Against an old man, who thinks himself wise because of his long beard by Theodore Prodromos

Annotation

This paper presents the satirical text Against an old man, who thinks himself wise because of his long beard by Theodore Prodromos which appears to have received hardly any scholarly attention. In this text, the author attacks an illiterate and stinking beardy who pretended to be a philosopher because of his goaty beard falling down to his belt. We will present an analysis of this Byzantine humorous text accompanied with its translation into Russian and commentary. A closer reading of the text suggests that Prodromos, following to Lucian, reproduced the popular motif of such characters whose beards are described as philosophical.

Keywords

Theodore Prodromos; Against an old man, who thinks himself wise because of his long beard; Lucian; Byzantine satyre.

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