Dead Parrot Sketch Is 1,600 Years Old

laejoh writes "Monty Python's 'Dead Parrot sketch' — which featured John Cleese — is some 1,600 years old. A classic scholar has proved the point, by unearthing a Greek version of the world-famous piece. A comedy duo called Hierocles and Philagrius told the original version, only rather than a parrot they used a slave. It concerns a man who complains to his friend that he was sold a slave who dies in his service. His companion replies: 'When he was with me, he never did any such thing!' The joke was discovered in a collection of 265 jokes called Philogelos: The Laugh Addict, which dates from the fourth century AD. Hierocles had gone to meet his maker, and Philagrius had certainly ceased to be, long before John Cleese and Michael Palin reinvented the yarn in 1969."

Comments

Re:Classics, not just stuffy rhetoric or dull hist

[JoshuaZ]

Yes, Euripides' Electra is one of the funniest plays in all existence simply for the recognition scene. Everyone should read the Oresteia and then read Euripides. Heck, that scene is hilarious even if you haven't read the Oresteia. Euripides mercilessly parodies a variety of literary conceits which are still used today. It is almost like Euripides had access to TVTropes.com

It's older than that, folks.

[Millennium]

Ovid had a humorous poem about a dead parrot long before this play was ever written, complete with the long-winded and repetitive description of exactly how dead the parrot is which characterizes Monty Python's sketch.

This was itself a parody of a poem by Catullus, lamenting the death of his lover's "sparrow." The quotes are there for a reason; it's the term he used, but modern poets would probably have used a more, err, feline term to catch the nuance, if you know what I mean (wink and a nudge, say no more, say no more).

Monty Python was made up of some extremely erudite people; even Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Film actually corresponds to someone from Arthurian legend (and bonus points if you can tell me who). No doubt they drew inspiration from the Ovid poem too, among others, and is there really any problem with that? It's friggin funny.