Do you understand this French pun?

I read the comic book "Asterix et Cleopatre", and I don't understand the joke of one passage. Roman soldiers tried to get through a barricade but were repelled. The general tells them to try again.

Soldier 1: "Mais on vient de se replier" (But we just retreated)
Soldier 2: "Déployés, on va se faire égorger" (Deployed, we're going to get ourselves butchered)
Soldier 3 (with a smile): "égorge déployé" (Butcher deployed)?
Then another solider says that if he hears another play on words like that he's going to desert.

I must be translating something wrong. Or, because the book likes to make references to historical events and things going on currently (in this case, 60s), I am not getting the reference.

phildange2011-10-08T11:55:21Z

Favorite Answer

It's become there's an expression in French we say to mean laughing a lot . It is " rire à gorge déployée" (laughing with your throat deployed) .
So "à gorge déployée" sounds like "égorge déployé" which means nothing but rephrases two words of the previous sentence .