ON my return from that city which is the chief of all cities, Members of the University, filled (I had almost said "to repletion") with all the good things which are to be found there in such abundance, I looked forward once more to enjoying a spell of cultured leisure, a mode of life in which, it is my belief, even the souls of the blessed find delight. I fully intended at last to bury myself in learning and to devote myself day and night to the charms of philosophy; for the alternation of toil and pleasure usually has the effect of annihilating the boredom brought about by satiety and of making us the more eager to resume our interrupted tasks. Just as I was warming to my work there came a sudden summons and I was dragged away by the yearly celebration of our ancient custom, and commanded to transfer that zeal, which I had intended to devote to the acquisition of knowledge, to foolery and the invention of new jests — as if the world were not already full of fools, as if that famous Ship of Fools, renowned in song like the Argo herself, had been wrecked, or finally as if there were not matter enough already to make even Democritus laugh.

But I ask your pardon, my hearers; for though I have spoken somewhat too freely, the custom which we celebrate today is assuredly no foolish one, but on the contrary most commendable, as I intend to make plain forthwith. And if Junius Brutus, that second founder of Rome and great avenger of the lusts of kings, could bring himself to disguise his almost godlike mind and wonderful natural talents under the semblance of idiocy, there is assuredly no reason why I should be ashamed to play the wise fool for a while, especially at the bidding of him whose duty it is, like the aediles' at Rome, to organise these shows, which are almost a ceremonial custom. I was further strongly induced and persuaded to undertake this office by the newfound friendliness towards me of you who are fellow students of my own college. For when, some months ago, I was to make an academic oration before you, I felt sure that any effort of mine would have but a cold reception from you, and would find in Aeacus or Minos a more lenient judge than in any one of you. But quite contrary to my expectation, contrary indeed to any spark of hope I may have entertained, I heard, or rather I myself felt, that my speech was received with quite unusual applause on every hand, even on the part of those who had previously shown me only hostility and dislike, because of disagreements concerning our studies. A generous way indeed of displaying rivalry, and one worthy of a royal nature! For while friendship itself is often wont to misinterpret what is really free from faults, on this occasion keen and biting enmity was kind enough to construe in a more gentle and lenient spirit than I deserved both my mistakes, which may have been many, and my rhetorical failures, which were doubtless not a few. On this one occasion and in this one instance mad fury seemed to become sane, and by this action to free itself from the imputation of lunacy.

I am quite overcome with pride and joy at finding myself surrounded on all sides by such an assembly of learned men; and yet, when I take stock of myself and turning my eyes inward contemplate in my own heart the meagre powers I possess, I blush to myself and a sudden uprush of modesty overwhelms and chokes my rising joy.

But, gentlemen, do not, I beg of you, desert me as I lie here fallen, and stricken by your eyes as by lightning. Let the soft breeze of your goodwill refresh my fainting spirit, as well it can, and warm it into life again; so shall my sickness, thanks to you, be less acute, and the remedy, since it is you who apply it, the more willingly and gladly accepted; so that it would be a true pleasure to me often to faint thus, if I might as often be revived and restored by you. But what matchless power, what marvellous virtue is yours, which like Achilles' spear, the gift of Vulcan, at once inflicts the wound and heals it? For the rest, let no one wonder that I triumph, like one exalted to heaven, at finding so many men eminent for their learning, the very flower as it were of the University, gathered together here; for I can scarce believe that a greater number flocked of old to Athens to hear those two supreme orators, Demosthenes and Aeschines, contending for the crown of eloquence, or that such felicity ever fell to the lot of Hortensius at any declamation of his, or that so great a company of cultured men ever graced a speech of Cicero's. So that with however poor success I perform my task, it will yet be no mean honor to me merely to have opened my lips before so large and crowded an assembly of our most eminent men. And by heaven, I cannot help flattering myself a little that I am, as I think, far more fortunate than Orpheus or Amphion; for they did but supply the trained and skilful touch to make the strings give forth their sweet harmony, and the exquisite music was due as much to the instrument itself as to their apt and dexterous handling of it. But if I win any praise here today, it will be entirely and truly my own, and the more glorious in proportion as the creations of the intellect are superior to manual skill. Besides, Orpheus and Amphion used to attract an audience consisting only of rocks and wild beasts and trees, and if any human beings came, they were at best but rude and rustic folk; but I find the most learned men altogether engrossed in listening to my words and hanging on my lips. Lastly, those rustics and wild beasts used to follow after the stringed music which they already knew well and had often heard before; you have been drawn hither and held fast here by expectation alone.

But, Members of the University, I would before all have you know that I have not spoken thus in a spirit of boastfulness. For I only wish that such a stream of honeyed, or rather nectared, eloquence might be granted me, if but for this once, as of old ever steeped and as it were celestially bedewed the great minds of Athens and of Rome; would that I could suck out all the innermost marrow of persuasion, pilfer the notebooks of Mercury himself, and empty all the coffers of wit, that I might produce something worthy of such great expectations, so notable a concourse, and so polished and refined an audience. So behold, my hearers, to what my consuming desire and longing to please you drives me and carries me away: all unexpectedly I find myself involved in an ambition which is, however, an honourable one, and a righteous sacrilege, if there can be such a thing.

Certainly I do not consider that I need beg and implore the help of the Muses, for I find myself surrounded by men in whom the Muses and the Graces are incarnate, and it seems to me that Helicon and all the other shrines of the Muses have poured forth their nurslings to celebrate this day, so that one might well believe that the laurels of Parnassus pine and fade for lack of them. Therefore it will surely be useless to seek the Muses, the Graces, and the Loves in any other spot in all the world than this. If so, Barbarity, Error, Ignorance, and all that tribe which the Muses loathe must needs take flight with all speed at sight of you, and hide themselves in a far distant clime. And then, why should not every barbarous, vulgar, or mean word or phrase be forthwith banished from my speech, and I myself become straightway eloquent and accomplished, through the working of your influence and secret inspiration?

However that may be, I entreat you, my hearers, not to grudge a little of your time to my frivolities, for even the gods themselves are said often to have laid aside for the moment the cares of the commonwealth of heaven and to have been present as spectators of the wars of puny man. Sometimes, indeed, the stories tell, they did not disdain humble homes, but accepted the hospitality of the poor and gladly made a meal of beans and herbs. So too I beg and beseech you, my kind hearers, to accept what I can offer as in some sort a humble banquet for your delicate and discerning taste.

I am indeed well aware that many sciolists are in the habit of arrogantly and stupidly belittling in others any subject of which they happen to know nothing themselves, as if it were not worth spending trouble upon; so for instance one foolishly rails at Dialectic, because he could never master it; another despises Natural Philosophy, because, to be sure, the fairest of the goddesses, Nature, never so honoured him as to show herself naked to his eyes. But for my part I will not shrink from singing the praises of jests and merriment to the best of my powers, even though I must admit that I have but very slight aptitude for them. I must however first point out that I am today to praise mirth in a serious style, which seems an arduous task indeed and far from easy.

Nor are these praises undeserved. For what is more likely to win friendship quickly and retain it long, than a pleasant and gay disposition? while if a man is devoid of wit and humur and elegant pleasantry, hardly anyone will find him agreeable or welcome. But in our own case, Members of the University, if we made it our daily custom to go to sleep and so to speak die in philosophy and grow old among the thorns and brambles of logic, without any relaxation or breathing-space, what, I ask, would the pursuit of philosophy amount to but to prophesying in the cave of Trophonius and following the over-rigid rule of Cato? Why, the very rustics would say that we drank vinegar. Besides, just as those who exercise themselves in wrestling and other sports grow much stronger than others and more ready for all emergencies, even so we usually find that these mental gymnastics strengthen the sinews of the mind and tone up its whole system, and polish and sharpen the intellect, making it versatile and adaptable. But if a man does not desire to be considered cultured and witty, he must not be annoyed if he is called a clown and a boor. There is a certain mean kind of fellow, often enough met with, who, being themselves incapable of wit or gaiety, and conscious of their own dullness and stupidity, always conclude that any witty remark they may hear is made at their expense. It would indeed serve them right if their unreasonable suspicions were to be realised, and if they should find themselves the butt of everyone's witticisms, till they were almost driven to suicide. But such dregs of mankind as these cannot stand in the way of the pleasantry of polite society.

Would you now, gentlemen, have one build up a structure of proof from instances upon this foundation of reason? I can indeed find plenty of such instances. First of all comes Homer, the rising sun or morning star of cultured literature, at whose birth all learning was born also, as his twin. He sometimes withdrew his divine mind from the councils of the gods and the doings in heaven and diverted it to comic subjects, such as that most amusing description of the battle of frogs and mice. Moreover Socrates, according to the Pythian Apollo the wisest of men, is said often to have bridled his wife's shrewish tongue with a jesting word. Besides, we read that the conversation of the ancient philosophers was always sprinkled with witty sayings and enlivened by a pleasant sparkle; and it was certainly this quality above all which conferred an immortal fame upon all the ancient writers of comedies and epigrams, whether Greek or Latin. Moreover we are told that Cicero's jokes and witticisms, collected by Tyro, filled three volumes. And we are all familiar with that sprightly encomium of Folly composed by an author of no small repute, while we have many other diverting essays on comic subjects by famous authors of our own times.

Would you have me cite great generals, kings, and heroes? Take then Pericles, Epaminondas, Agesilaus, and Philip of Macedon, who, if I may speak in Gellius's manner, overflowed with humorous and witty sayings, according to the statements of historians. Take too Laelius, Scipio, Pompey, Julius Caesar and Augustus, all of whom were, according to Cicero, pre-eminent among their contemporaries for wit. Would you have yet greater names? Jove himself and the other deities are represented by the poets, who give us the best pictures of the truth, as giving themselves up to merriment at their feasts and carouses. Finally, gentlemen, I invoke the precedent and example set by yourselves, which I consider worth all the rest. For that jests and jollity are far from displeasing to you is proved clearly enough by your coming here in crowds today, and to this every one of you seems to nod assent. Nor, I swear, is it to be wondered at that all honest and all eminent men find pleasure in this lively and elegant pleasantry, since it too has a place of honor in the famous Aristotelian classification of virtues, and as in a common temple shines in splendor like a goddess among her sister deities.

But perhaps there may be some bearded Masters of a crabbed and surly nature, who, thinking themselves Catos not merely in a small way but on a grand scale, and composing their countenances to a Stoic severity, shake their obstinate heads and uneasily complain that nowadays everything is in confusion and going from bad to worse, and that the newly-created Bachelors, instead of expounding the Prior Analytics of Aristotle, shamelessly and unreasonably bandy about scurrilous and empty trivialities, and that to-day's exercises, which our forbears undoubtedly instituted with the proper and honest purpose of winning some solid gain either of rhetoric or of philosophy, have of late been perverted into a show of feeble witticism. But I have an answer to them ready to hand. Let them know, if they do not know already, that when the laws of our Republic of Letters were first laid down, learning had only just penetrated from foreign lands to our country; therefore, since the knowledge of Greek and Latin was exceedingly rare and unusual, it was necessary to strive and struggle toward them with the more intensive study and more unremitting efforts. We however, though inferior to our predecessors in morals, are superior to them in learning, and ought to turn our backs on those studies which offer but little difficulty, and betake ourselves to those to which they too would have turned their attention, had they had leisure to do so. And you are well aware that the earliest lawgivers were always wont to issue ordinances rather harder and more severe than men could endure, in order that as men grew less strict and accurate in their observance of them they might hit upon the right mean. Finally, since the circumstances are now entirely different, we must necessarily allow many laws and customs, if not to lapse and fall into disuse, at least to be narrowed in their application and disregarded in some details. But, they say, raising their eyebrows, if such frivolities are to be openly tolerated and approved and to win public praise, every student will straightway turn his attention away from sound and solid learning and devote it to shows and stage frivolity, so that the very training schools of philosophy will send out, instead of learned and prudent men, fellows fit only to be buffoons and play-actors.

For my part, I consider that a man who can be so given up to foolish jests as altogether to neglect for them his serious and really useful work, is incapable of distinguishing himself in either of these spheres: not in that of serious work, for if he were by nature adapted and suited to dealing with serious matters he would not, I am sure, allow himself to be so easily led away from them; nor yet in that of frivolity, because no one can be master of a fine and clever wit who has not first learnt how to behave seriously.

But I am afraid, gentlemen, that I have been spinning out my speech too long. I will not make excuses for this as I might, lest in excusing it I should aggravate my fault. In a moment we shall shake off the fetters of rhetoric and throw ourselves into comic licence. If in the course of this I outgo by a finger's breadth, as they say, my usual habits and the strict rules of modesty, I beg you, gentlemen, to accept this explanation: it is to give you pleasure that I have put off and for the moment laid aside my usual habit, and if anything I may say is loose or licentious, put it down to the suggestion, not of my real mind and character, but of the needs of the moment and the genius of the place. And so I entreat at the beginning of my entertainment the favor which actors beg at the end of theirs: give me your laughter and applause.

At a moment when the commonwealth of fools is, as it seems, tottering and on the brink of disaster, I have been made its Dictator, though I know not how I have deserved the honour. Why should the choice fall on me, when that famous leader and commander of all the Sophisters was an eager candidate for the post, and would have fulfilled its duties valiantly; for that seasoned warrior on a previous occasion boldly led some fifty Sophisters, armed with short staves, across Barnwell Field, and, as a step toward laying siege to the town in the approved military style, destroyed the aqueduct, in order to force the townsfolk to surrender through shortage of water. I am deeply distressed at this hero's recent departure, since his going leaves all us Sophisters not merely headless but beheaded.

I ask you now to imagine, gentlemen, although it is not the first of April, that we are celebrating the Hilaria in honor of the Mother of the Gods, or a festival sacred to the god Laughter. Laugh, then, and raise a roar from your saucy lungs, smooth out the wrinkles of your brows, make a long nose if you like, but don't turn it up at anything; let the whole place resound with shouts of mirth, let unbridled hilarity make the tears of merriment flow freely, so that laughter may drain them dry, leaving not a drop to grace the triumph of grief. For my part, if I see anyone not opening his mouth as wide as he should to laugh, I shall say that he is trying to hide teeth which are foul and decayed, and yellow from neglect, or misplaced and projecting, or else that at today's feast he has so crammed his belly that he dares not put any extra strain upon it by laughing, for fear that not the Sphinx but his sphincter anus should sing a second part to his mouth's first and accidentally let out some enigmas which I leave to the doctors instead of to Oedipus to explain. For I should not like the cheerful sound of laughter to be drowned by groans from the posterior of this assembly. I leave it to the doctors, who can loosen the bowels, to loosen up all this. If anyone does not raise his voice loud and clear enough, I shall swear that his breath is so foul and poisonous that the fumes of Etna or Avernus could not be more noisome, or at any rate that he is in the habit of eating onions or leeks so that he dare not open his mouth for fear of making his neighbours choke with his evil-smelling breath. Next, there must be no trace of that dreadful and infernal sound, a hiss, anywhere near this assembly; for if it is heard here today, I shall believe that the Furies and Eumenides are skulking somewhere among you, that their snakes and serpents have found their way into your bosoms, and that the madness of Athamas has come upon you.

To be sure, gentlemen, I am quite overcome with wonder and admiration at the favor you have shown me, in forcing your way through flame and fire into this place to hear me speak. For at the very threshold there stands on the one hand our fiery bull-dog, barking forth smoke to terrify us, laying about him with his blazing staff, and puffing out mouthfuls of glowing embers. On the other hand that burning and all-consuming Furnace of ours belches forth lurid flames and pours out coiling wreaths of smoke, so that it would be as easy to force one's way past him as to traverse the road to Hades, and that against the will of Pluto; and certainly Jason himself encountered no lesser danger in his attempt on the fire-breathing oxen of Mars. But now, gentlemen, you may well believe yourselves to be in heaven, after having passed through purgatory, and come safe and sound out of the fiery furnace by some new miracle. I cannot think of any hero whose valor can fairly be compared with yours; for the renowned Bellerophon showed no greater courage in subduing the fire-vomiting Chimaera, nor did those valiant champions of King Arthur more easily overcome and destroy the enchantments of the flaming, fiery castle. Hence I feel justified in promising myself a choice and select audience; for if any rubbish has passed through the furnaces and penetrated to this place, I can only say that our porters are mere jack-o'-lanterns, or "foolish fires."

But how happy and how secure we are and always shall be! For at Rome it was the custom to guard the eternal fire most carefully and scrupulously, to secure the permanence of the empire; but we are ourselves guarded by living and watchful fires. Living and watchful, did I say? that expression slipped from my tongue unawares, for now that I come to think of it, they go out at the approach of dusk, and only rekindle on a fine, bright day. Still there is good hope that our House may shine once more, since none would deny that two of the greatest luminaries of the University preside over our college; yet they would not be more highly honoured anywhere than at Rome, for there Vestal Virgins would keep them aglow and alive all night long. Or, it may be, these flaming brothers might be initiated into the seraphic order. Lastly, that half-line of Virgil applies exactly to them, "They have the vital force of fire." Indeed I am inclined to believe that Horace referred to these Lights of ours, for the elder of them, as he stands among his wife and children, "shines among them all, like the moon among lesser lights." But I cannot pass over Ovid's egregious error in saying "No creatures do we know which are born of flame." For we see flitting all around us little Sparks, the offspring of this Spark of ours. If Ovid denies this, he will necessarily be casting aspersions on their mother's good name.

To return to yourselves, gentlemen. That you may not regret having taken so difficult and dangerous a journey, here is a banquet ready prepared for you! Here are tables decked with all the luxury of Persia and loaded with rarest dainties, fit to delight and captivate the palate of a very Apicius. For it is said that eight whole boars were set before Antony and Cleopatra at a banquet, but behold, before you are set, as a first course, fifty fatted boars which have been pickled in beer for three years, and yet are still so tough that they may well tire out even our dog-teeth. Next, the same number of excellent oxen with magnificent tails, just roasted before the door by our fiery servant; only I am afraid all the juice has gone into the dripping-pan. After them come as many calves' heads, fat and fleshy enough, but with so little brains as not to be enough for seasoning. Then again a hundred kids, more or less, but too lean, I think, from over-indulgence in the pleasures of love. We expected a few rams with fine spreading horns, but our cooks have not yet brought them from the town. If anyone prefers birds, we can provide any number of them, long fattened on dough and flour and grated cheese. First of all, a kind of bird as green in character as in plumage, which, I fancy, must have come from the same part of the world as parrots; as they always fly about in flocks and nest in the same place, they will be served up all on one dish. I would advise you to partake of them sparingly, for besides being rather underdone and lacking in solid nutriment, they are apt to produce a rash in those who eat them, if our epicure is right. Now enjoy your feast with a right good will, for here comes a dish which I can most heartily recommend, namely an enormous turkey, so fat and stout after three years' fattening that one vast dish is scarcely big enough for it, and with such a long and horny beak that it could attack an elephant or a rhinoceros with impunity; but we have cut off the beak for convenience today, since the creature was beginning to be a danger to young girls and to attack women, like the large apes.

This is followed by some Irish birds (of which I do not know the name but which are very like cranes in their gait and lanky figures), though as a rule they are kept for the last course. This is a novel and rare, rather than wholesome dish, and I would therefore warn you not to taste them, for they are very apt, if our epicure is right, to produce lice. I consider that they are more likely to be useful to grooms, for they are naturally lively, spirited, and prancing, so that if they are given as a clyster to lean horses they make them more lively and fleet than they would be even if they had swallowed a dozen live eels.

You see also several geese, some of this year's hatching and some older; they have a good loud quack, and are more vocal than the frogs of Aristophanes. You will easily recognise them — in fact it is a wonder that they have not already betrayed themselves by hissing, and perhaps you will hear them in a moment.

We have besides a few eggs, but they are bad eggs. Of fruits we have only apples and medlars, and they are gallows-fruit and are not quite ripe, so that it would be better to hang them up again to ripen in the sun.

You see what we have provided, so I beg you to help yourselves to what you fancy. But I expect you will say that this banquet, like the nocturnal feasts offered by the devil to witches, is cooked without salt, and I am afraid that you will go away hungrier than you came.

I will now turn to what concerns me more closely. The Romans had their Floralia, the rustics their Palilia, the bakers their Fornacalia, and we too keep the custom of amusing ourselves as Socrates advised, especially at this season when we find ourselves released from cares and business. Now the Inns of Court have their Lords, as they call them, so showing how ambitious they are of rank. But we, gentlemen, in our desire to come as near as may be to paternity, are eager to play in pretence a part which we should not dare really to play unless in secret; even as girls are wont to invent games of weddings and births, striving to catch and hold the shadows of those things for which they long and yearn.

Why this custom should have been neglected last year I cannot imagine, unless it was because those who were to be Fathers had shown such activity in the town that the master of the ceremonies, out of consideration for the labours they had already undergone, voluntarily excused them this duty.

But, I ask, how does it happen that I have so quickly become a Father? Good heavens, what a prodigy this is, more astonishing than any recorded by Pliny! Have I slain some serpent and incurred the fate of Tiresias? Has some Thessalian witch poured magic ointment over me? Or have I been violated by some god, like Caeneus of old, and won my manhood as the price of my dishonour, that I should be thus suddenly changed from woman into man? Some of late called me "the Lady." But why do I seem to them too little of a man? Have they no regard for Priscian? Do these bungling grammarians attribute to the feminine gender what is proper to the masculine, like this? It is, I suppose, because I have never brought myself to toss off great bumpers like a prize-fighter, or because my hand has never grown horny with driving the plough, or because I was never a farm hand at seven or laid myself down full length in the midday sun; or last perhaps because I never showed my virility in the way these brothellers do. But I wish they could leave playing the ass as readily as I the woman.

But see how stupid and ill-advised they are to reproach me with a thing upon which I can most justly pride myself. For Demosthenes himself was said to be too little of a man by his rivals and opponents. Hortensius also, the most eminent orator after Cicero, was called by Torquatus a Dionysiac singing-woman. His reply was "I would rather be a follower of Dionysus than without taste, culture, or urbanity, like you, Torquatus." (But indeed as to any such nick-name as "Lord" or "Lady" I utterly reject and repudiate it; for, gentlemen, it is only in your courts and on your platforms that I have any ambition to lord it.) Who will forbid me to rejoice at so auspicious and happy an omen, and to exult at having a reproach aimed at such great men? In the meantime, as I consider all good and excellent men to be above envy, even so I hold these spiteful fellows to be so far beneath all others as not even to be worth reviling. And so I take up my role of Father and address myself to my sons, of whom I perceive a goodly number, and I see that the jolly rascals acknowledge me as their father by a furtive nod.

Do you ask their names? I should not like my sons to be given the names of various dishes, and to furnish forth a banquet for you, for that would be too like the savagery of Tantalus and Lycaon; and I will not give them the names of the parts of the body, lest you should think me the father of so many bits of men instead of whole ones; nor do I fancy calling them after the various kinds of meat, lest in my remarks I should not keep to my muttons, as the proverb says. No, I will have them called after the Predicaments of Aristotle, to indicate the nobility of their birth and the liberality of their habits; and I shall take good care, too, that all of them are promoted to some degree before I die.

As for the salt of my wit, I don't want it to be without tang, as you say of hackneyed and stale jokes, or to be the sort of thing that some wheezy old woman would spit out. At the same time I do not think that anyone will accuse my jokes of being too biting, unless he has no teeth himself and finds fault with them because they are not like his own. Certainly on this occasion I could wish that my lot were the same as Horace's, and that I were a fishmonger's son, for then I should have just the right amount of salt, and I should send you all off so nicely pickled that you would be as sorry you ever asked for a pickling as those soldiers of ours who lately managed to escape from the island of Ré.

I want to avoid being heavily sententious in my advice to you, my sons, so as not to seem to have taken more pains in educating than in begetting you. Only take care you do not turn prodigal sons, and mind you all keep off Bass, or I will disown you as bastards. Any other advice I may have to offer had best be given in our native language; and I will do my utmost to make my meaning plain.

For the rest, I must pray to Neptune, Apollo, Vulcan, and all the artificer-gods, to strengthen my ribs with wooden supports or to bind them round with iron plates. And I must beseech the goddess Ceres also, who gave Pelops a shoulder-blade of ivory, to be so good as to repair in a similar way my sides, which are nearly worn out. It is not surprising that after so much shouting and after begetting so many sons they are rather the worse for wear.

I have "dallied" (in the Neronian sense of the word) more than long enough over these things. Now I will overleap the University Statutes as if they were the wall of Romulus and run off from Latin into English. Lend me attentive ears and minds, you whom such things amuse.

Translation by Phyllis B. Tillyard