BARZELLETTE DEL 4° SECOLO!!!!

Si possono ammirare le satira di Orazio e di Lucilio, ma gli antichi romani finora non son stati pensati come maestri di Barzellete. Questo potrebbe essere destinato a cambiare, però, dopo la scoperta di un libro di "barzellette" romane.

Il professore Maria Beard ha portato alla luce un volume di più di 1600 anni, che mostra come i romani possono anche non essere "pomposi, nelle loro toghe " ma piuttosto pronto a ridere di loro stessi.

Scritto in greco, Philogelos, o le risate Lover, risale al terzo o quarto secolo dC, e contiene circa 260 barzellette.

Beard ha detto che sono "molto simile" per le battute che abbiamo oggi, anche se con diversi stereotipi : tra cui " il professore distratto", è una particolare figura di divertimento, insieme con l'eunuco, e le persone con ernie o alito cattivo.

"Vi sono anche una serie di battute su determinati tipi di stranieri - persone di Abdera, una città in Tracia, sono stati molto, molto stupido", ha detto Beard.

Un antica versione del pappagallo che vede un uomo acquistare uno schiavo, che muore poco dopo....

Un'altra è uno scherzo della versione inglese, irlandese, scozzese varietà, con un barbiere, un uomo calvo e un professore distratto prendendo un cammino insieme. Essi hanno per campeggio durante la notte, così decide di fare la guardia al bagaglio. Quando è il barbiere di turno, che si annoia, si diverte e rasa la testa del professore. Quando il professore si sveglia per il suo turno, si sente la sua testa senza capelli, e dice: "Come è stupido che barbiere? Ha svegliato l'uomo calvo, invece di me".

"È interessante notare che sono abbastanza comprensibile per noi. Nonostante siano passati oltre 1600 anni troviamo le stesse cose divertenti come le trovavano i romani.

Beard, che ha scoperto il libro, mentre svolgeva attività di ricerca per un nuovo libro che su l'umorismo nel mondo antico.

ENGLISH VERSION

Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book

We may admire the satires of Horace and Lucilius, but the ancient Romans haven't hitherto been thought of as masters of the one-liner. This could be about to change, however, after the discovery of a classical joke book.

Celebrated classics professor Mary Beard has brought to light a volume more than 1, 600 years old, which she says shows the Romans not to be the "pompous, bridge-building toga wearers" they're often seen as, but rather a race ready to laugh at themselves.

Written in Greek, Philogelos, or The Laughter Lover, dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes which Beard said are "very similar" to the jokes we have today, although peopled with different stereotypes – the "egghead", or absent-minded professor, is a particular figure of fun, along with the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath.

"They're also poking fun at certain types of foreigners – people from Abdera, a city in Thrace, were very, very stupid, almost as stupid as [they thought] eggheads [were], " said Beard.

An ancient version of Monty Python's dead parrot sketch sees a man buy a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the seller, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him."

Beard's favourite joke is a version of the Englishman, Irishman, Scotsman variety, with a barber, a bald man and an absent-minded professor taking a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me."

"It's one of the better ones, " said Beard. "It has a nice identity resonance ... A lot of the jokes play on the obviously quite problematic idea in Roman times of knowing who you are." Another "identity" joke sees a man meet an acquaintance and say "it's funny, I was told you were dead". He says "well, you can see I'm still alive." But the first man disputes this on the grounds that "the man who told me you were dead is much more reliable than you".

"Interestingly they are quite understandable to us, whereas reading Punch from the 19th century is completely baffling to me, " said Beard.

But she queried whether we are finding the same things funny as the Romans would have done. Telling a joke to one of her graduate classes, in which an absent-minded professor is asked by a friend to bring back two 15-year-old slave boys from his trip abroad, and replies "fine, and if I can't find two 15-year-olds I will bring you one 30-year-old, " she found they "chortled no end".

"They thought it was a sex joke, equivalent to someone being asked for two 30-year-old women, and being told okay, I'll bring you one 60-year-old. But I suspect it's a joke about numbers – are numbers real? If so two 15-year-olds should be like one 30-year-old – it's about the strange unnaturalness of the number system."

Beard, who discovered the title while carrying out research for a new book she's working on about humour in the ancient world, pointed out that when we're told a joke, we make a huge effort to make it funny for ourselves, or it's an admission of failure. "Are we doing that to these Roman jokes? Were they actually laughing at something quite different?