The Greek Joke in Poe's "Bon-Bon"

Author(s): Anthony Kemp

Source: American Literature, Vol. 56, No. 4 (Dec., 1984), pp. 580-583
Published by: Duke University Press
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 NOTES

The GreekJokein Poe's "Bon-Bon"

ANTHONY KEMP
Columbia University

IN Edgar Allan Poe's story"Bon-Bon," there is a peculiar Greek

joke. It occurs in the conversation between Bon-Bon, the res-
taurateur metaphysicianof the title, and the devil. Drunken and
hiccoughing,Bon-Bon is taken on a bizarre, backwards tour of the
historyof philosophy. The devil speaks:
"There was Plato, too"-continued his majesty,modestlydecliningthe
snuff-box and the compliment-"there was Plato, too, forwhom I, at
one time,feltall the affection
of a friend.You knew,Plato, Bon-Bon?-
ah! no, I beg a thousandpardons.He met me at Athens,one day, in
the Parthenon,and told me he was distressedforan idea. I bade him
write down that 'o vows EgTv avyog.' He said that he would do so,
and wenthome,whileI steppedoverto thePyramids.But myconscience
smote me forthe lie, and hasteningback to Athens,I arrivedbehind
thephilosopher'schairas he was inditingthe'avyog.' Givingthegamma
a fillipwith my fingerI turnedit upside down. So the sentencenow
reads 'o vows; Esnv avXoo,' and is, you perceive,the fundamental
doctrineof his metaphysics."'

I offerhere a source, a translation,and an interpretation.

"Bon-Bon" appeared in print three times during Poe's life: first
in the SouthernLiteraryMessengerof August I 835, then in Tales
of the Grotesqueand Arabesque,I840 (from which I reproduce
the passage above), and finally in the Broadway Journal of i9
April I845. The version of this joke in the SouthernLiterary
Messengerdiffersfrom that in Tales of the Grotesqueand Ara-
besque only in transliteratingthe Greek words into roman letters:
o nous estin augos; augos; o nous estin aulos. The final version

1 Tales of the Grotesqueand Arabesque (Philadelphia: Lea and Blanchard, I840),

p. I43.

AmnericanLiterature,Volume 56, Number 4, December I984. Copyright? I984 by

the Duke UniversityPress. CCC 0002-983I/84/$I.50

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 Notes 58I

of thejoke, in the BroadwayJournal,I will deal withseparately;

it is radicallydifferent,adding new levels of complexity.
What Poe must have had in mind when he inventedhis joke
of inversions by Mabbott,2in The Koran-
is a passage,identified
notthebook of Mohammed,but a mad, anonymouscompendium
of apothegms,variouslyattributedto Laurence Sterne,Richard
Griffith the elder and RichardGriffith the younger:"Even so late
as near the beginningof the sixteenthcentury,a certainpriest,
having met with this passage, in some Greek author,
o voDi 4;TWv acto;, mens humana immaterialisest, and find-
ing, in his Lexicon thatacAXog signifieda fluteor pipe, brought
no less than fifteenargumentsin an academicalexercise,to prove
the humansoul to be a whistle."3
The joke herepivotson an unintentional pun bornof ignorance,
demonstrating the dangersof a little knowledge.The sentence
fromthe "Greek author"translatesas "The mind is immaterial."
To make the priestmore culpable, the text even comes with a
Latin commentary:"The human mind is immaterial."Despite
this,the priestgoes to his lexicon and, confusinga' i Xo; (im-
material)with the more common a-DAO (flute),translatesthe
sentenceas "The mind is a flute,"which mistakebecomes the
foundationfor a whole body of doctrine,a Shandyesqueright
reasoningfromwrongpremises."Some Greekauthor"bearsmost
resemblanceto Philo, who uses a-i)Xo; (immaterial)almostsyn-
onymouslywithvoi0 (mind), particularly in his Legis Allegori-
arum, althoughI am not aware of any place in Philo wherethis
particularsentenceoccurs.
The visual pun from The Koran, the point of which is the
unreliability (the pun, aural or visual,has
of linguisticsignification
alwaysbeen the greatdestroyer of the coherenceand inherenceof
sign and meaning),is importedintactby Poe into a greaterand
morecomplexweb of ideographicuncertainty. He takesfromThe
Koran a word thatdividesinto two meaningsand dividesit into
three.The devil tells Plato to writeo voo; EcTv avyo;, "The
mind is a light." By turningits gamma upside down to represent

2
Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe, ed. Thomas Ollive Mabbott (Cambridge:
Harvard Univ. Press, I 978), II, iI 6.
3The Koran: or, Essays, Sentiments,Characters,and Callimachies, of Tria Juncto
in Uno, M. N. A. or Master of No Arts (Vienna: PrintedforR. Samner,Bookseller,
I798), III, I52. The text I consulteddiffersslightlyfromthe one cited by Mabbott.

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582 American Literature

a lambda,he producesthewordaoXo;. As Poe, unlikethe"Greek

author"of The Koran, providesno accent marks,atvXo; can be
takento mean either"a flute"or "immaterial."The lettersof both
wordsare the same; only the accentuationcan fixthe important
semanticdifference. The "lie" that"The mindis a light"is replaced
by a "truth"of slipperyand indeterminate meaning:either"The
mindis immaterial"or"The mindis a flute."That thefirst sentence
should be the "lie" and the second the "truth"is a doctrineof
despairbornin the devil's cynicism.The play is on the two mean-
ingsof the Englishword"immaterial,"and thissame pun is used
again,laterin thestory,whenthedevil dismissesBon-Bon'streatise
withthe assertionthat the soul has no materialpresenceand is,
by punningextension,of no consequenceto its owner'slife. The
mind indeed is not a lightbut is immaterial,in the sense not only
of incorporeal,but also of irrelevant,
worthless.
In thisearlytransformation of the joke fromThe Koran, Poe
has added two new meaningsunforeseenby his source:the double
meaningof aoXoq yieldsthedoublemeaningofone of itsEnglish
equivalents,"immaterial,"and the completelynew term,avyoq.
In hisfinalrevisionof"Bon-Bon"thesplitting ofmeaningsbecomes
almostinfinite:
"Therewas Plato,too,"continued his Majesty,modestly decliningthe
snuff-box andthecompliment itimplied,
"therewasPlato,too,forwhom
I, at one time,feltall theaffection
of a friend.
You knew,Plato,Bon-
Bon?-ah! no, I beg a thousandpardons.He metme at Athens,one
day,in theParthenon, and toldme he wasdistressed
foran idea.I bade
him writedown thato voVs ETtv avioq. He said that he would do
so, and wenthome,whileI steppedoverto the pyramids. But my
conscience
smoteme forhavinguttereda truth,evento aid a friend,
and hasteningbackto Athens,I arrivedbehindthephilosopher's
chair
and he was inditing
the 'avXoo.' Givingthe lammaa fillipwithmy
fingerI turnedit upsidedown. So thesentencenow reads'o vows ETrtv
avyo;,' and is, you perceive,the fundamental
doctrinein his meta-
physics."4
Here the orderof the Greeksentencesis reversedin accordance
withthedevil'scharacteras a liar.He repents,therefore,
fortelling
the "truth."The new orderof the sentencespreservesthe iden-
tification
of "The mindis immaterial"withthe "truth"and "The

4 Broadway Journal, i ( i 9 AprilI 845), 246.

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 Notes 5 83

mindis a light"withthe "lie," the comforting illusionwithwhich

he leaves Plato. There are othernew complications. What should
be the lambda in toXo; is in factan invertedgamma: avoCo;.
The letteris top-heavywithpotentialforreinversion;the word is
already slipping,strugglingout of its own formand meaning.
Plato,whoonlyhearsthewordspokenand is unawareofthedevil's
orthographic-or rather heterographic-irony,of course tran-
scribesit correctlyas avXo;. The devil fillipsthe "lamma"-not
a misspellingby Poe but a deliberateportmanteauof lambda and
gamma. Mabbott,curiously,seems to misunderstand this,as he
also seems puzzled by the passage as a whole: " 'The mind is a
light' is not one of Plato's doctrines.Poe's form'lamma' is not
Greek,but I forbearemendationas it is in a joke."'
The "lamma" havingbeen inverted,Plato is leftwithavXor;
the upsidedown lambda impersonates the gammaof atvyo;, and
the formof the shifting word avoto; / atvXo; / aoyo; is again
tautwithpotentialforreinversion, formutationintosome unfore-
seen shapeand meaning.Only Plato writesthewordcorrectly; the
devil alwayscreatesa pseudo-word.
This shiftingof meaning,inversionof letters,and violationof
expectationis bewildering,but no more so than the largershifts
of meaningthat take place withinthe tale. In the light of the
devil'sgreatpleasureat beingdiscoveredin hislie thathe authored
the worksof Epicurus,all of his claims mustbe inverted.Thus
the "truth"and the "lie" in the Plato passage mustbe reversed
again in the reader'smind. In anotherpassage,the devil claimsto
have been in Rome onlyduringa five-year periodof anarchy.This
musthave been the only time he was not in Rome; the orderof
republicand ofemperorwas histruedominion."Bon-Bon" is filled
with such inversionsof expected meaning,rangingfromsmall
absurditiesto the disturbingquestionof exactlywhat bargainis
being made forthe human soul, and by whom. The Greekjoke,
like the changingletterson the devil's book,is a graphictropefor
the largerinversions, an axis of uncertainty.It is the medial plane
acrosswhichthe discretelinguisticcategoriesthatpreservesanity
move to become theiropposites.

5Mabbott, II, I i 6.

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