Everything was permitted during carnival, even the songs that the Roman legionnaires would sing, calling Julius Caesar 'queen,' alluding, in a very transparent way, to his real, or presumed, homosexual escapades. as he says in a passage which we do not claim to quote quite accurately. But since thy stubborn heart will be For him forever pleading, Thou'dst better make him, by decree, A man of birth and breeding. The court jester had the right to say the most outrageous things to the king. of Court life by becoming for the nonce Court Jester, or rather jester for. Daughter, the mimic priest replied, That sin, indeed, is awful The church's pardon is denied To love that is unlawful. The Court Jester quotes (1955) Title The Court Jester Year 1955 Directors Melvin Frank, Norman Panama Genre Comedy, Musical, Adventure, Family Interpreted by Basil Rathbone Dame Angela Lansbury Cecil Parker John Carradine Danny Kaye Plot Danny Kaye disguises himself as a jester to dethrone a tyrannical and usurper ruler. Father, she said, thine ear bend down - My sins are more than scarlet I love my fool -blaspheming clown, And common, base-born varlet. The widow-queen of Portugal Had an audacious jester Who entered the confessional Disguised, and there confessed her. In the circus of to-day the melancholy ghost of the court fool effects the dejection of humbler audiences with the same jests wherewith in life he gloomed the marble hall, panged the patrician sense of humor and tapped the tank of royal tears. The jester was commonly called a fool, but the poets and romancers have ever delighted to represent him as a singularly wise and witty person.

The king himself being attired with dignity, it took the world some centuries to discover that his own conduct and decrees were sufficiently ridiculous for the amusement not only of his court but of all mankind. An officer formerly attached to a king's household, whose business it was to amuse the court by ludicrous actions and utterances, the absurdity being attested by his motley costume.

The court jester quotes