He was a very subtle schoolman, who first said that we owe the origin of the word "buffoon" to a little Athenian sacrificer called _Bupho_, who, being tired of his employment, absconded, and never returned. The Areopagus, as they could not punish the priest, proceeded against his hatchet. This farce, which was played every year in the temple of Jupiter, is said to have been called _"buffoonery."_ This story is not entitled to much credit Buffoon was not a proper name; _bouphonos_ signifies an immolator of oxen. The Greeks never called any jest _bouphonia_. This ceremony, frivolous as it appears, might have an origin wise and humane, worthy of true Athenians.
Once a year, the subaltern sacrificer, or more properly the holy butcher, when on the point of immolating an ox, fled as if struck with horror, to put men in mind that in wiser and happier times only flowers and fruits were offered to the gods, and that the barbarity of immolating innocent and useful animals was not introduced until there were priests desirous of fattening on their blood and living at the expense of the people. In this idea there is no buffoonery.
This word "buffoon" has long been received among the Italians and the Spaniards, signifying _mimus, scurra, joculator_--a mimic, a jester, a player of tricks. Ménage, after Salmasius, derives it from _bocca infiata_--a bloated face; and it is true that a round face and swollen cheeks are requisite in a buffoon. The Italians say _bufo magro_--a meagre buffoon, to express a poor jester who cannot make you laugh.
Buffoon and buffoonery appertain to low comedy, to mountebanking, to all that can amuse the populace. In this it was--to the shame of the human mind be it spoken--that tragedy had its beginning: Thespis was a buffoon before Sophocles was a great man.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Spanish and English tragedies were all degraded by disgusting buffooneries. The courts were still more disgraced by buffoons than the stage. So strong was the rust of barbarism, that men had no taste for more refined pleasures. Boileau says of Molière:
_C'est par-là que Molière, illustrant ses écrits,_ _Peut-être de son art eût emporté le prix,_ _Si, moins ami du peuple en ses doctes peintures,_ _Il n'eût fait quelquefois, grimacer ses figures,_ _Quitté pour le bouffon l'agréable et fin,_ _Et sans honte à Terence allié Tabarin._ _Dans ce sac ridicule où Scapin s'enveloppe,_ _Je ne reconnais plus l'auteur du Misanthrope._