Philogelos (Ancient Greek: Φιλόγελως, "Love of Laughter"), also titled or subtitled The Jests of Hierocles and Philagrius, is a Greek-language book published in late antiquity that is the oldest known surviving collection of jokes.
Context
Although the Philogelos is the oldest surviving joke book, there are known to be prior joke books that have since become lost. Athenaeus wrote in the Deipnosophistae that Philip II of Macedon paid for a social club in Athens to write down its members' jokes for him, and joke books are mentioned by characters in Persa and Stichus, two comedies by the 2nd century BC Roman playwright Plautus.[1]
Attribution
Authorship of the Philogelos is traditionally attributed to two men, Hierocles and Philagrius (also spelled Hierokles and Philagros), who are otherwise unattested and have no known works.[1] It has been posited that the Hierocles mentioned is Neoplatonist philosopher Hierocles of Alexandria, but there is no evidence to connect the two.[2] If Hierocles and Philagrius were indeed the creators of the book, it is more likely that they compiled and edited pre-existing jokes, rather than writing all the jokes themselves.[2]
The Suda, a 10th century Byzantine encyclopedia, attributes authorship to a 5th century BC comic playwright named Philistion of Nicaea, who was allegedly a contemporary of Socrates and a blood relative of Philemon.[3]
The exact time of publication is unknown. According to William Berg, who published an English translation of it in 2008, the language used indicates that it may have been written in the fourth century AD.[4] Joke #62 mentions the Secular Games held by Philip the Arab marking the 1000th anniversary of the founding of Rome, implying that the jokes were not compiled until after the year 248 AD.[5]
Contents
The Philogelos consists of 265 jokes, although some of the jokes are repeated with slight variations. They are sorted by the stock characters they feature, including the dumb or absent-minded scholar (Ancient Greek: σχολαστικός), the con man, the misanthrope, the witty commentator (Ancient Greek: εὐτράπελος), doctors and patients, teachers and students, and husbands and wives.[1][2] There are also ethnic jokes about Cymaeans, Sidonians, and Abderites, where they are stereotyped as unintelligent, superstitious, and literal-minded.[2]
Joke #1
The first joke in the collection has long been described as incomprehensible, nonsensical, or missing a punchline:
A scholar ordered a silversmith to prepare a lantern. When the latter asked how big he wanted it, he replied "Like this, for eight people!"[6]
The most common interpretation, first argued by Giovanni Pontano, was simply the scholar giving the silversmith a bizarre and useless answer.[6] However, a 2013 paper by Egizia Maria Felice, Professor of Classics at the University of Reading, argued that the word for lantern (Ancient Greek: λύχνος) also refers to an edible species of fish (albeit different from a modern lanternfish), as attested in Strabo's Geographica.[7] The humor is therefore a play on words about the meaning of λύχνος, where the scholar orders one at a silversmith's the same way he'd order one at a fishmonger's.[6]
Modern day
In 2008, British TV personality and comedian Jim Bowen tested the material on a modern audience.[8] One of the jokes in Philogelos has been described as "an ancestor of Monty Python's famous Dead Parrot comedy sketch."[4] Comedian Jimmy Carr has said that some of the jokes are "strikingly similar" to modern ones.[9]
The US National Museum of Language showcases a virtual exhibit, ‘‘Philogelos: The First Joke Book,” featuring cartoons created from translations of the Philogelos collection.[10]
Philogelos: Hieroclis et Philagrii facetiae by A. Eberhard (1869) Berlin: H. Ebeling & C. Plahn
Ἱεροκλέους και Φιλαγρίου (Hierokles kai Philagrios). G. Pachymeris declamationes XIII quarum XII ineditae, Hieroclis et Philagrii grammaticorum φιλόγελως longe maximam partem ineditus by Jean François Boissonade de Fontarabie (1848) Paris
