Homeric Laughter

The quenchless laughter of the Homeric gods has been the theme of endless comment and animadversion from Plato, who deprecates all violent laughter as unseemly and inviting an equally violent reaction, to the neo-Platonists and Hegelians who interpret it as a symbol of the joyousness and exuberance of the divine nature.

~ Paul Shorey, 22 Classical Philology 2 (April 1927), 222.