Page:The Book of the Courtier.djvu/216

 the mind and gives pleasure, and for the moment frees us from the memory of those weary troubles of which our life is full. So laughter, as you see, is very delightful to all, and greatly to be praised is he who excites it reasonably and in a graceful way.

"But what laughter is, and where it abides, and how it sometimes seizes upon our veins, eyes, mouths and sides, and seems as if it would make us burst, so that with all our effort it cannot be restrained,— I will leave Democritus to tell, who could not even if he were to promise.191 46.— "Now the occasion and as it were the source from which the laughable springs, lies in a kind of distortion; for we laugh only at those things that have incongruity in them and that seem amiss without being so. I know not how to explain it otherwise; but if you think of it yourselves, you will see that what we laugh at is nearly always something that is incongruous and yet is not amiss.

"Next I will try to tell you, as far as my judgment shall show me, what the means are that the Courtier ought to use for the purpose of exciting laughter, and within what bounds; because it is not seemly for the Courtier to be always making men laugh, nor yet by those means that are made use of by fools or drunken men, by the silly, the nonsensical, and likewise by buffoons. And although these kinds of men seem to be in demand at courts, yet they deserve not to be called Courtiers, but each by his own name, and to be held for what they are.

"Moreover we must diligently consider the bounds and limits of exciting laughter by derision, and who it is we deride; for laughter is not aroused by jeering at a poor unfortunate nor yet at an open rascal and blackguard, because the latter seems to merit greater punishment than that of being ridiculed, and the mind of man is not prone to flout the wretched, unless they boast of their wretchedness and are proud and saucy. We ought also to treat with respect those who are universal favourites and beloved by all and powerful, for by jeering at these persons a man may sometimes bring dangerous enmities upon himself. Yet it is proper to flout and laugh at the vices of those who are neither so wretched as to excite pity, nor so wicked as to seem worthy