Ancient Greek Jokes
Having cast a boy’s horoscope, a charlatan prophet predicted that he would be first a lawyer, then a city prefect, and finally a provincial governor. But the boy died. His mother came back and remonstrated, "My son has died, the one you said would be a lawyer and prefect and governor." "I swear by his memory," responded the prophet, "he would have been all of those things had he lived!"
An intellectual caught sight of a deep well on his country-estate, and asked if the water was any good. The farmhands assured him that it was good, and that his own parents used to drink from that well. The intellectual expressed his amazement: "How long were their necks, if they could drink from something so deep!"
An intellectual checked in on the parents of a dead classmate. The father was wailing: "O son, you have left me a cripple!" The mother was crying: "O son, you have taken the light from my eyes!" Later, the intellectual suggested to his friends: "If he were guilty of all that, he should have been cremated while still alive."
An intellectual came to check in on a friend who was seriously ill. When the man's wife said that he had 'departed', the intellectual replied: "When he arrives back, will you tell him that I stopped by?"
An incompetent schoolteacher was asked who the mother of Priam was. Not knowing the answer, he said: "It's polite to call her Ma'am."."
A man was sick, at death's door. When his wife said to him, "If anything bad happens to you, I'll hang myself," he looked up at her and said: "Do me the favor while I'm still alive."
A rude astrologer cast a sick boy’s horoscope. After promising the mother that the child had many years ahead of him, he demanded payment. When she said, “Come tomorrow and I’ll pay you,” he objected: “But what if the boy dies during the night and I lose my fee?”
A Kymaean is out swimming when it starts to rain. Not wanting to get wet, he dives down as deep as he can…
A student goes to the doctor, saying, “Doctor! When I wake up, I’m all dizzy. Then after half an hour I feel fine.”
“Well wait half an hour before waking up,” advises the doctor.
A salesman from Sidon goes for a long walk with a friend. When he stops to urinate, he gets back to find that his friend has gone on ahead of him, leaving a message written on a milestone: “Quick, catch up with me!” When the Sidonian reads this, he writes underneath it, “No – you wait for me!”
Renaissance Jokes
The Abbot of Septimo, a very fat and corpulent man, on his way to Florence one evening, enquired of a peasant he met, “Do you think I shall be able to enter the gate?” Of course, he thus meant to ask whether he was likely to reach the city before the closing of the gates. But the country-man, rallying his stoutness, replied, “To be sure, you will; a cartload of hay gets through, why should not you?”
A Florentine I was acquainted with was under the necessity of buying a horse in Rome, and bargained with the dealer, who asked him twenty-five gold ducats, too high a price; he offered to pay fifteen ducats cash, and to owe the rest; to which the dealer agreed. On the following day, when asked for the balance, the buyer refused, saying, “We must keep our agreement: it was settled between us that I was to be your debtor; I should be so no longer if I were to pay you.”
An inhabitant of Perugia was going along the streets, wrapped in thought and melancholy, and, being met by someone who enquired the motive of his concern, replied that he owed money which he could not pay. The man responded, “Leave that anxiety to your creditor.”
King Alfonso said a marriage can only be tranquil and peaceful if the wife were blind and the husband deaf.
A certain main told the king Alfonso that he had finally found a wise man. "How," replied the king, "can a fool recognize a wise man?"
An obstinate old woman named Ms. Worthy went up to communion to recieve the blessed host, and the priest said to her as is customary: "Repeat after me, 'Lord, I am not worthy.'" The woman replied "But I am Worthy." "Come on," said the priest, "repeat what I say: 'Lord, I am not worthy.'" "I am not going to tell a lie," replied the woman. "You want me to say that I am not worthy, but I am Ms. Worthy." But still the priest said "This is what your priest and spiritual father commands you to say: 'Lord, I am not worthy.'" "Don't tell me this," said the woman, "I am never going to say it because it is a sin." And there was no way to make her say it. Thus sometimes people are so obstinate and eccentric they would rather die than change their minds.
A man buying a horse asked the seller if the horse was a good horse, and the seller said yes. "Why are you selling him?" asked the buyer. The seller replied: "Because I am poor and he eats too much." "Does he have any other bad habits?" inquired the buyer. "No," replied the seller, "except that he refuses to climb trees." But when, after he bought the horse, the buyer was leading him home, the horse bit everybody they met. Then the buyer said: "It's true what he told me-he does eat too much." Then coming to a wooden bridge, the horse refused to cross, and people seeing this said: "Truly he does not climb trees."
One day I was with Father Arlotto and some friends of his, sitting on a bench opposite of the famous church of St. John the Baptist. A young woman, bolder than she was wise, passed by, with her respectable older woman and maidservant. Arlotto turned towards these women and said to us: "See what a pretty girl that is." The young woman, hearing this, thought that the priest was making fun of her, and replied loudly to Arlotto: "I can't say the same of you." "Sure you could," replied Arlotto, "if you told a lie, as I did."
Early Modern Jokes (1700s)
Another poet asked Nat Lee, if it was not easy to write like a madman, as he did? No, answered Nat; but it is easy to write like a fool, as you do.
A certain fop was boasting in company that he had every sense in perfection. There is one you are quite without, said one who was by, and that is common sense.
An Irish lawyer of the Temple having occasion to go to dinner, left these directions written, and put in the key-hole of his chamber door: I am gone to the Elephant and Castle, where you shall find me; and if you can’t read this note, carry it down to the stationer’s, and he will read it for you.
When Oliver first coined his money, an old cavalier looking upon one of the new pieces, read the inscription on one side, God with us: On the other, The commonwealth of England. I see, said he, God and the commonwealth are on different sides.
Michael Angelo, in his picture of the Last Judgment, in the Pope’s chapel, painted among the figures in hell that of a certain cardinal, who was his enemy, so like, that everybody knew it at first sight: whereupon the cardinal complaining to Pope Clement VII. of the affront, and desiring that it might be defaced; You know very well, said the Pope, I have power to deliver a soul out of purgatory, but not out of hell.
A scholar, a bald man, and a barber, travelling together, agreed each to watch four hours in the night, in turn, for the sake of security. The barber’s lot came first, who shaved the scholar’s head while he was asleep, then waked him when his turn came. The scholar, scratching his head, and feeling it bald, exclaimed, you wretch of a barber, you have waked the bald man instead of me.
An Irishman being asked which was oldest, he or his brother, I am eldest, said he, but if my brother lives three years longer, we shall be both of an age.
A reverend gentleman seeing a fishwoman skinning some eels, said to her, How can you be so cruel? don’t you think you put them to a great deal of pain? Why, your honour, she replied, I might when I first began business; but I have dealt in them twenty years, and by this time they must be quite used to it.
A gentleman, some years since, being obliged to ask pardon of the House of Commons on his knees, when he rose up, he brushed the knees of his breeches, saying, I was never in so dirty a house in my life.
A farmer in the neighbourhood of Doncaster, was thus accosted by his landlord: John, I am going to raise your rent. John replied, Sir, I am very much obliged to you, for I cannot raise it myself.
