Bag ladies gossiping.

Personally, I never heard the Court Jester say anything remotely amusing.
Rene Auberjonois may not have been all that amusing in King Lear, but one must admit that he was a giggle as Odo on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. And, who can forget Poland’s most famous court jester, Stanczyk, whose witty jokes have become important historical and cultural symbols for many Poles - am I right? (If Stanczyk were alive today he might ask, “Is the Pope Polish?” and he would be wrong. Right?). Benedict The Panzer Pope XVI almost took the name Puck Pius XIII. That would have been funny don’t you think? Imagine Danny Kaye playing Cardinal Ratzinger as PPXIII in an audience, minutes before assuming the papacy, with Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal played by Basil Rathbone who feigns conversion to Catholicism to launch a surprise attack during the ecclesiastical investiture of the Pope during the Papal Inauguration Mass. Then we could once again enjoy that amusing exchange between Sister Griselda (are we asking Mildred Natwick to do a posthumous encore performance?) and his holiness:

PPXIII: I’ve got it! The pellet with the poison’s in the vessel with the pestle; the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true! Right?
Sister Griselda: Right! — but there’s been a change: they broke the chalice from the palace…

PPXIII: They broke the chalice from the palace?
Sister Griselda: …and replaced it. With a flagon.
PPXIII: A flagon?
Sister Griselda: With the figure of a dragon.
PPXIIIHawkins: Flagon with a dragon.
Griselda: Right.
PPXIII: …but did you put the pellet with the poison in the vessel with the pestle?

Sister Griselda: No! The pellet with the poison’s in the flagon with the dragon! The vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true!
PPXIII: The pellet with the poison’s in the flagon with the dragon, the vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true.
Sister Griselda: Just remember that!

Note: And the pope remembered and the church lived happily ever after. Postscript: Who could ever forget those wonderful songs: “Maladjusted Jester” and “Pass the Basket” (words by Sammy Cahn, music by Sylvia Fine - who, incidentally, was Danny Kaye’s wife). I don’t remember them and find that remotely, if not worrisome, not so amusing.

Nero smoking a cheroot.

Saint Sebastian patron saint of acupuncture.

Saint Sebastian was a Christian martyr who was killed i n the 3rd century. He is commonly depicted in art and literature tied to a post and shot with arrows. But he didn’t die from the arrows. After he was discovered to be still alive Sebastian was beaten severely about the head and shoulders with a club wielded by a beadle who took it upon himself to complete the task without the knowledge of Sebastian’s good but fair-weather friend the Roman emperor Diocletian. Rendered unconscious he was smothered with a sling. Upon hearing the sad news, Diocletian is said to have wondered aloud, “What in name of Jove is a beadle?”

Jairus’ daughter assuaging the anger of the risen Lazarus.

“Guess Who?” said the face on the Turin Shroud.

The Shroud of Turin is the subject of intense debate among scientists, people of faith, historians, and writers regarding where, when, and how the shroud and its images were created. Some believe the shroud is the cloth that covered Jesus when he was placed in his tomb and that his image was recorded on its fibers at or near the time of his resurrection. Skeptics, on the other hand, contend the shroud is a medieval forgery. Others attribute the forming of the image to chemical reactions or other natural processes. Recent evidence, however, suggests that the image may be that of the late British comedian, Benny Hill.

About Benny Hill:  Alfred Hill was born in Southampton, where he attended Tauntons School. During the Second World War Hill was evacuated to East Way, Bournemouth where he was seduced, at the age of thirteen, by his fortyish guardian-cum-flute instructor, Mrs. Y. After becoming proficient in the American-educated Mrs. Y’s curriculum, Hill left the middle-aged educator and set out to make his mark in show business. For the stage, he changed his first name to ‘Benny’, in homage to his favourite comedian, Jack Benny. Following a serious drinking session at the Red Lion Inn on Good Friday, March 1948, at a Masonic diner in Israel, Hill tumbled downhill through a patch of poison oak while attempting to unzip his fly to take a leak. As a practical joke, members of the Italian tarantella troupe of “Pasta and Fazul,” lathered his entire body with Tiger Balm, wrapped him in 40 yards of linen and threw him into the Tomb of Joseph of Aramethea. Several hours later while P and F were getting it on with some local neighbors and barn animals, Hill squeezed his still-unwrapped self out from behind a large-sized stone near the entrance and, shouted at the top of his voice, “Guess Who!” much to the consternation of the human contingent of the ménage a dit. Upon seeing the near dozen scatter, Hill was heard to say: “Laugh, I thought my shroud would never dry.” Source: Leesopedia, Volume 19: “One Hundred Things to Do With a Tit.”

Alexander pouting after Hephaiston had grown a moustache.

Alexander the Great, known by his closest friends a Αλέξανδρος ο Μέγας or AM-PM, conquered most of the world known to the ancient Greeks. Hannibal, who crossed the Alps in 218 BC, took great comfort in knowing that Alexander, who died in 323 BC, would never know that Hannibal crossed the Alps with eleven elephants but that none of the offspring survived. One can only speculate as to whether Hannibal had read of Alexander’s crossing of the Hindu Kush 110 years earlier or his Treatise on the Care and Feeding of Pachyderms.

About Hephaestion: Hephaestion was a closet (sic) friend of Alexander, who called him ‘my Patroclus’ (the friend of Achilles) and, on other occasions ‘my filos Giatros Loukaniko’ (the friend of Doctor Salami). His services were rewarded in 324 BC with a golden crown and marriage to Alexander’s sister-in-law Drypetis, the Empire’s culinary seer and owner of 90 percent of the bean fields across Macedonia and all of northwestern Iran. He died suddenly in the same year at Ecbatana, the capital of ancient Media, of terminal flatulence. His body exploded while being cremated in Babylon on a huge pyre designed by the architect Deinocrates and a temple built in his honour was destroyed. Source: The Leesopedia “Hephaestion: Above and Behind the Call of Duty.”