The frequency of such names as Eric and Roric in the Danish history, might have suggested that of the jester in question, but in a manner that may not very easily be discovered.
It must be allowed, however, that in an etymological point of view the term joculator is much better adapted to the jester than the minstrel.
Mention is also made of John Scogan jester to Edward the Fourth, and of Arthur's show, though not introduced till a long time afterwards.
He bears some affinity to the tapster in Measure for measure; but there is nothing that immediately constitutes him the jester to a brothel.
The long-armed jester shook a little and went pale under her touch, which was the stranger, seeing that with a twist of his shoulders he could throw off the clutch of a strong man.
Is he really the jester to the great Duke, the good Prince, the glory of the League?
Voice croaked beside him, and it was the voice of the Jester who mocks at all things.
Finding himself overpowered, the jester threw himself from his horse, plunged into a thicket, and, favored by the general confusion, escaped from the scene of action.
Let them assemble their people and come to the rescue of three knights, besieged by a jester and swineherd in the baronial castle of Reginald Front-de-Boeuf!
As the jester was about to obey, a third person suddenly made his appearance and commanded them both to halt.
So saying, he walked through the wood at a great pace, followed by the jester and the swineherd.
When the noise of the conflict announced that it was at the hottest, the jester began to shout with the utmost power of his lungs, "Saint George and the Dragon!
Amid the bustle, Gurth was taken from horseback, in the course of which removal he prevailed upon the jester to slack the cord with which his arms were bound.
There was a general smile of incredulity among the warriors, for Wapoota was well known to be a time-server: nevertheless they were mistaken, for the jester was in earnest this time.
Wapoota, being a funny fellow, was a favourite with his chief Ongoloo, and occupied a position somewhat analogous to the court jester of old.
The chief and jesterprofessed themselves charmed with the proposal, although each had been roused from a pleasant slumber.
He sent for his prime-ministerial-jester and one of his chiefs, to whom he proposed a ramble.
The Queen's jester is a privileged person," he said.
In the meanwhile the Jester had ordered the peons to saddle the horses and load the mules.
Now there was about the King a kinde of buffon or jester who had a Table Book, wherein he was used to register any absurdity, or impertinence, or merry passage, that happened about the Court.
Now he was brought as a kind of paid jester to one of their feasts to make fun for the party.
He is dead in reputation--the fool and thejester brought in to make sport at the table of his captors!
It was evidently a payment made to the king's favourite minions, the Jester and the two Williamses, but the precise meaning of the word has not been ascertained.
Ann Boleyn is mentioned in almost every page, though she was then unmarried, and every buffoon and jester of the Court is frequently noticed, whilst the Queen of England is passed over in silence.
Henry gave the French king's jester at Calais the large sum of 9l.
The Sanskrit drama is a mixed composition, in which joy is mingled with sorrow, in which the jester usually plays a prominent part, while the hero and heroine are often in the depths of despair.
The absence of the character of the jester is characteristic of them, the comic and witty element entering into them only to a slight extent.
In the second act the comic element is introduced with the jester Mathavya, who is as much disgusted with his master's love-lorn condition as with his fondness for the chase.
We cannot tell how far the jester may have been influenced by a proclamation of 28th of Henry the Eighth, to protect "the poor innocent people from those light persons called pardoners by colour of their indulgences," &c.
But the jester at times was a thoughtful philosopher.
How it happened that the court jester who has sent forth such volumes of mirth could have kept for years hammering at a dull and dense poem, is a literary problem which perhaps admits of a solution.
This we see by an anecdote of Tarleton, the jester of Elizabeth, famed for his extemporal acting.
The officer turned away and went towards the King's apartments, leaving the jester in the corner.
The wretched jester knew that either would mean his own disgrace and death, and he quivered with agony from head to foot.
And he had some hopes of converting the poor jester to a pious life.
He was not a man, he was a tradition, a thing that had to be where it was from generation to generation; wherever the court had lived a jester lay buried, and often two and three, for they rarely lived an ordinary lifetime.
What is a poor crippledjester compared with a powerful scullery maid or an army of heathen Moriscoes?
Then, last of all, at a little distance from the rest, the jester entered, affecting a very dejected air.
For this the jester was glad, knowing that tears quench the first white heat of such sorrows as can burn out the soul and drive the brain raving mad, when life can bear the torture.
The jester sometimes visited him in his lonely dwelling and shocked and delighted him with alternate tales of the court's wickedness and with harmless jokes that made his wizened cheeks pucker and wrinkle into unaccustomed smiles.
The jester swung quickly to the table, in his awkward, bow-legged gait, and brought the beaker that stood there.
As he reached it the dwarf jester made a ceremonious obeisance and handed him a glove which he had dropped as he came forward.
The jester did not fully understand, but he yielded, for he could not carry her to Mendoza's apartments by force.
I remember enough history to know that the other name forjester is fool.
But though each court a jester lacks, To laugh at monarchs to their faces, Yet all mankind, behind their backs, Supply the honest jesters' places.
WHY, pray, of late do Europe's kings No jester to their courts admit?
In fact, Tiel Wetzweiler, called Le Glorieux, was by no means a jester of the common stamp.
Salvator was a dissipated jester and satirist, a man who spent his life in masquing and revelry.
Portrait of Pablillos de Valladolid, a Jester of King Philip IV.
Now one day of the days the King's Jester went forth his house ere the dawn-prayer had been called on some business for the Sultan, intending to return before rise of sun.
Jester had brought, and who declared that he was the Archangel Israfil, and was about to blow the Last Trump, proved to be the Shaykh of the Pipers.
Already it has taken from us our Court Jester and Court Poet.
I had persuaded the King to make them his Court Jester and Poet but before they could even be brought here, they were waylaid and borne away.
He had looked the word up, and found that it came from the old idea of the licensed jester who wore a cap and bells with a cock's comb in it, who went about making jests for the amusement of his master and family.
And the jester was making a sorry business of it, for it is a difficult word to find rhymes to, as you would know if you tried.
It was so preposterous that a jester should ask her to dance at all, that everyone said it was the funniest thing he had done, and they went into a gale about it on the marble stairway.
What is life, he sings, but a mad jester with tinkling bells?
Really, the jester was thinking of rhymes to zithern, which is the name of the curious musical instrument he carried, and is a little like a mandolin, only harder to play.
And if he discovered that the new jester was King Muffin, his guards would cut him all to slivers.
The jester got off the ground and, as he did not know that Muffin was a king, he sneezed; for the ground was damp.
And the duke good-humouredly threatened the jester with his finger.
Only the jester laughed, and chuckled to himself, as he gathered up the golden guineas from the deck, and slapped his thighs for pleasure as he slipped them into his pockets.
Presently up came the Commander's jester or clown, a man whose business it was to make the officers laugh.
The jester said he had hung me a great while by the arms aloft in the shrouds.
Maliouta enters with the Tsar's jester Nikitka, and tells them that the Zemstvo has sent a deputation to the Tsar complaining of their conduct, and that Nikitka has introduced the delegates at Court.
The Oprichniki fall upon the jester and insist on his buying their forgiveness by telling them a tale.
