189. A doctor prescribed bread crumbs and soap wort for an ill-tempered patient, "Just a swallow," he said. "A swallow? How do you imagine I can get up to a nest for a swallow?"
Classical Greek: lazy person, or one who devotes his spare time to abstruse learning and useless pedantry.
Late Greek (3-8th century): someone who has completed a general education; or lawyer
除了对学究们的嘲笑，亦有几则针对医生的。关于医生，几乎同时代的Athenaeus曾说，“Were it not for the doctors, there wouldn't be anything stupider than the professors.” 其他职业涉及到的有理发师、算命先生等。另一组比较多的是我们如今熟悉的ethnic jokes，嘲笑对象来自Abdera, Kyme, Sidon，主要是他们的愚蠢、头脑简单。有针对疾病、生理缺陷如眼盲、疝气的。还有小气鬼、贪吃汉、坏脾气，不一而足。以女人为主角的很少，加起来大概不足十则，注解里讲当时嘲笑女人的笑话实际上非常多，这多半是收录者的选择。但这仅有的几则是我最喜欢的。黄色笑话极少，大概也是录者的取舍。很多笑话反应当时的社会习俗，比如火葬、同性恋、父子关系，心理，比如梦的意义、对身份的迷惑，等等。
嘿，对着一本笑话集罗里罗嗦简直就是不知趣，抄书——
3. A man went to an egghead physician and said, "Doctor, whenever I get up after a sleep, I feel dizzy for half an hour, then I'm all right." "Then wait half an hour before getting up," advised the doctor.
13. Two eggheads were grumbling to each other that their fathers whom they hated were still alive.
"Well," said one, "Shall we each throttle our old man?"
"But if we do that, we'll be branded as parricides," objected the other. "I've got a better idea. You kill mine and I'll kill yours."
18. "That slave you sold me has died," a man complained to an egghead. "Well, I swear by all the Gods, he never did anything like that when I had him!"
20. After a dinner party two eggheads kept taking it in turns to escort the other home in accordance with the rules of etiquette. The result - neither of them ever got to bed. ［像极了我们熟悉的腐儒］
22. One day an egghead bumped into a friend and said to him, "I heard you were dead." "Well," said the friend, "As you can see, I am very much alive." "Yes, but the person who told me you were dead is much more reliable than you." ［有没有郑人买履的影子？］
27. An egghead who was ill promised his doctor a reward for curing him. Later on, when his wife was reproving him for drinking wine when he had a fever, he answered, "Do you really want me to get better and so have to pay the doctor his reward?"
45. An egghead got up in the night and got into bed with his grandmother. When his father beat him for this, he protested, "But you've been f**king my mother for years without my ever having hit you, so why are you so mad at catching me at my very first go?"
49. Whilst contemplating the moon, an egghead asked his father if other cities had one so good.
55. A witty young egghead sold his books when short of money. He then wrote to his father, "Congratulate me, father, I am already making money from my studies!"
56. 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." [2]
57. When an egghead had a child by a slave girl, his father advised him to kill it. But he replied, "First, you kill your own children, then you can talk about me killing mine."
69. An egghead went to call on the parents of his best friend who had just died. "My son, you have devastated me!" lamented the father. "My son, you have put out the light of my life!" lamented the father. The egghead remarked to his other friends, "If he really did all that, he deserved to have been burned alive!"
72. Having attended a wedding reception, an egghead took his leave with these words: "May all your weddings be happy ones!"
101. Some people were marvelling at the likeness between a pair of twin brothers. An egghead gave them a look and remarked, "This one doesn't look as much like that one as that one looks like this one."
108. A boastful type was in the market place when he spied his slave boy just in from the country. "How are all my sheep doing?" he called out. "Oh, one is asleep, the other is standing up."
112. An Abderite was trying to hang himself when the rope snapped, causing him to bang his head. So he went to the doctor for a plaster, put it on the bump, went back, and hung himself.
139. A Sidonian doctor received a legacy of 1000 drachmas in the will of a man who had been his patient. He turned up at the funeral and complained aout the smallness of his bequest. Later, when he had been called in to treat the dead man's son who had fallen ill in his turn, the doctor said, "Leave me 5000 drachmas in your will, and I'll cure you the way I cured your father."
142. A lightfingerred doctor stole the lamp of a wag whom he was treating for ophthalmia. Subsequently, he asked the patient how his eyes were. "It's a funny thing, ever since you treated them I haven't been able to see my lamp."
148. "How shall I cut your hair?" a talkative barber asked a wag. "In silence!"
177. There was the doctor from Kyme who switched to a blunt scalpel because the patient on whom he was operating was screaming so much from the pain.
186. A doctor visited an ill-tempered patient, examined him, and said, "You are sweating badly."
"Well, if you can sweat any better, there's the bed, get in it and sweat!"
187. 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?" [3]
193. When someone knocked at the door of an ill-tempered man, he called out, "I'm not in!"
The caller laughed and replied, "Of course you are, I heard your voice!"
"Damn you, if my slave had said I wasn't in, you'd have believed it! Do you mean to say you'd rather believe a slave than me?"
234. "Why do you hate me?" a man with bad breath asked his wife.
"Because you love me!"
244. Said a young man to his randy wife, "Wife, what shall we do, eat or make love?"
"Whichever you like; there's no bread."
246. A misogynist stood in the marketplace and announced: "I'm putting my wife up for sale, tax-free!" When people asked him why, he said: "So the authorities will impound her." [3]
247. A misogynist paid his last respects at the tomb of his dead wife. When someone asked him, "Who has gone to rest?," he replied: "Me, now that I'm alone." [3]
248. A misogynist 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." [3]
263. Someone needled a jokester: "I had your wife, without paying a dime." He replied: "It's my duty as a husband to couple with such a monstrosity. What made you do it?" [3]
264. A wag was being tried in court when he noticed the judge was dozing. "I call upon you, Your Honour," he shouted. "Er, call upon me for what?" "For your undivided attention!"
----
[1]《The Philogelos or Laughter-Lover》Translated by Barry Baldwin, J.C.Gieben, Publisher, Amsterdam, 1983
[2] Translated by others
[3] Translated by J.T. Quinn作者: 一元 时间: 2009-4-18 20:11 读了几则，真很好笑，谢浮生介绍。作者: 兰若 时间: 2009-4-19 04:24 很好玩！ 谢谢！而且我有素材跟同事们讲笑话了，以前都是翻译中文的～ ：）作者: 小曼 时间: 2009-4-19 08:28 谢浮生~~~我这两天正想一个问题，要储备一些笑话以备不时之需，结果，你就发上来了。。
对了，我好想你啊。。。嫉妒古典~~~作者: weili 时间: 2009-4-19 08:47 13. Two eggheads were grumbling to each other that their fathers whom they hated were still alive.
"Well," said one, "Shall we each throttle our old man?"
"But if we do that, we'll be branded as parricides," objected the other. "I've got a better idea. You kill mine and I'll kill yours."
这个够狠。：))作者: 廖康 时间: 2009-4-19 11:57 我只记得两个译成英文的古罗马笑话，大致如此：
A doctor has become a great friend with an undertaker---ever since the doctor came to the village, the undertaker's business has doubled.
This was my poem, but the way you read it aloud makes it yours.
