μῦθοι Mythoi
Motif

The cynic and the fig tree. Man tells friend that his wife has hanged herself on a fig tree. Friend: "Give me a shoot of that tree!"

The wise and the foolish. · Cleverness. · Clever verbal retorts (repartee). · Repartee – miscellaneous. · view the constellation · filed as J1442.11

Filed across the traditions
  • Italian Novella *Rotunda.
Within the index

Filed under A cynic's retorts.

1 finer motif beneath it
The cynic's wish. When he learns that a woman has hanged herself from a tree he explains: "Would that all trees bore such fruit!"
Filed beside it
The cynic wants sunlight. King (to cynic): "What can I do for you?" "Get out of my sunlight. Don't take away from me what you can't give me." The cynic at the bath. Leaving an unclean bath house: "Where can I go now to wash?" The cynic and the pale gold. "Why is gold so pale?" "It is in great danger." The cynic's burial. Asked who will carry him to his grave if he has no friends: "He who needs my house." The cynic as judge of wine. Asked which wine tastes best, he says, "That belonging to other people." The cynic and the big gates. Coming to a little town with big gates, he says, "Close the gate so that the town won't run away." The cynic and the bastard stone-thrower. Cynic: "Be careful; you might hit your father." The cynic discusses heaven. Hearing a man discoursing at great length about heaven, he asks, "When did you come down from there?" The cynic and the bald-headed man. His only reply to the baldheaded man's slanders is to compliment the hair that has left such a horrible head The cynic and the deceiver. When the deceiver calls him wicked, he says, "I am glad that you are my enemy; for you do good to your enemies and evil to your friends." Cynic is asked if widower should remarry. "One who has just escaped from drowning should not return to sea." The smallest woman makes the best bride. "Of an evil choose the smallest part."
Carried in tale types

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