The flatterer's retort. Two men meet a homely girl. One of them: "Who wouldn't call that girl pretty?" The girl overhears and says, "No one would say it of you." The man: "Anyone might say it who would lie as I have lied about you." — Mythoi

Motif

The flatterer's retort. Two men meet a homely girl. One of them: "Who wouldn't call that girl pretty?" The girl overhears and says, "No one would say it of you." The man: "Anyone might say it who would lie as I have lied about you."

The wise and the foolish. · Cleverness. · Clever verbal retorts (repartee). · Rude retorts. · view the constellation · filed as J1356

Filed across the traditions

Italian Novella *Rotunda.
general *Wesselski Bebel II 148 No. 155

Within the index

Filed under Rude retorts.

Filed beside it

Women call each other prostitutes Person calls another an ass Whom it concerns. There is someone carrying a goose. How does that concern me? He is carrying it to your house. How does that concern you? Not in his line of business. At market a man enquires of another: "How is the moon, three-quarters or full?" "I don't know. I have neither bought nor sold one." The one exception. "You are a good man; there is not your equal on the earth. You have everything for yourself alone; only your wife is public property." Ancient and modern ancestors. To a prince who boasted that he was descended from the Trojans a doctor replies: "My people are of Nurenberg. Everyone knows who they are; but of the Trojans no one knows anything except that Aeneas was a traitor and Romulus a robber." No thanks to the messenger. A messenger tells a man that he has a newborn son. "Thanks are to God, but I am not beholden to you for it." Monk says that he is a stallion. In reply to women's taunts he boasts of his powers. A woman calls on the devil to come and ride him Too late for the same advice. Impoverished spendthrift sarcastically to thrifty person: "Stop spending so freely!" "It's too late to give you the same advice." To be rewarded by his kind. Unworthy person is rewarded. Asks worthy one: "Why is it that I am rewarded and you are not?" Answer: "Because you have found more of your kind than I have of mine." (Also told of Dante and a minstrel.) Rude retorts – miscellaneous

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