“Bite like a sheep, not like a dog”

“Bite like a sheep, not like a dog” is Lauretta’s compact principle for distinguishing wit from insult. A successful pointed saying may sting, but it should not savagely wound its hearer; its force depends on judgment about the occasion and the people involved. In the story of Nonna de’ Pulci, the principle is tested when a bishop’s public jest threatens a young woman’s honour and she answers with a retort that silences him.

The image and its rule

Lauretta defines the nature of smart sayings through a contrast between two kinds of bite: “the nature of smart sayings is such that they should bite upon the hearer, not as the dog, but as the sheep biteth.” A dog’s bite crosses the line into affront; the sheep’s bite represents the controlled sting that makes a saying clever rather than simply abusive. The image makes verbal skill a matter of measure, not just sharpness.

The rule also asks speakers to weigh context. Lauretta says that one must consider “how and with whom, no less than when and where” jests are exchanged. A pointed remark cannot be judged apart from its target, its setting, and the relationship between speaker and hearer. The expression therefore sets an ethical limit on wit while recognizing that a retort may properly have force.

Retort, provocation, and proportion

Lauretta makes an important allowance for answering an earlier insult. When a smart saying is a retort, she argues, the answerer is less blameworthy for biting sharply than someone who strikes first. The exchange is not treated as a contest in which both remarks have equal standing: provocation changes how the response should be judged. The sheep-and-dog distinction remains, but the initial bite matters when assessing the answer.

To establish this measure, Lauretta recalls Madam Oretta’s speech and Cisti’s reply as examples of the right mean. She does not retell their exchanges here; instead, she uses them to frame a new case in which the rules of witty speech are tested under social pressure. Her movement from general principle to a specific encounter turns the maxim into a guide for reading the story that follows.

Nonna de’ Pulci’s test case

The story begins with Messer Antonio d’Orso, Bishop of Florence, riding beside Messer Dego della Ratta on Saint John’s Day as they watch the ladies along the route of the mantle race. Dego, a marshal for King Robert, had earlier agreed with a miserly husband to pay five hundred gold florins for a night with the man’s wife. He paid with silver coins gilded to resemble gold; the lady had not consented, and the affair brought her husband both financial loss and public scorn. The bishop affected ignorance of the matter.

During the procession, the bishop points out Nonna de’ Pulci, a young woman recently married in Porta San Piero, and asks whether she thinks she could make a conquest of Dego. The remark is made within earshot of a crowd and seems to Nonna to threaten her honour in the eyes of those present. Lauretta presents the episode as a case of a prelate failing to heed the very considerations of audience, place, and occasion that govern a proper jest. The story’s heading identifies Nonna’s ready retort as silencing him, making her answer the counterstroke that gives the expression its immediate force.

The expression’s critical force

The principle does not demand harmlessness: a good retort may bite. It distinguishes instead between a sting shaped by judgment and a wound that amounts to an affront, while allowing the circumstances of provocation to affect how an answer is received. In this way, the expression is both a practical rule for comic speech and a standard by which the story judges its speakers.

Lauretta’s framing also makes the social stakes visible. A public jest about a woman’s sexual reputation can do more than entertain its speaker; before witnesses, it can put another person’s honour at risk. Nonna’s answer reverses that exposure. The encounter shows why wit depends not merely on finding a sharp line, but on recognizing who has been placed in danger and who has presumed to speak without regard for the consequences.