur ;' when Crassus exclaimed, 'Where are those estates now, Brutus, that your father left you, as recorded in his public commentaries? But if he had not seen you arrived at the age of puberty, he would have composed a fourth book, and left it in writing that he talked with his son in his own baths.' Who does not acknowledge, now, that Brutus was not less confounded by this humour, these comic jests, than by that tragic tone which the same orator adopted, when by accident, during the hearing of the same case, the funeral procession of the old lady Junia passed by? O immortal gods! what force and energy was that with which he spoke! how unexpected! how sudden! when, casting his eyes that way, with his whole gesture directed towards Brutus, with the utmost gravity and rapidity of expression, he exclaimed, 'Brutus, why do you sit still? What would you have that old lady communicate to your father? What to all those whose statues you see carried by? What to your other ancestors? What to Lucius Brutus, who freed this people from regal tyranny? What shall she say that you are doing? What business, what glory, what virtue shall she say that you are pursuing? That you are engaged in increasing your patrimony? But that is no characteristic of nobility. Yet suppose it were; you have none left to increase; your extravagance has squandered the whole of it. That you are studying the civil law? That was your father's pursuit; but she will relate that when you sold your house, you did not even among the furniture 23reserve the chair from which your father answered his clients. That you are applying yourself to the military art? You who have never seen a camp. Or to eloquence? But no portion of eloquence dwells in you; and such power of voice and tongue as you have, you have devoted to the infamous trade of a common informer. Dare you even behold the light? Or look this assembly in the face? Dare you present yourself in the forum, in the city, in the public assembly of the citizens? Do you not fear even that dead corpse, and those very images of your ancestors, you who have not only left yourself no room for the imitation of their virtues, but none in which you can place their statues?'

"This is in a tragic and sublime strain of language; but you all recollect instances without number of facetiousness and polite humour in one speech; for never was there a more vehement dispute on any occasion, or an speech of greater power delivered before the people, than that of Crassus lately in his censorship, in opposition to his colleague, nor one better seasoned with wit and humour. I agree with you, therefore, Antonius, in both points, that jesting is often of great advantage in speaking, and that it cannot be taught by any rules of art. But I am astonished that you should attribute so much power to me in that way, and not assign to Crassus the palm of pre-eminence in this as in other departments of eloquence." "I should have done so," said Antonius, "if I had not sometimes envied Crassus a little in this respect; for to be ever so facetious and witty is not of itself an extraordinary subject of envy; but, when you are the most graceful and polite of speakers, to be, and to be thought, at the same time, the most grave and dignified of men, a distinction which has been granted to Crassus alone, seems to me almost unendurable." Crassus having smiled at this, Antonius said, "But, Julius, while you denied that art had anything to do with facetiousness, you brought to our notice something that seemed worthy of precept; for you said that regard ought to be paid to persons, times, and circumstances, that jesting might not detract from dignity; a rule which is particularly observed by Crassus. But this rule only directs that jokes should be suppressed when there is no fair occasion for them; what we desire to know is, how we may use them when there is occasion; as against an adversary, especially if his folly be open to attack, or against a foolish, covetous, trifling witness, if the audience seem disposed to listen patiently. Those sayings are more likely to be approved which we utter on provocation, than those which we utter when we begin an attack; for the quickness of wit, which is shown in answering, is more remarkable, and to reply is thought allowable, as being natural to the human temper; since it is presumed that we should have remained quiet if we had not been attacked; as in that very speech to which you alluded scarcely anything was said by our friend Crassus here, anything at least that was at all humorous, which he did not utter in reply, and on provocation. For there was so much gravity and authority in Domitius, 24that the objections which came from him seemed more likely to be enfeebled by jests than broken by arguments."