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Title: Gargantua and Pantagruel
Author: Francois Rabelais
Release Date: February, 1998 [EBook #1200] [This file was last
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK
GARGANTUA AND PANTAGRUEL ***
Produced by Sue Asscher
MASTER FRANCIS RABELAIS
FIVE BOOKS OF THE LIVES, HEROIC DEEDS AND SAYINGS
OF
GARGANTUA AND HIS SON PANTAGRUEL
Translated into English by
Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty
and
Peter Antony Motteux
The text of the first Two Books of Rabelais has been reprinted from the
first edition (1653) of Urquhart's translation. Footnotes initialled 'M.'
are drawn from the Maitland Club edition (1838); other footnotes are
by the translator. Urquhart's translation of Book III. appeared
posthumously in 1693, with a new edition of Books I. and II., under
Motteux's editorship. Motteux's rendering of Books IV. and V.
followed in 1708. Occasionally (as the footnotes indicate) passages
omitted by Motteux have been restored from the 1738 copy edited by
Ozell.
CONTENTS.
Introduction
THE FIRST BOOK.
J. De la Salle, to the Honoured, Noble Translator of Rabelais.
Rablophila
The Author's Prologue to the First Book
Rabelais to the Reader
Chapter 1.
I.--Of the Genealogy and Antiquity of Gargantua
Chapter 1.
II.--The Antidoted Fanfreluches: or, a Galimatia of extravagant
Conceits found in an ancient Monument
Chapter 1.
III.--How Gargantua was carried eleven months in his mother's belly
Chapter 1.
IV.--How Gargamelle, being great with Gargantua, did eat a huge deal
of tripes
Chapter 1.
V.--The Discourse of the Drinkers
Chapter 1.
VI.--How Gargantua was born in a strange manner
Chapter 1.
VII.--After what manner Gargantua had his name given him, and how
he tippled, bibbed, and curried the can
Chapter 1.
VIII.--How they apparelled Gargantua
Chapter 1.
IX.--The colours and liveries of Gargantua
Chapter 1.
X.--Of that which is signified by the colours white and blue
Chapter 1.
XI.--Of the youthful age of Gargantua
Chapter 1.
XII.--Of Gargantua's wooden horses
Chapter 1.
XIII.--How Gargantua's wonderful understanding became known to his
father Grangousier, by the invention of a torchecul or wipebreech
Chapter 1.
XIV.--How Gargantua was taught Latin by a Sophister
Chapter 1.
XV.--How Gargantua was put under other schoolmasters
Chapter 1.
XVI.--How Gargantua was sent to Paris, and of the huge great mare
that he rode on; how she destroyed the oxflies of the Beauce
Chapter 1.
XVII.--How Gargantua paid his welcome to the Parisians, and how he
took away the great bells of Our Lady's Church
Chapter 1.
XVIII.--How Janotus de Bragmardo was sent to Gargantua to recover
the great bells
Chapter 1.
XIX.--The oration of Master Janotus de Bragmardo for recovery of the
bells
Chapter 1.
XX.--How the Sophister carried away his cloth, and how he had a suit
in law against the other masters
Chapter 1.
XXI.--The study of Gargantua, according to the discipline of his
schoolmasters the Sophisters
Chapter 1.
XXII.--The games of Gargantua
Chapter 1.
XXIII.--How Gargantua was instructed by Ponocrates, and in such sort
disciplinated, that he lost not one hour of the day
Chapter 1.
XXIV.--How Gargantua spent his time in rainy weather
Chapter 1.
XXV.--How there was great strife and debate raised betwixt the
cake-bakers of Lerne, and those of Gargantua's country, whereupon
were waged great wars
Chapter 1.
XXVI.--How the inhabitants of Lerne, by the commandment of
Picrochole their king, assaulted the shepherds of Gargantua
unexpectedly and on a sudden
Chapter 1.
XXVII.--How a monk of Seville saved the close of the abbey from
being ransacked by the enemy
Chapter 1.
XXVIII.--How Picrochole stormed and took by assault the rock
Clermond, and of Grangousier's unwillingness and aversion from the
undertaking of war
Chapter 1.
XXIX.--The tenour of the letter which Grangousier wrote to his son
Gargantua
Chapter 1.
XXX.--How Ulric Gallet was sent unto Picrochole
Chapter 1.
XXXI.--The speech made by Gallet to Picrochole
Chapter 1.
XXXII.--How Grangousier, to buy peace, caused the cakes to be
restored
Chapter 1.
XXXIII.--How some statesmen of Picrochole, by hairbrained counsel,
put him in extreme danger
Chapter 1.
XXXIV.--How Gargantua left the city of Paris to succour his country,
and how Gymnast encountered with the enemy
Chapter 1.
XXXV.--How Gymnast very souply and cunningly killed Captain
Tripet and others of Picrochole's men
Chapter 1.
XXXVI.--How Gargantua demolished the castle at the ford of Vede,
and how they passed the ford
Chapter 1.
XXXVII.--How Gargantua, in combing his head, made the great
cannon-balls fall out of his hair
Chapter 1.
XXXVIII.--How Gargantua did eat up six pilgrims in a salad
Chapter 1.
XXXIX.--How the Monk was feasted by Gargantua, and of the jovial
discourse they had at supper
Chapter 1.
XL.--Why monks are the outcasts of the world; and wherefore some
have bigger noses than others
Chapter 1.
XLI.--How the Monk made Gargantua sleep, and of his hours and
breviaries
Chapter 1.
XLII.--How the Monk encouraged his fellow-champions, and how he
hanged upon a tree
Chapter 1.
XLIII.--How the scouts and fore-party of Picrochole were met with by
Gargantua, and how the Monk slew Captain Drawforth, and then was
taken prisoner by his enemies
Chapter 1.
XLIV.--How the Monk rid himself of his keepers, and how Picrochole's
forlorn hope was defeated
Chapter 1.
XLV.--How the Monk carried along with him the Pilgrims, and of the
good words that Grangousier gave them
Chapter 1.
XLVI.--How Grangousier did very kindly entertain Touchfaucet his
prisoner
Chapter 1.
XLVII.--How Grangousier sent for his legions, and how Touchfaucet
slew Rashcalf, and was afterwards executed by the command of
Picrochole
Chapter 1.
XLVIII.--How Gargantua set upon Picrochole within the rock
Clermond, and utterly defeated the army of the said Picrochole
Chapter 1.
XLIX.--How Picrochole in his flight fell into great misfortunes, and
what Gargantua did after the battle
Chapter 1.
L.--Gargantua's speech to the vanquished
Chapter 1.
LI.--How the victorious Gargantuists were recompensed after the battle
Chapter 1.
LII.--How Gargantua caused to be built for the Monk the Abbey of
Theleme
Chapter 1.
LIII.--How the abbey of the Thelemites was built and endowed
Chapter 1.
LIV.--The inscription set upon the great gate of Theleme
Chapter 1.
LV.--What manner of dwelling the Thelemites had
Chapter 1.
LVI.--How the men and women of the religious order of Theleme were
apparelled
Chapter 1.
LVII.--How the Thelemites were governed, and of their manner of
living
Chapter 1.
LVIII.--A prophetical Riddle
THE SECOND BOOK.
For the Reader
Mr. Hugh Salel to Rabelais
The Author's Prologue
Chapter 2.
I.--Of the original and antiquity of the great Pantagruel
Chapter 2.
II.--Of the nativity of the most dread and redoubted Pantagruel
Chapter 2.
III.--Of the grief wherewith Gargantua was moved at the decease of his
wife Badebec
Chapter 2.
IV.--Of the infancy of Pantagruel
Chapter 2.
V.--Of the acts of the noble Pantagruel in his youthful age
Chapter 2.
VI.--How Pantagruel met with a Limousin, who too affectedly did
counterfeit the French language
Chapter 2.
VII.--How Pantagruel came to Paris, and of the choice books of the
Library of St. Victor
Chapter 2.
VIII.--How Pantagruel, being at Paris, received letters from his father
Gargantua, and the copy of them
Chapter 2.
IX.--How Pantagruel found Panurge, whom he loved all his lifetime
Chapter 2.
X.--How Pantagruel judged so equitably of a controversy, which was
wonderfully obscure and difficult, that, by reason of his just decree
therein, he was reputed to have a most admirable judgment
Chapter 2.
XI.--How the Lords of Kissbreech and Suckfist did plead before
Pantagruel without an attorney
Chapter 2.
XII.--How the Lord of Suckfist pleaded before Pantagruel
Chapter 2.
XIII.--How Pantagruel gave judgment upon the difference of the two
lords
Chapter 2.
XIV.--How Panurge related the manner how he escaped out of the
hands of the Turks
Chapter 2.
XV.--How Panurge showed a very new way to build the walls of Paris
Chapter 2.
XVI.--Of the qualities and conditions of Panurge
Chapter 2.
XVII.--How Panurge gained the pardons, and married the old women,
and of the suit in law which he had at Paris
Chapter 2.
XVIII.--How a great scholar of England would have argued against
Pantagruel, and was overcome by Panurge
Chapter 2.
XIX.--How Panurge put to a nonplus the Englishman that argued by
signs
Chapter 2.
XX.--How Thaumast relateth the virtues and knowledge of Panurge
Chapter 2.
XXI.--How Panurge was in love with a lady of Paris
Chapter 2.
XXII.--How Panurge served a Parisian lady a trick that pleased her not
very well
Chapter 2.
XXIII.--How Pantagruel departed from Paris, hearing news that the
Dipsodes had invaded the land of the Amaurots; and the cause
wherefore the leagues are so short in France
Chapter 2.
XXIV.--A letter which a messenger brought to Pantagruel from a lady
of Paris, together with the exposition of a posy written in a gold ring
Chapter 2.
XXV.--How Panurge, Carpalin, Eusthenes, and Epistemon, the
gentlemen attendants of Pantagruel, vanquished and discomfited six
hundred and threescore horsemen very cunningly
Chapter 2.
XXVI.--How Pantagruel and his company were weary in eating still
salt meats; and how Carpalin went a-hunting to have some venison
Chapter 2.
XXVII.--How Pantagruel set up one trophy in memorial of their valour,
and Panurge another in remembrance of the hares. How Pantagruel
likewise with his farts begat little men, and with his fisgs little women;
and how Panurge broke a great staff over two glasses
Chapter 2.
XXVIII.--How Pantagruel got the victory very strangely over the
Dipsodes and the Giants
Chapter 2.
XXIX.--How Pantagruel discomfited the three hundred giants armed
with free-stone, and Loupgarou their captain
Chapter 2.
XXX.--How Epistemon, who had his head cut off, was finely healed by
Panurge, and of the news which he brought from the devils, and of the
damned people in hell
Chapter 2.
XXXI.--How Pantagruel entered into the city of the Amaurots, and how
Panurge married King Anarchus to an old lantern-carrying hag, and
made him a crier of green sauce
Chapter 2.
XXXII.--How Pantagruel with his tongue covered a whole army, and
what the author saw in his mouth
Chapter 2.
XXXIII.--How Pantagruel became sick, and the manner how he was
recovered
Chapter 2.
XXXIV.--The conclusion of this present book, and the excuse of the
author
THE THIRD BOOK.
Francois Rabelais to the Soul of the Deceased Queen of Navarre
The Author's Prologue
Chapter 3.
I.--How Pantagruel transported a colony of Utopians into Dipsody
Chapter 3.
II.--How Panurge was made Laird of Salmigondin in Dipsody, and did
waste his revenue before it came in
Chapter 3.
III.--How Panurge praiseth the debtors and borrowers
Chapter 3.
IV.--Panurge continueth his discourse in the praise of borrowers and
lenders
Chapter 3.
V.--How Pantagruel altogether abhorreth the debtors and borrowers
Chapter 3.
VI.--Why new married men were privileged from going to the wars
Chapter 3.
VII.--How Panurge had a flea in his ear, and forbore to wear any longer
his magnificent codpiece
Chapter 3.
VIII.--Why the codpiece is held to be the chief piece of armour
amongst warriors
Chapter 3.
IX.--How Panurge asketh counsel of Pantagruel whether he should
marry, yea, or no
Chapter 3.
X.--How Pantagruel representeth unto Panurge the difficulty of giving
advice in the matter of marriage; and to that purpose mentioneth
somewhat of the Homeric and Virgilian lotteries
Chapter 3.
XI.--How Pantagruel showeth the trial of one's fortune by the throwing
of dice to be unlawful
Chapter 3.
XII.--How Pantagruel doth explore by the Virgilian lottery what
fortune Panurge shall have in his marriage
Chapter 3.
XIII.--How Pantagruel adviseth Panurge to try the future good or bad
luck of his marriage by dreams
Chapter 3.
XIV.--Panurge's dream, with the interpretation thereof
Chapter 3.
XV.--Panurge's excuse and exposition of the monastic mystery
concerning powdered beef
Chapter 3.
XVI.--How Pantagruel adviseth Panurge to consult with the Sibyl of
Panzoust
Chapter 3.
XVII.--How Panurge spoke to the Sibyl of Panzoust
Chapter 3.
XVIII.--How Pantagruel and Panurge did diversely expound the verses
of the Sibyl of Panzoust
Chapter 3.
XIX.--How Pantagruel praiseth the counsel of dumb men
Chapter 3.
XX.--How Goatsnose by signs maketh answer to Panurge
Chapter 3.
XXI.--How Panurge consulteth with an old French poet, named
Raminagrobis
Chapter 3.
XXII.--How Panurge patrocinates and defendeth the Order of the
Begging Friars
Chapter 3.
XXIII.--How Panurge maketh the motion of a return to Raminagrobis
Chapter 3.
XXIV.--How Panurge consulteth with Epistemon
Chapter 3.
XXV.--How Panurge consulteth with Herr Trippa
Chapter 3.
XXVI.--How Panurge consulteth with Friar John of the Funnels
Chapter 3.
XXVII.--How Friar John merrily and sportingly counselleth Panurge
Chapter 3.
XXVIII.--How Friar John comforteth Panurge in the doubtful matter of
cuckoldry
Chapter 3.
XXIX.--How Pantagruel convocated together a theologian, physician,
lawyer, and philosopher, for extricating Panurge out of the perplexity
wherein he was
Chapter 3.
XXX.--How the theologue, Hippothadee, giveth counsel to Panurge in
the matter and business of his nuptial enterprise
Chapter 3.
XXXI.--How the physician Rondibilis counselleth Panurge
Chapter 3.
XXXII.--How Rondibilis declareth cuckoldry to be naturally one of the
appendances of marriage
Chapter 3.
XXXIII.--Rondibilis the physician's cure of cuckoldry
Chapter 3.
XXXIV.--How women ordinarily have the greatest longing after things
prohibited
Chapter 3.
XXXV.--How the philosopher Trouillogan handleth the difficulty of
marriage
Chapter 3.
XXXVI.--A continuation of the answer of the Ephectic and Pyrrhonian
philosopher Trouillogan
Chapter 3.
XXXVII.--How Pantagruel persuaded Panurge to take counsel of a fool
Chapter 3.
XXXVIII.--How Triboulet is set forth and blazed by Pantagruel and
Panurge
Chapter 3.
XXXIX.--How Pantagruel was present at the trial of Judge Bridlegoose,
who decided causes and controversies in law by the chance and fortune
of the dice
Chapter 3.
XL.--How Bridlegoose giveth reasons why he looked upon those law-
actions which he decided by the chance of the dice
Chapter 3.
XLI.--How Bridlegoose relateth the history of the reconcilers of parties
at variance in matters of law
Chapter 3.
XLII.--How suits at law are bred at first, and how they come afterwards
to their perfect growth
Chapter 3.
XLIII.--How Pantagruel excuseth Bridlegoose in the matter of
sentencing actions at law by the chance of the dice
Chapter 3.
XLIV.--How Pantagruel relateth a strange history of the perplexity of
human judgment
Chapter 3.
XLV.--How Panurge taketh advice of Triboulet
Chapter 3.
XLVI.--How Pantagruel and Panurge diversely interpret the words of
Triboulet
Chapter 3.
XLVII.--How Pantagruel and Panurge resolved to make a visit to the
Oracle of the Holy Bottle
Chapter 3.
XLVIII.--How Gargantua showeth that the children ought not to marry
without the special knowledge and advice of their fathers and mothers
Chapter 3.
XLIX.--How Pantagruel did put himself in a readiness to go to sea; and
of the herb named Pantagruelion
Chapter 3.
L.--How the famous Pantagruelion ought to be prepared and wrought
Chapter 3.
LI.--Why it is called Pantagruelion, and of the admirable virtues thereof
Chapter 3.
LII.--How a certain kind of Pantagruelion is of that nature that the fire
is not able to consume it
THE FOURTH BOOK.
The Translator's Preface
The Author's Epistle Dedicatory
The Author's Prologue
Chapter 4.
I.--How Pantagruel went to sea to visit the oracle of Bacbuc, alias the
Holy Bottle
Chapter 4.
II.--How Pantagruel bought many rarities in the island of Medamothy
Chapter 4.
III.--How Pantagruel received a letter from his father Gargantua, and of
the strange way to have speedy news from far distant places
Chapter 4.
IV.--How Pantagruel writ to his father Gargantua, and sent him several
curiosities
Chapter 4.
V.--How Pantagruel met a ship with passengers returning from
Lantern-land
Chapter 4.
VI.--How, the fray being over, Panurge cheapened one of Dingdong's
sheep
Chapter 4.
VII.--Which if you read you'll find how Panurge bargained with
Dingdong
Chapter 4.
VIII.--How Panurge caused Dingdong and his sheep to be drowned in
the sea
Chapter 4.
IX.--How Pantagruel arrived at the island of Ennasin, and of the strange
ways of being akin in that country
Chapter 4.
X.--How Pantagruel went ashore at the island of Chely, where he saw
King St. Panigon
Chapter 4.
XI.--Why monks love to be in kitchens
Chapter 4.
XII.--How Pantagruel passed by the land of Pettifogging, and of the
strange way of living among the Catchpoles
Chapter 4.
XIII.--How, like Master Francis Villon, the Lord of Basche
commended his servants
Chapter 4.
XIV.--A further account of catchpoles who were drubbed at Basche's
house
Chapter 4.
XV.--How the ancient custom at nuptials is renewed by the catchpole
Chapter 4.
XVI.--How Friar John made trial of the nature of the catchpoles
Chapter 4.
XVII.--How Pantagruel came to the islands of Tohu and Bohu; and of
the strange death of Wide-nostrils, the swallower of windmills
Chapter 4.
XVIII.--How Pantagruel met with a great storm at sea
Chapter 4.
XIX.--What countenances Panurge and Friar John kept during the
storm
Chapter 4.
XX.--How the pilots were forsaking their ships in the greatest stress of
weather
Chapter 4.
XXI.--A continuation of the storm, with a short discourse on the
subject of making testaments at sea
Chapter 4.
XXII.--An end of the storm
Chapter 4.
XXIII.--How Panurge played the good fellow when the storm was over
Chapter 4.
XXIV.--How Panurge was said to have been afraid without reason
during the storm
Chapter 4.
XXV.--How, after the storm, Pantagruel went on shore in the islands of
the Macreons
Chapter 4.
XXVI.--How the good Macrobius gave us an account of the mansion
and decease of the heroes
Chapter 4.
XXVII.--Pantagruel's discourse of the decease of heroic souls; and of
the dreadful prodigies that happened before the death of the late Lord
de Langey
Chapter 4.
XXVIII.--How Pantagruel related a very sad story of the death of the
heroes
Chapter 4.
XXIX.--How Pantagruel sailed by the Sneaking Island, where
Shrovetide reigned
Chapter 4.
XXX.--How Shrovetide is anatomized and described by Xenomanes
Chapter 4.
XXXI.--Shrovetide's outward parts anatomized
Chapter 4.
XXXII.--A continuation of Shrovetide's countenance
Chapter 4.
XXXIII.--How Pantagruel discovered a monstrous physeter, or
whirlpool, near the Wild Island
Chapter 4.
XXXIV.--How the monstrous physeter was slain by Pantagruel
Chapter 4.
XXXV.--How Pantagruel went on shore in the Wild Island, the ancient
abode of the Chitterlings
Chapter 4.
XXXVI.--How the wild Chitterlings laid an ambuscado for Pantagruel
Chapter 4.
XXXVII.--How Pantagruel sent for Colonel Maul-chitterling and
Colonel Cut-pudding; with a discourse well worth your hearing about
the names of places and persons
Chapter 4.
XXXVIII.--How Chitterlings are not to be slighted by men
Chapter 4.
XXXIX.--How Friar John joined with the cooks to fight the
Chitterlings
Chapter 4.
XL.--How Friar John fitted up the sow; and of the valiant cooks that
went into it
Chapter 4.
XLI.--How Pantagruel broke the Chitterlings at the knees
Chapter 4.
XLII.--How Pantagruel held a treaty with Niphleseth, Queen of the
Chitterlings
Chapter 4.
XLIII.--How Pantagruel went into the island of Ruach
Chapter 4.
XLIV.--How small rain lays a high wind
Chapter 4.
XLV.--How Pantagruel went ashore in the island of Pope-Figland
Chapter 4.
XLVI.--How a junior devil was fooled by a husbandman of Pope-
Figland
Chapter 4.
XLVII.--How the devil was deceived by an old woman of Pope-
Figland
Chapter 4.
XLVIII.--How Pantagruel went ashore at the island of Papimany
Chapter 4.
XLIX.--How Homenas, Bishop of Papimany, showed us the Uranopet
decretals
Chapter 4.
L.--How Homenas showed us the archetype, or representation of a pope
Chapter 4.
LI.--Table-talk in praise of the decretals
Chapter 4.
LII.--A continuation of the miracles caused by the decretals
Chapter 4.
LIII.--How, by the virtue of the decretals, gold is subtilely drawn out of
France to Rome
Chapter 4.
LIV.--How Homenas gave Pantagruel some bon-Christian pears
Chapter 4.
LV.--How Pantagruel, being at sea, heard various unfrozen words
Chapter 4.
LVI.--How among the frozen words Pantagruel found some odd ones
Chapter 4.
LVII.--How Pantagruel went ashore at the dwelling of Gaster, the first
master of arts in the world
Chapter 4.
LVIII.--How, at the court of the master of ingenuity, Pantagruel
detested the Engastrimythes and the Gastrolaters
Chapter 4.
LIX.--Of the ridiculous statue Manduce; and how and what the
Gastrolaters sacrifice to their ventripotent god
Chapter 4.
LX.--What the Gastrolaters sacrificed to their god on interlarded
fish-days
Chapter 4.
LXI.--How Gaster invented means to get and preserve corn
Chapter 4.
LXII.--How Gaster invented an art to avoid being hurt or touched by
cannon-balls
Chapter 4.
LXIII.--How Pantagruel fell asleep near the island of Chaneph, and of
the problems proposed to be solved when he waked
Chapter 4.
LXIV.--How Pantagruel gave no answer to the problems
Chapter 4.
LXV.--How Pantagruel passed the time with his servants
Chapter 4.
LXVI.--How, by Pantagruel's order, the Muses were saluted near the
isle of Ganabim
Chapter 4.
LXVII.--How Panurge berayed himself for fear; and of the huge cat
Rodilardus, which he took for a puny devil
THE FIFTH BOOK.
The Author's Prologue
Chapter 5.
I.--How Pantagruel arrived at the Ringing Island, and of the noise that
we heard
Chapter 5.
II.--How the Ringing Island had been inhabited by the Siticines, who
were become birds
Chapter 5.
III.--How there is but one pope-hawk in the Ringing Island
Chapter 5.
IV.--How the birds of the Ringing Island were all passengers
Chapter 5.
V.--Of the dumb Knight-hawks of the Ringing Island
Chapter 5.
VI.--How the birds are crammed in the Ringing Island
Chapter 5.
VII.--How Panurge related to Master Aedituus the fable of the horse
and the ass
Chapter 5.
VIII.--How with much ado we got a sight of the pope-hawk
Chapter 5.
IX.--How we arrived at the island of Tools
Chapter 5.
X.--How Pantagruel arrived at the island of Sharping
Chapter 5.
XI.--How we passed through the wicket inhabited by Gripe-men-all,
Archduke of the Furred Law-cats
Chapter 5.
XII.--How Gripe-men-all propounded a riddle to us
Chapter 5.
XIII.--How Panurge solved Gripe-men-all's riddle
Chapter 5.
XIV.--How the Furred Law-cats live on corruption
Chapter 5.
XV.--How Friar John talks of rooting out the Furred Law-cats
Chapter 5.
XVI.--How Pantagruel came to the island of the Apedefers, or
Ignoramuses, with long claws and crooked paws, and of terrible
adventures and monsters there
Chapter 5.
XVII.--How we went forwards, and how Panurge had like to have been
killed
Chapter 5.
XVIII.--How our ships were stranded, and we were relieved by some
people that were subject to Queen Whims (qui tenoient de la Quinte)
Chapter 5.
XIX.--How we arrived at the queendom of Whims or Entelechy
Chapter 5.
XX.--How the Quintessence cured the sick with a song
Chapter 5.
XXI.--How the Queen passed her time after dinner
Chapter 5.
XXII.--How Queen Whims' officers were employed; and how the said
lady retained us among her abstractors
Chapter 5.
XXIII.--How the Queen was served at dinner, and of her way of eating
Chapter 5.
XXIV.--How there was a ball in the manner of a tournament, at which
Queen Whims was present
Chapter 5.
XXV.--How the thirty-two persons at the ball fought
Chapter 5.
XXVI.--How we came to the island of Odes, where the ways go up and
down
Chapter 5.
XXVII.--How we came to the island of Sandals; and of the order of
Semiquaver Friars
Chapter 5.
XXVIII.--How Panurge asked a Semiquaver Friar many questions, and
was only answered in monosyllables
Chapter 5.
XXIX.--How Epistemon disliked the institution of Lent
Chapter 5.
XXX.--How we came to the land of Satin
Chapter 5.
XXXI.--How in the land of Satin we saw Hearsay, who kept a school of
vouching
Chapter 5.
XXXII.--How we came in sight of Lantern-land
Chapter 5.
XXXIII.--How we landed at the port of the Lychnobii, and came to
Lantern-land
Chapter 5.
XXXIV.--How we arrived at the Oracle of the Bottle
Chapter 5.
XXXV.--How we went underground to come to the Temple of the Holy
Bottle, and how Chinon is the oldest city in the world
Chapter 5.
XXXVI.--How we went down the tetradic steps, and of Panurge's fear
Chapter 5.
XXXVII.--How the temple gates in a wonderful manner opened of
themselves
Chapter 5.
XXXVIII.--Of the temple's admirable pavement
Chapter 5.
XXXIX.--How we saw Bacchus's army drawn up in battalia in mosaic
work
Chapter 5.
XL.--How the battle in which the good Bacchus overthrew the Indians
was represented in mosaic work
Chapter 5.
XLI.--How the temple was illuminated with a wonderful lamp
Chapter 5.
XLII.--How the Priestess Bacbuc showed us a fantastic fountain in the
temple, and how the fountain-water had the taste of wine, according to
the imagination of those who drank of it
Chapter 5.
XLIII.--How the Priestess Bacbuc equipped Panurge in order to have
the word of the Bottle
Chapter 5.
XLIV.--How Bacbuc, the high-priestess, brought Panurge before the
Holy Bottle
Chapter 5.
XLV.--How Bacbuc explained the word of the Goddess-Bottle
Chapter 5.
XLVI.--How Panurge and the rest rhymed with poetic fury
Chapter 5.
XLVII.--How we took our leave of Bacbuc, and left the Oracle of the
Holy Bottle
Introduction.
Had Rabelais never written his strange and marvellous romance, no one
would ever have imagined the possibility of its production. It stands
outside other things--a mixture of mad mirth and gravity, of folly and
reason, of childishness and grandeur, of the commonplace and the
out-of-the-way, of popular verve and polished humanism, of
mother-wit and learning, of baseness and nobility, of personalities and
broad generalization, of the comic and the serious, of the impossible
and the familiar. Throughout the whole there is such a force of life and
thought, such a power of good sense, a kind of assurance so
authoritative, that he takes rank with the greatest; and his peers are not
many. You may like him or not, may attack him or sing his praises, but
you cannot ignore him. He is of those that die hard. Be as fastidious as
you will; make up your mind to recognize only those who are, without
any manner of doubt, beyond and above all others; however few the
names you keep, Rabelais' will always remain.
We may know his work, may know it well, and admire it more every
time we read it. After being amused by it, after having enjoyed it, we
may return again to study it and to enter more fully into its meaning.
Yet there is no possibility of knowing his own life in the same fashion.
In spite of all the efforts, often successful, that have been made to
throw light on it, to bring forward a fresh document, or some obscure
mention in a forgotten book, to add some little fact, to fix a date more
precisely, it remains nevertheless full of uncertainty and of gaps.
Besides, it has been burdened and sullied by all kinds of wearisome
stories and foolish anecdotes, so that really there is more to weed out
than to add.
This injustice, at first wilful, had its rise in the sixteenth century, in the
furious attacks of a monk of Fontevrault, Gabriel de Puy-Herbault, who
seems to have drawn his conclusions concerning the author from the
book, and, more especially, in the regrettable satirical epitaph of
Ronsard, piqued, it is said, that the Guises had given him only a little
pavillon in the Forest of Meudon, whereas the presbytery was close to
the chateau. From that time legend has fastened on Rabelais, has
completely travestied him, till, bit by bit, it has made of him a buffoon,
a veritable clown, a vagrant, a glutton, and a drunkard.
The likeness of his person has undergone a similar metamorphosis. He
has been credited with a full moon of a face, the rubicund nose of an
incorrigible toper, and thick coarse lips always apart because always
laughing. The picture would have surprised his friends no less than
himself. There have been portraits painted of Rabelais; I have seen
many such. They are all of the seventeenth century, and the greater
number are conceived in this jovial and popular style.
As a matter of fact there is only one portrait of him that counts, that has
more than the merest chance of being authentic, the one in the
Chronologie collee or coupee. Under this double name is known and
cited a large sheet divided by lines and cross lines into little squares,
containing about a hundred heads of illustrious Frenchmen. This sheet
was stuck on pasteboard for hanging on the wall, and was cut in little
pieces, so that the portraits might be sold separately. The majority of
the portraits are of known persons and can therefore be verified. Now it
can be seen that these have been selected with care, and taken from the
most authentic sources; from statues, busts, medals, even stained glass,
for the persons of most distinction, from earlier engravings for the
others. Moreover, those of which no other copies exist, and which are
therefore the most valuable, have each an individuality very distinct, in
the features, the hair, the beard, as well as in the costume. Not one of
them is like another. There has been no tampering with them, no
forgery. On the contrary, there is in each a difference, a very marked
personality. Leonard Gaultier, who published this engraving towards
the end of the sixteenth century, reproduced a great many portraits
besides from chalk drawings, in the style of his master, Thomas de Leu.
It must have been such drawings that were the originals of those
portraits which he alone has issued, and which may therefore be as
authentic and reliable as the others whose correctness we are in a
position to verify.
Now Rabelais has here nothing of the Roger Bontemps of low degree
about him. His features are strong, vigorously cut, and furrowed with
deep wrinkles; his beard is short and scanty; his cheeks are thin and
already worn-looking. On his head he wears the square cap of the
doctors and the clerks, and his dominant expression, somewhat rigid
and severe, is that of a physician and a scholar. And this is the only
portrait to which we need attach any importance.
This is not the place for a detailed biography, nor for an exhaustive
study. At most this introduction will serve as a framework on which to
fix a few certain dates, to hang some general observations. The date of
Rabelais' birth is very doubtful. For long it was placed as far back as
1483: now scholars are disposed to put it forward to about 1495. The
reason, a good one, is that all those whom he has mentioned as his
friends, or in any real sense his contemporaries, were born at the very
end of the fifteenth century. And, indeed, it is in the references in his
romance to names, persons, and places, that the most certain and
valuable evidence is to be found of his intercourse, his patrons, his
friendships, his sojournings, and his travels: his own work is the best
and richest mine in which to search for the details of his life.
Like Descartes and Balzac, he was a native of Touraine, and Tours and
Chinon have only done their duty in each of them erecting in recent
years a statue to his honour, a twofold homage reflecting credit both on
the province and on the town. But the precise facts about his birth are
nevertheless vague. Huet speaks of the village of Benais, near
Bourgeuil, of whose vineyards Rabelais makes mention. As the little
vineyard of La Deviniere, near Chinon, and familiar to all his readers,
is supposed to have belonged to his father, Thomas Rabelais, some
would have him born there. It is better to hold to the earlier general
opinion that Chinon was his native town; Chinon, whose praises he
sang with such heartiness and affection. There he might well have been
born in the Lamproie house, which belonged to his father, who, to
judge from this circumstance, must have been in easy circumstances,
with the position of a well-to-do citizen. As La Lamproie in the
seventeenth century was a hostelry, the father of Rabelais has been set
down as an innkeeper. More probably he was an apothecary, which
would fit in with the medical profession adopted by his son in after
years. Rabelais had brothers, all older than himself. Perhaps because he
was the youngest, his father destined him for the Church.
The time he spent while a child with the Benedictine monks at Seuille
is uncertain. There he might have made the acquaintance of the
prototype of his Friar John, a brother of the name of Buinart, afterwards
Prior of Sermaize. He was longer at the Abbey of the Cordeliers at La
Baumette, half a mile from Angers, where he became a novice. As the
brothers Du Bellay, who were later his Maecenases, were then studying
at the University of Angers, where it is certain he was not a student, it
is doubtless from this youthful period that his acquaintance and alliance
with them should date. Voluntarily, or induced by his family, Rabelais
now embraced the ecclesiastical profession, and entered the monastery
of the Franciscan Cordeliers at Fontenay-le-Comte, in Lower Poitou,
which was honoured by his long sojourn at the vital period of his life
when his powers were ripening. There it was he began to study and to
think, and there also began his troubles.
In spite of the wide-spread ignorance among the monks of that age, the
encyclopaedic movement of the Renaissance was attracting all the lofty
minds. Rabelais threw himself into it with enthusiasm, and Latin
antiquity was not enough for him. Greek, a study discountenanced by
the Church, which looked on it as dangerous and tending to freethought
and heresy, took possession of him. To it he owed the warm friendship
of Pierre Amy and of the celebrated Guillaume Bude. In fact, the Greek
letters of the latter are the best source of information concerning this
period of Rabelais' life. It was at Fontenay-le-Comte also that he
became acquainted with the Brissons and the great jurist Andre
Tiraqueau, whom he never mentions but with admiration and deep
affection. Tiraqueau's treatise, De legibus connubialibus, published for
the first time in 1513, has an important bearing on the life of Rabelais.
There we learn that, dissatisfied with the incomplete translation of
Herodotus by Laurent Valla, Rabelais had retranslated into Latin the
first book of the History. That translation unfortunately is lost, as so
many other of his scattered works. It is probably in this direction that
the hazard of fortune has most discoveries and surprises in store for the
lucky searcher. Moreover, as in this law treatise Tiraqueau attacked
women in a merciless fashion, President Amaury Bouchard published
in 1522 a book in their defence, and Rabelais, who was a friend of both
the antagonists, took the side of Tiraqueau. It should be observed also
in passing, that there are several pages of such audacious
plain-speaking, that Rabelais, though he did not copy these in his
Marriage of Panurge, has there been, in his own fashion, as out spoken
as Tiraqueau. If such freedom of language could be permitted in a
grave treatise of law, similar liberties were certainly, in the same
century, more natural in a book which was meant to amuse.
The great reproach always brought against Rabelais is not the want of
reserve of his language merely, but his occasional studied coarseness,
which is enough to spoil his whole work, and which lowers its value.
La Bruyere, in the chapter Des ouvrages de l'esprit, not in the first
edition of the Caracteres, but in the fifth, that is to say in 1690, at the
end of the great century, gives us on this subject his own opinion and
that of his age:
'Marot and Rabelais are inexcusable in their habit of scattering filth
about their writings. Both of them had genius enough and wit enough
to do without any such expedient, even for the amusement of those
persons who look more to the laugh to be got out of a book than to
what is admirable in it. Rabelais especially is incomprehensible. His
book is an enigma,--one may say inexplicable. It is a Chimera; it is like
the face of a lovely woman with the feet and the tail of a reptile, or of
some creature still more loathsome. It is a monstrous confusion of fine
and rare morality with filthy corruption. Where it is bad, it goes beyond
the worst; it is the delight of the basest of men. Where it is good, it
reaches the exquisite, the very best; it ministers to the most delicate
tastes.'
Putting aside the rather slight connection established between two men
of whom one is of very little importance compared with the other, this
is otherwise very admirably said, and the judgment is a very just one,
except with regard to one point--the misunderstanding of the
atmosphere in which the book was created, and the ignoring of the
examples of a similar tendency furnished by literature as well as by the
popular taste. Was it not the Ancients that began it? Aristophanes,
Catullus, Petronius, Martial, flew in the face of decency in their ideas
as well as in the words they used, and they dragged after them in this
direction not a few of the Latin poets of the Renaissance, who believed
themselves bound to imitate them. Is Italy without fault in this respect?
Her story-tellers in prose lie open to easy accusation. Her Capitoli in
verse go to incredible lengths; and the astonishing success of Aretino
must not be forgotten, nor the licence of the whole Italian comic theatre
of the sixteenth century. The Calandra of Bibbiena, who was afterwards
a Cardinal, and the Mandragola of Machiavelli, are evidence enough,
and these were played before Popes, who were not a whit embarrassed.
Even in England the drama went very far for a time, and the comic
authors of the reign of Charles II., evidently from a reaction, and to
shake off the excess and the wearisomeness of Puritan prudery and
affectation, which sent them to the opposite extreme, are not exactly
noted for their reserve. But we need not go beyond France. Slight
indications, very easily verified, are all that may be set down here; a
formal and detailed proof would be altogether too dangerous.
Thus, for instance, the old Fabliaux--the Farces of the fifteenth century,
the story-tellers of the sixteenth--reveal one of the sides, one of the
veins, so to speak, of our literature. The art that addresses itself to the
eye had likewise its share of this coarseness. Think of the sculptures on
the capitals and the modillions of churches, and the crude frankness of
certain painted windows of the fifteenth century. Queen Anne was,
without any doubt, one of the most virtuous women in the world. Yet
she used to go up the staircase of her chateau at Blois, and her eyes
were not offended at seeing at the foot of a bracket a not very decent
carving of a monk and a nun. Neither did she tear out of her book of
Hours the large miniature of the winter month, in which, careless of her
neighbours' eyes, the mistress of the house, sitting before her great
fireplace, warms herself in a fashion which it is not advisable that
dames of our age should imitate. The statue of Cybele by the Tribolo,
executed for Francis I., and placed, not against a wall, but in the middle
of Queen Claude's chamber at Fontainebleau, has behind it an attribute
which would have been more in place on a statue of Priapus, and which
was the symbol of generativeness. The tone of the conversations was
ordinarily of a surprising coarseness, and the Precieuses, in spite of
their absurdities, did a very good work in setting themselves in
opposition to it. The worthy Chevalier de La-Tour- Landry, in his
Instructions to his own daughters, without a thought of harm, gives
examples which are singular indeed, and in Caxton's translation these
are not omitted. The Adevineaux Amoureux, printed at Bruges by
Colard Mansion, are astonishing indeed when one considers that they
were the little society diversions of the Duchesses of Burgundy and of
the great ladies of a court more luxurious and more refined than the
French court, which revelled in the Cent Nouvelles of good King Louis
XI. Rabelais' pleasantry about the woman folle a la messe is exactly in
the style of the Adevineaux.
A later work than any of his, the Novelle of Bandello, should be kept in
mind--for the writer was Bishop of Agen, and his work was translated
into French--as also the Dames Galantes of Brantome. Read the Journal
of Heroard, that honest doctor, who day by day wrote down the details
concerning the health of Louis XIII. from his birth, and you will
understand the tone of the conversation of Henry IV. The jokes at a
country wedding are trifles compared with this royal coarseness. Le
Moyen de Parvenir is nothing but a tissue and a mass of filth, and the
too celebrated Cabinet Satyrique proves what, under Louis XIII., could
be written, printed, and read. The collection of songs formed by
Clairambault shows that the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were
no purer than the sixteenth. Some of the most ribald songs are actually
the work of Princesses of the royal House.
It is, therefore, altogether unjust to make Rabelais the scapegoat, to
charge him alone with the sins of everybody else. He spoke as those of
his time used to speak; when amusing them he used their language to
make himself understood, and to slip in his asides, which without this
sauce would never have been accepted, would have found neither eyes
nor ears. Let us blame not him, therefore, but the manners of his time.
Besides, his gaiety, however coarse it may appear to us--and how rare a
thing is gaiety!--has, after all, nothing unwholesome about it; and this
is too often overlooked. Where does he tempt one to stray from duty?
Where, even indirectly, does he give pernicious advice? Whom has he
led to evil ways? Does he ever inspire feelings that breed misconduct
and vice, or is he ever the apologist of these? Many poets and romance
writers, under cover of a fastidious style, without one coarse expression,
have been really and actively hurtful; and of that it is impossible to
accuse Rabelais. Women in particular quickly revolt from him, and turn
away repulsed at once by the archaic form of the language and by the
outspokenness of the words. But if he be read aloud to them, omitting
the rougher parts and modernizing the pronunciation, it will be seen
that they too are impressed by his lively wit as by the loftiness of his
thought. It would be possible, too, to extract, for young persons,
without modification, admirable passages of incomparable force. But
those who have brought out expurgated editions of him, or who have
thought to improve him by trying to rewrite him in modern French,
have been fools for their pains, and their insulting attempts have had,
and always will have, the success they deserve.
His dedications prove to what extent his whole work was accepted. Not
to speak of his epistolary relations with Bude, with the Cardinal
d'Armagnac and with Pellissier, the ambassador of Francis I. and
Bishop of Maguelonne, or of his dedication to Tiraqueau of his Lyons
edition of the Epistolae Medicinales of Giovanni Manardi of Ferrara, of
the one addressed to the President Amaury Bouchard of the two legal
texts which he believed antique, there is still the evidence of his other
and more important dedications. In 1532 he dedicated his Hippocrates
and his Galen to Geoffroy d'Estissac, Bishop of Maillezais, to whom in
1535 and 1536 he addressed from Rome the three news letters, which
alone have been preserved; and in 1534 he dedicated from Lyons his
edition of the Latin book of Marliani on the topography of Rome to
Jean du Bellay (at that time Bishop of Paris) who was raised to the
Cardinalate in 1535. Beside these dedications we must set the privilege
of Francis I. of September, 1545, and the new privilege granted by
Henry II. on August 6th, 1550, Cardinal de Chatillon present, for the
third book, which was dedicated, in an eight-lined stanza, to the Spirit
of the Queen of Navarre. These privileges, from the praises and
eulogies they express in terms very personal and very exceptional, are
as important in Rabelais' life as were, in connection with other matters,
the Apostolic Pastorals in his favour. Of course, in these the popes had
not to introduce his books of diversions, which, nevertheless, would
have seemed in their eyes but very venial sins. The Sciomachie of 1549,
an account of the festivities arranged at Rome by Cardinal du Bellay in
honour of the birth of the second son of Henry II., was addressed to
Cardinal de Guise, and in 1552 the fourth book was dedicated, in a new
prologue, to Cardinal de Chatillon, the brother of Admiral de Coligny.
These are no unknown or insignificant personages, but the greatest
lords and princes of the Church. They loved and admired and protected
Rabelais, and put no restrictions in his way. Why should we be more
fastidious and severe than they were? Their high contemporary
appreciation gives much food for thought.
There are few translations of Rabelais in foreign tongues; and certainly
the task is no light one, and demands more than a familiarity with
ordinary French. It would have been easier in Italy than anywhere else.
Italian, from its flexibility and its analogy to French, would have lent
itself admirably to the purpose; the instrument was ready, but the hand
was not forthcoming. Neither is there any Spanish translation, a fact
which can be more easily understood. The Inquisition would have been
a far more serious opponent than the Paris' Sorbonne, and no one
ventured on the experiment. Yet Rabelais forces comparison with
Cervantes, whose precursor he was in reality, though the two books and
the two minds are very different. They have only one point in common,
their attack and ridicule of the romances of chivalry and of the wildly
improbable adventures of knight-errants. But in Don Quixote there is
not a single detail which would suggest that Cervantes knew Rabelais'
book or owed anything to it whatsoever, even the starting- point of his
subject. Perhaps it was better he should not have been influenced by
him, in however slight a degree; his originality is the more intact and
the more genial.
On the other hand, Rabelais has been several times translated into
German. In the present century Regis published at Leipsic, from 1831
to 1841, with copious notes, a close and faithful translation. The first
one cannot be so described, that of Johann Fischart, a native of Mainz
or Strasburg, who died in 1614. He was a Protestant controversialist,
and a satirist of fantastic and abundant imagination. In 1575 appeared
his translation of Rabelais' first book, and in 1590 he published the
comic catalogue of the library of Saint Victor, borrowed from the
second book. It is not a translation, but a recast in the boldest style, full
of alterations and of exaggerations, both as regards the coarse
expressions which he took upon himself to develop and to add to, and
in the attacks on the Roman Catholic Church. According to Jean Paul
Richter, Fischart is much superior to Rabelais in style and in the
fruitfulness of his ideas, and his equal in erudition and in the invention
of new expressions after the manner of Aristophanes. He is sure that his
work was successful, because it was often reprinted during his lifetime;
but this enthusiasm of Jean Paul would hardly carry conviction in
France. Who treads in another's footprints must follow in the rear.
Instead of a creator, he is but an imitator. Those who take the ideas of
others to modify them, and make of them creations of their own, like
Shakespeare in England, Moliere and La Fontaine in France, may be
superior to those who have served them with suggestions; but then the
new works must be altogether different, must exist by themselves.
Shakespeare and the others, when they imitated, may be said always to
have destroyed their models. These copyists, if we call them so, created
such works of genius that the only pity is they are so rare. This is not
the case with Fischart, but it would be none the less curious were some
one thoroughly familiar with German to translate Fischart for us, or at
least, by long extracts from him, give an idea of the vagaries of German
taste when it thought it could do better than Rabelais. It is dangerous to
tamper with so great a work, and he who does so runs a great risk of
burning his fingers.
England has been less daring, and her modesty and discretion have
brought her success. But, before speaking of Urquhart's translation, it is
but right to mention the English-French Dictionary of Randle Cotgrave,
the first edition of which dates from 1611. It is in every way
exceedingly valuable, and superior to that of Nicot, because instead of
keeping to the plane of classic and Latin French, it showed an
acquaintance with and mastery of the popular tongue as well as of the
written and learned language. As a foreigner, Cotgrave is a little behind
in his information. He is not aware of all the changes and novelties of
the passing fashion. The Pleiad School he evidently knew nothing of,
but kept to the writers of the fifteenth and the first half of the sixteenth
century. Thus words out of Rabelais, which he always translates with
admirable skill, are frequent, and he attaches to them their author's
name. So Rabelais had already crossed the Channel, and was read in his
own tongue. Somewhat later, during the full sway of the
Commonwealth--and Maitre Alcofribas Nasier must have been a
surprising apparition in the midst of Puritan severity--Captain Urquhart
undertook to translate him and to naturalize him completely in
England.
Thomas Urquhart belonged to a very old family of good standing in the
North of Scotland. After studying in Aberdeen he travelled in France,
Spain, and Italy, where his sword was as active as that intelligent
curiosity of his which is evidenced by his familiarity with three
languages and the large library which he brought back, according to his
own account, from sixteen countries he had visited.
On his return to England he entered the service of Charles I., who
knighted him in 1641. Next year, after the death of his father, he went
to Scotland to set his family affairs in order, and to redeem his house in
Cromarty. But, in spite of another sojourn in foreign lands, his efforts
to free himself from pecuniary embarrassments were unavailing. At the
king's death his Scottish loyalty caused him to side with those who
opposed the Parliament. Formally proscribed in 1649, taken prisoner at
the defeat of Worcester in 1651, stripped of all his belongings, he was
brought to London, but was released on parole at Cromwell's
recommendation. After receiving permission to spend five months in
Scotland to try once more to settle his affairs, he came back to London
to escape from his creditors. And there he must have died, though the
date of his death is unknown. It probably took place after 1653, the date
of the publication of the two first books, and after having written the
translation of the third, which was not printed from his manuscript till
the end of the seventeenth century.
His life was therefore not without its troubles, and literary activity must
have been almost his only consolation. His writings reveal him as the
strangest character, fantastic, and full of a naive vanity, which, even at
the time he was translating the genealogy of Gargantua--surely well
calculated to cure any pondering on his own--caused him to trace his
unbroken descent from Adam, and to state that his family name was
derived from his ancestor Esormon, Prince of Achaia, 2139 B.C., who
was surnamed Ourochartos, that is to say the Fortunate and the
Well-beloved. A Gascon could not have surpassed this.
Gifted as he was, learned in many directions, an enthusiastic
mathematician, master of several languages, occasionally full of wit
and humour, and even good sense, yet he gave his books the strangest
titles, and his ideas were no less whimsical. His style is mystic,
fastidious, and too often of a wearisome length and obscurity; his
verses rhyme anyhow, or not at all; but vivacity, force and heat are
never lacking, and the Maitland Club did well in reprinting, in 1834,
his various works, which are very rare. Yet, in spite of their curious
interest, he owes his real distinction and the survival of his name to his
translation of Rabelais.
The first two books appeared in 1653. The original edition, exceedingly
scarce, was carefully reprinted in 1838, only a hundred copies being
issued, by an English bibliophile T(heodore) M(artin), whose
interesting preface I regret to sum up so cursorily. At the end of the
seventeenth century, in 1693, a French refugee, Peter Antony Motteux,
whose English verses and whose plays are not without value, published
in a little octavo volume a reprint, very incorrect as to the text, of the
first two books, to which he added the third, from the manuscript found
amongst Urquhart's papers. The success which attended this venture
suggested to Motteux the idea of completing the work, and a second
edition, in two volumes, appeared in 1708, with the translation of the
fourth and fifth books, and notes. Nineteen years after his death, John
Ozell, translator on a large scale of French, Italian, and Spanish authors,
revised Motteux's edition, which he published in five volumes in 1737,
adding Le Duchat's notes; and this version has often been reprinted
since.
The continuation by Motteux, who was also the translator of Don
Quixote, has merits of its own. It is precise, elegant, and very faithful.
Urquhart's, without taking liberties with Rabelais like Fischart, is not
always so closely literal and exact. Nevertheless, it is much superior to
Motteux's. If Urquhart does not constantly adhere to the form of the
expression, if he makes a few slight additions, not only has he an
understanding of the original, but he feels it, and renders the sense with
a force and a vivacity full of warmth and brilliancy. His own learning
made the comprehension of the work easy to him, and his anglicization
of words fabricated by Rabelais is particularly successful. The
necessity of keeping to his text prevented his indulgence in the
convolutions and divagations dictated by his exuberant fancy when
writing on his own account. His style, always full of life and vigour, is
here balanced, lucid, and picturesque. Never elsewhere did he write so
well. And thus the translation reproduces the very accent of the original,
besides possessing a very remarkable character of its own. Such a
literary tone and such literary qualities are rarely found in a translation.
Urquhart's, very useful for the interpretation of obscure passages, may,
and indeed should be read as a whole, both for Rabelais and for its own
merits.
Holland, too, possesses a translation of Rabelais. They knew French in
that country in the seventeenth century better than they do to-day, and
there Rabelais' works were reprinted when no editions were appearing
in France. This Dutch translation was published at Amsterdam in 1682,
by J. Tenhoorn. The name attached to it, Claudio Gallitalo (Claudius
French- Italian) must certainly be a pseudonym. Only a Dutch scholar
could identify the translator, and state the value to be assigned to his
work.
Rabelais' style has many different sources. Besides its force and
brilliancy, its gaiety, wit, and dignity, its abundant richness is no less
remarkable. It would be impossible and useless to compile a glossary of
Voltaire's words. No French writer has used so few, and all of them are
of the simplest. There is not one of them that is not part of the common
speech, or which demands a note or an explanation. Rabelais'
vocabulary, on the other hand, is of an astonishing variety. Where does
it all come from? As a fact, he had at his command something like
three languages, which he used in turn, or which he mixed according to
the effect he wished to produce.
First of all, of course, he had ready to his hand the whole speech of his
time, which had no secrets for him. Provincials have been too eager to
appropriate him, to make of him a local author, the pride of some
village, in order that their district might have the merit of being one of
the causes, one of the factors of his genius. Every neighbourhood where
he ever lived has declared that his distinction was due to his knowledge
of its popular speech. But these dialect-patriots have fallen out among
themselves. To which dialect was he indebted? Was it that of Touraine,
or Berri, or Poitou, or Paris? It is too often forgotten, in regard to
French patois--leaving out of count the languages of the South--that the
words or expressions that are no longer in use to-day are but a survival,
a still living trace of the tongue and the pronunciation of other days.
Rabelais, more than any other writer, took advantage of the happy
chances and the richness of the popular speech, but he wrote in French,
and nothing but French. That is why he remains so forcible, so lucid,
and so living, more living even--speaking only of his style out of
charity to the others--than any of his contemporaries.
It has been said that great French prose is solely the work of the
seventeenth century. There were nevertheless, before that, two men,
certainly very different and even hostile, who were its initiators and its
masters, Calvin on the one hand, on the other Rabelais.
Rabelais had a wonderful knowledge of the prose and the verse of the
fifteenth century: he was familiar with Villon, Pathelin, the Quinze
Joies de Mariage, the Cent Nouvelles, the chronicles and the romances,
and even earlier works, too, such as the Roman de la Rose. Their words,
their turns of expression came naturally to his pen, and added a
piquancy and, as it were, a kind of gloss of antique novelty to his work.
He fabricated words, too, on Greek and Latin models, with great ease,
sometimes audaciously and with needless frequency. These were for
him so many means, so many elements of variety. Sometimes he did
this in mockery, as in the humorous discourse of the Limousin scholar,
for which he is not a little indebted to Geoffroy Tory in the
Champfleury; sometimes, on the contrary, seriously, from a habit
acquired in dealing with classical tongues.
Again, another reason of the richness of his vocabulary was that he
invented and forged words for himself. Following the example of
Aristophanes, he coined an enormous number of interminable words,
droll expressions, sudden and surprising constructions. What had made
Greece and the Athenians laugh was worth transporting to Paris.
With an instrument so rich, resources so endless, and the skill to use
them, it is no wonder that he could give voice to anything, be as
humorous as he could be serious, as comic as he could be grave, that he
could express himself and everybody else, from the lowest to the
highest. He had every colour on his palette, and such skill was in his
fingers that he could depict every variety of light and shade.
We have evidence that Rabelais did not always write in the same
fashion. The Chronique Gargantuaine is uniform in style and quite
simple, but cannot with certainty be attributed to him. His letters are
bombastic and thin; his few attempts at verse are heavy, lumbering, and
obscure, altogether lacking in harmony, and quite as bad as those of his
friend, Jean Bouchet. He had no gift of poetic form, as indeed is
evident even from his prose. And his letters from Rome to the Bishop
of Maillezais, interesting as they are in regard to the matter, are as dull,
bare, flat, and dry in style as possible. Without his signature no one
would possibly have thought of attributing them to him. He is only a
literary artist when he wishes to be such; and in his romance he changes
the style completely every other moment: it has no constant character
or uniform manner, and therefore unity is almost entirely wanting in his
work, while his endeavours after contrast are unceasing. There is
throughout the whole the evidence of careful and conscious
elaboration.
Hence, however lucid and free be the style of his romance, and though
its flexibility and ease seem at first sight to have cost no trouble at all,
yet its merit lies precisely in the fact that it succeeds in concealing the
toil, in hiding the seams. He could not have reached this perfection at a
first attempt. He must have worked long at the task, revised it again and
again, corrected much, and added rather than cut away. The aptness of
form and expression has been arrived at by deliberate means, and owes
nothing to chance. Apart from the toning down of certain bold passages,
to soften their effect, and appease the storm--for these were not literary
alterations, but were imposed on him by prudence--one can see how
numerous are the variations in his text, how necessary it is to take
account of them, and to collect them. A good edition, of course, would
make no attempt at amalgamating these. That would give a false
impression and end in confusion; but it should note them all, and show
them all, not combined, but simply as variations.
After Le Duchat, all the editions, in their care that nothing should be
lost, made the mistake of collecting and placing side by side things
which had no connection with each other, which had even been
substituted for each other. The result was a fabricated text, full of
contradictions naturally. But since the edition issued by M. Jannet, the
well-known publisher of the Bibliotheque Elzevirienne, who was the
first to get rid of this patchwork, this mosaic, Rabelais' latest text has
been given, accompanied by all the earlier variations, to show the
changes he made, as well as his suppressions and additions. It would
also be possible to reverse the method. It would be interesting to take
his first text as the basis, noting the later modifications. This would be
quite as instructive and really worth doing. Perhaps one might then see
more clearly with what care he made his revisions, after what fashion
he corrected, and especially what were the additions he made.
No more striking instance can be quoted than the admirable chapter
about the shipwreck. It was not always so long as Rabelais made it in
the end: it was much shorter at first. As a rule, when an author recasts
some passage that he wishes to revise, he does so by rewriting the
whole, or at least by interpolating passages at one stroke, so to speak.
Nothing of the kind is seen here. Rabelais suppressed nothing, modified
nothing; he did not change his plan at all. What he did was to make
insertions, to slip in between two clauses a new one. He expressed his
meaning in a lengthier way, and the former clause is found in its
integrity along with the additional one, of which it forms, as it were, the
warp. It was by this method of touching up the smallest details, by
making here and there such little noticeable additions, that he
succeeded in heightening the effect without either change or loss. In the
end it looks as if he had altered nothing, added nothing new, as if it had
always been so from the first, and had never been meddled with.
The comparison is most instructive, showing us to what an extent
Rabelais' admirable style was due to conscious effort, care, and
elaboration, a fact which is generally too much overlooked, and how
instead of leaving any trace which would reveal toil and study, it has on
the contrary a marvellous cohesion, precision, and brilliancy. It was
modelled and remodelled, repaired, touched up, and yet it has all the
appearance of having been created at a single stroke, or of having been
run like molten wax into its final form.
Something should be said here of the sources from which Rabelais
borrowed. He was not the first in France to satirize the romances of
chivalry. The romance in verse by Baudouin de Sebourc, printed in
recent years, was a parody of the Chansons de Geste. In the Moniage
Guillaume, and especially in the Moniage Rainouart, in which there is a
kind of giant, and occasionally a comic giant, there are situations and
scenes which remind us of Rabelais. The kind of Fabliaux in
mono-rhyme quatrains of the old Aubery anticipate his coarse and
popular jests. But all that is beside the question; Rabelais did not know
these. Nothing is of direct interest save what was known to him, what
fell under his eyes, what lay to his hand--as the Facetiae of Poggio, and
the last sermonnaires. In the course of one's reading one may often
enough come across the origin of some of Rabelais' witticisms; here
and there we may discover how he has developed a situation. While
gathering his materials wherever he could find them, he was
nevertheless profoundly original.
On this point much research and investigation might be employed. But
there is no need why these researches should be extended to the region
of fancy. Gargantua has been proved by some to be of Celtic origin.
Very often he is a solar myth, and the statement that Rabelais only
collected popular traditions and gave new life to ancient legends is said
to be proved by the large number of megalithic monuments to which is
attached the name of Gargantua. It was, of course, quite right to make a
list of these, to draw up, as it were, a chart of them, but the conclusion
is not justified. The name, instead of being earlier, is really later, and is
a witness, not to the origin, but to the success and rapid popularity of
his novel. No one has ever yet produced a written passage or any
ancient testimony to prove the existence of the name before Rabelais.
To place such a tradition on a sure basis, positive traces must be
forthcoming; and they cannot be adduced even for the most celebrated
of these monuments, since he mentions himself the great menhir near
Poitiers, which he christened by the name of Passelourdin. That there is
something in the theory is possible. Perrault found the subjects of his
stories in the tales told by mothers and nurses. He fixed them finally by
writing them down. Floating about vaguely as they were, he seized
them, worked them up, gave them shape, and yet of scarcely any of
them is there to be found before his time a single trace. So we must
resign ourselves to know just as little of what Gargantua and Pantagruel
were before the sixteenth century.
In a book of a contemporary of Rabelais, the Legende de Pierre Faifeu
by the Angevin, Charles de Bourdigne, the first edition of which dates
from 1526 and the second 1531--both so rare and so forgotten that the
work is only known since the eighteenth century by the reprint of
Custelier--in the introductory ballad which recommends this book to
readers, occur these lines in the list of popular books which Faifeu
would desire to replace:
'Laissez ester Caillette le folastre, Les quatre filz Aymon vestuz de bleu,
Gargantua qui a cheveux de plastre.'
He has not 'cheveux de plastre' in Rabelais. If the rhyme had not
suggested the phrase--and the exigencies of the strict form of the
ballade and its forced repetitions often imposed an idea which had its
whole origin in the rhyme--we might here see a dramatic trace found
nowhere else. The name of Pantagruel is mentioned too, incidentally, in
a Mystery of the fifteenth century. These are the only references to the
names which up till now have been discovered, and they are, as one
sees, of but little account.
On the other hand, the influence of Aristophanes and of Lucian, his
intimate acquaintance with nearly all the writers of antiquity, Greek as
well as Latin, with whom Rabelais is more permeated even than
Montaigne, were a mine of inspiration. The proof of it is everywhere.
Pliny especially was his encyclopaedia, his constant companion. All he
says of the Pantagruelian herb, though he amply developed it for
himself, is taken from Pliny's chapter on flax. And there is a great deal
more of this kind to be discovered, for Rabelais does not always give it
as quotation. On the other hand, when he writes, 'Such an one says,' it
would be difficult enough to find who is meant, for the 'such an one' is
a fictitious writer. The method is amusing, but it is curious to account
of it.
The question of the Chronique Gargantuaine is still undecided. Is it by
Rabelais or by someone else? Both theories are defensible, and can be
supported by good reasons. In the Chronique everything is heavy,
occasionally meaningless, and nearly always insipid. Can the same man
have written the Chronique and Gargantua, replaced a book really
commonplace by a masterpiece, changed the facts and incidents,
transformed a heavy icy pleasantry into a work glowing with wit and
life, made it no longer a mass of laborious trifling and cold-blooded
exaggerations but a satire on human life of the highest genius? Still
there are points common to the two. Besides, Rabelais wrote other
things; and it is only in his romance that he shows literary skill. The
conception of it would have entered his mind first only in a bare and
summary fashion. It would have been taken up again, expanded,
developed, metamorphosed. That is possible, and, for my part, I am of
those who, like Brunet and Nodier, are inclined to think that the
Chronique, in spite of its inferiority, is really a first attempt,
condemned as soon as the idea was conceived in another form. As its
earlier date is incontestable, we must conclude that if the Chronique is
not by him, his Gargantua and its continuation would not have existed
without it. This would be a great obligation to stand under to some
unknown author, and in that case it is astonishing that his enemies did
not reproach him during his lifetime with being merely an imitator and
a plagiarist. So there are reasons for and against his authorship of it,
and it would be dangerous to make too bold an assertion.
One fact which is absolutely certain and beyond all controversy, is that
Rabelais owed much to one of his contemporaries, an Italian, to the
Histoire Macaronique of Merlin Coccaie. Its author, Theophilus
Folengo, who was also a monk, was born in 1491, and died only a short
time before Rabelais, in 1544. But his burlesque poem was published in
1517. It was in Latin verse, written in an elaborately fabricated style. It
is not dog Latin, but Latin ingeniously italianized, or rather Italian,
even Mantuan, latinized. The contrast between the modern form of the
word and its Roman garb produces the most amusing effect. In the
original it is sometimes difficult to read, for Folengo has no objection
to using the most colloquial words and phrases.
The subject is quite different. It is the adventures of Baldo, son of Guy
de Montauban, the very lively history of his youth, his trial,
imprisonment and deliverance, his journey in search of his father,
during which he visits the Planets and Hell. The narration is constantly
interrupted by incidental adventures. Occasionally they are what would
be called to-day very naturalistic, and sometimes they are madly
extravagant.
But Fracasso, Baldo's friend, is a giant; another friend, Cingar, who
delivers him, is Panurge exactly, and quite as much given to practical
joking. The women in the senile amour of the old Tognazzo, the judges,
and the poor sergeants, are no more gently dealt with by Folengo than
by the monk of the Iles d'Hyeres. If Dindenaut's name does not occur,
there are the sheep. The tempest is there, and the invocation to all the
saints. Rabelais improves all he borrows, but it is from Folengo he
starts. He does not reproduce the words, but, like the Italian, he revels
in drinking scenes, junkettings, gormandizing, battles, scuffles, wounds
and corpses, magic, witches, speeches, repeated enumerations,
lengthiness, and a solemnly minute precision of impossible dates and
numbers. The atmosphere, the tone, the methods are the same, and to
know Rabelais well, you must know Folengo well too.
Detailed proof of this would be too lengthy a matter; one would have to
quote too many passages, but on this question of sources nothing is
more interesting than a perusal of the Opus Macaronicorum. It was
translated into French only in 1606--Paris, Gilley Robinot. This
translation of course cannot reproduce all the many amusing forms of
words, but it is useful, nevertheless, in showing more clearly the points
of resemblance between the two works,--how far in form, ideas, details,
and phrases Rabelais was permeated by Folengo. The anonymous
translator saw this quite well, and said so in his title, 'Histoire
macaronique de Merlin Coccaie, prototype of Rabelais.' It is nothing
but the truth, and Rabelais, who does not hide it from himself, on more
than one occasion mentions the name of Merlin Coccaie.
Besides, Rabelais was fed on the Italians of his time as on the Greeks
and Romans. Panurge, who owes much to Cingar, is also not free from
obligations to the miscreant Margutte in the Morgante Maggiore of
Pulci. Had Rabelais in his mind the tale from the Florentine Chronicles,
how in the Savonarola riots, when the Piagnoni and the Arrabiati came
to blows in the church of the Dominican convent of San-Marco, Fra
Pietro in the scuffle broke the heads of the assailants with the bronze
crucifix he had taken from the altar? A well-handled cross could so
readily be used as a weapon, that probably it has served as such more
than once, and other and even quite modern instances might be quoted.
But other Italian sources are absolutely certain. There are few more
wonderful chapters in Rabelais than the one about the drinkers. It is not
a dialogue: those short exclamations exploding from every side, all
referring to the same thing, never repeating themselves, and yet always
varying the same theme. At the end of the Novelle of Gentile Sermini
of Siena, there is a chapter called Il Giuoco della pugna, the Game of
Battle. Here are the first lines of it: 'Apre, apre, apre. Chi gioca, chi
gioca-- uh, uh!--A Porrione, a Porrione.--Viela, viela; date a
ognuno.--Alle mantella, alle mantella.--Oltre di corsa; non vi
fermate.--Voltate qui; ecco costoro; fate veli innanzi.--Viela, viela; date
costi.--Chi la fa? Io--Ed io.--Dagli; ah, ah, buona fu.--Or cosi; alla
mascella, al fianco.-- Dagli basso; di punta, di punta.--Ah, ah, buon
gioco, buon gioco.'
And thus it goes on with fire and animation for pages. Rabelais
probably translated or directly imitated it. He changed the scene; there
was no giuooco della pugna in France. He transferred to a
drinking-bout this clatter of exclamations which go off by themselves,
which cross each other and get no answer. He made a wonderful thing
of it. But though he did not copy Sermini, yet Sermini's work provided
him with the form of the subject, and was the theme for Rabelais'
marvellous variations.
Who does not remember the fantastic quarrel of the cook with the poor
devil who had flavoured his dry bread with the smoke of the roast, and
the judgment of Seyny John, truly worthy of Solomon? It comes from
the Cento Novelle Antiche, rewritten from tales older than Boccaccio,
and moreover of an extreme brevity and dryness. They are only the
framework, the notes, the skeleton of tales. The subject is often
wonderful, but nothing is made of it: it is left unshaped. Rabelais wrote
a version of one, the ninth. The scene takes place, not at Paris, but at
Alexandria in Egypt among the Saracens, and the cook is called Fabrac.
But the surprise at the end, the sagacious judgment by which the sound
of a piece of money was made the price of the smoke, is the same. Now
the first dated edition of the Cento Novelle (which were frequently
reprinted) appeared at Bologna in 1525, and it is certain that Rabelais
had read the tales. And there would be much else of the same kind to
learn if we knew Rabelais' library.
A still stranger fact of this sort may be given to show how nothing
came amiss to him. He must have known, and even copied the Latin
Chronicle of the Counts of Anjou. It is accepted, and rightly so, as an
historical document, but that is no reason for thinking that the truth
may not have been manipulated and adorned. The Counts of Anjou
were not saints. They were proud, quarrelsome, violent, rapacious, and
extravagant, as greedy as they were charitable to the Church,
treacherous and cruel. Yet their anonymous panegyrist has made them
patterns of all the virtues. In reality it is both a history and in some sort
a romance; especially is it a collection of examples worthy of being
followed, in the style of the Cyropaedia, our Juvenal of the fifteenth
century, and a little like Fenelon's Telemaque. Now in it there occurs
the address of one of the counts to those who rebelled against him and
who were at his mercy. Rabelais must have known it, for he has copied
it, or rather, literally translated whole lines of it in the wonderful speech
of Gargantua to the vanquished. His contemporaries, who approved of
his borrowing from antiquity, could not detect this one, because the
book was not printed till much later. But Rabelais lived in Maine. In
Anjou, which often figures among the localities he names, he must
have met with and read the Chronicles of the Counts in manuscript,
probably in some monastery library, whether at Fontenay-le-Comte or
elsewhere it matters little. There is not only a likeness in the ideas and
tone, but in the words too, which cannot be a mere matter of chance. He
must have known the Chronicles of the Counts of Anjou, and they
inspired one of his finest pages. One sees, therefore, how varied were
the sources whence he drew, and how many of them must probably
always escape us.
When, as has been done for Moliere, a critical bibliography of the
works relating to Rabelais is drawn up--which, by the bye, will entail a
very great amount of labour--the easiest part will certainly be the
bibliography of the old editions. That is the section that has been most
satisfactorily and most completely worked out. M. Brunet said the last
word on the subject in his Researches in 1852, and in the important
article in the fifth edition of his Manuel du Libraire (iv., 1863, pp.
1037-1071).
The facts about the fifth book cannot be summed up briefly. It was
printed as a whole at first, without the name of the place, in 1564, and
next year at Lyons by Jean Martin. It has given, and even still gives rise
to two contradictory opinions. Is it Rabelais' or not?
First of all, if he had left it complete, would sixteen years have gone by
before it was printed? Then, does it bear evident marks of his
workmanship? Is the hand of the master visible throughout? Antoine
Du Verdier in the 1605 edition of his Prosopographie writes: '(Rabelais')
misfortune has been that everybody has wished to "pantagruelize!" and
several books have appeared under his name, and have been added to
his works, which are not by him, as, for instance, l'Ile Sonnante, written
by a certain scholar of Valence and others.'
The scholar of Valence might be Guillaume des Autels, to whom with
more certainty can be ascribed the authorship of a dull imitation of
Rabelais, the History of Fanfreluche and Gaudichon, published in 1578,
which, to say the least of it, is very much inferior to the fifth book.
Louis Guyon, in his Diverses Lecons, is still more positive: 'As to the
last book which has been included in his works, entitled l'Ile Sonnante,
the object of which seems to be to find fault with and laugh at the
members and the authorities of the Catholic Church, I protest that he
did not compose it, for it was written long after his death. I was at Paris
when it was written, and I know quite well who was its author; he was
not a doctor.' That is very emphatic, and it is impossible to ignore it.
Yet everyone must recognize that there is a great deal of Rabelais in the
fifth book. He must have planned it and begun it. Remembering that in
1548 he had published, not as an experiment, but rather as a bait and as
an announcement, the first eleven chapters of the fourth book, we may
conclude that the first sixteen chapters of the fifth book published by
themselves nine years after his death, in 1562, represent the remainder
of his definitely finished work. This is the more certain because these
first chapters, which contain the Apologue of the Horse and the Ass and
the terrible Furred Law-cats, are markedly better than what follows
them. They are not the only ones where the master's hand may be
traced, but they are the only ones where no other hand could possibly
have interfered.
In the remainder the sentiment is distinctly Protestant. Rabelais was
much struck by the vices of the clergy and did not spare them. Whether
we are unable to forgive his criticisms because they were conceived in
a spirit of raillery, or whether, on the other hand, we feel admiration for
him on this point, yet Rabelais was not in the least a sectary. If he
strongly desired a moral reform, indirectly pointing out the need of it in
his mocking fashion, he was not favourable to a political reform. Those
who would make of him a Protestant altogether forget that the
Protestants of his time were not for him, but against him. Henri
Estienne, for instance, Ramus, Theodore de Beze, and especially Calvin,
should know how he was to be regarded. Rabelais belonged to what
may be called the early reformation, to that band of honest men in the
beginning of the sixteenth century, precursors of the later one perhaps,
but, like Erasmus, between the two extremes. He was neither Lutheran
nor Calvinist, neither German nor Genevese, and it is quite natural that
his work was not reprinted in Switzerland, which would certainly have
happened had the Protestants looked on him as one of themselves.
That Rabelais collected the materials for the fifth book, had begun it,
and got on some way, there can be no doubt: the excellence of a large
number of passages prove it, but--taken as a whole--the fifth book has
not the value, the verve, and the variety of the others. The style is quite
different, less rich, briefer, less elaborate, drier, in parts even
wearisome. In the first four books Rabelais seldom repeats himself. The
fifth book contains from the point of view of the vocabulary really the
least novelty. On the contrary, it is full of words and expressions
already met with, which is very natural in an imitation, in a copy,
forced to keep to a similar tone, and to show by such reminders and
likenesses that it is really by the same pen. A very striking point is the
profound difference in the use of anatomical terms. In the other books
they are most frequently used in a humorous sense, and nonsensically,
with a quite other meaning than their own; in the fifth they are applied
correctly. It was necessary to include such terms to keep up the practice,
but the writer has not thought of using them to add to the comic effect:
one cannot always think of everything. Trouble has been taken, of
course, to include enumerations, but there are much fewer fabricated
and fantastic words. In short, the hand of the maker is far from showing
the same suppleness and strength.
A eulogistic quatrain is signed Nature quite, which, it is generally
agreed, is an anagram of Jean Turquet. Did the adapter of the fifth book
sign his work in this indirect fashion? He might be of the Genevese
family to whom Louis Turquet and his son Theodore belonged, both
well-known, and both strong Protestants. The obscurity relating to this
matter is far from being cleared up, and perhaps never will be.
It fell to my lot--here, unfortunately, I am forced to speak of a personal
matter--to print for the first time the manuscript of the fifth book. At
first it was hoped it might be in Rabelais' own hand; afterwards that it
might be at least a copy of his unfinished work. The task was a difficult
one, for the writing, extremely flowing and rapid, is execrable, and
most difficult to decipher and to transcribe accurately. Besides, it often
happens in the sixteenth and the end of the fifteenth century, that
manuscripts are much less correct than the printed versions, even when
they have not been copied by clumsy and ignorant hands. In this case, it
is the writing of a clerk executed as quickly as possible. The farther it
goes the more incorrect it becomes, as if the writer were in haste to
finish.
What is really the origin of it? It has less the appearance of notes or
fragments prepared by Rabelais than of a first attempt at revision. It is
not an author's rough draft; still less is it his manuscript. If I had not
printed this enigmatical text with scrupulous and painful fidelity, I
would do it now. It was necessary to do it so as to clear the way. But as
the thing is done, and accessible to those who may be interested, and
who wish to critically examine it, there is no further need of reprinting
it. All the editions of Rabelais continue, and rightly, to reproduce the
edition of 1564. It is not the real Rabelais, but however open to
criticism it may be, it was under that form that the fifth book appeared
in the sixteenth century, under that form it was accepted. Consequently
it is convenient and even necessary to follow and keep to the original
edition.
The first sixteen chapters may, and really must be, the text of Rabelais,
in the final form as left by him, and found after his death; the
framework, and a number of the passages in the continuation, the best
ones, of course, are his, but have been patched up and tampered with.
Nothing can have been suppressed of what existed; it was evidently
thought that everything should be admitted with the final revision; but
the tone was changed, additions were made, and 'improvements.'
Adapters are always strangely vain.
In the seventeenth century, the French printing-press, save for an
edition issued at Troyes in 1613, gave up publishing Rabelais, and the
work passed to foreign countries. Jean Fuet reprinted him at Antwerp in
1602. After the Amsterdam edition of 1659, where for the first time
appears 'The Alphabet of the French Author,' comes the Elzevire
edition of 1663. The type, an imitation of what made the reputation of
the little volumes of the Gryphes of Lyons, is charming, the printing is
perfect, and the paper, which is French--the development of
paper-making in Holland and England did not take place till after the
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes--is excellent. They are pretty
volumes to the eye, but, as in all the reprints of the seventeenth century,
the text is full of faults and most untrustworthy.
France, through a representative in a foreign land, however, comes into
line again in the beginning of the eighteenth century, and in a really
serious fashion, thanks to the very considerable learning of a French
refugee, Jacob Le Duchat, who died in 1748. He had a most thorough
knowledge of the French prose-writers of the sixteenth century, and he
made them accessible by his editions of the Quinze Joies du Mariage,
of Henri Estienne, of Agrippa d'Aubigne, of L'Etoile, and of the Satyre
Menippee. In 1711 he published an edition of Rabelais at Amsterdam,
through Henry Bordesius, in five duodecimo volumes. The reprint in
quarto which he issued in 1741, seven years before his death, is, with
its engravings by Bernard Picot, a fine library edition. Le Duchat's is
the first of the critical editions. It takes account of differences in the
texts, and begins to point out the variations. His very numerous notes
are remarkable, and are still worthy of most serious consideration. He
was the first to offer useful elucidations, and these have been repeated
after him, and with good reason will continue to be so. The Abbe de
Massy's edition of 1752, also an Amsterdam production, has made use
of Le Duchat's but does not take its place. Finally, at the end of the
century, Cazin printed Rabelais in his little volume, in 1782, and
Bartiers issued two editions (of no importance) at Paris in 1782 and
1798. Fortunately the nineteenth century has occupied itself with the
great 'Satyrique' in a more competent and useful fashion.
In 1820 L'Aulnaye published through Desoer his three little volumes,
printed in exquisite style, and which have other merits besides. His
volume of annotations, in which, that nothing might be lost of his own
notes, he has included many things not directly relating to Rabelais, is
full of observations and curious remarks which are very useful
additions to Le Duchat. One fault to be found with him is his further
complication of the spelling. This he did in accordance with a principle
that the words should be referred to their real etymology. Learned
though he was, Rabelais had little care to be so etymological, and it is
not his theories but those of the modern scholar that have been
ventilated.
Somewhat later, from 1823 to 1826, Esmangart and Johanneau issued a
variorum edition in nine volumes, in which the text is often
encumbered by notes which are really too numerous, and, above all, too
long. The work was an enormous one, but the best part of it is Le
Duchat's, and what is not his is too often absolutely hypothetical and
beside the truth. Le Duchat had already given too much importance to
the false historical explanation. Here it is constantly coming in, and it
rests on no evidence. In reality, there is no need of the key to Rabelais
by which to discover the meaning of subtle allusions. He is neither so
complicated nor so full of riddles. We know how he has scattered the
names of contemporaries about his work, sometimes of friends,
sometimes of enemies, and without disguising them under any mask.
He is no more Panurge than Louis XII. is Gargantua or Francis I.
Pantagruel. Rabelais says what he wants, all he wants, and in the way
he wants. There are no mysteries below the surface, and it is a waste of
time to look for knots in a bulrush. All the historical explanations are
purely imaginary, utterly without proof, and should the more
emphatically be looked on as baseless and dismissed. They are
radically false, and therefore both worthless and harmful.
In 1840 there appeared in the Bibliotheque Charpentier the Rabelais in
a single duodecimo volume, begun by Charles Labiche, and, after his
death, completed by M. Paul Lacroix, whose share is the larger. The
text is that of L'Aulnaye; the short footnotes, with all their brevity,
contain useful explanations of difficult words. Amongst the editions of
Rabelais this is one of the most important, because it brought him many
readers and admirers. No other has made him so well and so widely
known as this portable volume, which has been constantly reprinted.
No other has been so widely circulated, and the sale still goes on. It was,
and must still be looked on as a most serviceable edition.
The edition published by Didot in 1857 has an altogether special
character. In the biographical notice M. Rathery for the first time
treated as they deserve the foolish prejudices which have made
Rabelais misunderstood, and M. Burgaud des Marets set the text on a
quite new base. Having proved, what of course is very evident, that in
the original editions the spelling, and the language too, were of the
simplest and clearest, and were not bristling with the nonsensical and
superfluous consonants which have given rise to the idea that Rabelais
is difficult to read, he took the trouble first of all to note the spelling of
each word. Whenever in a single instance he found it in accordance
with modern spelling, he made it the same throughout. The task was a
hard one, and Rabelais certainly gained in clearness, but over-zeal is
often fatal to a reform. In respect to its precision and the value of its
notes, which are short and very judicious, Burgaud des Marets' edition
is valuable, and is amongst those which should be known and taken
into account.
Since Le Duchat all the editions have a common fault. They are not
exactly guilty of fabricating, but they set up an artificial text in the
sense that, in order to lose as little as possible, they have collected and
united what originally were variations--the revisions, in short, of the
original editions. Guided by the wise counsels given by Brunet in 1852
in his Researches on the old editions of Rabelais, Pierre Jannet
published the first three books in 1858; then, when the publication of
the Bibliotheque Elzevirienne was discontinued, he took up the work
again and finished the edition in Picard's blue library, in little volumes,
each book quite distinct. It was M. Jannet who in our days first restored
the pure and exact text of Rabelais, not only without retouching it, but
without making additions or insertions, or juxtaposition of things that
were not formerly found together. For each of the books he has
followed the last edition issued by Rabelais, and all the earlier
differences he gives as variations. It is astonishing that a thing so
simple and so fitting should not have been done before, and the result is
that this absolutely exact fidelity has restored a lucidity which was not
wanting in Rabelais's time, but which had since been obscured. All who
have come after Jannet have followed in his path, and there is no reason
for straying from it.
***
FRANCIS RABELAIS.
THE FIRST BOOK.
To the Honoured, Noble Translator of Rabelais.
Rabelais, whose wit prodigiously was made, All men, professions,
actions to invade, With so much furious vigour, as if it Had lived o'er
each of them, and each had quit, Yet with such happy sleight and
careless skill, As, like the serpent, doth with laughter kill, So that
although his noble leaves appear Antic and Gottish, and dull souls
forbear To turn them o'er, lest they should only find Nothing but savage
monsters of a mind,-- No shapen beauteous thoughts; yet when the wise
Seriously strip him of his wild disguise, Melt down his dross, refine his
massy ore, And polish that which seem'd rough-cast before, Search his
deep sense, unveil his hidden mirth, And make that fiery which before
seem'd earth (Conquering those things of highest consequence, What's
difficult of language or of sense), He will appear some noble table writ
In the old Egyptian hieroglyphic wit; Where, though you monsters and
grotescoes see, You meet all mysteries of philosophy. For he was wise
and sovereignly bred To know what mankind is, how 't may be led: He
stoop'd unto them, like that wise man, who Rid on a stick, when 's
children would do so. For we are easy sullen things, and must Be
laugh'd aright, and cheated into trust; Whilst a black piece of phlegm,
that lays about Dull menaces, and terrifies the rout, And cajoles it, with
all its peevish strength Piteously stretch'd and botch'd up into length,
Whilst the tired rabble sleepily obey Such opiate talk, and snore away
the day, By all his noise as much their minds relieves, As caterwauling
of wild cats frights thieves. But Rabelais was another thing, a man
Made up of all that art and nature can Form from a fiery genius,--he
was one Whose soul so universally was thrown Through all the arts of
life, who understood Each stratagem by which we stray from good; So
that he best might solid virtue teach, As some 'gainst sins of their own
bosoms preach: He from wise choice did the true means prefer, In the
fool's coat acting th' philosopher. Thus hoary Aesop's beasts did mildly
tame Fierce man, and moralize him into shame; Thus brave romances,
while they seem to lay Great trains of lust, platonic love display; Thus
would old Sparta, if a seldom chance Show'd a drunk slave, teach
children temperance; Thus did the later poets nobly bring The scene to
height, making the fool the king. And, noble sir, you vigorously have
trod In this hard path, unknown, un-understood By its own countrymen,
'tis you appear Our full enjoyment which was our despair, Scattering
his mists, cheering his cynic frowns (For radiant brightness now dark
Rabelais crowns), Leaving your brave heroic cares, which must Make
better mankind and embalm your dust, So undeceiving us, that now we
see All wit in Gascon and in Cromarty, Besides that Rabelais is
convey'd to us, And that our Scotland is not barbarous.
J. De la Salle.
Rablophila.
The First Decade.
The Commendation.
Musa! canas nostrorum in testimonium Amorum, Et Gargantueas
perpetuato faces, Utque homini tali resultet nobilis Eccho: Quicquid
Fama canit, Pantagruelis erit.
The Argument.
Here I intend mysteriously to sing With a pen pluck'd from Fame's own
wing, Of Gargantua that learn'd breech-wiping king.
Decade the First.
I.
Help me, propitious stars; a mighty blaze Benumbs me! I must sound
the praise Of him hath turn'd this crabbed work in such heroic phrase.
II.
What wit would not court martyrdom to hold Upon his head a laurel of
gold, Where for each rich conceit a Pumpion-pearl is told:
III.
And such a one is this, art's masterpiece, A thing ne'er equall'd by old
Greece: A thing ne'er match'd as yet, a real Golden Fleece.
IV.
Vice is a soldier fights against mankind; Which you may look but never
find: For 'tis an envious thing, with cunning interlined.
V.
And thus he rails at drinking all before 'em, And for lewd women does
be-whore 'em, And brings their painted faces and black patches to th'
quorum.
VI.
To drink he was a furious enemy Contented with a six-penny-- (with
diamond hatband, silver spurs, six horses.) pie--
VII.
And for tobacco's pate-rotunding smoke, Much had he said, and much
more spoke, But 'twas not then found out, so the design was broke.
VIII.
Muse! Fancy! Faith! come now arise aloud, Assembled in a blue-vein'd
cloud, And this tall infant in angelic arms now shroud.
IX.
To praise it further I would now begin Were 't now a thoroughfare and
inn, It harbours vice, though 't be to catch it in a gin.
X.
Therefore, my Muse, draw up thy flowing sail, And acclamate a gentle
hail With all thy art and metaphors, which must prevail.
Jam prima Oceani pars est praeterita nostri. Imparibus restat danda
secunda modis. Quam si praestiterit mentem Daemon malus addam,
Cum sapiens totus prodierit Rabelais.
Malevolus.
(Reader, the Errata, which in this book are not a few, are casually lost;
and therefore the Translator, not having leisure to collect them again,
craves thy pardon for such as thou may'st meet with.)
The Author's Prologue to the First Book.
Most noble and illustrious drinkers, and you thrice precious pockified
blades (for to you, and none else, do I dedicate my writings),
Alcibiades, in that dialogue of Plato's, which is entitled The Banquet,
whilst he was setting forth the praises of his schoolmaster Socrates
(without all question the prince of philosophers), amongst other
discourses to that purpose, said that he resembled the Silenes. Silenes
of old were little boxes, like those we now may see in the shops of
apothecaries, painted on the outside with wanton toyish figures, as
harpies, satyrs, bridled geese, horned hares, saddled ducks, flying goats,
thiller harts, and other such- like counterfeited pictures at discretion, to
excite people unto laughter, as Silenus himself, who was the
foster-father of good Bacchus, was wont to do; but within those
capricious caskets were carefully preserved and kept many rich jewels
and fine drugs, such as balm, ambergris, amomon, musk, civet, with
several kinds of precious stones, and other things of great price. Just
such another thing was Socrates. For to have eyed his outside, and
esteemed of him by his exterior appearance, you would not have given
the peel of an onion for him, so deformed he was in body, and
ridiculous in his gesture. He had a sharp pointed nose, with the look of
a bull, and countenance of a fool: he was in his carriage simple, boorish
in his apparel, in fortune poor, unhappy in his wives, unfit for all
offices in the commonwealth, always laughing, tippling, and merrily
carousing to everyone, with continual gibes and jeers, the better by
those means to conceal his divine knowledge. Now, opening this box
you would have found within it a heavenly and inestimable drug, a
more than human understanding, an admirable virtue, matchless
learning, invincible courage, unimitable sobriety, certain contentment
of mind, perfect assurance, and an incredible misregard of all that for
which men commonly do so much watch, run, sail, fight, travel, toil
and turmoil themselves.
Whereunto (in your opinion) doth this little flourish of a preamble tend?
For so much as you, my good disciples, and some other jolly fools of
ease and leisure, reading the pleasant titles of some books of our
invention, as Gargantua, Pantagruel, Whippot (Fessepinte.), the Dignity
of Codpieces, of Pease and Bacon with a Commentary, &c., are too
ready to judge that there is nothing in them but jests, mockeries,
lascivious discourse, and recreative lies; because the outside (which is
the title) is usually, without any farther inquiry, entertained with
scoffing and derision. But truly it is very unbeseeming to make so
slight account of the works of men, seeing yourselves avouch that it is
not the habit makes the monk, many being monasterially accoutred,
who inwardly are nothing less than monachal, and that there are of
those that wear Spanish capes, who have but little of the valour of
Spaniards in them. Therefore is it, that you must open the book, and
seriously consider of the matter treated in it. Then shall you find that it
containeth things of far higher value than the box did promise; that is to
say, that the subject thereof is not so foolish as by the title at the first
sight it would appear to be.
And put the case, that in the literal sense you meet with purposes merry
and solacious enough, and consequently very correspondent to their
inscriptions, yet must not you stop there as at the melody of the
charming syrens, but endeavour to interpret that in a sublimer sense
which possibly you intended to have spoken in the jollity of your heart.
Did you ever pick the lock of a cupboard to steal a bottle of wine out of
it? Tell me truly, and, if you did, call to mind the countenance which
then you had. Or, did you ever see a dog with a marrowbone in his
mouth,--the beast of all other, says Plato, lib. 2, de Republica, the most
philosophical? If you have seen him, you might have remarked with
what devotion and circumspectness he wards and watcheth it: with
what care he keeps it: how fervently he holds it: how prudently he
gobbets it: with what affection he breaks it: and with what diligence he
sucks it. To what end all this? What moveth him to take all these pains?
What are the hopes of his labour? What doth he expect to reap thereby?
Nothing but a little marrow. True it is, that this little is more savoury
and delicious than the great quantities of other sorts of meat, because
the marrow (as Galen testifieth, 5. facult. nat. & 11. de usu partium) is
a nourishment most perfectly elaboured by nature.
In imitation of this dog, it becomes you to be wise, to smell, feel and
have in estimation these fair goodly books, stuffed with high
conceptions, which, though seemingly easy in the pursuit, are in the
cope and encounter somewhat difficult. And then, like him, you must,
by a sedulous lecture, and frequent meditation, break the bone, and
suck out the marrow,--that is, my allegorical sense, or the things I to
myself propose to be signified by these Pythagorical symbols, with
assured hope, that in so doing you will at last attain to be both
well-advised and valiant by the reading of them: for in the perusal of
this treatise you shall find another kind of taste, and a doctrine of a
more profound and abstruse consideration, which will disclose unto
you the most glorious sacraments and dreadful mysteries, as well in
what concerneth your religion, as matters of the public state, and life
economical.
Do you believe, upon your conscience, that Homer, whilst he was
a-couching his Iliads and Odysses, had any thought upon those
allegories, which Plutarch, Heraclides Ponticus, Eustathius, Cornutus
squeezed out of him, and which Politian filched again from them? If
you trust it, with neither hand nor foot do you come near to my opinion,
which judgeth them to have been as little dreamed of by Homer, as the
Gospel sacraments were by Ovid in his Metamorphoses, though a
certain gulligut friar (Frere Lubin croquelardon.) and true bacon-picker
would have undertaken to prove it, if perhaps he had met with as very
fools as himself, (and as the proverb says) a lid worthy of such a kettle.
If you give no credit thereto, why do not you the same in these jovial
new chronicles of mine? Albeit when I did dictate them, I thought upon
no more than you, who possibly were drinking the whilst as I was. For
in the composing of this lordly book, I never lost nor bestowed any
more, nor any other time than what was appointed to serve me for
taking of my bodily refection, that is, whilst I was eating and drinking.
And indeed that is the fittest and most proper hour wherein to write
these high matters and deep sciences: as Homer knew very well, the
paragon of all philologues, and Ennius, the father of the Latin poets, as
Horace calls him, although a certain sneaking jobernol alleged that his
verses smelled more of the wine than oil.
So saith a turlupin or a new start-up grub of my books, but a turd for
him. The fragrant odour of the wine, O how much more dainty,
pleasant, laughing (Riant, priant, friant.), celestial and delicious it is,
than that smell of oil! And I will glory as much when it is said of me,
that I have spent more on wine than oil, as did Demosthenes, when it
was told him, that his expense on oil was greater than on wine. I truly
hold it for an honour and praise to be called and reputed a Frolic
Gualter and a Robin Goodfellow; for under this name am I welcome in
all choice companies of Pantagruelists. It was upbraided to
Demosthenes by an envious surly knave, that his Orations did smell
like the sarpler or wrapper of a foul and filthy oil- vessel. For this cause
interpret you all my deeds and sayings in the perfectest sense;
reverence the cheese-like brain that feeds you with these fair
billevezees and trifling jollities, and do what lies in you to keep me
always merry. Be frolic now, my lads, cheer up your hearts, and
joyfully read the rest, with all the ease of your body and profit of your
reins. But hearken, joltheads, you viedazes, or dickens take ye,
remember to drink a health to me for the like favour again, and I will
pledge you instantly, Tout ares-metys.
Rabelais to the Reader.
Good friends, my Readers, who peruse this Book, Be not offended,
whilst on it you look: Denude yourselves of all depraved affection, For
it contains no badness, nor infection: 'Tis true that it brings forth to you
no birth Of any value, but in point of mirth; Thinking therefore how
sorrow might your mind Consume, I could no apter subject find; One
inch of joy surmounts of grief a span; Because to laugh is proper to the
man.
Chapter 1.
I.
Of the Genealogy and Antiquity of Gargantua.
I must refer you to the great chronicle of Pantagruel for the knowledge
of that genealogy and antiquity of race by which Gargantua is come
unto us. In it you may understand more at large how the giants were
born in this world, and how from them by a direct line issued
Gargantua, the father of Pantagruel: and do not take it ill, if for this
time I pass by it, although the subject be such, that the oftener it were
remembered, the more it would please your worshipful Seniorias;
according to which you have the authority of Plato in Philebo and
Gorgias; and of Flaccus, who says that there are some kinds of
purposes (such as these are without doubt), which, the frequentlier they
be repeated, still prove the more delectable.
Would to God everyone had as certain knowledge of his genealogy
since the time of the ark of Noah until this age. I think many are at this
day emperors, kings, dukes, princes, and popes on the earth, whose
extraction is from some porters and pardon-pedlars; as, on the contrary,
many are now poor wandering beggars, wretched and miserable, who
are descended of the blood and lineage of great kings and emperors,
occasioned, as I conceive it, by the transport and revolution of
kingdoms and empires, from the Assyrians to the Medes, from the
Medes to the Persians, from the Persians to the Macedonians, from the
Macedonians to the Romans, from the Romans to the Greeks, from the
Greeks to the French.
And to give you some hint concerning myself, who speaks unto you, I
cannot think but I am come of the race of some rich king or prince in
former times; for never yet saw you any man that had a greater desire
to be a king, and to be rich, than I have, and that only that I may make
good cheer, do nothing, nor care for anything, and plentifully enrich my
friends, and all honest and learned men. But herein do I comfort myself,
that in the other world I shall be so, yea and greater too than at this
present I dare wish. As for you, with the same or a better conceit
consolate yourselves in your distresses, and drink fresh if you can come
by it.
To return to our wethers, I say that by the sovereign gift of heaven, the
antiquity and genealogy of Gargantua hath been reserved for our use
more full and perfect than any other except that of the Messias, whereof
I mean not to speak; for it belongs not unto my purpose, and the devils,
that is to say, the false accusers and dissembled gospellers, will therein
oppose me. This genealogy was found by John Andrew in a meadow,
which he had near the pole-arch, under the olive-tree, as you go to
Narsay: where, as he was making cast up some ditches, the diggers
with their mattocks struck against a great brazen tomb, and
unmeasurably long, for they could never find the end thereof, by reason
that it entered too far within the sluices of Vienne. Opening this tomb
in a certain place thereof, sealed on the top with the mark of a goblet,
about which was written in Etrurian letters Hic Bibitur, they found nine
flagons set in such order as they use to rank their kyles in Gascony, of
which that which was placed in the middle had under it a big, fat, great,
grey, pretty, small, mouldy, little pamphlet, smelling stronger, but no
better than roses. In that book the said genealogy was found written all
at length, in a chancery hand, not in paper, not in parchment, nor in
wax, but in the bark of an elm-tree, yet so worn with the long tract of
time, that hardly could three letters together be there perfectly
discerned.
I (though unworthy) was sent for thither, and with much help of those
spectacles, whereby the art of reading dim writings, and letters that do
not clearly appear to the sight, is practised, as Aristotle teacheth it, did
translate the book as you may see in your Pantagruelizing, that is to say,
in drinking stiffly to your own heart's desire, and reading the dreadful
and horrific acts of Pantagruel. At the end of the book there was a little
treatise entitled the Antidoted Fanfreluches, or a Galimatia of
extravagant conceits. The rats and moths, or (that I may not lie) other
wicked beasts, had nibbled off the beginning: the rest I have hereto
subjoined, for the reverence I bear to antiquity.
Chapter 1.
II.
The Antidoted Fanfreluches: or, a Galimatia of extravagant Conceits
found in an ancient Monument.
No sooner did the Cymbrians' overcomer Pass through the air to shun
the dew of summer, But at his coming straight great tubs were fill'd,
With pure fresh butter down in showers distill'd: Wherewith when
water'd was his grandam, Hey, Aloud he cried, Fish it, sir, I pray y';
Because his beard is almost all beray'd; Or, that he would hold to 'm a
scale, he pray'd.
To lick his slipper, some told was much better, Than to gain pardons,
and the merit greater. In th' interim a crafty chuff approaches, From the
depth issued, where they fish for roaches; Who said, Good sirs, some of
them let us save, The eel is here, and in this hollow cave You'll find, if
that our looks on it demur, A great waste in the bottom of his fur.
To read this chapter when he did begin, Nothing but a calf's horns were
found therein; I feel, quoth he, the mitre which doth hold My head so
chill, it makes my brains take cold. Being with the perfume of a turnip
warm'd, To stay by chimney hearths himself he arm'd, Provided that a
new thill-horse they made Of every person of a hair-brain'd head.
They talked of the bunghole of Saint Knowles, Of Gilbathar and
thousand other holes, If they might be reduced t' a scarry stuff, Such as
might not be subject to the cough: Since ev'ry man unseemly did it find,
To see them gaping thus at ev'ry wind: For, if perhaps they handsomely
were closed, For pledges they to men might be exposed.
In this arrest by Hercules the raven Was flayed at her (his) return from
Lybia haven. Why am not I, said Minos, there invited? Unless it be
myself, not one's omitted: And then it is their mind, I do no more Of
frogs and oysters send them any store: In case they spare my life and
prove but civil, I give their sale of distaffs to the devil.
To quell him comes Q.B., who limping frets At the safe pass of tricksy
crackarets: The boulter, the grand Cyclops' cousin, those Did massacre,
whilst each one wiped his nose: Few ingles in this fallow ground are
bred, But on a tanner's mill are winnowed. Run thither all of you, th'
alarms sound clear, You shall have more than you had the last year.
Short while thereafter was the bird of Jove Resolved to speak, though
dismal it should prove; Yet was afraid, when he saw them in ire, They
should o'erthrow quite flat down dead th' empire. He rather choosed the
fire from heaven to steal, To boats where were red herrings put to sale;
Than to be calm 'gainst those, who strive to brave us, And to the
Massorets' fond words enslave us.
All this at last concluded gallantly, In spite of Ate and her hern-like
thigh, Who, sitting, saw Penthesilea ta'en, In her old age, for a
cress-selling quean. Each one cried out, Thou filthy collier toad, Doth it
become thee to be found abroad? Thou hast the Roman standard filch'd
away, Which they in rags of parchment did display.
Juno was born, who, under the rainbow, Was a-bird-catching with her
duck below: When her with such a grievous trick they plied That she
had almost been bethwacked by it. The bargain was, that, of that
throatful, she Should of Proserpina have two eggs free; And if that she
thereafter should be found, She to a hawthorn hill should be fast bound.
Seven months thereafter, lacking twenty-two, He, that of old did
Carthage town undo, Did bravely midst them all himself advance,
Requiring of them his inheritance; Although they justly made up the
division, According to the shoe-welt-law's decision, By distributing
store of brews and beef To these poor fellows that did pen the brief.
But th' year will come, sign of a Turkish bow, Five spindles yarn'd, and
three pot-bottoms too, Wherein of a discourteous king the dock Shall
pepper'd be under an hermit's frock. Ah! that for one she hypocrite you
must Permit so many acres to be lost! Cease, cease, this vizard may
become another, Withdraw yourselves unto the serpent's brother.
'Tis in times past, that he who is shall reign With his good friends in
peace now and again. No rash nor heady prince shall then rule crave,
Each good will its arbitrement shall have; And the joy, promised of old
as doom To the heaven's guests, shall in its beacon come. Then shall
the breeding mares, that benumb'd were, Like royal palfreys ride
triumphant there.
And this continue shall from time to time, Till Mars be fetter'd for an
unknown crime; Then shall one come, who others will surpass,
Delightful, pleasing, matchless, full of grace. Cheer up your hearts,
approach to this repast, All trusty friends of mine; for he's deceased,
Who would not for a world return again, So highly shall time past be
cried up then.
He who was made of wax shall lodge each member Close by the hinges
of a block of timber. We then no more shall Master, master, whoot, The
swagger, who th' alarum bell holds out; Could one seize on the dagger
which he bears, Heads would be free from tingling in the ears, To
baffle the whole storehouse of abuses. The thus farewell Apollo and the
Muses.
Chapter 1.
III.
How Gargantua was carried eleven months in his mother's belly.
Grangousier was a good fellow in his time, and notable jester; he loved
to drink neat, as much as any man that then was in the world, and
would willingly eat salt meat. To this intent he was ordinarily well
furnished with gammons of bacon, both of Westphalia, Mayence and
Bayonne, with store of dried neat's tongues, plenty of links, chitterlings
and puddings in their season; together with salt beef and mustard, a
good deal of hard roes of powdered mullet called botargos, great
provision of sausages, not of Bolonia (for he feared the Lombard
Boccone), but of Bigorre, Longaulnay, Brene, and Rouargue. In the
vigour of his age he married Gargamelle, daughter to the King of the
Parpaillons, a jolly pug, and well-mouthed wench. These two did
oftentimes do the two-backed beast together, joyfully rubbing and
frotting their bacon 'gainst one another, in so far, that at last she became
great with child of a fair son, and went with him unto the eleventh
month; for so long, yea longer, may a woman carry her great belly,
especially when it is some masterpiece of nature, and a person
predestinated to the performance, in his due time, of great exploits. As
Homer says, that the child, which Neptune begot upon the nymph, was
born a whole year after the conception, that is, in the twelfth month.
For, as Aulus Gellius saith, lib. 3, this long time was suitable to the
majesty of Neptune, that in it the child might receive his perfect form.
For the like reason Jupiter made the night, wherein he lay with
Alcmena, last forty- eight hours, a shorter time not being sufficient for
the forging of Hercules, who cleansed the world of the monsters and
tyrants wherewith it was suppressed. My masters, the ancient
Pantagruelists, have confirmed that which I say, and withal declared it
to be not only possible, but also maintained the lawful birth and
legitimation of the infant born of a woman in the eleventh month after
the decease of her husband. Hypocrates, lib. de alimento. Plinius, lib. 7,
cap. 5. Plautus, in his Cistelleria. Marcus Varro, in his satire inscribed
The Testament, alleging to this purpose the authority of Aristotle.
Censorinus, lib. de die natali. Arist. lib. 7, cap. 3 & 4, de natura
animalium. Gellius, lib. 3, cap. 16. Servius, in his exposition upon this
verse of Virgil's eclogues, Matri longa decem, &c., and a thousand
other fools, whose number hath been increased by the lawyers ff. de
suis, et legit l. intestato. paragrapho. fin. and in Auth. de restitut. et ea
quae parit in xi mense. Moreover upon these grounds they have foisted
in their Robidilardic, or Lapiturolive law. Gallus ff. de lib. et posth. l.
sept. ff. de stat. hom., and some other laws, which at this time I dare
not name. By means whereof the honest widows may without danger
play at the close buttock game with might and main, and as hard as
they can, for the space of the first two months after the decease of their
husbands. I pray you, my good lusty springal lads, if you find any of
these females, that are worth the pains of untying the codpiece-point,
get up, ride upon them, and bring them to me; for, if they happen
within the third month to conceive, the child should be heir to the
deceased, if, before he died, he had no other children, and the mother
shall pass for an honest woman.
When she is known to have conceived, thrust forward boldly, spare her
not, whatever betide you, seeing the paunch is full. As Julia, the
daughter of the Emperor Octavian, never prostituted herself to her
belly-bumpers, but when she found herself with child, after the manner
of ships, that receive not their steersman till they have their ballast and
lading. And if any blame them for this their rataconniculation, and
reiterated lechery upon their pregnancy and big-belliedness, seeing
beasts, in the like exigent of their fulness, will never suffer the
male-masculant to encroach them, their answer will be, that those are
beasts, but they are women, very well skilled in the pretty vales and
small fees of the pleasant trade and mysteries of superfetation: as
Populia heretofore answered, according to the relation of Macrobius,
lib. 2. Saturnal. If the devil will not have them to bag, he must wring
hard the spigot, and stop the bung-hole.
Chapter 1.
IV.
How Gargamelle, being great with Gargantua, did eat a huge deal of
tripes.
The occasion and manner how Gargamelle was brought to bed, and
delivered of her child, was thus: and, if you do not believe it, I wish
your bum-gut fall out and make an escapade. Her bum-gut, indeed, or
fundament escaped her in an afternoon, on the third day of February,
with having eaten at dinner too many godebillios. Godebillios are the
fat tripes of coiros. Coiros are beeves fattened at the cratch in ox-stalls,
or in the fresh guimo meadows. Guimo meadows are those that for
their fruitfulness may be mowed twice a year. Of those fat beeves they
had killed three hundred sixty-seven thousand and fourteen, to be salted
at Shrovetide, that in the entering of the spring they might have plenty
of powdered beef, wherewith to season their mouths at the beginning of
their meals, and to taste their wine the better.
They had abundance of tripes, as you have heard, and they were so
delicious, that everyone licked his fingers. But the mischief was this,
that, for all men could do, there was no possibility to keep them long in
that relish; for in a very short while they would have stunk, which had
been an undecent thing. It was therefore concluded, that they should be
all of them gulched up, without losing anything. To this effect they
invited all the burghers of Sainais, of Suille, of the Roche-Clermaud, of
Vaugaudry, without omitting the Coudray, Monpensier, the Gue de
Vede, and other their neighbours, all stiff drinkers, brave fellows, and
good players at the kyles. The good man Grangousier took great
pleasure in their company, and commanded there should be no want
nor pinching for anything. Nevertheless he bade his wife eat sparingly,
because she was near her time, and that these tripes were no very
commendable meat. They would fain, said he, be at the chewing of
ordure, that would eat the case wherein it was. Notwithstanding these
admonitions, she did eat sixteen quarters, two bushels, three pecks and
a pipkin full. O the fair fecality wherewith she swelled, by the
ingrediency of such shitten stuff!
After dinner they all went out in a hurl to the grove of the willows,
where, on the green grass, to the sound of the merry flutes and pleasant
bagpipes, they danced so gallantly, that it was a sweet and heavenly
sport to see them so frolic.
Chapter 1.
V.
The Discourse of the Drinkers.
Then did they fall upon the chat of victuals and some belly furniture to
be snatched at in the very same place. Which purpose was no sooner
mentioned, but forthwith began flagons to go, gammons to trot, goblets
to fly, great bowls to ting, glasses to ring. Draw, reach, fill, mix, give it
me without water. So, my friend, so, whip me off this glass neatly,
bring me hither some claret, a full weeping glass till it run over. A
cessation and truce with thirst. Ha, thou false fever, wilt thou not be
gone? By my figgins, godmother, I cannot as yet enter in the humour of
being merry, nor drink so currently as I would. You have catched a cold,
gammer? Yea, forsooth, sir. By the belly of Sanct Buff, let us talk of
our drink: I never drink but at my hours, like the Pope's mule. And I
never drink but in my breviary, like a fair father guardian. Which was
first, thirst or drinking? Thirst, for who in the time of innocence would
have drunk without being athirst? Nay, sir, it was drinking; for privatio
praesupponit habitum. I am learned, you see: Foecundi calices quem
non fecere disertum? We poor innocents drink but too much without
thirst. Not I truly, who am a sinner, for I never drink without thirst,
either present or future. To prevent it, as you know, I drink for the thirst
to come. I drink eternally. This is to me an eternity of drinking, and
drinking of eternity. Let us sing, let us drink, and tune up our
roundelays. Where is my funnel? What, it seems I do not drink but by
an attorney? Do you wet yourselves to dry, or do you dry to wet you?
Pish, I understand not the rhetoric (theoric, I should say), but I help
myself somewhat by the practice. Baste! enough! I sup, I wet, I humect,
I moisten my gullet, I drink, and all for fear of dying. Drink always and
you shall never die. If I drink not, I am a-ground, dry, gravelled and
spent. I am stark dead without drink, and my soul ready to fly into
some marsh amongst frogs; the soul never dwells in a dry place, drouth
kills it. O you butlers, creators of new forms, make me of no drinker a
drinker, a perennity and everlastingness of sprinkling and bedewing me
through these my parched and sinewy bowels. He drinks in vain that
feels not the pleasure of it. This entereth into my veins,--the pissing
tools and urinal vessels shall have nothing of it. I would willingly wash
the tripes of the calf which I apparelled this morning. I have pretty well
now ballasted my stomach and stuffed my paunch. If the papers of my
bonds and bills could drink as well as I do, my creditors would not
want for wine when they come to see me, or when they are to make any
formal exhibition of their rights to what of me they can demand. This
hand of yours spoils your nose. O how many other such will enter here
before this go out! What, drink so shallow? It is enough to break both
girds and petrel. This is called a cup of dissimulation, or flagonal
hypocrisy.
What difference is there between a bottle and a flagon. Great difference;
for the bottle is stopped and shut up with a stopple, but the flagon with
a vice (La bouteille est fermee a bouchon, et le flaccon a vis.). Bravely
and well played upon the words! Our fathers drank lustily, and emptied
their cans. Well cacked, well sung! Come, let us drink: will you send
nothing to the river? Here is one going to wash the tripes. I drink no
more than a sponge. I drink like a Templar knight. And I, tanquam
sponsus. And I, sicut terra sine aqua. Give me a synonymon for a
gammon of bacon. It is the compulsory of drinkers: it is a pulley. By a
pulley- rope wine is let down into a cellar, and by a gammon into the
stomach. Hey! now, boys, hither, some drink, some drink. There is no
trouble in it. Respice personam, pone pro duos, bus non est in usu. If I
could get up as well as I can swallow down, I had been long ere now
very high in the air.
Thus became Tom Tosspot rich,--thus went in the tailor's stitch. Thus
did Bacchus conquer th' Inde--thus Philosophy, Melinde. A little rain
allays a great deal of wind: long tippling breaks the thunder. But if
there came such liquor from my ballock, would you not willingly
thereafter suck the udder whence it issued? Here, page, fill! I prithee,
forget me not when it comes to my turn, and I will enter the election I
have made of thee into the very register of my heart. Sup, Guillot, and
spare not, there is somewhat in the pot. I appeal from thirst, and
disclaim its jurisdiction. Page, sue out my appeal in form. This remnant
in the bottom of the glass must follow its leader. I was wont heretofore
to drink out all, but now I leave nothing. Let us not make too much
haste; it is requisite we carry all along with us. Heyday, here are tripes
fit for our sport, and, in earnest, excellent godebillios of the dun ox
(you know) with the black streak. O, for God's sake, let us lash them
soundly, yet thriftily. Drink, or I will,--No, no, drink, I beseech you
(Ou je vous, je vous prie.). Sparrows will not eat unless you bob them
on the tail, nor can I drink if I be not fairly spoke to. The concavities of
my body are like another Hell for their capacity. Lagonaedatera (lagon
lateris cavitas: aides orcus: and eteros alter.). There is not a corner, nor
coney-burrow in all my body, where this wine doth not ferret out my
thirst. Ho, this will bang it soundly. But this shall banish it utterly. Let
us wind our horns by the sound of flagons and bottles, and cry aloud,
that whoever hath lost his thirst come not hither to seek it. Long
clysters of drinking are to be voided without doors. The great God
made the planets, and we make the platters neat. I have the word of the
gospel in my mouth, Sitio. The stone called asbestos is not more
unquenchable than the thirst of my paternity. Appetite comes with
eating, says Angeston, but the thirst goes away with drinking. I have a
remedy against thirst, quite contrary to that which is good against the
biting of a mad dog. Keep running after a dog, and he will never bite
you; drink always before the thirst, and it will never come upon you.
There I catch you, I awake you. Argus had a hundred eyes for his sight,
a butler should have (like Briareus) a hundred hands wherewith to fill
us wine indefatigably. Hey now, lads, let us moisten ourselves, it will
be time to dry hereafter. White wine here, wine, boys! Pour out all in
the name of Lucifer, fill here, you, fill and fill (peascods on you) till it
be full. My tongue peels. Lans trinque; to thee, countryman, I drink to
thee, good fellow, comrade to thee, lusty, lively! Ha, la, la, that was
drunk to some purpose, and bravely gulped over. O lachryma Christi, it
is of the best grape! I'faith, pure Greek, Greek! O the fine white wine!
upon my conscience, it is a kind of taffetas wine,--hin, hin, it is of one
ear, well wrought, and of good wool. Courage, comrade, up thy heart,
billy! We will not be beasted at this bout, for I have got one trick. Ex
hoc in hoc. There is no enchantment nor charm there, every one of you
hath seen it. My 'prenticeship is out, I am a free man at this trade. I am
prester mast (Prestre mace, maistre passe.), Prish, Brum! I should say,
master past. O the drinkers, those that are a-dry, O poor thirsty souls!
Good page, my friend, fill me here some, and crown the wine, I pray
thee. Like a cardinal! Natura abhorret vacuum. Would you say that a
fly could drink in this? This is after the fashion of Switzerland. Clear
off, neat, supernaculum! Come, therefore, blades, to this divine liquor
and celestial juice, swill it over heartily, and spare not! It is a decoction
of nectar and ambrosia.
Chapter 1.
VI.
How Gargantua was born in a strange manner.
Whilst they were on this discourse and pleasant tattle of drinking,
Gargamelle began to be a little unwell in her lower parts; whereupon
Grangousier arose from off the grass, and fell to comfort her very
honestly and kindly, suspecting that she was in travail, and told her that
it was best for her to sit down upon the grass under the willows,
because she was like very shortly to see young feet, and that therefore it
was convenient she should pluck up her spirits, and take a good heart of
new at the fresh arrival of her baby; saying to her withal, that although
the pain was somewhat grievous to her, it would be but of short
continuance, and that the succeeding joy would quickly remove that
sorrow, in such sort that she should not so much as remember it. On,
with a sheep's courage! quoth he. Despatch this boy, and we will
speedily fall to work for the making of another. Ha! said she, so well as
you speak at your own ease, you that are men! Well, then, in the name
of God, I'll do my best, seeing that you will have it so, but would to
God that it were cut off from you! What? said Grangousier. Ha, said
she, you are a good man indeed, you understand it well enough. What,
my member? said he. By the goat's blood, if it please you, that shall be
done instantly; cause bring hither a knife. Alas, said she, the Lord
forbid, and pray Jesus to forgive me! I did not say it from my heart,
therefore let it alone, and do not do it neither more nor less any kind of
harm for my speaking so to you. But I am like to have work enough to
do to-day and all for your member, yet God bless you and it.
Courage, courage, said he, take you no care of the matter, let the four
foremost oxen do the work. I will yet go drink one whiff more, and if in
the mean time anything befall you that may require my presence, I will
be so near to you, that, at the first whistling in your fist, I shall be with
you forthwith. A little while after she began to groan, lament and cry.
Then suddenly came the midwives from all quarters, who groping her
below, found some peloderies, which was a certain filthy stuff, and of a
taste truly bad enough. This they thought had been the child, but it was
her fundament, that was slipped out with the mollification of her
straight entrail, which you call the bum-gut, and that merely by eating
of too many tripes, as we have showed you before. Whereupon an old
ugly trot in the company, who had the repute of an expert she-physician,
and was come from Brisepaille, near to Saint Genou, three score years
before, made her so horrible a restrictive and binding medicine, and
whereby all her larris, arse-pipes, and conduits were so oppilated,
stopped, obstructed, and contracted, that you could hardly have opened
and enlarged them with your teeth, which is a terrible thing to think
upon; seeing the Devil at the mass at Saint Martin's was puzzled with
the like task, when with his teeth he had lengthened out the parchment
whereon he wrote the tittle-tattle of two young mangy whores. By this
inconvenient the cotyledons of her matrix were presently loosed,
through which the child sprang up and leaped, and so, entering into the
hollow vein, did climb by the diaphragm even above her shoulders,
where the vein divides itself into two, and from thence taking his way
towards the left side, issued forth at her left ear. As soon as he was born,
he cried not as other babes use to do, Miez, miez, miez, miez, but with
a high, sturdy, and big voice shouted about, Some drink, some drink,
some drink, as inviting all the world to drink with him. The noise
hereof was so extremely great, that it was heard in both the countries at
once of Beauce and Bibarois. I doubt me, that you do not thoroughly
believe the truth of this strange nativity. Though you believe it not, I
care not much: but an honest man, and of good judgment, believeth still
what is told him, and that which he finds written.
Is this beyond our law or our faith--against reason or the holy Scripture?
For my part, I find nothing in the sacred Bible that is against it. But tell
me, if it had been the will of God, would you say that he could not do it?
Ha, for favour sake, I beseech you, never emberlucock or inpulregafize
your spirits with these vain thoughts and idle conceits; for I tell you, it
is not impossible with God, and, if he pleased, all women henceforth
should bring forth their children at the ear. Was not Bacchus
engendered out of the very thigh of Jupiter? Did not Roquetaillade
come out at his mother's heel, and Crocmoush from the slipper of his
nurse? Was not Minerva born of the brain, even through the ear of Jove?
Adonis, of the bark of a myrrh tree; and Castor and Pollux of the doupe
of that egg which was laid and hatched by Leda? But you would
wonder more, and with far greater amazement, if I should now present
you with that chapter of Plinius, wherein he treateth of strange births,
and contrary to nature, and yet am not I so impudent a liar as he was.
Read the seventh book of his Natural History, chap.3, and trouble not
my head any more about this.
Chapter 1.
VII.
After what manner Gargantua had his name given him, and how he
tippled, bibbed, and curried the can.
The good man Grangousier, drinking and making merry with the rest,
heard the horrible noise which his son had made as he entered into the
light of this world, when he cried out, Some drink, some drink, some
drink; whereupon he said in French, Que grand tu as et souple le
gousier! that is to say, How great and nimble a throat thou hast. Which
the company hearing, said that verily the child ought to be called
Gargantua; because it was the first word that after his birth his father
had spoke, in imitation, and at the example of the ancient Hebrews;
whereunto he condescended, and his mother was very well pleased
therewith. In the meanwhile, to quiet the child, they gave him to drink a
tirelaregot, that is, till his throat was like to crack with it; then was he
carried to the font, and there baptized, according to the manner of good
Christians.
Immediately thereafter were appointed for him seventeen thousand,
nine hundred, and thirteen cows of the towns of Pautille and
Brehemond, to furnish him with milk in ordinary, for it was impossible
to find a nurse sufficient for him in all the country, considering the
great quantity of milk that was requisite for his nourishment; although
there were not wanting some doctors of the opinion of Scotus, who
affirmed that his own mother gave him suck, and that she could draw
out of her breasts one thousand, four hundred, two pipes, and nine pails
of milk at every time.
Which indeed is not probable, and this point hath been found duggishly
scandalous and offensive to tender ears, for that it savoured a little of
heresy. Thus was he handled for one year and ten months; after which
time, by the advice of physicians, they began to carry him, and then
was made for him a fine little cart drawn with oxen, of the invention of
Jan Denio, wherein they led him hither and thither with great joy; and
he was worth the seeing, for he was a fine boy, had a burly
physiognomy, and almost ten chins. He cried very little, but beshit
himself every hour: for, to speak truly of him, he was wonderfully
phlegmatic in his posteriors, both by reason of his natural complexion
and the accidental disposition which had befallen him by his too much
quaffing of the Septembral juice. Yet without a cause did not he sup
one drop; for if he happened to be vexed, angry, displeased, or sorry, if
he did fret, if he did weep, if he did cry, and what grievous quarter
soever he kept, in bringing him some drink, he would be instantly
pacified, reseated in his own temper, in a good humour again, and as
still and quiet as ever. One of his governesses told me (swearing by her
fig), how he was so accustomed to this kind of way, that, at the sound
of pints and flagons, he would on a sudden fall into an ecstasy, as if he
had then tasted of the joys of paradise; so that they, upon consideration
of this, his divine complexion, would every morning, to cheer him up,
play with a knife upon the glasses, on the bottles with their stopples,
and on the pottle-pots with their lids and covers, at the sound whereof
he became gay, did leap for joy, would loll and rock himself in the
cradle, then nod with his head, monochordizing with his fingers, and
barytonizing with his tail.
Chapter 1.
VIII.
How they apparelled Gargantua.
Being of this age, his father ordained to have clothes made to him in his
own livery, which was white and blue. To work then went the tailors,
and with great expedition were those clothes made, cut, and sewed,
according to the fashion that was then in request. I find by the ancient
records or pancarts, to be seen in the chamber of accounts, or court of
the exchequer at Montsoreau, that he was accoutred in manner as
followeth. To make him every shirt of his were taken up nine hundred
ells of Chasteleraud linen, and two hundred for the gussets, in manner
of cushions, which they put under his armpits. His shirt was not
gathered nor plaited, for the plaiting of shirts was not found out till the
seamstresses (when the point of their needle (Besongner du cul,
Englished The eye of the needle.) was broken) began to work and
occupy with the tail. There were taken up for his doublet, eight hundred
and thirteen ells of white satin, and for his points fifteen hundred and
nine dogs' skins and a half. Then was it that men began to tie their
breeches to their doublets, and not their doublets to their breeches: for
it is against nature, as hath most amply been showed by Ockham upon
the exponibles of Master Haultechaussade.
For his breeches were taken up eleven hundred and five ells and a third
of white broadcloth. They were cut in the form of pillars, chamfered,
channelled and pinked behind that they might not over-heat his reins:
and were, within the panes, puffed out with the lining of as much blue
damask as was needful: and remark, that he had very good leg-harness,
proportionable to the rest of his stature.
For his codpiece were used sixteen ells and a quarter of the same cloth,
and it was fashioned on the top like unto a triumphant arch, most
gallantly fastened with two enamelled clasps, in each of which was set
a great emerald, as big as an orange; for, as says Orpheus, lib. de
lapidibus, and Plinius, libro ultimo, it hath an erective virtue and
comfortative of the natural member. The exiture, outjecting or
outstanding, of his codpiece was of the length of a yard, jagged and
pinked, and withal bagging, and strutting out with the blue damask
lining, after the manner of his breeches. But had you seen the fair
embroidery of the small needlework purl, and the curiously interlaced
knots, by the goldsmith's art set out and trimmed with rich diamonds,
precious rubies, fine turquoises, costly emeralds, and Persian pearls,
you would have compared it to a fair cornucopia, or horn of abundance,
such as you see in antiques, or as Rhea gave to the two nymphs,
Amalthea and Ida, the nurses of Jupiter.
And, like to that horn of abundance, it was still gallant, succulent,
droppy, sappy, pithy, lively, always flourishing, always fructifying, full
of juice, full of flower, full of fruit, and all manner of delight. I avow
God, it would have done one good to have seen him, but I will tell you
more of him in the book which I have made of the dignity of codpieces.
One thing I will tell you, that as it was both long and large, so was it
well furnished and victualled within, nothing like unto the hypocritical
codpieces of some fond wooers and wench-courtiers, which are stuffed
only with wind, to the great prejudice of the female sex.
For his shoes were taken up four hundred and six ells of blue crimson-
velvet, and were very neatly cut by parallel lines, joined in uniform
cylinders. For the soling of them were made use of eleven hundred
hides of brown cows, shapen like the tail of a keeling.
For his coat were taken up eighteen hundred ells of blue velvet, dyed in
grain, embroidered in its borders with fair gilliflowers, in the middle
decked with silver purl, intermixed with plates of gold and store of
pearls, hereby showing that in his time he would prove an especial
good fellow and singular whipcan.
His girdle was made of three hundred ells and a half of silken serge,
half white and half blue, if I mistake it not. His sword was not of
Valentia, nor his dagger of Saragossa, for his father could not endure
these hidalgos borrachos maranisados como diablos: but he had a fair
sword made of wood, and the dagger of boiled leather, as well painted
and gilded as any man could wish.
His purse was made of the cod of an elephant, which was given him by
Herr Pracontal, proconsul of Lybia.
For his gown were employed nine thousand six hundred ells, wanting
two- thirds, of blue velvet, as before, all so diagonally purled, that by
true perspective issued thence an unnamed colour, like that you see in
the necks of turtle-doves or turkey-cocks, which wonderfully rejoiced
the eyes of the beholders. For his bonnet or cap were taken up three
hundred, two ells and a quarter of white velvet, and the form thereof
was wide and round, of the bigness of his head; for his father said that
the caps of the Marrabaise fashion, made like the cover of a pasty,
would one time or other bring a mischief on those that wore them. For
his plume, he wore a fair great blue feather, plucked from an onocrotal
of the country of Hircania the wild, very prettily hanging down over his
right ear. For the jewel or brooch which in his cap he carried, he had in
a cake of gold, weighing three score and eight marks, a fair piece
enamelled, wherein was portrayed a man's body with two heads,
looking towards one another, four arms, four feet, two arses, such as
Plato, in Symposio, says was the mystical beginning of man's nature;
and about it was written in Ionic letters, Agame ou zetei ta eautes, or
rather, Aner kai gune zugada anthrotos idiaitata, that is, Vir et mulier
junctim propriissime homo. To wear about his neck, he had a golden
chain, weighing twenty-five thousand and sixty-three marks of gold,
the links thereof being made after the manner of great berries, amongst
which were set in work green jaspers engraven and cut dragon-like, all
environed with beams and sparks, as king Nicepsos of old was wont to
wear them: and it reached down to the very bust of the rising of his
belly, whereby he reaped great benefit all his life long, as the Greek
physicians know well enough. For his gloves were put in work sixteen
otters' skins, and three of the loupgarous, or men-eating wolves, for the
bordering of them: and of this stuff were they made, by the
appointment of the Cabalists of Sanlouand. As for the rings which his
father would have him to wear, to renew the ancient mark of nobility,
he had on the forefinger of his left hand a carbuncle as big as an
ostrich's egg, enchased very daintily in gold of the fineness of a Turkey
seraph. Upon the middle finger of the same hand he had a ring made of
four metals together, of the strangest fashion that ever was seen; so that
the steel did not crash against the gold, nor the silver crush the copper.
All this was made by Captain Chappuys, and Alcofribas his good agent.
On the medical finger of his right hand he had a ring made spire-wise,
wherein was set a perfect Balas ruby, a pointed diamond, and a Physon
emerald, of an inestimable value. For Hans Carvel, the king of
Melinda's jeweller, esteemed them at the rate of threescore nine
millions, eight hundred ninety-four thousand, and eighteen French
crowns of Berry, and at so much did the Foucres of Augsburg prize
them.
Chapter 1.
IX.
The colours and liveries of Gargantua.
Gargantua's colours were white and blue, as I have showed you before,
by which his father would give us to understand that his son to him was
a heavenly joy; for the white did signify gladness, pleasure, delight, and
rejoicing, and the blue, celestial things. I know well enough that, in
reading this, you laugh at the old drinker, and hold this exposition of
colours to be very extravagant, and utterly disagreeable to reason,
because white is said to signify faith, and blue constancy. But without
moving, vexing, heating, or putting you in a chafe (for the weather is
dangerous), answer me, if it please you; for no other compulsory way
of arguing will I use towards you, or any else; only now and then I will
mention a word or two of my bottle. What is it that induceth you, what
stirs you up to believe, or who told you that white signifieth faith, and
blue constancy? An old paltry book, say you, sold by the hawking
pedlars and balladmongers, entitled The Blason of Colours. Who made
it? Whoever it was, he was wise in that he did not set his name to it.
But, besides, I know not what I should rather admire in him, his
presumption or his sottishness. His presumption and overweening, for
that he should without reason, without cause, or without any
appearance of truth, have dared to prescribe, by his private authority,
what things should be denotated and signified by the colour: which is
the custom of tyrants, who will have their will to bear sway in stead of
equity, and not of the wise and learned, who with the evidence of
reason satisfy their readers. His sottishness and want of spirit, in that he
thought that, without any other demonstration or sufficient argument,
the world would be pleased to make his blockish and ridiculous
impositions the rule of their devices. In effect, according to the proverb,
To a shitten tail fails never ordure, he hath found, it seems, some
simple ninny in those rude times of old, when the wearing of high
round bonnets was in fashion, who gave some trust to his writings,
according to which they carved and engraved their apophthegms and
mottoes, trapped and caparisoned their mules and sumpter-horses,
apparelled their pages, quartered their breeches, bordered their gloves,
fringed the curtains and valances of their beds, painted their ensigns,
composed songs, and, which is worse, placed many deceitful jugglings
and unworthy base tricks undiscoveredly amongst the very chastest
matrons and most reverend sciences. In the like darkness and mist of
ignorance are wrapped up these vain-glorious courtiers and
name-transposers, who, going about in their impresas to signify
esperance (that is, hope), have portrayed a sphere--and birds' pennes for
pains--l'ancholie (which is the flower colombine) for melancholy--a
waning moon or crescent, to show the increasing or rising of one's
fortune--a bench rotten and broken, to signify bankrupt--non and a
corslet for non dur habit (otherwise non durabit, it shall not last), un lit
sans ciel, that is, a bed without a tester, for un licencie, a graduated
person, as bachelor in divinity or utter barrister-at-law; which are
equivocals so absurd and witless, so barbarous and clownish, that a
fox's tail should be fastened to the neck-piece of, and a vizard made of
a cowsherd given to everyone that henceforth should offer, after the
restitution of learning, to make use of any such fopperies in France.
By the same reasons (if reasons I should call them, and not ravings
rather, and idle triflings about words), might I cause paint a pannier, to
signify that I am in pain--a mustard-pot, that my heart tarries much
for't--one pissing upwards for a bishop--the bottom of a pair of
breeches for a vessel full of fart-hings--a codpiece for the office of the
clerks of the sentences, decrees, or judgments, or rather, as the English
bears it, for the tail of a codfish--and a dog's turd for the dainty turret
wherein lies the love of my sweetheart. Far otherwise did heretofore the
sages of Egypt, when they wrote by letters, which they called
hieroglyphics, which none understood who were not skilled in the
virtue, property, and nature of the things represented by them. Of which
Orus Apollon hath in Greek composed two books, and Polyphilus, in
his Dream of Love, set down more. In France you have a taste of them
in the device or impresa of my Lord Admiral, which was carried before
that time by Octavian Augustus. But my little skiff alongst these
unpleasant gulfs and shoals will sail no further, therefore must I return
to the port from whence I came. Yet do I hope one day to write more at
large of these things, and to show both by philosophical arguments and
authorities, received and approved of by and from all antiquity, what,
and how many colours there are in nature, and what may be signified
by every one of them, if God save the mould of my cap, which is my
best wine-pot, as my grandam said.
Chapter 1.
X.
Of that which is signified by the colours white and blue.
The white therefore signifieth joy, solace, and gladness, and that not at
random, but upon just and very good grounds: which you may perceive
to be true, if laying aside all prejudicate affections, you will but give
ear to what presently I shall expound unto you.
Aristotle saith that, supposing two things contrary in their kind, as good
and evil, virtue and vice, heat and cold, white and black, pleasure and
pain, joy and grief,--and so of others,--if you couple them in such
manner that the contrary of one kind may agree in reason with the
contrary of the other, it must follow by consequence that the other
contrary must answer to the remanent opposite to that wherewith it is
conferred. As, for example, virtue and vice are contrary in one kind, so
are good and evil. If one of the contraries of the first kind be consonant
to one of those of the second, as virtue and goodness, for it is clear that
virtue is good, so shall the other two contraries, which are evil and vice,
have the same connection, for vice is evil.
This logical rule being understood, take these two contraries, joy and
sadness; then these other two, white and black, for they are physically
contrary. If so be, then, that black do signify grief, by good reason then
should white import joy. Nor is this signification instituted by human
imposition, but by the universal consent of the world received, which
philosophers call Jus Gentium, the Law of Nations, or an
uncontrollable right of force in all countries whatsoever. For you know
well enough that all people, and all languages and nations, except the
ancient Syracusans and certain Argives, who had cross and thwarting
souls, when they mean outwardly to give evidence of their sorrow, go
in black; and all mourning is done with black. Which general consent is
not without some argument and reason in nature, the which every man
may by himself very suddenly comprehend, without the instruction of
any--and this we call the law of nature. By virtue of the same natural
instinct we know that by white all the world hath understood joy,
gladness, mirth, pleasure, and delight. In former times the Thracians
and Cretans did mark their good, propitious, and fortunate days with
white stones, and their sad, dismal, and unfortunate ones with black. Is
not the night mournful, sad, and melancholic? It is black and dark by
the privation of light. Doth not the light comfort all the world? And it is
more white than anything else. Which to prove, I could direct you to
the book of Laurentius Valla against Bartolus; but an evangelical
testimony I hope will content you. Matth. 17 it is said that, at the
transfiguration of our Lord, Vestimenta ejus facta sunt alba sicut lux,
his apparel was made white like the light. By which lightsome
whiteness he gave his three apostles to understand the idea and figure
of the eternal joys; for by the light are all men comforted, according to
the word of the old woman, who, although she had never a tooth in her
head, was wont to say, Bona lux. And Tobit, chap.5, after he had lost
his sight, when Raphael saluted him, answered, What joy can I have,
that do not see the light of Heaven? In that colour did the angels testify
the joy of the whole world at the resurrection of our Saviour, John 20,
and at his ascension, Acts 1. With the like colour of vesture did St.
John the Evangelist, Apoc. 4.7, see the faithful clothed in the heavenly
and blessed Jerusalem.
Read the ancient, both Greek and Latin histories, and you shall find that
the town of Alba (the first pattern of Rome) was founded and so named
by reason of a white sow that was seen there. You shall likewise find in
those stories, that when any man, after he had vanquished his enemies,
was by decree of the senate to enter into Rome triumphantly, he usually
rode in a chariot drawn by white horses: which in the ovation triumph
was also the custom; for by no sign or colour would they so
significantly express the joy of their coming as by the white. You shall
there also find, how Pericles, the general of the Athenians, would needs
have that part of his army unto whose lot befell the white beans, to
spend the whole day in mirth, pleasure, and ease, whilst the rest were
a-fighting. A thousand other examples and places could I allege to this
purpose, but that it is not here where I should do it.
By understanding hereof, you may resolve one problem, which
Alexander Aphrodiseus hath accounted unanswerable: why the lion,
who with his only cry and roaring affrights all beasts, dreads and
feareth only a white cock? For, as Proclus saith, Libro de Sacrificio et
Magia, it is because the presence of the virtue of the sun, which is the
organ and promptuary of all terrestrial and sidereal light, doth more
symbolize and agree with a white cock, as well in regard of that colour,
as of his property and specifical quality, than with a lion. He saith,
furthermore, that devils have been often seen in the shape of lions,
which at the sight of a white cock have presently vanished. This is the
cause why Galli or Gallices (so are the Frenchmen called, because they
are naturally white as milk, which the Greeks call Gala,) do willingly
wear in their caps white feathers, for by nature they are of a candid
disposition, merry, kind, gracious, and well- beloved, and for their
cognizance and arms have the whitest flower of any, the Flower de luce
or Lily.
If you demand how, by white, nature would have us understand joy and
gladness, I answer, that the analogy and uniformity is thus. For, as the
white doth outwardly disperse and scatter the rays of the sight, whereby
the optic spirits are manifestly dissolved, according to the opinion of
Aristotle in his problems and perspective treatises; as you may likewise
perceive by experience, when you pass over mountains covered with
snow, how you will complain that you cannot see well; as Xenophon
writes to have happened to his men, and as Galen very largely declareth,
lib. 10, de usu partium: just so the heart with excessive joy is inwardly
dilated, and suffereth a manifest resolution of the vital spirits, which
may go so far on that it may thereby be deprived of its nourishment,
and by consequence of life itself, by this perichary or extremity of
gladness, as Galen saith, lib. 12, method, lib. 5, de locis affectis, and lib.
2, de symptomatum causis. And as it hath come to pass in former times,
witness Marcus Tullius, lib. 1, Quaest. Tuscul., Verrius, Aristotle, Titus
Livius, in his relation of the battle of Cannae, Plinius, lib. 7, cap. 32
and 34, A. Gellius, lib. 3, c. 15, and many other writers,--to Diagoras
the Rhodian, Chilon, Sophocles, Dionysius the tyrant of Sicily,
Philippides, Philemon, Polycrates, Philistion, M. Juventi, and others
who died with joy. And as Avicen speaketh, in 2 canon et lib. de virib.
cordis, of the saffron, that it doth so rejoice the heart that, if you take of
it excessively, it will by a superfluous resolution and dilation deprive it
altogether of life. Here peruse Alex. Aphrodiseus, lib. 1, Probl., cap. 19,
and that for a cause. But what? It seems I am entered further into this
point than I intended at the first. Here, therefore, will I strike sail,
referring the rest to that book of mine which handleth this matter to the
full. Meanwhile, in a word I will tell you, that blue doth certainly
signify heaven and heavenly things, by the same very tokens and
symbols that white signifieth joy and pleasure.
Chapter 1.
XI.
Of the youthful age of Gargantua.
Gargantua, from three years upwards unto five, was brought up and
instructed in all convenient discipline by the commandment of his
father; and spent that time like the other little children of the country,
that is, in drinking, eating, and sleeping: in eating, sleeping, and
drinking: and in sleeping, drinking, and eating. Still he wallowed and
rolled up and down himself in the mire and dirt--he blurred and sullied
his nose with filth--he blotted and smutched his face with any kind of
scurvy stuff--he trod down his shoes in the heel--at the flies he did
oftentimes yawn, and ran very heartily after the butterflies, the empire
whereof belonged to his father. He pissed in his shoes, shit in his shirt,
and wiped his nose on his sleeve--he did let his snot and snivel fall in
his pottage, and dabbled, paddled, and slobbered everywhere--he would
drink in his slipper, and ordinarily rub his belly against a pannier. He
sharpened his teeth with a top, washed his hands with his broth, and
combed his head with a bowl. He would sit down betwixt two stools,
and his arse to the ground-- would cover himself with a wet sack, and
drink in eating of his soup. He did eat his cake sometimes without
bread, would bite in laughing, and laugh in biting. Oftentimes did he
spit in the basin, and fart for fatness, piss against the sun, and hide
himself in the water for fear of rain. He would strike out of the cold
iron, be often in the dumps, and frig and wriggle it. He would flay the
fox, say the ape's paternoster, return to his sheep, and turn the hogs to
the hay. He would beat the dogs before the lion, put the plough before
the oxen, and claw where it did not itch. He would pump one to draw
somewhat out of him, by griping all would hold fast nothing, and
always eat his white bread first. He shoed the geese, kept a self-
tickling to make himself laugh, and was very steadable in the kitchen:
made a mock at the gods, would cause sing Magnificat at matins, and
found it very convenient so to do. He would eat cabbage, and shite
beets,--knew flies in a dish of milk, and would make them lose their
feet. He would scrape paper, blur parchment, then run away as hard as
he could. He would pull at the kid's leather, or vomit up his dinner, then
reckon without his host. He would beat the bushes without catching the
birds, thought the moon was made of green cheese, and that bladders
are lanterns. Out of one sack he would take two moultures or fees for
grinding; would act the ass's part to get some bran, and of his fist would
make a mallet. He took the cranes at the first leap, and would have the
mail-coats to be made link after link. He always looked a given horse in
the mouth, leaped from the cock to the ass, and put one ripe between
two green. By robbing Peter he paid Paul, he kept the moon from the
wolves, and hoped to catch larks if ever the heavens should fall. He did
make of necessity virtue, of such bread such pottage, and cared as little
for the peeled as for the shaven. Every morning he did cast up his gorge,
and his father's little dogs eat out of the dish with him, and he with
them. He would bite their ears, and they would scratch his nose--he
would blow in their arses, and they would lick his chaps.
But hearken, good fellows, the spigot ill betake you, and whirl round
your brains, if you do not give ear! This little lecher was always
groping his nurses and governesses, upside down, arsiversy, topsyturvy,
harri bourriquet, with a Yacco haick, hyck gio! handling them very
rudely in jumbling and tumbling them to keep them going; for he had
already begun to exercise the tools, and put his codpiece in practice.
Which codpiece, or braguette, his governesses did every day deck up
and adorn with fair nosegays, curious rubies, sweet flowers, and fine
silken tufts, and very pleasantly would pass their time in taking you
know what between their fingers, and dandling it, till it did revive and
creep up to the bulk and stiffness of a suppository, or street magdaleon,
which is a hard rolled-up salve spread upon leather. Then did they burst
out in laughing, when they saw it lift up its ears, as if the sport had
liked them. One of them would call it her little dille, her staff of love,
her quillety, her faucetin, her dandilolly. Another, her peen, her jolly
kyle, her bableret, her membretoon, her quickset imp: another again,
her branch of coral, her female adamant, her placket-racket, her
Cyprian sceptre, her jewel for ladies. And some of the other women
would give it these names,--my bunguetee, my stopple too, my
bush-rusher, my gallant wimble, my pretty borer, my
coney-burrow-ferret, my little piercer, my augretine, my dangling
hangers, down right to it, stiff and stout, in and to, my pusher, dresser,
pouting stick, my honey pipe, my pretty pillicock, linky pinky, futilletie,
my lusty andouille, and crimson chitterling, my little couille bredouille,
my pretty rogue, and so forth. It belongs to me, said one. It is mine,
said the other. What, quoth a third, shall I have no share in it? By my
faith, I will cut it then. Ha, to cut it, said the other, would hurt him.
Madam, do you cut little children's things? Were his cut off, he would
be then Monsieur sans queue, the curtailed master. And that he might
play and sport himself after the manner of the other little children of the
country, they made him a fair weather whirl-jack of the wings of the
windmill of Myrebalais.
Chapter 1.
XII.
Of Gargantua's wooden horses.
Afterwards, that he might be all his lifetime a good rider, they made to
him a fair great horse of wood, which he did make leap, curvet, jerk out
behind, and skip forward, all at a time: to pace, trot, rack, gallop, amble,
to play the hobby, the hackney-gelding: go the gait of the camel, and of
the wild ass. He made him also change his colour of hair, as the monks
of Coultibo (according to the variety of their holidays) use to do their
clothes, from bay brown, to sorrel, dapple-grey, mouse-dun, deer-
colour, roan, cow-colour, gingioline, skewed colour, piebald, and the
colour of the savage elk.
Himself of a huge big post made a hunting nag, and another for daily
service of the beam of a vinepress: and of a great oak made up a mule,
with a footcloth, for his chamber. Besides this, he had ten or twelve
spare horses, and seven horses for post; and all these were lodged in his
own chamber, close by his bedside. One day the Lord of Breadinbag
(Painensac.) came to visit his father in great bravery, and with a gallant
train: and, at the same time, to see him came likewise the Duke of
Freemeal (Francrepas.) and the Earl of Wetgullet (Mouillevent.). The
house truly for so many guests at once was somewhat narrow, but
especially the stables; whereupon the steward and harbinger of the said
Lord Breadinbag, to know if there were any other empty stable in the
house, came to Gargantua, a little young lad, and secretly asked him
where the stables of the great horses were, thinking that children would
be ready to tell all. Then he led them up along the stairs of the castle,
passing by the second hall unto a broad great gallery, by which they
entered into a large tower, and as they were going up at another pair of
stairs, said the harbinger to the steward, This child deceives us, for the
stables are never on the top of the house. You may be mistaken, said
the steward, for I know some places at Lyons, at the Basmette, at
Chaisnon, and elsewhere, which have their stables at the very tops of
the houses: so it may be that behind the house there is a way to come to
this ascent. But I will question with him further. Then said he to
Gargantua, My pretty little boy, whither do you lead us? To the stable,
said he, of my great horses. We are almost come to it; we have but
these stairs to go up at. Then leading them alongst another great hall, he
brought them into his chamber, and, opening the door, said unto them,
This is the stable you ask for; this is my jennet; this is my gelding; this
is my courser, and this is my hackney, and laid on them with a great
lever. I will bestow upon you, said he, this Friesland horse; I had him
from Frankfort, yet will I give him you; for he is a pretty little nag, and
will go very well, with a tessel of goshawks, half a dozen of spaniels,
and a brace of greyhounds: thus are you king of the hares and
partridges for all this winter. By St. John, said they, now we are paid,
he hath gleeked us to some purpose, bobbed we are now for ever. I
deny it, said he,--he was not here above three days. Judge you now,
whether they had most cause, either to hide their heads for shame, or to
laugh at the jest. As they were going down again thus amazed, he asked
them, Will you have a whimwham (Aubeliere.)? What is that, said they?
It is, said he, five turds to make you a muzzle. To-day, said the steward,
though we happen to be roasted, we shall not be burnt, for we are pretty
well quipped and larded, in my opinion. O my jolly dapper boy, thou
hast given us a gudgeon; I hope to see thee Pope before I die. I think so,
said he, myself; and then shall you be a puppy, and this gentle popinjay
a perfect papelard, that is, dissembler. Well, well, said the harbinger.
But, said Gargantua, guess how many stitches there are in my mother's
smock. Sixteen, quoth the harbinger. You do not speak gospel, said
Gargantua, for there is cent before, and cent behind, and you did not
reckon them ill, considering the two under holes. When? said the
harbinger. Even then, said Gargantua, when they made a shovel of your
nose to take up a quarter of dirt, and of your throat a funnel, wherewith
to put it into another vessel, because the bottom of the old one was out.
Cocksbod, said the steward, we have met with a prater. Farewell,
master tattler, God keep you, so goodly are the words which you come
out with, and so fresh in your mouth, that it had need to be salted.
Thus going down in great haste, under the arch of the stairs they let fall
the great lever, which he had put upon their backs; whereupon
Gargantua said, What a devil! you are, it seems, but bad horsemen, that
suffer your bilder to fail you when you need him most. If you were to
go from hence to Cahusac, whether had you rather, ride on a gosling or
lead a sow in a leash? I had rather drink, said the harbinger. With this
they entered into the lower hall, where the company was, and relating
to them this new story, they made them laugh like a swarm of flies.
Chapter 1.
XIII.
How Gargantua's wonderful understanding became known to his father
Grangousier, by the invention of a torchecul or wipebreech.
About the end of the fifth year, Grangousier returning from the
conquest of the Canarians, went by the way to see his son Gargantua.
There was he filled with joy, as such a father might be at the sight of
such a child of his: and whilst he kissed and embraced him, he asked
many childish questions of him about divers matters, and drank very
freely with him and with his governesses, of whom in great earnest he
asked, amongst other things, whether they had been careful to keep him
clean and sweet. To this Gargantua answered, that he had taken such a
course for that himself, that in all the country there was not to be found
a cleanlier boy than he. How is that? said Grangousier. I have,
answered Gargantua, by a long and curious experience, found out a
means to wipe my bum, the most lordly, the most excellent, and the
most convenient that ever was seen. What is that? said Grangousier,
how is it? I will tell you by-and-by, said Gargantua. Once I did wipe
me with a gentle-woman's velvet mask, and found it to be good; for the
softness of the silk was very voluptuous and pleasant to my fundament.
Another time with one of their hoods, and in like manner that was
comfortable. At another time with a lady's neckerchief, and after that I
wiped me with some ear-pieces of hers made of crimson satin, but there
was such a number of golden spangles in them (turdy round things, a
pox take them) that they fetched away all the skin of my tail with a
vengeance. Now I wish St. Antony's fire burn the bum-gut of the
goldsmith that made them, and of her that wore them! This hurt I cured
by wiping myself with a page's cap, garnished with a feather after the
Switzers' fashion.
Afterwards, in dunging behind a bush, I found a March-cat, and with it
I wiped my breech, but her claws were so sharp that they scratched and
exulcerated all my perinee. Of this I recovered the next morning
thereafter, by wiping myself with my mother's gloves, of a most
excellent perfume and scent of the Arabian Benin. After that I wiped
me with sage, with fennel, with anet, with marjoram, with roses, with
gourd-leaves, with beets, with colewort, with leaves of the vine-tree,
with mallows, wool- blade, which is a tail-scarlet, with lettuce, and
with spinach leaves. All this did very great good to my leg. Then with
mercury, with parsley, with nettles, with comfrey, but that gave me the
bloody flux of Lombardy, which I healed by wiping me with my
braguette. Then I wiped my tail in the sheets, in the coverlet, in the
curtains, with a cushion, with arras hangings, with a green carpet, with
a table-cloth, with a napkin, with a handkerchief, with a combing-cloth;
in all which I found more pleasure than do the mangy dogs when you
rub them. Yea, but, said Grangousier, which torchecul did you find to
be the best? I was coming to it, said Gargantua, and by-and-by shall
you hear the tu autem, and know the whole mystery and knot of the
matter. I wiped myself with hay, with straw, with thatch- rushes, with
flax, with wool, with paper, but,
Who his foul tail with paper wipes, Shall at his ballocks leave some
chips.
What, said Grangousier, my little rogue, hast thou been at the pot, that
thou dost rhyme already? Yes, yes, my lord the king, answered
Gargantua, I can rhyme gallantly, and rhyme till I become hoarse with
rheum. Hark, what our privy says to the skiters:
Shittard, Squirtard, Crackard, Turdous, Thy bung Hath flung Some
dung On us: Filthard, Cackard, Stinkard, St. Antony's fire seize on thy
toane (bone?), If thy Dirty Dounby Thou do not wipe, ere thou be gone.
Will you have any more of it? Yes, yes, answered Grangousier. Then,
said Gargantua,
A Roundelay.
In shitting yes'day I did know The sess I to my arse did owe: The smell
was such came from that slunk, That I was with it all bestunk: O had
but then some brave Signor Brought her to me I waited for, In shitting!
I would have cleft her watergap, And join'd it close to my flipflap,
Whilst she had with her fingers guarded My foul nockandrow, all
bemerded In shitting.
Now say that I can do nothing! By the Merdi, they are not of my
making, but I heard them of this good old grandam, that you see here,
and ever since have retained them in the budget of my memory.
Let us return to our purpose, said Grangousier. What, said Gargantua,
to skite? No, said Grangousier, but to wipe our tail. But, said Gargantua,
will not you be content to pay a puncheon of Breton wine, if I do not
blank and gravel you in this matter, and put you to a non-plus? Yes,
truly, said Grangousier.
There is no need of wiping one's tail, said Gargantua, but when it is
foul; foul it cannot be, unless one have been a-skiting; skite then we
must before we wipe our tails. O my pretty little waggish boy, said
Grangousier, what an excellent wit thou hast? I will make thee very
shortly proceed doctor in the jovial quirks of gay learning, and that, by
G--, for thou hast more wit than age. Now, I prithee, go on in this
torcheculative, or wipe-bummatory discourse, and by my beard I swear,
for one puncheon, thou shalt have threescore pipes, I mean of the good
Breton wine, not that which grows in Britain, but in the good country
of Verron. Afterwards I wiped my bum, said Gargantua, with a kerchief,
with a pillow, with a pantoufle, with a pouch, with a pannier, but that
was a wicked and unpleasant torchecul; then with a hat. Of hats, note
that some are shorn, and others shaggy, some velveted, others covered
with taffeties, and others with satin. The best of all these is the shaggy
hat, for it makes a very neat abstersion of the fecal matter.
Afterwards I wiped my tail with a hen, with a cock, with a pullet, with
a calf's skin, with a hare, with a pigeon, with a cormorant, with an
attorney's bag, with a montero, with a coif, with a falconer's lure. But,
to conclude, I say and maintain, that of all torcheculs, arsewisps,
bumfodders, tail-napkins, bunghole cleansers, and wipe-breeches, there
is none in the world comparable to the neck of a goose, that is well
downed, if you hold her head betwixt your legs. And believe me therein
upon mine honour, for you will thereby feel in your nockhole a most
wonderful pleasure, both in regard of the softness of the said down and
of the temporate heat of the goose, which is easily communicated to the
bum-gut and the rest of the inwards, in so far as to come even to the
regions of the heart and brains. And think not that the felicity of the
heroes and demigods in the Elysian fields consisteth either in their
asphodel, ambrosia, or nectar, as our old women here used to say; but
in this, according to my judgment, that they wipe their tails with the
neck of a goose, holding her head betwixt their legs, and such is the
opinion of Master John of Scotland, alias Scotus.
Chapter 1.
XIV.
How Gargantua was taught Latin by a Sophister.
The good man Grangousier having heard this discourse, was ravished
with admiration, considering the high reach and marvellous
understanding of his son Gargantua, and said to his governesses, Philip,
king of Macedon, knew the great wit of his son Alexander by his skilful
managing of a horse; for his horse Bucephalus was so fierce and unruly
that none durst adventure to ride him, after that he had given to his
riders such devilish falls, breaking the neck of this man, the other man's
leg, braining one, and putting another out of his jawbone. This by
Alexander being considered, one day in the hippodrome (which was a
place appointed for the breaking and managing of great horses), he
perceived that the fury of the horse proceeded merely from the fear he
had of his own shadow, whereupon getting on his back, he run him
against the sun, so that the shadow fell behind, and by that means
tamed the horse and brought him to his hand. Whereby his father,
knowing the divine judgment that was in him, caused him most
carefully to be instructed by Aristotle, who at that time was highly
renowned above all the philosophers of Greece. After the same manner
I tell you, that by this only discourse, which now I have here had before
you with my son Gargantua, I know that his understanding doth
participate of some divinity, and that, if he be well taught, and have that
education which is fitting, he will attain to a supreme degree of wisdom.
Therefore will I commit him to some learned man, to have him
indoctrinated according to his capacity, and will spare no cost.
Presently they appointed him a great sophister-doctor, called Master
Tubal Holofernes, who taught him his ABC so well, that he could say it
by heart backwards; and about this he was five years and three months.
Then read he to him Donat, Le Facet, Theodolet, and Alanus in
parabolis. About this he was thirteen years, six months, and two weeks.
But you must remark that in the mean time he did learn to write in
Gothic characters, and that he wrote all his books--for the art of
printing was not then in use--and did ordinarily carry a great pen and
inkhorn, weighing about seven thousand quintals (that is, 700,000
pound weight), the penner whereof was as big and as long as the great
pillars of Enay, and the horn was hanging to it in great iron chains, it
being of the wideness of a tun of merchant ware. After that he read unto
him the book de modis significandi, with the commentaries of Hurtbise,
of Fasquin, of Tropdieux, of Gualhaut, of John Calf, of Billonio, of
Berlinguandus, and a rabble of others; and herein he spent more than
eighteen years and eleven months, and was so well versed in it that, to
try masteries in school disputes with his condisciples, he would recite it
by heart backwards, and did sometimes prove on his finger-ends to his
mother, quod de modis significandi non erat scientia. Then did he read
to him the compost for knowing the age of the moon, the seasons of the
year, and tides of the sea, on which he spent sixteen years and two
months, and that justly at the time that his said preceptor died of the
French pox, which was in the year one thousand four hundred and
twenty. Afterwards he got an old coughing fellow to teach him, named
Master Jobelin Bride, or muzzled dolt, who read unto him Hugutio,
Hebrard('s) Grecism, the Doctrinal, the Parts, the Quid est, the
Supplementum, Marmotretus, De moribus in mensa servandis, Seneca
de quatuor virtutibus cardinalibus, Passavantus cum commento, and
Dormi secure for the holidays, and some other of such like mealy stuff,
by reading whereof he became as wise as any we ever since baked in an
oven.
Chapter 1.
XV.
How Gargantua was put under other schoolmasters.
At the last his father perceived that indeed he studied hard, and that,
although he spent all his time in it, he did nevertheless profit nothing,
but which is worse, grew thereby foolish, simple, doted, and blockish,
whereof making a heavy regret to Don Philip of Marays, Viceroy or
Depute King of Papeligosse, he found that it were better for him to
learn nothing at all, than to be taught such-like books, under such
schoolmasters; because their knowledge was nothing but brutishness,
and their wisdom but blunt foppish toys, serving only to bastardize
good and noble spirits, and to corrupt all the flower of youth. That it is
so, take, said he, any young boy of this time who hath only studied two
years,--if he have not a better judgment, a better discourse, and that
expressed in better terms than your son, with a completer carriage and
civility to all manner of persons, account me for ever hereafter a very
clounch and bacon-slicer of Brene. This pleased Grangousier very well,
and he commanded that it should be done. At night at supper, the said
Des Marays brought in a young page of his, of Ville-gouges, called
Eudemon, so neat, so trim, so handsome in his apparel, so spruce, with
his hair in so good order, and so sweet and comely in his behaviour,
that he had the resemblance of a little angel more than of a human
creature. Then he said to Grangousier, Do you see this young boy? He
is not as yet full twelve years old. Let us try, if it please you, what
difference there is betwixt the knowledge of the doting Mateologians of
old time and the young lads that are now. The trial pleased Grangousier,
and he commanded the page to begin. Then Eudemon, asking leave of
the vice-king his master so to do, with his cap in his hand, a clear and
open countenance, beautiful and ruddy lips, his eyes steady, and his
looks fixed upon Gargantua with a youthful modesty, standing up
straight on his feet, began very gracefully to commend him; first, for
his virtue and good manners; secondly, for his knowledge, thirdly, for
his nobility; fourthly, for his bodily accomplishments; and, in the fifth
place, most sweetly exhorted him to reverence his father with all due
observancy, who was so careful to have him well brought up. In the end
he prayed him, that he would vouchsafe to admit of him amongst the
least of his servants; for other favour at that time desired he none of
heaven, but that he might do him some grateful and acceptable service.
All this was by him delivered with such proper gestures, such distinct
pronunciation, so pleasant a delivery, in such exquisite fine terms, and
so good Latin, that he seemed rather a Gracchus, a Cicero, an Aemilius
of the time past, than a youth of this age. But all the countenance that
Gargantua kept was, that he fell to crying like a cow, and cast down his
face, hiding it with his cap, nor could they possibly draw one word
from him, no more than a fart from a dead ass. Whereat his father was
so grievously vexed that he would have killed Master Jobelin, but the
said Des Marays withheld him from it by fair persuasions, so that at
length he pacified his wrath. Then Grangousier commanded he should
be paid his wages, that they should whittle him up soundly, like a
sophister, with good drink, and then give him leave to go to all the
devils in hell. At least, said he, today shall it not cost his host much if
by chance he should die as drunk as a Switzer. Master Jobelin being
gone out of the house, Grangousier consulted with the Viceroy what
schoolmaster they should choose for him, and it was betwixt them
resolved that Ponocrates, the tutor of Eudemon, should have the charge,
and that they should go altogether to Paris, to know what was the study
of the young men of France at that time.
Chapter 1.
XVI.
How Gargantua was sent to Paris, and of the huge great mare that he
rode on; how she destroyed the oxflies of the Beauce.
In the same season Fayoles, the fourth King of Numidia, sent out of the
country of Africa to Grangousier the most hideously great mare that
ever was seen, and of the strangest form, for you know well enough
how it is said that Africa always is productive of some new thing. She
was as big as six elephants, and had her feet cloven into fingers, like
Julius Caesar's horse, with slouch-hanging ears, like the goats in
Languedoc, and a little horn on her buttock. She was of a burnt sorrel
hue, with a little mixture of dapple-grey spots, but above all she had a
horrible tail; for it was little more or less than every whit as great as the
steeple-pillar of St. Mark beside Langes: and squared as that is, with
tuffs and ennicroches or hair-plaits wrought within one another, no
otherwise than as the beards are upon the ears of corn.
If you wonder at this, wonder rather at the tails of the Scythian rams,
which weighed above thirty pounds each; and of the Surian sheep, who
need, if Tenaud say true, a little cart at their heels to bear up their tail, it
is so long and heavy. You female lechers in the plain countries have no
such tails. And she was brought by sea in three carricks and a
brigantine unto the harbour of Olone in Thalmondois. When
Grangousier saw her, Here is, said he, what is fit to carry my son to
Paris. So now, in the name of God, all will be well. He will in times
coming be a great scholar. If it were not, my masters, for the beasts, we
should live like clerks. The next morning--after they had drunk, you
must understand--they took their journey; Gargantua, his pedagogue
Ponocrates, and his train, and with them Eudemon, the young page.
And because the weather was fair and temperate, his father caused to be
made for him a pair of dun boots,--Babin calls them buskins. Thus did
they merrily pass their time in travelling on their high way, always
making good cheer, and were very pleasant till they came a little above
Orleans, in which place there was a forest of five-and-thirty leagues
long, and seventeen in breadth, or thereabouts. This forest was most
horribly fertile and copious in dorflies, hornets, and wasps, so that it
was a very purgatory for the poor mares, asses, and horses. But
Gargantua's mare did avenge herself handsomely of all the outrages
therein committed upon beasts of her kind, and that by a trick whereof
they had no suspicion. For as soon as ever they were entered into the
said forest, and that the wasps had given the assault, she drew out and
unsheathed her tail, and therewith skirmishing, did so sweep them that
she overthrew all the wood alongst and athwart, here and there, this
way and that way, longwise and sidewise, over and under, and felled
everywhere the wood with as much ease as a mower doth the grass, in
such sort that never since hath there been there neither wood nor
dorflies: for all the country was thereby reduced to a plain champaign
field. Which Gargantua took great pleasure to behold, and said to his
company no more but this: Je trouve beau ce (I find this pretty);
whereupon that country hath been ever since that time called Beauce.
But all the breakfast the mare got that day was but a little yawning and
gaping, in memory whereof the gentlemen of Beauce do as yet to this
day break their fast with gaping, which they find to be very good, and
do spit the better for it. At last they came to Paris, where Gargantua
refreshed himself two or three days, making very merry with his folks,
and inquiring what men of learning there were then in the city, and
what wine they drunk there.
Chapter 1.
XVII.
How Gargantua paid his welcome to the Parisians, and how he took
away the great bells of Our Lady's Church.
Some few days after that they had refreshed themselves, he went to see
the city, and was beheld of everybody there with great admiration; for
the people of Paris are so sottish, so badot, so foolish and fond by
nature, that a juggler, a carrier of indulgences, a sumpter-horse, or mule
with cymbals or tinkling bells, a blind fiddler in the middle of a cross
lane, shall draw a greater confluence of people together than an
evangelical preacher. And they pressed so hard upon him that he was
constrained to rest himself upon the towers of Our Lady's Church. At
which place, seeing so many about him, he said with a loud voice, I
believe that these buzzards will have me to pay them here my welcome
hither, and my Proficiat. It is but good reason. I will now give them
their wine, but it shall be only in sport. Then smiling, he untied his fair
braguette, and drawing out his mentul into the open air, he so bitterly
all-to-bepissed them, that he drowned two hundred and sixty thousand,
four hundred and eighteen, besides the women and little children. Some,
nevertheless, of the company escaped this piss-flood by mere speed of
foot, who, when they were at the higher end of the university, sweating,
coughing, spitting, and out of breath, they began to swear and curse,
some in good hot earnest, and others in jest. Carimari, carimara:
golynoly, golynolo. By my sweet Sanctess, we are washed in sport, a
sport truly to laugh at;--in French, Par ris, for which that city hath been
ever since called Paris; whose name formerly was Leucotia, as Strabo
testifieth, lib. quarto, from the Greek word leukotes,
whiteness,--because of the white thighs of the ladies of that place. And
forasmuch as, at this imposition of a new name, all the people that were
there swore everyone by the Sancts of his parish, the Parisians, which
are patched up of all nations and all pieces of countries, are by nature
both good jurors and good jurists, and somewhat overweening;
whereupon Joanninus de Barrauco, libro de copiositate reverentiarum,
thinks that they are called Parisians from the Greek word parresia,
which signifies boldness and liberty in speech. This done, he
considered the great bells, which were in the said towers, and made
them sound very harmoniously. Which whilst he was doing, it came
into his mind that they would serve very well for tingling tantans and
ringing campanels to hang about his mare's neck when she should be
sent back to his father, as he intended to do, loaded with Brie cheese
and fresh herring. And indeed he forthwith carried them to his lodging.
In the meanwhile there came a master beggar of the friars of St.
Anthony to demand in his canting way the usual benevolence of some
hoggish stuff, who, that he might be heard afar off, and to make the
bacon he was in quest of shake in the very chimneys, made account to
filch them away privily. Nevertheless, he left them behind very
honestly, not for that they were too hot, but that they were somewhat
too heavy for his carriage. This was not he of Bourg, for he was too
good a friend of mine. All the city was risen up in sedition, they being,
as you know, upon any slight occasion, so ready to uproars and
insurrections, that foreign nations wonder at the patience of the kings of
France, who do not by good justice restrain them from such tumultuous
courses, seeing the manifold inconveniences which thence arise from
day to day. Would to God I knew the shop wherein are forged these
divisions and factious combinations, that I might bring them to light in
the confraternities of my parish! Believe for a truth, that the place
wherein the people gathered together, were thus sulphured,
hopurymated, moiled, and bepissed, was called Nesle, where then was,
but now is no more, the oracle of Leucotia. There was the case
proposed, and the inconvenience showed of the transporting of the bells.
After they had well ergoted pro and con, they concluded in baralipton,
that they should send the oldest and most sufficient of the faculty unto
Gargantua, to signify unto him the great and horrible prejudice they
sustain by the want of those bells. And notwithstanding the good
reasons given in by some of the university why this charge was fitter
for an orator than a sophister, there was chosen for this purpose our
Master Janotus de Bragmardo.
Chapter 1.
XVIII.
How Janotus de Bragmardo was sent to Gargantua to recover the great
bells.
Master Janotus, with his hair cut round like a dish a la Caesarine, in his
most antique accoutrement liripipionated with a graduate's hood, and
having sufficiently antidoted his stomach with oven-marmalades, that
is, bread and holy water of the cellar, transported himself to the lodging
of Gargantua, driving before him three red-muzzled beadles, and
dragging after him five or six artless masters, all thoroughly bedaggled
with the mire of the streets. At their entry Ponocrates met them, who
was afraid, seeing them so disguised, and thought they had been some
masquers out of their wits, which moved him to inquire of one of the
said artless masters of the company what this mummery meant. It was
answered him, that they desired to have their bells restored to them. As
soon as Ponocrates heard that, he ran in all haste to carry the news unto
Gargantua, that he might be ready to answer them, and speedily resolve
what was to be done. Gargantua being advertised hereof, called apart
his schoolmaster Ponocrates, Philotimus, steward of his house,
Gymnastes, his esquire, and Eudemon, and very summarily conferred
with them, both of what he should do and what answer he should give.
They were all of opinion that they should bring them unto the
goblet-office, which is the buttery, and there make them drink like
roysters and line their jackets soundly. And that this cougher might not
be puffed up with vain-glory by thinking the bells were restored at his
request, they sent, whilst he was chopining and plying the pot, for the
mayor of the city, the rector of the faculty, and the vicar of the church,
unto whom they resolved to deliver the bells before the sophister had
propounded his commission. After that, in their hearing, he should
pronounce his gallant oration, which was done; and they being come,
the sophister was brought in full hall, and began as followeth, in
coughing.
Chapter 1.
XIX.
The oration of Master Janotus de Bragmardo for recovery of the bells.
Hem, hem, gud-day, sirs, gud-day. Et vobis, my masters. It were but
reason that you should restore to us our bells; for we have great need of
them. Hem, hem, aihfuhash. We have oftentimes heretofore refused
good money for them of those of London in Cahors, yea and those of
Bourdeaux in Brie, who would have bought them for the substantific
quality of the elementary complexion, which is intronificated in the
terrestreity of their quidditative nature, to extraneize the blasting mists
and whirlwinds upon our vines, indeed not ours, but these round about
us. For if we lose the piot and liquor of the grape, we lose all, both
sense and law. If you restore them unto us at my request, I shall gain by
it six basketfuls of sausages and a fine pair of breeches, which will do
my legs a great deal of good, or else they will not keep their promise to
me. Ho by gob, Domine, a pair of breeches is good, et vir sapiens non
abhorrebit eam. Ha, ha, a pair of breeches is not so easily got; I have
experience of it myself. Consider, Domine, I have been these eighteen
days in matagrabolizing this brave speech. Reddite quae sunt Caesaris,
Caesari, et quae sunt Dei, Deo. Ibi jacet lepus. By my faith, Domine, if
you will sup with me in cameris, by cox body, charitatis, nos faciemus
bonum cherubin. Ego occiditunum porcum, et ego habet bonum vino:
but of good wine we cannot make bad Latin. Well, de parte Dei date
nobis bellas nostras. Hold, I give you in the name of the faculty a
Sermones de Utino, that utinam you would give us our bells. Vultis
etiam pardonos? Per diem vos habebitis, et nihil payabitis. O, sir,
Domine, bellagivaminor nobis; verily, est bonum vobis. They are
useful to everybody. If they fit your mare well, so do they do our
faculty; quae comparata est jumentis insipientibus, et similis facta est
eis, Psalmo nescio quo. Yet did I quote it in my note-book, et est unum
bonum Achilles, a good defending argument. Hem, hem, hem, haikhash!
For I prove unto you, that you should give me them. Ego sic
argumentor. Omnis bella bellabilis in bellerio bellando, bellans,
bellativo, bellare facit, bellabiliter bellantes. Parisius habet bellas. Ergo
gluc, Ha, ha, ha. This is spoken to some purpose. It is in tertio primae,
in Darii, or elsewhere. By my soul, I have seen the time that I could
play the devil in arguing, but now I am much failed, and henceforward
want nothing but a cup of good wine, a good bed, my back to the fire,
my belly to the table, and a good deep dish. Hei, Domine, I beseech
you, in nomine Patris, Filii, et Spiritus sancti, Amen, to restore unto us
our bells: and God keep you from evil, and our Lady from health, qui
vivit et regnat per omnia secula seculorum, Amen. Hem,
hashchehhawksash, qzrchremhemhash.
Verum enim vero, quandoquidem, dubio procul. Edepol, quoniam, ita
certe, medius fidius; a town without bells is like a blind man without a
staff, an ass without a crupper, and a cow without cymbals. Therefore
be assured, until you have restored them unto us, we will never leave
crying after you, like a blind man that hath lost his staff, braying like an
ass without a crupper, and making a noise like a cow without cymbals.
A certain latinisator, dwelling near the hospital, said since, producing
the authority of one Taponnus,--I lie, it was one Pontanus the secular
poet,-- who wished those bells had been made of feathers, and the
clapper of a foxtail, to the end they might have begot a chronicle in the
bowels of his brain, when he was about the composing of his
carminiformal lines. But nac petetin petetac, tic, torche lorgne, or rot
kipipur kipipot put pantse malf, he was declared an heretic. We make
them as of wax. And no more saith the deponent. Valete et plaudite.
Calepinus recensui.
Chapter 1.
XX.
How the Sophister carried away his cloth, and how he had a suit in law
against the other masters.
The sophister had no sooner ended, but Ponocrates and Eudemon burst
out in a laughing so heartily, that they had almost split with it, and
given up the ghost, in rendering their souls to God: even just as Crassus
did, seeing a lubberly ass eat thistles; and as Philemon, who, for seeing
an ass eat those figs which were provided for his own dinner, died with
force of laughing. Together with them Master Janotus fell a-laughing
too as fast as he could, in which mood of laughing they continued so
long, that their eyes did water by the vehement concussion of the
substance of the brain, by which these lachrymal humidities, being
pressed out, glided through the optic nerves, and so to the full
represented Democritus Heraclitizing and Heraclitus Democritizing.
When they had done laughing, Gargantua consulted with the prime of
his retinue what should be done. There Ponocrates was of opinion that
they should make this fair orator drink again; and seeing he had showed
them more pastime, and made them laugh more than a natural soul
could have done, that they should give him ten baskets full of sausages,
mentioned in his pleasant speech, with a pair of hose, three hundred
great billets of logwood, five-and-twenty hogsheads of wine, a good
large down-bed, and a deep capacious dish, which he said were
necessary for his old age. All this was done as they did appoint: only
Gargantua, doubting that they could not quickly find out breeches fit
for his wearing, because he knew not what fashion would best become
the said orator, whether the martingale fashion of breeches, wherein is a
spunghole with a drawbridge for the more easy caguing: or the fashion
of the mariners, for the greater solace and comfort of his kidneys: or
that of the Switzers, which keeps warm the bedondaine or belly-tabret:
or round breeches with straight cannions, having in the seat a piece like
a cod's tail, for fear of over-heating his reins:--all which considered, he
caused to be given him seven ells of white cloth for the linings. The
wood was carried by the porters, the masters of arts carried the
sausages and the dishes, and Master Janotus himself would carry the
cloth. One of the said masters, called Jousse Bandouille, showed him
that it was not seemly nor decent for one of his condition to do so, and
that therefore he should deliver it to one of them. Ha, said Janotus,
baudet, baudet, or blockhead, blockhead, thou dost not conclude in
modo et figura. For lo, to this end serve the suppositions and parva
logicalia. Pannus, pro quo supponit? Confuse, said Bandouille, et
distributive. I do not ask thee, said Janotus, blockhead, quomodo
supponit, but pro quo? It is, blockhead, pro tibiis meis, and therefore I
will carry it, Egomet, sicut suppositum portat appositum. So did he
carry it away very close and covertly, as Patelin the buffoon did his
cloth. The best was, that when this cougher, in a full act or assembly
held at the Mathurins, had with great confidence required his breeches
and sausages, and that they were flatly denied him, because he had
them of Gargantua, according to the informations thereupon made, he
showed them that this was gratis, and out of his liberality, by which
they were not in any sort quit of their promises. Notwithstanding this, it
was answered him that he should be content with reason, without
expectation of any other bribe there. Reason? said Janotus. We use
none of it here. Unlucky traitors, you are not worth the hanging. The
earth beareth not more arrant villains than you are. I know it well
enough; halt not before the lame. I have practised wickedness with you.
By God's rattle, I will inform the king of the enormous abuses that are
forged here and carried underhand by you, and let me be a leper, if he
do not burn you alive like sodomites, traitors, heretics and seducers,
enemies to God and virtue.
Upon these words they framed articles against him: he on the other side
warned them to appear. In sum, the process was retained by the court,
and is there as yet. Hereupon the magisters made a vow never to decrott
themselves in rubbing off the dirt of either their shoes or clothes:
Master Janotus with his adherents vowed never to blow or snuff their
noses, until judgment were given by a definitive sentence.
By these vows do they continue unto this time both dirty and snotty; for
the court hath not garbled, sifted, and fully looked into all the pieces as
yet. The judgment or decree shall be given out and pronounced at the
next Greek kalends, that is, never. As you know that they do more than
nature, and contrary to their own articles. The articles of Paris maintain
that to God alone belongs infinity, and nature produceth nothing that is
immortal; for she putteth an end and period to all things by her
engendered, according to the saying, Omnia orta cadunt, &c. But these
thick mist- swallowers make the suits in law depending before them
both infinite and immortal. In doing whereof, they have given occasion
to, and verified the saying of Chilo the Lacedaemonian, consecrated to
the oracle at Delphos, that misery is the inseparable companion of
law-debates; and that pleaders are miserable; for sooner shall they
attain to the end of their lives, than to the final decision of their
pretended rights.
Chapter 1.
XXI.
The study of Gargantua, according to the discipline of his
schoolmasters the Sophisters.
The first day being thus spent, and the bells put up again in their own
place, the citizens of Paris, in acknowledgment of this courtesy, offered
to maintain and feed his mare as long as he pleased, which Gargantua
took in good part, and they sent her to graze in the forest of Biere. I
think she is not there now. This done, he with all his heart submitted his
study to the discretion of Ponocrates; who for the beginning appointed
that he should do as he was accustomed, to the end he might understand
by what means, in so long time, his old masters had made him so
sottish and ignorant. He disposed therefore of his time in such fashion,
that ordinarily he did awake betwixt eight and nine o'clock, whether it
was day or not, for so had his ancient governors ordained, alleging that
which David saith, Vanum est vobis ante lucem surgere. Then did he
tumble and toss, wag his legs, and wallow in the bed some time, the
better to stir up and rouse his vital spirits, and apparelled himself
according to the season: but willingly he would wear a great long gown
of thick frieze, furred with fox-skins. Afterwards he combed his head
with an Almain comb, which is the four fingers and the thumb. For his
preceptor said that to comb himself otherwise, to wash and make
himself neat, was to lose time in this world. Then he dunged, pissed,
spewed, belched, cracked, yawned, spitted, coughed, yexed, sneezed
and snotted himself like an archdeacon, and, to suppress the dew and
bad air, went to breakfast, having some good fried tripes, fair rashers on
the coals, excellent gammons of bacon, store of fine minced meat, and
a great deal of sippet brewis, made up of the fat of the beef-pot, laid
upon bread, cheese, and chopped parsley strewed together. Ponocrates
showed him that he ought not to eat so soon after rising out of his bed,
unless he had performed some exercise beforehand. Gargantua
answered, What! have not I sufficiently well exercised myself? I have
wallowed and rolled myself six or seven turns in my bed before I rose.
Is not that enough? Pope Alexander did so, by the advice of a Jew his
physician, and lived till his dying day in despite of his enemies. My
first masters have used me to it, saying that to breakfast made a good
memory, and therefore they drank first. I am very well after it, and dine
but the better. And Master Tubal, who was the first licenciate at Paris,
told me that it was not enough to run apace, but to set forth betimes: so
doth not the total welfare of our humanity depend upon perpetual
drinking in a ribble rabble, like ducks, but on drinking early in the
morning; unde versus,
To rise betimes is no good hour, To drink betimes is better sure.
After that he had thoroughly broke his fast, he went to church, and they
carried to him, in a great basket, a huge impantoufled or thick-covered
breviary, weighing, what in grease, clasps, parchment and cover, little
more or less than eleven hundred and six pounds. There he heard
six-and- twenty or thirty masses. This while, to the same place came his
orison- mutterer impaletocked, or lapped up about the chin like a tufted
whoop, and his breath pretty well antidoted with store of the
vine-tree-syrup. With him he mumbled all his kiriels and dunsical
breborions, which he so curiously thumbed and fingered, that there fell
not so much as one grain to the ground. As he went from the church,
they brought him, upon a dray drawn with oxen, a confused heap of
paternosters and aves of St. Claude, every one of them being of the
bigness of a hat-block; and thus walking through the cloisters, galleries,
or garden, he said more in turning them over than sixteen hermits
would have done. Then did he study some paltry half-hour with his
eyes fixed upon his book; but, as the comic saith, his mind was in the
kitchen. Pissing then a full urinal, he sat down at table; and because he
was naturally phlegmatic, he began his meal with some dozens of
gammons, dried neat's tongues, hard roes of mullet, called botargos,
andouilles or sausages, and such other forerunners of wine. In the
meanwhile, four of his folks did cast into his mouth one after another
continually mustard by whole shovelfuls. Immediately after that, he
drank a horrible draught of white wine for the ease of his kidneys.
When that was done, he ate according to the season meat agreeable to
his appetite, and then left off eating when his belly began to strout, and
was like to crack for fulness. As for his drinking, he had in that neither
end nor rule. For he was wont to say, That the limits and bounds of
drinking were, when the cork of the shoes of him that drinketh swelleth
up half a foot high.
Chapter 1.
XXII.
The games of Gargantua.
Then blockishly mumbling with a set on countenance a piece of scurvy
grace, he washed his hands in fresh wine, picked his teeth with the foot
of a hog, and talked jovially with his attendants. Then the carpet being
spread, they brought plenty of cards, many dice, with great store and
abundance of chequers and chessboards.
There he played. At flush. At love. At primero. At the chess. At the
beast. At Reynard the fox. At the rifle. At the squares. At trump. At the
cows. At the prick and spare not. At the lottery. At the hundred. At the
chance or mumchance. At the peeny. At three dice or maniest bleaks.
At the unfortunate woman. At the tables. At the fib. At nivinivinack. At
the pass ten. At the lurch. At one-and-thirty. At doublets or queen's
game. At post and pair, or even and At the faily. sequence. At the
French trictrac. At three hundred. At the long tables or ferkeering. At
the unlucky man. At feldown. At the last couple in hell. At tod's body.
At the hock. At needs must. At the surly. At the dames or draughts. At
the lansquenet. At bob and mow. At the cuckoo. At primus secundus.
At puff, or let him speak that At mark-knife. hath it. At the keys. At
take nothing and throw out. At span-counter. At the marriage. At even
or odd. At the frolic or jackdaw. At cross or pile. At the opinion. At
ball and huckle-bones. At who doth the one, doth the At ivory balls.
other. At the billiards. At the sequences. At bob and hit. At the ivory
bundles. At the owl. At the tarots. At the charming of the hare. At
losing load him. At pull yet a little. At he's gulled and esto. At
trudgepig. At the torture. At the magatapies. At the handruff. At the
horn. At the click. At the flowered or Shrovetide ox. At honours. At the
madge-owlet. At pinch without laughing. At tilt at weeky. At prickle
me tickle me. At ninepins. At the unshoeing of the ass. At the cock
quintin. At the cocksess. At tip and hurl. At hari hohi. At the flat bowls.
At I set me down. At the veer and turn. At earl beardy. At rogue and
ruffian. At the old mode. At bumbatch touch. At draw the spit. At the
mysterious trough. At put out. At the short bowls. At gossip lend me
your sack. At the dapple-grey. At the ramcod ball. At cock and crank it.
At thrust out the harlot. At break-pot. At Marseilles figs. At my desire.
At nicknamry. At twirly whirlytrill. At stick and hole. At the rush
bundles. At boke or him, or flaying the fox. At the short staff. At the
branching it. At the whirling gig. At trill madam, or grapple my lady.
At hide and seek, or are you all At the cat selling. hid? At blow the coal.
At the picket. At the re-wedding. At the blank. At the quick and dead
judge. At the pilferers. At unoven the iron. At the caveson. At the false
clown. At prison bars. At the flints, or at the nine stones.At have at the
nuts. At to the crutch hulch back. At cherry-pit. At the Sanct is found.
At rub and rice. At hinch, pinch and laugh not. At whiptop. At the leek.
At the casting top. At bumdockdousse. At the hobgoblins. At the loose
gig. At the O wonderful. At the hoop. At the soily smutchy. At the sow.
At fast and loose. At belly to belly. At scutchbreech. At the dales or
straths. At the broom-besom. At the twigs. At St. Cosme, I come to
adore At the quoits. thee. At I'm for that. At the lusty brown boy. At I
take you napping. At greedy glutton. At fair and softly passeth Lent. At
the morris dance. At the forked oak. At feeby. At truss. At the whole
frisk and gambol. At the wolf's tail. At battabum, or riding of the At
bum to buss, or nose in breech. wild mare. At Geordie, give me my
lance. At Hind the ploughman. At swaggy, waggy or shoggyshou. At
the good mawkin. At stook and rook, shear and At the dead beast.
threave. At climb the ladder, Billy. At the birch. At the dying hog. At
the muss. At the salt doup. At the dilly dilly darling. At the pretty
pigeon. At ox moudy. At barley break. At purpose in purpose. At the
bavine. At nine less. At the bush leap. At blind-man-buff. At crossing.
At the fallen bridges. At bo-peep. At bridled nick. At the hardit
arsepursy. At the white at butts. At the harrower's nest. At thwack
swinge him. At forward hey. At apple, pear, plum. At the fig. At
mumgi. At gunshot crack. At the toad. At mustard peel. At cricket. At
the gome. At the pounding stick. At the relapse. At jack and the box. At
jog breech, or prick him for- At the queens. ward. At the trades. At
knockpate. At heads and points. At the Cornish c(h)ough. At the
vine-tree hug. At the crane-dance. At black be thy fall. At slash and cut.
At ho the distaff. At bobbing, or flirt on the At Joan Thomson. nose. At
the bolting cloth. At the larks. At the oat's seed. At fillipping.
After he had thus well played, revelled, past and spent his time, it was
thought fit to drink a little, and that was eleven glassfuls the man, and,
immediately after making good cheer again, he would stretch himself
upon a fair bench, or a good large bed, and there sleep two or three
hours together, without thinking or speaking any hurt. After he was
awakened he would shake his ears a little. In the mean time they
brought him fresh wine. There he drank better than ever. Ponocrates
showed him that it was an ill diet to drink so after sleeping. It is,
answered Gargantua, the very life of the patriarchs and holy fathers; for
naturally I sleep salt, and my sleep hath been to me in stead of so many
gammons of bacon. Then began he to study a little, and out came the
paternosters or rosary of beads, which the better and more formally to
despatch, he got upon an old mule, which had served nine kings, and so
mumbling with his mouth, nodding and doddling his head, would go
see a coney ferreted or caught in a gin. At his return he went into the
kitchen to know what roast meat was on the spit, and what otherwise
was to be dressed for supper. And supped very well, upon my
conscience, and commonly did invite some of his neighbours that were
good drinkers, with whom carousing and drinking merrily, they told
stories of all sorts from the old to the new. Amongst others he had for
domestics the Lords of Fou, of Gourville, of Griniot, and of Marigny.
After supper were brought in upon the place the fair wooden gospels
and the books of the four kings, that is to say, many pairs of tables and
cards--or the fair flush, one, two, three--or at all, to make short work; or
else they went to see the wenches thereabouts, with little small
banquets, intermixed with collations and rear-suppers. Then did he
sleep, without unbridling, until eight o'clock in the next morning.
Chapter 1.
XXIII.
How Gargantua was instructed by Ponocrates, and in such sort
disciplinated, that he lost not one hour of the day.
When Ponocrates knew Gargantua's vicious manner of living, he
resolved to bring him up in another kind; but for a while he bore with
him, considering that nature cannot endure a sudden change, without
great violence. Therefore, to begin his work the better, he requested a
learned physician of that time, called Master Theodorus, seriously to
perpend, if it were possible, how to bring Gargantua into a better course.
The said physician purged him canonically with Anticyrian hellebore,
by which medicine he cleansed all the alteration and perverse habitude
of his brain. By this means also Ponocrates made him forget all that he
had learned under his ancient preceptors, as Timotheus did to his
disciples, who had been instructed under other musicians. To do this
the better, they brought him into the company of learned men, which
were there, in whose imitation he had a great desire and affection to
study otherwise, and to improve his parts. Afterwards he put himself
into such a road and way of studying, that he lost not any one hour in
the day, but employed all his time in learning and honest knowledge.
Gargantua awaked, then, about four o'clock in the morning. Whilst they
were in rubbing of him, there was read unto him some chapter of the
holy Scripture aloud and clearly, with a pronunciation fit for the matter,
and hereunto was appointed a young page born in Basche, named
Anagnostes. According to the purpose and argument of that lesson, he
oftentimes gave himself to worship, adore, pray, and send up his
supplications to that good God, whose Word did show his majesty and
marvellous judgment. Then went he unto the secret places to make
excretion of his natural digestions. There his master repeated what had
been read, expounding unto him the most obscure and difficult points.
In returning, they considered the face of the sky, if it was such as they
had observed it the night before, and into what signs the sun was
entering, as also the moon for that day. This done, he was apparelled,
combed, curled, trimmed, and perfumed, during which time they
repeated to him the lessons of the day before. He himself said them by
heart, and upon them would ground some practical cases concerning
the estate of man, which he would prosecute sometimes two or three
hours, but ordinarily they ceased as soon as he was fully clothed. Then
for three good hours he had a lecture read unto him. This done they
went forth, still conferring of the substance of the lecture, either unto a
field near the university called the Brack, or unto the meadows, where
they played at the ball, the long-tennis, and at the piletrigone (which is
a play wherein we throw a triangular piece of iron at a ring, to pass it),
most gallantly exercising their bodies, as formerly they had done their
minds. All their play was but in liberty, for they left off when they
pleased, and that was commonly when they did sweat over all their
body, or were otherwise weary. Then were they very well wiped and
rubbed, shifted their shirts, and, walking soberly, went to see if dinner
was ready. Whilst they stayed for that, they did clearly and eloquently
pronounce some sentences that they had retained of the lecture. In the
meantime Master Appetite came, and then very orderly sat they down
at table. At the beginning of the meal there was read some pleasant
history of the warlike actions of former times, until he had taken a glass
of wine. Then, if they thought good, they continued reading, or began
to discourse merrily together; speaking first of the virtue, propriety,
efficacy, and nature of all that was served in at the table; of bread, of
wine, of water, of salt, of fleshes, fishes, fruits, herbs, roots, and of their
dressing. By means whereof he learned in a little time all the passages
competent for this that were to be found in Pliny, Athenaeus,
Dioscorides, Julius Pollux, Galen, Porphyry, Oppian, Polybius,
Heliodore, Aristotle, Aelian, and others. Whilst they talked of these
things, many times, to be the more certain, they caused the very books
to be brought to the table, and so well and perfectly did he in his
memory retain the things above said, that in that time there was not a
physician that knew half so much as he did. Afterwards they conferred
of the lessons read in the morning, and, ending their repast with some
conserve or marmalade of quinces, he picked his teeth with mastic
tooth-pickers, washed his hands and eyes with fair fresh water, and
gave thanks unto God in some fine cantiques, made in praise of the
divine bounty and munificence. This done, they brought in cards, not to
play, but to learn a thousand pretty tricks and new inventions, which
were all grounded upon arithmetic. By this means he fell in love with
that numerical science, and every day after dinner and supper he passed
his time in it as pleasantly as he was wont to do at cards and dice; so
that at last he understood so well both the theory and practical part
thereof, that Tunstall the Englishman, who had written very largely of
that purpose, confessed that verily in comparison of him he had no skill
at all. And not only in that, but in the other mathematical sciences, as
geometry, astronomy, music, &c. For in waiting on the concoction and
attending the digestion of his food, they made a thousand pretty
instruments and geometrical figures, and did in some measure practise
the astronomical canons.
After this they recreated themselves with singing musically, in four or
five parts, or upon a set theme or ground at random, as it best pleased
them. In matter of musical instruments, he learned to play upon the lute,
the virginals, the harp, the Almain flute with nine holes, the viol, and
the sackbut. This hour thus spent, and digestion finished, he did purge
his body of natural excrements, then betook himself to his principal
study for three hours together, or more, as well to repeat his matutinal
lectures as to proceed in the book wherein he was, as also to write
handsomely, to draw and form the antique and Roman letters. This
being done, they went out of their house, and with them a young
gentleman of Touraine, named the Esquire Gymnast, who taught him
the art of riding. Changing then his clothes, he rode a Naples courser, a
Dutch roussin, a Spanish jennet, a barded or trapped steed, then a light
fleet horse, unto whom he gave a hundred carieres, made him go the
high saults, bounding in the air, free the ditch with a skip, leap over a
stile or pale, turn short in a ring both to the right and left hand. There he
broke not his lance; for it is the greatest foolery in the world to say, I
have broken ten lances at tilts or in fight. A carpenter can do even as
much. But it is a glorious and praise-worthy action with one lance to
break and overthrow ten enemies. Therefore, with a sharp, stiff, strong,
and well-steeled lance would he usually force up a door, pierce a
harness, beat down a tree, carry away the ring, lift up a cuirassier
saddle, with the mail-coat and gauntlet. All this he did in complete
arms from head to foot. As for the prancing flourishes and smacking
popisms for the better cherishing of the horse, commonly used in riding,
none did them better than he. The cavallerize of Ferrara was but as an
ape compared to him. He was singularly skilful in leaping nimbly from
one horse to another without putting foot to ground, and these horses
were called desultories. He could likewise from either side, with a lance
in his hand, leap on horseback without stirrups, and rule the horse at his
pleasure without a bridle, for such things are useful in military
engagements. Another day he exercised the battle-axe, which he so
dexterously wielded, both in the nimble, strong, and smooth
management of that weapon, and that in all the feats practicable by it,
that he passed knight of arms in the field, and at all essays.
Then tossed he the pike, played with the two-handed sword, with the
backsword, with the Spanish tuck, the dagger, poniard, armed, unarmed,
with a buckler, with a cloak, with a target. Then would he hunt the hart,
the roebuck, the bear, the fallow deer, the wild boar, the hare, the
pheasant, the partridge, and the bustard. He played at the balloon, and
made it bound in the air, both with fist and foot. He wrestled, ran,
jumped--not at three steps and a leap, called the hops, nor at clochepied,
called the hare's leap, nor yet at the Almains; for, said Gymnast, these
jumps are for the wars altogether unprofitable, and of no use--but at one
leap he would skip over a ditch, spring over a hedge, mount six paces
upon a wall, ramp and grapple after this fashion up against a window of
the full height of a lance. He did swim in deep waters on his belly, on
his back, sideways, with all his body, with his feet only, with one hand
in the air, wherein he held a book, crossing thus the breadth of the river
of Seine without wetting it, and dragged along his cloak with his teeth,
as did Julius Caesar; then with the help of one hand he entered forcibly
into a boat, from whence he cast himself again headlong into the water,
sounded the depths, hollowed the rocks, and plunged into the pits and
gulfs. Then turned he the boat about, governed it, led it swiftly or
slowly with the stream and against the stream, stopped it in his course,
guided it with one hand, and with the other laid hard about him with a
huge great oar, hoisted the sail, hied up along the mast by the shrouds,
ran upon the edge of the decks, set the compass in order, tackled the
bowlines, and steered the helm. Coming out of the water, he ran
furiously up against a hill, and with the same alacrity and swiftness ran
down again. He climbed up at trees like a cat, and leaped from the one
to the other like a squirrel. He did pull down the great boughs and
branches like another Milo; then with two sharp well-steeled daggers
and two tried bodkins would he run up by the wall to the very top of a
house like a rat; then suddenly came down from the top to the bottom,
with such an even composition of members that by the fall he would
catch no harm.
He did cast the dart, throw the bar, put the stone, practise the javelin,
the boar-spear or partisan, and the halbert. He broke the strongest bows
in drawing, bended against his breast the greatest crossbows of steel,
took his aim by the eye with the hand-gun, and shot well, traversed and
planted the cannon, shot at butt-marks, at the papgay from below
upwards, or to a height from above downwards, or to a descent; then
before him, sideways, and behind him, like the Parthians. They tied a
cable-rope to the top of a high tower, by one end whereof hanging near
the ground he wrought himself with his hands to the very top; then
upon the same track came down so sturdily and firm that you could not
on a plain meadow have run with more assurance. They set up a great
pole fixed upon two trees. There would he hang by his hands, and with
them alone, his feet touching at nothing, would go back and fore along
the foresaid rope with so great swiftness that hardly could one overtake
him with running; and then, to exercise his breast and lungs, he would
shout like all the devils in hell. I heard him once call Eudemon from St.
Victor's gate to Montmartre. Stentor had never such a voice at the siege
of Troy. Then for the strengthening of his nerves or sinews they made
him two great sows of lead, each of them weighing eight thousand and
seven hundred quintals, which they called alteres. Those he took up
from the ground, in each hand one, then lifted them up over his head,
and held them so without stirring three quarters of an hour and more,
which was an inimitable force. He fought at barriers with the stoutest
and most vigorous champions; and when it came to the cope, he stood
so sturdily on his feet that he abandoned himself unto the strongest, in
case they could remove him from his place, as Milo was wont to do of
old. In whose imitation, likewise, he held a pomegranate in his hand, to
give it unto him that could take it from him. The time being thus
bestowed, and himself rubbed, cleansed, wiped, and refreshed with
other clothes, he returned fair and softly; and passing through certain
meadows, or other grassy places, beheld the trees and plants,
comparing them with what is written of them in the books of the
ancients, such as Theophrast, Dioscorides, Marinus, Pliny, Nicander,
Macer, and Galen, and carried home to the house great handfuls of
them, whereof a young page called Rizotomos had charge; together
with little mattocks, pickaxes, grubbing-hooks, cabbies, pruning-knives,
and other instruments requisite for herborizing. Being come to their
lodging, whilst supper was making ready, they repeated certain
passages of that which hath been read, and sat down to table. Here
remark, that his dinner was sober and thrifty, for he did then eat only to
prevent the gnawings of his stomach, but his supper was copious and
large, for he took then as much as was fit to maintain and nourish him;
which, indeed, is the true diet prescribed by the art of good and sound
physic, although a rabble of loggerheaded physicians, nuzzeled in the
brabbling shop of sophisters, counsel the contrary. During that repast
was continued the lesson read at dinner as long as they thought good;
the rest was spent in good discourse, learned and profitable. After that
they had given thanks, he set himself to sing vocally, and play upon
harmonious instruments, or otherwise passed his time at some pretty
sports, made with cards or dice, or in practising the feats of
legerdemain with cups and balls. There they stayed some nights in
frolicking thus, and making themselves merry till it was time to go to
bed; and on other nights they would go make visits unto learned men,
or to such as had been travellers in strange and remote countries. When
it was full night before they retired themselves, they went unto the most
open place of the house to see the face of the sky, and there beheld the
comets, if any were, as likewise the figures, situations, aspects,
oppositions, and conjunctions of both the fixed stars and planets.
Then with his master did he briefly recapitulate, after the manner of the
Pythagoreans, that which he had read, seen, learned, done, and
understood in the whole course of that day.
Then prayed they unto God the Creator, in falling down before him,
and strengthening their faith towards him, and glorifying him for his
boundless bounty; and, giving thanks unto him for the time that was
past, they recommended themselves to his divine clemency for the
future. Which being done, they went to bed, and betook themselves to
their repose and rest.
Chapter 1.
XXIV.
How Gargantua spent his time in rainy weather.
If it happened that the weather were anything cloudy, foul, and rainy,
all the forenoon was employed, as before specified, according to
custom, with this difference only, that they had a good clear fire lighted
to correct the distempers of the air. But after dinner, instead of their
wonted exercitations, they did abide within, and, by way of apotherapy
(that is, a making the body healthful by exercise), did recreate
themselves in bottling up of hay, in cleaving and sawing of wood, and
in threshing sheaves of corn at the barn. Then they studied the art of
painting or carving; or brought into use the antique play of tables, as
Leonicus hath written of it, and as our good friend Lascaris playeth at it.
In playing they examined the passages of ancient authors wherein the
said play is mentioned or any metaphor drawn from it. They went
likewise to see the drawing of metals, or the casting of great ordnance;
how the lapidaries did work; as also the goldsmiths and cutters of
precious stones. Nor did they omit to visit the alchemists,
money-coiners, upholsterers, weavers, velvet-workers, watchmakers,
looking-glass framers, printers, organists, and other such kind of
artificers, and, everywhere giving them somewhat to drink, did learn
and consider the industry and invention of the trades. They went also to
hear the public lectures, the solemn commencements, the repetitions,
the acclamations, the pleadings of the gentle lawyers, and sermons of
evangelical preachers. He went through the halls and places appointed
for fencing, and there played against the masters themselves at all
weapons, and showed them by experience that he knew as much in it as,
yea, more than, they. And, instead of herborizing, they visited the shops
of druggists, herbalists, and apothecaries, and diligently considered the
fruits, roots, leaves, gums, seeds, the grease and ointments of some
foreign parts, as also how they did adulterate them. He went to see the
jugglers, tumblers, mountebanks, and quacksalvers, and considered
their cunning, their shifts, their somersaults and smooth tongue,
especially of those of Chauny in Picardy, who are naturally great
praters, and brave givers of fibs, in matter of green apes.
At their return they did eat more soberly at supper than at other times,
and meats more desiccative and extenuating; to the end that the
intemperate moisture of the air, communicated to the body by a
necessary confinitive, might by this means be corrected, and that they
might not receive any prejudice for want of their ordinary bodily
exercise. Thus was Gargantua governed, and kept on in this course of
education, from day to day profiting, as you may understand such a
young man of his age may, of a pregnant judgment, with good
discipline well continued. Which, although at the beginning it seemed
difficult, became a little after so sweet, so easy, and so delightful, that it
seemed rather the recreation of a king than the study of a scholar.
Nevertheless Ponocrates, to divert him from this vehement intension of
the spirits, thought fit, once in a month, upon some fair and clear day,
to go out of the city betimes in the morning, either towards Gentilly, or
Boulogne, or to Montrouge, or Charanton bridge, or to Vanves, or St.
Clou, and there spend all the day long in making the greatest cheer that
could be devised, sporting, making merry, drinking healths, playing,
singing, dancing, tumbling in some fair meadow, unnestling of
sparrows, taking of quails, and fishing for frogs and crabs. But although
that day was passed without books or lecture, yet was it not spent
without profit; for in the said meadows they usually repeated certain
pleasant verses of Virgil's agriculture, of Hesiod and of Politian's
husbandry, would set a-broach some witty Latin epigrams, then
immediately turned them into roundelays and songs for dancing in the
French language. In their feasting they would sometimes separate the
water from the wine that was therewith mixed, as Cato teacheth, De re
rustica, and Pliny with an ivy cup would wash the wine in a basinful of
water, then take it out again with a funnel as pure as ever. They made
the water go from one glass to another, and contrived a thousand little
automatory engines, that is to say, moving of themselves.
Chapter 1.
XXV.
How there was great strife and debate raised betwixt the cake-bakers of
Lerne, and those of Gargantua's country, whereupon were waged great
wars.
At that time, which was the season of vintage, in the beginning of
harvest, when the country shepherds were set to keep the vines, and
hinder the starlings from eating up the grapes, as some cake-bakers of
Lerne happened to pass along in the broad highway, driving into the
city ten or twelve horses loaded with cakes, the said shepherds
courteously entreated them to give them some for their money, as the
price then ruled in the market. For here it is to be remarked, that it is a
celestial food to eat for breakfast hot fresh cakes with grapes, especially
the frail clusters, the great red grapes, the muscadine, the verjuice grape,
and the laskard, for those that are costive in their belly, because it will
make them gush out, and squirt the length of a hunter's staff, like the
very tap of a barrel; and oftentimes, thinking to let a squib, they did
all-to-besquatter and conskite themselves, whereupon they are
commonly called the vintage thinkers. The bun-sellers or cake-makers
were in nothing inclinable to their request; but, which was worse, did
injure them most outrageously, calling them prattling gabblers,
lickorous gluttons, freckled bittors, mangy rascals, shite-a-bed
scoundrels, drunken roysters, sly knaves, drowsy loiterers, slapsauce
fellows, slabberdegullion druggels, lubberly louts, cozening foxes,
ruffian rogues, paltry customers, sycophant-varlets, drawlatch hoydens,
flouting milksops, jeering companions, staring clowns, forlorn snakes,
ninny lobcocks, scurvy sneaksbies, fondling fops, base loons, saucy
coxcombs, idle lusks, scoffing braggarts, noddy meacocks, blockish
grutnols, doddipol-joltheads, jobbernol goosecaps, foolish loggerheads,
flutch calf-lollies, grouthead gnat-snappers, lob-dotterels, gaping
changelings, codshead loobies, woodcock slangams, ninny-hammer
flycatchers, noddypeak simpletons, turdy gut, shitten shepherds, and
other suchlike defamatory epithets; saying further, that it was not for
them to eat of these dainty cakes, but might very well content
themselves with the coarse unranged bread, or to eat of the great brown
household loaf. To which provoking words, one amongst them, called
Forgier, an honest fellow of his person and a notable springal, made
answer very calmly thus: How long is it since you have got horns, that
you are become so proud? Indeed formerly you were wont to give us
some freely, and will you not now let us have any for our money? This
is not the part of good neighbours, neither do we serve you thus when
you come hither to buy our good corn, whereof you make your cakes
and buns. Besides that, we would have given you to the bargain some
of our grapes, but, by his zounds, you may chance to repent it, and
possibly have need of us at another time, when we shall use you after
the like manner, and therefore remember it. Then Marquet, a prime
man in the confraternity of the cake-bakers, said unto him, Yea, sir,
thou art pretty well crest-risen this morning, thou didst eat yesternight
too much millet and bolymong. Come hither, sirrah, come hither, I will
give thee some cakes. Whereupon Forgier, dreading no harm, in all
simplicity went towards him, and drew a sixpence out of his leather
satchel, thinking that Marquet would have sold him some of his cakes.
But, instead of cakes, he gave him with his whip such a rude lash
overthwart the legs, that the marks of the whipcord knots were apparent
in them, then would have fled away; but Forgier cried out as loud as he
could, O, murder, murder, help, help, help! and in the meantime threw
a great cudgel after him, which he carried under his arm, wherewith he
hit him in the coronal joint of his head, upon the crotaphic artery of the
right side thereof, so forcibly, that Marquet fell down from his mare
more like a dead than living man. Meanwhile the farmers and country
swains, that were watching their walnuts near to that place, came
running with their great poles and long staves, and laid such load on
these cake-bakers, as if they had been to thresh upon green rye. The
other shepherds and shepherdesses, hearing the lamentable shout of
Forgier, came with their slings and slackies following them, and
throwing great stones at them, as thick as if it had been hail. At last
they overtook them, and took from them about four or five dozen of
their cakes. Nevertheless they paid for them the ordinary price, and
gave them over and above one hundred eggs and three baskets full of
mulberries. Then did the cake-bakers help to get up to his mare
Marquet, who was most shrewdly wounded, and forthwith returned to
Lerne, changing the resolution they had to go to Pareille, threatening
very sharp and boisterously the cowherds, shepherds, and farmers of
Seville and Sinays. This done, the shepherds and shepherdesses made
merry with these cakes and fine grapes, and sported themselves
together at the sound of the pretty small pipe, scoffing and laughing at
those vainglorious cake-bakers, who had that day met with a mischief
for want of crossing themselves with a good hand in the morning. Nor
did they forget to apply to Forgier's leg some fair great red medicinal
grapes, and so handsomely dressed it and bound it up that he was
quickly cured.
Chapter 1.
XXVI.
How the inhabitants of Lerne, by the commandment of Picrochole their
king, assaulted the shepherds of Gargantua unexpectedly and on a
sudden.
The cake-bakers, being returned to Lerne, went presently, before they
did either eat or drink, to the Capitol, and there before their king, called
Picrochole, the third of that name, made their complaint, showing their
panniers broken, their caps all crumpled, their coats torn, their cakes
taken away, but, above all, Marquet most enormously wounded, saying
that all that mischief was done by the shepherds and herdsmen of
Grangousier, near the broad highway beyond Seville. Picrochole
incontinent grew angry and furious; and, without asking any further
what, how, why, or wherefore, commanded the ban and arriere ban to
be sounded throughout all his country, that all his vassals of what
condition soever should, upon pain of the halter, come, in the best arms
they could, unto the great place before the castle, at the hour of noon,
and, the better to strengthen his design, he caused the drum to be beat
about the town. Himself, whilst his dinner was making ready, went to
see his artillery mounted upon the carriage, to display his colours, and
set up the great royal standard, and loaded wains with store of
ammunition both for the field and the belly, arms and victuals. At
dinner he despatched his commissions, and by his express edict my
Lord Shagrag was appointed to command the vanguard, wherein were
numbered sixteen thousand and fourteen arquebusiers or firelocks,
together with thirty thousand and eleven volunteer adventurers. The
great Touquedillon, master of the horse, had the charge of the ordnance,
wherein were reckoned nine hundred and fourteen brazen pieces, in
cannons, double cannons, basilisks, serpentines, culverins, bombards or
murderers, falcons, bases or passevolins, spirols, and other sorts of
great guns. The rearguard was committed to the Duke of Scrapegood.
In the main battle was the king and the princes of his kingdom. Thus
being hastily furnished, before they would set forward, they sent three
hundred light horsemen, under the conduct of Captain Swillwind, to
discover the country, clear the avenues, and see whether there was any
ambush laid for them. But, after they had made diligent search, they
found all the land round about in peace and quiet, without any meeting
or convention at all; which Picrochole understanding, commanded that
everyone should march speedily under his colours. Then immediately
in all disorder, without keeping either rank or file, they took the fields
one amongst another, wasting, spoiling, destroying, and making havoc
of all wherever they went, not sparing poor nor rich, privileged or
unprivileged places, church nor laity, drove away oxen and cows, bulls,
calves, heifers, wethers, ewes, lambs, goats, kids, hens, capons,
chickens, geese, ganders, goslings, hogs, swine, pigs, and such like;
beating down the walnuts, plucking the grapes, tearing the hedges,
shaking the fruit-trees, and committing such incomparable abuses, that
the like abomination was never heard of. Nevertheless, they met with
none to resist them, for everyone submitted to their mercy, beseeching
them that they might be dealt with courteously in regard that they had
always carried themselves as became good and loving neighbours, and
that they had never been guilty of any wrong or outrage done upon
them, to be thus suddenly surprised, troubled, and disquieted, and that,
if they would not desist, God would punish them very shortly. To
which expostulations and remonstrances no other answer was made,
but that they would teach them to eat cakes.
Chapter 1.
XXVII.
How a monk of Seville saved the close of the abbey from being
ransacked by the enemy.
So much they did, and so far they went pillaging and stealing, that at
last they came to Seville, where they robbed both men and women, and
took all they could catch: nothing was either too hot or too heavy for
them. Although the plague was there in the most part of all the houses,
they nevertheless entered everywhere, then plundered and carried away
all that was within, and yet for all this not one of them took any hurt,
which is a most wonderful case. For the curates, vicars, preachers,
physicians, chirurgeons, and apothecaries, who went to visit, to dress,
to cure, to heal, to preach unto and admonish those that were sick, were
all dead of the infection, and these devilish robbers and murderers
caught never any harm at all. Whence comes this to pass, my masters? I
beseech you think upon it. The town being thus pillaged, they went
unto the abbey with a horrible noise and tumult, but they found it shut
and made fast against them. Whereupon the body of the army marched
forward towards a pass or ford called the Gue de Vede, except seven
companies of foot and two hundred lancers, who, staying there, broke
down the walls of the close, to waste, spoil, and make havoc of all the
vines and vintage within that place. The monks (poor devils) knew not
in that extremity to which of all their sancts they should vow
themselves. Nevertheless, at all adventures they rang the bells ad
capitulum capitulantes. There it was decreed that they should make a
fair procession, stuffed with good lectures, prayers, and litanies contra
hostium insidias, and jolly responses pro pace.
There was then in the abbey a claustral monk, called Friar John of the
funnels and gobbets, in French des entoumeures, young, gallant, frisk,
lusty, nimble, quick, active, bold, adventurous, resolute, tall, lean,
wide-mouthed, long-nosed, a fair despatcher of morning prayers,
unbridler of masses, and runner over of vigils; and, to conclude
summarily in a word, a right monk, if ever there was any, since the
monking world monked a monkery: for the rest, a clerk even to the
teeth in matter of breviary. This monk, hearing the noise that the enemy
made within the enclosure of the vineyard, went out to see what they
were doing; and perceiving that they were cutting and gathering the
grapes, whereon was grounded the foundation of all their next year's
wine, returned unto the choir of the church where the other monks were,
all amazed and astonished like so many bell-melters. Whom when he
heard sing, im, nim, pe, ne, ne, ne, ne, nene, tum, ne, num, num, ini, i
mi, co, o, no, o, o, neno, ne, no, no, no, rum, nenum, num: It is well shit,
well sung, said he. By the virtue of God, why do not you sing, Panniers,
farewell, vintage is done? The devil snatch me, if they be not already
within the middle of our close, and cut so well both vines and grapes,
that, by Cod's body, there will not be found for these four years to come
so much as a gleaning in it. By the belly of Sanct James, what shall we
poor devils drink the while? Lord God! da mihi potum. Then said the
prior of the convent: What should this drunken fellow do here? let him
be carried to prison for troubling the divine service. Nay, said the monk,
the wine service, let us behave ourselves so that it be not troubled; for
you yourself, my lord prior, love to drink of the best, and so doth every
honest man. Never yet did a man of worth dislike good wine, it is a
monastical apophthegm. But these responses that you chant here, by
G--, are not in season. Wherefore is it, that our devotions were
instituted to be short in the time of harvest and vintage, and long in the
advent, and all the winter? The late friar, Massepelosse, of good
memory, a true zealous man, or else I give myself to the devil, of our
religion, told me, and I remember it well, how the reason was, that in
this season we might press and make the wine, and in winter whiff it up.
Hark you, my masters, you that love the wine, Cop's body, follow me;
for Sanct Anthony burn me as freely as a faggot, if they get leave to
taste one drop of the liquor that will not now come and fight for relief
of the vine. Hog's belly, the goods of the church! Ha, no, no. What the
devil, Sanct Thomas of England was well content to die for them; if I
died in the same cause, should not I be a sanct likewise? Yes. Yet shall
not I die there for all this, for it is I that must do it to others and send
them a-packing.
As he spake this he threw off his great monk's habit, and laid hold upon
the staff of the cross, which was made of the heart of a sorbapple-tree,
it being of the length of a lance, round, of a full grip, and a little
powdered with lilies called flower de luce, the workmanship whereof
was almost all defaced and worn out. Thus went he out in a fair
long-skirted jacket, putting his frock scarfwise athwart his breast, and
in this equipage, with his staff, shaft or truncheon of the cross, laid on
so lustily, brisk, and fiercely upon his enemies, who, without any order,
or ensign, or trumpet, or drum, were busied in gathering the grapes of
the vineyard. For the cornets, guidons, and ensign-bearers had laid
down their standards, banners, and colours by the wall sides: the
drummers had knocked out the heads of their drums on one end to fill
them with grapes: the trumpeters were loaded with great bundles of
bunches and huge knots of clusters: in sum, everyone of them was out
of array, and all in disorder. He hurried, therefore, upon them so rudely,
without crying gare or beware, that he overthrew them like hogs,
tumbled them over like swine, striking athwart and alongst, and by one
means or other laid so about him, after the old fashion of fencing, that
to some he beat out their brains, to others he crushed their arms,
battered their legs, and bethwacked their sides till their ribs cracked
with it. To others again he unjointed the spondyles or knuckles of the
neck, disfigured their chaps, gashed their faces, made their cheeks hang
flapping on their chin, and so swinged and balammed them that they
fell down before him like hay before a mower. To some others he
spoiled the frame of their kidneys, marred their backs, broke their
thigh- bones, pashed in their noses, poached out their eyes, cleft their
mandibles, tore their jaws, dung in their teeth into their throat, shook
asunder their omoplates or shoulder-blades, sphacelated their shins,
mortified their shanks, inflamed their ankles, heaved off of the hinges
their ishies, their sciatica or hip-gout, dislocated the joints of their
knees, squattered into pieces the boughts or pestles of their thighs, and
so thumped, mauled and belaboured them everywhere, that never was
corn so thick and threefold threshed upon by ploughmen's flails as were
the pitifully disjointed members of their mangled bodies under the
merciless baton of the cross. If any offered to hide himself amongst the
thickest of the vines, he laid him squat as a flounder, bruised the ridge
of his back, and dashed his reins like a dog. If any thought by flight to
escape, he made his head to fly in pieces by the lamboidal commissure,
which is a seam in the hinder part of the skull. If anyone did scramble
up into a tree, thinking there to be safe, he rent up his perinee, and
impaled him in at the fundament. If any of his old acquaintance
happened to cry out, Ha, Friar John, my friend Friar John, quarter,
quarter, I yield myself to you, to you I render myself! So thou shalt,
said he, and must, whether thou wouldst or no, and withal render and
yield up thy soul to all the devils in hell; then suddenly gave them
dronos, that is, so many knocks, thumps, raps, dints, thwacks, and
bangs, as sufficed to warn Pluto of their coming and despatch them
a-going. If any was so rash and full of temerity as to resist him to his
face, then was it he did show the strength of his muscles, for without
more ado he did transpierce him, by running him in at the breast,
through the mediastine and the heart. Others, again, he so quashed and
bebumped, that, with a sound bounce under the hollow of their short
ribs, he overturned their stomachs so that they died immediately. To
some, with a smart souse on the epigaster, he would make their midriff
swag, then, redoubling the blow, gave them such a homepush on the
navel that he made their puddings to gush out. To others through their
ballocks he pierced their bumgut, and left not bowel, tripe, nor entrail
in their body that had not felt the impetuosity, fierceness, and fury of
his violence. Believe, that it was the most horrible spectacle that ever
one saw. Some cried unto Sanct Barbe, others to St. George. O the holy
Lady Nytouch, said one, the good Sanctess; O our Lady of Succours,
said another, help, help! Others cried, Our Lady of Cunaut, of Loretto,
of Good Tidings, on the other side of the water St. Mary Over. Some
vowed a pilgrimage to St. James, and others to the holy handkerchief at
Chamberry, which three months after that burnt so well in the fire that
they could not get one thread of it saved. Others sent up their vows to
St. Cadouin, others to St. John d'Angely, and to St. Eutropius of
Xaintes. Others again invoked St. Mesmes of Chinon, St. Martin of
Candes, St. Clouaud of Sinays, the holy relics of Laurezay, with a
thousand other jolly little sancts and santrels. Some died without
speaking, others spoke without dying; some died in speaking, others
spoke in dying. Others shouted as loud as they could Confession,
Confession, Confiteor, Miserere, In manus! So great was the cry of the
wounded, that the prior of the abbey with all his monks came forth,
who, when they saw these poor wretches so slain amongst the vines,
and wounded to death, confessed some of them. But whilst the priests
were busied in confessing them, the little monkies ran all to the place
where Friar John was, and asked him wherein he would be pleased to
require their assistance. To which he answered that they should cut the
throats of those he had thrown down upon the ground. They presently,
leaving their outer habits and cowls upon the rails, began to throttle and
make an end of those whom he had already crushed. Can you tell with
what instruments they did it? With fair gullies, which are little
hulchbacked demi-knives, the iron tool whereof is two inches long, and
the wooden handle one inch thick, and three inches in length,
wherewith the little boys in our country cut ripe walnuts in two while
they are yet in the shell, and pick out the kernel, and they found them
very fit for the expediting of that weasand-slitting exploit. In the
meantime Friar John, with his formidable baton of the cross, got to the
breach which the enemies had made, and there stood to snatch up those
that endeavoured to escape. Some of the monkitos carried the standards,
banners, ensigns, guidons, and colours into their cells and chambers to
make garters of them. But when those that had been shriven would
have gone out at the gap of the said breach, the sturdy monk quashed
and felled them down with blows, saying, These men have had
confession and are penitent souls; they have got their absolution and
gained the pardons; they go into paradise as straight as a sickle, or as
the way is to Faye (like Crooked-Lane at Eastcheap). Thus by his
prowess and valour were discomfited all those of the army that entered
into the close of the abbey, unto the number of thirteen thousand, six
hundred, twenty and two, besides the women and little children, which
is always to be understood. Never did Maugis the Hermit bear himself
more valiantly with his bourdon or pilgrim's staff against the Saracens,
of whom is written in the Acts of the four sons of Aymon, than did this
monk against his enemies with the staff of the cross.
Chapter 1.
XXVIII.
How Picrochole stormed and took by assault the rock Clermond, and of
Grangousier's unwillingness and aversion from the undertaking of war.
Whilst the monk did thus skirmish, as we have said, against those
which were entered within the close, Picrochole in great haste passed
the ford of Vede--a very especial pass--with all his soldiers, and set
upon the rock Clermond, where there was made him no resistance at all;
and, because it was already night, he resolved to quarter himself and his
army in that town, and to refresh himself of his pugnative choler. In the
morning he stormed and took the bulwarks and castle, which afterwards
he fortified with rampiers, and furnished with all ammunition requisite,
intending to make his retreat there, if he should happen to be otherwise
worsted; for it was a strong place, both by art and nature, in regard of
the stance and situation of it. But let us leave them there, and return to
our good Gargantua, who is at Paris very assiduous and earnest at the
study of good letters and athletical exercitations, and to the good old
man Grangousier his father, who after supper warmeth his ballocks by
a good, clear, great fire, and, waiting upon the broiling of some
chestnuts, is very serious in drawing scratches on the hearth, with a
stick burnt at the one end, wherewith they did stir up the fire, telling to
his wife and the rest of the family pleasant old stories and tales of
former times.
Whilst he was thus employed, one of the shepherds which did keep the
vines, named Pillot, came towards him, and to the full related the
enormous abuses which were committed, and the excessive spoil that
was made by Picrochole, King of Lerne, upon his lands and territories,
and how he had pillaged, wasted, and ransacked all the country, except
the enclosure at Seville, which Friar John des Entoumeures to his great
honour had preserved; and that at the same present time the said king
was in the rock Clermond, and there, with great industry and
circumspection, was strengthening himself and his whole army. Halas,
halas, alas! said Grangousier, what is this, good people? Do I dream, or
is it true that they tell me? Picrochole, my ancient friend of old time, of
my own kindred and alliance, comes he to invade me? What moves
him? What provokes him? What sets him on? What drives him to it?
Who hath given him this counsel? Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, my God, my
Saviour, help me, inspire me, and advise me what I shall do! I protest, I
swear before thee, so be thou favourable to me, if ever I did him or his
subjects any damage or displeasure, or committed any the least robbery
in his country; but, on the contrary, I have succoured and supplied him
with men, money, friendship, and counsel, upon any occasion wherein I
could be steadable for the improvement of his good. That he hath
therefore at this nick of time so outraged and wronged me, it cannot be
but by the malevolent and wicked spirit. Good God, thou knowest my
courage, for nothing can be hidden from thee. If perhaps he be grown
mad, and that thou hast sent him hither to me for the better recovery
and re-establishment of his brain, grant me power and wisdom to bring
him to the yoke of thy holy will by good discipline. Ho, ho, ho, ho, my
good people, my friends and my faithful servants, must I hinder you
from helping me? Alas, my old age required hence-forward nothing
else but rest, and all the days of my life I have laboured for nothing so
much as peace; but now I must, I see it well, load with arms my poor,
weary, and feeble shoulders, and take in my trembling hand the lance
and horseman's mace, to succour and protect my honest subjects.
Reason will have it so; for by their labour am I entertained, and with
their sweat am I nourished, I, my children and my family. This
notwithstanding, I will not undertake war, until I have first tried all the
ways and means of peace: that I resolve upon.
Then assembled he his council, and proposed the matter as it was
indeed. Whereupon it was concluded that they should send some
discreet man unto Picrochole, to know wherefore he had thus suddenly
broken the peace and invaded those lands unto which he had no right
nor title. Furthermore, that they should send for Gargantua, and those
under his command, for the preservation of the country, and defence
thereof now at need. All this pleased Grangousier very well, and he
commanded that so it should be done. Presently therefore he sent the
Basque his lackey to fetch Gargantua with all diligence, and wrote him
as followeth.
Chapter 1.
XXIX.
The tenour of the letter which Grangousier wrote to his son Gargantua.
The fervency of thy studies did require that I should not in a long time
recall thee from that philosophical rest thou now enjoyest, if the
confidence reposed in our friends and ancient confederates had not at
this present disappointed the assurance of my old age. But seeing such
is my fatal destiny, that I should be now disquieted by those in whom I
trusted most, I am forced to call thee back to help the people and goods
which by the right of nature belong unto thee. For even as arms are
weak abroad, if there be not counsel at home, so is that study vain and
counsel unprofitable which in a due and convenient time is not by
virtue executed and put in effect. My deliberation is not to provoke, but
to appease--not to assault, but to defend--not to conquer, but to preserve
my faithful subjects and hereditary dominions, into which Picrochole is
entered in a hostile manner without any ground or cause, and from day
to day pursueth his furious enterprise with that height of insolence that
is intolerable to freeborn spirits. I have endeavoured to moderate his
tyrannical choler, offering him all that which I thought might give him
satisfaction; and oftentimes have I sent lovingly unto him to understand
wherein, by whom, and how he found himself to be wronged. But of
him could I obtain no other answer but a mere defiance, and that in my
lands he did pretend only to the right of a civil correspondency and
good behaviour, whereby I knew that the eternal God hath left him to
the disposure of his own free will and sensual appetite--which cannot
choose but be wicked, if by divine grace it be not continually
guided--and to contain him within his duty, and bring him to know
himself, hath sent him hither to me by a grievous token. Therefore, my
beloved son, as soon as thou canst, upon sight of these letters, repair
hither with all diligence, to succour not me so much, which
nevertheless by natural piety thou oughtest to do, as thine own people,
which by reason thou mayest save and preserve. The exploit shall be
done with as little effusion of blood as may be. And, if possible, by
means far more expedient, such as military policy, devices, and
stratagems of war, we shall save all the souls, and send them home as
merry as crickets unto their own houses. My dearest son, the peace of
Jesus Christ our Redeemer be with thee. Salute from me Ponocrates,
Gymnastes, and Eudemon. The twentieth of September. Thy Father
Grangousier.
Chapter 1.
XXX.
How Ulric Gallet was sent unto Picrochole.
The letters being dictated, signed, and sealed, Grangousier ordained
that Ulric Gallet, master of the requests, a very wise and discreet man,
of whose prudence and sound judgment he had made trial in several
difficult and debateful matters, (should) go unto Picrochole, to show
what had been decreed amongst them. At the same hour departed the
good man Gallet, and having passed the ford, asked at the miller that
dwelt there in what condition Picrochole was: who answered him that
his soldiers had left him neither cock nor hen, that they were retired and
shut up into the rock Clermond, and that he would not advise him to go
any further for fear of the scouts, because they were enormously
furious. Which he easily believed, and therefore lodged that night with
the miller.
The next morning he went with a trumpeter to the gate of the castle,
and required the guards he might be admitted to speak with the king of
somewhat that concerned him. These words being told unto the king,
he would by no means consent that they should open the gate; but,
getting upon the top of the bulwark, said unto the ambassador, What is
the news, what have you to say? Then the ambassador began to speak
as followeth.
Chapter 1.
XXXI.
The speech made by Gallet to Picrochole.
There cannot arise amongst men a juster cause of grief than when they
receive hurt and damage where they may justly expect for favour and
good will; and not without cause, though without reason, have many,
after they had fallen into such a calamitous accident, esteemed this
indignity less supportable than the loss of their own lives, in such sort
that, if they have not been able by force of arms nor any other means,
by reach of wit or subtlety, to stop them in their course and restrain
their fury, they have fallen into desperation, and utterly deprived
themselves of this light. It is therefore no wonder if King Grangousier,
my master, be full of high displeasure and much disquieted in mind
upon thy outrageous and hostile coming; but truly it would be a marvel
if he were not sensible of and moved with the incomparable abuses and
injuries perpetrated by thee and thine upon those of his country,
towards whom there hath been no example of inhumanity omitted.
Which in itself is to him so grievous, for the cordial affection
wherewith he hath always cherished his subjects, that more it cannot be
to any mortal man; yet in this, above human apprehension, is it to him
the more grievous that these wrongs and sad offences have been
committed by thee and thine, who, time out of mind, from all antiquity,
thou and thy predecessors have been in a continual league and amity
with him and all his ancestors; which, even until this time, you have as
sacred together inviolably preserved, kept, and entertained, so well, that
not he and his only, but the very barbarous nations of the Poictevins,
Bretons, Manceaux, and those that dwell beyond the isles of the
Canaries, and that of Isabella, have thought it as easy to pull down the
firmament, and to set up the depths above the clouds, as to make a
breach in your alliance; and have been so afraid of it in their enterprises
that they have never dared to provoke, incense, or endamage the one
for fear of the other. Nay, which is more, this sacred league hath so
filled the world, that there are few nations at this day inhabiting
throughout all the continent and isles of the ocean, who have not
ambitiously aspired to be received into it, upon your own covenants
and conditions, holding your joint confederacy in as high esteem as
their own territories and dominions, in such sort, that from the memory
of man there hath not been either prince or league so wild and proud
that durst have offered to invade, I say not your countries, but not so
much as those of your confederates. And if, by rash and heady counsel,
they have attempted any new design against them, as soon as they
heard the name and title of your alliance, they have suddenly desisted
from their enterprises. What rage and madness, therefore, doth now
incite thee, all old alliance infringed, all amity trod under foot, and all
right violated, thus in a hostile manner to invade his country, without
having been by him or his in anything prejudiced, wronged, or
provoked? Where is faith? Where is law? Where is reason? Where is
humanity? Where is the fear of God? Dost thou think that these
atrocious abuses are hidden from the eternal spirit and the supreme God
who is the just rewarder of all our undertakings? If thou so think, thou
deceivest thyself; for all things shall come to pass as in his
incomprehensible judgment he hath appointed. Is it thy fatal destiny, or
influences of the stars, that would put an end to thy so long enjoyed
ease and rest? For that all things have their end and period, so as that,
when they are come to the superlative point of their greatest height,
they are in a trice tumbled down again, as not being able to abide long
in that state. This is the conclusion and end of those who cannot by
reason and temperance moderate their fortunes and prosperities. But if
it be predestinated that thy happiness and ease must now come to an
end, must it needs be by wronging my king,--him by whom thou wert
established? If thy house must come to ruin, should it therefore in its
fall crush the heels of him that set it up? The matter is so unreasonable,
and so dissonant from common sense, that hardly can it be conceived
by human understanding, and altogether incredible unto strangers, till
by the certain and undoubted effects thereof it be made apparent that
nothing is either sacred or holy to those who, having emancipated
themselves from God and reason, do merely follow the perverse
affections of their own depraved nature. If any wrong had been done by
us to thy subjects and dominions--if we had favoured thy ill-willers--if
we had not assisted thee in thy need--if thy name and reputation had
been wounded by us--or, to speak more truly, if the calumniating spirit,
tempting to induce thee to evil, had, by false illusions and deceitful
fantasies, put into thy conceit the impression of a thought that we had
done unto thee anything unworthy of our ancient correspondence and
friendship, thou oughtest first to have inquired out the truth, and
afterwards by a seasonable warning to admonish us thereof; and we
should have so satisfied thee, according to thine own heart's desire, that
thou shouldst have had occasion to be contented. But, O eternal God,
what is thy enterprise? Wouldst thou, like a perfidious tyrant, thus spoil
and lay waste my master's kingdom? Hast thou found him so silly and
blockish, that he would not--or so destitute of men and money, of
counsel and skill in military discipline, that he cannot withstand thy
unjust invasion? March hence presently, and to-morrow, some time of
the day, retreat unto thine own country, without doing any kind of
violence or disorderly act by the way; and pay withal a thousand besans
of gold (which, in English money, amounteth to five thousand pounds),
for reparation of the damages thou hast done in this country. Half thou
shalt pay to-morrow, and the other half at the ides of May next coming,
leaving with us in the mean time, for hostages, the Dukes of Turnbank,
Lowbuttock, and Smalltrash, together with the Prince of Itches and
Viscount of Snatchbit (Tournemoule, Bas-de-fesses, Menuail, Gratelles,
Morpiaille.).
Chapter 1.
XXXII.
How Grangousier, to buy peace, caused the cakes to be restored.
With that the good man Gallet held his peace, but Picrochole to all his
discourse answered nothing but Come and fetch them, come and fetch
them,-- they have ballocks fair and soft,--they will knead and provide
some cakes for you. Then returned he to Grangousier, whom he found
upon his knees bareheaded, crouching in a little corner of his cabinet,
and humbly praying unto God that he would vouchsafe to assuage the
choler of Picrochole, and bring him to the rule of reason without
proceeding by force. When the good man came back, he asked him, Ha,
my friend, what news do you bring me? There is neither hope nor
remedy, said Gallet; the man is quite out of his wits, and forsaken of
God. Yea, but, said Grangousier, my friend, what cause doth he pretend
for his outrages? He did not show me any cause at all, said Gallet, only
that in a great anger he spoke some words of cakes. I cannot tell if they
have done any wrong to his cake-bakers. I will know, said Grangousier,
the matter thoroughly, before I resolve any more upon what is to be
done. Then sent he to learn concerning that business, and found by true
information that his men had taken violently some cakes from
Picrochole's people, and that Marquet's head was broken with a slacky
or short cudgel; that, nevertheless, all was well paid, and that the said
Marquet had first hurt Forgier with a stroke of his whip athwart the legs.
And it seemed good to his whole council, that he should defend himself
with all his might. Notwithstanding all this, said Grangousier, seeing
the question is but about a few cakes, I will labour to content him; for I
am very unwilling to wage war against him. He inquired then what
quantity of cakes they had taken away, and understanding that it was
but some four or five dozen, he commanded five cartloads of them to
be baked that same night; and that there should be one full of cakes
made with fine butter, fine yolks of eggs, fine saffron, and fine spice, to
be bestowed upon Marquet, unto whom likewise he directed to be
given seven hundred thousand and three Philips (that is, at three
shillings the piece, one hundred five thousand pounds and nine
shillings of English money), for reparation of his losses and hindrances,
and for satisfaction of the chirurgeon that had dressed his wound; and
furthermore settled upon him and his for ever in freehold the
apple-orchard called La Pomardiere. For the conveyance and passing of
all which was sent Gallet, who by the way as they went made them
gather near the willow-trees great store of boughs, canes, and reeds,
wherewith all the carriers were enjoined to garnish and deck their carts,
and each of them to carry one in his hand, as himself likewise did,
thereby to give all men to understand that they demanded but peace,
and that they came to buy it.
Being come to the gate, they required to speak with Picrochole from
Grangousier. Picrochole would not so much as let them in, nor go to
speak with them, but sent them word that he was busy, and that they
should deliver their mind to Captain Touquedillon, who was then
planting a piece of ordnance upon the wall. Then said the good man
unto him, My lord, to ease you of all this labour, and to take away all
excuses why you may not return unto our former alliance, we do here
presently restore unto you the cakes upon which the quarrel arose. Five
dozen did our people take away: they were well paid for: we love peace
so well that we restore unto you five cartloads, of which this cart shall
be for Marquet, who doth most complain. Besides, to content him
entirely, here are seven hundred thousand and three Philips, which I
deliver to him, and, for the losses he may pretend to have sustained, I
resign for ever the farm of the Pomardiere, to be possessed in
fee-simple by him and his for ever, without the payment of any duty, or
acknowledgement of homage, fealty, fine, or service whatsoever, and
here is the tenour of the deed. And, for God's sake, let us live
henceforward in peace, and withdraw yourselves merrily into your own
country from within this place, unto which you have no right at all, as
yourselves must needs confess, and let us be good friends as before.
Touquedillon related all this to Picrochole, and more and more
exasperated his courage, saying to him, These clowns are afraid to
some purpose. By G--, Grangousier conskites himself for fear, the poor
drinker. He is not skilled in warfare, nor hath he any stomach for it. He
knows better how to empty the flagons,--that is his art. I am of opinion
that it is fit we send back the carts and the money, and, for the rest, that
very speedily we fortify ourselves here, then prosecute our fortune. But
what! Do they think to have to do with a ninnywhoop, to feed you thus
with cakes? You may see what it is. The good usage and great
familiarity which you have had with them heretofore hath made you
contemptible in their eyes. Anoint a villain, he will prick you: prick a
villain, and he will anoint you (Ungentem pungit, pungentem rusticus
ungit.).
Sa, sa, sa, said Picrochole, by St. James you have given a true character
of them. One thing I will advise you, said Touquedillon. We are here
but badly victualled, and furnished with mouth-harness very slenderly.
If Grangousier should come to besiege us, I would go presently, and
pluck out of all your soldiers' heads and mine own all the teeth, except
three to each of us, and with them alone we should make an end of our
provision but too soon. We shall have, said Picrochole, but too much
sustenance and feeding-stuff. Came we hither to eat or to fight? To
fight, indeed, said Touquedillon; yet from the paunch comes the dance,
and where famine rules force is exiled. Leave off your prating, said
Picrochole, and forthwith seize upon what they have brought. Then
took they money and cakes, oxen and carts, and sent them away
without speaking one word, only that they would come no more so near,
for a reason that they would give them the morrow after. Thus, without
doing anything, returned they to Grangousier, and related the whole
matter unto him, subjoining that there was no hope left to draw them to
peace but by sharp and fierce wars.
Chapter 1.
XXXIII.
How some statesmen of Picrochole, by hairbrained counsel, put him in
extreme danger.
The carts being unloaded, and the money and cakes secured, there came
before Picrochole the Duke of Smalltrash, the Earl Swashbuckler, and
Captain Dirt-tail (Menuail, Spadassin, Merdaille.), who said unto him,
Sir, this day we make you the happiest, the most warlike and chivalrous
prince that ever was since the death of Alexander of Macedonia. Be
covered, be covered, said Picrochole. Gramercy, said they, we do but
our duty. The manner is thus. You shall leave some captain here to
have the charge of this garrison, with a party competent for keeping of
the place, which, besides its natural strength, is made stronger by the
rampiers and fortresses of your devising. Your army you are to divide
into two parts, as you know very well how to do. One part thereof shall
fall upon Grangousier and his forces. By it shall he be easily at the very
first shock routed, and then shall you get money by heaps, for the
clown hath store of ready coin. Clown we call him, because a noble and
generous prince hath never a penny, and that to hoard up treasure is but
a clownish trick. The other part of the army, in the meantime, shall
draw towards Onys, Xaintonge, Angomois, and Gascony. Then march
to Perigot, Medoc, and Elanes, taking wherever you come, without
resistance, towns, castles, and forts; afterwards to Bayonne, St. John de
Luc, to Fontarabia, where you shall seize upon all the ships, and
coasting along Galicia and Portugal, shall pillage all the maritime
places, even unto Lisbon, where you shall be supplied with all
necessaries befitting a conqueror. By copsody, Spain will yield, for
they are but a race of loobies. Then are you to pass by the Straits of
Gibraltar, where you shall erect two pillars more stately than those of
Hercules, to the perpetual memory of your name, and the narrow
entrance there shall be called the Picrocholinal sea.
Having passed the Picrocholinal sea, behold, Barbarossa yields himself
your slave. I will, said Picrochole, give him fair quarter and spare his
life. Yea, said they, so that he be content to be christened. And you
shall conquer the kingdoms of Tunis, of Hippo, Argier, Bomine (Bona),
Corone, yea, all Barbary. Furthermore, you shall take into your hands
Majorca, Minorca, Sardinia, Corsica, with the other islands of the
Ligustic and Balearian seas. Going alongst on the left hand, you shall
rule all Gallia Narbonensis, Provence, the Allobrogians, Genoa,
Florence, Lucca, and then God b'w'ye, Rome. (Our poor Monsieur the
Pope dies now for fear.) By my faith, said Picrochole, I will not then
kiss his pantoufle.
Italy being thus taken, behold Naples, Calabria, Apulia, and Sicily, all
ransacked, and Malta too. I wish the pleasant Knights of the Rhodes
heretofore would but come to resist you, that we might see their urine. I
would, said Picrochole, very willingly go to Loretto. No, no, said they,
that shall be at our return. From thence we will sail eastwards, and take
Candia, Cyprus, Rhodes, and the Cyclade Islands, and set upon (the)
Morea. It is ours, by St. Trenian. The Lord preserve Jerusalem; for the
great Soldan is not comparable to you in power. I will then, said he,
cause Solomon's temple to be built. No, said they, not yet, have a little
patience, stay awhile, be never too sudden in your enterprises. Can you
tell what Octavian Augustus said? Festina lente. It is requisite that you
first have the Lesser Asia, Caria, Lycia, Pamphilia, Cilicia, Lydia,
Phrygia, Mysia, Bithynia, Carazia, Satalia, Samagaria, Castamena,
Luga, Savasta, even unto Euphrates. Shall we see, said Picrochole,
Babylon and Mount Sinai? There is no need, said they, at this time.
Have we not hurried up and down, travelled and toiled enough, in
having transfretted and passed over the Hircanian sea, marched alongst
the two Armenias and the three Arabias? Ay, by my faith, said he, we
have played the fools, and are undone. Ha, poor souls! What's the
matter? said they. What shall we have, said he, to drink in these deserts?
For Julian Augustus with his whole army died there for thirst, as they
say. We have already, said they, given order for that. In the Syriac sea
you have nine thousand and fourteen great ships laden with the best
wines in the world. They arrived at Port Joppa. There they found
two-and-twenty thousand camels and sixteen hundred elephants, which
you shall have taken at one hunting about Sigelmes, when you entered
into Lybia; and, besides this, you had all the Mecca caravan. Did not
they furnish you sufficiently with wine? Yes, but, said he, we did not
drink it fresh. By the virtue, said they, not of a fish, a valiant man, a
conqueror, who pretends and aspires to the monarchy of the world,
cannot always have his ease. God be thanked that you and your men are
come safe and sound unto the banks of the river Tigris. But, said he,
what doth that part of our army in the meantime which overthrows that
unworthy swillpot Grangousier? They are not idle, said they. We shall
meet with them by-and-by. They shall have won you Brittany,
Normandy, Flanders, Hainault, Brabant, Artois, Holland, Zealand; they
have passed the Rhine over the bellies of the Switzers and lansquenets,
and a party of these hath subdued Luxembourg, Lorraine, Champagne,
and Savoy, even to Lyons, in which place they have met with your
forces returning from the naval conquests of the Mediterranean sea; and
have rallied again in Bohemia, after they had plundered and sacked
Suevia, Wittemberg, Bavaria, Austria, Moravia, and Styria. Then they
set fiercely together upon Lubeck, Norway, Swedeland, Rie, Denmark,
Gitland, Greenland, the Sterlins, even unto the frozen sea. This done,
they conquered the Isles of Orkney and subdued Scotland, England,
and Ireland. From thence sailing through the sandy sea and by the
Sarmates, they have vanquished and overcome Prussia, Poland,
Lithuania, Russia, Wallachia, Transylvania, Hungary, Bulgaria,
Turkeyland, and are now at Constantinople. Come, said Picrochole, let
us go join with them quickly, for I will be Emperor of Trebizond also.
Shall we not kill all these dogs, Turks and Mahometans? What a devil
should we do else? said they. And you shall give their goods and lands
to such as shall have served you honestly. Reason, said he, will have it
so, that is but just. I give unto you the Caramania, Suria, and all the
Palestine. Ha, sir, said they, it is out of your goodness; gramercy, we
thank you. God grant you may always prosper. There was there present
at that time an old gentleman well experienced in the wars, a stern
soldier, and who had been in many great hazards, named Echephron,
who, hearing this discourse, said, I do greatly doubt that all this
enterprise will be like the tale or interlude of the pitcher full of milk
wherewith a shoemaker made himself rich in conceit; but, when the
pitcher was broken, he had not whereupon to dine. What do you
pretend by these large conquests? What shall be the end of so many
labours and crosses? Thus it shall be, said Picrochole, that when we are
returned we shall sit down, rest, and be merry. But, said Echephron, if
by chance you should never come back, for the voyage is long and
dangerous, were it not better for us to take our rest now, than
unnecessarily to expose ourselves to so many dangers? O, said
Swashbuckler, by G--, here is a good dotard; come, let us go hide
ourselves in the corner of a chimney, and there spend the whole time of
our life amongst ladies, in threading of pearls, or spinning, like
Sardanapalus. He that nothing ventures hath neither horse nor mule,
says Solomon. He who adventureth too much, said Echephron, loseth
both horse and mule, answered Malchon. Enough, said Picrochole, go
forward. I fear nothing but that these devilish legions of Grangousier,
whilst we are in Mesopotamia, will come on our backs and charge up
our rear. What course shall we then take? What shall be our remedy? A
very good one, said Dirt-tail; a pretty little commission, which you
must send unto the Muscovites, shall bring you into the field in an
instant four hundred and fifty thousand choice men of war. Oh that you
would but make me your lieutenant-general, I should for the lightest
faults of any inflict great punishments. I fret, I charge, I strike, I take, I
kill, I slay, I play the devil. On, on, said Picrochole, make haste, my
lads, and let him that loves me follow me.
Chapter 1.
XXXIV.
How Gargantua left the city of Paris to succour his country, and how
Gymnast encountered with the enemy.
In this same very hour Gargantua, who was gone out of Paris as soon as
he had read his father's letters, coming upon his great mare, had already
passed the Nunnery-bridge, himself, Ponocrates, Gymnast, and
Eudemon, who all three, the better to enable them to go along with him,
took post- horses. The rest of his train came after him by even journeys
at a slower pace, bringing with them all his books and philosophical
instruments. As soon as he had alighted at Parille, he was informed by
a farmer of Gouguet how Picrochole had fortified himself within the
rock Clermond, and had sent Captain Tripet with a great army to set
upon the wood of Vede and Vaugaudry, and that they had already
plundered the whole country, not leaving cock nor hen, even as far as to
the winepress of Billard. These strange and almost incredible news of
the enormous abuses thus committed over all the land, so affrighted
Gargantua that he knew not what to say nor do. But Ponocrates
counselled him to go unto the Lord of Vauguyon, who at all times had
been their friend and confederate, and that by him they should be better
advised in their business. Which they did incontinently, and found him
very willing and fully resolved to assist them, and therefore was of
opinion that they should send some one of his company to scout along
and discover the country, to learn in what condition and posture the
enemy was, that they might take counsel, and proceed according to the
present occasion. Gymnast offered himself to go. Whereupon it was
concluded, that for his safety and the better expedition, he should have
with him someone that knew the ways, avenues, turnings, windings,
and rivers thereabout. Then away went he and Prelingot, the equerry or
gentleman of Vauguyon's horse, who scouted and espied as narrowly as
they could upon all quarters without any fear. In the meantime
Gargantua took a little refreshment, ate somewhat himself, the like did
those who were with him, and caused to give to his mare a picotine of
oats, that is, three score and fourteen quarters and three bushels.
Gymnast and his comrade rode so long, that at last they met with the
enemy's forces, all scattered and out of order, plundering, stealing,
robbing, and pillaging all they could lay their hands on. And, as far off
as they could perceive him, they ran thronging upon the back of one
another in all haste towards him, to unload him of his money, and
untruss his portmantles. Then cried he out unto them, My masters, I am
a poor devil, I desire you to spare me. I have yet one crown left. Come,
we must drink it, for it is aurum potabile, and this horse here shall be
sold to pay my welcome. Afterwards take me for one of your own, for
never yet was there any man that knew better how to take, lard, roast,
and dress, yea, by G--, to tear asunder and devour a hen, than I that am
here: and for my proficiat I drink to all good fellows. With that he
unscrewed his borracho (which was a great Dutch leathern bottle), and
without putting in his nose drank very honestly. The maroufle rogues
looked upon him, opening their throats a foot wide, and putting out
their tongues like greyhounds, in hopes to drink after him; but Captain
Tripet, in the very nick of that their expectation, came running to him
to see who it was. To him Gymnast offered his bottle, saying, Hold,
captain, drink boldly and spare not; I have been thy taster, it is wine of
La Faye Monjau. What! said Tripet, this fellow gibes and flouts us?
Who art thou? said Tripet. I am, said Gymnast, a poor devil (pauvre
diable). Ha, said Tripet, seeing thou art a poor devil, it is reason that
thou shouldst be permitted to go whithersoever thou wilt, for all poor
devils pass everywhere without toll or tax. But it is not the custom of
poor devils to be so well mounted; therefore, sir devil, come down, and
let me have your horse, and if he do not carry me well, you, master
devil, must do it: for I love a life that such a devil as you should carry
me away.
Chapter 1.
XXXV.
How Gymnast very souply and cunningly killed Captain Tripet and
others of Picrochole's men.
When they heard these words, some amongst them began to be afraid,
and blessed themselves with both hands, thinking indeed that he had
been a devil disguised, insomuch that one of them, named Good John,
captain of the trained bands of the country bumpkins, took his psalter
out of his codpiece, and cried out aloud, Hagios ho theos. If thou be of
God, speak; if thou be of the other spirit, avoid hence, and get thee
going. Yet he went not away. Which words being heard by all the
soldiers that were there, divers of them being a little inwardly terrified,
departed from the place. All this did Gymnast very well remark and
consider, and therefore making as if he would have alighted from off
his horse, as he was poising himself on the mounting side, he most
nimbly, with his short sword by his thigh, shifting his foot in the stirrup,
performed the stirrup-leather feat, whereby, after the inclining of his
body downwards, he forthwith launched himself aloft in the air, and
placed both his feet together on the saddle, standing upright with his
back turned towards the horse's head. Now, said he, my case goes
backward. Then suddenly in the same very posture wherein he was, he
fetched a gambol upon one foot, and, turning to the left hand, failed not
to carry his body perfectly round, just into its former stance, without
missing one jot. Ha, said Tripet, I will not do that at this time, and not
without cause. Well, said Gymnast, I have failed, I will undo this leap.
Then with a marvellous strength and agility, turning towards the right
hand, he fetched another frisking gambol as before, which done, he set
his right-hand thumb upon the hind-bow of the saddle, raised himself
up, and sprung in the air, poising and upholding his whole body upon
the muscle and nerve of the said thumb, and so turned and whirled
himself about three times. At the fourth, reversing his body, and
overturning it upside down, and foreside back, without touching
anything, he brought himself betwixt the horse's two ears, springing
with all his body into the air, upon the thumb of his left hand, and in
that posture, turning like a windmill, did most actively do that trick
which is called the miller's pass. After this, clapping his right hand flat
upon the middle of the saddle, he gave himself such a jerking swing
that he thereby seated himself upon the crupper, after the manner of
gentlewomen sitting on horseback. This done, he easily passed his right
leg over the saddle, and placed himself like one that rides in croup. But,
said he, it were better for me to get into the saddle; then putting the
thumbs of both hands upon the crupper before him, and thereupon
leaning himself, as upon the only supporters of his body, he
incontinently turned heels over head in the air, and straight found
himself betwixt the bow of the saddle in a good settlement. Then with a
somersault springing into the air again, he fell to stand with both his
feet close together upon the saddle, and there made above a hundred
frisks, turns, and demipommads, with his arms held out across, and in
so doing cried out aloud, I rage, I rage, devils, I am stark mad, devils, I
am mad, hold me, devils, hold me, hold, devils, hold, hold!
Whilst he was thus vaulting, the rogues in great astonishment said to
one another, By cock's death, he is a goblin or a devil thus disguised.
Ab hoste maligno libera nos, Domine, and ran away in a full flight, as
if they had been routed, looking now and then behind them, like a dog
that carrieth away a goose-wing in his mouth. Then Gymnast, spying
his advantage, alighted from his horse, drew his sword, and laid on
great blows upon the thickset and highest crested among them, and
overthrew them in great heaps, hurt, wounded, and bruised, being
resisted by nobody, they thinking he had been a starved devil, as well
in regard of his wonderful feats in vaulting, which they had seen, as for
the talk Tripet had with him, calling him poor devil. Only Tripet would
have traitorously cleft his head with his horseman's sword, or
lance-knight falchion; but he was well armed, and felt nothing of the
blow but the weight of the stroke. Whereupon, turning suddenly about,
he gave Tripet a home-thrust, and upon the back of that, whilst he was
about to ward his head from a slash, he ran him in at the breast with a
hit, which at once cut his stomach, the fifth gut called the colon, and
the half of his liver, wherewith he fell to the ground, and in falling
gushed forth above four pottles of pottage, and his soul mingled with
the pottage.
This done, Gymnast withdrew himself, very wisely considering that a
case of great adventure and hazard should not be pursued unto its
utmost period, and that it becomes all cavaliers modestly to use their
good fortune, without troubling or stretching it too far. Wherefore,
getting to horse, he gave him the spur, taking the right way unto
Vauguyon, and Prelinguand with him.
Chapter 1.
XXXVI.
How Gargantua demolished the castle at the ford of Vede, and how
they passed the ford.
As soon as he came, he related the estate and condition wherein they
had found the enemy, and the stratagem which he alone had used
against all their multitude, affirming that they were but rascally rogues,
plunderers, thieves, and robbers, ignorant of all military discipline, and
that they might boldly set forward unto the field; it being an easy
matter to fell and strike them down like beasts. Then Gargantua
mounted his great mare, accompanied as we have said before, and
finding in his way a high and great tree, which commonly was called
by the name of St. Martin's tree, because heretofore St. Martin planted
a pilgrim's staff there, which in tract of time grew to that height and
greatness, said, This is that which I lacked; this tree shall serve me both
for a staff and lance. With that he pulled it up easily, plucked off the
boughs, and trimmed it at his pleasure. In the meantime his mare pissed
to ease her belly, but it was in such abundance that it did overflow the
country seven leagues, and all the piss of that urinal flood ran glib away
towards the ford of Vede, wherewith the water was so swollen that all
the forces the enemy had there were with great horror drowned, except
some who had taken the way on the left hand towards the hills.
Gargantua, being come to the place of the wood of Vede, was informed
by Eudemon that there was some remainder of the enemy within the
castle, which to know, Gargantua cried out as loud as he was able, Are
you there, or are you not there? If you be there, be there no more; and if
you are not there, I have no more to say. But a ruffian gunner, whose
charge was to attend the portcullis over the gate, let fly a cannon-ball at
him, and hit him with that shot most furiously on the right temple of his
head, yet did him no more hurt than if he had but cast a prune or kernel
of a wine-grape at him. What is this? said Gargantua; do you throw at
us grape-kernels here? The vintage shall cost you dear; thinking indeed
that the bullet had been the kernel of a grape, or raisin-kernel.
Those who were within the castle, being till then busy at the pillage,
when they heard this noise ran to the towers and fortresses, from
whence they shot at him above nine thousand and five-and-twenty
falconshot and arquebusades, aiming all at his head, and so thick did
they shoot at him that he cried out, Ponocrates, my friend, these flies
here are like to put out mine eyes; give me a branch of those
willow-trees to drive them away, thinking that the bullets and stones
shot out of the great ordnance had been but dunflies. Ponocrates looked
and saw that there were no other flies but great shot which they had
shot from the castle. Then was it that he rushed with his great tree
against the castle, and with mighty blows overthrew both towers and
fortresses, and laid all level with the ground, by which means all that
were within were slain and broken in pieces. Going from thence, they
came to the bridge at the mill, where they found all the ford covered
with dead bodies, so thick that they had choked up the mill and stopped
the current of its water, and these were those that were destroyed in the
urinal deluge of the mare. There they were at a stand, consulting how
they might pass without hindrance by these dead carcasses. But
Gymnast said, If the devils have passed there, I will pass well enough.
The devils have passed there, said Eudemon, to carry away the damned
souls. By St. Treignan! said Ponocrates, then by necessary consequence
he shall pass there. Yes, yes, said Gymnastes, or I shall stick in the way.
Then setting spurs to his horse, he passed through freely, his horse not
fearing nor being anything affrighted at the sight of the dead bodies; for
he had accustomed him, according to the doctrine of Aelian, not to fear
armour, nor the carcasses of dead men; and that not by killing men as
Diomedes did the Thracians, or as Ulysses did in throwing the corpses
of his enemies at his horse's feet, as Homer saith, but by putting a
Jack-a-lent amongst his hay, and making him go over it ordinarily
when he gave him his oats. The other three followed him very close,
except Eudemon only, whose horse's fore-right or far forefoot sank up
to the knee in the paunch of a great fat chuff who lay there upon his
back drowned, and could not get it out. There was he pestered, until
Gargantua, with the end of his staff, thrust down the rest of the villain's
tripes into the water whilst the horse pulled out his foot; and, which is a
wonderful thing in hippiatry, the said horse was thoroughly cured of a
ringbone which he had in that foot by this touch of the burst guts of that
great looby.
Chapter 1.
XXXVII.
How Gargantua, in combing his head, made the great cannon-balls fall
out of his hair.
Being come out of the river of Vede, they came very shortly after to
Grangousier's castle, who waited for them with great longing. At their
coming they were entertained with many congees, and cherished with
embraces. Never was seen a more joyful company, for Supplementum
Supplementi Chronicorum saith that Gargamelle died there with joy;
for my part, truly I cannot tell, neither do I care very much for her, nor
for anybody else. The truth was, that Gargantua, in shifting his clothes,
and combing his head with a comb, which was nine hundred foot long
of the Jewish cane measure, and whereof the teeth were great tusks of
elephants, whole and entire, he made fall at every rake above seven
balls of bullets, at a dozen the ball, that stuck in his hair at the razing of
the castle of the wood of Vede. Which his father Grangousier seeing,
thought they had been lice, and said unto him, What, my dear son, hast
thou brought us this far some short-winged hawks of the college of
Montague? I did not mean that thou shouldst reside there. Then
answered Ponocrates, My sovereign lord, think not that I have placed
him in that lousy college which they call Montague; I had rather have
put him amongst the grave-diggers of Sanct Innocent, so enormous is
the cruelty and villainy that I have known there: for the galley-slaves
are far better used amongst the Moors and Tartars, the murderers in the
criminal dungeons, yea, the very dogs in your house, than are the poor
wretched students in the aforesaid college. And if I were King of Paris,
the devil take me if I would not set it on fire, and burn both principal
and regents, for suffering this inhumanity to be exercised before their
eyes. Then, taking up one of these bullets, he said, These are
cannon-shot, which your son Gargantua hath lately received by the
treachery of your enemies, as he was passing before the wood of Vede.
But they have been so rewarded, that they are all destroyed in the ruin
of the castle, as were the Philistines by the policy of Samson, and those
whom the tower of Silohim slew, as it is written in the thirteenth of
Luke. My opinion is, that we pursue them whilst the luck is on our side;
for occasion hath all her hair on her forehead; when she is passed, you
may not recall her,--she hath no tuft whereby you can lay hold on her,
for she is bald in the hind-part of her head, and never returneth again.
Truly, said Grangousier, it shall not be at this time; for I will make you
a feast this night, and bid you welcome.
This said, they made ready supper, and, of extraordinary besides his
daily fare, were roasted sixteen oxen, three heifers, two and thirty
calves, three score and three fat kids, four score and fifteen wethers,
three hundred farrow pigs or sheats soused in sweet wine or must,
eleven score partridges, seven hundred snipes and woodcocks, four
hundred Loudun and Cornwall capons, six thousand pullets, and as
many pigeons, six hundred crammed hens, fourteen hundred leverets,
or young hares and rabbits, three hundred and three buzzards, and one
thousand and seven hundred cockerels. For venison, they could not so
suddenly come by it, only eleven wild boars, which the Abbot of
Turpenay sent, and eighteen fallow deer which the Lord of Gramount
bestowed; together with seven score pheasants, which were sent by the
Lord of Essars; and some dozens of queests, coushats, ringdoves, and
woodculvers; river-fowl, teals and awteals, bitterns, courtes, plovers,
francolins, briganders, tyrasons, young lapwings, tame ducks,
shovellers, woodlanders, herons, moorhens, criels, storks, canepetiers,
oranges, flamans, which are phaenicopters, or crimson-winged
sea-fowls, terrigoles, turkeys, arbens, coots, solan-geese, curlews,
termagants, and water- wagtails, with a great deal of cream, curds, and
fresh cheese, and store of soup, pottages, and brewis with great variety.
Without doubt there was meat enough, and it was handsomely dressed
by Snapsauce, Hotchpot, and Brayverjuice, Grangousier's cooks. Jenkin
Trudgeapace and Cleanglass were very careful to fill them drink.
Chapter 1.
XXXVIII.
How Gargantua did eat up six pilgrims in a salad.
The story requireth that we relate that which happened unto six
pilgrims who came from Sebastian near to Nantes, and who for shelter
that night, being afraid of the enemy, had hid themselves in the garden
upon the chichling peas, among the cabbages and lettuces. Gargantua
finding himself somewhat dry, asked whether they could get any
lettuce to make him a salad; and hearing that there were the greatest
and fairest in the country, for they were as great as plum-trees or as
walnut-trees, he would go thither himself, and brought thence in his
hand what he thought good, and withal carried away the six pilgrims,
who were in so great fear that they did not dare to speak nor cough.
Washing them, therefore, first at the fountain, the pilgrims said one to
another softly, What shall we do? We are almost drowned here
amongst these lettuce, shall we speak? But if we speak, he will kill us
for spies. And, as they were thus deliberating what to do, Gargantua put
them with the lettuce into a platter of the house, as large as the huge tun
of the White Friars of the Cistercian order; which done, with oil,
vinegar, and salt, he ate them up, to refresh himself a little before
supper, and had already swallowed up five of the pilgrims, the sixth
being in the platter, totally hid under a lettuce, except his bourdon or
staff that appeared, and nothing else. Which Grangousier seeing, said to
Gargantua, I think that is the horn of a shell-snail, do not eat it. Why
not? said Gargantua, they are good all this month: which he no sooner
said, but, drawing up the staff, and therewith taking up the pilgrim, he
ate him very well, then drank a terrible draught of excellent white wine.
The pilgrims, thus devoured, made shift to save themselves as well as
they could, by withdrawing their bodies out of the reach of the grinders
of his teeth, but could not escape from thinking they had been put in the
lowest dungeon of a prison. And when Gargantua whiffed the great
draught, they thought to have been drowned in his mouth, and the flood
of wine had almost carried them away into the gulf of his stomach.
Nevertheless, skipping with their bourdons, as St. Michael's palmers
use to do, they sheltered themselves from the danger of that inundation
under the banks of his teeth. But one of them by chance, groping or
sounding the country with his staff, to try whether they were in safety
or no, struck hard against the cleft of a hollow tooth, and hit the
mandibulary sinew or nerve of the jaw, which put Gargantua to very
great pain, so that he began to cry for the rage that he felt. To ease
himself therefore of his smarting ache, he called for his toothpicker,
and rubbing towards a young walnut-tree, where they lay skulking,
unnestled you my gentlemen pilgrims.
For he caught one by the legs, another by the scrip, another by the
pocket, another by the scarf, another by the band of the breeches, and
the poor fellow that had hurt him with the bourdon, him he hooked to
him by the codpiece, which snatch nevertheless did him a great deal of
good, for it pierced unto him a pocky botch he had in the groin, which
grievously tormented him ever since they were past Ancenis. The
pilgrims, thus dislodged, ran away athwart the plain a pretty fast pace,
and the pain ceased, even just at the time when by Eudemon he was
called to supper, for all was ready. I will go then, said he, and piss away
my misfortune; which he did do in such a copious measure, that the
urine taking away the feet from the pilgrims, they were carried along
with the stream unto the bank of a tuft of trees. Upon which, as soon as
they had taken footing, and that for their self-preservation they had run
a little out of the road, they on a sudden fell all six, except Fourniller,
into a trap that had been made to take wolves by a train, out of which,
nevertheless, they escaped by the industry of the said Fourniller, who
broke all the snares and ropes. Being gone from thence, they lay all the
rest of that night in a lodge near unto Coudray, where they were
comforted in their miseries by the gracious words of one of their
company, called Sweer-to-go, who showed them that this adventure
had been foretold by the prophet David, Psalm. Quum exsurgerent
homines in nos, forte vivos deglutissent nos; when we were eaten in the
salad, with salt, oil, and vinegar. Quum irasceretur furor eorum in nos,
forsitan aqua absorbuisset nos; when he drank the great draught.
Torrentem pertransivit anima nostra; when the stream of his water
carried us to the thicket. Forsitan pertransisset anima nostra aquam
intolerabilem; that is, the water of his urine, the flood whereof, cutting
our way, took our feet from us. Benedictus Dominus qui non dedit nos
in captionem dentibus eorum. Anima nostra sicut passer erepta est de
laqueo venantium; when we fell in the trap. Laqueus contritus est, by
Fourniller, et nos liberati sumus. Adjutorium nostrum, &c.
Chapter 1.
XXXIX.
How the Monk was feasted by Gargantua, and of the jovial discourse
they had at supper.
When Gargantua was set down at table, after all of them had somewhat
stayed their stomachs by a snatch or two of the first bits eaten heartily,
Grangousier began to relate the source and cause of the war raised
between him and Picrochole; and came to tell how Friar John of the
Funnels had triumphed at the defence of the close of the abbey, and
extolled him for his valour above Camillus, Scipio, Pompey, Caesar,
and Themistocles. Then Gargantua desired that he might be presently
sent for, to the end that with him they might consult of what was to be
done. Whereupon, by a joint consent, his steward went for him, and
brought him along merrily, with his staff of the cross, upon
Grangousier's mule. When he was come, a thousand huggings, a
thousand embracements, a thousand good days were given. Ha, Friar
John, my friend Friar John, my brave cousin Friar John from the devil!
Let me clip thee, my heart, about the neck; to me an armful. I must grip
thee, my ballock, till thy back crack with it. Come, my cod, let me coll
thee till I kill thee. And Friar John, the gladdest man in the world, never
was man made welcomer, never was any more courteously and
graciously received than Friar John. Come, come, said Gargantua, a
stool here close by me at this end. I am content, said the monk, seeing
you will have it so. Some water, page; fill, my boy, fill; it is to refresh
my liver. Give me some, child, to gargle my throat withal. Deposita
cappa, said Gymnast, let us pull off this frock. Ho, by G--, gentlemen,
said the monk, there is a chapter in Statutis Ordinis which opposeth my
laying of it down. Pish! said Gymnast, a fig for your chapter! This
frock breaks both your shoulders, put it off. My friend, said the monk,
let me alone with it; for, by G--, I'll drink the better that it is on. It
makes all my body jocund. If I should lay it aside, the waggish pages
would cut to themselves garters out of it, as I was once served at
Coulaines. And, which is worse, I shall lose my appetite. But if in this
habit I sit down at table, I will drink, by G--, both to thee and to thy
horse, and so courage, frolic, God save the company! I have already
supped, yet will I eat never a whit the less for that; for I have a paved
stomach, as hollow as a butt of malvoisie or St. Benedictus' boot (butt),
and always open like a lawyer's pouch. Of all fishes but the tench take
the wing of a partridge or the thigh of a nun. Doth not he die like a
good fellow that dies with a stiff catso? Our prior loves exceedingly the
white of a capon. In that, said Gymnast, he doth not resemble the foxes;
for of the capons, hens, and pullets which they carry away they never
eat the white. Why? said the monk. Because, said Gymnast, they have
no cooks to dress them; and, if they be not competently made ready,
they remain red and not white; the redness of meats being a token that
they have not got enough of the fire, whether by boiling, roasting, or
otherwise, except the shrimps, lobsters, crabs, and crayfishes, which are
cardinalized with boiling. By God's feast-gazers, said the monk, the
porter of our abbey then hath not his head well boiled, for his eyes are
as red as a mazer made of an alder-tree. The thigh of this leveret is
good for those that have the gout. To the purpose of the truel,--what is
the reason that the thighs of a gentlewoman are always fresh and cool?
This problem, said Gargantua, is neither in Aristotle, in Alexander
Aphrodiseus, nor in Plutarch. There are three causes, said the monk, by
which that place is naturally refreshed. Primo, because the water runs
all along by it. Secundo, because it is a shady place, obscure and dark,
upon which the sun never shines. And thirdly, because it is continually
flabbelled, blown upon, and aired by the north winds of the hole arstick,
the fan of the smock, and flipflap of the codpiece. And lusty, my lads.
Some bousing liquor, page! So! crack, crack, crack. O how good is God,
that gives us of this excellent juice! I call him to witness, if I had been
in the time of Jesus Christ, I would have kept him from being taken by
the Jews in the garden of Olivet. And the devil fail me, if I should have
failed to cut off the hams of these gentlemen apostles who ran away so
basely after they had well supped, and left their good master in the
lurch. I hate that man worse than poison that offers to run away when
he should fight and lay stoutly about him. Oh that I were but King of
France for fourscore or a hundred years! By G--, I should whip like
curtail-dogs these runaways of Pavia. A plague take them; why did they
not choose rather to die there than to leave their good prince in that
pinch and necessity? Is it not better and more honourable to perish in
fighting valiantly than to live in disgrace by a cowardly running away?
We are like to eat no great store of goslings this year; therefore, friend,
reach me some of that roasted pig there.
Diavolo, is there no more must? No more sweet wine? Germinavit
radix Jesse. Je renie ma vie, je meurs de soif; I renounce my life, I rage
for thirst. This wine is none of the worst. What wine drink you at Paris?
I give myself to the devil, if I did not once keep open house at Paris for
all comers six months together. Do you know Friar Claude of the high
kilderkins? Oh the good fellow that he is! But I do not know what fly
hath stung him of late, he is become so hard a student. For my part, I
study not at all. In our abbey we never study for fear of the mumps,
which disease in horses is called the mourning in the chine. Our late
abbot was wont to say that it is a monstrous thing to see a learned monk.
By G--, master, my friend, Magis magnos clericos non sunt magis
magnos sapientes. You never saw so many hares as there are this year. I
could not anywhere come by a goshawk nor tassel of falcon. My Lord
Belloniere promised me a lanner, but he wrote to me not long ago that
he was become pursy. The partridges will so multiply henceforth, that
they will go near to eat up our ears. I take no delight in the
stalking-horse, for I catch such cold that I am like to founder myself at
that sport. If I do not run, toil, travel, and trot about, I am not well at
ease. True it is that in leaping over the hedges and bushes my frock
leaves always some of its wool behind it. I have recovered a dainty
greyhound; I give him to the devil, if he suffer a hare to escape him. A
groom was leading him to my Lord Huntlittle, and I robbed him of him.
Did I ill? No, Friar John, said Gymnast, no, by all the devils that are, no!
So, said the monk, do I attest these same devils so long as they last, or
rather, virtue (of) G--, what could that gouty limpard have done with so
fine a dog? By the body of G--, he is better pleased when one presents
him with a good yoke of oxen. How now, said Ponocrates, you swear,
Friar John. It is only, said the monk, but to grace and adorn my speech.
They are colours of a Ciceronian rhetoric.
Chapter 1.
XL.
Why monks are the outcasts of the world; and wherefore some have
bigger noses than others.
By the faith of a Christian, said Eudemon, I do wonderfully dote and
enter in a great ecstasy when I consider the honesty and good
fellowship of this monk, for he makes us here all merry. How is it, then,
that they exclude the monks from all good companies, calling them
feast-troublers, marrers of mirth, and disturbers of all civil conversation,
as the bees drive away the drones from their hives? Ignavum fucos
pecus, said Maro, a praesepibus arcent. Hereunto, answered Gargantua,
there is nothing so true as that the frock and cowl draw unto itself the
opprobries, injuries, and maledictions of the world, just as the wind
called Cecias attracts the clouds. The peremptory reason is, because
they eat the ordure and excrements of the world, that is to say, the sins
of the people, and, like dung-chewers and excrementitious eaters, they
are cast into the privies and secessive places, that is, the convents and
abbeys, separated from political conversation, as the jakes and retreats
of a house are. But if you conceive how an ape in a family is always
mocked and provokingly incensed, you shall easily apprehend how
monks are shunned of all men, both young and old. The ape keeps not
the house as a dog doth, he draws not in the plough as the ox, he yields
neither milk nor wool as the sheep, he carrieth no burden as a horse
doth. That which he doth, is only to conskite, spoil, and defile all,
which is the cause wherefore he hath of all men mocks, frumperies, and
bastinadoes.
After the same manner a monk--I mean those lither, idle, lazy
monks--doth not labour and work, as do the peasant and artificer; doth
not ward and defend the country, as doth the man of war; cureth not the
sick and diseased, as the physician doth; doth neither preach nor teach,
as do the evangelical doctors and schoolmasters; doth not import
commodities and things necessary for the commonwealth, as the
merchant doth. Therefore is it that by and of all men they are hooted at,
hated, and abhorred. Yea, but, said Grangousier, they pray to God for
us. Nothing less, answered Gargantua. True it is, that with a tingle
tangle jangling of bells they trouble and disquiet all their neighbours
about them. Right, said the monk; a mass, a matin, a vesper well rung,
are half said. They mumble out great store of legends and psalms, by
them not at all understood; they say many paternosters interlarded with
Ave-Maries, without thinking upon or apprehending the meaning of
what it is they say, which truly I call mocking of God, and not prayers.
But so help them God, as they pray for us, and not for being afraid to
lose their victuals, their manchots, and good fat pottage. All true
Christians, of all estates and conditions, in all places and at all times,
send up their prayers to God, and the Mediator prayeth and intercedeth
for them, and God is gracious to them. Now such a one is our good
Friar John; therefore every man desireth to have him in his company.
He is no bigot or hypocrite; he is not torn and divided betwixt reality
and appearance; no wretch of a rugged and peevish disposition, but
honest, jovial, resolute, and a good fellow. He travels, he labours, he
defends the oppressed, comforts the afflicted, helps the needy, and
keeps the close of the abbey. Nay, said the monk, I do a great deal more
than that; for whilst we are in despatching our matins and anniversaries
in the choir, I make withal some crossbow-strings, polish glass bottles
and bolts, I twist lines and weave purse nets wherein to catch coneys. I
am never idle. But now, hither come, some drink, some drink here!
Bring the fruit. These chestnuts are of the wood of Estrox, and with
good new wine are able to make you a fine cracker and composer of
bum-sonnets. You are not as yet, it seems, well moistened in this house
with the sweet wine and must. By G--, I drink to all men freely, and at
all fords, like a proctor or promoter's horse. Friar John, said Gymnast,
take away the snot that hangs at your nose. Ha, ha, said the monk, am
not I in danger of drowning, seeing I am in water even to the nose? No,
no, Quare? Quia, though some water come out from thence, there never
goes in any; for it is well antidoted with pot-proof armour and syrup of
the vine-leaf.
Oh, my friend, he that hath winter-boots made of such leather may
boldly fish for oysters, for they will never take water. What is the cause,
said Gargantua, that Friar John hath such a fair nose? Because, said
Grangousier, that God would have it so, who frameth us in such form
and for such end as is most agreeable with his divine will, even as a
potter fashioneth his vessels. Because, said Ponocrates, he came with
the first to the fair of noses, and therefore made choice of the fairest
and the greatest. Pish, said the monk, that is not the reason of it, but,
according to the true monastical philosophy, it is because my nurse had
soft teats, by virtue whereof, whilst she gave me suck, my nose did sink
in as in so much butter. The hard breasts of nurses make children short-
nosed. But hey, gay, Ad formam nasi cognoscitur ad te levavi. I never
eat any confections, page, whilst I am at the bibbery. Item, bring me
rather some toasts.
Chapter 1.
XLI.
How the Monk made Gargantua sleep, and of his hours and breviaries.
Supper being ended, they consulted of the business in hand, and
concluded that about midnight they should fall unawares upon the
enemy, to know what manner of watch and ward they kept, and that in
the meanwhile they should take a little rest the better to refresh
themselves. But Gargantua could not sleep by any means, on which
side soever he turned himself. Whereupon the monk said to him, I
never sleep soundly but when I am at sermon or prayers. Let us
therefore begin, you and I, the seven penitential psalms, to try whether
you shall not quickly fall asleep. The conceit pleased Gargantua very
well, and, beginning the first of these psalms, as soon as they came to
the words Beati quorum they fell asleep, both the one and the other.
But the monk, for his being formerly accustomed to the hour of
claustral matins, failed not to awake a little before midnight, and, being
up himself, awaked all the rest, in singing aloud, and with a full clear
voice, the song:
Awake, O Reinian, ho, awake! Awake, O Reinian, ho! Get up, you no
more sleep must take; Get up, for we must go.
When they were all roused and up, he said, My masters, it is a usual
saying, that we begin matins with coughing and supper with drinking.
Let us now, in doing clean contrarily, begin our matins with drinking,
and at night before supper we shall cough as hard as we can. What, said
Gargantua, to drink so soon after sleep? This is not to live according to
the diet and prescript rule of the physicians, for you ought first to scour
and cleanse your stomach of all its superfluities and excrements. Oh,
well physicked, said the monk; a hundred devils leap into my body, if
there be not more old drunkards than old physicians! I have made this
paction and covenant with my appetite, that it always lieth down and
goes to bed with myself, for to that I every day give very good order;
then the next morning it also riseth with me and gets up when I am
awake. Mind you your charges, gentlemen, or tend your cures as much
as you will. I will get me to my drawer; in terms of falconry, my tiring.
What drawer or tiring do you mean? said Gargantua. My breviary, said
the monk, for just as the falconers, before they feed their hawks, do
make them draw at a hen's leg to purge their brains of phlegm and
sharpen them to a good appetite, so, by taking this merry little breviary
in the morning, I scour all my lungs and am presently ready to drink.
After what manner, said Gargantua, do you say these fair hours and
prayers of yours? After the manner of Whipfield (Fessecamp, and
corruptly Fecan.), said the monk, by three psalms and three lessons, or
nothing at all, he that will. I never tie myself to hours, prayers, and
sacraments; for they are made for the man and not the man for them.
Therefore is it that I make my prayers in fashion of stirrup-leathers; I
shorten or lengthen them when I think good. Brevis oratio penetrat
caelos et longa potatio evacuat scyphos. Where is that written? By my
faith, said Ponocrates, I cannot tell, my pillicock, but thou art more
worth than gold. Therein, said the monk, I am like you; but, venite,
apotemus. Then made they ready store of carbonadoes, or rashers on
the coals, and good fat soups, or brewis with sippets; and the monk
drank what he pleased. Some kept him company, and the rest did
forbear, for their stomachs were not as yet opened. Afterwards every
man began to arm and befit himself for the field. And they armed the
monk against his will; for he desired no other armour for back and
breast but his frock, nor any other weapon in his hand but the staff of
the cross. Yet at their pleasure was he completely armed cap-a-pie, and
mounted upon one of the best horses in the kingdom, with a good
slashing shable by his side, together with Gargantua, Ponocrates,
Gymnast, Eudemon, and five-and-twenty more of the most resolute and
adventurous of Grangousier's house, all armed at proof with their
lances in their hands, mounted like St. George, and everyone of them
having an arquebusier behind him.
Chapter 1.
XLII.
How the Monk encouraged his fellow-champions, and how he hanged
upon a tree.
Thus went out those valiant champions on their adventure, in full
resolution to know what enterprise they should undertake, and what to
take heed of and look well to in the day of the great and horrible battle.
And the monk encouraged them, saying, My children, do not fear nor
doubt, I will conduct you safely. God and Sanct Benedict be with us! If
I had strength answerable to my courage, by's death, I would plume
them for you like ducks. I fear nothing but the great ordnance; yet I
know of a charm by way of prayer, which the subsexton of our abbey
taught me, that will preserve a man from the violence of guns and all
manner of fire-weapons and engines; but it will do me no good,
because I do not believe it. Nevertheless, I hope my staff of the cross
shall this day play devilish pranks amongst them. By G--, whoever of
our party shall offer to play the duck, and shrink when blows are
a-dealing, I give myself to the devil, if I do not make a monk of him in
my stead, and hamper him within my frock, which is a sovereign cure
against cowardice. Did you never hear of my Lord Meurles his
greyhound, which was not worth a straw in the fields? He put a frock
about his neck: by the body of G--, there was neither hare nor fox that
could escape him, and, which is more, he lined all the bitches in the
country, though before that he was feeble-reined and ex frigidis et
maleficiatis.
The monk uttering these words in choler, as he passed under a
walnut-tree, in his way towards the causey, he broached the vizor of his
helmet on the stump of a great branch of the said tree. Nevertheless, he
set his spurs so fiercely to the horse, who was full of mettle and quick
on the spur, that he bounded forwards, and the monk going about to
ungrapple his vizor, let go his hold of the bridle, and so hanged by his
hand upon the bough, whilst his horse stole away from under him. By
this means was the monk left hanging on the walnut-tree, and crying
for help, murder, murder, swearing also that he was betrayed. Eudemon
perceived him first, and calling Gargantua said, Sir, come and see
Absalom hanging. Gargantua, being come, considered the countenance
of the monk, and in what posture he hanged; wherefore he said to
Eudemon, You were mistaken in comparing him to Absalom; for
Absalom hung by his hair, but this shaveling monk hangeth by the ears.
Help me, said the monk, in the devil's name; is this a time for you to
prate? You seem to me to be like the decretalist preachers, who say that
whosoever shall see his neighbour in the danger of death, ought, upon
pain of trisulk excommunication, rather choose to admonish him to
make his confession to a priest, and put his conscience in the state of
peace, than otherwise to help and relieve him.
And therefore when I shall see them fallen into a river, and ready to be
drowned, I shall make them a fair long sermon de contemptu mundi, et
fuga seculi; and when they are stark dead, shall then go to their aid and
succour in fishing after them. Be quiet, said Gymnast, and stir not, my
minion. I am now coming to unhang thee and to set thee at freedom, for
thou art a pretty little gentle monachus. Monachus in claustro non valet
ova duo; sed quando est extra, bene valet triginta. I have seen above
five hundred hanged, but I never saw any have a better countenance in
his dangling and pendilatory swagging. Truly, if I had so good a one, I
would willingly hang thus all my lifetime. What, said the monk, have
you almost done preaching? Help me, in the name of God, seeing you
will not in the name of the other spirit, or, by the habit which I wear,
you shall repent it, tempore et loco praelibatis.
Then Gymnast alighted from his horse, and, climbing up the
walnut-tree, lifted up the monk with one hand by the gussets of his
armour under the armpits, and with the other undid his vizor from the
stump of the broken branch; which done, he let him fall to the ground
and himself after. As soon as the monk was down, he put off all his
armour, and threw away one piece after another about the field, and,
taking to him again his staff of the cross, remounted up to his horse,
which Eudemon had caught in his running away. Then went they on
merrily, riding along on the highway.
Chapter 1.
XLIII.
How the scouts and fore-party of Picrochole were met with by
Gargantua, and how the Monk slew Captain Drawforth (Tirevant.), and
then was taken prisoner by his enemies.
Picrochole, at the relation of those who had escaped out of the broil and
defeat wherein Tripet was untriped, grew very angry that the devils
should have so run upon his men, and held all that night a counsel of
war, at which Rashcalf and Touchfaucet (Hastiveau, Touquedillon.),
concluded his power to be such that he was able to defeat all the devils
of hell if they should come to jostle with his forces. This Picrochole did
not fully believe, though he doubted not much of it. Therefore sent he
under the command and conduct of the Count Drawforth, for
discovering of the country, the number of sixteen hundred horsemen,
all well mounted upon light horses for skirmish and thoroughly
besprinkled with holy water; and everyone for their field-mark or
cognizance had the sign of a star in his scarf, to serve at all adventures
in case they should happen to encounter with devils, that by the virtue,
as well of that Gregorian water as of the stars which they wore, they
might make them disappear and evanish.
In this equipage they made an excursion upon the country till they
came near to the Vauguyon, which is the valley of Guyon, and to the
spital, but could never find anybody to speak unto; whereupon they
returned a little back, and took occasion to pass above the aforesaid
hospital to try what intelligence they could come by in those parts. In
which resolution riding on, and by chance in a pastoral lodge or
shepherd's cottage near to Coudray hitting upon the five pilgrims, they
carried them way-bound and manacled, as if they had been spies, for all
the exclamations, adjurations, and requests that they could make. Being
come down from thence towards Seville, they were heard by Gargantua,
who said then unto those that were with him, Comrades and
fellow-soldiers, we have here met with an encounter, and they are ten
times in number more than we. Shall we charge them or no? What a
devil, said the monk, shall we do else? Do you esteem men by their
number rather than by their valour and prowess? With this he cried out,
Charge, devils, charge! Which when the enemies heard, they thought
certainly that they had been very devils, and therefore even then began
all of them to run away as hard as they could drive, Drawforth only
excepted, who immediately settled his lance on its rest, and therewith
hit the monk with all his force on the very middle of his breast, but,
coming against his horrific frock, the point of the iron being with the
blow either broke off or blunted, it was in matter of execution as if you
had struck against an anvil with a little wax-candle.
Then did the monk with his staff of the cross give him such a sturdy
thump and whirret betwixt his neck and shoulders, upon the acromion
bone, that he made him lose both sense and motion and fall down stone
dead at his horse's feet; and, seeing the sign of the star which he wore
scarfwise, he said unto Gargantua, These men are but priests, which is
but the beginning of a monk; by St. John, I am a perfect monk, I will
kill them to you like flies. Then ran he after them at a swift and full
gallop till he overtook the rear, and felled them down like tree-leaves,
striking athwart and alongst and every way. Gymnast presently asked
Gargantua if they should pursue them. To whom Gargantua answered,
By no means; for, according to right military discipline, you must never
drive your enemy unto despair, for that such a strait doth multiply his
force and increase his courage, which was before broken and cast down;
neither is there any better help or outrage of relief for men that are
amazed, out of heart, toiled, and spent, than to hope for no favour at all.
How many victories have been taken out of the hands of the victors by
the vanquished, when they would not rest satisfied with reason, but
attempt to put all to the sword, and totally to destroy their enemies,
without leaving so much as one to carry home news of the defeat of his
fellows. Open, therefore, unto your enemies all the gates and ways, and
make to them a bridge of silver rather than fail, that you may be rid of
them. Yea, but, said Gymnast, they have the monk. Have they the
monk? said Gargantua. Upon mine honour, then, it will prove to their
cost. But to prevent all dangers, let us not yet retreat, but halt here
quietly as in an ambush; for I think I do already understand the policy
and judgment of our enemies. They are truly more directed by chance
and mere fortune than by good advice and counsel. In the meanwhile,
whilst these made a stop under the walnut-trees, the monk pursued on
the chase, charging all he overtook, and giving quarter to none, until he
met with a trooper who carried behind him one of the poor pilgrims,
and there would have rifled him. The pilgrim, in hope of relief at the
sight of the monk, cried out, Ha, my lord prior, my good friend, my
lord prior, save me, I beseech you, save me! Which words being heard
by those that rode in the van, they instantly faced about, and seeing
there was nobody but the monk that made this great havoc and
slaughter among them, they loaded him with blows as thick as they use
to do an ass with wood. But of all this he felt nothing, especially when
they struck upon his frock, his skin was so hard. Then they committed
him to two of the marshal's men to keep, and, looking about, saw
nobody coming against them, whereupon they thought that Gargantua
and his party were fled. Then was it that they rode as hard as they could
towards the walnut-trees to meet with them, and left the monk there all
alone, with his two foresaid men to guard him. Gargantua heard the
noise and neighing of the horses, and said to his men, Comrades, I hear
the track and beating of the enemy's horse-feet, and withal perceive that
some of them come in a troop and full body against us. Let us rally and
close here, then set forward in order, and by this means we shall be able
to receive their charge to their loss and our honour.
Chapter 1.
XLIV.
How the Monk rid himself of his keepers, and how Picrochole's forlorn
hope was defeated.
The monk, seeing them break off thus without order, conjectured that
they were to set upon Gargantua and those that were with him, and was
wonderfully grieved that he could not succour them. Then considered
he the countenance of the two keepers in whose custody he was, who
would have willingly run after the troops to get some booty and plunder,
and were always looking towards the valley unto which they were
going. Farther, he syllogized, saying, These men are but badly skilled
in matters of war, for they have not required my parole, neither have
they taken my sword from me. Suddenly hereafter he drew his
brackmard or horseman's sword, wherewith he gave the keeper which
held him on the right side such a sound slash that he cut clean through
the jugulary veins and the sphagitid or transparent arteries of the neck,
with the fore-part of the throat called the gargareon, even unto the two
adenes, which are throat kernels; and, redoubling the blow, he opened
the spinal marrow betwixt the second and third vertebrae. There fell
down that keeper stark dead to the ground. Then the monk, reining his
horse to the left, ran upon the other, who, seeing his fellow dead, and
the monk to have the advantage of him, cried with a loud voice, Ha, my
lord prior, quarter; I yield, my lord prior, quarter; quarter, my good
friend, my lord prior. And the monk cried likewise, My lord posterior,
my friend, my lord posterior, you shall have it upon your posteriorums.
Ha, said the keeper, my lord prior, my minion, my gentle lord prior, I
pray God make you an abbot. By the habit, said the monk, which I
wear, I will here make you a cardinal. What! do you use to pay ransoms
to religious men? You shall therefore have by-and-by a red hat of my
giving. And the fellow cried, Ha, my lord prior, my lord prior, my lord
abbot that shall be, my lord cardinal, my lord all! Ha, ha, hes, no, my
lord prior, my good little lord the prior, I yield, render and deliver
myself up to you. And I deliver thee, said the monk, to all the devils in
hell. Then at one stroke he cut off his head, cutting his scalp upon the
temple-bones, and lifting up in the upper part of the skull the two
triangulary bones called sincipital, or the two bones bregmatis, together
with the sagittal commissure or dartlike seam which distinguisheth the
right side of the head from the left, as also a great part of the coronal or
forehead bone, by which terrible blow likewise he cut the two
meninges or films which enwrap the brain, and made a deep wound in
the brain's two posterior ventricles, and the cranium or skull abode
hanging upon his shoulders by the skin of the pericranium behind, in
form of a doctor's bonnet, black without and red within. Thus fell he
down also to the ground stark dead.
And presently the monk gave his horse the spur, and kept the way that
the enemy held, who had met with Gargantua and his companions in
the broad highway, and were so diminished of their number for the
enormous slaughter that Gargantua had made with his great tree
amongst them, as also Gymnast, Ponocrates, Eudemon, and the rest,
that they began to retreat disorderly and in great haste, as men
altogether affrighted and troubled in both sense and understanding, and
as if they had seen the very proper species and form of death before
their eyes; or rather, as when you see an ass with a brizze or gadbee
under his tail, or fly that stings him, run hither and thither without
keeping any path or way, throwing down his load to the ground,
breaking his bridle and reins, and taking no breath nor rest, and no man
can tell what ails him, for they see not anything touch him. So fled
these people destitute of wit, without knowing any cause of flying, only
pursued by a panic terror which in their minds they had conceived. The
monk, perceiving that their whole intent was to betake themselves to
their heels, alighted from his horse and got upon a big large rock which
was in the way, and with his great brackmard sword laid such load
upon those runaways, and with main strength fetching a compass with
his arm without feigning or sparing, slew and overthrew so many that
his sword broke in two pieces. Then thought he within himself that he
had slain and killed sufficiently, and that the rest should escape to carry
news. Therefore he took up a battle-axe of those that lay there dead,
and got upon the rock again, passing his time to see the enemy thus
flying and to tumble himself amongst the dead bodies, only that he
suffered none to carry pike, sword, lance, nor gun with him, and those
who carried the pilgrims bound he made to alight, and gave their horses
unto the said pilgrims, keeping them there with him under the hedge,
and also Touchfaucet, who was then his prisoner.
Chapter 1.
XLV.
How the Monk carried along with him the Pilgrims, and of the good
words that Grangousier gave them.
This skirmish being ended, Gargantua retreated with his men,
excepting the monk, and about the dawning of the day they came unto
Grangousier, who in his bed was praying unto God for their safety and
victory. And seeing them all safe and sound, he embraced them
lovingly, and asked what was become of the monk. Gargantua
answered him that without doubt the enemies had the monk. Then have
they mischief and ill luck, said Grangousier; which was very true.
Therefore is it a common proverb to this day, to give a man the monk,
or, as in French, lui bailler le moine, when they would express the
doing unto one a mischief. Then commanded he a good breakfast to be
provided for their refreshment. When all was ready, they called
Gargantua, but he was so aggrieved that the monk was not to be heard
of that he would neither eat nor drink. In the meanwhile the monk
comes, and from the gate of the outer court cries out aloud, Fresh wine,
fresh wine, Gymnast my friend! Gymnast went out and saw that it was
Friar John, who brought along with him five pilgrims and Touchfaucet
prisoners; whereupon Gargantua likewise went forth to meet him, and
all of them made him the best welcome that possibly they could, and
brought him before Grangousier, who asked him of all his adventures.
The monk told him all, both how he was taken, how he rid himself of
his keepers, of the slaughter he had made by the way, and how he had
rescued the pilgrims and brought along with him Captain Touchfaucet.
Then did they altogether fall to banqueting most merrily. In the
meantime Grangousier asked the pilgrims what countrymen they were,
whence they came, and whither they went. Sweer-to-go in the name of
the rest answered, My sovereign lord, I am of Saint Genou in Berry,
this man is of Palvau, this other is of Onzay, this of Argy, this of St.
Nazarand, and this man of Villebrenin. We come from Saint Sebastian
near Nantes, and are now returning, as we best may, by easy journeys.
Yea, but, said Grangousier, what went you to do at Saint Sebastian?
We went, said Sweer- to-go, to offer up unto that sanct our vows
against the plague. Ah, poor men! said Grangousier, do you think that
the plague comes from Saint Sebastian? Yes, truly, answered
Sweer-to-go, our preachers tell us so indeed. But is it so, said
Grangousier, do the false prophets teach you such abuses? Do they thus
blaspheme the sancts and holy men of God, as to make them like unto
the devils, who do nothing but hurt unto mankind,--as Homer writeth,
that the plague was sent into the camp of the Greeks by Apollo, and as
the poets feign a great rabble of Vejoves and mischievous gods. So did
a certain cafard or dissembling religionary preach at Sinay, that Saint
Anthony sent the fire into men's legs, that Saint Eutropius made men
hydropic, Saint Clidas, fools, and that Saint Genou made them goutish.
But I punished him so exemplarily, though he called me heretic for it,
that since that time no such hypocritical rogue durst set his foot within
my territories. And truly I wonder that your king should suffer them in
their sermons to publish such scandalous doctrine in his dominions; for
they deserve to be chastised with greater severity than those who, by
magical art, or any other device, have brought the pestilence into a
country. The pest killeth but the bodies, but such abominable imposters
empoison our very souls. As he spake these words, in came the monk
very resolute, and asked them, Whence are you, you poor wretches? Of
Saint Genou, said they. And how, said the monk, does the Abbot
Gulligut, the good drinker,--and the monks, what cheer make they? By
G-- body, they'll have a fling at your wives, and breast them to some
purpose, whilst you are upon your roaming rant and gadding
pilgrimage. Hin, hen, said Sweer-to-go, I am not afraid of mine, for he
that shall see her by day will never break his neck to come to her in the
night-time. Yea, marry, said the monk, now you have hit it. Let her be
as ugly as ever was Proserpina, she will once, by the Lord G--, be
overturned, and get her skin-coat shaken, if there dwell any monks near
to her; for a good carpenter will make use of any kind of timber. Let me
be peppered with the pox, if you find not all your wives with child at
your return; for the very shadow of the steeple of an abbey is fruitful. It
is, said Gargantua, like the water of Nilus in Egypt, if you believe
Strabo and Pliny, Lib. 7, cap. 3. What virtue will there be then, said the
monk, in their bullets of concupiscence, their habits and their bodies?
Then, said Grangousier, go your ways, poor men, in the name of God
the Creator, to whom I pray to guide you perpetually, and henceforward
be not so ready to undertake these idle and unprofitable journeys. Look
to your families, labour every man in his vocation, instruct your
children, and live as the good apostle St. Paul directeth you; in doing
whereof, God, his angels and sancts, will guard and protect you, and no
evil or plague at any time shall befall you. Then Gargantua led them
into the hall to take their refection; but the pilgrims did nothing but sigh,
and said to Gargantua, O how happy is that land which hath such a man
for their lord! We have been more edified and instructed by the talk
which he had with us, than by all the sermons that ever were preached
in our town. This is, said Gargantua, that which Plato saith, Lib. 5 de
Republ., that those commonwealths are happy, whose rulers
philosophate, and whose philosophers rule. Then caused he their
wallets to be filled with victuals and their bottles with wine, and gave
unto each of them a horse to ease them upon the way, together with
some pence to live by.
Chapter 1.
XLVI.
How Grangousier did very kindly entertain Touchfaucet his prisoner.
Touchfaucet was presented unto Grangousier, and by him examined
upon the enterprise and attempt of Picrochole, what it was he could
pretend to, or aim at, by the rustling stir and tumultuary coil of this his
sudden invasion. Whereunto he answered, that his end and purpose was
to conquer all the country, if he could, for the injury done to his
cake-bakers. It is too great an undertaking, said Grangousier; and, as
the proverb is, He that grips too much, holds fast but little. The time is
not now as formerly, to conquer the kingdoms of our neighbour princes,
and to build up our own greatness upon the loss of our nearest Christian
Brother. This imitation of the ancient Herculeses, Alexanders,
Hannibals, Scipios, Caesars, and other such heroes, is quite contrary to
the profession of the gospel of Christ, by which we are commanded to
preserve, keep, rule, and govern every man his own country and lands,
and not in a hostile manner to invade others; and that which heretofore
the Barbars and Saracens called prowess and valour, we do now call
robbing, thievery, and wickedness. It would have been more
commendable in him to have contained himself within the bounds of
his own territories, royally governing them, than to insult and domineer
in mine, pillaging and plundering everywhere like a most unmerciful
enemy; for, by ruling his own with discretion, he might have increased
his greatness, but by robbing me he cannot escape destruction. Go your
ways in the name of God, prosecute good enterprises, show your king
what is amiss, and never counsel him with regard unto your own
particular profit, for the public loss will swallow up the private benefit.
As for your ransom, I do freely remit it to you, and will that your arms
and horse be restored to you; so should good neighbours do, and
ancient friends, seeing this our difference is not properly war. As Plato,
Lib. 5 de Repub., would not have it called war, but sedition, when the
Greeks took up arms against one another, and that therefore, when such
combustions should arise amongst them, his advice was to behave
themselves in the managing of them with all discretion and modesty.
Although you call it war, it is but superficial; it entereth not into the
closet and inmost cabinet of our hearts. For neither of us hath been
wronged in his honour, nor is there any question betwixt us in the main,
but only how to redress, by the bye, some petty faults committed by our
men,--I mean, both yours and ours, which, although you knew, you
ought to let pass; for these quarrelsome persons deserve rather to be
contemned than mentioned, especially seeing I offered them
satisfaction according to the wrong. God shall be the just judge of our
variances, whom I beseech by death rather to take me out of this life,
and to permit my goods to perish and be destroyed before mine eyes,
than that by me or mine he should in any sort be wronged. These words
uttered, he called the monk, and before them all thus spoke unto him,
Friar John, my good friend, it is you that took prisoner the Captain
Touchfaucet here present? Sir, said the monk, seeing himself is here,
and that he is of the years of discretion, I had rather you should know it
by his confession than by any words of mine. Then said Touchfaucet,
My sovereign lord it is he indeed that took me, and I do therefore most
freely yield myself his prisoner. Have you put him to any ransom? said
Grangousier to the monk. No, said the monk, of that I take no care.
How much would you have for having taken him? Nothing, nothing,
said the monk; I am not swayed by that, nor do I regard it. Then
Grangousier commanded that, in presence of Touchfaucet, should be
delivered to the monk for taking him the sum of three score and two
thousand saluts (in English money, fifteen thousand and five hundred
pounds), which was done, whilst they made a collation or little banquet
to the said Touchfaucet, of whom Grangousier asked if he would stay
with him, or if he loved rather to return to his king. Touchfaucet
answered that he was content to take whatever course he would advise
him to. Then, said Grangousier, return unto your king, and God be with
you.
Then he gave him an excellent sword of a Vienne blade, with a golden
scabbard wrought with vine-branch-like flourishes, of fair goldsmith's
work, and a collar or neck-chain of gold, weighing seven hundred and
two thousand marks (at eight ounces each), garnished with precious
stones of the finest sort, esteemed at a hundred and sixty thousand
ducats, and ten thousand crowns more, as an honourable donative, by
way of present.
After this talk Touchfaucet got to his horse, and Gargantua for his
safety allowed him the guard of thirty men-at-arms and six score
archers to attend him, under the conduct of Gymnast, to bring him even
unto the gate of the rock Clermond, if there were need. As soon as he
was gone, the monk restored unto Grangousier the three score and two
thousand saluts which he had received, saying, Sir, it is not as yet the
time for you to give such gifts; stay till this war be at an end, for none
can tell what accidents may occur, and war begun without good
provision of money beforehand for going through with it, is but as a
breathing of strength, and blast that will quickly pass away. Coin is the
sinews of war. Well then, said Grangousier, at the end I will content
you by some honest recompense, as also all those who shall do me
good service.
Chapter 1.
XLVII.
How Grangousier sent for his legions, and how Touchfaucet slew
Rashcalf, and was afterwards executed by the command of Picrochole.
About this same time those of Besse, of the Old Market, of St. James'
Bourg, of the Draggage, of Parille, of the Rivers, of the rocks St. Pol, of
the Vaubreton, of Pautille, of the Brehemont, of Clainbridge, of
Cravant, of Grammont, of the town at the Badgerholes, of Huymes, of
Segre, of Husse, of St. Lovant, of Panzoust, of the Coldraux, of Verron,
of Coulaines, of Chose, of Varenes, of Bourgueil, of the Bouchard
Island, of the Croullay, of Narsay, of Cande, of Montsoreau, and other
bordering places, sent ambassadors unto Grangousier, to tell him that
they were advised of the great wrongs which Picrochole had done him,
and, in regard of their ancient confederacy, offered him what assistance
they could afford, both in men, money, victuals, and ammunition, and
other necessaries for war. The money which by the joint agreement of
them all was sent unto him, amounted to six score and fourteen
millions, two crowns and a half of pure gold. The forces wherewith
they did assist him did consist in fifteen thousand cuirassiers,
two-and-thirty thousand light horsemen, four score and nine thousand
dragoons, and a hundred-and-forty thousand volunteer adventurers.
These had with them eleven thousand and two hundred cannons,
double cannons, long pieces of artillery called basilisks, and smaller
sized ones known by the name of spirols, besides the mortar-pieces and
grenadoes. Of pioneers they had seven-and-forty thousand, all
victualled and paid for six months and four days of advance. Which
offer Gargantua did not altogether refuse, nor wholly accept of; but,
giving them hearty thanks, said that he would compose and order the
war by such a device, that there should not be found great need to put
so many honest men to trouble in the managing of it; and therefore was
content at that time to give order only for bringing along the legions
which he maintained in his ordinary garrison towns of the Deviniere, of
Chavigny, of Gravot, and of the Quinquenais, amounting to the number
of two thousand cuirassiers, three score and six thousand foot- soldiers,
six-and-twenty thousand dragoons, attended by two hundred pieces of
great ordnance, two-and-twenty thousand pioneers, and six thousand
light horsemen, all drawn up in troops, so well befitted and
accommodated with their commissaries, sutlers, farriers,
harness-makers, and other such like necessary members in a military
camp, so fully instructed in the art of warfare, so perfectly knowing and
following their colours, so ready to hear and obey their captains, so
nimble to run, so strong at their charging, so prudent in their adventures,
and every day so well disciplined, that they seemed rather to be a
concert of organ-pipes, or mutual concord of the wheels of a clock,
than an infantry and cavalry, or army of soldiers.
Touchfaucet immediately after his return presented himself before
Picrochole, and related unto him at large all that he had done and seen,
and at last endeavoured to persuade him with strong and forcible
arguments to capitulate and make an agreement with Grangousier,
whom he found to be the honestest man in the world; saying further,
that it was neither right nor reason thus to trouble his neighbours, of
whom they had never received anything but good. And in regard of the
main point, that they should never be able to go through stitch with that
war, but to their great damage and mischief; for the forces of
Picrochole were not so considerable but that Grangousier could easily
overthrow them.
He had not well done speaking when Rashcalf said out aloud, Unhappy
is that prince which is by such men served, who are so easily corrupted,
as I know Touchfaucet is. For I see his courage so changed that he had
willingly joined with our enemies to fight against us and betray us, if
they would have received him; but as virtue is of all, both friends and
foes, praised and esteemed, so is wickedness soon known and
suspected, and although it happen the enemies to make use thereof for
their profit, yet have they always the wicked and the traitors in
abomination.
Touchfaucet being at these words very impatient, drew out his sword,
and therewith ran Rashcalf through the body, a little under the nipple of
his left side, whereof he died presently, and pulling back his sword out
of his body said boldly, So let him perish that shall a faithful servant
blame. Picrochole incontinently grew furious, and seeing Touchfaucet's
new sword and his scabbard so richly diapered with flourishes of most
excellent workmanship, said, Did they give thee this weapon so
feloniously therewith to kill before my face my so good friend Rashcalf?
Then immediately commanded he his guard to hew him in pieces,
which was instantly done, and that so cruelly that the chamber was all
dyed with blood. Afterwards he appointed the corpse of Rashcalf to be
honourably buried, and that of Touchfaucet to be cast over the walls
into the ditch.
The news of these excessive violences were quickly spread through all
the army; whereupon many began to murmur against Picrochole, in so
far that Pinchpenny said to him, My sovereign lord, I know not what
the issue of this enterprise will be. I see your men much dejected, and
not well resolved in their minds, by considering that we are here very
ill provided of victual, and that our number is already much diminished
by three or four sallies. Furthermore, great supplies and recruits come
daily in to your enemies; but we so moulder away that, if we be once
besieged, I do not see how we can escape a total destruction. Tush, pish,
said Picrochole, you are like the Melun eels, you cry before they come
to you. Let them come, let them come, if they dare.
Chapter 1.
XLVIII.
How Gargantua set upon Picrochole within the rock Clermond, and
utterly defeated the army of the said Picrochole.
Gargantua had the charge of the whole army, and his father
Grangousier stayed in his castle, who, encouraging them with good
words, promised great rewards unto those that should do any notable
service. Having thus set forward, as soon as they had gained the pass at
the ford of Vede, with boats and bridges speedily made they passed
over in a trice. Then considering the situation of the town, which was
on a high and advantageous place, Gargantua thought fit to call his
council, and pass that night in deliberation upon what was to be done.
But Gymnast said unto him, My sovereign lord, such is the nature and
complexion of the French, that they are worth nothing but at the first
push. Then are they more fierce than devils. But if they linger a little
and be wearied with delays, they'll prove more faint and remiss than
women. My opinion is, therefore, that now presently, after your men
have taken breath and some small refection, you give order for a
resolute assault, and that we storm them instantly. His advice was
found very good, and for effectuating thereof he brought forth his army
into the plain field, and placed the reserves on the skirt or rising of a
little hill. The monk took along with him six companies of foot and two
hundred horsemen well armed, and with great diligence crossed the
marsh, and valiantly got upon the top of the green hillock even unto the
highway which leads to Loudun. Whilst the assault was thus begun,
Picrochole's men could not tell well what was best, to issue out and
receive the assailants, or keep within the town and not to stir. Himself
in the mean time, without deliberation, sallied forth in a rage with the
cavalry of his guard, who were forthwith received and royally
entertained with great cannon-shot that fell upon them like hail from
the high grounds on which the artillery was planted. Whereupon the
Gargantuists betook themselves unto the valleys, to give the ordnance
leave to play and range with the larger scope.
Those of the town defended themselves as well as they could, but their
shot passed over us without doing us any hurt at all. Some of
Picrochole's men that had escaped our artillery set most fiercely upon
our soldiers, but prevailed little; for they were all let in betwixt the files,
and there knocked down to the ground, which their fellow-soldiers
seeing, they would have retreated, but the monk having seized upon the
pass by the which they were to return, they ran away and fled in all the
disorder and confusion that could be imagined.
Some would have pursued after them and followed the chase, but the
monk withheld them, apprehending that in their pursuit the pursuers
might lose their ranks, and so give occasion to the besieged to sally out
of the town upon them. Then staying there some space and none
coming against him, he sent the Duke Phrontist to advise Gargantua to
advance towards the hill upon the left hand, to hinder Picrochole's
retreat at that gate; which Gargantua did with all expedition, and sent
thither four brigades under the conduct of Sebast, which had no sooner
reached the top of the hill, but they met Picrochole in the teeth, and
those that were with him scattered.
Then charged they upon them stoutly, yet were they much endamaged
by those that were upon the walls, who galled them with all manner of
shot, both from the great ordnance, small guns, and bows. Which
Gargantua perceiving, he went with a strong party to their relief, and
with his artillery began to thunder so terribly upon that canton of the
wall, and so long, that all the strength within the town, to maintain and
fill up the breach, was drawn thither. The monk seeing that quarter
which he kept besieged void of men and competent guards, and in a
manner altogether naked and abandoned, did most magnanimously on a
sudden lead up his men towards the fort, and never left it till he had got
up upon it, knowing that such as come to the reserve in a conflict bring
with them always more fear and terror than those that deal about them
with they hands in the fight.
Nevertheless, he gave no alarm till all his soldiers had got within the
wall, except the two hundred horsemen, whom he left without to secure
his entry. Then did he give a most horrible shout, so did all these who
were with him, and immediately thereafter, without resistance, putting
to the edge of the sword the guard that was at that gate, they opened it
to the horsemen, with whom most furiously they altogether ran towards
the east gate, where all the hurlyburly was, and coming close upon
them in the rear overthrew all their forces.
The besieged, seeing that the Gargantuists had won the town upon them,
and that they were like to be secure in no corner of it, submitted
themselves unto the mercy of the monk, and asked for quarter, which
the monk very nobly granted to them, yet made them lay down their
arms; then, shutting them up within churches, gave order to seize upon
all the staves of the crosses, and placed men at the doors to keep them
from coming forth. Then opening that east gate, he issued out to
succour and assist Gargantua. But Picrochole, thinking it had been
some relief coming to him from the town, adventured more forwardly
than before, and was upon the giving of a most desperate home-charge,
when Gargantua cried out, Ha, Friar John, my friend Friar John, you
are come in a good hour. Which unexpected accident so affrighted
Picrochole and his men, that, giving all for lost, they betook themselves
to their heels, and fled on all hands. Gargantua chased them till they
came near to Vaugaudry, killing and slaying all the way, and then
sounded the retreat.
Chapter 1.
XLIX.
How Picrochole in his flight fell into great misfortunes, and what
Gargantua did after the battle.
Picrochole thus in despair fled towards the Bouchard Island, and in the
way to Riviere his horse stumbled and fell down, whereat he on a
sudden was so incensed, that he with his sword without more ado killed
him in his choler; then, not finding any that would remount him, he was
about to have taken an ass at the mill that was thereby; but the miller's
men did so baste his bones and so soundly bethwack him that they
made him both black and blue with strokes; then stripping him of all
his clothes, gave him a scurvy old canvas jacket wherewith to cover his
nakedness. Thus went along this poor choleric wretch, who, passing the
water at Port-Huaulx, and relating his misadventurous disasters, was
foretold by an old Lourpidon hag that his kingdom should be restored
to him at the coming of the Cocklicranes, which she called
Coquecigrues. What is become of him since we cannot certainly tell,
yet was I told that he is now a porter at Lyons, as testy and pettish in
humour as ever he was before, and would be always with great
lamentation inquiring at all strangers of the coming of the Cocklicranes,
expecting assuredly, according to the old woman's prophecy, that at
their coming he shall be re-established in his kingdom. The first thing
Gargantua did after his return into the town was to call the muster-roll
of his men, which when he had done, he found that there were very few
either killed or wounded, only some few foot of Captain Tolmere's
company, and Ponocrates, who was shot with a musket-ball through the
doublet. Then he caused them all at and in their several posts and
divisions to take a little refreshment, which was very plenteously
provided for them in the best drink and victuals that could be had for
money, and gave order to the treasurers and commissaries of the army
to pay for and defray that repast, and that there should be no outrage at
all nor abuse committed in the town, seeing it was his own. And
furthermore commanded, that immediately after the soldiers had done
with eating and drinking for that time sufficiently and to their own
hearts' desire, a gathering should be beaten for bringing them altogether,
to be drawn up on the piazza before the castle, there to receive six
months' pay completely. All which was done. After this, by his
direction, were brought before him in the said place all those that
remained of Picrochole's party, unto whom, in the presence of the
princes, nobles, and officers of his court and army, he spoke as
followeth.
Chapter 1.
L.
Gargantua's speech to the vanquished.
Our forefathers and ancestors of all times have been of this nature and
disposition, that, upon the winning of a battle, they have chosen rather,
for a sign and memorial of their triumphs and victories, to erect
trophies and monuments in the hearts of the vanquished by clemency
than by architecture in the lands which they had conquered. For they
did hold in greater estimation the lively remembrance of men
purchased by liberality than the dumb inscription of arches, pillars, and
pyramids, subject to the injury of storms and tempests, and to the envy
of everyone. You may very well remember of the courtesy which by
them was used towards the Bretons in the battle of St. Aubin of
Cormier and at the demolishing of Partenay. You have heard, and
hearing admire, their gentle comportment towards those at the barriers
(the barbarians) of Spaniola, who had plundered, wasted, and ransacked
the maritime borders of Olone and Thalmondois. All this hemisphere of
the world was filled with the praises and congratulations which
yourselves and your fathers made, when Alpharbal, King of Canarre,
not satisfied with his own fortunes, did most furiously invade the land
of Onyx, and with cruel piracies molest all the Armoric Islands and
confine regions of Britany. Yet was he in a set naval fight justly taken
and vanquished by my father, whom God preserve and protect. But
what? Whereas other kings and emperors, yea, those who entitle
themselves Catholics, would have dealt roughly with him, kept him a
close prisoner, and put him to an extreme high ransom, he entreated
him very courteously, lodged him kindly with himself in his own
palace, and out of his incredible mildness and gentle disposition sent
him back with a safe conduct, laden with gifts, laden with favours,
laden with all offices of friendship. What fell out upon it? Being
returned into his country, he called a parliament, where all the princes
and states of his kingdom being assembled, he showed them the
humanity which he had found in us, and therefore wished them to take
such course by way of compensation therein as that the whole world
might be edified by the example, as well of their honest graciousness to
us as of our gracious honesty towards them. The result hereof was, that
it was voted and decreed by an unanimous consent, that they should
offer up entirely their lands, dominions, and kingdoms, to be disposed
of by us according to our pleasure.
Alpharbal in his own person presently returned with nine thousand and
thirty-eight great ships of burden, bringing with him the treasures, not
only of his house and royal lineage, but almost of all the country
besides. For he embarking himself, to set sail with a west-north-east
wind, everyone in heaps did cast into the ship gold, silver, rings, jewels,
spices, drugs, and aromatical perfumes, parrots, pelicans, monkeys,
civet-cats, black- spotted weasels, porcupines, &c. He was accounted
no good mother's son that did not cast in all the rare and precious things
he had.
Being safely arrived, he came to my said father, and would have kissed
his feet. That action was found too submissively low, and therefore was
not permitted, but in exchange he was most cordially embraced. He
offered his presents; they were not received, because they were too
excessive: he yielded himself voluntarily a servant and vassal, and was
content his whole posterity should be liable to the same bondage; this
was not accepted of, because it seemed not equitable: he surrendered,
by virtue of the decree of his great parliamentary council, his whole
countries and kingdoms to him, offering the deed and conveyance,
signed, sealed, and ratified by all those that were concerned in it; this
was altogether refused, and the parchments cast into the fire. In end,
this free goodwill and simple meaning of the Canarians wrought such
tenderness in my father's heart that he could not abstain from shedding
tears, and wept most profusely; then, by choice words very congruously
adapted, strove in what he could to diminish the estimation of the good
offices which he had done them, saying, that any courtesy he had
conferred upon them was not worth a rush, and what favour soever he
had showed them he was bound to do it. But so much the more did
Alpharbal augment the repute thereof. What was the issue? Whereas for
his ransom, in the greatest extremity of rigour and most tyrannical
dealing, could not have been exacted above twenty times a hundred
thousand crowns, and his eldest sons detained as hostages till that sum
had been paid, they made themselves perpetual tributaries, and obliged
to give us every year two millions of gold at four-and-twenty carats
fine. The first year we received the whole sum of two millions; the
second year of their own accord they paid freely to us three-and-twenty
hundred thousand crowns; the third year, six-and-twenty hundred
thousand; the fourth year, three millions, and do so increase it always
out of their own goodwill that we shall be constrained to forbid them to
bring us any more. This is the nature of gratitude and true thankfulness.
For time, which gnaws and diminisheth all things else, augments and
increaseth benefits; because a noble action of liberality, done to a man
of reason, doth grow continually by his generous thinking of it and
remembering it.
Being unwilling therefore any way to degenerate from the hereditary
mildness and clemency of my parents, I do now forgive you, deliver
you from all fines and imprisonments, fully release you, set you at
liberty, and every way make you as frank and free as ever you were
before. Moreover, at your going out of the gate, you shall have every
one of you three months' pay to bring you home into your houses and
families, and shall have a safe convoy of six hundred cuirassiers and
eight thousand foot under the conduct of Alexander, esquire of my
body, that the clubmen of the country may not do you any injury. God
be with you! I am sorry from my heart that Picrochole is not here; for I
would have given him to understand that this war was undertaken
against my will and without any hope to increase either my goods or
renown. But seeing he is lost, and that no man can tell where nor how
he went away, it is my will that his kingdom remain entire to his son;
who, because he is too young, he not being yet full five years old, shall
be brought up and instructed by the ancient princes and learned men of
the kingdom. And because a realm thus desolate may easily come to
ruin, if the covetousness and avarice of those who by their places are
obliged to administer justice in it be not curbed and restrained, I ordain
and will have it so, that Ponocrates be overseer and superintendent
above all his governors, with whatever power and authority is requisite
thereto, and that he be continually with the child until he find him able
and capable to rule and govern by himself.
Now I must tell you, that you are to understand how a too feeble and
dissolute facility in pardoning evildoers giveth them occasion to
commit wickedness afterwards more readily, upon this pernicious
confidence of receiving favour. I consider that Moses, the meekest man
that was in his time upon the earth, did severely punish the mutinous
and seditious people of Israel. I consider likewise that Julius Caesar,
who was so gracious an emperor that Cicero said of him that his
fortune had nothing more excellent than that he could, and his virtue
nothing better than that he would always save and pardon every
man--he, notwithstanding all this, did in certain places most rigorously
punish the authors of rebellion. After the example of these good men, it
is my will and pleasure that you deliver over unto me before you depart
hence, first, that fine fellow Marquet, who was the prime cause, origin,
and groundwork of this war by his vain presumption and overweening;
secondly, his fellow cake-bakers, who were neglective in checking and
reprehending his idle hairbrained humour in the instant time; and lastly,
all the councillors, captains, officers, and domestics of Picrochole, who
had been incendiaries or fomenters of the war by provoking, praising,
or counselling him to come out of his limits thus to trouble us.
Chapter 1.
LI.
How the victorious Gargantuists were recompensed after the battle.
When Gargantua had finished his speech, the seditious men whom he
required were delivered up unto him, except Swashbuckler, Dirt-tail,
and Smalltrash, who ran away six hours before the battle--one of them
as far as to Lainiel- neck at one course, another to the valley of Vire,
and the third even unto Logroine, without looking back or taking breath
by the way--and two of the cake-bakers who were slain in the fight.
Gargantua did them no other hurt but that he appointed them to pull at
the presses of his printing-house which he had newly set up. Then those
who died there he caused to be honourably buried in Black-soile valley
and Burn-hag field, and gave order that the wounded should be dressed
and had care of in his great hospital or nosocome. After this,
considering the great prejudice done to the town and its inhabitants, he
reimbursed their charges and repaired all the losses that by their
confession upon oath could appear they had sustained; and, for their
better defence and security in times coming against all sudden uproars
and invasions, commanded a strong citadel to be built there with a
competent garrison to maintain it. At his departure he did very
graciously thank all the soldiers of the brigades that had been at this
overthrow, and sent them back to their winter-quarters in their several
stations and garrisons; the decumane legion only excepted, whom in
the field on that day he saw do some great exploit, and their captains
also, whom he brought along with himself unto Grangousier.
At the sight and coming of them, the good man was so joyful, that it is
not possible fully to describe it. He made them a feast the most
magnificent, plentiful, and delicious that ever was seen since the time
of the king Ahasuerus. At the taking up of the table he distributed
amongst them his whole cupboard of plate, which weighed eight
hundred thousand and fourteen bezants (Each bezant is worth five
pounds English money.) of gold, in great antique vessels, huge pots,
large basins, big tasses, cups, goblets, candlesticks, comfit-boxes, and
other such plate, all of pure massy gold, besides the precious stones,
enamelling, and workmanship, which by all men's estimation was more
worth than the matter of the gold. Then unto every one of them out of
his coffers caused he to be given the sum of twelve hundred thousand
crowns ready money. And, further, he gave to each of them for ever
and in perpetuity, unless he should happen to decease without heirs,
such castles and neighbouring lands of his as were most commodious
for them. To Ponocrates he gave the rock Clermond; to Gymnast, the
Coudray; to Eudemon, Montpensier; Rivau, to Tolmere, to Ithibolle,
Montsoreau; to Acamas, Cande; Varenes, to Chironacte; Gravot, to
Sebast; Quinquenais, to Alexander; Legre, to Sophrone, and so of his
other places.
Chapter 1.
LII.
How Gargantua caused to be built for the Monk the Abbey of Theleme.
There was left only the monk to provide for, whom Gargantua would
have made Abbot of Seville, but he refused it. He would have given
him the Abbey of Bourgueil, or of Sanct Florent, which was better, or
both, if it pleased him; but the monk gave him a very peremptory
answer, that he would never take upon him the charge nor government
of monks. For how shall I be able, said he, to rule over others, that have
not full power and command of myself? If you think I have done you,
or may hereafter do any acceptable service, give me leave to found an
abbey after my own mind and fancy. The motion pleased Gargantua
very well, who thereupon offered him all the country of Theleme by the
river of Loire till within two leagues of the great forest of Port-Huaulx.
The monk then requested Gargantua to institute his religious order
contrary to all others. First, then, said Gargantua, you must not build a
wall about your convent, for all other abbeys are strongly walled and
mured about. See, said the monk, and not without cause (seeing wall
and mur signify but one and the same thing); where there is mur before
and mur behind, there is store of murmur, envy, and mutual conspiracy.
Moreover, seeing there are certain convents in the world whereof the
custom is, if any woman come in, I mean chaste and honest women,
they immediately sweep the ground which they have trod upon;
therefore was it ordained, that if any man or woman entered into
religious orders should by chance come within this new abbey, all the
rooms should be thoroughly washed and cleansed through which they
had passed. And because in all other monasteries and nunneries all is
compassed, limited, and regulated by hours, it was decreed that in this
new structure there should be neither clock nor dial, but that according
to the opportunities and incident occasions all their hours should be
disposed of; for, said Gargantua, the greatest loss of time that I know is
to count the hours. What good comes of it? Nor can there be any
greater dotage in the world than for one to guide and direct his courses
by the sound of a bell, and not by his own judgment and discretion.
Item, Because at that time they put no women into nunneries but such
as were either purblind, blinkards, lame, crooked, ill-favoured,
misshapen, fools, senseless, spoiled, or corrupt; nor encloistered any
men but those that were either sickly, subject to defluxions, ill-bred
louts, simple sots, or peevish trouble-houses. But to the purpose, said
the monk. A woman that is neither fair nor good, to what use serves she?
To make a nun of, said Gargantua. Yea, said the monk, and to make
shirts and smocks. Therefore was it ordained that into this religious
order should be admitted no women that were not fair, well-featured,
and of a sweet disposition; nor men that were not comely, personable,
and well conditioned.
Item, Because in the convents of women men come not but underhand,
privily, and by stealth, it was therefore enacted that in this house there
shall be no women in case there be not men, nor men in case there be
not women.
Item, Because both men and women that are received into religious
orders after the expiring of their noviciate or probation year were
constrained and forced perpetually to stay there all the days of their life,
it was therefore ordered that all whatever, men or women, admitted
within this abbey, should have full leave to depart with peace and
contentment whensoever it should seem good to them so to do.
Item, for that the religious men and women did ordinarily make three
vows, to wit, those of chastity, poverty, and obedience, it was therefore
constituted and appointed that in this convent they might be honourably
married, that they might be rich, and live at liberty. In regard of the
legitimate time of the persons to be initiated, and years under and
above which they were not capable of reception, the women were to be
admitted from ten till fifteen, and the men from twelve till eighteen.
Chapter 1.
LIII.
How the abbey of the Thelemites was built and endowed.
For the fabric and furniture of the abbey Gargantua caused to be
delivered out in ready money seven-and-twenty hundred thousand,
eight hundred and one-and-thirty of those golden rams of Berry which
have a sheep stamped on the one side and a flowered cross on the other;
and for every year, until the whole work were completed, he allotted
threescore nine thousand crowns of the sun, and as many of the seven
stars, to be charged all upon the receipt of the custom. For the
foundation and maintenance thereof for ever, he settled a perpetual
fee-farm-rent of three-and-twenty hundred, three score and nine
thousand, five hundred and fourteen rose nobles, exempted from all
homage, fealty, service, or burden whatsoever, and payable every year
at the gate of the abbey; and of this by letters patent passed a very good
grant. The architecture was in a figure hexagonal, and in such a fashion
that in every one of the six corners there was built a great round tower
of threescore foot in diameter, and were all of a like form and bigness.
Upon the north side ran along the river of Loire, on the bank whereof
was situated the tower called Arctic. Going towards the east, there was
another called Calaer,--the next following Anatole,--the next
Mesembrine,--the next Hesperia, and the last Criere. Every tower was
distant from other the space of three hundred and twelve paces. The
whole edifice was everywhere six storeys high, reckoning the cellars
underground for one. The second was arched after the fashion of a
basket-handle; the rest were ceiled with pure wainscot, flourished with
Flanders fretwork, in the form of the foot of a lamp, and covered above
with fine slates, with an endorsement of lead, carrying the antique
figures of little puppets and animals of all sorts, notably well suited to
one another, and gilt, together with the gutters, which, jutting without
the walls from betwixt the crossbars in a diagonal figure, painted with
gold and azure, reached to the very ground, where they ended into great
conduit-pipes, which carried all away unto the river from under the
house.
This same building was a hundred times more sumptuous and
magnificent than ever was Bonnivet, Chambourg, or Chantilly; for
there were in it nine thousand, three hundred and two-and-thirty
chambers, every one whereof had a withdrawing-room, a handsome
closet, a wardrobe, an oratory, and neat passage, leading into a great
and spacious hall. Between every tower in the midst of the said body of
building there was a pair of winding, such as we now call lantern stairs,
whereof the steps were part of porphyry, which is a dark red marble
spotted with white, part of Numidian stone, which is a kind of
yellowishly-streaked marble upon various colours, and part of
serpentine marble, with light spots on a dark green ground, each of
those steps being two-and-twenty foot in length and three fingers thick,
and the just number of twelve betwixt every rest, or, as we now term it,
landing- place. In every resting-place were two fair antique arches
where the light came in: and by those they went into a cabinet, made
even with and of the breadth of the said winding, and the reascending
above the roofs of the house ended conically in a pavilion. By that vise
or winding they entered on every side into a great hall, and from the
halls into the chambers. From the Arctic tower unto the Criere were the
fair great libraries in Greek, Latin, Hebrew, French, Italian, and
Spanish, respectively distributed in their several cantons, according to
the diversity of these languages. In the midst there was a wonderful
scalier or winding-stair, the entry whereof was without the house, in a
vault or arch six fathom broad. It was made in such symmetry and
largeness that six men-at-arms with their lances in their rests might
together in a breast ride all up to the very top of all the palace. From the
tower Anatole to the Mesembrine were fair spacious galleries, all
coloured over and painted with the ancient prowesses, histories, and
descriptions of the world. In the midst thereof there was likewise such
another ascent and gate as we said there was on the river-side. Upon
that gate was written in great antique letters that which followeth.
Chapter 1.
LIV.
The inscription set upon the great gate of Theleme.
Here enter not vile bigots, hypocrites, Externally devoted apes, base
snites, Puffed-up, wry-necked beasts, worse than the Huns, Or
Ostrogoths, forerunners of baboons: Cursed snakes, dissembled varlets,
seeming sancts, Slipshod caffards, beggars pretending wants, Fat
chuffcats, smell-feast knockers, doltish gulls, Out-strouting cluster-fists,
contentious bulls, Fomenters of divisions and debates, Elsewhere, not
here, make sale of your deceits.
Your filthy trumperies Stuffed with pernicious lies (Not worth a
bubble), Would do but trouble Our earthly paradise, Your filthy
trumperies.
Here enter not attorneys, barristers, Nor bridle-champing
law-practitioners: Clerks, commissaries, scribes, nor pharisees, Wilful
disturbers of the people's ease: Judges, destroyers, with an unjust breath,
Of honest men, like dogs, even unto death. Your salary is at the
gibbet-foot: Go drink there! for we do not here fly out On those
excessive courses, which may draw A waiting on your courts by suits
in law.
Lawsuits, debates, and wrangling Hence are exiled, and jangling. Here
we are very Frolic and merry, And free from all entangling, Lawsuits,
debates, and wrangling.
Here enter not base pinching usurers, Pelf-lickers, everlasting gatherers,
Gold-graspers, coin-gripers, gulpers of mists, Niggish deformed sots,
who, though your chests Vast sums of money should to you afford,
Would ne'ertheless add more unto that hoard, And yet not be
content,--you clunchfist dastards, Insatiable fiends, and Pluto's bastards,
Greedy devourers, chichy sneakbill rogues, Hell-mastiffs gnaw your
bones, you ravenous dogs.
You beastly-looking fellows, Reason doth plainly tell us That we
should not To you allot Room here, but at the gallows, You
beastly-looking fellows.
Here enter not fond makers of demurs In love adventures, peevish,
jealous curs, Sad pensive dotards, raisers of garboils, Hags, goblins,
ghosts, firebrands of household broils, Nor drunkards, liars, cowards,
cheaters, clowns, Thieves, cannibals, faces o'ercast with frowns, Nor
lazy slugs, envious, covetous, Nor blockish, cruel, nor too credulous,--
Here mangy, pocky folks shall have no place, No ugly lusks, nor
persons of disgrace.
Grace, honour, praise, delight, Here sojourn day and night. Sound
bodies lined With a good mind, Do here pursue with might Grace,
honour, praise, delight.
Here enter you, and welcome from our hearts, All noble sparks,
endowed with gallant parts. This is the glorious place, which bravely
shall Afford wherewith to entertain you all. Were you a thousand, here
you shall not want For anything; for what you'll ask we'll grant. Stay
here, you lively, jovial, handsome, brisk, Gay, witty, frolic, cheerful,
merry, frisk, Spruce, jocund, courteous, furtherers of trades, And, in a
word, all worthy gentle blades.
Blades of heroic breasts Shall taste here of the feasts, Both privily And
civilly Of the celestial guests, Blades of heroic breasts.
Here enter you, pure, honest, faithful, true Expounders of the Scriptures
old and new. Whose glosses do not blind our reason, but Make it to see
the clearer, and who shut Its passages from hatred, avarice, Pride,
factions, covenants, and all sort of vice. Come, settle here a charitable
faith, Which neighbourly affection nourisheth. And whose light chaseth
all corrupters hence, Of the blest word, from the aforesaid sense.
The holy sacred Word, May it always afford T' us all in common, Both
man and woman, A spiritual shield and sword, The holy sacred Word.
Here enter you all ladies of high birth, Delicious, stately, charming, full
of mirth, Ingenious, lovely, miniard, proper, fair, Magnetic, graceful,
splendid, pleasant, rare, Obliging, sprightly, virtuous, young, solacious,
Kind, neat, quick, feat, bright, compt, ripe, choice, dear, precious.
Alluring, courtly, comely, fine, complete, Wise, personable, ravishing,
and sweet, Come joys enjoy. The Lord celestial Hath given enough
wherewith to please us all.
Gold give us, God forgive us, And from all woes relieve us; That we
the treasure May reap of pleasure, And shun whate'er is grievous, Gold
give us, God forgive us.
Chapter 1.
LV.
What manner of dwelling the Thelemites had.
In the middle of the lower court there was a stately fountain of fair
alabaster. Upon the top thereof stood the three Graces, with their
cornucopias, or horns of abundance, and did jet out the water at their
breasts, mouth, ears, eyes, and other open passages of the body. The
inside of the buildings in this lower court stood upon great pillars of
chalcedony stone and porphyry marble made archways after a goodly
antique fashion. Within those were spacious galleries, long and large,
adorned with curious pictures, the horns of bucks and unicorns: with
rhinoceroses, water-horses called hippopotames, the teeth and tusks of
elephants, and other things well worth the beholding. The lodging of
the ladies, for so we may call those gallant women, took up all from the
tower Arctic unto the gate Mesembrine. The men possessed the rest.
Before the said lodging of the ladies, that they might have their
recreation, between the two first towers, on the outside, were placed the
tiltyard, the barriers or lists for tournaments, the hippodrome or
riding-court, the theatre or public playhouse, and natatory or place to
swim in, with most admirable baths in three stages, situated above one
another, well furnished with all necessary accommodation, and store of
myrtle-water. By the river-side was the fair garden of pleasure, and in
the midst of that the glorious labyrinth. Between the two other towers
were the courts for the tennis and the balloon. Towards the tower Criere
stood the orchard full of all fruit- trees, set and ranged in a quincuncial
order. At the end of that was the great park, abounding with all sort of
venison. Betwixt the third couple of towers were the butts and marks
for shooting with a snapwork gun, an ordinary bow for common
archery, or with a crossbow. The office-houses were without the tower
Hesperia, of one storey high. The stables were beyond the offices, and
before them stood the falconry, managed by ostrich- keepers and
falconers very expert in the art, and it was yearly supplied and
furnished by the Candians, Venetians, Sarmates, now called
Muscoviters, with all sorts of most excellent hawks, eagles, gerfalcons,
goshawks, sacres, lanners, falcons, sparrowhawks, marlins, and other
kinds of them, so gentle and perfectly well manned, that, flying of
themselves sometimes from the castle for their own disport, they would
not fail to catch whatever they encountered. The venery, where the
beagles and hounds were kept, was a little farther off, drawing towards
the park.
All the halls, chambers, and closets or cabinets were richly hung with
tapestry and hangings of divers sorts, according to the variety of the
seasons of the year. All the pavements and floors were covered with
green cloth. The beds were all embroidered. In every back-chamber or
withdrawing-room there was a looking-glass of pure crystal set in a
frame of fine gold, garnished all about with pearls, and was of such
greatness that it would represent to the full the whole lineaments and
proportion of the person that stood before it. At the going out of the
halls which belong to the ladies' lodgings were the perfumers and
trimmers through whose hands the gallants passed when they were to
visit the ladies. Those sweet artificers did every morning furnish the
ladies' chambers with the spirit of roses, orange-flower-water, and
angelica; and to each of them gave a little precious casket vapouring
forth the most odoriferous exhalations of the choicest aromatical scents.
Chapter 1.
LVI.
How the men and women of the religious order of Theleme were
apparelled.
The ladies at the foundation of this order were apparelled after their
own pleasure and liking; but, since that of their own accord and free
will they have reformed themselves, their accoutrement is in manner as
followeth. They wore stockings of scarlet crimson, or ingrained purple
dye, which reached just three inches above the knee, having a list
beautified with exquisite embroideries and rare incisions of the cutter's
art. Their garters were of the colour of their bracelets, and circled the
knee a little both over and under. Their shoes, pumps, and slippers were
either of red, violet, or crimson-velvet, pinked and jagged like lobster
waddles.
Next to their smock they put on the pretty kirtle or vasquin of pure silk
camlet: above that went the taffety or tabby farthingale, of white, red,
tawny, grey, or of any other colour. Above this taffety petticoat they
had another of cloth of tissue or brocade, embroidered with fine gold
and interlaced with needlework, or as they thought good, and according
to the temperature and disposition of the weather had their upper coats
of satin, damask, or velvet, and those either orange, tawny, green,
ash-coloured, blue, yellow, bright red, crimson, or white, and so forth;
or had them of cloth of gold, cloth of silver, or some other choice stuff,
enriched with purl, or embroidered according to the dignity of the
festival days and times wherein they wore them.
Their gowns, being still correspondent to the season, were either of
cloth of gold frizzled with a silver-raised work; of red satin, covered
with gold purl; of tabby, or taffety, white, blue, black, tawny, &c., of
silk serge, silk camlet, velvet, cloth of silver, silver tissue, cloth of gold,
gold wire, figured velvet, or figured satin tinselled and overcast with
golden threads, in divers variously purfled draughts.
In the summer some days instead of gowns they wore light handsome
mantles, made either of the stuff of the aforesaid attire, or like Moresco
rugs, of violet velvet frizzled, with a raised work of gold upon silver
purl, or with a knotted cord-work of gold embroidery, everywhere
garnished with little Indian pearls. They always carried a fair panache,
or plume of feathers, of the colour of their muff, bravely adorned and
tricked out with glistering spangles of gold. In the winter time they had
their taffety gowns of all colours, as above-named, and those lined with
the rich furrings of hind-wolves, or speckled lynxes, black-spotted
weasels, martlet skins of Calabria, sables, and other costly furs of an
inestimable value. Their beads, rings, bracelets, collars, carcanets, and
neck-chains were all of precious stones, such as carbuncles, rubies,
baleus, diamonds, sapphires, emeralds, turquoises, garnets, agates,
beryls, and excellent margarites. Their head-dressing also varied with
the season of the year, according to which they decked themselves. In
winter it was of the French fashion; in the spring, of the Spanish; in
summer, of the fashion of Tuscany, except only upon the holy days and
Sundays, at which times they were accoutred in the French mode,
because they accounted it more honourable and better befitting the garb
of a matronal pudicity.
The men were apparelled after their fashion. Their stockings were of
tamine or of cloth serge, of white, black, scarlet, or some other
ingrained colour. Their breeches were of velvet, of the same colour
with their stockings, or very near, embroidered and cut according to
their fancy. Their doublet was of cloth of gold, of cloth of silver, of
velvet, satin, damask, taffeties, &c., of the same colours, cut,
embroidered, and suitably trimmed up in perfection. The points were of
silk of the same colours; the tags were of gold well enamelled. Their
coats and jerkins were of cloth of gold, cloth of silver, gold, tissue or
velvet embroidered, as they thought fit. Their gowns were every whit as
costly as those of the ladies. Their girdles were of silks, of the colour of
their doublets. Every one had a gallant sword by his side, the hilt and
handle whereof were gilt, and the scabbard of velvet, of the colour of
his breeches, with a chape of gold, and pure goldsmith's work. The
dagger was of the same. Their caps or bonnets were of black velvet,
adorned with jewels and buttons of gold. Upon that they wore a white
plume, most prettily and minion-like parted by so many rows of gold
spangles, at the end whereof hung dangling in a more sparkling
resplendency fair rubies, emeralds, diamonds, &c., but there was such a
sympathy betwixt the gallants and the ladies, that every day they were
apparelled in the same livery. And that they might not miss, there were
certain gentlemen appointed to tell the youths every morning what
vestments the ladies would on that day wear: for all was done
according to the pleasure of the ladies. In these so handsome clothes,
and habiliments so rich, think not that either one or other of either sex
did waste any time at all; for the masters of the wardrobes had all their
raiments and apparel so ready for every morning, and the
chamber-ladies so well skilled, that in a trice they would be dressed and
completely in their clothes from head to foot. And to have those
accoutrements with the more conveniency, there was about the wood of
Theleme a row of houses of the extent of half a league, very neat and
cleanly, wherein dwelt the goldsmiths, lapidaries, jewellers,
embroiderers, tailors, gold-drawers, velvet-weavers, tapestry- makers
and upholsterers, who wrought there every one in his own trade, and all
for the aforesaid jolly friars and nuns of the new stamp. They were
furnished with matter and stuff from the hands of the Lord Nausiclete,
who every year brought them seven ships from the Perlas and Cannibal
Islands, laden with ingots of gold, with raw silk, with pearls and
precious stones. And if any margarites, called unions, began to grow
old and lose somewhat of their natural whiteness and lustre, those with
their art they did renew by tendering them to eat to some pretty cocks,
as they use to give casting unto hawks.
Chapter 1.
LVII.
How the Thelemites were governed, and of their manner of living.
All their life was spent not in laws, statutes, or rules, but according to
their own free will and pleasure. They rose out of their beds when they
thought good; they did eat, drink, labour, sleep, when they had a mind
to it and were disposed for it. None did awake them, none did offer to
constrain them to eat, drink, nor to do any other thing; for so had
Gargantua established it. In all their rule and strictest tie of their order
there was but this one clause to be observed,
Do What Thou Wilt;
because men that are free, well-born, well-bred, and conversant in
honest companies, have naturally an instinct and spur that prompteth
them unto virtuous actions, and withdraws them from vice, which is
called honour. Those same men, when by base subjection and
constraint they are brought under and kept down, turn aside from that
noble disposition by which they formerly were inclined to virtue, to
shake off and break that bond of servitude wherein they are so
tyrannously enslaved; for it is agreeable with the nature of man to long
after things forbidden and to desire what is denied us.
By this liberty they entered into a very laudable emulation to do all of
them what they saw did please one. If any of the gallants or ladies
should say, Let us drink, they would all drink. If any one of them said,
Let us play, they all played. If one said, Let us go a-walking into the
fields they went all. If it were to go a-hawking or a-hunting, the ladies
mounted upon dainty well-paced nags, seated in a stately palfrey saddle,
carried on their lovely fists, miniardly begloved every one of them,
either a sparrowhawk or a laneret or a marlin, and the young gallants
carried the other kinds of hawks. So nobly were they taught, that there
was neither he nor she amongst them but could read, write, sing, play
upon several musical instruments, speak five or six several languages,
and compose in them all very quaintly, both in verse and prose. Never
were seen so valiant knights, so noble and worthy, so dexterous and
skilful both on foot and a-horse-back, more brisk and lively, more
nimble and quick, or better handling all manner of weapons than were
there. Never were seen ladies so proper and handsome, so miniard and
dainty, less froward, or more ready with their hand and with their
needle in every honest and free action belonging to that sex, than were
there. For this reason, when the time came that any man of the said
abbey, either at the request of his parents, or for some other cause, had
a mind to go out of it, he carried along with him one of the ladies,
namely, her whom he had before that chosen for his mistress, and (they)
were married together. And if they had formerly in Theleme lived in
good devotion and amity, they did continue therein and increase it to a
greater height in their state of matrimony; and did entertain that mutual
love till the very last day of their life, in no less vigour and fervency
than at the very day of their wedding. Here must not I forget to set
down unto you a riddle which was found under the ground as they were
laying the foundation of the abbey, engraven in a copper plate, and it
was thus as followeth.
Chapter 1.
LVIII.
A prophetical Riddle.
Poor mortals, who wait for a happy day, Cheer up your hearts, and hear
what I shall say: If it be lawful firmly to believe That the celestial
bodies can us give Wisdom to judge of things that are not yet; Or if
from heaven such wisdom we may get As may with confidence make
us discourse Of years to come, their destiny and course; I to my hearers
give to understand That this next winter, though it be at hand, Yea and
before, there shall appear a race Of men who, loth to sit still in one
place, Shall boldly go before all people's eyes, Suborning men of divers
qualities To draw them unto covenants and sides, In such a manner that,
whate'er betides, They'll move you, if you give them ear, no doubt,
With both your friends and kindred to fall out. They'll make a vassal to
gain-stand his lord, And children their own parents; in a word, All
reverence shall then be banished, No true respect to other shall be had.
They'll say that every man should have his turn, Both in his going forth
and his return; And hereupon there shall arise such woes, Such jarrings,
and confused to's and fro's, That never were in history such coils Set
down as yet, such tumults and garboils. Then shall you many gallant
men see by Valour stirr'd up, and youthful fervency, Who, trusting too
much in their hopeful time, Live but a while, and perish in their prime.
Neither shall any, who this course shall run, Leave off the race which
he hath once begun, Till they the heavens with noise by their
contention Have fill'd, and with their steps the earth's dimension. Then
those shall have no less authority, That have no faith, than those that
will not lie; For all shall be governed by a rude, Base, ignorant, and
foolish multitude; The veriest lout of all shall be their judge, O horrible
and dangerous deluge! Deluge I call it, and that for good reason, For
this shall be omitted in no season; Nor shall the earth of this foul stir be
free, Till suddenly you in great store shall see The waters issue out,
with whose streams the Most moderate of all shall moistened be, And
justly too; because they did not spare The flocks of beasts that
innocentest are, But did their sinews and their bowels take, Not to the
gods a sacrifice to make, But usually to serve themselves for sport: And
now consider, I do you exhort, In such commotions so continual, What
rest can take the globe terrestrial? Most happy then are they, that can it
hold, And use it carefully as precious gold, By keeping it in gaol,
whence it shall have No help but him who being to it gave. And to
increase his mournful accident, The sun, before it set in th' occident,
Shall cease to dart upon it any light, More than in an eclipse, or in the
night,-- So that at once its favour shall be gone, And liberty with it be
left alone. And yet, before it come to ruin thus, Its quaking shall be as
impetuous As Aetna's was when Titan's sons lay under, And yield,
when lost, a fearful sound like thunder. Inarime did not more quickly
move, When Typheus did the vast huge hills remove, And for despite
into the sea them threw. Thus shall it then be lost by ways not few, And
changed suddenly, when those that have it To other men that after come
shall leave it. Then shall it be high time to cease from this So long, so
great, so tedious exercise; For the great waters told you now by me,
Will make each think where his retreat shall be; And yet, before that
they be clean disperst, You may behold in th' air, where nought was
erst, The burning heat of a great flame to rise, Lick up the water, and
the enterprise. It resteth after those things to declare, That those shall sit
content who chosen are, With all good things, and with celestial man
(ne,) And richly recompensed every man: The others at the last all
stripp'd shall be, That after this great work all men may see, How each
shall have his due. This is their lot; O he is worthy praise that shrinketh
not!
No sooner was this enigmatical monument read over, but Gargantua,
fetching a very deep sigh, said unto those that stood by, It is not now
only, I perceive, that people called to the faith of the gospel, and
convinced with the certainty of evangelical truths, are persecuted. But
happy is that man that shall not be scandalized, but shall always
continue to the end in aiming at that mark which God by his dear Son
hath set before us, without being distracted or diverted by his carnal
affections and depraved nature.
The monk then said, What do you think in your conscience is meant
and signified by this riddle? What? said Gargantua,--the progress and
carrying on of the divine truth. By St. Goderan, said the monk, that is
not my exposition. It is the style of the prophet Merlin. Make upon it as
many grave allegories and glosses as you will, and dote upon it you and
the rest of the world as long as you please; for my part, I can conceive
no other meaning in it but a description of a set at tennis in dark and
obscure terms. The suborners of men are the makers of matches, which
are commonly friends. After the two chases are made, he that was in
the upper end of the tennis-court goeth out, and the other cometh in.
They believe the first that saith the ball was over or under the line. The
waters are the heats that the players take till they sweat again. The
cords of the rackets are made of the guts of sheep or goats. The globe
terrestrial is the tennis-ball. After playing, when the game is done, they
refresh themselves before a clear fire, and change their shirts; and very
willingly they make all good cheer, but most merrily those that have
gained. And so, farewell!
End book 1
THE SECOND BOOK.
For the Reader.
The Reader here may be pleased to take notice that the copy of verses
by the title of 'Rablophila', premised to the first book of this translation,
being but a kind of mock poem, in imitation of somewhat lately
published (as to any indifferent observer will easily appear, by the false
quantities in the Latin, the abusive strain of the English, and
extravagant subscription to both), and as such, by a friend of the
translator's, at the desire of some frolic gentlemen of his acquaintance,
more for a trial of skill than prejudicacy to any, composed in his jollity
to please their fancies, was only ordained to be prefixed to a dozen of
books, and no more, thereby to save the labour of transcribing so many
as were requisite for satisfying the curiosity of a company of just that
number; and that, therefore, the charging of the whole impression with
it is merely to be imputed to the negligence of the pressmen, who,
receiving it about the latter end of the night, were so eager before the
next morning to afford complete books, that, as they began, they went
on, without animadverting what was recommended to their discretion.
This is hoped will suffice to assure the ingenuous Reader that in no
treatise of the translator's, whether original or translatitious, shall
willingly be offered the meanest rub to the reputation of any worthy
gentleman, and that, however providence dispose of him, no misfortune
shall be able to induce his mind to any complacency in the
disparagement of another.
Again.
The Pentateuch of Rabelais mentioned in the title-page of the first book
of this translation being written originally in the French tongue (as it
comprehendeth some of its brusquest dialects), with so much
ingeniosity and wit, that more impressions have been sold thereof in
that language than of any other book that hath been set forth at any time
within these fifteen hundred years; so difficult nevertheless to be turned
into any other speech that many prime spirits in most of the nations of
Europe, since the year 1573, which was fourscore years ago, after
having attempted it, were constrained with no small regret to give it
over as a thing impossible to be done, is now in its translation thus far
advanced, and the remainder faithfully undertaken with the same hand
to be rendered into English by a person of quality, who (though his
lands be sequestered, his house garrisoned, his other goods sold, and
himself detained a prisoner of war at London, for his having been at
Worcester fight) hath, at the most earnest entreaty of some of his
especial friends well acquainted with his inclination to the performance
of conducible singularities, promised, besides his version of these two
already published, very speedily to offer up unto this Isle of Britain the
virginity of the translation of the other three most admirable books of
the aforesaid author; provided that by the plurality of judicious and
understanding men it be not declared he hath already proceeded too far,
or that the continuation of the rigour whereby he is dispossessed of all
his both real and personal estate, by pressing too hard upon him, be not
an impediment thereto, and to other more eminent undertakings of his,
as hath been oftentimes very fully mentioned by the said translator in
several original treatises of his own penning, lately by him so
numerously dispersed that there is scarce any, who being skilful in the
English idiom, or curious of any new ingenious invention, hath not
either read them or heard of them.
Mr. Hugh Salel to Rabelais.
If profit mixed with pleasure may suffice T' extol an author's worth
above the skies, Thou certainly for both must praised be: I know it; for
thy judgment hath in the Contexture of this book set down such high
Contentments, mingled with utility, That (as I think) I see Democritus
Laughing at men as things ridiculous. Insist in thy design; for, though
we prove Ungrate on earth, thy merit is above.
The Author's Prologue.
Most illustrious and thrice valorous champions, gentlemen and others,
who willingly apply your minds to the entertainment of pretty conceits
and honest harmless knacks of wit; you have not long ago seen, read,
and understood the great and inestimable Chronicle of the huge and
mighty giant Gargantua, and, like upright faithfullists, have firmly
believed all to be true that is contained in them, and have very often
passed your time with them amongst honourable ladies and
gentlewomen, telling them fair long stories, when you were out of all
other talk, for which you are worthy of great praise and sempiternal
memory. And I do heartily wish that every man would lay aside his
own business, meddle no more with his profession nor trade, and throw
all affairs concerning himself behind his back, to attend this wholly,
without distracting or troubling his mind with anything else, until he
have learned them without book; that if by chance the art of printing
should cease, or in case that in time to come all books should perish,
every man might truly teach them unto his children, and deliver them
over to his successors and survivors from hand to hand as a religious
cabal; for there is in it more profit than a rabble of great pocky
loggerheads are able to discern, who surely understand far less in these
little merriments than the fool Raclet did in the Institutions of Justinian.
I have known great and mighty lords, and of those not a few, who,
going a-deer-hunting, or a-hawking after wild ducks, when the chase
had not encountered with the blinks that were cast in her way to retard
her course, or that the hawk did but plain and smoothly fly without
moving her wings, perceiving the prey by force of flight to have gained
bounds of her, have been much chafed and vexed, as you understand
well enough; but the comfort unto which they had refuge, and that they
might not take cold, was to relate the inestimable deeds of the said
Gargantua. There are others in the world--these are no flimflam stories,
nor tales of a tub--who, being much troubled with the toothache, after
they had spent their goods upon physicians without receiving at all any
ease of their pain, have found no more ready remedy than to put the
said Chronicles betwixt two pieces of linen cloth made somewhat hot,
and so apply them to the place that smarteth, sinapizing them with a
little powder of projection, otherwise called doribus.
But what shall I say of those poor men that are plagued with the pox
and the gout? O how often have we seen them, even immediately after
they were anointed and thoroughly greased, till their faces did glister
like the keyhole of a powdering tub, their teeth dance like the jacks of a
pair of little organs or virginals when they are played upon, and that
they foamed from their very throats like a boar which the mongrel
mastiff-hounds have driven in and overthrown amongst the toils,--what
did they then? All their consolation was to have some page of the said
jolly book read unto them. And we have seen those who have given
themselves to a hundred puncheons of old devils, in case that they did
not feel a manifest ease and assuagement of pain at the hearing of the
said book read, even when they were kept in a purgatory of torment; no
more nor less than women in travail use to find their sorrow abated
when the life of St. Margaret is read unto them. Is this nothing? Find
me a book in any language, in any faculty or science whatsoever, that
hath such virtues, properties, and prerogatives, and I will be content to
pay you a quart of tripes. No, my masters, no; it is peerless,
incomparable, and not to be matched; and this am I resolved for ever to
maintain even unto the fire exclusive. And those that will
pertinaciously hold the contrary opinion, let them be accounted abusers,
predestinators, impostors, and seducers of the people. It is very true that
there are found in some gallant and stately books, worthy of high
estimation, certain occult and hid properties; in the number of which
are reckoned Whippot, Orlando Furioso, Robert the Devil, Fierabras,
William without Fear, Huon of Bordeaux, Monteville, and Matabrune:
but they are not comparable to that which we speak of, and the world
hath well known by infallible experience the great emolument and
utility which it hath received by this Gargantuine Chronicle, for the
printers have sold more of them in two months' time than there will be
bought of Bibles in nine years.
I therefore, your humble slave, being very willing to increase your
solace and recreation yet a little more, do offer you for a present
another book of the same stamp, only that it is a little more reasonable
and worthy of credit than the other was. For think not, unless you
wilfully will err against your knowledge, that I speak of it as the Jews
do of the Law. I was not born under such a planet, neither did it ever
befall me to lie, or affirm a thing for true that was not. I speak of it like
a lusty frolic onocrotary (Onocratal is a bird not much unlike a swan,
which sings like an ass's braying.), I should say crotenotary
(Crotenotaire or notaire crotte, croquenotaire or notaire croque are but
allusions in derision of protonotaire, which signifieth a pregnotary.) of
the martyrized lovers, and croquenotary of love. Quod vidimus,
testamur. It is of the horrible and dreadful feats and prowesses of
Pantagruel, whose menial servant I have been ever since I was a page,
till this hour that by his leave I am permitted to visit my cow-country,
and to know if any of my kindred there be alive.
And therefore, to make an end of this Prologue, even as I give myself
to a hundred panniersful of fair devils, body and soul, tripes and guts,
in case that I lie so much as one single word in this whole history; after
the like manner, St. Anthony's fire burn you, Mahoom's disease whirl
you, the squinance with a stitch in your side and the wolf in your
stomach truss you, the bloody flux seize upon you, the cursed sharp
inflammations of wild-fire, as slender and thin as cow's hair
strengthened with quicksilver, enter into your fundament, and, like
those of Sodom and Gomorrah, may you fall into sulphur, fire, and
bottomless pits, in case you do not firmly believe all that I shall relate
unto you in this present Chronicle.
THE SECOND BOOK.
Chapter 2.
I.
Of the original and antiquity of the great Pantagruel.
It will not be an idle nor unprofitable thing, seeing we are at leisure, to
put you in mind of the fountain and original source whence is derived
unto us the good Pantagruel. For I see that all good historiographers
have thus handled their chronicles, not only the Arabians, Barbarians,
and Latins, but also the gentle Greeks, who were eternal drinkers. You
must therefore remark that at the beginning of the world--I speak of a
long time; it is above forty quarantains, or forty times forty nights,
according to the supputation of the ancient Druids--a little after that
Abel was killed by his brother Cain, the earth, imbrued with the blood
of the just, was one year so exceeding fertile in all those fruits which it
usually produceth to us, and especially in medlars, that ever since
throughout all ages it hath been called the year of the great medlars; for
three of them did fill a bushel. In it the kalends were found by the
Grecian almanacks. There was that year nothing of the month of March
in the time of Lent, and the middle of August was in May. In the month
of October, as I take it, or at least September, that I may not err, for I
will carefully take heed of that, was the week so famous in the annals,
which they call the week of the three Thursdays; for it had three of
them by means of their irregular leap-years, called Bissextiles,
occasioned by the sun's having tripped and stumbled a little towards the
left hand, like a debtor afraid of sergeants, coming right upon him to
arrest him: and the moon varied from her course above five fathom, and
there was manifestly seen the motion of trepidation in the firmament of
the fixed stars, called Aplanes, so that the middle Pleiade, leaving her
fellows, declined towards the equinoctial, and the star named Spica left
the constellation of the Virgin to withdraw herself towards the Balance,
known by the name of Libra, which are cases very terrible, and matters
so hard and difficult that astrologians cannot set their teeth in them; and
indeed their teeth had been pretty long if they could have reached
thither.
However, account you it for a truth that everybody then did most
heartily eat of these medlars, for they were fair to the eye and in taste
delicious. But even as Noah, that holy man, to whom we are so much
beholding, bound, and obliged, for that he planted to us the vine, from
whence we have that nectarian, delicious, precious, heavenly, joyful,
and deific liquor which they call the piot or tiplage, was deceived in the
drinking of it, for he was ignorant of the great virtue and power thereof;
so likewise the men and women of that time did delight much in the
eating of that fair great fruit, but divers and very different accidents did
ensue thereupon; for there fell upon them all in their bodies a most
terrible swelling, but not upon all in the same place, for some were
swollen in the belly, and their belly strouted out big like a great tun, of
whom it is written, Ventrem omnipotentem, who were all very honest
men, and merry blades. And of this race came St. Fatgulch and Shrove
Tuesday (Pansart, Mardigras.). Others did swell at the shoulders, who
in that place were so crump and knobby that they were therefore called
Montifers, which is as much to say as Hill- carriers, of whom you see
some yet in the world, of divers sexes and degrees. Of this race came
Aesop, some of whose excellent words and deeds you have in writing.
Some other puffs did swell in length by the member which they call the
labourer of nature, in such sort that it grew marvellous long, fat, great,
lusty, stirring, and crest-risen, in the antique fashion, so that they made
use of it as of a girdle, winding it five or six times about their waist: but
if it happened the foresaid member to be in good case, spooming with a
full sail bunt fair before the wind, then to have seen those strouting
champions, you would have taken them for men that had their lances
settled on their rest to run at the ring or tilting whintam (quintain). Of
these, believe me, the race is utterly lost and quite extinct, as the
women say; for they do lament continually that there are none extant
now of those great, &c. You know the rest of the song. Others did grow
in matter of ballocks so enormously that three of them would well fill a
sack able to contain five quarters of wheat. From them are descended
the ballocks of Lorraine, which never dwell in codpieces, but fall down
to the bottom of the breeches. Others grew in the legs, and to see them
you would have said they had been cranes, or the
reddish-long-billed-storklike-scrank-legged sea-fowls called flamans,
or else men walking upon stilts or scatches. The little grammar-school
boys, known by the name of Grimos, called those leg-grown slangams
Jambus, in allusion to the French word jambe, which signifieth a leg. In
others, their nose did grow so, that it seemed to be the beak of a
limbeck, in every part thereof most variously diapered with the
twinkling sparkles of crimson blisters budding forth, and purpled with
pimples all enamelled with thickset wheals of a sanguine colour,
bordered with gules; and such have you seen the Canon or Prebend
Panzoult, and Woodenfoot, the physician of Angiers. Of which race
there were few that looked the ptisane, but all of them were perfect
lovers of the pure Septembral juice. Naso and Ovid had their extraction
from thence, and all those of whom it is written, Ne reminiscaris.
Others grew in ears, which they had so big that out of one would have
been stuff enough got to make a doublet, a pair of breeches, and a
jacket, whilst with the other they might have covered themselves as
with a Spanish cloak: and they say that in Bourbonnois this race
remaineth yet. Others grew in length of body, and of those came the
Giants, and of them Pantagruel.
And the first was Chalbroth, Who begat Sarabroth, Who begat
Faribroth, Who begat Hurtali, that was a brave eater of pottage, and
reigned in the time of the flood; Who begat Nembroth, Who begat
Atlas, that with his shoulders kept the sky from falling; Who begat
Goliah, Who begat Erix, that invented the hocus pocus plays of
legerdemain; Who begat Titius, Who begat Eryon, Who begat
Polyphemus, Who begat Cacus, Who begat Etion, the first man that
ever had the pox, for not drinking fresh in summer, as Bartachin
witnesseth; Who begat Enceladus, Who begat Ceus, Who begat
Tiphaeus, Who begat Alaeus, Who begat Othus, Who begat Aegeon,
Who begat Briareus, that had a hundred hands; Who begat Porphyrio,
Who begat Adamastor, Who begat Anteus, Who begat Agatho, Who
begat Porus, against whom fought Alexander the Great; Who begat
Aranthas, Who begat Gabbara, that was the first inventor of the
drinking of healths; Who begat Goliah of Secondille, Who begat Offot,
that was terribly well nosed for drinking at the barrel-head; Who begat
Artachaeus, Who begat Oromedon, Who begat Gemmagog, the first
inventor of Poulan shoes, which are open on the foot and tied over the
instep with a lachet; Who begat Sisyphus, Who begat the Titans, of
whom Hercules was born; Who begat Enay, the most skilful man that
ever was in matter of taking the little worms (called cirons) out of the
hands; Who begat Fierabras, that was vanquished by Oliver, peer of
France and Roland's comrade; Who begat Morgan, the first in the world
that played at dice with spectacles; Who begat Fracassus, of whom
Merlin Coccaius hath written, and of him was born Ferragus, Who
begat Hapmouche, the first that ever invented the drying of neat's
tongues in the chimney; for, before that, people salted them as they do
now gammons of bacon; Who begat Bolivorax, Who begat Longis,
Who begat Gayoffo, whose ballocks were of poplar, and his pr... of the
service or sorb-apple-tree; Who begat Maschefain, Who begat
Bruslefer, Who begat Angoulevent, Who begat Galehaut, the inventor
of flagons; Who begat Mirelangaut, Who begat Gallaffre, Who begat
Falourdin, Who begat Roboast, Who begat Sortibrant of Conimbres,
Who begat Brushant of Mommiere, Who begat Bruyer that was
overcome by Ogier the Dane, peer of France; Who begat Mabrun, Who
begat Foutasnon, Who begat Haquelebac, Who begat Vitdegrain, Who
begat Grangousier, Who begat Gargantua, Who begat the noble
Pantagruel, my master.
I know that, reading this passage, you will make a doubt within
yourselves, and that grounded upon very good reason, which is
this--how it is possible that this relation can be true, seeing at the time
of the flood all the world was destroyed, except Noah and seven
persons more with him in the ark, into whose number Hurtali is not
admitted. Doubtless the demand is well made and very apparent, but
the answer shall satisfy you, or my wit is not rightly caulked. And
because I was not at that time to tell you anything of my own fancy, I
will bring unto you the authority of the Massorets, good honest fellows,
true ballockeering blades and exact Hebraical bagpipers, who affirm
that verily the said Hurtali was not within the ark of Noah, neither
could he get in, for he was too big, but he sat astride upon it, with one
leg on the one side and another on the other, as little children use to do
upon their wooden horses; or as the great bull of Berne, which was
killed at Marinian, did ride for his hackney the great murdering piece
called the canon-pevier, a pretty beast of a fair and pleasant amble
without all question.
In that posture, he, after God, saved the said ark from danger, for with
his legs he gave it the brangle that was needful, and with his foot turned
it whither he pleased, as a ship answereth her rudder. Those that were
within sent him up victuals in abundance by a chimney, as people very
thankfully acknowledging the good that he did them. And sometimes
they did talk together as Icaromenippus did to Jupiter, according to the
report of Lucian. Have you understood all this well? Drink then one
good draught without water, for if you believe it not,--no truly do I not,
quoth she.
Chapter 2.
II.
Of the nativity of the most dread and redoubted Pantagruel.
Gargantua at the age of four hundred fourscore forty and four years
begat his son Pantagruel, upon his wife named Badebec, daughter to
the king of the Amaurots in Utopia, who died in childbirth; for he was
so wonderfully great and lumpish that he could not possibly come forth
into the light of the world without thus suffocating his mother. But that
we may fully understand the cause and reason of the name of
Pantagruel which at his baptism was given him, you are to remark that
in that year there was so great drought over all the country of Africa
that there passed thirty and six months, three weeks, four days, thirteen
hours and a little more without rain, but with a heat so vehement that
the whole earth was parched and withered by it. Neither was it more
scorched and dried up with heat in the days of Elijah than it was at that
time; for there was not a tree to be seen that had either leaf or bloom
upon it. The grass was without verdure or greenness, the rivers were
drained, the fountains dried up, the poor fishes, abandoned and
forsaken by their proper element, wandering and crying upon the
ground most horribly. The birds did fall down from the air for want of
moisture and dew wherewith to refresh them. The wolves, foxes, harts,
wild boars, fallow deer, hares, coneys, weasels, brocks, badgers, and
other such beasts, were found dead in the fields with their mouths open.
In respect of men, there was the pity, you should have seen them lay
out their tongues like hares that have been run six hours. Many did
throw themselves into the wells. Others entered within a cow's belly to
be in the shade; those Homer calls Alibants. All the country was idle,
and could do no virtue. It was a most lamentable case to have seen the
labour of mortals in defending themselves from the vehemency of this
horrific drought; for they had work enough to do to save the holy water
in the churches from being wasted; but there was such order taken by
the counsel of my lords the cardinals and of our holy Father, that none
did dare to take above one lick. Yet when anyone came into the church,
you should have seen above twenty poor thirsty fellows hang upon him
that was the distributor of the water, and that with a wide open throat,
gaping for some little drop, like the rich glutton in Luke, that might fall
by, lest anything should be lost. O how happy was he in that year who
had a cool cellar under ground, well plenished with fresh wine!
The philosopher reports, in moving the question, Wherefore it is that
the sea-water is salt, that at the time when Phoebus gave the
government of his resplendent chariot to his son Phaeton, the said
Phaeton, unskilful in the art, and not knowing how to keep the ecliptic
line betwixt the two tropics of the latitude of the sun's course, strayed
out of his way, and came so near the earth that he dried up all the
countries that were under it, burning a great part of the heavens which
the philosophers call Via lactea, and the huffsnuffs St. James's way;
although the most coped, lofty, and high-crested poets affirm that to be
the place where Juno's milk fell when she gave suck to Hercules. The
earth at that time was so excessively heated that it fell into an enormous
sweat, yea, such a one as made it sweat out the sea, which is therefore
salt, because all sweat is salt; and this you cannot but confess to be true
if you will taste of your own, or of those that have the pox, when they
are put into sweating, it is all one to me.
Just such another case fell out this same year: for on a certain Friday,
when the whole people were bent upon their devotions, and had made
goodly processions, with store of litanies, and fair preachings, and
beseechings of God Almighty to look down with his eye of mercy upon
their miserable and disconsolate condition, there was even then visibly
seen issue out of the ground great drops of water, such as fall from a
puff-bagged man in a top sweat, and the poor hoidens began to rejoice
as if it had been a thing very profitable unto them; for some said that
there was not one drop of moisture in the air whence they might have
any rain, and that the earth did supply the default of that. Other learned
men said that it was a shower of the antipodes, as Seneca saith in his
fourth book Quaestionum naturalium, speaking of the source and spring
of Nilus. But they were deceived, for, the procession being ended,
when everyone went about to gather of this dew, and to drink of it with
full bowls, they found that it was nothing but pickle and the very brine
of salt, more brackish in taste than the saltest water of the sea. And
because in that very day Pantagruel was born, his father gave him that
name; for Panta in Greek is as much to say as all, and Gruel in the
Hagarene language doth signify thirsty, inferring hereby that at his
birth the whole world was a-dry and thirsty, as likewise foreseeing that
he would be some day supreme lord and sovereign of the thirsty
Ethrappels, which was shown to him at that very same hour by a more
evident sign. For when his mother Badebec was in the bringing of him
forth, and that the midwives did wait to receive him, there came first
out of her belly three score and eight tregeneers, that is, salt-sellers,
every one of them leading in a halter a mule heavy laden with salt; after
whom issued forth nine dromedaries, with great loads of gammons of
bacon and dried neat's tongues on their backs. Then followed seven
camels loaded with links and chitterlings, hogs' puddings, and sausages.
After them came out five great wains, full of leeks, garlic, onions, and
chibots, drawn with five-and-thirty strong cart-horses, which was six
for every one, besides the thiller. At the sight hereof the said midwives
were much amazed, yet some of them said, Lo, here is good provision,
and indeed we need it; for we drink but lazily, as if our tongues walked
on crutches, and not lustily like Lansman Dutches. Truly this is a good
sign; there is nothing here but what is fit for us; these are the spurs of
wine, that set it a-going. As they were tattling thus together after their
own manner of chat, behold! out comes Pantagruel all hairy like a bear,
whereupon one of them, inspired with a prophetical spirit, said, This
will be a terrible fellow; he is born with all his hair; he is undoubtedly
to do wonderful things, and if he live he shall have age.
Chapter 2.
III.
Of the grief wherewith Gargantua was moved at the decease of his wife
Badebec.
When Pantagruel was born, there was none more astonished and
perplexed than was his father Gargantua; for of the one side seeing his
wife Badebec dead, and on the other side his son Pantagruel born, so
fair and so great, he knew not what to say nor what to do. And the
doubt that troubled his brain was to know whether he should cry for the
death of his wife or laugh for the joy of his son. He was hinc inde
choked with sophistical arguments, for he framed them very well in
modo et figura, but he could not resolve them, remaining pestered and
entangled by this means, like a mouse caught in a trap or kite snared in
a gin. Shall I weep? said he. Yes, for why? My so good wife is dead,
who was the most this, the most that, that ever was in the world. Never
shall I see her, never shall I recover such another; it is unto me an
inestimable loss! O my good God, what had I done that thou shouldest
thus punish me? Why didst thou not take me away before her, seeing
for me to live without her is but to languish? Ah, Badebec, Badebec,
my minion, my dear heart, my sugar, my sweeting, my honey, my little
c-- (yet it had in circumference full six acres, three rods, five poles,
four yards, two foot, one inch and a half of good woodland measure),
my tender peggy, my codpiece darling, my bob and hit, my
slipshoe-lovey, never shall I see thee! Ah, poor Pantagruel, thou hast
lost thy good mother, thy sweet nurse, thy well-beloved lady! O false
death, how injurious and despiteful hast thou been to me! How
malicious and outrageous have I found thee in taking her from me, my
well-beloved wife, to whom immortality did of right belong!
With these words he did cry like a cow, but on a sudden fell a-laughing
like a calf, when Pantagruel came into his mind. Ha, my little son, said
he, my childilolly, fedlifondy, dandlichucky, my ballocky, my pretty
rogue! O how jolly thou art, and how much am I bound to my gracious
God, that hath been pleased to bestow on me a son so fair, so spriteful,
so lively, so smiling, so pleasant, and so gentle! Ho, ho, ho, ho, how
glad I am! Let us drink, ho, and put away melancholy! Bring of the best,
rinse the glasses, lay the cloth, drive out these dogs, blow this fire, light
candles, shut that door there, cut this bread in sippets for brewis, send
away these poor folks in giving them what they ask, hold my gown. I
will strip myself into my doublet (en cuerpo), to make the gossips
merry, and keep them company.
As he spake this, he heard the litanies and the mementos of the priests
that carried his wife to be buried, upon which he left the good purpose
he was in, and was suddenly ravished another way, saying, Lord God!
must I again contrist myself? This grieves me. I am no longer young, I
grow old, the weather is dangerous; I may perhaps take an ague, then
shall I be foiled, if not quite undone. By the faith of a gentleman, it
were better to cry less, and drink more. My wife is dead, well, by G--!
(da jurandi) I shall not raise her again by my crying: she is well, she is
in paradise at least, if she be no higher: she prayeth to God for us, she is
happy, she is above the sense of our miseries, nor can our calamities
reach her. What though she be dead, must not we also die? The same
debt which she hath paid hangs over our heads; nature will require it of
us, and we must all of us some day taste of the same sauce. Let her pass
then, and the Lord preserve the survivors; for I must now cast about
how to get another wife. But I will tell you what you shall do, said he to
the midwives, in France called wise women (where be they, good folks?
I cannot see them): Go you to my wife's interment, and I will the while
rock my son; for I find myself somewhat altered and distempered, and
should otherwise be in danger of falling sick; but drink one good
draught first, you will be the better for it. And believe me, upon mine
honour, they at his request went to her burial and funeral obsequies. In
the meanwhile, poor Gargantua staying at home, and willing to have
somewhat in remembrance of her to be engraven upon her tomb, made
this epitaph in the manner as followeth.
Dead is the noble Badebec, Who had a face like a rebeck; A Spanish
body, and a belly Of Switzerland; she died, I tell ye, In childbirth. Pray
to God, that her He pardon wherein she did err. Here lies her body,
which did live Free from all vice, as I believe, And did decease at my
bedside, The year and day in which she died.
Chapter 2.
IV.
Of the infancy of Pantagruel.
I find by the ancient historiographers and poets that divers have been
born in this world after very strange manners, which would be too long
to repeat; read therefore the seventh chapter of Pliny, if you have so
much leisure. Yet have you never heard of any so wonderful as that of
Pantagruel; for it is a very difficult matter to believe, how in the little
time he was in his mother's belly he grew both in body and strength.
That which Hercules did was nothing, when in his cradle he slew two
serpents, for those serpents were but little and weak, but Pantagruel,
being yet in the cradle, did far more admirable things, and more to be
amazed at. I pass by here the relation of how at every one of his meals
he supped up the milk of four thousand and six hundred cows, and how,
to make him a skillet to boil his milk in, there were set a-work all the
braziers of Somure in Anjou, of Villedieu in Normandy, and of
Bramont in Lorraine. And they served in this whitepot-meat to him in a
huge great bell, which is yet to be seen in the city of Bourges in Berry,
near the palace, but his teeth were already so well grown, and so
strengthened with vigour, that of the said bell he bit off a great morsel,
as very plainly doth appear till this hour.
One day in the morning, when they would have made him suck one of
his cows --for he never had any other nurse, as the history tells us--he
got one of his arms loose from the swaddling bands wherewith he was
kept fast in the cradle, laid hold on the said cow under the left foreham,
and grasping her to him ate up her udder and half of her paunch, with
the liver and the kidneys, and had devoured all up if she had not cried
out most horribly, as if the wolves had held her by the legs, at which
noise company came in and took away the said cow from Pantagruel.
Yet could they not so well do it but that the quarter whereby he caught
her was left in his hand, of which quarter he gulped up the flesh in a
trice, even with as much ease as you would eat a sausage, and that so
greedily with desire of more, that, when they would have taken away
the bone from him, he swallowed it down whole, as a cormorant would
do a little fish; and afterwards began fumblingly to say, Good, good,
good--for he could not yet speak plain--giving them to understand
thereby that he had found it very good, and that he did lack but so much
more. Which when they saw that attended him, they bound him with
great cable-ropes, like those that are made at Tain for the carriage of
salt to Lyons, or such as those are whereby the great French ship rides
at anchor in the road of Newhaven in Normandy. But, on a certain time,
a great bear, which his father had bred, got loose, came towards him,
began to lick his face, for his nurses had not thoroughly wiped his
chaps, at which unexpected approach being on a sudden offended, he as
lightly rid himself of those great cables as Samson did of the hawser
ropes wherewith the Philistines had tied him, and, by your leave, takes
me up my lord the bear, and tears him to you in pieces like a pullet,
which served him for a gorgeful or good warm bit for that meal.
Whereupon Gargantua, fearing lest the child should hurt himself,
caused four great chains of iron to be made to bind him, and so many
strong wooden arches unto his cradle, most firmly stocked and
morticed in huge frames. Of those chains you have one at Rochelle,
which they draw up at night betwixt the two great towers of the haven.
Another is at Lyons,--a third at Angiers,--and the fourth was carried
away by the devils to bind Lucifer, who broke his chains in those days
by reason of a colic that did extraordinarily torment him, taken with
eating a sergeant's soul fried for his breakfast. And therefore you may
believe that which Nicholas de Lyra saith upon that place of the Psalter
where it is written, Et Og Regem Basan, that the said Og, being yet
little, was so strong and robustious, that they were fain to bind him with
chains of iron in his cradle. Thus continued Pantagruel for a while very
calm and quiet, for he was not able so easily to break those chains,
especially having no room in the cradle to give a swing with his arms.
But see what happened once upon a great holiday that his father
Gargantua made a sumptuous banquet to all the princes of his court. I
am apt to believe that the menial officers of the house were so
embusied in waiting each on his proper service at the feast, that nobody
took care of poor Pantagruel, who was left a reculorum, behindhand, all
alone, and as forsaken. What did he? Hark what he did, good people.
He strove and essayed to break the chains of the cradle with his arms,
but could not, for they were too strong for him. Then did he keep with
his feet such a stamping stir, and so long, that at last he beat out the
lower end of his cradle, which notwithstanding was made of a great
post five foot in square; and as soon as he had gotten out his feet, he
slid down as well as he could till he had got his soles to the ground, and
then with a mighty force he rose up, carrying his cradle upon his back,
bound to him like a tortoise that crawls up against a wall; and to have
seen him, you would have thought it had been a great carrick of five
hundred tons upon one end. In this manner he entered into the great hall
where they were banqueting, and that very boldly, which did much
affright the company; yet, because his arms were tied in, he could not
reach anything to eat, but with great pain stooped now and then a little
to take with the whole flat of his tongue some lick, good bit, or morsel.
Which when his father saw, he knew well enough that they had left him
without giving him anything to eat, and therefore commanded that he
should be loosed from the said chains, by the counsel of the princes and
lords there present. Besides that also the physicians of Gargantua said
that, if they did thus keep him in the cradle, he would be all his lifetime
subject to the stone. When he was unchained, they made him to sit
down, where, after he had fed very well, he took his cradle and broke it
into more than five hundred thousand pieces with one blow of his fist
that he struck in the midst of it, swearing that he would never come into
it again.
Chapter 2.
V.
Of the acts of the noble Pantagruel in his youthful age.
Thus grew Pantagruel from day to day, and to everyone's eye waxed
more and more in all his dimensions, which made his father to rejoice
by a natural affection. Therefore caused he to be made for him, whilst
he was yet little, a pretty crossbow wherewith to shoot at small birds,
which now they call the great crossbow at Chantelle. Then he sent him
to the school to learn, and to spend his youth in virtue. In the
prosecution of which design he came first to Poictiers, where, as he
studied and profited very much, he saw that the scholars were
oftentimes at leisure and knew not how to bestow their time, which
moved him to take such compassion on them, that one day he took
from a long ledge of rocks, called there Passelourdin, a huge great
stone, of about twelve fathom square and fourteen handfuls thick, and
with great ease set it upon four pillars in the midst of a field, to no other
end but that the said scholars, when they had nothing else to do, might
pass their time in getting up on that stone, and feast it with store of
gammons, pasties, and flagons, and carve their names upon it with a
knife, in token of which deed till this hour the stone is called the lifted
stone. And in remembrance hereof there is none entered into the
register and matricular book of the said university, or accounted
capable of taking any degree therein, till he have first drunk in the
caballine fountain of Croustelles, passed at Passelourdin, and got up
upon the lifted stone.
Afterwards, reading the delectable chronicles of his ancestors, he found
that Geoffrey of Lusignan, called Geoffrey with the great tooth,
grandfather to the cousin-in-law of the eldest sister of the aunt of the
son-in-law of the uncle of the good daughter of his stepmother, was
interred at Maillezais; therefore one day he took campos (which is a
little vacation from study to play a while), that he might give him a
visit as unto an honest man. And going from Poictiers with some of his
companions, they passed by the Guge (Leguge), visiting the noble
Abbot Ardillon; then by Lusignan, by Sansay, by Celles, by Coolonges,
by Fontenay-le-Comte, saluting the learned Tiraqueau, and from thence
arrived at Maillezais, where he went to see the sepulchre of the said
Geoffrey with the great tooth; which made him somewhat afraid,
looking upon the picture, whose lively draughts did set him forth in the
representation of a man in an extreme fury, drawing his great Malchus
falchion half way out of his scabbard. When the reason hereof was
demanded, the canons of the said place told him that there was no other
cause of it but that Pictoribus atque Poetis, &c., that is to say, that
painters and poets have liberty to paint and devise what they list after
their own fancy. But he was not satisfied with their answer, and said,
He is not thus painted without a cause, and I suspect that at his death
there was some wrong done him, whereof he requireth his kindred to
take revenge. I will inquire further into it, and then do what shall be
reasonable. Then he returned not to Poictiers, but would take a view of
the other universities of France. Therefore, going to Rochelle, he took
shipping and arrived at Bordeaux, where he found no great exercise,
only now and then he would see some mariners and lightermen
a-wrestling on the quay or strand by the river- side. From thence he
came to Toulouse, where he learned to dance very well, and to play
with the two-handed sword, as the fashion of the scholars of the said
university is to bestir themselves in games whereof they may have their
hands full; but he stayed not long there when he saw that they did cause
burn their regents alive like red herring, saying, Now God forbid that I
should die this death! for I am by nature sufficiently dry already,
without heating myself any further.
He went then to Montpellier, where he met with the good wives of
Mirevaux, and good jovial company withal, and thought to have set
himself to the study of physic; but he considered that that calling was
too troublesome and melancholic, and that physicians did smell of
glisters like old devils. Therefore he resolved he would study the laws;
but seeing that there were but three scald- and one bald-pated legist in
that place, he departed from thence, and in his way made the bridge of
Guard and the amphitheatre of Nimes in less than three hours, which,
nevertheless, seems to be a more divine than human work. After that he
came to Avignon, where he was not above three days before he fell in
love; for the women there take great delight in playing at the
close-buttock game, because it is papal ground. Which his tutor and
pedagogue Epistemon perceiving, he drew him out of that place, and
brought him to Valence in the Dauphiny, where he saw no great matter
of recreation, only that the lubbers of the town did beat the scholars,
which so incensed him with anger, that when, upon a certain very fair
Sunday, the people being at their public dancing in the streets, and one
of the scholars offering to put himself into the ring to partake of that
sport, the foresaid lubberly fellows would not permit him the
admittance into their society, he, taking the scholar's part, so
belaboured them with blows, and laid such load upon them, that he
drove them all before him, even to the brink of the river Rhone, and
would have there drowned them, but that they did squat to the ground,
and there lay close a full half-league under the river. The hole is to be
seen there yet.
After that he departed from thence, and in three strides and one leap
came to Angiers, where he found himself very well, and would have
continued there some space, but that the plague drove them away. So
from thence he came to Bourges, where he studied a good long time,
and profited very much in the faculty of the laws, and would sometimes
say that the books of the civil law were like unto a wonderfully
precious, royal, and triumphant robe of cloth of gold edged with dirt;
for in the world are no goodlier books to be seen, more ornate, nor
more eloquent than the texts of the Pandects, but the bordering of them,
that is to say, the gloss of Accursius, is so scurvy, vile, base, and
unsavoury, that it is nothing but filthiness and villainy.
Going from Bourges, he came to Orleans, where he found store of
swaggering scholars that made him great entertainment at his coming,
and with whom he learned to play at tennis so well that he was a master
at that game. For the students of the said place make a prime exercise
of it; and sometimes they carried him unto Cupid's houses of commerce
(in that city termed islands, because of their being most ordinarily
environed with other houses, and not contiguous to any), there to
recreate his person at the sport of poussavant, which the wenches of
London call the ferkers in and in. As for breaking his head with
over-much study, he had an especial care not to do it in any case, for
fear of spoiling his eyes. Which he the rather observed, for that it was
told him by one of his teachers, there called regents, that the pain of the
eyes was the most hurtful thing of any to the sight. For this cause, when
he one day was made a licentiate, or graduate in law, one of the
scholars of his acquaintance, who of learning had not much more than
his burden, though instead of that he could dance very well and play at
tennis, made the blazon and device of the licentiates in the said
university, saying,
So you have in your hand a racket, A tennis-ball in your cod-placket, A
Pandect law in your cap's tippet, And that you have the skill to trip it In
a low dance, you will b' allowed The grant of the licentiate's hood.
Chapter 2.
VI.
How Pantagruel met with a Limousin, who too affectedly did
counterfeit the French language.
Upon a certain day, I know not when, Pantagruel walking after supper
with some of his fellow-students without that gate of the city through
which we enter on the road to Paris, encountered with a young
spruce-like scholar that was coming upon the same very way, and, after
they had saluted one another, asked him thus, My friend, from whence
comest thou now? The scholar answered him, From the alme, inclyte,
and celebrate academy, which is vocitated Lutetia. What is the meaning
of this? said Pantagruel to one of his men. It is, answered he, from Paris.
Thou comest from Paris then, said Pantagruel; and how do you spend
your time there, you my masters the students of Paris? The scholar
answered, We transfretate the Sequan at the dilucul and crepuscul; we
deambulate by the compites and quadrives of the urb; we despumate
the Latial verbocination; and, like verisimilary amorabons, we captat
the benevolence of the omnijugal, omniform and omnigenal feminine
sex. Upon certain diecules we invisat the lupanares, and in a venerian
ecstasy inculcate our veretres into the penitissime recesses of the
pudends of these amicabilissim meretricules. Then do we cauponisate
in the meritory taberns of the Pineapple, the Castle, the Magdalene, and
the Mule, goodly vervecine spatules perforaminated with petrocile.
And if by fortune there be rarity or penury of pecune in our marsupies,
and that they be exhausted of ferruginean metal, for the shot we dimit
our codices and oppignerat our vestments, whilst we prestolate the
coming of the tabellaries from the Penates and patriotic Lares. To
which Pantagruel answered, What devilish language is this? By the
Lord, I think thou art some kind of heretick. My lord, no, said the
scholar; for libentissimally, as soon as it illucesceth any minutule slice
of the day, I demigrate into one of these so well architected minsters,
and there, irrorating myself with fair lustral water, I mumble off little
parcels of some missic precation of our sacrificuls, and,
submurmurating my horary precules, I elevate and absterge my anime
from its nocturnal inquinations. I revere the Olympicols. I latrially
venere the supernal Astripotent. I dilige and redame my proxims. I
observe the decalogical precepts, and, according to the facultatule of
my vires, I do not discede from them one late unguicule. Nevertheless,
it is veriform, that because Mammona doth not supergurgitate anything
in my loculs, that I am somewhat rare and lent to supererogate the
elemosynes to those egents that hostially queritate their stipe.
Prut, tut, said Pantagruel, what doth this fool mean to say? I think he is
upon the forging of some diabolical tongue, and that enchanter-like he
would charm us. To whom one of his men said, Without doubt, sir, this
fellow would counterfeit the language of the Parisians, but he doth only
flay the Latin, imagining by so doing that he doth highly Pindarize it in
most eloquent terms, and strongly conceiteth himself to be therefore a
great orator in the French, because he disdaineth the common manner
of speaking. To which Pantagruel said, Is it true? The scholar answered,
My worshipful lord, my genie is not apt nate to that which this
flagitious nebulon saith, to excoriate the cut(ic)ule of our vernacular
Gallic, but vice-versally I gnave opere, and by veles and rames enite to
locupletate it with the Latinicome redundance. By G--, said Pantagruel,
I will teach you to speak. But first come hither, and tell me whence
thou art. To this the scholar answered, The primeval origin of my aves
and ataves was indigenary of the Lemovic regions, where requiesceth
the corpor of the hagiotat St. Martial. I understand thee very well, said
Pantagruel. When all comes to all, thou art a Limousin, and thou wilt
here by thy affected speech counterfeit the Parisians. Well now, come
hither, I must show thee a new trick, and handsomely give thee the
combfeat. With this he took him by the throat, saying to him, Thou
flayest the Latin; by St. John, I will make thee flay the fox, for I will
now flay thee alive. Then began the poor Limousin to cry, Haw, gwid
maaster! haw, Laord, my halp, and St. Marshaw! haw, I'm worried.
Haw, my thropple, the bean of my cragg is bruck! Haw, for gauad's
seck lawt my lean, mawster; waw, waw, waw. Now, said Pantagruel,
thou speakest naturally, and so let him go, for the poor Limousin had
totally bewrayed and thoroughly conshit his breeches, which were not
deep and large enough, but round straight cannioned gregs, having in
the seat a piece like a keeling's tail, and therefore in French called, de
chausses a queue de merlus. Then, said Pantagruel, St. Alipantin, what
civet? Fie! to the devil with this turnip-eater, as he stinks! and so let
him go. But this hug of Pantagruel's was such a terror to him all the
days of his life, and took such deep impression in his fancy, that very
often, distracted with sudden affrightments, he would startle and say
that Pantagruel held him by the neck. Besides that, it procured him a
continual drought and desire to drink, so that after some few years he
died of the death Roland, in plain English called thirst, a work of divine
vengeance, showing us that which saith the philosopher and Aulus
Gellius, that it becometh us to speak according to the common
language; and that we should, as said Octavian Augustus, strive to shun
all strange and unknown terms with as much heedfulness and
circumspection as pilots of ships use to avoid the rocks and banks in
the sea.
Chapter 2.
VII.
How Pantagruel came to Paris, and of the choice books of the Library
of St. Victor.
After that Pantagruel had studied very well at Orleans, he resolved to
see the great University at Paris; but, before his departure, he was
informed that there was a huge big bell at St. Anian in the said town of
Orleans, under the ground, which had been there above two hundred
and fourteen years, for it was so great that they could not by any device
get it so much as above the ground, although they used all the means
that are found in Vitruvius de Architectura, Albertus de Re
Aedificatoria, Euclid, Theon, Archimedes, and Hero de Ingeniis; for all
that was to no purpose. Wherefore, condescending heartily to the
humble request of the citizens and inhabitants of the said town, he
determined to remove it to the tower that was erected for it. With that
he came to the place where it was, and lifted it out of the ground with
his little finger as easily as you would have done a hawk's bell or
bellwether's tingle-tangle; but, before he would carry it to the foresaid
tower or steeple appointed for it, he would needs make some music
with it about the town, and ring it alongst all the streets as he carried it
in his hand, wherewith all the people were very glad. But there
happened one great inconveniency, for with carrying it so, and ringing
it about the streets, all the good Orleans wine turned instantly, waxed
flat and was spoiled, which nobody there did perceive till the night
following; for every man found himself so altered and a-dry with
drinking these flat wines, that they did nothing but spit, and that as
white as Malta cotton, saying, We have of the Pantagruel, and our very
throats are salted. This done, he came to Paris with his retinue. And at
his entry everyone came out to see him--as you know well enough that
the people of Paris is sottish by nature, by B flat and B sharp--and
beheld him with great astonishment, mixed with no less fear that he
would carry away the palace into some other country, a remotis, and far
from them, as his father formerly had done the great peal of bells at Our
Lady's Church to tie about his mare's neck. Now after he had stayed
there a pretty space, and studied very well in all the seven liberal arts,
he said it was a good town to live in, but not to die; for that the
grave-digging rogues of St. Innocent used in frosty nights to warm their
bums with dead men's bones. In his abode there he found the library of
St. Victor a very stately and magnific one, especially in some books
which were there, of which followeth the Repertory and Catalogue, Et
primo,
The for Godsake of Salvation. The Codpiece of the Law. The Slipshoe
of the Decretals. The Pomegranate of Vice. The Clew-bottom of
Theology. The Duster or Foxtail-flap of Preachers, composed by
Turlupin. The Churning Ballock of the Valiant. The Henbane of the
Bishops. Marmotretus de baboonis et apis, cum Commento Dorbellis.
Decretum Universitatis Parisiensis super gorgiasitate muliercularum ad
placitum. The Apparition of Sancte Geltrude to a Nun of Poissy, being
in travail at the bringing forth of a child. Ars honeste fartandi in
societate, per Marcum Corvinum (Ortuinum). The Mustard-pot of
Penance. The Gamashes, alias the Boots of Patience. Formicarium
artium. De brodiorum usu, et honestate quartandi, per Sylvestrem
Prioratem Jacobinum. The Cosened or Gulled in Court. The Frail of the
Scriveners. The Marriage-packet. The Cruizy or Crucible of
Contemplation. The Flimflams of the Law. The Prickle of Wine. The
Spur of Cheese. Ruboffatorium (Decrotatorium) scholarium. Tartaretus
de modo cacandi. The Bravades of Rome. Bricot de Differentiis
Browsarum. The Tailpiece-Cushion, or Close-breech of Discipline. The
Cobbled Shoe of Humility. The Trivet of good Thoughts. The Kettle of
Magnanimity. The Cavilling Entanglements of Confessors. The
Snatchfare of the Curates. Reverendi patris fratris Lubini, provincialis
Bavardiae, de gulpendis lardslicionibus libri tres. Pasquilli Doctoris
Marmorei, de capreolis cum artichoketa comedendis, tempore Papali ab
Ecclesia interdicto. The Invention of the Holy Cross, personated by six
wily Priests. The Spectacles of Pilgrims bound for Rome. Majoris de
modo faciendi puddinos. The Bagpipe of the Prelates. Beda de
optimitate triparum. The Complaint of the Barristers upon the
Reformation of Comfits. The Furred Cat of the Solicitors and Attorneys.
Of Peas and Bacon, cum Commento. The Small Vales or Drinking
Money of the Indulgences. Praeclarissimi juris utriusque Doctoris
Maistre Pilloti, &c., Scrap-farthingi de botchandis glossae Accursianae
Triflis repetitio enucidi-luculidissima. Stratagemata Francharchiaeri de
Baniolet. Carlbumpkinus de Re Militari cum Figuris Tevoti. De usu et
utilitate flayandi equos et equas, authore Magistro nostro de Quebecu.
The Sauciness of Country-Stewards. M.N. Rostocostojambedanesse de
mustarda post prandium servienda, libri quatuordecim, apostillati per M.
Vaurillonis. The Covillage or Wench-tribute of Promoters. (Jabolenus
de Cosmographia Purgatorii.) Quaestio subtilissima, utrum Chimaera in
vacuo bonbinans possit comedere secundas intentiones; et fuit debatuta
per decem hebdomadas in Consilio Constantiensi. The Bridle-champer
of the Advocates. Smutchudlamenta Scoti. The Rasping and
Hard-scraping of the Cardinals. De calcaribus removendis, Decades
undecim, per M. Albericum de Rosata. Ejusdem de castramentandis
criminibus libri tres. The Entrance of Anthony de Leve into the
Territories of Brazil. (Marforii, bacalarii cubantis Romae) de peelandis
aut unskinnandis blurrandisque Cardinalium mulis. The said Author's
Apology against those who allege that the Pope's mule doth eat but at
set times. Prognosticatio quae incipit, Silvii Triquebille, balata per
M.N., the deep-dreaming gull Sion. Boudarini Episcopi de
emulgentiarum profectibus Aeneades novem, cum privilegio Papali ad
triennium et postea non. The Shitabranna of the Maids. The Bald Arse
or Peeled Breech of the Widows. The Cowl or Capouch of the Monks.
The Mumbling Devotion of the Celestine Friars. The Passage-toll of
Beggarliness. The Teeth-chatter or Gum-didder of Lubberly Lusks. The
Paring-shovel of the Theologues. The Drench-horn of the Masters of
Arts. The Scullions of Olcam, the uninitiated Clerk. Magistri N.
Lickdishetis, de garbellisiftationibus horarum canonicarum, libri
quadriginta. Arsiversitatorium confratriarum, incerto authore. The
Gulsgoatony or Rasher of Cormorants and Ravenous Feeders. The
Rammishness of the Spaniards supergivuregondigaded by Friar Inigo.
The Muttering of Pitiful Wretches. Dastardismus rerum Italicarum,
authore Magistro Burnegad. R. Lullius de Batisfolagiis Principum.
Calibistratorium caffardiae, authore M. Jacobo Hocstraten
hereticometra. Codtickler de Magistro nostrandorum Magistro
nostratorumque beuvetis, libri octo galantissimi. The Crackarades of
Balists or stone-throwing Engines, Contrepate Clerks, Scriveners,
Brief-writers, Rapporters, and Papal Bull-despatchers lately compiled
by Regis. A perpetual Almanack for those that have the gout and the
pox. Manera sweepandi fornacellos per Mag. Eccium. The Shable or
Scimetar of Merchants. The Pleasures of the Monachal Life. The
Hotchpot of Hypocrites. The History of the Hobgoblins. The
Ragamuffinism of the pensionary maimed Soldiers. The Gulling Fibs
and Counterfeit shows of Commissaries. The Litter of Treasurers. The
Juglingatorium of Sophisters.
Antipericatametanaparbeugedamphicribrationes Toordicantium. The
Periwinkle of Ballad-makers. The Push-forward of the Alchemists. The
Niddy-noddy of the Satchel-loaded Seekers, by Friar Bindfastatis. The
Shackles of Religion. The Racket of Swag-waggers. The Leaning-stock
of old Age. The Muzzle of Nobility. The Ape's Paternoster. The
Crickets and Hawk's-bells of Devotion. The Pot of the Ember-weeks.
The Mortar of the Politic Life. The Flap of the Hermits. The
Riding-hood or Monterg of the Penitentiaries. The Trictrac of the
Knocking Friars. Blockheadodus, de vita et honestate bragadochiorum.
Lyrippii Sorbonici Moralisationes, per M. Lupoldum. The
Carrier-horse-bells of Travellers. The Bibbings of the tippling Bishops.
Dolloporediones Doctorum Coloniensium adversus Reuclin. The
Cymbals of Ladies. The Dunger's Martingale. Whirlingfriskorum
Chasemarkerorum per Fratrem Crackwoodloguetis. The Clouted
Patches of a Stout Heart. The Mummery of the Racket-keeping
Robin-goodfellows. Gerson, de auferibilitate Papae ab Ecclesia. The
Catalogue of the Nominated and Graduated Persons. Jo. Dytebrodii,
terribilitate excommunicationis libellus acephalos. Ingeniositas
invocandi diabolos et diabolas, per M. Guingolphum. The Hotchpotch
or Gallimaufry of the perpetually begging Friars. The Morris-dance of
the Heretics. The Whinings of Cajetan. Muddisnout Doctoris Cherubici,
de origine Roughfootedarum, et Wryneckedorum ritibus, libri septem.
Sixty-nine fat Breviaries. The Nightmare of the five Orders of Beggars.
The Skinnery of the new Start-ups extracted out of the fallow-butt,
incornifistibulated and plodded upon in the angelic sum. The Raver and
idle Talker in cases of Conscience. The Fat Belly of the Presidents. The
Baffling Flouter of the Abbots. Sutoris adversus eum qui vocaverat
eum Slabsauceatorem, et quod Slabsauceatores non sunt damnati ab
Ecclesia. Cacatorium medicorum. The Chimney-sweeper of Astrology.
Campi clysteriorum per paragraph C. The Bumsquibcracker of
Apothecaries. The Kissbreech of Chirurgery. Justinianus de
Whiteleperotis tollendis. Antidotarium animae. Merlinus Coccaius, de
patria diabolorum. The Practice of Iniquity, by Cleuraunes Sadden. The
Mirror of Baseness, by Radnecu Waldenses. The Engrained Rogue, by
Dwarsencas Eldenu. The Merciless Cormorant, by Hoxinidno the Jew.
Of which library some books are already printed, and the rest are now
at the press in this noble city of Tubingen.
Chapter 2.
VIII.
How Pantagruel, being at Paris, received letters from his father
Gargantua, and the copy of them.
Pantagruel studied very hard, as you may well conceive, and profited
accordingly; for he had an excellent understanding and notable wit,
together with a capacity in memory equal to the measure of twelve oil
budgets or butts of olives. And, as he was there abiding one day, he
received a letter from his father in manner as followeth.
Most dear Son,--Amongst the gifts, graces, and prerogatives, with
which the sovereign plasmator God Almighty hath endowed and
adorned human nature at the beginning, that seems to me most singular
and excellent by which we may in a mortal state attain to a kind of
immortality, and in the course of this transitory life perpetuate our
name and seed, which is done by a progeny issued from us in the
lawful bonds of matrimony. Whereby that in some measure is restored
unto us which was taken from us by the sin of our first parents, to
whom it was said that, because they had not obeyed the commandment
of God their Creator, they should die, and by death should be brought
to nought that so stately frame and plasmature wherein the man at first
had been created.
But by this means of seminal propagation there ("Which continueth" in
the old copy.) continueth in the children what was lost in the parents,
and in the grandchildren that which perished in their fathers, and so
successively until the day of the last judgment, when Jesus Christ shall
have rendered up to God the Father his kingdom in a peaceable
condition, out of all danger and contamination of sin; for then shall
cease all generations and corruptions, and the elements leave off their
continual transmutations, seeing the so much desired peace shall be
attained unto and enjoyed, and that all things shall be brought to their
end and period. And, therefore, not without just and reasonable cause
do I give thanks to God my Saviour and Preserver, for that he hath
enabled me to see my bald old age reflourish in thy youth; for when, at
his good pleasure, who rules and governs all things, my soul shall leave
this mortal habitation, I shall not account myself wholly to die, but to
pass from one place unto another, considering that, in and by that, I
continue in my visible image living in the world, visiting and
conversing with people of honour, and other my good friends, as I was
wont to do. Which conversation of mine, although it was not without
sin, because we are all of us trespassers, and therefore ought
continually to beseech his divine majesty to blot our transgressions out
of his memory, yet was it, by the help and grace of God, without all
manner of reproach before men.
Wherefore, if those qualities of the mind but shine in thee wherewith I
am endowed, as in thee remaineth the perfect image of my body, thou
wilt be esteemed by all men to be the perfect guardian and treasure of
the immortality of our name. But, if otherwise, I shall truly take but
small pleasure to see it, considering that the lesser part of me, which is
the body, would abide in thee, and the best, to wit, that which is the
soul, and by which our name continues blessed amongst men, would be
degenerate and abastardized. This I do not speak out of any distrust that
I have of thy virtue, which I have heretofore already tried, but to
encourage thee yet more earnestly to proceed from good to better. And
that which I now write unto thee is not so much that thou shouldst live
in this virtuous course, as that thou shouldst rejoice in so living and
having lived, and cheer up thyself with the like resolution in time to
come; to the prosecution and accomplishment of which enterprise and
generous undertaking thou mayst easily remember how that I have
spared nothing, but have so helped thee, as if I had had no other
treasure in this world but to see thee once in my life completely
well-bred and accomplished, as well in virtue, honesty, and valour, as
in all liberal knowledge and civility, and so to leave thee after my death
as a mirror representing the person of me thy father, and if not so
excellent, and such in deed as I do wish thee, yet such in my desire.
But although my deceased father of happy memory, Grangousier, had
bent his best endeavours to make me profit in all perfection and
political knowledge, and that my labour and study was fully
correspondent to, yea, went beyond his desire, nevertheless, as thou
mayest well understand, the time then was not so proper and fit for
learning as it is at present, neither had I plenty of such good masters as
thou hast had. For that time was darksome, obscured with clouds of
ignorance, and savouring a little of the infelicity and calamity of the
Goths, who had, wherever they set footing, destroyed all good literature,
which in my age hath by the divine goodness been restored unto its
former light and dignity, and that with such amendment and increase of
the knowledge, that now hardly should I be admitted unto the first form
of the little grammar-schoolboys--I say, I, who in my youthful days
was, and that justly, reputed the most learned of that age. Which I do
not speak in vain boasting, although I might lawfully do it in writing
unto thee--in verification whereof thou hast the authority of Marcus
Tullius in his book of old age, and the sentence of Plutarch in the book
entitled How a man may praise himself without envy--but to give thee
an emulous encouragement to strive yet further.
Now is it that the minds of men are qualified with all manner of
discipline, and the old sciences revived which for many ages were
extinct. Now it is that the learned languages are to their pristine purity
restored, viz., Greek, without which a man may be ashamed to account
himself a scholar, Hebrew, Arabic, Chaldaean, and Latin. Printing
likewise is now in use, so elegant and so correct that better cannot be
imagined, although it was found out but in my time by divine
inspiration, as by a diabolical suggestion on the other side was the
invention of ordnance. All the world is full of knowing men, of most
learned schoolmasters, and vast libraries; and it appears to me as a truth,
that neither in Plato's time, nor Cicero's, nor Papinian's, there was ever
such conveniency for studying as we see at this day there is. Nor must
any adventure henceforward to come in public, or present himself in
company, that hath not been pretty well polished in the shop of
Minerva. I see robbers, hangmen, freebooters, tapsters, ostlers, and
such like, of the very rubbish of the people, more learned now than the
doctors and preachers were in my time.
What shall I say? The very women and children have aspired to this
praise and celestial manner of good learning. Yet so it is that, in the age
I am now of, I have been constrained to learn the Greek tongue--which
I contemned not like Cato, but had not the leisure in my younger years
to attend the study of it--and take much delight in the reading of
Plutarch's Morals, the pleasant Dialogues of Plato, the Monuments of
Pausanias, and the Antiquities of Athenaeus, in waiting on the hour
wherein God my Creator shall call me and command me to depart from
this earth and transitory pilgrimage. Wherefore, my son, I admonish
thee to employ thy youth to profit as well as thou canst, both in thy
studies and in virtue. Thou art at Paris, where the laudable examples of
many brave men may stir up thy mind to gallant actions, and hast
likewise for thy tutor and pedagogue the learned Epistemon, who by his
lively and vocal documents may instruct thee in the arts and sciences.
I intend, and will have it so, that thou learn the languages perfectly;
first of all the Greek, as Quintilian will have it; secondly, the Latin; and
then the Hebrew, for the Holy Scripture sake; and then the Chaldee and
Arabic likewise, and that thou frame thy style in Greek in imitation of
Plato, and for the Latin after Cicero. Let there be no history which thou
shalt not have ready in thy memory; unto the prosecuting of which
design, books of cosmography will be very conducible and help thee
much. Of the liberal arts of geometry, arithmetic, and music, I gave
thee some taste when thou wert yet little, and not above five or six
years old. Proceed further in them, and learn the remainder if thou canst.
As for astronomy, study all the rules thereof. Let pass, nevertheless, the
divining and judicial astrology, and the art of Lullius, as being nothing
else but plain abuses and vanities. As for the civil law, of that I would
have thee to know the texts by heart, and then to confer them with
philosophy.
Now, in matter of the knowledge of the works of nature, I would have
thee to study that exactly, and that so there be no sea, river, nor
fountain, of which thou dost not know the fishes; all the fowls of the air;
all the several kinds of shrubs and trees, whether in forests or orchards;
all the sorts of herbs and flowers that grow upon the ground; all the
various metals that are hid within the bowels of the earth; together with
all the diversity of precious stones that are to be seen in the orient and
south parts of the world. Let nothing of all these be hidden from thee.
Then fail not most carefully to peruse the books of the Greek, Arabian,
and Latin physicians, not despising the Talmudists and Cabalists; and
by frequent anatomies get thee the perfect knowledge of the other
world, called the microcosm, which is man. And at some hours of the
day apply thy mind to the study of the Holy Scriptures; first in Greek,
the New Testament, with the Epistles of the Apostles; and then the Old
Testament in Hebrew. In brief, let me see thee an abyss and bottomless
pit of knowledge; for from henceforward, as thou growest great and
becomest a man, thou must part from this tranquillity and rest of study,
thou must learn chivalry, warfare, and the exercises of the field, the
better thereby to defend my house and our friends, and to succour and
protect them at all their needs against the invasion and assaults of
evildoers.
Furthermore, I will that very shortly thou try how much thou hast
profited, which thou canst not better do than by maintaining publicly
theses and conclusions in all arts against all persons whatsoever, and by
haunting the company of learned men, both at Paris and otherwhere.
But because, as the wise man Solomon saith, Wisdom entereth not into
a malicious mind, and that knowledge without conscience is but the
ruin of the soul, it behoveth thee to serve, to love, to fear God, and on
him to cast all thy thoughts and all thy hope, and by faith formed in
charity to cleave unto him, so that thou mayst never be separated from
him by thy sins. Suspect the abuses of the world. Set not thy heart upon
vanity, for this life is transitory, but the Word of the Lord endureth for
ever. Be serviceable to all thy neighbours, and love them as thyself.
Reverence thy preceptors: shun the conversation of those whom thou
desirest not to resemble, and receive not in vain the graces which God
hath bestowed upon thee. And, when thou shalt see that thou hast
attained to all the knowledge that is to be acquired in that part, return
unto me, that I may see thee and give thee my blessing before I die. My
son, the peace and grace of our Lord be with thee. Amen.
Thy father Gargantua.
From Utopia the 17th day of the month of March.
These letters being received and read, Pantagruel plucked up his heart,
took a fresh courage to him, and was inflamed with a desire to profit in
his studies more than ever, so that if you had seen him, how he took
pains, and how he advanced in learning, you would have said that the
vivacity of his spirit amidst the books was like a great fire amongst dry
wood, so active it was, vigorous and indefatigable.
Chapter 2.
IX.
How Pantagruel found Panurge, whom he loved all his lifetime.
One day, as Pantagruel was taking a walk without the city, towards St.
Anthony's abbey, discoursing and philosophating with his own servants
and some other scholars, (he) met with a young man of very comely
stature and surpassing handsome in all the lineaments of his body, but
in several parts thereof most pitifully wounded; in such bad equipage in
matter of his apparel, which was but tatters and rags, and every way so
far out of order that he seemed to have been a-fighting with
mastiff-dogs, from whose fury he had made an escape; or to say better,
he looked, in the condition wherein he then was, like an apple-gatherer
of the country of Perche.
As far off as Pantagruel saw him, he said to those that stood by, Do you
see that man there, who is a-coming hither upon the road from
Charenton bridge? By my faith, he is only poor in fortune; for I may
assure you that by his physiognomy it appeareth that nature hath
extracted him from some rich and noble race, and that too much
curiosity hath thrown him upon adventures which possibly have
reduced him to this indigence, want, and penury. Now as he was just
amongst them, Pantagruel said unto him, Let me entreat you, friend,
that you may be pleased to stop here a little and answer me to that
which I shall ask you, and I am confident you will not think your time
ill bestowed; for I have an extreme desire, according to my ability, to
give you some supply in this distress wherein I see you are; because I
do very much commiserate your case, which truly moves me to great
pity. Therefore, my friend, tell me who you are; whence you come;
whither you go; what you desire; and what your name is. The
companion answered him in the German (The first edition reads
"Dutch.") tongue, thus:
'Junker, Gott geb euch gluck und heil. Furwahr, lieber Junker, ich lasz
euch wissen, das da ihr mich von fragt, ist ein arm und erbarmlich Ding,
und wer viel darvon zu sagen, welches euch verdrussig zu horen, und
mir zu erzelen wer, wiewol die Poeten und Oratorn vorzeiten haben
gesagt in ihren Spruchen und Sentenzen, dasz die gedechtniss des
Elends und Armuth vorlangst erlitten ist eine grosse Lust.' My friend,
said Pantagruel, I have no skill in that gibberish of yours; therefore, if
you would have us to understand you, speak to us in some other
language. Then did the droll answer him thus:
'Albarildim gotfano dechmin brin alabo dordio falbroth ringuam albaras.
Nin portzadikin almucatin milko prin alelmin en thoth dalheben
ensouim; kuthim al dum alkatim nim broth dechoth porth min michais
im endoth, pruch dalmaisoulum hol moth danfrihim lupaldas in
voldemoth. Nin hur diavosth mnarbotim dalgousch palfrapin duch im
scoth pruch galeth dal chinon, min foulchrich al conin brutathen doth
dal prin.' Do you understand none of this? said Pantagruel to the
company. I believe, said Epistemon, that this is the language of the
Antipodes, and such a hard one that the devil himself knows not what
to make of it. Then said Pantagruel, Gossip, I know not if the walls do
comprehend the meaning of your words, but none of us here doth so
much as understand one syllable of them. Then said my blade again:
'Signor mio, voi vedete per essempio, che la cornamusa non suona mai,
s'ella non ha il ventre pieno. Cosi io parimente non vi saprei contare le
mie fortune, se prima il tribulato ventre non ha la solita refettione. Al
quale e adviso che le mani et li denti habbiano perso il loro ordine
naturale et del tutto annichilati.' To which Epistemon answered, As
much of the one as of the other, and nothing of either. Then said
Panurge:
'Lord, if you be so virtuous of intelligence as you be naturally relieved
to the body, you should have pity of me. For nature hath made us equal,
but fortune hath some exalted and others deprived; nevertheless is
virtue often deprived and the virtuous men despised; for before the last
end none is good.' (The following is the passage as it stands in the first
edition. Urquhart seems to have rendered Rabelais' indifferent English
into worse Scotch, and this, with probably the use of contractions in his
MS., or 'the oddness' of handwriting which he owns to in his
Logopandecteision (p.419, Mait. Club. Edit.), has led to a chaotic
jumble, which it is nearly impossible to reduce to order.--Instead of any
attempt to do so, it is here given verbatim: 'Lard gestholb besua
virtuisbe intelligence: ass yi body scalbisbe natural reloth cholb suld
osme pety have; for natur hass visse equaly maide bot fortune sum
exaiti hesse andoyis deprevit: non yeless iviss mou virtiuss deprevit,
and virtuiss men decreviss for anen ye ladeniss non quid.' Here is a
morsel for critical ingenuity to fix its teeth in.--M.) Yet less, said
Pantagruel. Then said my jolly Panurge:
'Jona andie guaussa goussy etan beharda er remedio beharde versela
ysser landa. Anbat es otoy y es nausu ey nessassust gourray proposian
ordine den. Non yssena bayta facheria egabe gen herassy badia sadassu
noura assia. Aran hondavan gualde cydassu naydassuna. Estou oussyc
eg vinan soury hien er darstura eguy harm. Genicoa plasar vadu.' Are
you there, said Eudemon, Genicoa? To this said Carpalim, St. Trinian's
rammer unstitch your bum, for I had almost understood it. Then
answered Panurge:
'Prust frest frinst sorgdmand strochdi drhds pag brlelang Gravot
Chavigny Pomardiere rusth pkaldracg Deviniere pres Nays. Couille
kalmuch monach drupp del meupplist rincq drlnd dodelb up drent loch
minc stz rinq jald de vins ders cordelis bur jocst stzampenards.' Do you
speak Christian, said Epistemon, or the buffoon language, otherwise
called Patelinois? Nay, it is the puzlatory tongue, said another, which
some call Lanternois. Then said Panurge:
'Heere, ik en spreeke anders geen taele dan kersten taele: my dunkt
noghtans, al en seg ik u niet een wordt, mynen noot verklaert genoegh
wat ik begeere: geeft my uyt bermhertigheit yets waar van ik gevoet
magh zyn.' To which answered Pantagruel, As much of that. Then said
Panurge:
'Sennor, de tanto hablar yo soy cansado, porque yo suplico a vuestra
reverentia que mire a los preceptos evangelicos, para que ellos movan
vuestra reverentia a lo que es de conscientia; y si ellos non bastaren,
para mouer vuestra reverentia a piedad, yo suplico que mire a la piedad
natural, la qual yo creo que le movera como es de razon: y con esso non
digo mas.' Truly, my friend, (said Pantagruel,) I doubt not but you can
speak divers languages; but tell us that which you would have us to do
for you in some tongue which you conceive we may understand. Then
said the companion:
'Min Herre, endog ieg med ingen tunge talede, ligesom baern, oc
uskellige creatuure: Mine klaedebon oc mit legoms magerhed uduiser
alligeuel klarlig huad ting mig best behof gioris, som er sandelig mad
oc dricke: Huorfor forbarme dig ofuer mig, oc befal at giue mig noguet,
af huilcket ieg kand slyre min giaeendis mage, ligeruiis som mand
Cerbero en suppe forsetter: Saa skalt du lefue laenge oc lycksalig.' I
think really, said Eusthenes, that the Goths spoke thus of old, and that,
if it pleased God, we would all of us speak so with our tails. Then again
said Panurge:
'Adon, scalom lecha: im ischar harob hal hebdeca bimeherah thithen li
kikar lehem: chanchat ub laah al Adonai cho nen ral.' To which
answered Epistemon, At this time have I understood him very well; for
it is the Hebrew tongue most rhetorically pronounced. Then again said
the gallant:
'Despota tinyn panagathe, diati sy mi ouk artodotis? horas gar limo
analiscomenon eme athlion, ke en to metaxy me ouk eleis oudamos,
zetis de par emou ha ou chre. Ke homos philologi pantes homologousi
tote logous te ke remata peritta hyparchin, hopote pragma afto pasi
delon esti. Entha gar anankei monon logi isin, hina pragmata (hon peri
amphisbetoumen), me prosphoros epiphenete.' What? Said Carpalim,
Pantagruel's footman, It is Greek, I have understood him. And how?
hast thou dwelt any while in Greece? Then said the droll again:
'Agonou dont oussys vous desdagnez algorou: nou den farou zamist
vous mariston ulbrou, fousques voubrol tant bredaguez moupreton
dengoulhoust, daguez daguez non cropys fost pardonnoflist nougrou.
Agou paston tol nalprissys hourtou los echatonous, prou dhouquys brol
pany gou den bascrou noudous caguons goulfren goul oustaroppassou.'
(In this and the preceding speeches of Panurge, the Paris Variorum
Edition of 1823 has been followed in correcting Urquhart's text, which
is full of inaccuracies.--M.) Methinks I understand him, said Pantagruel;
for either it is the language of my country of Utopia, or sounds very
like it. And, as he was about to have begun some purpose, the
companion said:
'Jam toties vos per sacra, perque deos deasque omnes obtestatus sum, ut
si quae vos pietas permovet, egestatem meam solaremini, nec hilum
proficio clamans et ejulans. Sinite, quaeso, sinite, viri impii, quo me
fata vocant abire; nec ultra vanis vestris interpellationibus obtundatis,
memores veteris illius adagii, quo venter famelicus auriculis carere
dicitur.' Well, my friend, said Pantagruel, but cannot you speak French?
That I can do, sir, very well, said the companion, God be thanked. It is
my natural language and mother tongue, for I was born and bred in my
younger years in the garden of France, to wit, Touraine. Then, said
Pantagruel, tell us what is your name, and from whence you are come;
for, by my faith, I have already stamped in my mind such a deep
impression of love towards you, that, if you will condescend unto my
will, you shall not depart out of my company, and you and I shall make
up another couple of friends such as Aeneas and Achates were. Sir, said
the companion, my true and proper Christian name is Panurge, and now
I come out of Turkey, to which country I was carried away prisoner at
that time when they went to Metelin with a mischief. And willingly
would I relate unto you my fortunes, which are more wonderful than
those of Ulysses were; but, seeing that it pleaseth you to retain me with
you, I most heartily accept of the offer, protesting never to leave you
should you go to all the devils in hell. We shall have therefore more
leisure at another time, and a fitter opportunity wherein to report them;
for at this present I am in a very urgent necessity to feed; my teeth are
sharp, my belly empty, my throat dry, and my stomach fierce and
burning, all is ready. If you will but set me to work, it will be as good
as a balsamum for sore eyes to see me gulch and raven it. For God's
sake, give order for it. Then Pantagruel commanded that they should
carry him home and provide him good store of victuals; which being
done, he ate very well that evening, and, capon-like, went early to bed;
then slept until dinner-time the next day, so that he made but three steps
and one leap from the bed to the board.
Chapter 2.
X.
How Pantagruel judged so equitably of a controversy, which was
wonderfully obscure and difficult, that, by reason of his just decree
therein, he was reputed to have a most admirable judgment.
Pantagruel, very well remembering his father's letter and admonitions,
would one day make trial of his knowledge. Thereupon, in all the
carrefours, that is, throughout all the four quarters, streets, and corners
of the city, he set up conclusions to the number of nine thousand seven
hundred sixty and four, in all manner of learning, touching in them the
hardest doubts that are in any science. And first of all, in the Fodder
Street he held dispute against all the regents or fellows of colleges,
artists or masters of arts, and orators, and did so gallantly that he
overthrew them and set them all upon their tails. He went afterwards to
the Sorbonne, where he maintained argument against all the
theologians or divines, for the space of six weeks, from four o'clock in
the morning until six in the evening, except an interval of two hours to
refresh themselves and take their repast. And at this were present the
greatest part of the lords of the court, the masters of requests, presidents,
counsellors, those of the accompts, secretaries, advocates, and others;
as also the sheriffs of the said town, with the physicians and professors
of the canon law. Amongst which, it is to be remarked, that the greatest
part were stubborn jades, and in their opinions obstinate; but he took
such course with them that, for all their ergoes and fallacies, he put
their backs to the wall, gravelled them in the deepest questions, and
made it visibly appear to the world that, compared to him, they were
but monkeys and a knot of muffled calves. Whereupon everybody
began to keep a bustling noise and talk of his so marvellous knowledge,
through all degrees of persons of both sexes, even to the very
laundresses, brokers, roast-meat sellers, penknife makers, and others,
who, when he passed along in the street, would say, This is he! in
which he took delight, as Demosthenes, the prince of Greek orators, did,
when an old crouching wife, pointing at him with her fingers, said,
That is the man.
Now at this same very time there was a process or suit in law
depending in court between two great lords, of which one was called
my Lord Kissbreech, plaintiff of one side, and the other my Lord
Suckfist, defendant of the other; whose controversy was so high and
difficult in law that the court of parliament could make nothing of it.
And therefore, by the commandment of the king, there were assembled
four of the greatest and most learned of all the parliaments of France,
together with the great council, and all the principal regents of the
universities, not only of France, but of England also and Italy, such as
Jason, Philippus Decius, Petrus de Petronibus, and a rabble of other old
Rabbinists. Who being thus met together, after they had thereupon
consulted for the space of six-and-forty weeks, finding that they could
not fasten their teeth in it, nor with such clearness understand the case
as that they might in any manner of way be able to right it, or take up
the difference betwixt the two aforesaid parties, it did so grievously vex
them that they most villainously conshit themselves for shame. In this
great extremity one amongst them, named Du Douhet, the learnedest of
all, and more expert and prudent than any of the rest, whilst one day
they were thus at their wits' end, all-to-be-dunced and philogrobolized
in their brains, said unto them, We have been here, my masters, a good
long space, without doing anything else than trifle away both our time
and money, and can nevertheless find neither brim nor bottom in this
matter, for the more we study about it the less we understand therein,
which is a great shame and disgrace to us, and a heavy burden to our
consciences; yea, such that in my opinion we shall not rid ourselves of
it without dishonour, unless we take some other course; for we do
nothing but dote in our consultations.
See, therefore, what I have thought upon. You have heard much talking
of that worthy personage named Master Pantagruel, who hath been
found to be learned above the capacity of this present age, by the proofs
he gave in those great disputations which he held publicly against all
men. My opinion is, that we send for him to confer with him about this
business; for never any man will encompass the bringing of it to an end
if he do it not.
Hereunto all the counsellors and doctors willingly agreed, and
according to that their result having instantly sent for him, they
entreated him to be pleased to canvass the process and sift it thoroughly,
that, after a deep search and narrow examination of all the points
thereof, he might forthwith make the report unto them such as he shall
think good in true and legal knowledge. To this effect they delivered
into his hands the bags wherein were the writs and pancarts concerning
that suit, which for bulk and weight were almost enough to lade four
great couillard or stoned asses. But Pantagruel said unto them, Are the
two lords between whom this debate and process is yet living? It was
answered him, Yes. To what a devil, then, said he, serve so many paltry
heaps and bundles of papers and copies which you give me? Is it not
better to hear their controversy from their own mouths whilst they are
face to face before us, than to read these vile fopperies, which are
nothing but trumperies, deceits, diabolical cozenages of Cepola,
pernicious slights and subversions of equity? For I am sure that you,
and all those through whose hands this process has passed, have by
your devices added what you could to it pro et contra in such sort that,
although their difference perhaps was clear and easy enough to
determine at first, you have obscured it and made it more intricate by
the frivolous, sottish, unreasonable, and foolish reasons and opinions of
Accursius, Baldus, Bartolus, de Castro, de Imola, Hippolytus, Panormo,
Bertachin, Alexander, Curtius, and those other old mastiffs, who never
understood the least law of the Pandects, they being but mere
blockheads and great tithe calves, ignorant of all that which was
needful for the understanding of the laws; for, as it is most certain, they
had not the knowledge either of the Greek or Latin tongue, but only of
the Gothic and barbarian. The laws, nevertheless, were first taken from
the Greeks, according to the testimony of Ulpian, L. poster. de origine
juris, which we likewise may perceive by that all the laws are full of
Greek words and sentences. And then we find that they are reduced into
a Latin style the most elegant and ornate that whole language is able to
afford, without excepting that of any that ever wrote therein, nay, not of
Sallust, Varro, Cicero, Seneca, Titus Livius, nor Quintilian. How then
could these old dotards be able to understand aright the text of the laws
who never in their time had looked upon a good Latin book, as doth
evidently enough appear by the rudeness of their style, which is fitter
for a chimney-sweeper, or for a cook or a scullion, than for a
jurisconsult and doctor in the laws?
Furthermore, seeing the laws are excerpted out of the middle of moral
and natural philosophy, how should these fools have understood it, that
have, by G--, studied less in philosophy than my mule? In respect of
human learning and the knowledge of antiquities and history they were
truly laden with those faculties as a toad is with feathers. And yet of all
this the laws are so full that without it they cannot be understood, as I
intend more fully to show unto you in a peculiar treatise which on that
purpose I am about to publish. Therefore, if you will that I take any
meddling in this process, first cause all these papers to be burnt;
secondly, make the two gentlemen come personally before me, and
afterwards, when I shall have heard them, I will tell you my opinion
freely without any feignedness or dissimulation whatsoever.
Some amongst them did contradict this motion, as you know that in all
companies there are more fools than wise men, and that the greater part
always surmounts the better, as saith Titus Livius in speaking of the
Carthaginians. But the foresaid Du Douhet held the contrary opinion,
maintaining that Pantagruel had said well, and what was right, in
affirming that these records, bills of inquest, replies, rejoinders,
exceptions, depositions, and other such diableries of truth-entangling
writs, were but engines wherewith to overthrow justice and
unnecessarily to prolong such suits as did depend before them; and that,
therefore, the devil would carry them all away to hell if they did not
take another course and proceeded not in times coming according to the
prescripts of evangelical and philosophical equity. In fine, all the
papers were burnt, and the two gentlemen summoned and personally
convented. At whose appearance before the court Pantagruel said unto
them, Are you they that have this great difference betwixt you? Yes,
my lord, said they. Which of you, said Pantagruel, is the plaintiff? It is I,
said my Lord Kissbreech. Go to, then, my friend, said he, and relate
your matter unto me from point to point, according to the real truth, or
else, by cock's body, if I find you to lie so much as in one word, I will
make you shorter by the head, and take it from off your shoulders to
show others by your example that in justice and judgment men ought to
speak nothing but the truth. Therefore take heed you do not add nor
impair anything in the narration of your case. Begin.
Chapter 2.
XI.
How the Lords of Kissbreech and Suckfist did plead before Pantagruel
without an attorney.
Then began Kissbreech in manner as followeth. My lord, it is true that
a good woman of my house carried eggs to the market to sell. Be
covered, Kissbreech, said Pantagruel. Thanks to you, my lord, said the
Lord Kissbreech; but to the purpose. There passed betwixt the two
tropics the sum of threepence towards the zenith and a halfpenny,
forasmuch as the Riphaean mountains had been that year oppressed
with a great sterility of counterfeit gudgeons and shows without
substance, by means of the babbling tattle and fond fibs seditiously
raised between the gibblegabblers and Accursian gibberish-mongers for
the rebellion of the Switzers, who had assembled themselves to the full
number of the bumbees and myrmidons to go a-handsel-getting on the
first day of the new year, at that very time when they give brewis to the
oxen and deliver the key of the coals to the country-girls for serving in
of the oats to the dogs. All the night long they did nothing else, keeping
their hands still upon the pot, but despatch, both on foot and horseback,
leaden-sealed writs or letters, to wit, papal commissions commonly
called bulls, to stop the boats; for the tailors and seamsters would have
made of the stolen shreds and clippings a goodly sagbut to cover the
face of the ocean, which then was great with child of a potful of
cabbage, according to the opinion of the hay-bundle- makers. But the
physicians said that by the urine they could discern no manifest sign of
the bustard's pace, nor how to eat double-tongued mattocks with
mustard, unless the lords and gentlemen of the court should be pleased
to give by B.mol express command to the pox not to run about any
longer in gleaning up of coppersmiths and tinkers; for the jobbernolls
had already a pretty good beginning in their dance of the British jig
called the estrindore, to a perfect diapason, with one foot in the fire,
and their head in the middle, as goodman Ragot was wont to say.
Ha, my masters, God moderates all things, and disposeth of them at his
pleasure, so that against unlucky fortune a carter broke his frisking
whip, which was all the wind-instrument he had. This was done at his
return from the little paltry town, even then when Master Antitus of
Cressplots was licentiated, and had passed his degrees in all dullery and
blockishness, according to this sentence of the canonists, Beati Dunces,
quoniam ipsi stumblaverunt. But that which makes Lent to be so high,
by St. Fiacre of Bry, is for nothing else but that the Pentecost never
comes but to my cost; yet, on afore there, ho! a little rain stills a great
wind, and we must think so, seeing that the sergeant hath propounded
the matter so far above my reach, that the clerks and secondaries could
not with the benefit thereof lick their fingers, feathered with ganders, so
orbicularly as they were wont in other things to do. And we do
manifestly see that everyone acknowledgeth himself to be in the error
wherewith another hath been charged, reserving only those cases
whereby we are obliged to take an ocular inspection in a perspective
glass of these things towards the place in the chimney where hangeth
the sign of the wine of forty girths, which have been always accounted
very necessary for the number of twenty pannels and pack-saddles of
the bankrupt protectionaries of five years' respite. Howsoever, at least,
he that would not let fly the fowl before the cheesecakes ought in law
to have discovered his reason why not, for the memory is often lost
with a wayward shoeing. Well, God keep Theobald Mitain from all
danger! Then said Pantagruel, Hold there! Ho, my friend, soft and fair,
speak at leisure and soberly without putting yourself in choler. I
understand the case,--go on. Now then, my lord, said Kissbreech, the
foresaid good woman saying her gaudez and audi nos, could not cover
herself with a treacherous backblow, ascending by the wounds and
passions of the privileges of the universities, unless by the virtue of a
warming-pan she had angelically fomented every part of her body in
covering them with a hedge of garden-beds; then giving in a swift
unavoidable thirst (thrust) very near to the place where they sell the old
rags whereof the painters of Flanders make great use when they are
about neatly to clap on shoes on grasshoppers, locusts, cigals, and such
like fly-fowls, so strange to us that I am wonderfully astonished why
the world doth not lay, seeing it is so good to hatch.
Here the Lord of Suckfist would have interrupted him and spoken
somewhat, whereupon Pantagruel said unto him, St! by St. Anthony's
belly, doth it become thee to speak without command? I sweat here
with the extremity of labour and exceeding toil I take to understand the
proceeding of your mutual difference, and yet thou comest to trouble
and disquiet me. Peace, in the devil's name, peace. Thou shalt be
permitted to speak thy bellyful when this man hath done, and no sooner.
Go on, said he to Kissbreech; speak calmly, and do not overheat
yourself with too much haste.
I perceiving, then, said Kissbreech, that the Pragmatical Sanction did
make no mention of it, and that the holy Pope to everyone gave liberty
to fart at his own ease, if that the blankets had no streaks wherein the
liars were to be crossed with a ruffian-like crew, and, the rainbow being
newly sharpened at Milan to bring forth larks, gave his full consent that
the good woman should tread down the heel of the hip-gut pangs, by
virtue of a solemn protestation put in by the little testiculated or codsted
fishes, which, to tell the truth, were at that time very necessary for
understanding the syntax and construction of old boots. Therefore John
Calf, her cousin gervais once removed with a log from the woodstack,
very seriously advised her not to put herself into the hazard of
quagswagging in the lee, to be scoured with a buck of linen clothes till
first she had kindled the paper. This counsel she laid hold on, because
he desired her to take nothing and throw out, for Non de ponte vadit,
qui cum sapientia cadit. Matters thus standing, seeing the masters of the
chamber of accompts or members of that committee did not fully agree
amongst themselves in casting up the number of the Almany whistles,
whereof were framed those spectacles for princes which have been
lately printed at Antwerp, I must needs think that it makes a bad return
of the writ, and that the adverse party is not to be believed, in sacer
verbo dotis. For that, having a great desire to obey the pleasure of the
king, I armed myself from toe to top with belly furniture, of the soles of
good venison- pasties, to go see how my grape-gatherers and vintagers
had pinked and cut full of small holes their high-coped caps, to lecher it
the better, and play at in and in. And indeed the time was very
dangerous in coming from the fair, in so far that many trained bowmen
were cast at the muster and quite rejected, although the chimney-tops
were high enough, according to the proportion of the windgalls in the
legs of horses, or of the malanders, which in the esteem of expert
farriers is no better disease, or else the story of Ronypatifam or
Lamibaudichon, interpreted by some to be the tale of a tub or of a
roasted horse, savours of apocrypha, and is not an authentic history.
And by this means there was that year great abundance, throughout all
the country of Artois, of tawny buzzing beetles, to the no small profit
of the gentlemen-great-stick-faggot-carriers, when they did eat without
disdaining the cocklicranes, till their belly was like to crack with it
again. As for my own part, such is my Christian charity towards my
neighbours, that I could wish from my heart everyone had as good a
voice; it would make us play the better at the tennis and the balloon.
And truly, my lord, to express the real truth without dissimulation, I
cannot but say that those petty subtle devices which are found out in
the etymologizing of pattens would descend more easily into the river
of Seine, to serve for ever at the millers' bridge upon the said water, as
it was heretofore decreed by the king of the Canarians, according to the
sentence or judgment given thereupon, which is to be seen in the
registry and records within the clerk's office of this house.
And, therefore, my lord, I do most humbly require, that by your
lordship there may be said and declared upon the case what is
reasonable, with costs, damages, and interests. Then said Pantagruel,
My friend, is this all you have to say? Kissbreech answered, Yes, my
lord, for I have told all the tu autem, and have not varied at all upon
mine honour in so much as one single word. You then, said Pantagruel,
my Lord of Suckfist, say what you will, and be brief, without omitting,
nevertheless, anything that may serve to the purpose.
Chapter 2.
XII.
How the Lord of Suckfist pleaded before Pantagruel.
Then began the Lord Suckfist in manner as followeth. My lord, and you
my masters, if the iniquity of men were as easily seen in categorical
judgment as we can discern flies in a milkpot, the world's four oxen had
not been so eaten up with rats, nor had so many ears upon the earth
been nibbled away so scurvily. For although all that my adversary hath
spoken be of a very soft and downy truth, in so much as concerns the
letter and history of the factum, yet nevertheless the crafty slights,
cunning subtleties, sly cozenages, and little troubling entanglements are
hid under the rosepot, the common cloak and cover of all fraudulent
deceits.
Should I endure that, when I am eating my pottage equal with the best,
and that without either thinking or speaking any manner of ill, they
rudely come to vex, trouble, and perplex my brains with that antique
proverb which saith,
Who in his pottage-eating drinks will not, When he is dead and buried,
see one jot.
And, good lady, how many great captains have we seen in the day of
battle, when in open field the sacrament was distributed in luncheons of
the sanctified bread of the confraternity, the more honestly to nod their
heads, play on the lute, and crack with their tails, to make pretty little
platform leaps in keeping level by the ground? But now the world is
unshackled from the corners of the packs of Leicester. One flies out
lewdly and becomes debauched; another, likewise, five, four, and two,
and that at such random that, if the court take not some course therein,
it will make as bad a season in matter of gleaning this year as ever it
made, or it will make goblets. If any poor creature go to the stoves to
illuminate his muzzle with a cowsherd or to buy winter-boots, and that
the sergeants passing by, or those of the watch, happen to receive the
decoction of a clyster or the fecal matter of a close-stool upon their
rustling-wrangling-clutter-keeping masterships, should any because of
that make bold to clip the shillings and testers and fry the wooden
dishes? Sometimes, when we think one thing, God does another; and
when the sun is wholly set all beasts are in the shade. Let me never be
believed again, if I do not gallantly prove it by several people who have
seen the light of the day.
In the year thirty and six, buying a Dutch curtail, which was a middle-
sized horse, both high and short, of a wool good enough and dyed in
grain, as the goldsmiths assured me, although the notary put an &c. in it,
I told really that I was not a clerk of so much learning as to snatch at
the moon with my teeth; but, as for the butter-firkin where Vulcanian
deeds and evidences were sealed, the rumour was, and the report
thereof went current, that salt-beef will make one find the way to the
wine without a candle, though it were hid in the bottom of a collier's
sack, and that with his drawers on he were mounted on a barbed horse
furnished with a fronstal, and such arms, thighs, and leg-pieces as are
requisite for the well frying and broiling of a swaggering sauciness.
Here is a sheep's head, and it is well they make a proverb of this, that it
is good to see black cows in burnt wood when one attains to the
enjoyment of his love. I had a consultation upon this point with my
masters the clerks, who for resolution concluded in frisesomorum that
there is nothing like to mowing in the summer, and sweeping clean
away in water, well garnished with paper, ink, pens, and penknives, of
Lyons upon the river of Rhone, dolopym dolopof, tarabin tarabas, tut,
prut, pish; for, incontinently after that armour begins to smell of garlic,
the rust will go near to eat the liver, not of him that wears it, and then
do they nothing else but withstand others' courses, and wryneckedly set
up their bristles 'gainst one another, in lightly passing over their
afternoon's sleep, and this is that which maketh salt so dear. My lords,
believe not when the said good woman had with birdlime caught the
shoveler fowl, the better before a sergeant's witness to deliver the
younger son's portion to him, that the sheep's pluck or hog's haslet did
dodge and shrink back in the usurers' purses, or that there could be
anything better to preserve one from the cannibals than to take a rope of
onions, knit with three hundred turnips, and a little of a calf's chaldern
of the best allay that the alchemists have provided, (and) that they daub
and do over with clay, as also calcinate and burn to dust these
pantoufles, muff in muff out, mouflin mouflard, with the fine sauce of
the juice of the rabble rout, whilst they hide themselves in some petty
mouldwarphole, saving always the little slices of bacon. Now, if the
dice will not favour you with any other throw but ambes-ace and the
chance of three at the great end, mark well the ace, then take me your
dame, settle her in a corner of the bed, and whisk me her up drilletrille,
there, there, toureloura la la; which when you have done, take a hearty
draught of the best, despicando grenovillibus, in despite of the frogs,
whose fair coarse bebuskined stockings shall be set apart for the little
green geese or mewed goslings, which, fattened in a coop, take delight
to sport themselves at the wagtail game, waiting for the beating of the
metal and heating of the wax by the slavering drivellers of consolation.
Very true it is, that the four oxen which are in debate, and whereof
mention was made, were somewhat short in memory. Nevertheless, to
understand the game aright, they feared neither the cormorant nor
mallard of Savoy, which put the good people of my country in great
hope that their children some time should become very skilful in
algorism. Therefore is it, that by a law rubric and special sentence
thereof, that we cannot fail to take the wolf if we make our hedges
higher than the windmill, whereof somewhat was spoken by the
plaintiff. But the great devil did envy it, and by that means put the High
Dutches far behind, who played the devils in swilling down and
tippling at the good liquor, trink, mein herr, trink, trink, by two of my
table-men in the corner-point I have gained the lurch. For it is not
probable, nor is there any appearance of truth in this saying, that at
Paris upon a little bridge the hen is proportionable, and were they as
copped and high-crested as marsh whoops, if veritably they did not
sacrifice the printer's pumpet-balls at Moreb, with a new edge set upon
them by text letters or those of a swift-writing hand, it is all one to me,
so that the headband of the book breed not moths or worms in it. And
put the case that, at the coupling together of the buckhounds, the little
puppies shall have waxed proud before the notary could have given an
account of the serving of his writ by the cabalistic art, it will
necessarily follow, under correction of the better judgment of the court,
that six acres of meadow ground of the greatest breadth will make three
butts of fine ink, without paying ready money; considering that, at the
funeral of King Charles, we might have had the fathom in open market
for one and two, that is, deuce ace. This I may affirm with a safe
conscience, upon my oath of wool.
And I see ordinarily in all good bagpipes, that, when they go to the
counterfeiting of the chirping of small birds, by swinging a broom three
times about a chimney, and putting his name upon record, they do
nothing but bend a crossbow backwards, and wind a horn, if perhaps it
be too hot, and that, by making it fast to a rope he was to draw,
immediately after the sight of the letters, the cows were restored to him.
Such another sentence after the homeliest manner was pronounced in
the seventeenth year, because of the bad government of
Louzefougarouse, whereunto it may please the court to have regard. I
desire to be rightly understood; for truly, I say not but that in all equity,
and with an upright conscience, those may very well be dispossessed
who drink holy water as one would do a weaver's shuttle, whereof
suppositories are made to those that will not resign, but on the terms of
ell and tell and giving of one thing for another. Tunc, my lords, quid
juris pro minoribus? For the common custom of the Salic law is such,
that the first incendiary or firebrand of sedition that flays the cow and
wipes his nose in a full concert of music without blowing in the
cobbler's stitches, should in the time of the nightmare sublimate the
penury of his member by moss gathered when people are like to
founder themselves at the mess at midnight, to give the estrapade to
these white wines of Anjou that do the fear of the leg in lifting it by
horsemen called the gambetta, and that neck to neck after the fashion of
Brittany, concluding as before with costs, damages, and interests.
After that the Lord of Suckfist had ended, Pantagruel said to the Lord
of Kissbreech, My friend, have you a mind to make any reply to what is
said? No, my lord, answered Kissbreech; for I have spoke all I intended,
and nothing but the truth. Therefore, put an end for God's sake to our
difference, for we are here at great charge.
Chapter 2.
XIII.
How Pantagruel gave judgment upon the difference of the two lords.
Then Pantagruel, rising up, assembled all the presidents, counsellors,
and doctors that were there, and said unto them, Come now, my
masters, you have heard vivae vocis oraculo, the controversy that is in
question; what do you think of it? They answered him, We have indeed
heard it, but have not understood the devil so much as one
circumstance of the case; and therefore we beseech you, una voce, and
in courtesy request you that you would give sentence as you think good,
and, ex nunc prout ex tunc, we are satisfied with it, and do ratify it with
our full consents. Well, my masters, said Pantagruel, seeing you are so
pleased, I will do it; but I do not truly find the case so difficult as you
make it. Your paragraph Caton, the law Frater, the law Gallus, the law
Quinque pedum, the law Vinum, the law Si Dominus, the law Mater,
the law Mulier bona, to the law Si quis, the law Pomponius, the law
Fundi, the law Emptor, the law Praetor, the law Venditor, and a great
many others, are far more intricate in my opinion. After he had spoke
this, he walked a turn or two about the hall, plodding very profoundly,
as one may think; for he did groan like an ass whilst they girth him too
hard, with the very intensiveness of considering how he was bound in
conscience to do right to both parties, without varying or accepting of
persons. Then he returned, sat down, and began to pronounce sentence
as followeth.
Having seen, heard, calculated, and well considered of the difference
between the Lords of Kissbreech and Suckfist, the court saith unto
them, that in regard of the sudden quaking, shivering, and hoariness of
the flickermouse, bravely declining from the estival solstice, to attempt
by private means the surprisal of toyish trifles in those who are a little
unwell for having taken a draught too much, through the lewd
demeanour and vexation of the beetles that inhabit the diarodal
(diarhomal) climate of an hypocritical ape on horseback, bending a
crossbow backwards, the plaintiff truly had just cause to calfet, or with
oakum to stop the chinks of the galleon which the good woman blew
up with wind, having one foot shod and the other bare, reimbursing and
restoring to him, low and stiff in his conscience, as many bladder-nuts
and wild pistaches as there is of hair in eighteen cows, with as much for
the embroiderer, and so much for that. He is likewise declared innocent
of the case privileged from the knapdardies, into the danger whereof it
was thought he had incurred; because he could not jocundly and with
fulness of freedom untruss and dung, by the decision of a pair of gloves
perfumed with the scent of bum-gunshot at the walnut- tree taper, as is
usual in his country of Mirebalais. Slacking, therefore, the topsail, and
letting go the bowline with the brazen bullets, wherewith the mariners
did by way of protestation bake in pastemeat great store of pulse
interquilted with the dormouse, whose hawk's-bells were made with a
puntinaria, after the manner of Hungary or Flanders lace, and which his
brother-in-law carried in a pannier, lying near to three chevrons or
bordered gules, whilst he was clean out of heart, drooping and
crestfallen by the too narrow sifting, canvassing, and curious
examining of the matter in the angularly doghole of nasty scoundrels,
from whence we shoot at the vermiformal popinjay with the flap made
of a foxtail.
But in that he chargeth the defendant that he was a botcher,
cheese-eater, and trimmer of man's flesh embalmed, which in the
arsiversy swagfall tumble was not found true, as by the defendant was
very well discussed.
The court, therefore, doth condemn and amerce him in three porringers
of curds, well cemented and closed together, shining like pearls, and
codpieced after the fashion of the country, to be paid unto the said
defendant about the middle of August in May. But, on the other part,
the defendant shall be bound to furnish him with hay and stubble for
stopping the caltrops of his throat, troubled and impulregafized, with
gabardines garbled shufflingly, and friends as before, without costs and
for cause.
Which sentence being pronounced, the two parties departed both
contented with the decree, which was a thing almost incredible. For it
never came to pass since the great rain, nor shall the like occur in
thirteen jubilees hereafter, that two parties contradictorily contending in
judgment be equally satisfied and well pleased with the definitive
sentence. As for the counsellors and other doctors in the law that were
there present, they were all so ravished with admiration at the more
than human wisdom of Pantagruel, which they did most clearly
perceive to be in him by his so accurate decision of this so difficult and
thorny cause, that their spirits with the extremity of the rapture being
elevated above the pitch of actuating the organs of the body, they fell
into a trance and sudden ecstasy, wherein they stayed for the space of
three long hours, and had been so as yet in that condition had not some
good people fetched store of vinegar and rose-water to bring them
again unto their former sense and understanding, for the which God be
praised everywhere. And so be it.
Chapter 2.
XIV.
How Panurge related the manner how he escaped out of the hands of
the Turks.
The great wit and judgment of Pantagruel was immediately after this
made known unto all the world by setting forth his praises in print, and
putting upon record this late wonderful proof he hath given thereof
amongst the rolls of the crown and registers of the palace, in such sort
that everybody began to say that Solomon, who by a probable guess
only, without any further certainty, caused the child to be delivered to
its own mother, showed never in his time such a masterpiece of
wisdom as the good Pantagruel hath done. Happy are we, therefore,
that have him in our country. And indeed they would have made him
thereupon master of the requests and president in the court; but he
refused all, very graciously thanking them for their offer. For, said he,
there is too much slavery in these offices, and very hardly can they be
saved that do exercise them, considering the great corruption that is
amongst men. Which makes me believe, if the empty seats of angels be
not filled with other kind of people than those, we shall not have the
final judgment these seven thousand, sixty and seven jubilees yet to
come, and so Cusanus will be deceived in his conjecture. Remember
that I have told you of it, and given you fair advertisement in time and
place convenient.
But if you have any hogsheads of good wine, I willingly will accept of
a present of that. Which they very heartily did do, in sending him of the
best that was in the city, and he drank reasonably well, but poor
Panurge bibbed and boused of it most villainously, for he was as dry as
a red- herring, as lean as a rake, and, like a poor, lank, slender cat,
walked gingerly as if he had trod upon eggs. So that by someone being
admonished, in the midst of his draught of a large deep bowl full of
excellent claret with these words--Fair and softly, gossip, you suck up
as if you were mad-- I give thee to the devil, said he; thou hast not
found here thy little tippling sippers of Paris, that drink no more than
the little bird called a spink or chaffinch, and never take in their beakful
of liquor till they be bobbed on the tails after the manner of the
sparrows. O companion! if I could mount up as well as I can get down,
I had been long ere this above the sphere of the moon with Empedocles.
But I cannot tell what a devil this means. This wine is so good and
delicious, that the more I drink thereof the more I am athirst. I believe
that the shadow of my master Pantagruel engendereth the altered and
thirsty men, as the moon doth the catarrhs and defluxions. At which
word the company began to laugh, which Pantagruel perceiving, said,
Panurge, what is that which moves you to laugh so? Sir, said he, I was
telling them that these devilish Turks are very unhappy in that they
never drink one drop of wine, and that though there were no other harm
in all Mahomet's Alcoran, yet for this one base point of abstinence from
wine which therein is commanded, I would not submit myself unto
their law. But now tell me, said Pantagruel, how you escaped out of
their hands. By G--, sir, said Panurge, I will not lie to you in one word.
The rascally Turks had broached me upon a spit all larded like a rabbit,
for I was so dry and meagre that otherwise of my flesh they would have
made but very bad meat, and in this manner began to roast me alive. As
they were thus roasting me, I recommended myself unto the divine
grace, having in my mind the good St. Lawrence, and always hoped in
God that he would deliver me out of this torment. Which came to pass,
and that very strangely. For as I did commit myself with all my heart
unto God, crying, Lord God, help me! Lord God, save me! Lord God,
take me out of this pain and hellish torture, wherein these traitorous
dogs detain me for my sincerity in the maintenance of thy law! The
roaster or turnspit fell asleep by the divine will, or else by the virtue of
some good Mercury, who cunningly brought Argus into a sleep for all
his hundred eyes. When I saw that he did no longer turn me in roasting,
I looked upon him, and perceived that he was fast asleep. Then took I
up in my teeth a firebrand by the end where it was not burnt, and cast it
into the lap of my roaster, and another did I throw as well as I could
under a field-couch that was placed near to the chimney, wherein was
the straw-bed of my master turnspit. Presently the fire took hold in the
straw, and from the straw to the bed, and from the bed to the loft, which
was planked and ceiled with fir, after the fashion of the foot of a lamp.
But the best was, that the fire which I had cast into the lap of my paltry
roaster burnt all his groin, and was beginning to cease (seize) upon his
cullions, when he became sensible of the danger, for his smelling was
not so bad but that he felt it sooner than he could have seen daylight.
Then suddenly getting up, and in a great amazement running to the
window, he cried out to the streets as high as he could, Dal baroth, dal
baroth, dal baroth, which is as much to say as Fire, fire, fire.
Incontinently turning about, he came straight towards me to throw me
quite into the fire, and to that effect had already cut the ropes
wherewith my hands were tied, and was undoing the cords from off my
feet, when the master of the house hearing him cry Fire, and smelling
the smoke from the very street where he was walking with some other
Bashaws and Mustaphas, ran with all the speed he had to save what he
could, and to carry away his jewels. Yet such was his rage, before he
could well resolve how to go about it, that he caught the broach
whereon I was spitted and therewith killed my roaster stark dead, of
which wound he died there for want of government or otherwise; for he
ran him in with the spit a little above the navel, towards the right flank,
till he pierced the third lappet of his liver, and the blow slanting
upwards from the midriff or diaphragm, through which it had made
penetration, the spit passed athwart the pericardium or capsule of his
heart, and came out above at his shoulders, betwixt the spondyls or
turning joints of the chine of the back and the left homoplat, which we
call the shoulder-blade.
True it is, for I will not lie, that, in drawing the spit out of my body I
fell to the ground near unto the andirons, and so by the fall took some
hurt, which indeed had been greater, but that the lardons, or little slices
of bacon wherewith I was stuck, kept off the blow. My Bashaw then
seeing the case to be desperate, his house burnt without remission, and
all his goods lost, gave himself over unto all the devils in hell, calling
upon some of them by their names, Grilgoth, Astaroth, Rappalus, and
Gribouillis, nine several times. Which when I saw, I had above
sixpence' worth of fear, dreading that the devils would come even then
to carry away this fool, and, seeing me so near him, would perhaps
snatch me up to. I am already, thought I, half roasted, and my lardons
will be the cause of my mischief; for these devils are very liquorous of
lardons, according to the authority which you have of the philosopher
Jamblicus, and Murmault, in the Apology of Bossutis, adulterated pro
magistros nostros. But for my better security I made the sign of the
cross, crying, Hageos, athanatos, ho theos, and none came. At which
my rogue Bashaw being very much aggrieved would, in transpiercing
his heart with my spit, have killed himself, and to that purpose had set
it against his breast, but it could not enter, because it was not sharp
enough. Whereupon I perceiving that he was not like to work upon his
body the effect which he intended, although he did not spare all the
force he had to thrust it forward, came up to him and said, Master
Bugrino, thou dost here but trifle away thy time, or rashly lose it, for
thou wilt never kill thyself thus as thou doest. Well, thou mayst hurt or
bruise somewhat within thee, so as to make thee languish all thy
lifetime most pitifully amongst the hands of the chirurgeons; but if thou
wilt be counselled by me, I will kill thee clear outright, so that thou
shalt not so much as feel it, and trust me, for I have killed a great many
others, who have found themselves very well after it. Ha, my friend,
said he, I prithee do so, and for thy pains I will give thee my codpiece
(budget); take, here it is, there are six hundred seraphs in it, and some
fine diamonds and most excellent rubies. And where are they? said
Epistemon. By St. John, said Panurge, they are a good way hence, if
they always keep going. But where is the last year's snow? This was the
greatest care that Villon the Parisian poet took. Make an end, said
Pantagruel, that we may know how thou didst dress thy Bashaw. By the
faith of an honest man, said Panurge, I do not lie in one word. I
swaddled him in a scurvy swathel- binding which I found lying there
half burnt, and with my cords tied him roister-like both hand and foot,
in such sort that he was not able to wince; then passed my spit through
his throat, and hanged him thereon, fastening the end thereof at two
great hooks or crampirons, upon which they did hang their halberds;
and then, kindling a fair fire under him, did flame you up my Milourt,
as they use to do dry herrings in a chimney. With this, taking his budget
and a little javelin that was upon the foresaid hooks, I ran away a fair
gallop-rake, and God he knows how I did smell my shoulder of mutton.
When I was come down into the street, I found everybody come to put
out the fire with store of water, and seeing me so half-roasted, they did
naturally pity my case, and threw all their water upon me, which, by a
most joyful refreshing of me, did me very much good. Then did they
present me with some victuals, but I could not eat much, because they
gave me nothing to drink but water after their fashion. Other hurt they
did me none, only one little villainous Turkey knobbreasted rogue
came thiefteously to snatch away some of my lardons, but I gave him
such a sturdy thump and sound rap on the fingers with all the weight of
my javelin, that he came no more the second time. Shortly after this
there came towards me a pretty young Corinthian wench, who brought
me a boxful of conserves, of round Mirabolan plums, called emblicks,
and looked upon my poor robin with an eye of great compassion, as it
was flea-bitten and pinked with the sparkles of the fire from whence it
came, for it reached no farther in length, believe me, than my knees.
But note that this roasting cured me entirely of a sciatica, whereunto I
had been subject above seven years before, upon that side which my
roaster by falling asleep suffered to be burnt.
Now, whilst they were thus busy about me, the fire triumphed, never
ask how? For it took hold on above two thousand houses, which one of
them espying cried out, saying, By Mahoom's belly, all the city is on
fire, and we do nevertheless stand gazing here, without offering to
make any relief. Upon this everyone ran to save his own; for my part, I
took my way towards the gate. When I was got upon the knap of a little
hillock not far off, I turned me about as did Lot's wife, and, looking
back, saw all the city burning in a fair fire, whereat I was so glad that I
had almost beshit myself for joy. But God punished me well for it.
How? said Pantagruel. Thus, said Panurge; for when with pleasure I
beheld this jolly fire, jesting with myself, and saying--Ha! poor flies, ha!
poor mice, you will have a bad winter of it this year; the fire is in your
reeks, it is in your bed-straw--out come more than six, yea, more than
thirteen hundred and eleven dogs, great and small, altogether out of the
town, flying away from the fire. At the first approach they ran all upon
me, being carried on by the scent of my lecherous half-roasted flesh,
and had even then devoured me in a trice, if my good angel had not
well inspired me with the instruction of a remedy very sovereign
against the toothache. And wherefore, said Pantagruel, wert thou afraid
of the toothache or pain of the teeth? Wert thou not cured of thy rheums?
By Palm Sunday, said Panurge, is there any greater pain of the teeth
than when the dogs have you by the legs? But on a sudden, as my good
angel directed me, I thought upon my lardons, and threw them into the
midst of the field amongst them. Then did the dogs run, and fight with
one another at fair teeth which should have the lardons. By this means
they left me, and I left them also bustling with and hairing one another.
Thus did I escape frolic and lively, gramercy roastmeat and cookery.
Chapter 2.
XV.
How Panurge showed a very new way to build the walls of Paris.
Pantagruel one day, to refresh himself of his study, went a-walking
towards St. Marcel's suburbs, to see the extravagancy of the Gobeline
building, and to taste of their spiced bread. Panurge was with him,
having always a flagon under his gown and a good slice of a gammon
of bacon; for without this he never went, saying that it was as a yeoman
of the guard to him, to preserve his body from harm. Other sword
carried he none; and, when Pantagruel would have given him one, he
answered that he needed none, for that it would but heat his milt. Yea
but, said Epistemon, if thou shouldst be set upon, how wouldst thou
defend thyself? With great buskinades or brodkin blows, answered he,
provided thrusts were forbidden. At their return, Panurge considered
the walls of the city of Paris, and in derision said to Pantagruel, See
what fair walls here are! O how strong they are, and well fitted to keep
geese in a mew or coop to fatten them! By my beard, they are
competently scurvy for such a city as this is; for a cow with one fart
would go near to overthrow above six fathoms of them. O my friend,
said Pantagruel, dost thou know what Agesilaus said when he was
asked why the great city of Lacedaemon was not enclosed with walls?
Lo here, said he, the walls of the city! in showing them the inhabitants
and citizens thereof, so strong, so well armed, and so expert in military
discipline; signifying thereby that there is no wall but of bones, and that
towns and cities cannot have a surer wall nor better fortification than
the prowess and virtue of the citizens and inhabitants. So is this city so
strong, by the great number of warlike people that are in it, that they
care not for making any other walls. Besides, whosoever would go
about to wall it, as Strasbourg, Orleans, or Ferrara, would find it almost
impossible, the cost and charges would be so excessive. Yea but, said
Panurge, it is good, nevertheless, to have an outside of stone when we
are invaded by our enemies, were it but to ask, Who is below there? As
for the enormous expense which you say would be needful for
undertaking the great work of walling this city about, if the gentlemen
of the town will be pleased to give me a good rough cup of wine, I will
show them a pretty, strange, and new way, how they may build them
good cheap. How? said Pantagruel. Do not speak of it then, answered
Panurge, and I will tell it you. I see that the sine quo nons, kallibistris,
or contrapunctums of the women of this country are better cheap than
stones. Of them should the walls be built, ranging them in good
symmetry by the rules of architecture, and placing the largest in the
first ranks, then sloping downwards ridge- wise, like the back of an ass.
The middle-sized ones must be ranked next, and last of all the least and
smallest. This done, there must be a fine little interlacing of them, like
points of diamonds, as is to be seen in the great tower of Bourges, with
a like number of the nudinnudos, nilnisistandos, and stiff bracmards,
that dwell in amongst the claustral codpieces. What devil were able to
overthrow such walls? There is no metal like it to resist blows, in so far
that, if culverin-shot should come to graze upon it, you would
incontinently see distil from thence the blessed fruit of the great pox as
small as rain. Beware, in the name of the devils, and hold off.
Furthermore, no thunderbolt or lightning would fall upon it. For why?
They are all either blest or consecrated. I see but one inconveniency in
it. Ho, ho, ha, ha, ha! said Pantagruel, and what is that? It is, that the
flies would be so liquorish of them that you would wonder, and would
quickly gather there together, and there leave their ordure and
excretions, and so all the work would be spoiled. But see how that
might be remedied: they must be wiped and made rid of the flies with
fair foxtails, or great good viedazes, which are ass-pizzles, of Provence.
And to this purpose I will tell you, as we go to supper, a brave example
set down by Frater Lubinus, Libro de compotationibus mendicantium.
In the time that the beasts did speak, which is not yet three days since, a
poor lion, walking through the forest of Bieure, and saying his own
little private devotions, passed under a tree where there was a roguish
collier gotten up to cut down wood, who, seeing the lion, cast his
hatchet at him and wounded him enormously in one of his legs;
whereupon the lion halting, he so long toiled and turmoiled himself in
roaming up and down the forest to find help, that at last he met with a
carpenter, who willingly looked upon his wound, cleansed it as well as
he could, and filled it with moss, telling him that he must wipe his
wound well that the flies might not do their excrements in it, whilst he
should go search for some yarrow or millefoil, commonly called the
carpenter's herb. The lion, being thus healed, walked along in the forest
at what time a sempiternous crone and old hag was picking up and
gathering some sticks in the said forest, who, seeing the lion coming
towards her, for fear fell down backwards, in such sort that the wind
blew up her gown, coats, and smock, even as far as above her shoulders;
which the lion perceiving, for pity ran to see whether she had taken any
hurt by the fall, and thereupon considering her how do you call it, said,
O poor woman, who hath thus wounded thee? Which words when he
had spoken, he espied a fox, whom he called to come to him saying,
Gossip Reynard, hau, hither, hither, and for cause! When the fox was
come, he said unto him, My gossip and friend, they have hurt this good
woman here between the legs most villainously, and there is a manifest
solution of continuity. See how great a wound it is, even from the tail
up to the navel, in measure four, nay full five handfuls and a half. This
is the blow of a hatchet, I doubt me; it is an old wound, and therefore,
that the flies may not get into it, wipe it lustily well and hard, I prithee,
both within and without; thou hast a good tail, and long. Wipe, my
friend, wipe, I beseech thee, and in the meanwhile I will go get some
moss to put into it; for thus ought we to succour and help one another.
Wipe it hard, thus, my friend; wipe it well, for this wound must be
often wiped, otherwise the party cannot be at ease. Go to, wipe well,
my little gossip, wipe; God hath furnished thee with a tail; thou hast a
long one, and of a bigness proportionable; wipe hard, and be not weary.
A good wiper, who, in wiping continually, wipeth with his wipard, by
wasps shall never be wounded. Wipe, my pretty minion; wipe, my little
bully; I will not stay long. Then went he to get store of moss; and when
he was a little way off, he cried out in speaking to the fox thus, Wipe
well still, gossip, wipe, and let it never grieve thee to wipe well, my
little gossip; I will put thee into service to be wiper to Don Pedro de
Castile; wipe, only wipe, and no more. The poor fox wiped as hard as
he could, here and there, within and without; but the false old trot did
so fizzle and fist that she stunk like a hundred devils, which put the
poor fox to a great deal of ill ease, for he knew not to what side to turn
himself to escape the unsavoury perfume of this old woman's postern
blasts. And whilst to that effect he was shifting hither and thither,
without knowing how to shun the annoyance of those unwholesome
gusts, he saw that behind there was yet another hole, not so great as that
which he did wipe, out of which came this filthy and infectious air. The
lion at last returned, bringing with him of moss more than eighteen
packs would hold, and began to put into the wound with a staff which
he had provided for that purpose, and had already put in full sixteen
packs and a half, at which he was amazed. What a devil! said he, this
wound is very deep; it would hold above two cartloads of moss. The
fox, perceiving this, said unto the lion, O gossip lion, my friend, I pray
thee do not put in all thy moss there; keep somewhat, for there is yet
here another little hole, that stinks like five hundred devils; I am almost
choked with the smell thereof, it is so pestiferous and empoisoning.
Thus must these walls be kept from the flies, and wages allowed to
some for wiping of them. Then said Pantagruel, How dost thou know
that the privy parts of women are at such a cheap rate? For in this city
there are many virtuous, honest, and chaste women besides the maids.
Et ubi prenus? said Panurge. I will give you my opinion of it, and that
upon certain and assured knowledge. I do not brag that I have
bumbasted four hundred and seventeen since I came into this city,
though it be but nine days ago; but this very morning I met with a good
fellow, who, in a wallet such as Aesop's was, carried two little girls of
two or three years old at the most, one before and the other behind. He
demanded alms of me, but I made him answer that I had more cods
than pence. Afterwards I asked him, Good man, these two girls, are
they maids? Brother, said he, I have carried them thus these two years,
and in regard of her that is before, whom I see continually, in my
opinion she is a virgin, nevertheless I will not put my finger in the fire
for it; as for her that is behind, doubtless I can say nothing.
Indeed, said Pantagruel, thou art a gentle companion; I will have thee to
be apparelled in my livery. And therefore caused him to be clothed
most gallantly according to the fashion that then was, only that Panurge
would have the codpiece of his breeches three foot long, and in shape
square, not round; which was done, and was well worth the seeing.
Oftentimes was he wont to say, that the world had not yet known the
emolument and utility that is in wearing great codpieces; but time
would one day teach it them, as all things have been invented in time.
God keep from hurt, said he, the good fellow whose long codpiece or
braguet hath saved his life! God keep from hurt him whose long
braguet hath been worth to him in one day one hundred threescore
thousand and nine crowns! God keep from hurt him who by his long
braguet hath saved a whole city from dying by famine! And, by G-, I
will make a book of the commodity of long braguets when I shall have
more leisure. And indeed he composed a fair great book with figures,
but it is not printed as yet that I know of.
Chapter 2.
XVI.
Of the qualities and conditions of Panurge.
Panurge was of a middle stature, not too high nor too low, and had
somewhat an aquiline nose, made like the handle of a razor. He was at
that time five and thirty years old or thereabouts, fine to gild like a
leaden dagger--for he was a notable cheater and coney-catcher--he was
a very gallant and proper man of his person, only that he was a little
lecherous, and naturally subject to a kind of disease which at that time
they called lack of money--it is an incomparable grief, yet,
notwithstanding, he had three score and three tricks to come by it at his
need, of which the most honourable and most ordinary was in manner
of thieving, secret purloining and filching, for he was a wicked lewd
rogue, a cozener, drinker, roister, rover, and a very dissolute and
debauched fellow, if there were any in Paris; otherwise, and in all
matters else, the best and most virtuous man in the world; and he was
still contriving some plot, and devising mischief against the sergeants
and the watch.
At one time he assembled three or four especial good hacksters and
roaring boys, made them in the evening drink like Templars, afterwards
led them till they came under St. Genevieve, or about the college of
Navarre, and, at the hour that the watch was coming up that
way--which he knew by putting his sword upon the pavement, and his
ear by it, and, when he heard his sword shake, it was an infallible sign
that the watch was near at that instant--then he and his companions
took a tumbrel or dung-cart, and gave it the brangle, hurling it with all
their force down the hill, and so overthrew all the poor watchmen like
pigs, and then ran away upon the other side; for in less than two days
he knew all the streets, lanes, and turnings in Paris as well as his Deus
det.
At another time he made in some fair place, where the said watch was
to pass, a train of gunpowder, and, at the very instant that they went
along, set fire to it, and then made himself sport to see what good grace
they had in running away, thinking that St. Anthony's fire had caught
them by the legs. As for the poor masters of arts, he did persecute them
above all others. When he encountered with any of them upon the street,
he would not never fail to put some trick or other upon them,
sometimes putting the bit of a fried turd in their graduate hoods, at
other times pinning on little foxtails or hares'-ears behind them, or
some such other roguish prank. One day that they were appointed all to
meet in the Fodder Street (Sorbonne), he made a Borbonesa tart, or
filthy and slovenly compound, made of store of garlic, of assafoetida,
of castoreum, of dogs' turds very warm, which he steeped, tempered,
and liquefied in the corrupt matter of pocky boils and pestiferous
botches; and, very early in the morning therewith anointed all the
pavement, in such sort that the devil could not have endured it, which
made all these good people there to lay up their gorges, and vomit what
was upon their stomachs before all the world, as if they had flayed the
fox; and ten or twelve of them died of the plague, fourteen became
lepers, eighteen grew lousy, and about seven and twenty had the pox,
but he did not care a button for it. He commonly carried a whip under
his gown, wherewith he whipped without remission the pages whom he
found carrying wine to their masters, to make them mend their pace. In
his coat he had above six and twenty little fobs and pockets always full;
one with some lead-water, and a little knife as sharp as a glover's
needle, wherewith he used to cut purses; another with some kind of
bitter stuff, which he threw into the eyes of those he met; another with
clotburrs, penned with little geese' or capon's feathers, which he cast
upon the gowns and caps of honest people, and often made them fair
horns, which they wore about all the city, sometimes all their life. Very
often, also, upon the women's French hoods would he stick in the hind
part somewhat made in the shape of a man's member. In another, he
had a great many little horns full of fleas and lice, which he borrowed
from the beggars of St. Innocent, and cast them with small canes or
quills to write with into the necks of the daintiest gentlewomen that he
could find, yea, even in the church, for he never seated himself above
in the choir, but always sat in the body of the church amongst the
women, both at mass, at vespers, and at sermon. In another, he used to
have good store of hooks and buckles, wherewith he would couple men
and women together that sat in company close to one another, but
especially those that wore gowns of crimson taffeties, that, when they
were about to go away, they might rend all their gowns. In another, he
had a squib furnished with tinder, matches, stones to strike fire, and all
other tackling necessary for it. In another, two or three burning glasses,
wherewith he made both men and women sometimes mad, and in the
church put them quite out of countenance; for he said that there was but
an antistrophe, or little more difference than of a literal inversion,
between a woman folle a la messe and molle a la fesse, that is, foolish
at the mass and of a pliant buttock.
In another, he had a good deal of needles and thread, wherewith he did
a thousand little devilish pranks. One time, at the entry of the palace
unto the great hall, where a certain grey friar or cordelier was to say
mass to the counsellors, he did help to apparel him and put on his
vestments, but in the accoutring of him he sewed on his alb, surplice, or
stole, to his gown and shirt, and then withdrew himself when the said
lords of the court or counsellors came to hear the said mass; but when it
came to the Ite, missa est, that the poor frater would have laid by his
stole or surplice, as the fashion then was, he plucked off withal both his
frock and shirt, which were well sewed together, and thereby stripping
himself up to the very shoulders showed his bel vedere to all the world,
together with his Don Cypriano, which was no small one, as you may
imagine. And the friar still kept haling, but so much the more did he
discover himself and lay open his back parts, till one of the lords of the
court said, How now! what's the matter? Will this fair father make us
here an offering of his tail to kiss it? Nay, St. Anthony's fire kiss it for
us! From thenceforth it was ordained that the poor fathers should never
disrobe themselves any more before the world, but in their vestry-room,
or sextry, as they call it; especially in the presence of women, lest it
should tempt them to the sin of longing and disordinate desire. The
people then asked why it was the friars had so long and large genitories?
The said Panurge resolved the problem very neatly, saying, That which
makes asses to have such great ears is that their dams did put no
biggins on their heads, as Alliaco mentioneth in his Suppositions. By
the like reason, that which makes the genitories or generation-tools of
those so fair fraters so long is, for that they wear no bottomed breeches,
and therefore their jolly member, having no impediment, hangeth
dangling at liberty as far as it can reach, with a wiggle-waggle down to
their knees, as women carry their paternoster beads. and the cause
wherefore they have it so correspondently great is, that in this constant
wig-wagging the humours of the body descend into the said member.
For, according to the Legists, agitation and continual motion is cause of
attraction.
Item, he had another pocket full of itching powder, called stone-alum,
whereof he would cast some into the backs of those women whom he
judged to be most beautiful and stately, which did so ticklishly gall
them, that some would strip themselves in the open view of the world,
and others dance like a cock upon hot embers, or a drumstick on a tabor.
Others, again, ran about the streets, and he would run after them. To
such as were in the stripping vein he would very civilly come to offer
his attendance, and cover them with his cloak, like a courteous and very
gracious man.
Item, in another he had a little leather bottle full of old oil, wherewith,
when he saw any man or woman in a rich new handsome suit, he would
grease, smutch, and spoil all the best parts of it under colour and
pretence of touching them, saying, This is good cloth; this is good satin;
good taffeties! Madam, God give you all that your noble heart desireth!
You have a new suit, pretty sir;--and you a new gown, sweet
mistress;--God give you joy of it, and maintain you in all prosperity!
And with this would lay his hand upon their shoulder, at which touch
such a villainous spot was left behind, so enormously engraven to
perpetuity in the very soul, body, and reputation, that the devil himself
could never have taken it away. Then, upon his departing, he would say,
Madam, take heed you do not fall, for there is a filthy great hole before
you, whereinto if you put your foot, you will quite spoil yourself.
Another he had all full of euphorbium, very finely pulverized. In that
powder did he lay a fair handkerchief curiously wrought, which he had
stolen from a pretty seamstress of the palace, in taking away a louse
from off her bosom which he had put there himself, and, when he came
into the company of some good ladies, he would trifle them into a
discourse of some fine workmanship of bone-lace, then immediately
put his hand into their bosom, asking them, And this work, is it of
Flanders, or of Hainault? and then drew out his handkerchief, and said,
Hold, hold, look what work here is, it is of Foutignan or of Fontarabia,
and shaking it hard at their nose, made them sneeze for four hours
without ceasing. In the meanwhile he would fart like a horse, and the
women would laugh and say, How now, do you fart, Panurge? No, no,
madam, said he, I do but tune my tail to the plain song of the music
which you make with your nose. In another he had a picklock, a pelican,
a crampiron, a crook, and some other iron tools, wherewith there was
no door nor coffer which he would not pick open. He had another full
of little cups, wherewith he played very artificially, for he had his
fingers made to his hand, like those of Minerva or Arachne, and had
heretofore cried treacle. And when he changed a teston, cardecu, or any
other piece of money, the changer had been more subtle than a fox if
Panurge had not at every time made five or six sols (that is, some six or
seven pence,) vanish away invisibly, openly, and manifestly, without
making any hurt or lesion, whereof the changer should have felt
nothing but the wind.
Chapter 2.
XVII.
How Panurge gained the pardons, and married the old women, and of
the suit in law which he had at Paris.
One day I found Panurge very much out of countenance, melancholic,
and silent; which made me suspect that he had no money; whereupon I
said unto him, Panurge, you are sick, as I do very well perceive by your
physiognomy, and I know the disease. You have a flux in your purse;
but take no care. I have yet sevenpence halfpenny that never saw father
nor mother, which shall not be wanting, no more than the pox, in your
necessity. Whereunto he answered me, Well, well; for money one day I
shall have but too much, for I have a philosopher's stone which attracts
money out of men's purses as the adamant doth iron. But will you go
with me to gain the pardons? said he. By my faith, said I, I am no great
pardon-taker in this world--if I shall be any such in the other, I cannot
tell; yet let us go, in God's name; it is but one farthing more or less; But,
said he, lend me then a farthing upon interest. No, no, said I; I will give
it you freely, and from my heart. Grates vobis dominos, said he.
So we went along, beginning at St. Gervase, and I got the pardons at
the first box only, for in those matters very little contenteth me. Then
did I say my small suffrages and the prayers of St. Brigid; but he
gained them all at the boxes, and always gave money to everyone of the
pardoners. From thence we went to Our Lady's Church, to St. John's, to
St. Anthony's, and so to the other churches, where there was a banquet
(bank) of pardons. For my part, I gained no more of them, but he at all
the boxes kissed the relics, and gave at everyone. To be brief, when we
were returned, he brought me to drink at the castle-tavern, and there
showed me ten or twelve of his little bags full of money, at which I
blessed myself, and made the sign of the cross, saying, Where have you
recovered so much money in so little time? Unto which he answered
me that he had taken it out of the basins of the pardons. For in giving
them the first farthing, said he, I put it in with such sleight of hand and
so dexterously that it appeared to be a threepence; thus with one hand I
took threepence, ninepence, or sixpence at the least, and with the other
as much, and so through all the churches where we have been. Yea but,
said I, you damn yourself like a snake, and are withal a thief and
sacrilegious person. True, said he, in your opinion, but I am not of that
mind; for the pardoners do give me it, when they say unto me in
presenting the relics to kiss, Centuplum accipies, that is, that for one
penny I should take a hundred; for accipies is spoken according to the
manner of the Hebrews, who use the future tense instead of the
imperative, as you have in the law, Diliges Dominum, that is, Dilige.
Even so, when the pardon-bearer says to me, Centuplum accipies, his
meaning is, Centuplum accipe; and so doth Rabbi Kimy and Rabbi
Aben Ezra expound it, and all the Massorets, et ibi Bartholus.
Moreover, Pope Sixtus gave me fifteen hundred francs of yearly
pension, which in English money is a hundred and fifty pounds, upon
his ecclesiastical revenues and treasure, for having cured him of a
cankerous botch, which did so torment him that he thought to have
been a cripple by it all his life. Thus I do pay myself at my own hand,
for otherwise I get nothing upon the said ecclesiastical treasure. Ho, my
friend! said he, if thou didst know what advantage I made, and how
well I feathered my nest, by the Pope's bull of the crusade, thou
wouldst wonder exceedingly. It was worth to me above six thousand
florins, in English coin six hundred pounds. And what a devil is
become of them? said I; for of that money thou hast not one halfpenny.
They returned from whence they came, said he; they did no more but
change their master.
But I employed at least three thousand of them, that is, three hundred
pounds English, in marrying--not young virgins, for they find but too
many husbands--but great old sempiternous trots which had not so
much as one tooth in their heads; and that out of the consideration I had
that these good old women had very well spent the time of their youth
in playing at the close-buttock game to all comers, serving the foremost
first, till no man would have any more dealing with them. And, by G--,
I will have their skin-coat shaken once yet before they die. By this
means, to one I gave a hundred florins, to another six score, to another
three hundred, according to that they were infamous, detestable, and
abominable. For, by how much the more horrible and execrable they
were, so much the more must I needs have given them, otherwise the
devil would not have jummed them. Presently I went to some great and
fat wood-porter, or such like, and did myself make the match. But,
before I did show him the old hags, I made a fair muster to him of the
crowns, saying, Good fellow, see what I will give thee if thou wilt but
condescend to duffle, dinfredaille, or lecher it one good time. Then
began the poor rogues to gape like old mules, and I caused to be
provided for them a banquet, with drink of the best, and store of
spiceries, to put the old women in rut and heat of lust. To be short, they
occupied all, like good souls; only, to those that were horribly ugly and
ill-favoured, I caused their head to be put within a bag, to hide their
face.
Besides all this, I have lost a great deal in suits of law. And what
lawsuits couldst thou have? said I; thou hast neither house nor lands.
My friend, said he, the gentlewomen of this city had found out, by the
instigation of the devil of hell, a manner of high-mounted bands and
neckerchiefs for women, which did so closely cover their bosoms that
men could no more put their hands under. For they had put the slit
behind, and those neckcloths were wholly shut before, whereat the poor
sad contemplative lovers were much discontented. Upon a fair Tuesday
I presented a petition to the court, making myself a party against the
said gentlewomen, and showing the great interest that I pretended
therein, protesting that by the same reason I would cause the codpiece
of my breeches to be sewed behind, if the court would not take order
for it. In sum, the gentlewomen put in their defences, showing the
grounds they went upon, and constituted their attorney for the
prosecuting of the cause. But I pursued them so vigorously, that by a
sentence of the court it was decreed those high neckcloths should be no
longer worn if they were not a little cleft and open before; but it cost
me a good sum of money. I had another very filthy and beastly process
against the dung-farmer called Master Fifi and his deputies, that they
should no more read privily the pipe, puncheon, nor quart of sentences,
but in fair full day, and that in the Fodder schools, in face of the Arrian
(Artitian) sophisters, where I was ordained to pay the charges, by
reason of some clause mistaken in the relation of the sergeant. Another
time I framed a complaint to the court against the mules of the
presidents, counsellors, and others, tending to this purpose, that, when
in the lower court of the palace they left them to champ on their bridles,
some bibs were made for them (by the counsellors' wives), that with
their drivelling they might not spoil the pavement; to the end that the
pages of the palace what play upon it with their dice, or at the game of
coxbody, at their own ease, without spoiling their breeches at the knees.
And for this I had a fair decree, but it cost me dear. Now reckon up
what expense I was at in little banquets which from day to day I made
to the pages of the palace. And to what end? said I. My friend, said he,
thou hast no pastime at all in this world. I have more than the king, and
if thou wilt join thyself with me, we will do the devil together. No, no,
said I; by St. Adauras, that will I not, for thou wilt be hanged one time
or another. And thou, said he, wilt be interred some time or other. Now
which is most honourable, the air or the earth? Ho, grosse pecore!
Whilst the pages are at their banqueting, I keep their mules, and to
someone I cut the stirrup-leather of the mounting side till it hang but by
a thin strap or thread, that when the great puffguts of the counsellor or
some other hath taken his swing to get up, he may fall flat on his side
like a pork, and so furnish the spectators with more than a hundred
francs' worth of laughter. But I laugh yet further to think how at his
home-coming the master-page is to be whipped like green rye, which
makes me not to repent what I have bestowed in feasting them. In brief,
he had, as I said before, three score and three ways to acquire money,
but he had two hundred and fourteen to spend it, besides his drinking.
Chapter 2.
XVIII.
How a great scholar of England would have argued against Pantagruel,
and was overcome by Panurge.
In that same time a certain learned man named Thaumast, hearing the
fame and renown of Pantagruel's incomparable knowledge, came out of
his own country of England with an intent only to see him, to try
thereby and prove whether his knowledge in effect was so great as it
was reported to be. In this resolution being arrived at Paris, he went
forthwith unto the house of the said Pantagruel, who was lodged in the
palace of St. Denis, and was then walking in the garden thereof with
Panurge, philosophizing after the fashion of the Peripatetics. At his first
entrance he startled, and was almost out of his wits for fear, seeing him
so great and so tall. Then did he salute him courteously as the manner
is, and said unto him, Very true it is, saith Plato the prince of
philosophers, that if the image and knowledge of wisdom were
corporeal and visible to the eyes of mortals, it would stir up all the
world to admire her. Which we may the rather believe that the very
bare report thereof, scattered in the air, if it happen to be received into
the ears of men, who, for being studious and lovers of virtuous things
are called philosophers, doth not suffer them to sleep nor rest in quiet,
but so pricketh them up and sets them on fire to run unto the place
where the person is, in whom the said knowledge is said to have built
her temple and uttered her oracles. As it was manifestly shown unto us
in the Queen of Sheba, who came from the utmost borders of the East
and Persian Sea, to see the order of Solomon's house and to hear his
wisdom; in Anacharsis, who came out of Scythia, even unto Athens, to
see Solon; in Pythagoras, who travelled far to visit the memphitical
vaticinators; in Plato, who went a great way off to see the magicians of
Egypt, and Architus of Tarentum; in Apollonius Tyaneus, who went as
far as unto Mount Caucasus, passed along the Scythians, the
Massagetes, the Indians, and sailed over the great river Phison, even to
the Brachmans to see Hiarchus; as likewise unto Babylon, Chaldea,
Media, Assyria, Parthia, Syria, Phoenicia, Arabia, Palestina, and
Alexandria, even unto Aethiopia, to see the Gymnosophists. The like
example have we of Titus Livius, whom to see and hear divers studious
persons came to Rome from the confines of France and Spain. I dare
not reckon myself in the number of those so excellent persons, but well
would be called studious, and a lover, not only of learning, but of
learned men also. And indeed, having heard the report of your so
inestimable knowledge, I have left my country, my friends, my kindred,
and my house, and am come thus far, valuing at nothing the length of
the way, the tediousness of the sea, nor strangeness of the land, and that
only to see you and to confer with you about some passages in
philosophy, of geomancy, and of the cabalistic art, whereof I am
doubtful and cannot satisfy my mind; which if you can resolve, I yield
myself unto you for a slave henceforward, together with all my
posterity, for other gift have I none that I can esteem a recompense
sufficient for so great a favour. I will reduce them into writing, and
to-morrow publish them to all the learned men in the city, that we may
dispute publicly before them.
But see in what manner I mean that we shall dispute. I will not argue
pro et contra, as do the sottish sophisters of this town and other places.
Likewise I will not dispute after the manner of the Academics by
declamation; nor yet by numbers, as Pythagoras was wont to do, and as
Picus de la Mirandula did of late at Rome. But I will dispute by signs
only without speaking, for the matters are so abstruse, hard, and
arduous, that words proceeding from the mouth of man will never be
sufficient for unfolding of them to my liking. May it, therefore, please
your magnificence to be there; it shall be at the great hall of Navarre at
seven o'clock in the morning. When he had spoken these words,
Pantagruel very honourably said unto him: Sir, of the graces that God
hath bestowed upon me, I would not deny to communicate unto any
man to my power. For whatever comes from him is good, and his
pleasure is that it should be increased when we come amongst men
worthy and fit to receive this celestial manna of honest literature. In
which number, because that in this time, as I do already very plainly
perceive, thou holdest the first rank, I give thee notice that at all hours
thou shalt find me ready to condescend to every one of thy requests
according to my poor ability; although I ought rather to learn of thee
than thou of me. But, as thou hast protested, we will confer of these
doubts together, and will seek out the resolution, even unto the bottom
of that undrainable well where Heraclitus says the truth lies hidden.
And I do highly commend the manner of arguing which thou hast
proposed, to wit, by signs without speaking; for by this means thou and
I shall understand one another well enough, and yet shall be free from
this clapping of hands which these blockish sophisters make when any
of the arguers hath gotten the better of the argument. Now to-morrow I
will not fail to meet thee at the place and hour that thou hast appointed,
but let me entreat thee that there be not any strife or uproar between us,
and that we seek not the honour and applause of men, but the truth only.
To which Thaumast answered: The Lord God maintain you in his
favour and grace, and, instead of my thankfulness to you, pour down
his blessings upon you, for that your highness and magnificent
greatness hath not disdained to descend to the grant of the request of
my poor baseness. So farewell till to-morrow! Farewell, said
Pantagruel.
Gentlemen, you that read this present discourse, think not that ever men
were more elevated and transported in their thoughts than all this night
were both Thaumast and Pantagruel; for the said Thaumast said to the
keeper of the house of Cluny, where he was lodged, that in all his life
he had never known himself so dry as he was that night. I think, said he,
that Pantagruel held me by the throat. Give order, I pray you, that we
may have some drink, and see that some fresh water be brought to us,
to gargle my palate. On the other side, Pantagruel stretched his wits as
high as he could, entering into very deep and serious meditations, and
did nothing all that night but dote upon and turn over the book of Beda,
De numeris et signis; Plotin's book, De inenarrabilibus; the book of
Proclus, De magia; the book of Artemidorus peri Oneirokritikon; of
Anaxagoras, peri Zemeion; Dinarius, peri Aphaton; the books of
Philiston; Hipponax, peri Anekphoneton, and a rabble of others, so
long, that Panurge said unto him:
My lord, leave all these thoughts and go to bed; for I perceive your
spirits to be so troubled by a too intensive bending of them, that you
may easily fall into some quotidian fever with this so excessive
thinking and plodding. But, having first drunk five and twenty or thirty
good draughts, retire yourself and sleep your fill, for in the morning I
will argue against and answer my master the Englishman, and if I drive
him not ad metam non loqui, then call me knave. Yea but, said he, my
friend Panurge, he is marvellously learned; how wilt thou be able to
answer him? Very well, answered Panurge; I pray you talk no more of
it, but let me alone. Is any man so learned as the devils are? No, indeed,
said Pantagruel, without God's especial grace. Yet for all that, said
Panurge, I have argued against them, gravelled and blanked them in
disputation, and laid them so squat upon their tails that I have made
them look like monkeys. Therefore be assured that to-morrow I will
make this vain-glorious Englishman to skite vinegar before all the
world. So Panurge spent the night with tippling amongst the pages, and
played away all the points of his breeches at primus secundus and at
peck point, in French called La Vergette. Yet, when the condescended
on time was come, he failed not to conduct his master Pantagruel to the
appointed place, unto which, believe me, there was neither great nor
small in Paris but came, thinking with themselves that this devilish
Pantagruel, who had overthrown and vanquished in dispute all these
doting fresh-water sophisters, would now get full payment and be
tickled to some purpose. For this Englishman is a terrible bustler and
horrible coil-keeper. We will see who will be conqueror, for he never
met with his match before.
Thus all being assembled, Thaumast stayed for them, and then, when
Pantagruel and Panurge came into the hall, all the schoolboys,
professors of arts, senior sophisters, and bachelors began to clap their
hands, as their scurvy custom is. But Pantagruel cried out with a loud
voice, as if it had been the sound of a double cannon, saying, Peace,
with a devil to you, peace! By G--, you rogues, if you trouble me here, I
will cut off the heads of everyone of you. At which words they
remained all daunted and astonished like so many ducks, and durst not
do so much as cough, although they had swallowed fifteen pounds of
feathers. Withal they grew so dry with this only voice, that they laid out
their tongues a full half foot beyond their mouths, as if Pantagruel had
salted all their throats. Then began Panurge to speak, saying to the
Englishman, Sir, are you come hither to dispute contentiously in those
propositions you have set down, or, otherwise, but to learn and know
the truth? To which answered Thaumast, Sir, no other thing brought me
hither but the great desire I had to learn and to know that of which I
have doubted all my life long, and have neither found book nor man
able to content me in the resolution of those doubts which I have
proposed. And, as for disputing contentiously, I will not do it, for it is
too base a thing, and therefore leave it to those sottish sophisters who in
their disputes do not search for the truth, but for contradiction only and
debate. Then said Panurge, If I, who am but a mean and inconsiderable
disciple of my master my lord Pantagruel, content and satisfy you in all
and everything, it were a thing below my said master wherewith to
trouble him. Therefore is it fitter that he be chairman, and sit as a judge
and moderator of our discourse and purpose, and give you satisfaction
in many things wherein perhaps I shall be wanting to your expectation.
Truly, said Thaumast, it is very well said; begin then. Now you must
note that Panurge had set at the end of his long codpiece a pretty tuft of
red silk, as also of white, green, and blue, and within it had put a fair
orange.
Chapter 2.
XIX.
How Panurge put to a nonplus the Englishman that argued by signs.
Everybody then taking heed, and hearkening with great silence, the
Englishman lift up on high into the air his two hands severally,
clunching in all the tops of his fingers together, after the manner which,
a la Chinonnese, they call the hen's arse, and struck the one hand on the
other by the nails four several times. Then he, opening them, struck the
one with the flat of the other till it yielded a clashing noise, and that
only once. Again, in joining them as before, he struck twice, and
afterwards four times in opening them. Then did he lay them joined,
and extended the one towards the other, as if he had been devoutly to
send up his prayers unto God. Panurge suddenly lifted up in the air his
right hand, and put the thumb thereof into the nostril of the same side,
holding his four fingers straight out, and closed orderly in a parallel
line to the point of his nose, shutting the left eye wholly, and making
the other wink with a profound depression of the eyebrows and eyelids.
Then lifted he up his left hand, with hard wringing and stretching forth
his four fingers and elevating his thumb, which he held in a line
directly correspondent to the situation of his right hand, with the
distance of a cubit and a half between them. This done, in the same
form he abased towards the ground about the one and the other hand.
Lastly, he held them in the midst, as aiming right at the Englishman's
nose. And if Mercury,--said the Englishman. There Panurge interrupted
him, and said, You have spoken, Mask.
Then made the Englishman this sign. His left hand all open he lifted up
into the air, then instantly shut into his fist the four fingers thereof, and
his thumb extended at length he placed upon the gristle of his nose.
Presently after, he lifted up his right hand all open, and all open abased
and bent it downwards, putting the thumb thereof in the very place
where the little finger of the left hand did close in the fist, and the four
right-hand fingers he softly moved in the air. Then contrarily he did
with the right hand what he had done with the left, and with the left
what he had done with the right.
Panurge, being not a whit amazed at this, drew out into the air his
trismegist codpiece with the left hand, and with his right drew forth a
truncheon of a white ox-rib, and two pieces of wood of a like form, one
of black ebony and the other of incarnation brasil, and put them betwixt
the fingers of that hand in good symmetry; then, knocking them
together, made such a noise as the lepers of Brittany use to do with
their clappering clickets, yet better resounding and far more
harmonious, and with his tongue contracted in his mouth did very
merrily warble it, always looking fixedly upon the Englishman. The
divines, physicians, and chirurgeons that were there thought that by this
sign he would have inferred that the Englishman was a leper. The
counsellors, lawyers, and decretalists conceived that by doing this he
would have concluded some kind of mortal felicity to consist in leprosy,
as the Lord maintained heretofore.
The Englishman for all this was nothing daunted, but holding up his
two hands in the air, kept them in such form that he closed the three
master- fingers in his fist, and passing his thumbs through his indical or
foremost and middle fingers, his auriculary or little fingers remained
extended and stretched out, and so presented he them to Panurge. Then
joined he them so that the right thumb touched the left, and the left
little finger touched the right. Hereat Panurge, without speaking one
word, lift up his hands and made this sign.
He put the nail of the forefinger of his left hand to the nail of the thumb
of the same, making in the middle of the distance as it were a buckle,
and of his right hand shut up all the fingers into his fist, except the
forefinger, which he often thrust in and out through the said two others
of the left hand. Then stretched he out the forefinger and middle finger
or medical of his right hand, holding them asunder as much as he could,
and thrusting them towards Thaumast. Then did he put the thumb of his
left hand upon the corner of his left eye, stretching out all his hand like
the wing of a bird or the fin of a fish, and moving it very daintily this
way and that way, he did as much with his right hand upon the corner
of his right eye. Thaumast began then to wax somewhat pale, and to
tremble, and made him this sign.
With the middle finger of his right hand he struck against the muscle of
the palm or pulp which is under the thumb. Then put he the forefinger
of the right hand in the like buckle of the left, but he put it under, and
not over, as Panurge did. Then Panurge knocked one hand against
another, and blowed in his palm, and put again the forefinger of his
right hand into the overture or mouth of the left, pulling it often in and
out. Then held he out his chin, most intentively looking upon Thaumast.
The people there, which understood nothing in the other signs, knew
very well that therein he demanded, without speaking a word to
Thaumast, What do you mean by that? In effect, Thaumast then began
to sweat great drops, and seemed to all the spectators a man strangely
ravished in high contemplation. Then he bethought himself, and put all
the nails of his left hand against those of his right, opening his fingers
as if they had been semicircles, and with this sign lift up his hands as
high as he could. Whereupon Panurge presently put the thumb of his
right hand under his jaws, and the little finger thereof in the mouth of
the left hand, and in this posture made his teeth to sound very
melodiously, the upper against the lower. With this Thaumast, with
great toil and vexation of spirit, rose up, but in rising let a great baker's
fart, for the bran came after, and pissing withal very strong vinegar,
stunk like all the devils in hell. The company began to stop their noses;
for he had conskited himself with mere anguish and perplexity. Then
lifted he up his right hand, clunching it in such sort that he brought the
ends of all his fingers to meet together, and his left hand he laid flat
upon his breast. Whereat Panurge drew out his long codpiece with his
tuff, and stretched it forth a cubit and a half, holding it in the air with
his right hand, and with his left took out his orange, and, casting it up
into the air seven times, at the eighth he hid it in the fist of his right
hand, holding it steadily up on high, and then began to shake his fair
codpiece, showing it to Thaumast.
After that, Thaumast began to puff up his two cheeks like a player on a
bagpipe, and blew as if he had been to puff up a pig's bladder.
Whereupon Panurge put one finger of his left hand in his nockandrow,
by some called St. Patrick's hole, and with his mouth sucked in the air,
in such a manner as when one eats oysters in the shell, or when we sup
up our broth. This done, he opened his mouth somewhat, and struck his
right hand flat upon it, making therewith a great and a deep sound, as if
it came from the superficies of the midriff through the trachiartery or
pipe of the lungs, and this he did for sixteen times; but Thaumast did
always keep blowing like a goose. Then Panurge put the forefinger of
his right hand into his mouth, pressing it very hard to the muscles
thereof; then he drew it out, and withal made a great noise, as when
little boys shoot pellets out of the pot-cannons made of the hollow
sticks of the branch of an alder-tree, and he did it nine times.
Then Thaumast cried out, Ha, my masters, a great secret! With this he
put in his hand up to the elbow, then drew out a dagger that he had,
holding it by the point downwards. Whereat Panurge took his long
codpiece, and shook it as hard as he could against his thighs; then put
his two hands entwined in manner of a comb upon his head, laying out
his tongue as far as he was able, and turning his eyes in his head like a
goat that is ready to die. Ha, I understand, said Thaumast, but what?
making such a sign that he put the haft of his dagger against his breast,
and upon the point thereof the flat of his hand, turning in a little the
ends of his fingers. Whereat Panurge held down his head on the left
side, and put his middle finger into his right ear, holding up his thumb
bolt upright. Then he crossed his two arms upon his breast and coughed
five times, and at the fifth time he struck his right foot against the
ground. Then he lift up his left arm, and closing all his fingers into his
fist, held his thumb against his forehead, striking with his right hand six
times against his breast. But Thaumast, as not content therewith, put the
thumb of his left hand upon the top of his nose, shutting the rest of his
said hand, whereupon Panurge set his two master-fingers upon each
side of his mouth, drawing it as much as he was able, and widening it
so that he showed all his teeth, and with his two thumbs plucked down
his two eyelids very low, making therewith a very ill-favoured
countenance, as it seemed to the company.
Chapter 2.
XX.
How Thaumast relateth the virtues and knowledge of Panurge.
Then Panurge rose up, and, putting off his cap, did very kindly thank
the said Panurge, and with a loud voice said unto all the people that
were there: My lords, gentlemen, and others, at this time may I to some
good purpose speak that evangelical word, Et ecce plus quam Salomon
hic! You have here in your presence an incomparable treasure, that is,
my lord Pantagruel, whose great renown hath brought me hither, out of
the very heart of England, to confer with him about the insoluble
problems, both in magic, alchemy, the cabal, geomancy, astrology, and
philosophy, which I had in my mind. But at present I am angry even
with fame itself, which I think was envious to him, for that it did not
declare the thousandth part of the worth that indeed is in him. You have
seen how his disciple only hath satisfied me, and hath told me more
than I asked of him. Besides, he hath opened unto me, and resolved
other inestimable doubts, wherein I can assure you he hath to me
discovered the very true well, fountain, and abyss of the encyclopaedia
of learning; yea, in such a sort that I did not think I should ever have
found a man that could have made his skill appear in so much as the
first elements of that concerning which we disputed by signs, without
speaking either word or half word. But, in fine, I will reduce into
writing that which we have said and concluded, that the world may not
take them to be fooleries, and will thereafter cause them to be printed,
that everyone may learn as I have done. Judge, then, what the master
had been able to say, seeing the disciple hath done so valiantly; for,
Non est discipulus super magistrum. Howsoever, God be praised! and I
do very humbly thank you for the honour that you have done us at this
act. God reward you for it eternally! The like thanks gave Pantagruel to
all the company, and, going from thence, he carried Thaumast to dinner
with him, and believe that they drank as much as their skins could hold,
or, as the phrase is, with unbuttoned bellies (for in that age they made
fast their bellies with buttons, as we do now the collars of our doublets
or jerkins), even till they neither knew where they were nor whence
they came. Blessed Lady, how they did carouse it, and pluck, as we say,
at the kid's leather! And flagons to trot, and they to toot, Draw; give,
page, some wine here; reach hither; fill with a devil, so! There was not
one but did drink five and twenty or thirty pipes. Can you tell how?
Even sicut terra sine aqua; for the weather was hot, and, besides that,
they were very dry. In matter of the exposition of the propositions set
down by Thaumast, and the signification of the signs which they used
in their disputation, I would have set them down for you according to
their own relation, but I have been told that Thaumast made a great
book of it, imprinted at London, wherein he hath set down all, without
omitting anything, and therefore at this time I do pass by it.
Chapter 2.
XXI.
How Panurge was in love with a lady of Paris.
Panurge began to be in great reputation in the city of Paris by means of
this disputation wherein he prevailed against the Englishman, and from
thenceforth made his codpiece to be very useful to him. To which effect
he had it pinked with pretty little embroideries after the Romanesca
fashion. And the world did praise him publicly, in so far that there was
a song made of him, which little children did use to sing when they
were to fetch mustard. He was withal made welcome in all companies
of ladies and gentlewomen, so that at last he became presumptuous,
and went about to bring to his lure one of the greatest ladies in the city.
And, indeed, leaving a rabble of long prologues and protestations,
which ordinarily these dolent contemplative lent-lovers make who
never meddle with the flesh, one day he said unto her, Madam, it would
be a very great benefit to the commonwealth, delightful to you,
honourable to your progeny, and necessary for me, that I cover you for
the propagating of my race, and believe it, for experience will teach it
you. The lady at this word thrust him back above a hundred leagues,
saying, You mischievous fool, is it for you to talk thus unto me? Whom
do you think you have in hand? Begone, never to come in my sight
again; for, if one thing were not, I would have your legs and arms cut
off. Well, said he, that were all one to me, to want both legs and arms,
provided you and I had but one merry bout together at the
brangle-buttock game; for herewithin is--in showing her his long
codpiece--Master John Thursday, who will play you such an antic that
you shall feel the sweetness thereof even to the very marrow of your
bones. He is a gallant, and doth so well know how to find out all the
corners, creeks, and ingrained inmates in your carnal trap, that after
him there needs no broom, he'll sweep so well before, and leave
nothing to his followers to work upon. Whereunto the lady answered,
Go, villain, go. If you speak to me one such word more, I will cry out
and make you to be knocked down with blows. Ha, said he, you are not
so bad as you say--no, or else I am deceived in your physiognomy. For
sooner shall the earth mount up unto the heavens, and the highest
heavens descend unto the hells, and all the course of nature be quite
perverted, than that in so great beauty and neatness as in you is there
should be one drop of gall or malice. They say, indeed, that hardly shall
a man ever see a fair woman that is not also stubborn. Yet that is spoke
only of those vulgar beauties; but yours is so excellent, so singular, and
so heavenly, that I believe nature hath given it you as a paragon and
masterpiece of her art, to make us know what she can do when she will
employ all her skill and all her power. There is nothing in you but
honey, but sugar, but a sweet and celestial manna. To you it was to
whom Paris ought to have adjudged the golden apple, not to Venus, no,
nor to Juno, nor to Minerva, for never was there so much magnificence
in Juno, so much wisdom in Minerva, nor so much comeliness in
Venus as there is in you. O heavenly gods and goddesses! How happy
shall that man be to whom you will grant the favour to embrace her, to
kiss her, and to rub his bacon with hers! By G--, that shall be I, I know
it well; for she loves me already her bellyful, I am sure of it, and so was
I predestinated to it by the fairies. And therefore, that we lose no time,
put on, thrust out your gammons!--and would have embraced her, but
she made as if she would put out her head at the window to call her
neighbours for help. Then Panurge on a sudden ran out, and in his
running away said, Madam, stay here till I come again; I will go call
them myself; do not you take so much pains. Thus went he away, not
much caring for the repulse he had got, nor made he any whit the worse
cheer for it. The next day he came to the church at the time she went to
mass. At the door he gave her some of the holy water, bowing himself
very low before her. Afterwards he kneeled down by her very
familiarly and said unto her, Madam, know that I am so amorous of
you that I can neither piss nor dung for love. I do not know, lady, what
you mean, but if I should take any hurt by it, how much you would be
to blame! Go, said she, go! I do not care; let me alone to say my
prayers. Ay but, said he, equivocate upon this: a beau mont le viconte,
or, to fair mount the prick-cunts. I cannot, said she. It is, said he, a beau
con le vit monte, or to a fair c. . .the pr. . .mounts. And upon this, pray
to God to give you that which your noble heart desireth, and I pray you
give me these paternosters. Take them, said she, and trouble me no
longer. This done, she would have taken off her paternosters, which
were made of a kind of yellow stone called cestrin, and adorned with
great spots of gold, but Panurge nimbly drew out one of his knives,
wherewith he cut them off very handsomely, and whilst he was going
away to carry them to the brokers, he said to her, Will you have my
knife? No, no, said she. But, said he, to the purpose. I am at your
commandment, body and goods, tripes and bowels.
In the meantime the lady was not very well content with the want of her
paternosters, for they were one of her implements to keep her
countenance by in the church; then thought with herself, This bold
flouting roister is some giddy, fantastical, light-headed fool of a strange
country. I shall never recover my paternosters again. What will my
husband say? He will no doubt be angry with me. But I will tell him
that a thief hath cut them off from my hands in the church, which he
will easily believe, seeing the end of the ribbon left at my girdle. After
dinner Panurge went to see her, carrying in his sleeve a great purse full
of palace-crowns, called counters, and began to say unto her, Which of
us two loveth other best, you me, or I you? Whereunto she answered,
As for me, I do not hate you; for, as God commands, I love all the
world. But to the purpose, said he; are not you in love with me? I have,
said she, told you so many times already that you should talk so no
more to me, and if you speak of it again I will teach you that I am not
one to be talked unto dishonestly. Get you hence packing, and deliver
me my paternosters, that my husband may not ask me for them.
How now, madam, said he, your paternosters? Nay, by mine oath, I
will not do so, but I will give you others. Had you rather have them of
gold well enamelled in great round knobs, or after the manner of
love-knots, or, otherwise, all massive, like great ingots, or if you had
rather have them of ebony, of jacinth, or of grained gold, with the
marks of fine turquoises, or of fair topazes, marked with fine sapphires,
or of baleu rubies, with great marks of diamonds of eight and twenty
squares? No, no, all this is too little. I know a fair bracelet of fine
emeralds, marked with spotted ambergris, and at the buckle a Persian
pearl as big as an orange. It will not cost above five and twenty
thousand ducats. I will make you a present of it, for I have ready coin
enough,--and withal he made a noise with his counters, as if they had
been French crowns.
Will you have a piece of velvet, either of the violet colour or of crimson
dyed in grain, or a piece of broached or crimson satin? Will you have
chains, gold, tablets, rings? You need no more but say, Yes; so far as
fifty thousand ducats may reach, it is but as nothing to me. By the
virtue of which words he made the water come in her mouth; but she
said unto him, No, I thank you, I will have nothing of you. By G--, said
he, but I will have somewhat of you; yet shall it be that which shall cost
you nothing, neither shall you have a jot the less when you have given
it. Hold!-- showing his long codpiece--this is Master John Goodfellow,
that asks for lodging!--and with that would have embraced her; but she
began to cry out, yet not very loud. Then Panurge put off his
counterfeit garb, changed his false visage, and said unto her, You will
not then otherwise let me do a little? A turd for you! You do not
deserve so much good, nor so much honour; but, by G--, I will make
the dogs ride you;--and with this he ran away as fast as he could, for
fear of blows, whereof he was naturally fearful.
Chapter 2.
XXII.
How Panurge served a Parisian lady a trick that pleased her not very
well.
Now you must note that the next day was the great festival of Corpus
Christi, called the Sacre, wherein all women put on their best apparel,
and on that day the said lady was clothed in a rich gown of crimson
satin, under which she wore a very costly white velvet petticoat.
The day of the eve, called the vigil, Panurge searched so long of one
side and another that he found a hot or salt bitch, which, when he had
tied her with his girdle, he led to his chamber and fed her very well all
that day and night. In the morning thereafter he killed her, and took that
part of her which the Greek geomancers know, and cut it into several
small pieces as small as he could. Then, carrying it away as close as
might be, he went to the place where the lady was to come along to
follow the procession, as the custom is upon the said holy day; and
when she came in Panurge sprinkled some holy water on her, saluting
her very courteously. Then, a little while after she had said her petty
devotions, he sat down close by her upon the same bench, and gave her
this roundelay in writing, in manner as followeth.
A Roundelay.
For this one time, that I to you my love Discovered, you did too cruel
prove, To send me packing, hopeless, and so soon, Who never any
wrong to you had done, In any kind of action, word, or thought: So that,
if my suit liked you not, you ought T' have spoke more civilly, and to
this sense, My friend, be pleased to depart from hence, For this one
time.
What hurt do I, to wish you to remark, With favour and compassion,
how a spark Of your great beauty hath inflamed my heart With deep
affection, and that, for my part, I only ask that you with me would
dance The brangle gay in feats of dalliance, For this one time?
And, as she was opening this paper to see what it was, Panurge very
promptly and lightly scattered the drug that he had upon her in divers
places, but especially in the plaits of her sleeves and of her gown. Then
said he unto her, Madam, the poor lovers are not always at ease. As for
me, I hope that those heavy nights, those pains and troubles, which I
suffer for love of you, shall be a deduction to me of so much pain in
purgatory; yet, at the least, pray to God to give me patience in my
misery. Panurge had no sooner spoke this but all the dogs that were in
the church came running to this lady with the smell of the drugs that he
had strewed upon her, both small and great, big and little, all came,
laying out their member, smelling to her, and pissing everywhere upon
her--it was the greatest villainy in the world. Panurge made the fashion
of driving them away; then took his leave of her and withdrew himself
into some chapel or oratory of the said church to see the sport; for these
villainous dogs did compiss all her habiliments, and left none of her
attire unbesprinkled with their staling; insomuch that a tall greyhound
pissed upon her head, others in her sleeves, others on her crupper-piece,
and the little ones pissed upon her pataines; so that all the women that
were round about her had much ado to save her. Whereat Panurge very
heartily laughing, he said to one of the lords of the city, I believe that
same lady is hot, or else that some greyhound hath covered her lately.
And when he saw that all the dogs were flocking about her, yarring at
the retardment of their access to her, and every way keeping such a coil
with her as they are wont to do about a proud or salt bitch, he forthwith
departed from thence, and went to call Pantagruel, not forgetting in his
way alongst the streets through which he went, where he found any
dogs to give them a bang with his foot, saying, Will you not go with
your fellows to the wedding? Away, hence, avant, avant, with a devil
avant! And being come home, he said to Pantagruel, Master, I pray you
come and see all the dogs of the country, how they are assembled about
a lady, the fairest in the city, and would duffle and line her. Whereunto
Pantagruel willingly condescended, and saw the mystery, which he
found very pretty and strange. But the best was at the procession, in
which were seen above six hundred thousand and fourteen dogs about
her, which did very much trouble and molest her, and whithersoever
she passed, those dogs that came afresh, tracing her footsteps, followed
her at the heels, and pissed in the way where her gown had touched. All
the world stood gazing at this spectacle, considering the countenance of
those dogs, who, leaping up, got about her neck and spoiled all her
gorgeous accoutrements, for the which she could find no remedy but to
retire unto her house, which was a palace. Thither she went, and the
dogs after her; she ran to hide herself, but the chambermaids could not
abstain from laughing. When she was entered into the house and had
shut the door upon herself, all the dogs came running of half a league
round, and did so well bepiss the gate of her house that there they made
a stream with their urine wherein a duck might have very well
swimmed, and it is the same current that now runs at St. Victor, in
which Gobelin dyeth scarlet, for the specifical virtue of these piss-dogs,
as our master Doribus did heretofore preach publicly. So may God help
you, a mill would have ground corn with it. Yet not so much as those of
Basacle at Toulouse.
Chapter 2.
XXIII.
How Pantagruel departed from Paris, hearing news that the Dipsodes
had invaded the land of the Amaurots; and the cause wherefore the
leagues are so short in France.
A little while after Pantagruel heard news that his father Gargantua had
been translated into the land of the fairies by Morgue, as heretofore
were Ogier and Arthur; as also, (In the original edition it stands
'together, and that.'--M.) that the report of his translation being spread
abroad, the Dipsodes had issued out beyond their borders, with inroads
had wasted a great part of Utopia, and at that very time had besieged
the great city of the Amaurots. Whereupon departing from Paris
without bidding any man farewell, for the business required diligence,
he came to Rouen.
Now Pantagruel in his journey seeing that the leagues of that little
territory about Paris called France were very short in regard of those of
other countries, demanded the cause and reason of it from Panurge,
who told him a story which Marotus of the Lac, monachus, set down in
the Acts of the Kings of Canarre, saying that in old times countries
were not distinguished into leagues, miles, furlongs, nor parasangs,
until that King Pharamond divided them, which was done in manner as
followeth. The said king chose at Paris a hundred fair, gallant, lusty,
brisk young men, all resolute and bold adventurers in Cupid's duels,
together with a hundred comely, pretty, handsome, lovely and
well-complexioned wenches of Picardy, all which he caused to be well
entertained and highly fed for the space of eight days. Then having
called for them, he delivered to every one of the young men his wench,
with store of money to defray their charges, and this injunction besides,
to go unto divers places here and there. And wheresoever they should
biscot and thrum their wenches, that, they setting a stone there, it
should be accounted for a league. Thus went away those brave fellows
and sprightly blades most merrily, and because they were fresh and had
been at rest, they very often jummed and fanfreluched almost at every
field's end, and this is the cause why the leagues about Paris are so
short. But when they had gone a great way, and were now as weary as
poor devils, all the oil in their lamps being almost spent, they did not
chink and duffle so often, but contented themselves (I mean for the
men's part) with one scurvy paltry bout in a day, and this is that which
makes the leagues in Brittany, Delanes, Germany, and other more
remote countries so long. Other men give other reasons for it, but this
seems to me of all other the best. To which Pantagruel willingly
adhered. Parting from Rouen, they arrived at Honfleur, where they took
shipping, Pantagruel, Panurge, Epistemon, Eusthenes, and Carpalin.
In which place, waiting for a favourable wind, and caulking their ship,
he received from a lady of Paris, which I (he) had formerly kept and
entertained a good long time, a letter directed on the outside thus,--To
the best beloved of the fair women, and least loyal of the valiant men--
P.N.T.G.R.L.
Chapter 2.
XXIV.
A letter which a messenger brought to Pantagruel from a lady of Paris,
together with the exposition of a posy written in a gold ring.
When Pantagruel had read the superscription he was much amazed, and
therefore demanded of the said messenger the name of her that had sent
it. Then opened he the letter, and found nothing written in it, nor
otherwise enclosed, but only a gold ring, with a square table diamond.
Wondering at this, he called Panurge to him, and showed him the case.
Whereupon Panurge told him that the leaf of paper was written upon,
but with such cunning and artifice that no man could see the writing at
the first sight. Therefore, to find it out, he set it by the fire to see if it
was made with sal ammoniac soaked in water. Then put he it into the
water, to see if the letter was written with the juice of tithymalle. After
that he held it up against the candle, to see if it was written with the
juice of white onions.
Then he rubbed one part of it with oil of nuts, to see if it were not
written with the lee of a fig-tree, and another part of it with the milk of
a woman giving suck to her eldest daughter, to see if it was written
with the blood of red toads or green earth-frogs. Afterwards he rubbed
one corner with the ashes of a swallow's nest, to see if it were not
written with the dew that is found within the herb alcakengy, called the
winter- cherry. He rubbed, after that, one end with ear-wax, to see if it
were not written with the gall of a raven. Then did he dip it into vinegar,
to try if it was not written with the juice of the garden spurge. After that
he greased it with the fat of a bat or flittermouse, to see if it was not
written with the sperm of a whale, which some call ambergris. Then put
it very fairly into a basinful of fresh water, and forthwith took it out, to
see whether it were written with stone-alum. But after all experiments,
when he perceived that he could find out nothing, he called the
messenger and asked him, Good fellow, the lady that sent thee hither,
did she not give thee a staff to bring with thee? thinking that it had been
according to the conceit whereof Aulus Gellius maketh mention. And
the messenger answered him, No, sir. Then Panurge would have caused
his head to be shaven, to see whether the lady had written upon his bald
pate, with the hard lye whereof soap is made, that which she meant; but,
perceiving that his hair was very long, he forbore, considering that it
could not have grown to so great a length in so short a time.
Then he said to Pantagruel, Master, by the virtue of G--, I cannot tell
what to do nor say in it. For, to know whether there be anything written
upon this or no, I have made use of a good part of that which Master
Francisco di Nianto, the Tuscan, sets down, who hath written the
manner of reading letters that do not appear; that which Zoroastes
published, Peri grammaton acriton; and Calphurnius Bassus, De literis
illegibilibus. But I can see nothing, nor do I believe that there is
anything else in it than the ring. Let us, therefore, look upon it. Which
when they had done, they found this in Hebrew written within, Lamach
saba(ch)thani; whereupon they called Epistemon, and asked him what
that meant. To which he answered that they were Hebrew words,
signifying, Wherefore hast thou forsaken me? Upon that Panurge
suddenly replied, I know the mystery. Do you see this diamond? It is a
false one. This, then, is the exposition of that which the lady means,
Diamant faux, that is, false lover, why hast thou forsaken me? Which
interpretation Pantagruel presently understood, and withal
remembering that at his departure he had not bid the lady farewell, he
was very sorry, and would fain have returned to Paris to make his peace
with her. But Epistemon put him in mind of Aeneas's departure from
Dido, and the saying of Heraclitus of Tarentum, That the ship being at
anchor, when need requireth we must cut the cable rather than lose time
about untying of it,--and that he should lay aside all other thoughts to
succour the city of his nativity, which was then in danger. And, indeed,
within an hour after that the wind arose at the north-north-west,
wherewith they hoist sail, and put out, even into the main sea, so that
within few days, passing by Porto Sancto and by the Madeiras, they
went ashore in the Canary Islands. Parting from thence, they passed by
Capobianco, by Senege, by Capoverde, by Gambre, by Sagres, by
Melli, by the Cap di Buona Speranza, and set ashore again in the
kingdom of Melinda. Parting from thence, they sailed away with a
tramontane or northerly wind, passing by Meden, by Uti, by Uden, by
Gelasim, by the Isles of the Fairies, and alongst the kingdom of
Achorie, till at last they arrived at the port of Utopia, distant from the
city of the Amaurots three leagues and somewhat more.
When they were ashore, and pretty well refreshed, Pantagruel said,
Gentlemen, the city is not far from hence; therefore, were it not amiss,
before we set forward, to advise well what is to be done, that we be not
like the Athenians, who never took counsel until after the fact? Are you
resolved to live and die with me? Yes, sir, said they all, and be as
confident of us as of your own fingers. Well, said he, there is but one
thing that keeps my mind in great doubt and suspense, which is this,
that I know not in what order nor of what number the enemy is that
layeth siege to the city; for, if I were certain of that, I should go forward
and set on with the better assurance. Let us therefore consult together,
and bethink ourselves by what means we may come to this intelligence.
Whereunto they all said, Let us go thither and see, and stay you here for
us; for this very day, without further respite, do we make account to
bring you a certain report thereof.
Myself, said Panurge, will undertake to enter into their camp, within
the very midst of their guards, unespied by their watch, and merrily
feast and lecher it at their cost, without being known of any, to see the
artillery and the tents of all the captains, and thrust myself in with a
grave and magnific carriage amongst all their troops and companies,
without being discovered. The devil would not be able to peck me out
with all his circumventions, for I am of the race of Zopyrus.
And I, said Epistemon, know all the plots and strategems of the valiant
captains and warlike champions of former ages, together with all the
tricks and subtleties of the art of war. I will go, and, though I be
detected and revealed, I will escape by making them believe of you
whatever I please, for I am of the race of Sinon.
I, said Eusthenes, will enter and set upon them in their trenches, in spite
of their sentries and all their guards; for I will tread upon their bellies
and break their legs and arms, yea, though they were every whit as
strong as the devil himself, for I am of the race of Hercules.
And I, said Carpalin, will get in there if the birds can enter, for I am so
nimble of body, and light withal, that I shall have leaped over their
trenches, and ran clean through all their camp, before that they perceive
me; neither do I fear shot, nor arrow, nor horse, how swift soever, were
he the Pegasus of Perseus or Pacolet, being assured that I shall be able
to make a safe and sound escape before them all without any hurt. I will
undertake to walk upon the ears of corn or grass in the meadows,
without making either of them do so much as bow under me, for I am
of the race of Camilla the Amazon.
Chapter 2.
XXV.
How Panurge, Carpalin, Eusthenes, and Epistemon, the gentlemen
attendants of Pantagruel, vanquished and discomfited six hundred and
threescore horsemen very cunningly.
As he was speaking this, they perceived six hundred and threescore
light horsemen, gallantly mounted, who made an outroad thither to see
what ship it was that was newly arrived in the harbour, and came in a
full gallop to take them if they had been able. Then said Pantagruel, My
lads, retire yourselves unto the ship; here are some of our enemies
coming apace, but I will kill them here before you like beasts, although
they were ten times so many; in the meantime, withdraw yourselves,
and take your sport at it. Then answered Panurge, No, sir; there is no
reason that you should do so, but, on the contrary, retire you unto the
ship, both you and the rest, for I alone will here discomfit them; but we
must not linger; come, set forward. Whereunto the others said, It is well
advised, sir; withdraw yourself, and we will help Panurge here, so shall
you know what we are able to do. Then said Pantagruel, Well, I am
content; but, if that you be too weak, I will not fail to come to your
assistance. With this Panurge took two great cables of the ship and tied
them to the kemstock or capstan which was on the deck towards the
hatches, and fastened them in the ground, making a long circuit, the
one further off, the other within that. Then said he to Epistemon, Go
aboard the ship, and, when I give you a call, turn about the capstan
upon the orlop diligently, drawing unto you the two cable-ropes; and
said to Eusthenes and to Carpalin, My bullies, stay you here, and offer
yourselves freely to your enemies. Do as they bid you, and make as if
you would yield unto them, but take heed you come not within the
compass of the ropes--be sure to keep yourselves free of them. And
presently he went aboard the ship, and took a bundle of straw and a
barrel of gunpowder, strewed it round about the compass of the cords,
and stood by with a brand of fire or match lighted in his hand. Presently
came the horsemen with great fury, and the foremost ran almost home
to the ship, and, by reason of the slipperiness of the bank, they fell, they
and their horses, to the number of four and forty; which the rest seeing,
came on, thinking that resistance had been made them at their arrival.
But Panurge said unto them, My masters, I believe that you have hurt
yourselves; I pray you pardon us, for it is not our fault, but the
slipperiness of the sea- water that is always flowing; we submit
ourselves to your good pleasure. So said likewise his two other fellows,
and Epistemon that was upon the deck. In the meantime Panurge
withdrew himself, and seeing that they were all within the compass of
the cables, and that his two companions were retired, making room for
all those horses which came in a crowd, thronging upon the neck of one
another to see the ship and such as were in it, cried out on a sudden to
Epistemon, Draw, draw! Then began Epistemon to wind about the
capstan, by doing whereof the two cables so entangled and empestered
the legs of the horses, that they were all of them thrown down to the
ground easily, together with their riders. But they, seeing that, drew
their swords, and would have cut them; whereupon Panurge set fire to
the train, and there burnt them up all like damned souls, both men and
horses, not one escaping save one alone, who being mounted on a fleet
Turkey courser, by mere speed in flight got himself out of the circle of
the ropes. But when Carpalin perceived him, he ran after him with such
nimbleness and celerity that he overtook him in less than a hundred
paces; then, leaping close behind him upon the crupper of his horse,
clasped him in his arms, and brought him back to the ship.
This exploit being ended, Pantagruel was very jovial, and wondrously
commended the industry of these gentlemen, whom he called his
fellow- soldiers, and made them refresh themselves and feed well and
merrily upon the seashore, and drink heartily with their bellies upon the
ground, and their prisoner with them, whom they admitted to that
familiarity; only that the poor devil was somewhat afraid that
Pantagruel would have eaten him up whole, which, considering the
wideness of his mouth and capacity of his throat was no great matter
for him to have done; for he could have done it as easily as you would
eat a small comfit, he showing no more in his throat than would a grain
of millet-seed in the mouth of an ass.
Chapter 2.
XXVI.
How Pantagruel and his company were weary in eating still salt meats;
and how Carpalin went a-hunting to have some venison.
Thus as they talked and chatted together, Carpalin said, And, by the
belly of St. Quenet, shall we never eat any venison? This salt meat
makes me horribly dry. I will go fetch you a quarter of one of those
horses which we have burnt; it is well roasted already. As he was rising
up to go about it, he perceived under the side of a wood a fair great
roebuck, which was come out of his fort, as I conceive, at the sight of
Panurge's fire. Him did he pursue and run after with as much vigour
and swiftness as if it had been a bolt out of a crossbow, and caught him
in a moment; and whilst he was in his course he with his hands took in
the air four great bustards, seven bitterns, six and twenty grey
partridges, two and thirty red-legged ones, sixteen pheasants, nine
woodcocks, nineteen herons, two and thirty cushats and ringdoves; and
with his feet killed ten or twelve hares and rabbits, which were then at
relief and pretty big withal, eighteen rails in a knot together, with
fifteen young wild-boars, two little beavers, and three great foxes. So,
striking the kid with his falchion athwart the head, he killed him, and,
bearing him on his back, he in his return took up his hares, rails, and
young wild-boars, and, as far off as he could be heard, cried out and
said, Panurge, my friend, vinegar, vinegar! Then the good Pantagruel,
thinking he had fainted, commanded them to provide him some vinegar;
but Panurge knew well that there was some good prey in hands, and
forthwith showed unto noble Pantagruel how he was bearing upon his
back a fair roebuck, and all his girdle bordered with hares. Then
immediately did Epistemon make, in the name of the nine Muses, nine
antique wooden spits. Eusthenes did help to flay, and Panurge placed
two great cuirassier saddles in such sort that they served for andirons,
and making their prisoner to be their cook, they roasted their venison
by the fire wherein the horsemen were burnt; and making great cheer
with a good deal of vinegar, the devil a one of them did forbear from
his victuals--it was a triumphant and incomparable spectacle to see how
they ravened and devoured. Then said Pantagruel, Would to God every
one of you had two pairs of little anthem or sacring bells hanging at
your chin, and that I had at mine the great clocks of Rennes, of
Poictiers, of Tours, and of Cambray, to see what a peal they would ring
with the wagging of our chaps. But, said Panurge, it were better we
thought a little upon our business, and by what means we might get the
upper hand of our enemies. That is well remembered, said Pantagruel.
Therefore spoke he thus to the prisoner, My friend, tell us here the truth,
and do not lie to us at all, if thou wouldst not be flayed alive, for it is I
that eat the little children. Relate unto us at full the order, the number,
and the strength of the army. To which the prisoner answered, Sir,
know for a truth that in the army there are three hundred giants, all
armed with armour of proof, and wonderful great. Nevertheless, not
fully so great as you, except one that is their head, named Loupgarou,
who is armed from head to foot with cyclopical anvils. Furthermore,
one hundred three score and three thousand foot, all armed with the
skins of hobgoblins, strong and valiant men; eleven thousand four
hundred men-at- arms or cuirassiers; three thousand six hundred double
cannons, and arquebusiers without number; four score and fourteen
thousand pioneers; one hundred and fifty thousand whores, fair like
goddesses--(That is for me, said Panurge)--whereof some are Amazons,
some Lionnoises, others Parisiennes, Taurangelles, Angevines,
Poictevines, Normandes, and High Dutch--there are of them of all
countries and all languages.
Yea but, said Pantagruel, is the king there? Yes, sir, said the prisoner;
he is there in person, and we call him Anarchus, king of the Dipsodes,
which is as much to say as thirsty people, for you never saw men more
thirsty, nor more willing to drink, and his tent is guarded by the giants.
It is enough, said Pantagruel. Come, brave boys, are you resolved to go
with me? To which Panurge answered, God confound him that leaves
you! I have already bethought myself how I will kill them all like pigs,
and so the devil one leg of them shall escape. But I am somewhat
troubled about one thing. And what is that? said Pantagruel. It is, said
Panurge, how I shall be able to set forward to the justling and
bragmardizing of all the whores that be there this afternoon, in such
sort that there escape not one unbumped by me, breasted and jummed
after the ordinary fashion of man and women in the Venetian conflict.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, said Pantagruel.
And Carpalin said: The devil take these sink-holes, if, by G--, I do not
bumbaste some one of them. Then said Eusthenes: What! shall not I
have any, whose paces, since we came from Rouen, were never so well
winded up as that my needle could mount to ten or eleven o'clock, till
now that I have it hard, stiff, and strong, like a hundred devils? Truly,
said Panurge, thou shalt have of the fattest, and of those that are most
plump and in the best case.
How now! said Epistemon; everyone shall ride, and I must lead the ass?
The devil take him that will do so. We will make use of the right of war,
Qui potest capere, capiat. No, no, said Panurge, but tie thine ass to a
crook, and ride as the world doth. And the good Pantagruel laughed at
all this, and said unto them, You reckon without your host. I am much
afraid that, before it be night, I shall see you in such taking that you
will have no great stomach to ride, but more like to be rode upon with
sound blows of pike and lance. Baste, said Epistemon, enough of that! I
will not fail to bring them to you, either to roast or boil, to fry or put in
paste. They are not so many in number as were in the army of Xerxes,
for he had thirty hundred thousand fighting-men, if you will believe
Herodotus and Trogus Pompeius, and yet Themistocles with a few men
overthrew them all. For God's sake, take you no care for that.
Cobsminny, cobsminny, said Panurge; my codpiece alone shall suffice
to overthrow all the men; and my St. Sweephole, that dwells within it,
shall lay all the women squat upon their backs. Up then, my lads, said
Pantagruel, and let us march along.
Chapter 2.
XXVII.
How Pantagruel set up one trophy in memorial of their valour, and
Panurge another in remembrance of the hares. How Pantagruel likewise
with his farts begat little men, and with his fisgs little women; and how
Panurge broke a great staff over two glasses.
Before we depart hence, said Pantagruel, in remembrance of the exploit
that you have now performed I will in this place erect a fair trophy.
Then every man amongst them, with great joy and fine little country
songs, set up a huge big post, whereunto they hanged a great cuirassier
saddle, the fronstal of a barbed horse, bridle-bosses, pulley-pieces for
the knees, stirrup-leathers, spurs, stirrups, a coat of mail, a corslet
tempered with steel, a battle-axe, a strong, short, and sharp horseman's
sword, a gauntlet, a horseman's mace, gushet-armour for the armpits,
leg-harness, and a gorget, with all other furniture needful for the
decorement of a triumphant arch, in sign of a trophy. And then
Pantagruel, for an eternal memorial, wrote this victorial ditton, as
followeth:--
Here was the prowess made apparent of Four brave and valiant
champions of proof, Who, without any arms but wit, at once, Like
Fabius, or the two Scipions, Burnt in a fire six hundred and threescore
Crablice, strong rogues ne'er vanquished before. By this each king may
learn, rook, pawn, and knight, That sleight is much more prevalent than
might.
For victory, As all men see, Hangs on the ditty Of that committee
Where the great God Hath his abode.
Nor doth he it to strong and great men give, But to his elect, as we must
believe; Therefore shall he obtain wealth and esteem, Who thorough
faith doth put his trust in him.
Whilst Pantagruel was writing these foresaid verses, Panurge halved
and fixed upon a great stake the horns of a roebuck, together with the
skin and the right forefoot thereof, the ears of three leverets, the chine
of a coney, the jaws of a hare, the wings of two bustards, the feet of
four queest-doves, a bottle or borracho full of vinegar, a horn wherein
to put salt, a wooden spit, a larding stick, a scurvy kettle full of holes, a
dripping-pan to make sauce in, an earthen salt-cellar, and a goblet of
Beauvais. Then, in imitation of Pantagruel's verses and trophy, wrote
that which followeth:--
Here was it that four jovial blades sat down To a profound carousing,
and to crown Their banquet with those wines which please best great
Bacchus, the monarch of their drinking state. Then were the reins and
furch of a young hare, With salt and vinegar, displayed there, Of which
to snatch a bit or two at once They all fell on like hungry scorpions.
For th' Inventories Of Defensories Say that in heat We must drink neat
All out, and of The choicest stuff.
But it is bad to eat of young hare's flesh, Unless with vinegar we it
refresh. Receive this tenet, then, without control, That vinegar of that
meat is the soul.
Then said Pantagruel, Come, my lads, let us begone! we have stayed
here too long about our victuals; for very seldom doth it fall out that the
greatest eaters do the most martial exploits. There is no shadow like
that of flying colours, no smoke like that of horses, no clattering like
that of armour. At this Epistemon began to smile, and said, There is no
shadow like that of the kitchen, no smoke like that of pasties, and no
clattering like that of goblets. Unto which answered Panurge, There is
no shadow like that of curtains, no smoke like that of women's breasts,
and no clattering like that of ballocks. Then forthwith rising up he gave
a fart, a leap, and a whistle, and most joyfully cried out aloud, Ever live
Pantagruel! When Pantagruel saw that, he would have done as much;
but with the fart that he let the earth trembled nine leagues about,
wherewith and with the corrupted air he begot above three and fifty
thousand little men, ill- favoured dwarfs, and with one fisg that he let
he made as many little women, crouching down, as you shall see in
divers places, which never grow but like cow's tails, downwards, or,
like the Limosin radishes, round. How now! said Panurge, are your
farts so fertile and fruitful? By G--, here be brave farted men and
fisgued women; let them be married together; they will beget fine
hornets and dorflies. So did Pantagruel, and called them pigmies. Those
he sent to live in an island thereby, where since that time they are
increased mightily. But the cranes make war with them continually,
against which they do most courageously defend themselves; for these
little ends of men and dandiprats (whom in Scotland they call
whiphandles and knots of a tar-barrel) are commonly very testy and
choleric; the physical reason whereof is, because their heart is near
their spleen.
At this same time Panurge took two drinking glasses that were there,
both of one bigness, and filled them with water up to the brim, and set
one of them upon one stool and the other upon another, placing them
about one foot from one another. Then he took the staff of a javelin,
about five foot and a half long, and put it upon the two glasses, so that
the two ends of the staff did come just to the brims of the glasses. This
done, he took a great stake or billet of wood, and said to Pantagruel and
to the rest, My masters, behold how easily we shall have the victory
over our enemies; for just as I shall break this staff here upon these
glasses, without either breaking or crazing of them, nay, which is more,
without spilling one drop of the water that is within them, even so shall
we break the heads of our Dipsodes without receiving any of us any
wound or loss in our person or goods. But, that you may not think there
is any witchcraft in this, hold! said he to Eusthenes, strike upon the
midst as hard as thou canst with this log. Eusthenes did so, and the staff
broke in two pieces, and not one drop of the water fell out of the
glasses. Then said he, I know a great many such other tricks; let us now
therefore march boldly and with assurance.
Chapter 2.
XXVIII.
How Pantagruel got the victory very strangely over the Dipsodes and
the Giants.
After all this talk, Pantagruel took the prisoner to him and sent him
away, saying, Go thou unto thy king in his camp, and tell him tidings of
what thou hast seen, and let him resolve to feast me to-morrow about
noon; for, as soon as my galleys shall come, which will be to-morrow
at furthest, I will prove unto him by eighteen hundred thousand
fighting-men and seven thousand giants, all of them greater than I am,
that he hath done foolishly and against reason thus to invade my
country. Wherein Pantagruel feigned that he had an army at sea. But
the prisoner answered that he would yield himself to be his slave, and
that he was content never to return to his own people, but rather with
Pantagruel to fight against them, and for God's sake besought him that
he might be permitted so to do. Whereunto Pantagruel would not give
consent, but commanded him to depart thence speedily and begone as
he had told him, and to that effect gave him a boxful of euphorbium,
together with some grains of the black chameleon thistle, steeped into
aqua vitae, and made up into the condiment of a wet sucket,
commanding him to carry it to his king, and to say unto him, that if he
were able to eat one ounce of that without drinking after it, he might
then be able to resist him without any fear or apprehension of danger.
The prisoner then besought him with joined hands that in the hour of
the battle he would have compassion upon him. Whereat Pantagruel
said unto him, After that thou hast delivered all unto the king, put thy
whole confidence in God, and he will not forsake thee; because,
although for my part I be mighty, as thou mayst see, and have an
infinite number of men in arms, I do nevertheless trust neither in my
force nor in mine industry, but all my confidence is in God my
protector, who doth never forsake those that in him do put their trust
and confidence. This done, the prisoner requested him that he would
afford him some reasonable composition for his ransom. To which
Pantagruel answered, that his end was not to rob nor ransom men, but
to enrich them and reduce them to total liberty. Go thy way, said he, in
the peace of the living God, and never follow evil company, lest some
mischief befall thee. The prisoner being gone, Pantagruel said to his
men, Gentlemen, I have made this prisoner believe that we have an
army at sea; as also that we will not assault them till to-morrow at noon,
to the end that they, doubting of the great arrival of our men, may
spend this night in providing and strengthening themselves, but in the
meantime my intention is that we charge them about the hour of the
first sleep.
Let us leave Pantagruel here with his apostles, and speak of King
Anarchus and his army. When the prisoner was come he went unto the
king and told him how there was a great giant come, called Pantagruel,
who had overthrown and made to be cruelly roasted all the six hundred
and nine and fifty horsemen, and he alone escaped to bring the news.
Besides that, he was charged by the said giant to tell him that the next
day, about noon, he must make a dinner ready for him, for at that hour
he was resolved to set upon him. Then did he give him that box
wherein were those confitures. But as soon as he had swallowed down
one spoonful of them, he was taken with such a heat in the throat,
together with an ulceration in the flap of the top of the windpipe, that
his tongue peeled with it in such sort that, for all they could do unto
him, he found no ease at all but by drinking only without cessation; for
as soon as ever he took the goblet from his head, his tongue was on a
fire, and therefore they did nothing but still pour in wine into his throat
with a funnel. Which when his captains, bashaws, and guard of his
body did see, they tasted of the same drugs to try whether they were so
thirst-procuring and alterative or no. But it so befell them as it had done
their king, and they plied the flagon so well that the noise ran
throughout all the camp, how the prisoner was returned; that the next
day they were to have an assault; that the king and his captains did
already prepare themselves for it, together with his guards, and that
with carousing lustily and quaffing as hard as they could. Every man,
therefore, in the army began to tipple, ply the pot, swill and guzzle it as
fast as they could. In sum, they drunk so much, and so long, that they
fell asleep like pigs, all out of order throughout the whole camp.
Let us now return to the good Pantagruel, and relate how he carried
himself in this business. Departing from the place of the trophies, he
took the mast of their ship in his hand like a pilgrim's staff, and put
within the top of it two hundred and seven and thirty puncheons of
white wine of Anjou, the rest was of Rouen, and tied up to his girdle
the bark all full of salt, as easily as the lansquenets carry their little
panniers, and so set onward on his way with his fellow-soldiers. When
he was come near to the enemy's camp, Panurge said unto him, Sir, if
you would do well, let down this white wine of Anjou from the scuttle
of the mast of the ship, that we may all drink thereof, like Bretons.
Hereunto Pantagruel very willingly consented, and they drank so neat
that there was not so much as one poor drop left of two hundred and
seven and thirty puncheons, except one boracho or leathern bottle of
Tours which Panurge filled for himself, for he called that his
vademecum, and some scurvy lees of wine in the bottom, which served
him instead of vinegar. After they had whittled and curried the can
pretty handsomely, Panurge gave Pantagruel to eat some devilish drugs
compounded of lithotripton, which is a stone-dissolving ingredient,
nephrocatarticon, that purgeth the reins, the marmalade of quinces,
called codiniac, a confection of cantharides, which are green flies
breeding on the tops of olive-trees, and other kinds of diuretic or
piss-procuring simples. This done, Pantagruel said to Carpalin, Go into
the city, scrambling like a cat against the wall, as you can well do, and
tell them that now presently they come out and charge their enemies as
rudely as they can, and having said so, come down, taking a lighted
torch with you, wherewith you shall set on fire all the tents and
pavilions in the camp; then cry as loud as you are able with your great
voice, and then come away from thence. Yea but, said Carpalin, were it
not good to cloy all their ordnance? No, no, said Pantagruel, only blow
up all their powder. Carpalin, obeying him, departed suddenly and did
as he was appointed by Pantagruel, and all the combatants came forth
that were in the city, and when he had set fire in the tents and pavilions,
he passed so lightly through them, and so highly and profoundly did
they snort and sleep, that they never perceived him. He came to the
place where their artillery was, and set their munition on fire. But here
was the danger. The fire was so sudden that poor Carpalin had almost
been burnt. And had it not been for his wonderful agility he had been
fried like a roasting pig. But he departed away so speedily that a bolt or
arrow out of a crossbow could not have had a swifter motion. When he
was clear of their trenches, he shouted aloud, and cried out so
dreadfully, and with such amazement to the hearers, that it seemed all
the devils of hell had been let loose. At which noise the enemies
awaked, but can you tell how? Even no less astonished than are monks
at the ringing of the first peal to matins, which in Lusonnois is called
rub-ballock.
In the meantime Pantagruel began to sow the salt that he had in his bark,
and because they slept with an open gaping mouth, he filled all their
throats with it, so that those poor wretches were by it made to cough
like foxes. Ha, Pantagruel, how thou addest greater heat to the firebrand
that is in us! Suddenly Pantagruel had will to piss, by means of the
drugs which Panurge had given him, and pissed amidst the camp so
well and so copiously that he drowned them all, and there was a
particular deluge ten leagues round about, of such considerable depth
that the history saith, if his father's great mare had been there, and
pissed likewise, it would undoubtedly have been a more enormous
deluge than that of Deucalion; for she did never piss but she made a
river greater than is either the Rhone or the Danube. Which those that
were come out of the city seeing, said, They are all cruelly slain; see
how the blood runs along. But they were deceived in thinking
Pantagruel's urine had been the blood of their enemies, for they could
not see but by the light of the fire of the pavilions and some small light
of the moon.
The enemies, after that they were awaked, seeing on one side the fire in
the camp, and on the other the inundation of the urinal deluge, could
not tell what to say nor what to think. Some said that it was the end of
the world and the final judgment, which ought to be by fire. Others
again thought that the sea-gods, Neptune, Proteus, Triton, and the rest
of them, did persecute them, for that indeed they found it to be like
sea-water and salt.
O who were able now condignly to relate how Pantagruel did demean
himself against the three hundred giants! O my Muse, my Calliope, my
Thalia, inspire me at this time, restore unto me my spirits; for this is the
logical bridge of asses! Here is the pitfall, here is the difficulty, to have
ability enough to express the horrible battle that was fought. Ah, would
to God that I had now a bottle of the best wine that ever those drank
who shall read this so veridical history!
Chapter 2.
XXIX.
How Pantagruel discomfited the three hundred giants armed with
free-stone, and Loupgarou their captain.
The giants, seeing all their camp drowned, carried away their king
Anarchus upon their backs as well as they could out of the fort, as
Aeneas did to his father Anchises, in the time of the conflagration of
Troy. When Panurge perceived them, he said to Pantagruel, Sir, yonder
are the giants coming forth against you; lay on them with your mast
gallantly, like an old fencer; for now is the time that you must show
yourself a brave man and an honest. And for our part we will not fail
you. I myself will kill to you a good many boldly enough; for why,
David killed Goliath very easily; and then this great lecher, Eusthenes,
who is stronger than four oxen, will not spare himself. Be of good
courage, therefore, and valiant; charge amongst them with point and
edge, and by all manner of means. Well, said Pantagruel, of courage I
have more than for fifty francs, but let us be wise, for Hercules first
never undertook against two. That is well cacked, well scummered, said
Panurge; do you compare yourself with Hercules? You have, by G--,
more strength in your teeth, and more scent in your bum, than ever
Hercules had in all his body and soul. So much is a man worth as he
esteems himself. Whilst they spake those words, behold! Loupgarou
was come with all his giants, who, seeing Pantagruel in a manner alone,
was carried away with temerity and presumption, for hopes that he had
to kill the good man. Whereupon he said to his companions the giants,
You wenchers of the low country, by Mahoom! if any of you undertake
to fight against these men here, I will put you cruelly to death. It is my
will that you let me fight single. In the meantime you shall have good
sport to look upon us.
Then all the other giants retired with their king to the place where the
flagons stood, and Panurge and his comrades with them, who
counterfeited those that have had the pox, for he wreathed about his
mouth, shrunk up his fingers, and with a harsh and hoarse voice said
unto them, I forsake -od, fellow-soldiers, if I would have it to be
believed that we make any war at all. Give us somewhat to eat with you
whilest our masters fight against one another. To this the king and
giants jointly condescended, and accordingly made them to banquet
with them. In the meantime Panurge told them the follies of Turpin, the
examples of St. Nicholas, and the tale of a tub. Loupgarou then set
forward towards Pantagruel, with a mace all of steel, and that of the
best sort, weighing nine thousand seven hundred quintals and two
quarterons, at the end whereof were thirteen pointed diamonds, the
least whereof was as big as the greatest bell of Our Lady's Church at
Paris--there might want perhaps the thickness of a nail, or at most, that
I may not lie, of the back of those knives which they call cutlugs or
earcutters, but for a little off or on, more or less, it is no matter--and it
was enchanted in such sort that it could never break, but, contrarily, all
that it did touch did break immediately. Thus, then, as he approached
with great fierceness and pride of heart, Pantagruel, casting up his eyes
to heaven, recommended himself to God with all his soul, making such
a vow as followeth.
O thou Lord God, who hast always been my protector and my saviour!
thou seest the distress wherein I am at this time. Nothing brings me
hither but a natural zeal, which thou hast permitted unto mortals, to
keep and defend themselves, their wives and children, country and
family, in case thy own proper cause were not in question, which is the
faith; for in such a business thou wilt have no coadjutors, only a
catholic confession and service of thy word, and hast forbidden us all
arming and defence. For thou art the Almighty, who in thine own cause,
and where thine own business is taken to heart, canst defend it far
beyond all that we can conceive, thou who hast thousand thousands of
hundreds of millions of legions of angels, the least of which is able to
kill all mortal men, and turn about the heavens and earth at his pleasure,
as heretofore it very plainly appeared in the army of Sennacherib. If it
may please thee, therefore, at this time to assist me, as my whole trust
and confidence is in thee alone, I vow unto thee, that in all countries
whatsoever wherein I shall have any power or authority, whether in this
of Utopia or elsewhere, I will cause thy holy gospel to be purely,
simply, and entirely preached, so that the abuses of a rabble of
hypocrites and false prophets, who by human constitutions and
depraved inventions have empoisoned all the world, shall be quite
exterminated from about me.
This vow was no sooner made, but there was heard a voice from
heaven saying, Hoc fac et vinces; that is to say, Do this, and thou shalt
overcome. Then Pantagruel, seeing that Loupgarou with his mouth
wide open was drawing near to him, went against him boldly, and cried
out as loud as he was able, Thou diest, villain, thou diest! purposing by
his horrible cry to make him afraid, according to the discipline of the
Lacedaemonians. Withal, he immediately cast at him out of his bark,
which he wore at his girdle, eighteen cags and four bushels of salt,
wherewith he filled both his mouth, throat, nose, and eyes. At this
Loupgarou was so highly incensed that, most fiercely setting upon him,
he thought even then with a blow of his mace to have beat out his
brains. But Pantagruel was very nimble, and had always a quick foot
and a quick eye, and therefore with his left foot did he step back one
pace, yet not so nimbly but that the blow, falling upon the bark, broke it
in four thousand four score and six pieces, and threw all the rest of the
salt about the ground. Pantagruel, seeing that, most gallantly displayed
the vigour of his arms, and, according to the art of the axe, gave him
with the great end of his mast a homethrust a little above the breast;
then, bringing along the blow to the left side, with a slash struck him
between the neck and shoulders. After that, advancing his right foot, he
gave him a push upon the couillons with the upper end of his said mast,
wherewith breaking the scuttle on the top thereof, he spilt three or four
puncheons of wine that were left therein.
Upon that Loupgarou thought that he had pierced his bladder, and that
the wine that came forth had been his urine. Pantagruel, being not
content with this, would have doubled it by a side-blow; but Loupgarou,
lifting up his mace, advanced one step upon him, and with all his force
would have dashed it upon Pantagruel, wherein, to speak the truth, he
so sprightfully carried himself, that, if God had not succoured the good
Pantagruel, he had been cloven from the top of his head to the bottom
of his milt. But the blow glanced to the right side by the brisk
nimbleness of Pantagruel, and his mace sank into the ground above
threescore and thirteen foot, through a huge rock, out of which the fire
did issue greater than nine thousand and six tons. Pantagruel, seeing
him busy about plucking out his mace, which stuck in the ground
between the rocks, ran upon him, and would have clean cut off his head,
if by mischance his mast had not touched a little against the stock of
Loupgarou's mace, which was enchanted, as we have said before. By
this means his mast broke off about three handfuls above his hand,
whereat he stood amazed like a bell-founder, and cried out, Ah,
Panurge, where art thou? Panurge, seeing that, said to the king and the
giants, By G--, they will hurt one another if they be not parted. But the
giants were as merry as if they had been at a wedding. Then Carpalin
would have risen from thence to help his master; but one of the giants
said unto him, By Golfarin, the nephew of Mahoom, if thou stir hence I
will put thee in the bottom of my breeches instead of a suppository,
which cannot choose but do me good. For in my belly I am very costive,
and cannot well cagar without gnashing my teeth and making many
filthy faces. Then Pantagruel, thus destitute of a staff, took up the end
of his mast, striking athwart and alongst upon the giant, but he did him
no more hurt than you would do with a fillip upon a smith's anvil. In
the (mean) time Loupgarou was drawing his mace out of the ground,
and, having already plucked it out, was ready therewith to have struck
Pantagruel, who, being very quick in turning, avoided all his blows in
taking only the defensive part in hand, until on a sudden he saw that
Loupgarou did threaten him with these words, saying, Now, villain,
will not I fail to chop thee as small as minced meat, and keep thee
henceforth from ever making any more poor men athirst! For then,
without any more ado, Pantagruel struck him such a blow with his foot
against the belly that he made him fall backwards, his heels over his
head, and dragged him thus along at flay-buttock above a flight-shot.
Then Loupgarou cried out, bleeding at the throat, Mahoom, Mahoom,
Mahoom! at which noise all the giants arose to succour him. But
Panurge said unto them, Gentlemen, do not go, if will believe me, for
our master is mad, and strikes athwart and alongst, he cares not where;
he will do you a mischief. But the giants made no account of it, seeing
that Pantagruel had never a staff.
And when Pantagruel saw those giants approach very near unto him, he
took Loupgarou by the two feet, and lift up his body like a pike in the
air, wherewith, it being harnessed with anvils, he laid such heavy load
amongst those giants armed with free-stone, that, striking them down as
a mason doth little knobs of stones, there was not one of them that
stood before him whom he threw not flat to the ground. And by the
breaking of this stony armour there was made such a horrible rumble as
put me in mind of the fall of the butter-tower of St. Stephen's at
Bourges when it melted before the sun. Panurge, with Carpalin and
Eusthenes, did cut in the mean time the throats of those that were struck
down, in such sort that there escaped not one. Pantagruel to any man's
sight was like a mower, who with his scythe, which was Loupgarou,
cut down the meadow grass, to wit, the giants; but with this fencing of
Pantagruel's Loupgarou lost his head, which happened when Pantagruel
struck down one whose name was Riflandouille, or Pudding-plunderer,
who was armed cap-a-pie with Grison stones, one chip whereof
splintering abroad cut off Epistemon's neck clean and fair. For
otherwise the most part of them were but lightly armed with a kind of
sandy brittle stone, and the rest with slates. At last, when he saw that
they were all dead, he threw the body of Loupgarou as hard as he could
against the city, where falling like a frog upon his belly in the great
Piazza thereof, he with the said fall killed a singed he-cat, a wet she-cat,
a farting duck, and a bridled goose.
Chapter 2.
XXX.
How Epistemon, who had his head cut off, was finely healed by
Panurge, and of the news which he brought from the devils, and of the
damned people in hell.
This gigantal victory being ended, Pantagruel withdrew himself to the
place of the flagons, and called for Panurge and the rest, who came
unto him safe and sound, except Eusthenes, whom one of the giants had
scratched a little in the face whilst he was about the cutting of his throat,
and Epistemon, who appeared not at all. Whereat Pantagruel was so
aggrieved that he would have killed himself. But Panurge said unto him,
Nay, sir, stay a while, and we will search for him amongst the dead,
and find out the truth of all. Thus as they went seeking after him, they
found him stark dead, with his head between his arms all bloody. Then
Eusthenes cried out, Ah, cruel death! hast thou taken from me the
perfectest amongst men? At which words Pantagruel rose up with the
greatest grief that ever any man did see, and said to Panurge, Ha, my
friend! the prophecy of your two glasses and the javelin staff was a
great deal too deceitful. But Panurge answered, My dear bullies all,
weep not one drop more, for, he being yet all hot, I will make him as
sound as ever he was. In saying this, he took the head and held it warm
foregainst his codpiece, that the wind might not enter into it. Eusthenes
and Carpalin carried the body to the place where they had banqueted,
not out of any hope that ever he would recover, but that Pantagruel
might see it.
Nevertheless Panurge gave him very good comfort, saying, If I do not
heal him, I will be content to lose my head, which is a fool's wager.
Leave off, therefore, crying, and help me. Then cleansed he his neck
very well with pure white wine, and, after that, took his head, and into
it synapised some powder of diamerdis, which he always carried about
him in one of his bags. Afterwards he anointed it with I know not what
ointment, and set it on very just, vein against vein, sinew against sinew,
and spondyle against spondyle, that he might not be wry-necked--for
such people he mortally hated. This done, he gave it round about some
fifteen or sixteen stitches with a needle that it might not fall off again;
then, on all sides and everywhere, he put a little ointment on it, which
he called resuscitative.
Suddenly Epistemon began to breathe, then opened his eyes, yawned,
sneezed, and afterwards let a great household fart. Whereupon Panurge
said, Now, certainly, he is healed,--and therefore gave him to drink a
large full glass of strong white wine, with a sugared toast. In this
fashion was Epistemon finely healed, only that he was somewhat
hoarse for above three weeks together, and had a dry cough of which he
could not be rid but by the force of continual drinking. And now he
began to speak, and said that he had seen the devil, had spoken with
Lucifer familiarly, and had been very merry in hell and in the Elysian
fields, affirming very seriously before them all that the devils were
boon companions and merry fellows. But, in respect of the damned, he
said he was very sorry that Panurge had so soon called him back into
this world again; for, said he, I took wonderful delight to see them.
How so? said Pantagruel. Because they do not use them there, said
Epistemon, so badly as you think they do. Their estate and condition of
living is but only changed after a very strange manner; for I saw
Alexander the Great there amending and patching on clouts upon old
breeches and stockings, whereby he got but a very poor living.
Xerxes was a crier of mustard. Romulus, a salter and patcher of pattens.
Numa, a nailsmith. Tarquin, a porter. Piso, a clownish swain. Sylla, a
ferryman. Cyrus, a cowherd. Themistocles, a glass-maker.
Epaminondas, a maker of mirrors or looking-glasses. Brutus and
Cassius, surveyors or measurers of land. Demosthenes, a vine-dresser.
Cicero, a fire-kindler. Fabius, a threader of beads. Artaxerxes, a
rope-maker. Aeneas, a miller. Achilles was a scaldpated maker of
hay-bundles. Agamemnon, a lick-box. Ulysses, a hay-mower. Nestor, a
door-keeper or forester. Darius, a gold-finder or jakes-farmer. Ancus
Martius, a ship-trimmer. Camillus, a foot-post. Marcellus, a sheller of
beans. Drusus, a taker of money at the doors of playhouses. Scipio
Africanus, a crier of lee in a wooden slipper. Asdrubal, a lantern-maker.
Hannibal, a kettlemaker and seller of eggshells. Priamus, a seller of old
clouts. Lancelot of the Lake was a flayer of dead horses.
All the Knights of the Round Table were poor day-labourers, employed
to row over the rivers of Cocytus, Phlegeton, Styx, Acheron, and Lethe,
when my lords the devils had a mind to recreate themselves upon the
water, as in the like occasion are hired the boatmen at Lyons, the
gondoliers of Venice, and oars at London. But with this difference, that
these poor knights have only for their fare a bob or flirt on the nose,
and in the evening a morsel of coarse mouldy bread.
Trajan was a fisher of frogs. Antoninus, a lackey. Commodus, a
jet-maker. Pertinax, a peeler of walnuts. Lucullus, a maker of rattles
and hawks'-bells. Justinian, a pedlar. Hector, a snap-sauce scullion.
Paris was a poor beggar. Cambyses, a mule-driver.
Nero, a base blind fiddler, or player on that instrument which is called a
windbroach. Fierabras was his serving-man, who did him a thousand
mischievous tricks, and would make him eat of the brown bread and
drink of the turned wine when himself did both eat and drink of the
best.
Julius Caesar and Pompey were boat-wrights and tighters of ships.
Valentine and Orson did serve in the stoves of hell, and were
sweat-rubbers in hot houses.
Giglan and Govian (Gauvin) were poor swineherds.
Geoffrey with the great tooth was a tinder-maker and seller of matches.
Godfrey de Bouillon, a hood-maker. Jason was a bracelet-maker. Don
Pietro de Castille, a carrier of indulgences. Morgan, a beer-brewer.
Huon of Bordeaux, a hooper of barrels. Pyrrhus, a kitchen-scullion.
Antiochus, a chimney-sweeper. Octavian, a scraper of parchment.
Nerva, a mariner.
Pope Julius was a crier of pudding-pies, but he left off wearing there
his great buggerly beard.
John of Paris was a greaser of boots. Arthur of Britain, an ungreaser of
caps. Perce-Forest, a carrier of faggots. Pope Boniface the Eighth, a
scummer of pots. Pope Nicholas the Third, a maker of paper. Pope
Alexander, a ratcatcher. Pope Sixtus, an anointer of those that have the
pox.
What, said Pantagruel, have they the pox there too? Surely, said
Epistemon, I never saw so many: there are there, I think, above a
hundred millions; for believe, that those who have not had the pox in
this world must have it in the other.
Cotsbody, said Panurge, then I am free; for I have been as far as the
hole of Gibraltar, reached unto the outmost bounds of Hercules, and
gathered of the ripest.
Ogier the Dane was a furbisher of armour. The King Tigranes, a
mender of thatched houses. Galien Restored, a taker of moldwarps. The
four sons of Aymon were all toothdrawers. Pope Calixtus was a barber
of a woman's sine qua non. Pope Urban, a bacon-picker. Melusina was
a kitchen drudge-wench. Matabrune, a laundress. Cleopatra, a crier of
onions. Helen, a broker for chambermaids. Semiramis, the beggars'
lice-killer. Dido did sell mushrooms. Penthesilea sold cresses. Lucretia
was an alehouse-keeper. Hortensia, a spinstress. Livia, a grater of
verdigris.
After this manner, those that had been great lords and ladies here, got
but a poor scurvy wretched living there below. And, on the contrary,
the philosophers and others, who in this world had been altogether
indigent and wanting, were great lords there in their turn. I saw
Diogenes there strut it out most pompously, and in great magnificence,
with a rich purple gown on him, and a golden sceptre in his right hand.
And, which is more, he would now and then make Alexander the Great
mad, so enormously would he abuse him when he had not well patched
his breeches; for he used to pay his skin with sound bastinadoes. I saw
Epictetus there, most gallantly apparelled after the French fashion,
sitting under a pleasant arbour, with store of handsome gentlewomen,
frolicking, drinking, dancing, and making good cheer, with abundance
of crowns of the sun. Above the lattice were written these verses for his
device:
To leap and dance, to sport and play, And drink good wine both white
and brown, Or nothing else do all the day But tell bags full of many a
crown.
When he saw me, he invited me to drink with him very courteously,
and I being willing to be entreated, we tippled and chopined together
most theologically. In the meantime came Cyrus to beg one farthing of
him for the honour of Mercury, therewith to buy a few onions for his
supper. No, no, said Epictetus, I do not use in my almsgiving to bestow
farthings. Hold, thou varlet, there's a crown for thee; be an honest man.
Cyrus was exceeding glad to have met with such a booty; but the other
poor rogues, the kings that are there below, as Alexander, Darius, and
others, stole it away from him by night. I saw Pathelin, the treasurer of
Rhadamanthus, who, in cheapening the pudding-pies that Pope Julius
cried, asked him how much a dozen. Three blanks, said the Pope. Nay,
said Pathelin, three blows with a cudgel. Lay them down here, you
rascal, and go fetch more. The poor Pope went away weeping, who,
when he came to his master, the pie- maker, told him that they had
taken away his pudding-pies. Whereupon his master gave him such a
sound lash with an eel-skin, that his own would have been worth
nothing to make bag-pipe-bags of. I saw Master John Le Maire there
personate the Pope in such fashion that he made all the poor kings and
popes of this world kiss his feet, and, taking great state upon him, gave
them his benediction, saying, Get the pardons, rogues, get the pardons;
they are good cheap. I absolve you of bread and pottage, and dispense
with you to be never good for anything. Then, calling Caillet and
Triboulet to him, he spoke these words, My lords the cardinals,
despatch their bulls, to wit, to each of them a blow with a cudgel upon
the reins. Which accordingly was forthwith performed. I heard Master
Francis Villon ask Xerxes, How much the mess of mustard? A farthing,
said Xerxes. To which the said Villon answered, The pox take thee for
a villain! As much of square-eared wheat is not worth half that price,
and now thou offerest to enhance the price of victuals. With this he
pissed in his pot, as the mustard-makers of Paris used to do. I saw the
trained bowman of the bathing tub, known by the name of the
Francarcher de Baignolet, who, being one of the trustees of the
Inquisition, when he saw Perce-Forest making water against a wall in
which was painted the fire of St. Anthony, declared him heretic, and
would have caused him to be burnt alive had it not been for Morgant,
who, for his proficiat and other small fees, gave him nine tuns of beer.
Well, said Pantagruel, reserve all these fair stories for another time,
only tell us how the usurers are there handled. I saw them, said
Epistemon, all very busily employed in seeking of rusty pins and old
nails in the kennels of the streets, as you see poor wretched rogues do
in this world. But the quintal, or hundredweight, of this old ironware is
there valued but at the price of a cantle of bread, and yet they have but
a very bad despatch and riddance in the sale of it. Thus the poor misers
are sometimes three whole weeks without eating one morsel or crumb
of bread, and yet work both day and night, looking for the fair to come.
Nevertheless, of all this labour, toil, and misery, they reckon nothing,
so cursedly active they are in the prosecution of that their base calling,
in hopes, at the end of the year, to earn some scurvy penny by it.
Come, said Pantagruel, let us now make ourselves merry one bout, and
drink, my lads, I beseech you, for it is very good drinking all this
month. Then did they uncase their flagons by heaps and dozens, and
with their leaguer- provision made excellent good cheer. But the poor
King Anarchus could not all this while settle himself towards any fit of
mirth; whereupon Panurge said, Of what trade shall we make my lord
the king here, that he may be skilful in the art when he goes thither to
sojourn amongst all the devils of hell? Indeed, said Pantagruel, that was
well advised of thee. Do with him what thou wilt, I give him to thee.
Gramercy, said Panurge, the present is not to be refused, and I love it
from you.
Chapter 2.
XXXI.
How Pantagruel entered into the city of the Amaurots, and how
Panurge married King Anarchus to an old lantern-carrying hag, and
made him a crier of green sauce.
After this wonderful victory, Pantagruel sent Carpalin unto the city of
the Amaurots to declare and signify unto them how the King Anarchus
was taken prisoner and all the enemies of the city overthrown. Which
news when they heard all the inhabitants of the city came forth to meet
him in good order, and with a great triumphant pomp, conducting him
with a heavenly joy into the city, where innumerable bonfires were set
on through all the parts thereof, and fair round tables, which were
furnished with store of good victuals, set out in the middle of the streets.
This was a renewing of the golden age in the time of Saturn, so good
was the cheer which then they made.
But Pantagruel, having assembled the whole senate and common
councilmen of the town, said, My masters, we must now strike the iron
whilst it is hot. It is therefore my will that, before we frolic it any
longer, we advise how to assault and take the whole kingdom of the
Dipsodes. To which effect let those that will go with me provide
themselves against to-morrow after drinking, for then will I begin to
march. Not that I need any more men than I have to help me to conquer
it, for I could make it as sure that way as if I had it already; but I see
this city is so full of inhabitants that they scarce can turn in the streets. I
will, therefore, carry them as a colony into Dipsody, and will give them
all that country, which is fair, wealthy, fruitful, and pleasant, above all
other countries in the world, as many of you can tell who have been
there heretofore. Everyone of you, therefore, that will go along, let him
provide himself as I have said. This counsel and resolution being
published in the city, the next morning there assembled in the piazza
before the palace to the number of eighteen hundred fifty-six thousand
and eleven, besides women and little children. Thus began they to
march straight into Dipsody, in such good order as did the people of
Israel when they departed out of Egypt to pass over the Red Sea.
But before we proceed any further in this purpose, I will tell you how
Panurge handled his prisoner the King Anarchus; for, having
remembered that which Epistemon had related, how the kings and rich
men in this world were used in the Elysian fields, and how they got
their living there by base and ignoble trades, he, therefore, one day
apparelled his king in a pretty little canvas doublet, all jagged and
pinked like the tippet of a light horseman's cap, together with a pair of
large mariner's breeches, and stockings without shoes,--For, said he,
they would but spoil his sight,-- and a little peach-coloured bonnet with
a great capon's feather in it--I lie, for I think he had two--and a very
handsome girdle of a sky-colour and green (in French called pers et
vert), saying that such a livery did become him well, for that he had
always been perverse, and in this plight bringing him before Pantagruel,
said unto him, Do you know this roister? No, indeed, said Pantagruel. It
is, said Panurge, my lord the king of the three batches, or threadbare
sovereign. I intend to make him an honest man. These devilish kings
which we have here are but as so many calves; they know nothing and
are good for nothing but to do a thousand mischiefs to their poor
subjects, and to trouble all the world with war for their unjust and
detestable pleasure. I will put him to a trade, and make him a crier of
green sauce. Go to, begin and cry, Do you lack any green sauce? and
the poor devil cried. That is too low, said Panurge; then took him by the
ear, saying, Sing higher in Ge, sol, re, ut. So, so poor devil, thou hast a
good throat; thou wert never so happy as to be no longer king. And
Pantagruel made himself merry with all this; for I dare boldly say that
he was the best little gaffer that was to be seen between this and the end
of a staff. Thus was Anarchus made a good crier of green sauce. Two
days thereafter Panurge married him with an old lantern-carrying hag,
and he himself made the wedding with fine sheep's heads, brave haslets
with mustard, gallant salligots with garlic, of which he sent five
horseloads unto Pantagruel, which he ate up all, he found them so
appetizing. And for their drink they had a kind of small well-watered
wine, and some sorbapple- cider. And, to make them dance, he hired a
blind man that made music to them with a wind-broach.
After dinner he led them to the palace and showed them to Pantagruel,
and said, pointing to the married woman, You need not fear that she
will crack. Why? said Pantagruel. Because, said Panurge, she is well
slit and broke up already. What do you mean by that? said Pantagruel.
Do not you see, said Panurge, that the chestnuts which are roasted in
the fire, if they be whole they crack as if they were mad, and, to keep
them from cracking, they make an incision in them and slit them? So
this new bride is in her lower parts well slit before, and therefore will
not crack behind.
Pantagruel gave them a little lodge near the lower street and a mortar of
stone wherein to bray and pound their sauce, and in this manner did
they do their little business, he being as pretty a crier of green sauce as
ever was seen in the country of Utopia. But I have been told since that
his wife doth beat him like plaister, and the poor sot dare not defend
himself, he is so simple.
Chapter 2.
XXXII.
How Pantagruel with his tongue covered a whole army, and what the
author saw in his mouth.
Thus, as Pantagruel with all his army had entered into the country of
the Dipsodes, everyone was glad of it, and incontinently rendered
themselves unto him, bringing him out of their own good wills the keys
of all the cities where he went, the Almirods only excepted, who, being
resolved to hold out against him, made answer to his heralds that they
would not yield but upon very honourable and good conditions.
What! said Pantagruel, do they ask any better terms than the hand at the
pot and the glass in their fist? Come, let us go sack them, and put them
all to the sword. Then did they put themselves in good order, as being
fully determined to give an assault, but by the way, passing through a
large field, they were overtaken with a great shower of rain, whereat
they began to shiver and tremble, to crowd, press, and thrust close to
one another. When Pantagruel saw that, he made their captains tell
them that it was nothing, and that he saw well above the clouds that it
would be nothing but a little dew; but, howsoever, that they should put
themselves in order, and he would cover them. Then did they put
themselves in a close order, and stood as near to (each) other as they
could, and Pantagruel drew out his tongue only half-way and covered
them all, as a hen doth her chickens. In the meantime, I, who relate to
you these so veritable stories, hid myself under a burdock-leaf, which
was not much less in largeness than the arch of the bridge of Montrible,
but when I saw them thus covered, I went towards them to shelter
myself likewise; which I could not do, for that they were so, as the
saying is, At the yard's end there is no cloth left. Then, as well as I
could, I got upon it, and went along full two leagues upon his tongue,
and so long marched that at last I came into his mouth. But, O gods and
goddesses! what did I see there? Jupiter confound me with his trisulc
lightning if I lie! I walked there as they do in Sophia (at)
Constantinople, and saw there great rocks, like the mountains in
Denmark--I believe that those were his teeth. I saw also fair meadows,
large forests, great and strong cities not a jot less than Lyons or
Poictiers. The first man I met with there was a good honest fellow
planting coleworts, whereat being very much amazed, I asked him, My
friend, what dost thou make here? I plant coleworts, said he. But how,
and wherewith? said I. Ha, sir, said he, everyone cannot have his
ballocks as heavy as a mortar, neither can we be all rich. Thus do I get
my poor living, and carry them to the market to sell in the city which is
here behind. Jesus! said I, is there here a new world? Sure, said he, it is
never a jot new, but it is commonly reported that, without this, there is
an earth, whereof the inhabitants enjoy the light of a sun and a moon,
and that it is full of and replenished with very good commodities; but
yet this is more ancient than that. Yea but, said I, my friend, what is the
name of that city whither thou carriest thy coleworts to sell? It is called
Aspharage, said he, and all the indwellers are Christians, very honest
men, and will make you good cheer. To be brief, I resolved to go
thither. Now, in my way, I met with a fellow that was lying in wait to
catch pigeons, of whom I asked, My friend, from whence come these
pigeons? Sir, said he, they come from the other world. Then I thought
that, when Pantagruel yawned, the pigeons went into his mouth in
whole flocks, thinking that it had been a pigeon-house.
Then I went into the city, which I found fair, very strong, and seated in
a good air; but at my entry the guard demanded of me my pass or ticket.
Whereat I was much astonished, and asked them, My masters, is there
any danger of the plague here? O Lord! said they, they die hard by here
so fast that the cart runs about the streets. Good God! said I, and where?
Whereunto they answered that it was in Larynx and Pharynx, which are
two great cities such as Rouen and Nantes, rich and of great trading.
And the cause of the plague was by a stinking and infectious exhalation
which lately vapoured out of the abysms, whereof there have died
above two and twenty hundred and threescore thousand and sixteen
persons within this sevennight. Then I considered, calculated, and
found that it was a rank and unsavoury breathing which came out of
Pantagruel's stomach when he did eat so much garlic, as we have
aforesaid.
Parting from thence, I passed amongst the rocks, which were his teeth,
and never left walking till I got up on one of them; and there I found
the pleasantest places in the world, great large tennis-courts, fair
galleries, sweet meadows, store of vines, and an infinite number of
banqueting summer outhouses in the fields, after the Italian fashion,
full of pleasure and delight, where I stayed full four months, and never
made better cheer in my life as then. After that I went down by the
hinder teeth to come to the chaps. But in the way I was robbed by
thieves in a great forest that is in the territory towards the ears. Then,
after a little further travelling, I fell upon a pretty petty village--truly I
have forgot the name of it--where I was yet merrier than ever, and got
some certain money to live by. Can you tell how? By sleeping. For
there they hire men by the day to sleep, and they get by it sixpence a
day, but they that can snort hard get at least ninepence. How I had been
robbed in the valley I informed the senators, who told me that, in very
truth, the people of that side were bad livers and naturally thievish,
whereby I perceived well that, as we have with us the countries
Cisalpine and Transalpine, that is, behither and beyond the mountains,
so have they there the countries Cidentine and Tradentine, that is,
behither and beyond the teeth. But it is far better living on this side, and
the air is purer. Then I began to think that it is very true which is
commonly said, that the one half of the world knoweth not how the
other half liveth; seeing none before myself had ever written of that
country, wherein are above five-and-twenty kingdoms inhabited,
besides deserts, and a great arm of the sea. Concerning which purpose I
have composed a great book, entitled, The History of the Throttias,
because they dwell in the throat of my master Pantagruel.
At last I was willing to return, and, passing by his beard, I cast myself
upon his shoulders, and from thence slid down to the ground, and fell
before him. As soon as I was perceived by him, he asked me, Whence
comest thou, Alcofribas? I answered him, Out of your mouth, my lord.
And how long hast thou been there? said he. Since the time, said I, that
you went against the Almirods. That is about six months ago, said he.
And wherewith didst thou live? What didst thou drink? I answered, My
lord, of the same that you did, and of the daintiest morsels that passed
through your throat I took toll. Yea but, said he, where didst thou shite?
In your throat, my lord, said I. Ha, ha! thou art a merry fellow, said he.
We have with the help of God conquered all the land of the Dipsodes; I
will give thee the Chastelleine, or Lairdship of Salmigondin. Gramercy,
my lord, said I, you gratify me beyond all that I have deserved of you.
Chapter 2.
XXXIII.
How Pantagruel became sick, and the manner how he was recovered.
A while after this the good Pantagruel fell sick, and had such an
obstruction in his stomach that he could neither eat nor drink; and,
because mischief seldom comes alone, a hot piss seized on him, which
tormented him more than you would believe. His physicians
nevertheless helped him very well, and with store of lenitives and
diuretic drugs made him piss away his pain. His urine was so hot that
since that time it is not yet cold, and you have of it in divers places of
France, according to the course that it took, and they are called the hot
baths, as--
At Coderets. At Limous. At Dast. At Ballervie (Balleruc). At Neric. At
Bourbonansie, and elsewhere in Italy. At Mongros. At Appone. At
Sancto Petro de Padua. At St. Helen. At Casa Nuova. At St.
Bartholomew, in the county of Boulogne. At the Porrette, and a
thousand other places.
And I wonder much at a rabble of foolish philosophers and physicians,
who spend their time in disputing whence the heat of the said waters
cometh, whether it be by reason of borax, or sulphur, or alum, or
saltpetre, that is within the mine. For they do nothing but dote, and
better were it for them to rub their arse against a thistle than to waste
away their time thus in disputing of that whereof they know not the
original; for the resolution is easy, neither need we to inquire any
further than that the said baths came by a hot piss of the good
Pantagruel.
Now to tell you after what manner he was cured of his principal disease.
I let pass how for a minorative or gentle potion he took four hundred
pound weight of colophoniac scammony, six score and eighteen
cartloads of cassia, an eleven thousand and nine hundred pound weight
of rhubarb, besides other confuse jumblings of sundry drugs. You must
understand that by the advice of the physicians it was ordained that
what did offend his stomach should be taken away; and therefore they
made seventeen great balls of copper, each whereof was bigger than
that which is to be seen on the top of St. Peter's needle at Rome, and in
such sort that they did open in the midst and shut with a spring. Into
one of them entered one of his men carrying a lantern and a torch
lighted, and so Pantagruel swallowed him down like a little pill. Into
seven others went seven country-fellows, having every one of them a
shovel on his neck. Into nine others entered nine wood- carriers, having
each of them a basket hung at his neck, and so were they swallowed
down like pills. When they were in his stomach, every one undid his
spring, and came out of their cabins. The first whereof was he that
carried the lantern, and so they fell more than half a league into a most
horrible gulf, more stinking and infectious than ever was Mephitis, or
the marshes of the Camerina, or the abominably unsavoury lake of
Sorbona, whereof Strabo maketh mention. And had it not been that
they had very well antidoted their stomach, heart, and wine-pot, which
is called the noddle, they had been altogether suffocated and choked
with these detestable vapours. O what a perfume! O what an
evaporation wherewith to bewray the masks or mufflers of young
mangy queans. After that, with groping and smelling they came near to
the faecal matter and the corrupted humours. Finally, they found a
montjoy or heap of ordure and filth. Then fell the pioneers to work to
dig it up, and the rest with their shovels filled the baskets; and when all
was cleansed every one retired himself into his ball.
This done, Pantagruel enforcing himself to vomit, very easily brought
them out, and they made no more show in his mouth than a fart in
yours. But, when they came merrily out of their pills, I thought upon
the Grecians coming out of the Trojan horse. By this means was he
healed and brought unto his former state and convalescence; and of
these brazen pills, or rather copper balls, you have one at Orleans, upon
the steeple of the Holy Cross Church.
Chapter 2.
XXXIV.
The conclusion of this present book, and the excuse of the author.
Now, my masters, you have heard a beginning of the horrific history of
my lord and master Pantagruel. Here will I make an end of the first
book. My head aches a little, and I perceive that the registers of my
brain are somewhat jumbled and disordered with this Septembral juice.
You shall have the rest of the history at Frankfort mart next coming,
and there shall you see how Panurge was married and made a cuckold
within a month after his wedding; how Pantagruel found out the
philosopher's stone, the manner how he found it, and the way how to
use it; how he passed over the Caspian mountains, and how he sailed
through the Atlantic sea, defeated the Cannibals, and conquered the
isles of Pearls; how he married the daughter of the King of India, called
Presthan; how he fought against the devil and burnt up five chambers
of hell, ransacked the great black chamber, threw Proserpina into the
fire, broke five teeth to Lucifer, and the horn that was in his arse; how
he visited the regions of the moon to know whether indeed the moon
were not entire and whole, or if the women had three quarters of it in
their heads, and a thousand other little merriments all veritable. These
are brave things truly. Good night, gentlemen. Perdonate mi, and think
not so much upon my faults that you forget your own.
If you say to me, Master, it would seem that you were not very wise in
writing to us these flimflam stories and pleasant fooleries; I answer you,
that you are not much wiser to spend your time in reading them.
Nevertheless, if you read them to make yourselves merry, as in manner
of pastime I wrote them, you and I both are far more worthy of pardon
than a great rabble of squint-minded fellows, dissembling and
counterfeit saints, demure lookers, hypocrites, pretended zealots, tough
friars, buskin-monks, and other such sects of men, who disguise
themselves like masquers to deceive the world. For, whilst they give
the common people to understand that they are busied about nothing
but contemplation and devotion in fastings and maceration of their
sensuality--and that only to sustain and aliment the small frailty of their
humanity--it is so far otherwise that, on the contrary, God knows what
cheer they make; Et Curios simulant, sed Bacchanalia vivunt. You may
read it in great letters in the colouring of their red snouts, and gulching
bellies as big as a tun, unless it be when they perfume themselves with
sulphur. As for their study, it is wholly taken up in reading of
Pantagruelian books, not so much to pass the time merrily as to hurt
someone or other mischievously, to wit, in articling, sole-articling,
wry-neckifying, buttock-stirring, ballocking, and diabliculating, that is,
calumniating. Wherein they are like unto the poor rogues of a village
that are busy in stirring up and scraping in the ordure and filth of little
children, in the season of cherries and guinds, and that only to find the
kernels, that they may sell them to the druggists to make thereof
pomander oil. Fly from these men, abhor and hate them as much as I do,
and upon my faith you will find yourselves the better for it. And if you
desire to be good Pantagruelists, that is to say, to live in peace, joy,
health, making yourselves always merry, never trust those men that
always peep out at one hole.
End of Book II.
BOOK III.
THE THIRD BOOK
Francois Rabelais to the Soul of the Deceased Queen of Navarre.
Abstracted soul, ravished with ecstasies, Gone back, and now familiar
in the skies, Thy former host, thy body, leaving quite, Which to obey
thee always took delight,-- Obsequious, ready,--now from motion free,
Senseless, and as it were in apathy, Wouldst thou not issue forth for a
short space, From that divine, eternal, heavenly place, To see the third
part, in this earthy cell, Of the brave acts of good Pantagruel?
The Author's Prologue.
Good people, most illustrious drinkers, and you, thrice precious gouty
gentlemen, did you ever see Diogenes, and cynic philosopher? If you
have seen him, you then had your eyes in your head, or I am very much
out of my understanding and logical sense. It is a gallant thing to see
the clearness of (wine, gold,) the sun. I'll be judged by the blind born so
renowned in the sacred Scriptures, who, having at his choice to ask
whatever he would from him who is Almighty, and whose word in an
instant is effectually performed, asked nothing else but that he might
see. Item, you are not young, which is a competent quality for you to
philosophate more than physically in wine, not in vain, and
henceforwards to be of the Bacchic Council; to the end that, opining
there, you may give your opinion faithfully of the substance, colour,
excellent odour, eminency, propriety, faculty, virtue, and effectual
dignity of the said blessed and desired liquor.
If you have not seen him, as I am easily induced to believe that you
have not, at least you have heard some talk of him. For through the air,
and the whole extent of this hemisphere of the heavens, hath his report
and fame, even until this present time, remained very memorable and
renowned. Then all of you are derived from the Phrygian blood, if I be
not deceived. If you have not so many crowns as Midas had, yet have
you something, I know not what, of him, which the Persians of old
esteemed more of in all their otacusts, and which was more desired by
the Emperor Antonine, and gave occasion thereafter to the Basilico at
Rohan to be surnamed Goodly Ears. If you have not heard of him, I
will presently tell you a story to make your wine relish. Drink then,--so,
to the purpose. Hearken now whilst I give you notice, to the end that
you may not, like infidels, be by your simplicity abused, that in his time
he was a rare philosopher and the cheerfullest of a thousand. If he had
some imperfection, so have you, so have we; for there is nothing, but
God, that is perfect. Yet so it was, that by Alexander the Great,
although he had Aristotle for his instructor and domestic, was he held
in such estimation, that he wished, if he had not been Alexander, to
have been Diogenes the Sinopian.
When Philip, King of Macedon, enterprised the siege and ruin of
Corinth, the Corinthians having received certain intelligence by their
spies that he with a numerous army in battle-rank was coming against
them, were all of them, not without cause, most terribly afraid; and
therefore were not neglective of their duty in doing their best
endeavours to put themselves in a fit posture to resist his hostile
approach and defend their own city.
Some from the fields brought into the fortified places their movables,
bestial, corn, wine, fruit, victuals, and other necessary provision.
Others did fortify and rampire their walls, set up little fortresses,
bastions, squared ravelins, digged trenches, cleansed countermines,
fenced themselves with gabions, contrived platforms, emptied
casemates, barricaded the false brays, erected the cavaliers, repaired the
counterscarps, plastered the curtains, lengthened ravelins, stopped
parapets, morticed barbacans, assured the portcullises, fastened the
herses, sarasinesques, and cataracts, placed their sentries, and doubled
their patrol. Everyone did watch and ward, and not one was exempted
from carrying the basket. Some polished corslets, varnished backs and
breasts, cleaned the headpieces, mail-coats, brigandines, salads,
helmets, morions, jacks, gushets, gorgets, hoguines, brassars, and
cuissars, corslets, haubergeons, shields, bucklers, targets, greaves,
gauntlets, and spurs. Others made ready bows, slings, crossbows,
pellets, catapults, migrains or fire-balls, firebrands, balists, scorpions,
and other such warlike engines expugnatory and destructive to the
Hellepolides. They sharpened and prepared spears, staves, pikes, brown
bills, halberds, long hooks, lances, zagayes, quarterstaves, eelspears,
partisans, troutstaves, clubs, battle-axes, maces, darts, dartlets, glaives,
javelins, javelots, and truncheons. They set edges upon scimitars,
cutlasses, badelairs, backswords, tucks, rapiers, bayonets, arrow-heads,
dags, daggers, mandousians, poniards, whinyards, knives, skeans,
shables, chipping knives, and raillons.
Every man exercised his weapon, every man scoured off the rust from
his natural hanger; nor was there a woman amongst them, though never
so reserved or old, who made not her harness to be well furbished; as
you know the Corinthian women of old were reputed very courageous
combatants.
Diogenes seeing them all so warm at work, and himself not employed
by the magistrates in any business whatsoever, he did very seriously,
for many days together, without speaking one word, consider and
contemplate the countenance of his fellow-citizens.
Then on a sudden, as if he had been roused up and inspired by a martial
spirit, he girded his cloak scarfwise about his left arm, tucked up his
sleeves to the elbow, trussed himself like a clown gathering apples, and,
giving to one of his old acquaintance his wallet, books, and
opistographs, away went he out of town towards a little hill or
promontory of Corinth called (the) Cranie; and there on the strand, a
pretty level place, did he roll his jolly tub, which served him for a
house to shelter him from the injuries of the weather: there, I say, in a
great vehemency of spirit, did he turn it, veer it, wheel it, whirl it, frisk
it, jumble it, shuffle it, huddle it, tumble it, hurry it, jolt it, justle it,
overthrow it, evert it, invert it, subvert it, overturn it, beat it, thwack it,
bump it, batter it, knock it, thrust it, push it, jerk it, shock it, shake it,
toss it, throw it, overthrow it, upside down, topsy-turvy, arsiturvy, tread
it, trample it, stamp it, tap it, ting it, ring it, tingle it, towl it, sound it,
resound it, stop it, shut it, unbung it, close it, unstopple it. And then
again in a mighty bustle he bandied it, slubbered it, hacked it, whittled
it, wayed it, darted it, hurled it, staggered it, reeled it, swinged it,
brangled it, tottered it, lifted it, heaved it, transformed it, transfigured it,
transposed it, transplaced it, reared it, raised it, hoised it, washed it,
dighted it, cleansed it, rinsed it, nailed it, settled it, fastened it, shackled
it, fettered it, levelled it, blocked it, tugged it, tewed it, carried it,
bedashed it, bewrayed it, parched it, mounted it, broached it, nicked it,
notched it, bespattered it, decked it, adorned it, trimmed it, garnished it,
gauged it, furnished it, bored it, pierced it, trapped it, rumbled it, slid it
down the hill, and precipitated it from the very height of the Cranie;
then from the foot to the top (like another Sisyphus with his stone) bore
it up again, and every way so banged it and belaboured it that it was ten
thousand to one he had not struck the bottom of it out.
Which when one of his friends had seen, and asked him why he did so
toil his body, perplex his spirit, and torment his tub, the philosopher's
answer was that, not being employed in any other charge by the
Republic, he thought it expedient to thunder and storm it so
tempestuously upon his tub, that amongst a people so fervently busy
and earnest at work he alone might not seem a loitering slug and lazy
fellow. To the same purpose may I say of myself,
Though I be rid from fear, I am not void of care.
For, perceiving no account to be made of me towards the discharge of a
trust of any great concernment, and considering that through all the
parts of this most noble kingdom of France, both on this and on the
other side of the mountains, everyone is most diligently exercised and
busied, some in the fortifying of their own native country for its
defence, others in the repulsing of their enemies by an offensive war;
and all this with a policy so excellent and such admirable order, so
manifestly profitable for the future, whereby France shall have its
frontiers most magnifically enlarged, and the French assured of a long
and well-grounded peace, that very little withholds me from the
opinion of good Heraclitus, which affirmeth war to be the father of all
good things; and therefore do I believe that war is in Latin called
bellum, not by antiphrasis, as some patchers of old rusty Latin would
have us to think, because in war there is little beauty to be seen, but
absolutely and simply; for that in war appeareth all that is good and
graceful, and that by the wars is purged out all manner of wickedness
and deformity. For proof whereof the wise and pacific Solomon could
no better represent the unspeakable perfection of the divine wisdom,
than by comparing it to the due disposure and ranking of an army in
battle array, well provided and ordered.
Therefore, by reason of my weakness and inability, being reputed by
my compatriots unfit for the offensive part of warfare; and on the other
side, being no way employed in matter of the defensive, although it had
been but to carry burthens, fill ditches, or break clods, either whereof
had been to me indifferent, I held it not a little disgraceful to be only an
idle spectator of so many valorous, eloquent, and warlike persons, who
in the view and sight of all Europe act this notable interlude or
tragi-comedy, and not make some effort towards the performance of
this, nothing at all remains for me to be done ('And not exert myself,
and contribute thereto this nothing, my all, which remained for me to
do.'--Ozell.). In my opinion, little honour is due to such as are mere
lookers-on, liberal of their eyes, and of their crowns, and hide their
silver; scratching their head with one finger like grumbling puppies,
gaping at the flies like tithe calves; clapping down their ears like
Arcadian asses at the melody of musicians, who with their very
countenances in the depth of silence express their consent to the
prosopopoeia. Having made this choice and election, it seemed to me
that my exercise therein would be neither unprofitable nor troublesome
to any, whilst I should thus set a-going my Diogenical tub, which is all
that is left me safe from the shipwreck of my former misfortunes.
At this dingle dangle wagging of my tub, what would you have me to
do? By the Virgin that tucks up her sleeve, I know not as yet. Stay a
little, till I suck up a draught of this bottle; it is my true and only
Helicon; it is my Caballine fountain; it is my sole enthusiasm. Drinking
thus, I meditate, discourse, resolve, and conclude. After that the
epilogue is made, I laugh, I write, I compose, and drink again. Ennius
drinking wrote, and writing drank. Aeschylus, if Plutarch in his
Symposiacs merit any faith, drank composing, and drinking composed.
Homer never wrote fasting, and Cato never wrote till after he had drunk.
These passages I have brought before you to the end you may not say
that I lived without the example of men well praised and better prized.
It is good and fresh enough, even as if you would say it is entering
upon the second degree. God, the good God Sabaoth, that is to say, the
God of armies, be praised for it eternally! If you after the same manner
would take one great draught, or two little ones, whilst you have your
gown about you, I truly find no kind of inconveniency in it, provided
you send up to God for all some small scantling of thanks.
Since then my luck or destiny is such as you have heard--for it is not
for everybody to go to Corinth--I am fully resolved to be so little idle
and unprofitable, that I will set myself to serve the one and the other
sort of people. Amongst the diggers, pioneers, and rampire-builders, I
will do as did Neptune and Apollo at Troy under Laomedon, or as did
Renault of Montauban in his latter days: I will serve the masons, I'll set
on the pot to boil for the bricklayers; and, whilst the minced meat is
making ready at the sound of my small pipe, I'll measure the muzzle of
the musing dotards. Thus did Amphion with the melody of his harp
found, build, and finish the great and renowned city of Thebes.
For the use of the warriors I am about to broach of new my barrel to
give them a taste (which by two former volumes of mine, if by the
deceitfulness and falsehood of printers they had not been jumbled,
marred, and spoiled, you would have very well relished), and draw unto
them, of the growth of our own trippery pastimes, a gallant third part of
a gallon, and consequently a jolly cheerful quart of Pantagruelic
sentences, which you may lawfully call, if you please, Diogenical: and
shall have me, seeing I cannot be their fellow-soldier, for their faithful
butler, refreshing and cheering, according to my little power, their
return from the alarms of the enemy; as also for an indefatigable
extoller of their martial exploits and glorious achievements. I shall not
fail therein, par lapathium acutum de dieu; if Mars fail not in Lent,
which the cunning lecher, I warrant you, will be loth to do.
I remember nevertheless to have read, that Ptolemy, the son of Lagus,
one day, amongst the many spoils and booties which by his victories he
had acquired, presenting to the Egyptians, in the open view of the
people, a Bactrian camel all black, and a party-coloured slave, in such
sort as that the one half of his body was black and the other white, not
in partition of breadth by the diaphragma, as was that woman
consecrated to the Indian Venus whom the Tyanean philosopher did see
between the river Hydaspes and Mount Caucasus, but in a
perpendicular dimension of altitude; which were things never before
that seen in Egypt. He expected by the show of these novelties to win
the love of the people. But what happened thereupon? At the
production of the camel they were all affrighted, and offended at the
sight of the party-coloured man--some scoffed at him as a detestable
monster brought forth by the error of nature; in a word, of the hope
which he had to please these Egyptians, and by such means to increase
the affection which they naturally bore him, he was altogether frustrate
and disappointed; understanding fully by their deportments that they
took more pleasure and delight in things that were proper, handsome,
and perfect, than in misshapen, monstrous, and ridiculous creatures.
Since which time he had both the slave and the camel in such dislike,
that very shortly thereafter, either through negligence, or for want of
ordinary sustenance, they did exchange their life with death.
This example putteth me in a suspense between hope and fear,
misdoubting that, for the contentment which I aim at, I will but reap
what shall be most distasteful to me: my cake will be dough, and for
my Venus I shall have but some deformed puppy: instead of serving
them, I shall but vex them, and offend them whom I purpose to
exhilarate; resembling in this dubious adventure Euclion's cook, so
renowned by Plautus in his Pot, and by Ausonius in his Griphon, and
by divers others; which cook, for having by his scraping discovered a
treasure, had his hide well curried. Put the case I get no anger by it,
though formerly such things fell out, and the like may occur again. Yet,
by Hercules! it will not. So I perceive in them all one and the same
specifical form, and the like individual properties, which our ancestors
called Pantagruelism; by virtue whereof they will bear with anything
that floweth from a good, free, and loyal heart. I have seen them
ordinarily take goodwill in part of payment, and remain satisfied
therewith when one was not able to do better. Having despatched this
point, I return to my barrel.
Up, my lads, to this wine, spare it not! Drink, boys, and trowl it off at
full bowls! If you do not think it good, let it alone. I am not like those
officious and importunate sots, who by force, outrage, and violence,
constrain an easy good-natured fellow to whiffle, quaff, carouse, and
what is worse. All honest tipplers, all honest gouty men, all such as are
a-dry, coming to this little barrel of mine, need not drink thereof if it
please them not; but if they have a mind to it, and that the wine prove
agreeable to the tastes of their worshipful worships, let them drink,
frankly, freely, and boldly, without paying anything, and welcome.
This is my decree, my statute and ordinance.
And let none fear there shall be any want of wine, as at the marriage of
Cana in Galilee; for how much soever you shall draw forth at the faucet,
so much shall I tun in at the bung. Thus shall the barrel remain
inexhaustible; it hath a lively spring and perpetual current. Such was
the beverage contained within the cup of Tantalus, which was
figuratively represented amongst the Brachman sages. Such was in
Iberia the mountain of salt so highly written of by Cato. Such was the
branch of gold consecrated to the subterranean goddess, which Virgil
treats of so sublimely. It is a true cornucopia of merriment and raillery.
If at any time it seem to you to be emptied to the very lees, yet shall it
not for all that be drawn wholly dry. Good hope remains there at the
bottom, as in Pandora's bottle; and not despair, as in the puncheon of
the Danaids. Remark well what I have said, and what manner of people
they be whom I do invite; for, to the end that none be deceived, I, in
imitation of Lucilius, who did protest that he wrote only to his own
Tarentines and Consentines, have not pierced this vessel for any else
but you honest men, who are drinkers of the first edition, and gouty
blades of the highest degree. The great dorophages, bribe-mongers,
have on their hands occupation enough, and enough on the hooks for
their venison. There may they follow their prey; here is no garbage for
them. You pettifoggers, garblers, and masters of chicanery, speak not to
me, I beseech you, in the name of, and for the reverence you bear to the
four hips that engendered you and to the quickening peg which at that
time conjoined them. As for hypocrites, much less; although they were
all of them unsound in body, pockified, scurvy, furnished with
unquenchable thirst and insatiable eating. (And wherefore?) Because
indeed they are not of good but of evil, and of that evil from which we
daily pray to God to deliver us. And albeit we see them sometimes
counterfeit devotion, yet never did old ape make pretty moppet. Hence,
mastiffs; dogs in a doublet, get you behind; aloof, villains, out of my
sunshine; curs, to the devil! Do you jog hither, wagging your tails, to
pant at my wine, and bepiss my barrel? Look, here is the cudgel which
Diogenes, in his last will, ordained to be set by him after his death, for
beating away, crushing the reins, and breaking the backs of these
bustuary hobgoblins and Cerberian hellhounds. Pack you hence,
therefore, you hypocrites, to your sheep-dogs; get you gone, you
dissemblers, to the devil! Hay! What, are you there yet? I renounce my
part of Papimanie, if I snatch you, Grr, Grrr, Grrrrrr. Avaunt, avaunt!
Will you not be gone? May you never shit till you be soundly lashed
with stirrup leather, never piss but by the strapado, nor be otherwise
warmed than by the bastinado.
THE THIRD BOOK.
Chapter 3.
I.
How Pantagruel transported a colony of Utopians into Dipsody.
Pantagruel, having wholly subdued the land of Dipsody, transported
thereunto a colony of Utopians, to the number of 9,876,543,210 men,
besides the women and little children, artificers of all trades, and
professors of all sciences, to people, cultivate, and improve that country,
which otherwise was ill inhabited, and in the greatest part thereof but a
mere desert and wilderness; and did transport them (not) so much for
the excessive multitude of men and women, which were in Utopia
multiplied, for number, like grasshoppers upon the face of the land.
You understand well enough, nor is it needful further to explain it to
you, that the Utopian men had so rank and fruitful genitories, and that
the Utopian women carried matrixes so ample, so gluttonous, so
tenaciously retentive, and so architectonically cellulated, that at the end
of every ninth month seven children at the least, what male what female,
were brought forth by every married woman, in imitation of the people
of Israel in Egypt, if Anthony (Nicholas) de Lyra be to be trusted. Nor
yet was this transplantation made so much for the fertility of the soil,
the wholesomeness of the air, or commodity of the country of Dipsody,
as to retain that rebellious people within the bounds of their duty and
obedience, by this new transport of his ancient and most faithful
subjects, who, from all time out of mind, never knew, acknowledged,
owned, or served any other sovereign lord but him; and who likewise,
from the very instant of their birth, as soon as they were entered into
this world, had, with the milk of their mothers and nurses, sucked in the
sweetness, humanity, and mildness of his government, to which they
were all of them so nourished and habituated, that there was nothing
surer than that they would sooner abandon their lives than swerve from
this singular and primitive obedience naturally due to their prince,
whithersoever they should be dispersed or removed.
And not only should they, and their children successively descending
from their blood, be such, but also would keep and maintain in this
same fealty and obsequious observance all the nations lately annexed to
his empire; which so truly came to pass that therein he was not
disappointed of his intent. For if the Utopians were before their
transplantation thither dutiful and faithful subjects, the Dipsodes, after
some few days conversing with them, were every whit as, if not more,
loyal than they; and that by virtue of I know not what natural fervency
incident to all human creatures at the beginning of any labour wherein
they take delight: solemnly attesting the heavens and supreme
intelligences of their being only sorry that no sooner unto their
knowledge had arrived the great renown of the good Pantagruel.
Remark therefore here, honest drinkers, that the manner of preserving
and retaining countries newly conquered in obedience is not, as hath
been the erroneous opinion of some tyrannical spirits to their own
detriment and dishonour, to pillage, plunder, force, spoil, trouble,
oppress, vex, disquiet, ruin and destroy the people, ruling, governing
and keeping them in awe with rods of iron; and, in a word, eating and
devouring them, after the fashion that Homer calls an unjust and
wicked king, Demoboron, that is to say, a devourer of his people.
I will not bring you to this purpose the testimony of ancient writers. It
shall suffice to put you in mind of what your fathers have seen thereof,
and yourselves too, if you be not very babes. Newborn, they must be
given suck to, rocked in a cradle, and dandled. Trees newly planted
must be supported, underpropped, strengthened and defended against
all tempests, mischiefs, injuries, and calamities. And one lately saved
from a long and dangerous sickness, and new upon his recovery, must
be forborn, spared, and cherished, in such sort that they may harbour in
their own breasts this opinion, that there is not in the world a king or a
prince who does not desire fewer enemies and more friends. Thus
Osiris, the great king of the Egyptians, conquered almost the whole
earth, not so much by force of arms as by easing the people of their
troubles, teaching them how to live well, and honestly giving them
good laws, and using them with all possible affability, courtesy,
gentleness, and liberality. Therefore was he by all men deservedly
entitled the Great King Euergetes, that is to say, Benefactor, which
style he obtained by virtue of the command of Jupiter to (one) Pamyla.
And in effect, Hesiod, in his Hierarchy, placed the good demons (call
them angels if you will, or geniuses,) as intercessors and mediators
betwixt the gods and men, they being of a degree inferior to the gods,
but superior to men. And for that through their hands the riches and
benefits we get from heaven are dealt to us, and that they are
continually doing us good and still protecting us from evil, he saith that
they exercise the offices of kings; because to do always good, and
never ill, is an act most singularly royal.
Just such another was the emperor of the universe, Alexander the
Macedonian. After this manner was Hercules sovereign possessor of
the whole continent, relieving men from monstrous oppressions,
exactions, and tyrannies; governing them with discretion, maintaining
them in equity and justice, instructing them with seasonable policies
and wholesome laws, convenient for and suitable to the soil, climate,
and disposition of the country, supplying what was wanting, abating
what was superfluous, and pardoning all that was past, with a
sempiternal forgetfulness of all preceding offences, as was the amnesty
of the Athenians, when by the prowess, valour, and industry of
Thrasybulus the tyrants were exterminated; afterwards at Rome by
Cicero exposed, and renewed under the Emperor Aurelian. These are
the philtres, allurements, iynges, inveiglements, baits, and enticements
of love, by the means whereof that may be peaceably revived which
was painfully acquired. Nor can a conqueror reign more happily,
whether he be a monarch, emperor, king, prince, or philosopher, than
by making his justice to second his valour. His valour shows itself in
victory and conquest; his justice will appear in the goodwill and
affection of the people, when he maketh laws, publisheth ordinances,
establisheth religion, and doth what is right to everyone, as the noble
poet Virgil writes of Octavian Augustus:
Victorque volentes Per populos dat jura.
Therefore is it that Homer in his Iliads calleth a good prince and great
king Kosmetora laon, that is, the ornament of the people.
Such was the consideration of Numa Pompilius, the second king of the
Romans, a just politician and wise philosopher, when he ordained that
to god Terminus, on the day of his festival called Terminales, nothing
should be sacrificed that had died; teaching us thereby that the bounds,
limits, and frontiers of kingdoms should be guarded, and preserved in
peace, amity, and meekness, without polluting our hands with blood
and robbery. Who doth otherwise, shall not only lose what he hath
gained, but also be loaded with this scandal and reproach, that he is an
unjust and wicked purchaser, and his acquests perish with him; Juxta
illud, male parta, male dilabuntur. And although during his whole
lifetime he should have peaceable possession thereof, yet if what hath
been so acquired moulder away in the hands of his heirs, the same
opprobry, scandal, and imputation will be charged upon the defunct,
and his memory remain accursed for his unjust and unwarrantable
conquest; Juxta illud, de male quaesitis vix gaudet tertius haeres.
Remark, likewise, gentlemen, you gouty feoffees, in this main point
worthy of your observation, how by these means Pantagruel of one
angel made two, which was a contingency opposite to the counsel of
Charlemagne, who made two devils of one when he transplanted the
Saxons into Flanders and the Flemings into Saxony. For, not being able
to keep in such subjection the Saxons, whose dominion he had joined
to the empire, but that ever and anon they would break forth into open
rebellion if he should casually be drawn into Spain or other remote
kingdoms, he caused them to be brought unto his own country of
Flanders, the inhabitants whereof did naturally obey him, and
transported the Hainaults and Flemings, his ancient loving subjects,
into Saxony, not mistrusting their loyalty now that they were
transplanted into a strange land. But it happened that the Saxons
persisted in their rebellion and primitive obstinacy, and the Flemings
dwelling in Saxony did imbibe the stubborn manners and conditions of
the Saxons.
Chapter 3.
II.
How Panurge was made Laird of Salmigondin in Dipsody, and did
waste his revenue before it came in.
Whilst Pantagruel was giving order for the government of all Dipsody,
he assigned to Panurge the lairdship of Salmigondin, which was yearly
worth 6,789,106,789 reals of certain rent, besides the uncertain revenue
of the locusts and periwinkles, amounting, one year with another, to the
value of 435,768, or 2,435,769 French crowns of Berry. Sometimes it
did amount to 1,230,554,321 seraphs, when it was a good year, and that
locusts and periwinkles were in request; but that was not every year.
Now his worship, the new laird, husbanded this his estate so
providently well and prudently, that in less than fourteen days he
wasted and dilapidated all the certain and uncertain revenue of his
lairdship for three whole years. Yet did not he properly dilapidate it, as
you might say, in founding of monasteries, building of churches,
erecting of colleges, and setting up of hospitals, or casting his
bacon-flitches to the dogs; but spent it in a thousand little banquets and
jolly collations, keeping open house for all comers and goers; yea, to all
good fellows, young girls, and pretty wenches; felling timber, burning
great logs for the sale of the ashes, borrowing money beforehand,
buying dear, selling cheap, and eating his corn, as it were, whilst it was
but grass.
Pantagruel, being advertised of this his lavishness, was in good sooth
no way offended at the matter, angry nor sorry; for I once told you, and
again tell it you, that he was the best, little, great goodman that ever
girded a sword to his side. He took all things in good part, and
interpreted every action to the best sense. He never vexed nor
disquieted himself with the least pretence of dislike to anything,
because he knew that he must have most grossly abandoned the divine
mansion of reason if he had permitted his mind to be never so little
grieved, afflicted, or altered at any occasion whatsoever. For all the
goods that the heaven covereth, and that the earth containeth, in all
their dimensions of height, depth, breadth, and length, are not of so
much worth as that we should for them disturb or disorder our
affections, trouble or perplex our senses or spirits.
He drew only Panurge aside, and then, making to him a sweet
remonstrance and mild admonition, very gently represented before him
in strong arguments, that, if he should continue in such an unthrifty
course of living, and not become a better mesnagier, it would prove
altogether impossible for him, or at least hugely difficult, at any time to
make him rich. Rich! answered Panurge; have you fixed your thoughts
there? Have you undertaken the task to enrich me in this world? Set
your mind to live merrily, in the name of God and good folks; let no
other cark nor care be harboured within the sacrosanctified domicile of
your celestial brain. May the calmness and tranquillity thereof be never
incommodated with, or overshadowed by any frowning clouds of sullen
imaginations and displeasing annoyance! For if you live joyful, merry,
jocund, and glad, I cannot be but rich enough. Everybody cries up thrift,
thrift, and good husbandry. But many speak of Robin Hood that never
shot in his bow, and talk of that virtue of mesnagery who know not
what belongs to it. It is by me that they must be advised. From me,
therefore, take this advertisement and information, that what is imputed
to me for a vice hath been done in imitation of the university and
parliament of Paris, places in which is to be found the true spring and
source of the lively idea of Pantheology and all manner of justice. Let
him be counted a heretic that doubteth thereof, and doth not firmly
believe it. Yet they in one day eat up their bishop, or the revenue of the
bishopric--is it not all one?--for a whole year, yea, sometimes for two.
This is done on the day he makes his entry, and is installed. Nor is there
any place for an excuse; for he cannot avoid it, unless he would be
hooted at and stoned for his parsimony.
It hath been also esteemed an act flowing from the habit of the four
cardinal virtues. Of prudence in borrowing money beforehand; for none
knows what may fall out. Who is able to tell if the world shall last yet
three years? But although it should continue longer, is there any man so
foolish as to have the confidence to promise himself three years?
What fool so confident to say, That he shall live one other day?
Of commutative justice, in buying dear, I say, upon trust, and selling
goods cheap, that is, for ready money. What says Cato in his Book of
Husbandry to this purpose? The father of a family, says he, must be a
perpetual seller; by which means it is impossible but that at last he shall
become rich, if he have of vendible ware enough still ready for sale.
Of distributive justice it doth partake, in giving entertainment to good--
remark, good--and gentle fellows, whom fortune had shipwrecked, like
Ulysses, upon the rock of a hungry stomach without provision of
sustenance; and likewise to the good--remark, the good--and young
wenches. For, according to the sentence of Hippocrates, Youth is
impatient of hunger, chiefly if it be vigorous, lively, frolic, brisk,
stirring, and bouncing. Which wanton lasses willingly and heartily
devote themselves to the pleasure of honest men; and are in so far both
Platonic and Ciceronian, that they do acknowledge their being born
into this world not to be for themselves alone, but that in their proper
persons their acquaintance may claim one share, and their friends
another.
The virtue of fortitude appears therein by the cutting down and
overthrowing of the great trees, like a second Milo making havoc of the
dark forest, which did serve only to furnish dens, caves, and shelter to
wolves, wild boars, and foxes, and afford receptacles, withdrawing
corners, and refuges to robbers, thieves, and murderers, lurking holes
and skulking places for cutthroat assassinators, secret obscure shops for
coiners of false money, and safe retreats for heretics, laying them even
and level with the plain champaign fields and pleasant heathy ground,
at the sound of the hautboys and bagpipes playing reeks with the high
and stately timber, and preparing seats and benches for the eve of the
dreadful day of judgment.
I gave thereby proof of my temperance in eating my corn whilst it was
but grass, like a hermit feeding upon salads and roots, that, so
affranchising myself from the yoke of sensual appetites to the utter
disclaiming of their sovereignty, I might the better reserve somewhat in
store for the relief of the lame, blind, crippled, maimed, needy, poor,
and wanting wretches.
In taking this course I save the expense of the weed-grubbers, who gain
money,--of the reapers in harvest-time, who drink lustily, and without
water,--of gleaners, who will expect their cakes and bannocks,--of
threshers, who leave no garlic, scallions, leeks, nor onions in our
gardens, by the authority of Thestilis in Virgil,--and of the millers, who
are generally thieves,--and of the bakers, who are little better. Is this
small saving or frugality? Besides the mischief and damage of the
field- mice, the decay of barns, and the destruction usually made by
weasels and other vermin.
Of corn in the blade you may make good green sauce of a light
concoction and easy digestion, which recreates the brain and
exhilarates the animal spirits, rejoiceth the sight, openeth the appetite,
delighteth the taste, comforteth the heart, tickleth the tongue, cheereth
the countenance, striking a fresh and lively colour, strengthening the
muscles, tempers the blood, disburdens the midriff, refresheth the liver,
disobstructs the spleen, easeth the kidneys, suppleth the reins, quickens
the joints of the back, cleanseth the urine-conduits, dilates the
spermatic vessels, shortens the cremasters, purgeth the bladder, puffeth
up the genitories, correcteth the prepuce, hardens the nut, and rectifies
the member. It will make you have a current belly to trot, fart, dung,
piss, sneeze, cough, spit, belch, spew, yawn, snuff, blow, breathe, snort,
sweat, and set taut your Robin, with a thousand other rare advantages. I
understand you very well, says Pantagruel; you would thereby infer
that those of a mean spirit and shallow capacity have not the skill to
spend much in a short time. You are not the first in whose conceit that
heresy hath entered. Nero maintained it, and above all mortals admired
most his uncle Caius Caligula, for having in a few days, by a most
wonderfully pregnant invention, totally spent all the goods and
patrimony which Tiberius had left him.
But, instead of observing the sumptuous supper-curbing laws of the
Romans-- to wit, the Orchia, the Fannia, the Didia, the Licinia, the
Cornelia, the Lepidiana, the Antia, and of the Corinthians--by the
which they were inhibited, under pain of great punishment, not to
spend more in one year than their annual revenue did amount to, you
have offered up the oblation of Protervia, which was with the Romans
such a sacrifice as the paschal lamb was amongst the Jews, wherein all
that was eatable was to be eaten, and the remainder to be thrown into
the fire, without reserving anything for the next day. I may very justly
say of you, as Cato did of Albidius, who after that he had by a most
extravagant expense wasted all the means and possessions he had to
one only house, he fairly set it on fire, that he might the better say,
Consummatum est. Even just as since his time St. Thomas Aquinas did,
when he had eaten up the whole lamprey, although there was no
necessity in it.
Chapter 3.
III.
How Panurge praiseth the debtors and borrowers.
But, quoth Pantagruel, when will you be out of debt? At the next
ensuing term of the Greek kalends, answered Panurge, when all the
world shall be content, and that it be your fate to become your own heir.
The Lord forbid that I should be out of debt, as if, indeed, I could not
be trusted. Who leaves not some leaven over night, will hardly have
paste the next morning.
Be still indebted to somebody or other, that there may be somebody
always to pray for you, that the giver of all good things may grant unto
you a blessed, long, and prosperous life; fearing, if fortune should deal
crossly with you, that it might be his chance to come short of being
paid by you, he will always speak good of you in every company, ever
and anon purchase new creditors unto you; to the end, that through
their means you may make a shift by borrowing from Peter to pay Paul,
and with other folk's earth fill up his ditch. When of old, in the region
of the Gauls, by the institution of the Druids, the servants, slaves, and
bondmen were burnt quick at the funerals and obsequies of their lords
and masters, had not they fear enough, think you, that their lords and
masters should die? For, perforce, they were to die with them for
company. Did not they incessantly send up their supplications to their
great god Mercury, as likewise unto Dis, the father of wealth, to
lengthen out their days, and to preserve them long in health? Were not
they very careful to entertain them well, punctually to look unto them,
and to attend them faithfully and circumspectly? For by those means
were they to live together at least until the hour of death. Believe me,
your creditors with a more fervent devotion will beseech Almighty God
to prolong your life, they being of nothing more afraid than that you
should die; for that they are more concerned for the sleeve than the arm,
and love silver better than their own lives. As it evidently appeareth by
the usurers of Landerousse, who not long since hanged themselves
because the price of the corn and wines was fallen by the return of a
gracious season. To this Pantagruel answering nothing, Panurge went
on in his discourse, saying, Truly and in good sooth, sir, when I ponder
my destiny aright, and think well upon it, you put me shrewdly to my
plunges, and have me at a bay in twitting me with the reproach of my
debts and creditors. And yet did I, in this only respect and consideration
of being a debtor, esteem myself worshipful, reverend, and formidable.
For against the opinion of most philosophers, that of nothing ariseth
nothing, yet, without having bottomed on so much as that which is
called the First Matter, did I out of nothing become such (a) maker and
creator, that I have created--what?--a gay number of fair and jolly
creditors. Nay, creditors, I will maintain it, even to the very fire itself
exclusively, are fair and goodly creatures. Who lendeth nothing is an
ugly and wicked creature, and an accursed imp of the infernal Old Nick.
And there is made--what? Debts. A thing most precious and dainty, of
great use and antiquity. Debts, I say, surmounting the number of
syllables which may result from the combinations of all the consonants,
with each of the vowels heretofore projected, reckoned, and calculated
by the noble Xenocrates. To judge of the perfection of debtors by the
numerosity of their creditors is the readiest way for entering into the
mysteries of practical arithmetic.
You can hardly imagine how glad I am, when every morning I perceive
myself environed and surrounded with brigades of creditors--humble,
fawning, and full of their reverences. And whilst I remark that, as I
look more favourably upon and give a cheerfuller countenance to one
than to another, the fellow thereupon buildeth a conceit that he shall be
the first despatched and the foremost in the date of payment, and he
valueth my smiles at the rate of ready money, it seemeth unto me that I
then act and personate the god of the passion of Saumure, accompanied
with his angels and cherubims.
These are my flatterers, my soothers, my clawbacks, my smoothers, my
parasites, my saluters, my givers of good-morrows, and perpetual
orators; which makes me verily think that the supremest height of
heroic virtue described by Hesiod consisteth in being a debtor, wherein
I held the first degree in my commencement. Which dignity, though all
human creatures seem to aim at and aspire thereto, few nevertheless,
because of the difficulties in the way and encumbrances of hard
passages, are able to reach it, as is easily perceivable by the ardent
desire and vehement longing harboured in the breast of everyone to be
still creating more debts and new creditors.
Yet doth it not lie in the power of everyone to be a debtor. To acquire
creditors is not at the disposure of each man's arbitrament. You
nevertheless would deprive me of this sublime felicity. You ask me
when I will be out of debt. Well, to go yet further on, and possibly
worse in your conceit, may Saint Bablin, the good saint, snatch me, if I
have not all my lifetime held debt to be as a union or conjunction of the
heavens with the earth, and the whole cement whereby the race of
mankind is kept together; yea, of such virtue and efficacy that, I say,
the whole progeny of Adam would very suddenly perish without it.
Therefore, perhaps, I do not think amiss, when I repute it to be the great
soul of the universe, which, according to the opinion of the Academics,
vivifieth all manner of things. In confirmation whereof, that you may
the better believe it to be so, represent unto yourself, without any
prejudicacy of spirit, in a clear and serene fancy, the idea and form of
some other world than this; take, if you please, and lay hold on the
thirtieth of those which the philosopher Metrodorus did enumerate,
wherein it is to be supposed there is no debtor or creditor, that is to say,
a world without debts.
There amongst the planets will be no regular course, all will be in
disorder. Jupiter, reckoning himself to be nothing indebted unto Saturn,
will go near to detrude him out of his sphere, and with the Homeric
chain will be like to hang up the intelligences, gods, heavens, demons,
heroes, devils, earth and sea, together with the other elements. Saturn,
no doubt, combining with Mars will reduce that so disturbed world into
a chaos of confusion.
Mercury then would be no more subjected to the other planets; he
would scorn to be any longer their Camillus, as he was of old termed in
the Etrurian tongue. For it is to be imagined that he is no way a debtor
to them.
Venus will be no more venerable, because she shall have lent nothing.
The moon will remain bloody and obscure. For to what end should the
sun impart unto her any of his light? He owed her nothing. Nor yet will
the sun shine upon the earth, nor the stars send down any good
influence, because the terrestrial globe hath desisted from sending up
their wonted nourishment by vapours and exhalations, wherewith
Heraclitus said, the Stoics proved, Cicero maintained, they were
cherished and alimented. There would likewise be in such a world no
manner of symbolization, alteration, nor transmutation amongst the
elements; for the one will not esteem itself obliged to the other, as
having borrowed nothing at all from it. Earth then will not become
water, water will not be changed into air, of air will be made no fire,
and fire will afford no heat unto the earth; the earth will produce
nothing but monsters, Titans, giants; no rain will descend upon it, nor
light shine thereon; no wind will blow there, nor will there be in it any
summer or harvest. Lucifer will break loose, and issuing forth of the
depth of hell, accompanied with his furies, fiends, and horned devils,
will go about to unnestle and drive out of heaven all the gods, as well
of the greater as of the lesser nations. Such a world without lending will
be no better than a dog-kennel, a place of contention and wrangling,
more unruly and irregular than that of the rector of Paris; a devil of an
hurlyburly, and more disordered confusion than that of the plagues of
Douay. Men will not then salute one another; it will be but lost labour
to expect aid or succour from any, or to cry fire, water, murder, for
none will put to their helping hand. Why? He lent no money, there is
nothing due to him. Nobody is concerned in his burning, in his
shipwreck, in his ruin, or in his death; and that because he hitherto had
lent nothing, and would never thereafter have lent anything. In short,
Faith, Hope, and Charity would be quite banished from such a
world--for men are born to relieve and assist one another; and in their
stead should succeed and be introduced Defiance, Disdain, and
Rancour, with the most execrable troop of all evils, all imprecations,
and all miseries. Whereupon you will think, and that not amiss, that
Pandora had there spilt her unlucky bottle. Men unto men will be
wolves, hobthrushers, and goblins (as were Lycaon, Bellerophon,
Nebuchodonosor), plunderers, highway robbers, cutthroats, rapparees,
murderers, poisoners, assassinators, lewd, wicked, malevolent,
pernicious haters, set against everybody, like to Ishmael, Metabus, or
Timon the Athenian, who for that cause was named Misanthropos, in
such sort that it would prove much more easy in nature to have fish
entertained in the air and bullocks fed in the bottom of the ocean, than
to support or tolerate a rascally rabble of people that will not lend.
These fellows, I vow, do I hate with a perfect hatred; and if, conform to
the pattern of this grievous, peevish, and perverse world which lendeth
nothing, you figure and liken the little world, which is man, you will
find in him a terrible justling coil and clutter. The head will not lend the
sight of his eyes to guide the feet and hands; the legs will refuse to bear
up the body; the hands will leave off working any more for the rest of
the members; the heart will be weary of its continual motion for the
beating of the pulse, and will no longer lend his assistance; the lungs
will withdraw the use of their bellows; the liver will desist from
convoying any more blood through the veins for the good of the whole;
the bladder will not be indebted to the kidneys, so that the urine thereby
will be totally stopped. The brains, in the interim, considering this
unnatural course, will fall into a raving dotage, and withhold all feeling
from the sinews and motion from the muscles. Briefly, in such a world
without order and array, owing nothing, lending nothing, and
borrowing nothing, you would see a more dangerous conspiration than
that which Aesop exposed in his Apologue. Such a world will perish
undoubtedly; and not only perish, but perish very quickly. Were it
Aesculapius himself, his body would immediately rot, and the chafing
soul, full of indignation, take its flight to all the devils of hell after my
money.
Chapter 3.
IV.
Panurge continueth his discourse in the praise of borrowers and lenders.
On the contrary, be pleased to represent unto your fancy another world,
wherein everyone lendeth and everyone oweth, all are debtors and all
creditors. O how great will that harmony be, which shall thereby result
from the regular motions of the heavens! Methinks I hear it every whit
as well as ever Plato did. What sympathy will there be amongst the
elements! O how delectable then unto nature will be our own works
and productions! Whilst Ceres appeareth laden with corn, Bacchus with
wines, Flora with flowers, Pomona with fruits, and Juno fair in a clear
air, wholesome and pleasant. I lose myself in this high contemplation.
Then will among the race of mankind peace, love, benevolence, fidelity,
tranquillity, rest, banquets, feastings, joy, gladness, gold, silver, single
money, chains, rings, with other ware and chaffer of that nature be
found to trot from hand to hand. No suits at law, no wars, no strife,
debate, nor wrangling; none will be there a usurer, none will be there a
pinch-penny, a scrape-good wretch, or churlish hard-hearted refuser.
Good God! Will not this be the golden age in the reign of Saturn? the
true idea of the Olympic regions, wherein all (other) virtues cease,
charity alone ruleth, governeth, domineereth, and triumpheth? All will
be fair and goodly people there, all just and virtuous.
O happy world! O people of that world most happy! Yea, thrice and
four times blessed is that people! I think in very deed that I am amongst
them, and swear to you, by my good forsooth, that if this glorious
aforesaid world had a pope, abounding with cardinals, that so he might
have the association of a sacred college, in the space of very few years
you should be sure to see the saints much thicker in the roll, more
numerous, wonder- working and mirific, more services, more vows,
more staves and wax-candles than are all those in the nine bishoprics of
Britany, St. Yves only excepted. Consider, sir, I pray you, how the
noble Patelin, having a mind to deify and extol even to the third
heavens the father of William Josseaulme, said no more but this, And
he did lend his goods to those who were desirous of them.
O the fine saying! Now let our microcosm be fancied conform to this
model in all its members; lending, borrowing, and owing, that is to say,
according to its own nature. For nature hath not to any other end
created man, but to owe, borrow, and lend; no greater is the harmony
amongst the heavenly spheres than that which shall be found in its
well-ordered policy. The intention of the founder of this microcosm is,
to have a soul therein to be entertained, which is lodged there, as a
guest with its host, (that) it may live there for a while. Life consisteth in
blood, blood is the seat of the soul; therefore the chiefest work of the
microcosm is, to be making blood continually.
At this forge are exercised all the members of the body; none is
exempted from labour, each operates apart, and doth its proper office.
And such is their heirarchy, that perpetually the one borrows from the
other, the one lends the other, and the one is the other's debtor. The
stuff and matter convenient, which nature giveth to be turned into blood,
is bread and wine. All kind of nourishing victuals is understood to be
comprehended in these two, and from hence in the Gothish tongue is
called companage. To find out this meat and drink, to prepare and boil
it, the hands are put to work, the feet do walk and bear up the whole
bulk of the corporal mass; the eyes guide and conduct all; the appetite
in the orifice of the stomach, by means of (a) little sourish black
humour, called melancholy, which is transmitted thereto from the milt,
giveth warning to shut in the food. The tongue doth make the first essay,
and tastes it; the teeth do chew it, and the stomach doth receive, digest,
and chylify it. The mesaraic veins suck out of it what is good and fit,
leaving behind the excrements, which are, through special conduits for
that purpose, voided by an expulsive faculty. Thereafter it is carried to
the liver, where it being changed again, it by the virtue of that new
transmutation becomes blood. What joy, conjecture you, will then be
found amongst those officers when they see this rivulet of gold, which
is their sole restorative? No greater is the joy of alchemists, when after
long travail, toil, and expense they see in their furnaces the
transmutation. Then is it that every member doth prepare itself, and
strive anew to purify and to refine this treasure. The kidneys through
the emulgent veins draw that aquosity from thence which you call urine,
and there send it away through the ureters to be slipped downwards;
where, in a lower receptacle, and proper for it, to wit, the bladder, it is
kept, and stayeth there until an opportunity to void it out in his due time.
The spleen draweth from the blood its terrestrial part, viz., the grounds,
lees, or thick substance settled in the bottom thereof, which you term
melancholy. The bottle of the gall subtracts from thence all the
superfluous choler; whence it is brought to another shop or work-house
to be yet better purified and fined, that is, the heart, which by its
agitation of diastolic and systolic motions so neatly subtilizeth and
inflames it, that in the right side ventricle it is brought to perfection,
and through the veins is sent to all the members. Each parcel of the
body draws it then unto itself, and after its own fashion is cherished and
alimented by it. Feet, hands, thighs, arms, eyes, ears, back, breast, yea,
all; and then it is, that who before were lenders, now become debtors.
The heart doth in its left side ventricle so thinnify the blood, that it
thereby obtains the name of spiritual; which being sent through the
arteries to all the members of the body, serveth to warm and winnow
the other blood which runneth through the veins. The lights never cease
with its lappets and bellows to cool and refresh it, in acknowledgment
of which good the heart, through the arterial vein, imparts unto it the
choicest of its blood. At last it is made so fine and subtle within the rete
mirabile, that thereafter those animal spirits are framed and composed
of it, by means whereof the imagination, discourse, judgment,
resolution, deliberation, ratiocination, and memory have their rise,
actings, and operations.
Cops body, I sink, I drown, I perish, I wander astray, and quite fly out
of myself when I enter into the consideration of the profound abyss of
this world, thus lending, thus owing. Believe me, it is a divine thing to
lend,--to owe, an heroic virtue. Yet is not this all. This little world thus
lending, owing, and borrowing, is so good and charitable, that no
sooner is the above-specified alimentation finished, but that it forthwith
projecteth, and hath already forecast, how it shall lend to those who are
not as yet born, and by that loan endeavour what it may to eternize
itself, and multiply in images like the pattern, that is, children. To this
end every member doth of the choicest and most precious of its
nourishment pare and cut off a portion, then instantly despatcheth it
downwards to that place where nature hath prepared for it very fit
vessels and receptacles, through which descending to the genitories by
long ambages, circuits, and flexuosities, it receiveth a competent form,
and rooms apt enough both in man and woman for the future
conservation and perpetuating of human kind. All this is done by loans
and debts of the one unto the other; and hence have we this word, the
debt of marriage. Nature doth reckon pain to the refuser, with a most
grievous vexation to his members and an outrageous fury amidst his
senses. But, on the other part, to the lender a set reward, accompanied
with pleasure, joy, solace, mirth, and merry glee.
Chapter 3.
V.
How Pantagruel altogether abhorreth the debtors and borrowers.
I understand you very well, quoth Pantagruel, and take you to be very
good at topics, and thoroughly affectioned to your own cause. But
preach it up, and patrocinate it, prattle on it, and defend it as much as
you will, even from hence to the next Whitsuntide, if you please so to
do, yet in the end you will be astonished to find how you shall have
gained no ground at all upon me, nor persuaded me by your fair
speeches and smooth talk to enter never so little into the thraldom of
debt. You shall owe to none, saith the holy Apostle, anything save love,
friendship, and a mutual benevolence.
You serve me here, I confess, with fine graphides and diatyposes,
descriptions and figures, which truly please me very well. But let me
tell you, if you will represent unto your fancy an impudent blustering
bully and an importunate borrower, entering afresh and newly into a
town already advertised of his manners, you shall find that at his
ingress the citizens will be more hideously affrighted and amazed, and
in a greater terror and fear, dread, and trembling, than if the pest itself
should step into it in the very same garb and accoutrement wherein the
Tyanean philosopher found it within the city of Ephesus. And I am
fully confirmed in the opinion, that the Persians erred not when they
said that the second vice was to lie, the first being that of owing money.
For, in very truth, debts and lying are ordinarily joined together. I will
nevertheless not from hence infer that none must owe anything or lend
anything. For who so rich can be that sometimes may not owe, or who
can be so poor that sometimes may not lend?
Let the occasion, notwithstanding, in that case, as Plato very wisely
sayeth and ordaineth in his laws, be such that none be permitted to
draw any water out of his neighbour's well until first they by continual
digging and delving into their own proper ground shall have hit upon a
kind of potter's earth, which is called ceramite, and there had found no
source or drop of water; for that sort of earth, by reason of its substance,
which is fat, strong, firm, and close, so retaineth its humidity, that it
doth not easily evaporate it by any outward excursion or evaporation.
In good sooth, it is a great shame to choose rather to be still borrowing
in all places from everyone, than to work and win. Then only in my
judgment should one lend, when the diligent, toiling, and industrious
person is no longer able by his labour to make any purchase unto
himself, or otherwise, when by mischance he hath suddenly fallen into
an unexpected loss of his goods.
Howsoever, let us leave this discourse, and from henceforwards do not
hang upon creditors, nor tie yourself to them. I make account for the
time past to rid you freely of them, and from their bondage to deliver
you. The least I should in this point, quoth Panurge, is to thank you,
though it be the most I can do. And if gratitude and thanksgiving be to
be estimated and prized by the affection of the benefactor, that is to be
done infinitely and sempiternally; for the love which you bear me of
your own accord and free grace, without any merit of mine, goeth far
beyond the reach of any price or value. It transcends all weight, all
number, all measure; it is endless and everlasting; therefore, should I
offer to commensurate and adjust it, either to the size and proportion of
your own noble and gracious deeds, or yet to the contentment and
delight of the obliged receivers, I would come off but very faintly and
flaggingly. You have verily done me a great deal of good, and
multiplied your favours on me more frequently than was fitting to one
of my condition. You have been more bountiful towards me than I have
deserved, and your courtesies have by far surpassed the extent of my
merits, I must needs confess it. But it is not, as you suppose, in the
proposed matter. For there it is not where I itch, it is not there where it
fretteth, hurts, or vexeth me; for, henceforth being quit and out of debt,
what countenance will I be able to keep? You may imagine that it will
become me very ill for the first month, because I have never hitherto
been brought up or accustomed to it. I am very much afraid of it.
Furthermore, there shall not one hereafter, native of the country of
Salmigondy, but he shall level the shot towards my nose. All the
back-cracking fellows of the world, in discharging of their postern
petarades, use commonly to say, Voila pour les quittes, that is, For the
quit. My life will be of very short continuance, I do foresee it. I
recommend to you the making of my epitaph; for I perceive I will die
confected in the very stench of farts. If, at any time to come, by way of
restorative to such good women as shall happen to be troubled with the
grievous pain of the wind-colic, the ordinary medicaments prove
nothing effectual, the mummy of all my befarted body will straight be
as a present remedy appointed by the physicians; whereof they, taking
any small modicum, it will incontinently for their ease afford them a
rattle of bumshot, like a sal of muskets.
Therefore would I beseech you to leave me some few centuries of debts;
as King Louis the Eleventh, exempting from suits in law the Reverend
Miles d'Illiers, Bishop of Chartres, was by the said bishop most
earnestly solicited to leave him some few for the exercise of his mind. I
had rather give them all my revenue of the periwinkles, together with
the other incomes of the locusts, albeit I should not thereby have any
parcel abated from off the principal sums which I owe. Let us waive
this matter, quoth Pantagruel, I have told it you over again.
Chapter 3.
VI.
Why new married men were privileged from going to the wars.
But, in the interim, asked Panurge, by what law was it constituted,
ordained, and established, that such as should plant a new vineyard,
those that should build a new house, and the new married men, should
be exempted and discharged from the duty of warfare for the first year?
By the law, answered Pantagruel, of Moses. Why, replied Panurge, the
lately married? As for the vine-planters, I am now too old to reflect on
them; my condition, at this present, induceth me to remain satisfied
with the care of vintage, finishing and turning the grapes into wine. Nor
are these pretty new builders of dead stones written or pricked down in
my Book of Life. It is all with live stones that I set up and erect the
fabrics of my architecture, to wit, men. It was, according to my opinion,
quoth Pantagruel, to the end, first, that the fresh married folks should
for the first year reap a full and complete fruition of their pleasures in
their mutual exercise of the act of love, in such sort, that in waiting
more at leisure on the production of posterity and propagating of their
progeny, they might the better increase their race and make provision
of new heirs. That if, in the years thereafter, the men should, upon their
undergoing of some military adventure, happen to be killed, their
names and coats-of-arms might continue with their children in the same
families. And next, that, the wives thereby coming to know whether
they were barren or fruitful--for one year's trial, in regard of the
maturity of age wherein of old they married, was held sufficient for the
discovery--they might pitch the more suitably, in case of their first
husband's decease, upon a second match. The fertile women to be
wedded to those who desire to multiply their issue; and the sterile ones
to such other mates, as, misregarding the storing of their own lineage,
choose them only for their virtues, learning, genteel behaviour,
domestic consolation, management of the house, and matrimonial
conveniences and comforts, and such like. The preachers of Varennes,
saith Panurge, detest and abhor the second marriages, as altogether
foolish and dishonest.
Foolish and dishonest? quoth Pantagruel. A plague take such preachers!
Yea but, quoth Panurge, the like mischief also befall the Friar Charmer,
who, in a full auditory making a sermon at Pereilly, and therein
abominating the reiteration of marriage and the entering again in the
bonds of a nuptial tie, did swear and heartily give himself to the
swiftest devil in hell, if he had not rather choose, and would much more
willingly undertake the unmaidening or depucelating of a hundred
virgins, than the simple drudgery of one widow. Truly I find your
reason in that point right good and strongly grounded.
But what would you think, if the cause why this exemption or
immunity was granted had no other foundation but that, during the
whole space of the said first year, they so lustily bobbed it with their
female consorts, as both reason and equity require they should do, that
they had drained and evacuated their spermatic vessels; and were
become thereby altogether feeble, weak, emasculated, drooping, and
flaggingly pithless; yea, in such sort that they in the day of battle, like
ducks which plunge over head and ears, would sooner hide themselves
behind the baggage, than, in the company of valiant fighters and daring
military combatants, appear where stern Bellona deals her blows and
moves a bustling noise of thwacks and thumps? Nor is it to be thought
that, under the standard of Mars, they will so much as once strike a fair
stroke, because their most considerable knocks have been already
jerked and whirrited within the curtains of his sweetheart Venus.
In confirmation whereof, amongst other relics and monuments of
antiquity, we now as yet often see, that in all great houses, after the
expiring of some few days, these young married blades are readily sent
away to visit their uncles, that in the absence of their wives reposing
themselves a little they may recover their decayed strength by the
recruit of a fresh supply, the more vigorous to return again and face
about to renew the duelling shock and conflict of an amorous dalliance,
albeit for the greater part they have neither uncle nor aunt to go to.
Just so did the King Crackart, after the battle of the Cornets, not cashier
us (speaking properly), I mean me and the Quail-caller, but for our
refreshment remanded us to our houses; and he is as yet seeking after
his own. My grandfather's godmother was wont to say to me when I
was a boy,--
Patenostres et oraisons Sont pour ceux-la, qui les retiennent. Ung fiffre
en fenaisons Est plus fort que deux qui en viennent.
Not orisons nor patenotres Shall ever disorder my brain. One cadet, to
the field as he flutters, Is worth two, when they end the campaign.
That which prompteth me to that opinion is, that the vine-planters did
seldom eat of the grapes, or drink of the wine of their labour, till the
first year was wholly elapsed. During all which time also the builders
did hardly inhabit their new-structured dwelling-places, for fear of
dying suffocated through want of respiration; as Galen hath most
learnedly remarked, in the second book of the Difficulty of Breathing.
Under favour, sir, I have not asked this question without cause causing
and reason truly very ratiocinant. Be not offended, I pray you.
Chapter 3.
VII.
How Panurge had a flea in his ear, and forbore to wear any longer his
magnificent codpiece.
Panurge, the day thereafter, caused pierce his right ear after the Jewish
fashion, and thereto clasped a little gold ring, of a ferny-like kind of
workmanship, in the beazil or collet whereof was set and enchased a
flea; and, to the end you may be rid of all doubts, you are to know that
the flea was black. O, what a brave thing it is, in every case and
circumstance of a matter, to be thoroughly well informed! The sum of
the expense hereof, being cast up, brought in, and laid down upon his
council-board carpet, was found to amount to no more quarterly than
the charge of the nuptials of a Hircanian tigress; even, as you would say,
600,000 maravedis. At these vast costs and excessive disbursements, as
soon as he perceived himself to be out of debt, he fretted much; and
afterwards, as tyrants and lawyers use to do, he nourished and fed her
with the sweat and blood of his subjects and clients.
He then took four French ells of a coarse brown russet cloth, and
therein apparelling himself, as with a long, plain-seamed, and
single-stitched gown, left off the wearing of his breeches, and tied a
pair of spectacles to his cap. In this equipage did he present himself
before Pantagruel; to whom this disguise appeared the more strange,
that he did not, as before, see that goodly, fair, and stately codpiece,
which was the sole anchor of hope wherein he was wonted to rely, and
last refuge he had midst all the waves and boisterous billows which a
stormy cloud in a cross fortune would raise up against him. Honest
Pantagruel, not understanding the mystery, asked him, by way of
interrogatory, what he did intend to personate in that new-fangled
prosopopoeia. I have, answered Panurge, a flea in mine ear, and have a
mind to marry. In a good time, quoth Pantagruel, you have told me
joyful tidings. Yet would not I hold a red-hot iron in my hand for all the
gladness of them. But it is not the fashion of lovers to be accoutred in
such dangling vestments, so as to have their shirts flagging down over
their knees, without breeches, and with a long robe of a dark brown
mingled hue, which is a colour never used in Talarian garments
amongst any persons of honour, quality, or virtue. If some heretical
persons and schismatical sectaries have at any time formerly been so
arrayed and clothed (though many have imputed such a kind of dress to
cosenage, cheat, imposture, and an affectation of tyranny upon
credulous minds of the rude multitude), I will nevertheless not blame
them for it, nor in that point judge rashly or sinistrously of them.
Everyone overflowingly aboundeth in his own sense and fancy; yea, in
things of a foreign consideration, altogether extrinsical and indifferent,
which in and of themselves are neither commendable nor bad, because
they proceed not from the interior of the thoughts and heart, which is
the shop of all good and evil; of goodness, if it be upright, and that its
affections be regulated by the pure and clean spirit of righteousness;
and, on the other side, of wickedness, if its inclinations, straying
beyond the bounds of equity, be corrupted and depraved by the malice
and suggestions of the devil. It is only the novelty and new-fangledness
thereof which I dislike, together with the contempt of common custom
and the fashion which is in use.
The colour, answered Panurge, is convenient, for it is conform to that
of my council-board carpet; therefore will I henceforth hold me with it,
and more narrowly and circumspectly than ever hitherto I have done
look to my affairs and business. Seeing I am once out of debt, you
never yet saw man more unpleasing than I will be, if God help me not.
Lo, here be my spectacles. To see me afar off, you would readily say
that it were Friar (John) Burgess. I believe certainly that in the next
ensuing year I shall once more preach the Crusade. Bounce, buckram.
Do you see this russet? Doubt not but there lurketh under it some hid
property and occult virtue known to very few in the world. I did not
take it on before this morning, and, nevertheless, am already in a rage
of lust, mad after a wife, and vehemently hot upon untying the
codpiece-point; I itch, I tingle, I wriggle, and long exceedingly to be
married, that, without the danger of cudgel-blows, I may labour my
female copes-mate with the hard push of a bull-horned devil. O the
provident and thrifty husband that I then will be! After my death, with
all honour and respect due to my frugality, will they burn the sacred
bulk of my body, of purpose to preserve the ashes thereof, in memory
of the choicest pattern that ever was of a perfectly wary and complete
householder. Cops body, this is not the carpet whereon my treasurer
shall be allowed to play false in his accounts with me, by setting down
an X for a V, or an L for an S. For in that case should I make a hail of
fisticuffs to fly into his face. Look upon me, sir, both before and
behind,--it is made after the manner of a toga, which was the ancient
fashion of the Romans in time of peace. I took the mode, shape, and
form thereof in Trajan's Column at Rome, as also in the Triumphant
Arch of Septimus Severus. I am tired of the wars, weary of wearing
buff-coats, cassocks, and hoquetons. My shoulders are pitifully worn
and bruised with the carrying of harness. Let armour cease, and the
long robe bear sway! At least it must be so for the whole space of the
succeeding year, if I be married; as yesterday, by the Mosaic law, you
evidenced. In what concerneth the breeches, my great-aunt Laurence
did long ago tell me, that the breeches were only ordained for the use of
the codpiece, and to no other end; which I, upon a no less forcible
consequence, give credit to every whit, as well as to the saying of the
fine fellow Galen, who in his ninth book, Of the Use and Employment
of our Members, allegeth that the head was made for the eyes. For
nature might have placed our heads in our knees or elbows, but having
beforehand determined that the eyes should serve to discover things
from afar, she for the better enabling them to execute their designed
office, fixed them in the head, as on the top of a long pole, in the most
eminent part of all the body--no otherwise than we see the phares, or
high towers erected in the mouths of havens, that navigators may the
further off perceive with ease the lights of the nightly fires and lanterns.
And because I would gladly, for some short while, a year at least, take a
little rest and breathing time from the toilsome labour of the military
profession, that is to say, be married, I have desisted from wearing any
more a codpiece, and consequently have laid aside my breeches. For
the codpiece is the principal and most especial piece of armour that a
warrior doth carry; and therefore do I maintain even to the fire
(exclusively, understand you me), that no Turks can properly be said to
be armed men, in regard that codpieces are by their law forbidden to be
worn.
Chapter 3.
VIII.
Why the codpiece is held to be the chief piece of armour amongst
warriors.
Will you maintain, quoth Pantagruel, that the codpiece is the chief
piece of a military harness? It is a new kind of doctrine, very
paradoxical; for we say, At spurs begins the arming of a man. Sir, I
maintain it, answered Panurge, and not wrongfully do I maintain it.
Behold how nature, having a fervent desire, after its production of
plants, trees, shrubs, herbs, sponges, and plant-animals, to eternize and
continue them unto all succession of ages (in their several kinds or sorts,
at least, although the individuals perish) unruinable, and in an
everlasting being, hath most curiously armed and fenced their buds,
sprouts, shoots, and seeds, wherein the above-mentioned perpetuity
consisteth, by strengthening, covering, guarding, and fortifying them
with an admirable industry, with husks, cases, scurfs and swads, hulls,
cods, stones, films, cartels, shells, ears, rinds, barks, skins, ridges, and
prickles, which serve them instead of strong, fair, and natural codpieces.
As is manifestly apparent in pease, beans, fasels, pomegranates,
peaches, cottons, gourds, pumpions, melons, corn, lemons, almonds,
walnuts, filberts, and chestnuts; as likewise in all plants, slips, or sets
whatsoever, wherein it is plainly and evidently seen, that the sperm and
semence is more closely veiled, overshadowed, corroborated, and
thoroughly harnessed, than any other part, portion, or parcel of the
whole.
Nature, nevertheless, did not after that manner provide for the
sempiternizing of (the) human race; but, on the contrary, created man
naked, tender, and frail, without either offensive or defensive arms; and
that in the estate of innocence, in the first age of all, which was the
golden season; not as a plant, but living creature, born for peace, not
war, and brought forth into the world with an unquestionable right and
title to the plenary fruition and enjoyment of all fruits and vegetables,
as also to a certain calm and gentle rule and dominion over all kinds of
beasts, fowls, fishes, reptiles, and insects. Yet afterwards it happening
in the time of the iron age, under the reign of Jupiter, when, to the
multiplication of mischievous actions, wickedness and malice began to
take root and footing within the then perverted hearts of men, that the
earth began to bring forth nettles, thistles, thorns, briars, and such other
stubborn and rebellious vegetables to the nature of man. Nor scarce was
there any animal which by a fatal disposition did not then revolt from
him, and tacitly conspire and covenant with one another to serve him
no longer, nor, in case of their ability to resist, to do him any manner of
obedience, but rather, to the uttermost of their power, to annoy him
with all the hurt and harm they could. The man, then, that he might
maintain his primitive right and prerogative, and continue his sway and
dominion over all, both vegetable and sensitive creatures, and knowing
of a truth that he could not be well accommodated as he ought without
the servitude and subjection of several animals, bethought himself that
of necessity he must needs put on arms, and make provision of harness
against wars and violence. By the holy Saint Babingoose, cried out
Pantagruel, you are become, since the last rain, a great
lifrelofre,--philosopher, I should say. Take notice, sir, quoth Panurge,
when Dame Nature had prompted him to his own arming, what part of
the body it was, where, by her inspiration, he clapped on the first
harness. It was forsooth by the double pluck of my little dog the ballock
and good Senor Don Priapos Stabo-stando--which done, he was content,
and sought no more. This is certified by the testimony of the great
Hebrew captain (and) philosopher Moses, who affirmeth that he fenced
that member with a brave and gallant codpiece, most exquisitely
framed, and by right curious devices of a notably pregnant invention
made up and composed of fig-tree leaves, which by reason of their
solid stiffness, incisory notches, curled frizzling, sleeked smoothness,
large ampleness, together with their colour, smell, virtue, and faculty,
were exceeding proper and fit for the covering and arming of the
satchels of generation--the hideously big Lorraine cullions being from
thence only excepted, which, swaggering down to the lowermost
bottom of the breeches, cannot abide, for being quite out of all order
and method, the stately fashion of the high and lofty codpiece; as is
manifest by the noble Valentine Viardiere, whom I found at Nancy, on
the first day of May--the more flauntingly to gallantrize it
afterwards--rubbing his ballocks, spread out upon a table after the
manner of a Spanish cloak. Wherefore it is, that none should henceforth
say, who would not speak improperly, when any country bumpkin hieth
to the wars, Have a care, my roister, of the wine-pot, that is, the skull,
but, Have a care, my roister, of the milk-pot, that is, the testicles. By
the whole rabble of the horned fiends of hell, the head being cut off,
that single person only thereby dieth. But, if the ballocks be marred, the
whole race of human kind would forthwith perish, and be lost for ever.
This was the motive which incited the goodly writer Galen, Lib. 1. De
Spermate, to aver with boldness that it were better, that is to say, a less
evil, to have no heart at all than to be quite destitute of genitories; for
there is laid up, conserved, and put in store, as in a secessive repository
and sacred warehouse, the semence and original source of the whole
offspring of mankind. Therefore would I be apt to believe, for less than
a hundred francs, that those are the very same stones by means whereof
Deucalion and Pyrrha restored the human race, in peopling with men
and women the world, which a little before that had been drowned in
the overflowing waves of a poetical deluge. This stirred up the valiant
Justinian, L. 4. De Cagotis tollendis, to collocate his Summum Bonum,
in Braguibus, et Braguetis. For this and other causes, the Lord
Humphrey de Merville, following of his king to a certain warlike
expedition, whilst he was in trying upon his own person a new suit of
armour, for of his old rusty harness he could make no more use, by
reason that some few years since the skin of his belly was a great way
removed from his kidneys, his lady thereupon, in the profound musing
of a contemplative spirit, very maturely considering that he had but
small care of the staff of love and packet of marriage, seeing he did no
otherwise arm that part of the body than with links of mail, advised him
to shield, fence, and gabionate it with a big tilting helmet which she
had lying in her closet, to her otherwise utterly unprofitable. On this
lady were penned these subsequent verses, which are extant in the third
book of the Shitbrana of Paltry Wenches.
When Yoland saw her spouse equipp'd for fight, And, save the
codpiece, all in armour dight, My dear, she cried, why, pray, of all the
rest Is that exposed, you know I love the best? Was she to blame for an
ill-managed fear,-- Or rather pious, conscionable care? Wise lady, she!
In hurlyburly fight, Can any tell where random blows may light?
Leave off then, sir, from being astonished, and wonder no more at this
new manner of decking and trimming up of myself as you now see me.
Chapter 3.
IX.
How Panurge asketh counsel of Pantagruel whether he should marry,
yea, or no.
To this Pantagruel replying nothing, Panurge prosecuted the discourse
he had already broached, and therewithal fetching, as from the bottom
of his heart, a very deep sigh, said, My lord and master, you have heard
the design I am upon, which is to marry, if by some disastrous
mischance all the holes in the world be not shut up, stopped, closed,
and bushed. I humbly beseech you, for the affection which of a long
time you have borne me, to give me your best advice therein. Then,
answered Pantagruel, seeing you have so decreed, taken deliberation
thereon, and that the matter is fully determined, what need is there of
any further talk thereof, but forthwith to put it into execution what you
have resolved? Yea but, quoth Panurge, I would be loth to act anything
therein without your counsel had thereto. It is my judgment also, quoth
Pantagruel, and I advise you to it. Nevertheless, quoth Panurge, if I
understood aright that it were much better for me to remain a bachelor
as I am, than to run headlong upon new hairbrained undertakings of
conjugal adventure, I would rather choose not to marry. Quoth
Pantagruel, Then do not marry. Yea but, quoth Panurge, would you
have me so solitarily drive out the whole course of my life, without the
comfort of a matrimonial consort? You know it is written, Vae soli!
and a single person is never seen to reap the joy and solace that is found
with married folks. Then marry, in the name of God, quoth Pantagruel.
But if, quoth Panurge, my wife should make me a cuckold--as it is not
unknown unto you, how this hath been a very plentiful year in the
production of that kind of cattle--I would fly out, and grow impatient
beyond all measure and mean. I love cuckolds with my heart, for they
seem unto me to be of a right honest conversation, and I truly do very
willingly frequent their company; but should I die for it, I would not be
one of their number. That is a point for me of a too sore prickling point.
Then do not marry, quoth Pantagruel, for without all controversy this
sentence of Seneca is infallibly true, What thou to others shalt have
done, others will do the like to thee. Do you, quoth Panurge, aver that
without all exception? Yes, truly, quoth Pantagruel, without all
exception. Ho, ho, says Panurge, by the wrath of a little devil, his
meaning is, either in this world or in the other which is to come. Yet
seeing I can no more want a wife than a blind man his staff--(for) the
funnel must be in agitation, without which manner of occupation I
cannot live--were it not a great deal better for me to apply and associate
myself to some one honest, lovely, and virtuous woman, than as I do,
by a new change of females every day, run a hazard of being
bastinadoed, or, which is worse, of the great pox, if not of both together.
For never--be it spoken by their husbands' leave and favour--had I
enjoyment yet of an honest woman. Marry then, in God's name, quoth
Pantagruel. But if, quoth Panurge, it were the will of God, and that my
destiny did unluckily lead me to marry an honest woman who should
beat me, I would be stored with more than two third parts of the
patience of Job, if I were not stark mad by it, and quite distracted with
such rugged dealings. For it hath been told me that those exceeding
honest women have ordinarily very wicked head-pieces; therefore is it
that their family lacketh not for good vinegar. Yet in that case should it
go worse with me, if I did not then in such sort bang her back and
breast, so thumpingly bethwack her gillets, to wit, her arms, legs, head,
lights, liver, and milt, with her other entrails, and mangle, jag, and slash
her coats so after the cross-billet fashion that the greatest devil of hell
should wait at the gate for the reception of her damnel soul. I could
make a shift for this year to waive such molestation and disquiet, and
be content to lay aside that trouble, and not to be engaged in it.
Do not marry then, answered Pantagruel. Yea but, quoth Panurge,
considering the condition wherein I now am, out of debt and unmarried;
mark what I say, free from all debt, in an ill hour, for, were I deeply on
the score, my creditors would be but too careful of my paternity, but
being quit, and not married, nobody will be so regardful of me, or carry
towards me a love like that which is said to be in a conjugal affection.
And if by some mishap I should fall sick, I would be looked to very
waywardly. The wise man saith, Where there is no woman--I mean the
mother of a family and wife in the union of a lawful wedlock--the crazy
and diseased are in danger of being ill used and of having much
brabbling and strife about them; as by clear experience hath been made
apparent in the persons of popes, legates, cardinals, bishops, abbots,
priors, priests, and monks; but there, assure yourself, you shall not find
me. Marry then, in the name of God, answered Pantagruel. But if,
quoth Panurge, being ill at ease, and possibly through that distemper
made unable to discharge the matrimonial duty that is incumbent to an
active husband, my wife, impatient of that drooping sickness and
faint-fits of a pining languishment, should abandon and prostitute
herself to the embraces of another man, and not only then not help and
assist me in my extremity and need, but withal flout at and make sport
of that my grievous distress and calamity; or peradventure, which is
worse, embezzle my goods and steal from me, as I have seen it
oftentimes befall unto the lot of many other men, it were enough to
undo me utterly, to fill brimful the cup of my misfortune, and make me
play the mad-pate reeks of Bedlam. Do not marry then, quoth
Pantagruel. Yea but, said Panurge, I shall never by any other means
come to have lawful sons and daughters, in whom I may harbour some
hope of perpetuating my name and arms, and to whom also I may leave
and bequeath my inheritances and purchased goods (of which latter sort
you need not doubt but that in some one or other of these mornings I
will make a fair and goodly show), that so I may cheer up and make
merry when otherwise I should be plunged into a peevish sullen mood
of pensive sullenness, as I do perceive daily by the gentle and loving
carriage of your kind and gracious father towards you; as all honest
folks use to do at their own homes and private dwelling-houses. For
being free from debt, and yet not married, if casually I should fret and
be angry, although the cause of my grief and displeasure were never so
just, I am afraid, instead of consolation, that I should meet with nothing
else but scoffs, frumps, gibes, and mocks at my disastrous fortune.
Marry then, in the name of God, quoth Pantagruel.
Chapter 3.
X.
How Pantagruel representeth unto Panurge the difficulty of giving
advice in the matter of marriage; and to that purpose mentioneth
somewhat of the Homeric and Virgilian lotteries.
Your counsel, quoth Panurge, under your correction and favour,
seemeth unto me not unlike to the song of Gammer Yea-by-nay. It is
full of sarcasms, mockeries, bitter taunts, nipping bobs, derisive quips,
biting jerks, and contradictory iterations, the one part destroying the
other. I know not, quoth Pantagruel, which of all my answers to lay
hold on; for your proposals are so full of ifs and buts, that I can ground
nothing on them, nor pitch upon any solid and positive determination
satisfactory to what is demanded by them. Are not you assured within
yourself of what you have a mind to? The chief and main point of the
whole matter lieth there. All the rest is merely casual, and totally
dependeth upon the fatal disposition of the heavens.
We see some so happy in the fortune of this nuptial encounter, that
their family shineth as it were with the radiant effulgency of an idea,
model, or representation of the joys of paradise; and perceive others,
again, to be so unluckily matched in the conjugal yoke, that those very
basest of devils which tempt the hermits that inhabit the deserts of
Thebais and Montserrat are not more miserable than they. It is therefore
expedient, seeing you are resolved for once to take a trial of the state of
marriage, that, with shut eyes, bowing your head, and kissing the
ground, you put the business to a venture, and give it a fair hazard, in
recommending the success of the residue to the disposure of Almighty
God. It lieth not in my power to give you any other manner of
assurance, or otherwise to certify you of what shall ensue on this your
undertaking. Nevertheless, if it please you, this you may do. Bring
hither Virgil's poems, that after having opened the book, and with our
fingers severed the leaves thereof three several times, we may,
according to the number agreed upon betwixt ourselves, explore the
future hap of your intended marriage. For frequently by a Homeric
lottery have many hit upon their destinies; as is testified in the person
of Socrates, who, whilst he was in prison, hearing the recitation of this
verse of Homer, said of Achilles in the Ninth of the Iliads--
Emati ke tritato Phthien eribolon ikoimen,
We, the third day, to fertile Pthia came--
thereby foresaw that on the third subsequent day he was to die. Of the
truth whereof he assured Aeschines; as Plato, in Critone, Cicero, in
Primo, de Divinatione, Diogenes Laertius, and others, have to the full
recorded in their works. The like is also witnessed by Opilius Macrinus,
to whom, being desirous to know if he should be the Roman emperor,
befell, by chance of lot, this sentence in the Eighth of the Iliads--
O geron, e mala de se neoi teirousi machetai, Ze de bin lelutai,
chalepon de se geras opazei.
Dotard, new warriors urge thee to be gone. Thy life decays, and old age
weighs thee down.
In fact, he, being then somewhat ancient, had hardly enjoyed the
sovereignty of the empire for the space of fourteen months, when by
Heliogabalus, then both young and strong, he was dispossessed thereof,
thrust out of all, and killed. Brutus doth also bear witness of another
experiment of this nature, who willing, through this exploratory way by
lot, to learn what the event and issue should be of the Pharsalian battle
wherein he perished, he casually encountered on this verse, said of
Patroclus in the Sixteenth of the Iliads--
Alla me moir oloe, kai Letous ektanen uios.
Fate, and Latona's son have shot me dead.
And accordingly Apollo was the field-word in the dreadful day of that
fight. Divers notable things of old have likewise been foretold and
known by casting of Virgilian lots; yea, in matters of no less
importance than the obtaining of the Roman empire, as it happened to
Alexander Severus, who, trying his fortune at the said kind of lottery,
did hit upon this verse written in the Sixth of the Aeneids--
Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento.
Know, Roman, that thy business is to reign.
He, within very few years thereafter, was effectually and in good
earnest created and installed Roman emperor. A semblable story
thereto is related of Adrian, who, being hugely perplexed within
himself out of a longing humour to know in what account he was with
the Emperor Trajan, and how large the measure of that affection was
which he did bear unto him, had recourse, after the manner above
specified, to the Maronian lottery, which by haphazard tendered him
these lines out of the Sixth of the Aeneids--
Quis procul ille autem, ramis insignis olivae Sacra ferens? Nosco crines
incanaque menta Regis Romani.
But who is he, conspicuous from afar, With olive boughs, that doth his
offerings bear? By the white hair and beard I know him plain, The
Roman king.
Shortly thereafter was he adopted by Trajan, and succeeded to him in
the empire. Moreover, to the lot of the praiseworthy Emperor Claudius
befell this line of Virgil, written in the Sixth of his Aeneids--
Tertia dum Latio regnantem viderit aestas.
Whilst the third summer saw him reign, a king In Latium.
And in effect he did not reign above two years. To the said Claudian
also, inquiring concerning his brother Quintilius, whom he proposed as
a colleague with himself in the empire, happened the response
following in the Sixth of the Aeneids--
Ostendent terris hunc tantum fata.
Whom Fate let us see, And would no longer suffer him to be.
And it so fell out; for he was killed on the seventeenth day after he had
attained unto the management of the imperial charge. The very same lot,
also, with the like misluck, did betide the Emperor Gordian the younger.
To Claudius Albinus, being very solicitous to understand somewhat of
his future adventures, did occur this saying, which is written in the
Sixth of the Aeneids--
Hic rem Romanam magno turbante tumultu Sistet Eques, &c.
The Romans, boiling with tumultuous rage, This warrior shall the
dangerous storm assuage: With victories he the Carthaginian mauls,
And with strong hand shall crush the rebel Gauls.
Likewise, when the Emperor D. Claudius, Aurelian's predecessor, did
with great eagerness research after the fate to come of his posterity, his
hap was to alight on this verse in the First of the Aeneids--
Hic ego nec metas rerum, nec tempora pono.
No bounds are to be set, no limits here.
Which was fulfilled by the goodly genealogical row of his race. When
Mr. Peter Amy did in like manner explore and make trial if he should
escape the ambush of the hobgoblins who lay in wait all-to-bemaul him,
he fell upon this verse in the Third of the Aeneids--
Heu! fuge crudeles terras, fuge littus avarum!
Oh, flee the bloody land, the wicked shore!
Which counsel he obeying, safe and sound forthwith avoided all these
ambuscades.
Were it not to shun prolixity, I could enumerate a thousand such like
adventures, which, conform to the dictate and verdict of the verse, have
by that manner of lot-casting encounter befallen to the curious
researchers of them. Do not you nevertheless imagine, lest you should
be deluded, that I would upon this kind of fortune-flinging proof infer
an uncontrollable and not to be gainsaid infallibility of truth.
Chapter 3.
XI.
How Pantagruel showeth the trial of one's fortune by the throwing of
dice to be unlawful.
It would be sooner done, quoth Panurge, and more expeditely, if we
should try the matter at the chance of three fair dice. Quoth Pantagruel,
That sort of lottery is deceitful, abusive, illicitous, and exceedingly
scandalous. Never trust in it. The accursed book of the Recreation of
Dice was a great while ago excogitated in Achaia, near Bourre, by that
ancient enemy of mankind, the infernal calumniator, who, before the
statue or massive image of the Bourraic Hercules, did of old, and doth
in several places of the world as yet, make many simple souls to err and
fall into his snares. You know how my father Gargantua hath forbidden
it over all his kingdoms and dominions; how he hath caused burn the
moulds and draughts thereof, and altogether suppressed, abolished,
driven forth, and cast it out of the land, as a most dangerous plague and
infection to any well- polished state or commonwealth. What I have
told you of dice, I say the same of the play at cockall. It is a lottery of
the like guile and deceitfulness; and therefore do not for convincing of
me allege in opposition to this my opinion, or bring in the example of
the fortunate cast of Tiberius, within the fountain of Aponus, at the
oracle of Gerion. These are the baited hooks by which the devil attracts
and draweth unto him the foolish souls of silly people into eternal
perdition.
Nevertheless, to satisfy your humour in some measure, I am content
you throw three dice upon this table, that, according to the number of
the blots which shall happen to be cast up, we may hit upon a verse of
that page which in the setting open of the book you shall have pitched
upon.
Have you any dice in your pocket? A whole bagful, answered Panurge.
That is provision against the devil, as is expounded by Merlin Coccaius,
Lib. 2. De Patria Diabolorum. The devil would be sure to take me
napping, and very much at unawares, if he should find me without dice.
With this, the three dice being taken out, produced, and thrown, they
fell so pat upon the lower points that the cast was five, six, and five.
These are, quoth Panurge, sixteen in all. Let us take the sixteenth line
of the page. The number pleaseth me very well; I hope we shall have a
prosperous and happy chance. May I be thrown amidst all the devils of
hell, even as a great bowl cast athwart at a set of ninepins, or
cannon-ball shot among a battalion of foot, in case so many times I do
not boult my future wife the first night of our marriage! Of that,
forsooth, I make no doubt at all, quoth Pantagruel. You needed not to
have rapped forth such a horrid imprecation, the sooner to procure
credit for the performance of so small a business, seeing possibly the
first bout will be amiss, and that you know is usually at tennis called
fifteen. At the next justling turn you may readily amend that fault, and
so complete your reckoning of sixteen. Is it so, quoth Panurge, that you
understand the matter? And must my words be thus interpreted? Nay,
believe me never yet was any solecism committed by that valiant
champion who often hath for me in Belly-dale stood sentry at the
hypogastrian cranny. Did you ever hitherto find me in the confraternity
of the faulty? Never, I trow; never, nor ever shall, for ever and a day. I
do the feat like a goodly friar or father confessor, without default. And
therein am I willing to be judged by the players. He had no sooner
spoke these words than the works of Virgil were brought in. But before
the book was laid open, Panurge said to Pantagruel, My heart, like the
furch of a hart in a rut, doth beat within my breast. Be pleased to feel
and grope my pulse a little on this artery of my left arm. At its frequent
rise and fall you would say that they swinge and belabour me after the
manner of a probationer, posed and put to a peremptory trial in the
examination of his sufficiency for the discharge of the learned duty of a
graduate in some eminent degree in the college of the Sorbonists.
But would you not hold it expedient, before we proceed any further,
that we should invocate Hercules and the Tenetian goddesses who in
the chamber of lots are said to rule, sit in judgment, and bear a
presidential sway? Neither him nor them, answered Pantagruel; only
open up the leaves of the book with your fingers, and set your nails
awork.
Chapter 3.
XII.
How Pantagruel doth explore by the Virgilian lottery what fortune
Panurge shall have in his marriage.
Then at the opening of the book in the sixteenth row of the lines of the
disclosed page did Panurge encounter upon this following verse:
Nec Deus hunc mensa, Dea nec dignata cubili est.
The god him from his table banished, Nor would the goddess have him
in her bed.
This response, quoth Pantagruel, maketh not very much for your
benefit or advantage; for it plainly signifies and denoteth that your wife
shall be a strumpet, and yourself by consequence a cuckold. The
goddess, whom you shall not find propitious nor favourable unto you,
is Minerva, a most redoubtable and dreadful virgin, a powerful and
fulminating goddess, an enemy to cuckolds and effeminate youngsters,
to cuckold-makers and adulterers. The god is Jupiter, a terrible and
thunder-striking god from heaven. And withal it is to be remarked, that,
conform to the doctrine of the ancient Etrurians, the manubes, for so
did they call the darting hurls or slinging casts of the Vulcanian
thunderbolts, did only appertain to her and to Jupiter her father capital.
This was verified in the conflagration of the ships of Ajax Oileus, nor
doth this fulminating power belong to any other of the Olympic gods.
Men, therefore, stand not in such fear of them. Moreover, I will tell you,
and you may take it as extracted out of the profoundest mysteries of
mythology, that, when the giants had enterprised the waging of a war
against the power of the celestial orbs, the gods at first did laugh at
those attempts, and scorned such despicable enemies, who were, in
their conceit, not strong enough to cope in feats of warfare with their
pages; but when they saw by the gigantine labour the high hill Pelion
set on lofty Ossa, and that the mount Olympus was made shake to be
erected on the top of both, then was it that Jupiter held a parliament, or
general convention, wherein it was unanimously resolved upon and
condescended to by all the gods, that they should worthily and valiantly
stand to their defence. And because they had often seen battles lost by
the cumbersome lets and disturbing encumbrances of women
confusedly huddled in amongst armies, it was at that time decreed and
enacted that they should expel and drive out of heaven into Egypt and
the confines of Nile that whole crew of goddesses, disguised in the
shapes of weasels, polecats, bats, shrew-mice, ferrets, fulmarts, and
other such like odd transformations; only Minerva was reserved to
participate with Jupiter in the horrific fulminating power, as being the
goddess both of war and learning, of arts and arms, of counsel and
despatch--a goddess armed from her birth, a goddess dreaded in heaven,
in the air, by sea and land. By the belly of Saint Buff, quoth Panurge,
should I be Vulcan, whom the poet blazons? Nay, I am neither a cripple,
coiner of false money, nor smith, as he was. My wife possibly will be
as comely and handsome as ever was his Venus, but not a whore like
her, nor I a cuckold like him. The crook-legged slovenly slave made
himself to be declared a cuckold by a definite sentence and judgment,
in the open view of all the gods. For this cause ought you to interpret
the afore-mentioned verse quite contrary to what you have said. This
lot importeth that my wife will be honest, virtuous, chaste, loyal, and
faithful; not armed, surly, wayward, cross, giddy, humorous, heady,
hairbrained, or extracted out of the brains, as was the goddess Pallas;
nor shall this fair jolly Jupiter be my co-rival. He shall never dip his
bread in my broth, though we should sit together at one table.
Consider his exploits and gallant actions. He was the manifest ruffian,
wencher, whoremonger, and most infamous cuckold-maker that ever
breathed. He did always lecher it like a boar, and no wonder, for he was
fostered by a sow in the Isle of Candia, if Agathocles the Babylonian be
not a liar, and more rammishly lascivious than a buck; whence it is that
he is said by others to have been suckled and fed with the milk of the
Amalthaean goat. By the virtue of Acheron, he justled, bulled, and
lastauriated in one day the third part of the world, beasts and people,
floods and mountains; that was Europa. For this grand subagitatory
achievement the Ammonians caused draw, delineate, and paint him in
the figure and shape of a ram ramming, and horned ram. But I know
well enough how to shield and preserve myself from that horned
champion. He will not, trust me, have to deal in my person with a
sottish, dunsical Amphitryon, nor with a silly witless Argus, for all his
hundred spectacles, nor yet with the cowardly meacock Acrisius, the
simple goose-cap Lycus of Thebes, the doting blockhead Agenor, the
phlegmatic pea-goose Aesop, rough-footed Lycaon, the luskish
misshapen Corytus of Tuscany, nor with the large-backed and
strong-reined Atlas. Let him alter, change, transform, and
metamorphose himself into a hundred various shapes and figures, into a
swan, a bull, a satyr, a shower of gold, or into a cuckoo, as he did when
he unmaidened his sister Juno; into an eagle, ram, or dove, as when he
was enamoured of the virgin Phthia, who then dwelt in the Aegean
territory; into fire, a serpent, yea, even into a flea; into Epicurean and
Democratical atoms, or, more Magistronostralistically, into those sly
intentions of the mind, which in the schools are called second
notions,--I'll catch him in the nick, and take him napping. And would
you know what I would do unto him? Even that which to his father
Coelum Saturn did--Seneca foretold it of me, and Lactantius hath
confirmed it--what the goddess Rhea did to Athis. I would make him
two stone lighter, rid him of his Cyprian cymbals, and cut so close and
neatly by the breech, that there shall not remain thereof so much as
one--, so cleanly would I shave him, and disable him for ever from
being Pope, for Testiculos non habet. Hold there, said Pantagruel; ho,
soft and fair, my lad! Enough of that,--cast up, turn over the leaves, and
try your fortune for the second time. Then did he fall upon this ensuing
verse:
Membra quatit, gelidusque coit formidine sanguis.
His joints and members quake, he becomes pale, And sudden fear doth
his cold blood congeal.
This importeth, quoth Pantagruel, that she will soundly bang your back
and belly. Clean and quite contrary, answered Panurge; it is of me that
he prognosticates, in saying that I will beat her like a tiger if she vex
me. Sir Martin Wagstaff will perform that office, and in default of a
cudgel, the devil gulp him, if I should not eat her up quick, as Candaul
the Lydian king did his wife, whom he ravened and devoured.
You are very stout, says Pantagruel, and courageous; Hercules himself
durst hardly adventure to scuffle with you in this your raging fury. Nor
is it strange; for the Jan is worth two, and two in fight against Hercules
are too too strong. Am I a Jan? quoth Panurge. No, no, answered
Pantagruel. My mind was only running upon the lurch and tricktrack.
Thereafter did he hit, at the third opening of the book, upon this verse:
Foemineo praedae, et spoliorum ardebat amore.
After the spoil and pillage, as in fire, He burnt with a strong feminine
desire.
This portendeth, quoth Pantagruel, that she will steal your goods, and
rob you. Hence this, according to these three drawn lots, will be your
future destiny, I clearly see it,--you will be a cuckold, you will be
beaten, and you will be robbed. Nay, it is quite otherwise, quoth
Panurge; for it is certain that this verse presageth that she will love me
with a perfect liking. Nor did the satyr-writing poet lie in proof hereof,
when he affirmed that a woman, burning with extreme affection, takes
sometimes pleasure to steal from her sweetheart. And what, I pray you?
A glove, a point, or some such trifling toy of no importance, to make
him keep a gentle kind of stirring in the research and quest thereof. In
like manner, these small scolding debates and petty brabbling
contentions, which frequently we see spring up and for a certain space
boil very hot betwixt a couple of high-spirited lovers, are nothing else
but recreative diversions for their refreshment, spurs to and incentives
of a more fervent amity than ever. As, for example, we do sometimes
see cutlers with hammers maul their finest whetstones, therewith to
sharpen their iron tools the better. And therefore do I think that these
three lots make much for my advantage; which, if not, I from their
sentence totally appeal. There is no appellation, quoth Pantagruel, from
the decrees of fate or destiny, of lot or chance; as is recorded by our
ancient lawyers, witness Baldus, Lib. ult. Cap. de Leg. The reason
hereof is, Fortune doth not acknowledge a superior, to whom an appeal
may be made from her or any of her substitutes. And in this case the
pupil cannot be restored to his right in full, as openly by the said author
is alleged in L. Ait Praetor, paragr. ult. ff. de minor.
Chapter 3.
XIII.
How Pantagruel adviseth Panurge to try the future good or bad luck of
his marriage by dreams.
Now, seeing we cannot agree together in the manner of expounding or
interpreting the sense of the Virgilian lots, let us bend our course
another way, and try a new sort of divination. Of what kind? asked
Panurge. Of a good ancient and authentic fashion, answered Pantagruel;
it is by dreams. For in dreaming, such circumstances and conditions
being thereto adhibited, as are clearly enough described by Hippocrates,
in Lib. Peri ton enupnion, by Plato, Plotin, Iamblicus, Sinesius,
Aristotle, Xenophon, Galen, Plutarch, Artemidorus, Daldianus,
Herophilus, Q. Calaber, Theocritus, Pliny, Athenaeus, and others, the
soul doth oftentimes foresee what is to come. How true this is, you may
conceive by a very vulgar and familiar example; as when you see that
at such a time as suckling babes, well nourished, fed, and fostered with
good milk, sleep soundly and profoundly, the nurses in the interim get
leave to sport themselves, and are licentiated to recreate their fancies at
what range to them shall seem most fitting and expedient, their
presence, sedulity, and attendance on the cradle being, during all that
space, held unnecessary. Even just so, when our body is at rest, that the
concoction is everywhere accomplished, and that, till it awake, it lacks
for nothing, our soul delighteth to disport itself and is well pleased in
that frolic to take a review of its native country, which is the heavens,
where it receiveth a most notable participation of its first beginning
with an imbuement from its divine source, and in contemplation of that
infinite and intellectual sphere, whereof the centre is everywhere, and
the circumference in no place of the universal world, to wit, God,
according to the doctrine of Hermes Trismegistus, to whom no new
thing happeneth, whom nothing that is past escapeth, and unto whom
all things are alike present, remarketh not only what is preterit and gone
in the inferior course and agitation of sublunary matters, but withal
taketh notice what is to come; then bringing a relation of those future
events unto the body of the outward senses and exterior organs, it is
divulged abroad unto the hearing of others. Whereupon the owner of
that soul deserveth to be termed a vaticinator, or prophet. Nevertheless,
the truth is, that the soul is seldom able to report those things in such
sincerity as it hath seen them, by reason of the imperfection and frailty
of the corporeal senses, which obstruct the effectuating of that office;
even as the moon doth not communicate unto this earth of ours that
light which she receiveth from the sun with so much splendour, heat,
vigour, purity, and liveliness as it was given her. Hence it is requisite
for the better reading, explaining, and unfolding of these somniatory
vaticinations and predictions of that nature, that a dexterous, learned,
skilful, wise, industrious, expert, rational, and peremptory expounder or
interpreter be pitched upon, such a one as by the Greeks is called
onirocrit, or oniropolist. For this cause Heraclitus was wont to say that
nothing is by dreams revealed to us, that nothing is by dreams
concealed from us, and that only we thereby have a mystical
signification and secret evidence of things to come, either for our own
prosperous or unlucky fortune, or for the favourable or disastrous
success of another. The sacred Scriptures testify no less, and profane
histories assure us of it, in both which are exposed to our view a
thousand several kinds of strange adventures, which have befallen pat
according to the nature of the dream, and that as well to the party
dreamer as to others. The Atlantic people, and those that inhabit the
(is)land of Thasos, one of the Cyclades, are of this grand commodity
deprived; for in their countries none yet ever dreamed. Of this sort
(were) Cleon of Daulia, Thrasymedes, and in our days the learned
Frenchman Villanovanus, neither of all which knew what dreaming
was.
Fail not therefore to-morrow, when the jolly and fair Aurora with her
rosy fingers draweth aside the curtains of the night to drive away the
sable shades of darkness, to bend your spirits wholly to the task of
sleeping sound, and thereto apply yourself. In the meanwhile you must
denude your mind of every human passion or affection, such as are love
and hatred, fear and hope, for as of old the great vaticinator, most
famous and renowned prophet Proteus, was not able in his disguise or
transformation into fire, water, a tiger, a dragon, and other such like
uncouth shapes and visors, to presage anything that was to come till he
was restored to his own first natural and kindly form; just so doth man;
for, at his reception of the art of divination and faculty of
prognosticating future things, that part in him which is the most divine,
to wit, the Nous, or Mens, must be calm, peaceable, untroubled, quiet,
still, hushed, and not embusied or distracted with foreign,
soul-disturbing perturbations. I am content, quoth Panurge. But, I pray
you, sir, must I this evening, ere I go to bed, eat much or little? I do not
ask this without cause. For if I sup not well, large, round, and amply,
my sleeping is not worth a forked turnip. All the night long I then but
doze and rave, and in my slumbering fits talk idle nonsense, my
thoughts being in a dull brown study, and as deep in their dumps as is
my belly hollow.
Not to sup, answered Pantagruel, were best for you, considering the
state of your complexion and healthy constitution of your body. A
certain very ancient prophet, named Amphiaraus, wished such as had a
mind by dreams to be imbued with any oracle, for four-and-twenty
hours to taste no victuals, and to abstain from wine three days together.
Yet shall not you be put to such a sharp, hard, rigorous, and extreme
sparing diet. I am truly right apt to believe that a man whose stomach is
replete with various cheer, and in a manner surfeited with drinking, is
hardly able to conceive aright of spiritual things; yet am not I of the
opinion of those who, after long and pertinacious fastings, think by
such means to enter more profoundly into the speculation of celestial
mysteries. You may very well remember how my father Gargantua
(whom here for honour sake I name) hath often told us that the writings
of abstinent, abstemious, and long-fasting hermits were every whit as
saltless, dry, jejune, and insipid as were their bodies when they did
compose them. It is a most difficult thing for the spirits to be in a good
plight, serene and lively, when there is nothing in the body but a kind
of voidness and inanity; seeing the philosophers with the physicians
jointly affirm that the spirits which are styled animal spring from, and
have their constant practice in and through the arterial blood, refined
and purified to the life within the admirable net which, wonderfully
framed, lieth under the ventricles and tunnels of the brain. He gave us
also the example of the philosopher who, when he thought most
seriously to have withdrawn himself unto a solitary privacy, far from
the rustling clutterments of the tumultuous and confused world, the
better to improve his theory, to contrive, comment, and ratiocinate, was,
notwithstanding his uttermost endeavours to free himself from all
untoward noises, surrounded and environed about so with the barking
of curs, bawling of mastiffs, bleating of sheep, prating of parrots,
tattling of jackdaws, grunting of swine, girning of boars, yelping of
foxes, mewing of cats, cheeping of mice, squeaking of weasels,
croaking of frogs, crowing of cocks, cackling of hens, calling of
partridges, chanting of swans, chattering of jays, peeping of chickens,
singing of larks, creaking of geese, chirping of swallows, clucking of
moorfowls, cucking of cuckoos, bumbling of bees, rammage of hawks,
chirming of linnets, croaking of ravens, screeching of owls, whicking
of pigs, gushing of hogs, curring of pigeons, grumbling of cushat-doves,
howling of panthers, curkling of quails, chirping of sparrows, crackling
of crows, nuzzing of camels, wheening of whelps, buzzing of
dromedaries, mumbling of rabbits, cricking of ferrets, humming of
wasps, mioling of tigers, bruzzing of bears, sussing of kitlings,
clamouring of scarfs, whimpering of fulmarts, booing of buffaloes,
warbling of nightingales, quavering of mavises, drintling of turkeys,
coniating of storks, frantling of peacocks, clattering of magpies,
murmuring of stock- doves, crouting of cormorants, cigling of locusts,
charming of beagles, guarring of puppies, snarling of messens, rantling
of rats, guerieting of apes, snuttering of monkeys, pioling of pelicans,
quacking of ducks, yelling of wolves, roaring of lions, neighing of
horses, crying of elephants, hissing of serpents, and wailing of turtles,
that he was much more troubled than if he had been in the middle of
the crowd at the fair of Fontenay or Niort. Just so is it with those who
are tormented with the grievous pangs of hunger. The stomach begins
to gnaw, and bark, as it were, the eyes to look dim, and the veins, by
greedily sucking some refection to themselves from the proper
substance of all the members of a fleshy consistence, violently pull
down and draw back that vagrant, roaming spirit, careless and
neglecting of his nurse and natural host, which is the body; as when a
hawk upon the fist, willing to take her flight by a soaring aloft in the
open spacious air, is on a sudden drawn back by a leash tied to her feet.
To this purpose also did he allege unto us the authority of Homer, the
father of all philosophy, who said that the Grecians did not put an end
to their mournful mood for the death of Patroclus, the most intimate
friend of Achilles, till hunger in a rage declared herself, and their
bellies protested to furnish no more tears unto their grief. For from
bodies emptied and macerated by long fasting there could not be such
supply of moisture and brackish drops as might be proper on that
occasion.
Mediocrity at all times is commendable; nor in this case are you to
abandon it. You may take a little supper, but thereat must you not eat of
a hare, nor of any other flesh. You are likewise to abstain from beans,
from the preak, by some called the polyp, as also from coleworts,
cabbage, and all other such like windy victuals, which may endanger
the troubling of your brains and the dimming or casting a kind of mist
over your animal spirits. For, as a looking-glass cannot exhibit the
semblance or representation of the object set before it, and exposed to
have its image to the life expressed, if that the polished sleekedness
thereof be darkened by gross breathings, dampish vapours, and foggy,
thick, infectious exhalations, even so the fancy cannot well receive the
impression of the likeness of those things which divination doth afford
by dreams, if any way the body be annoyed or troubled with the fumish
steam of meat which it had taken in a while before; because betwixt
these two there still hath been a mutual sympathy and fellow-feeling of
an indissolubly knit affection. You shall eat good Eusebian and
Bergamot pears, one apple of the short-shank pippin kind, a parcel of
the little plums of Tours, and some few cherries of the growth of my
orchard. Nor shall you need to fear that thereupon will ensue doubtful
dreams, fallacious, uncertain, and not to be trusted to, as by some
peripatetic philosophers hath been related; for that, say they, men do
more copiously in the season of harvest feed on fruitages than at any
other time. The same is mystically taught us by the ancient prophets
and poets, who allege that all vain and deceitful dreams lie hid and in
covert under the leaves which are spread on the ground--by reason that
the leaves fall from the trees in the autumnal quarter. For the natural
fervour which, abounding in ripe, fresh, recent fruits, cometh by the
quickness of its ebullition to be with ease evaporated into the animal
parts of the dreaming person--the experiment is obvious in most--is a
pretty while before it be expired, dissolved, and evanished. As for your
drink, you are to have it of the fair, pure water of my fountain.
The condition, quoth Panurge, is very hard. Nevertheless, cost what
price it will, or whatsoever come of it, I heartily condescend thereto;
protesting that I shall to-morrow break my fast betimes after my
somniatory exercitations. Furthermore, I recommend myself to Homer's
two gates, to Morpheus, to Iselon, to Phantasus, and unto Phobetor. If
they in this my great need succour me and grant me that assistance
which is fitting, I will in honour of them all erect a jolly, genteel altar,
composed of the softest down. If I were now in Laconia, in the temple
of Juno, betwixt Oetile and Thalamis, she suddenly would disentangle
my perplexity, resolve me of my doubts, and cheer me up with fair and
jovial dreams in a deep sleep.
Then did he say thus unto Pantagruel: Sir, were it not expedient for my
purpose to put a branch or two of curious laurel betwixt the quilt and
bolster of my bed, under the pillow on which my head must lean?
There is no need at all of that, quoth Pantagruel; for, besides that it is a
thing very superstitious, the cheat thereof hath been at large discovered
unto us in the writings of Serapion, Ascalonites, Antiphon, Philochorus,
Artemon, and Fulgentius Planciades. I could say as much to you of the
left shoulder of a crocodile, as also of a chameleon, without prejudice
be it spoken to the credit which is due to the opinion of old Democritus;
and likewise of the stone of the Bactrians, called Eumetrides, and of the
Ammonian horn; for so by the Aethiopians is termed a certain precious
stone, coloured like gold, and in the fashion, shape, form, and
proportion of a ram's horn, as the horn of Jupiter Ammon is reported to
have been: they over and above assuredly affirming that the dreams of
those who carry it about them are no less veritable and infallible than
the truth of the divine oracles. Nor is this much unlike to what Homer
and Virgil wrote of these two gates of sleep, to which you have been
pleased to recommend the management of what you have in hand. The
one is of ivory, which letteth in confused, doubtful, and uncertain
dreams; for through ivory, how small and slender soever it be, we can
see nothing, the density, opacity, and close compactedness of its
material parts hindering the penetration of the visual rays and the
reception of the specieses of such things as are visible. The other is of
horn, at which an entry is made to sure and certain dreams, even as
through horn, by reason of the diaphanous splendour and bright
transparency thereof, the species of all objects of the sight distinctly
pass, and so without confusion appear, that they are clearly seen. Your
meaning is, and you would thereby infer, quoth Friar John, that the
dreams of all horned cuckolds, of which number Panurge, by the help
of God and his future wife, is without controversy to be one, are always
true and infallible.
Chapter 3.
XIV.
Panurge's dream, with the interpretation thereof.
At seven o'clock of the next following morning Panurge did not fail to
present himself before Pantagruel, in whose chamber were at that time
Epistemon, Friar John of the Funnels, Ponocrates, Eudemon, Carpalin,
and others, to whom, at the entry of Panurge, Pantagruel said, Lo! here
cometh our dreamer. That word, quoth Epistemon, in ancient times cost
very much, and was dearly sold to the children of Jacob. Then said
Panurge, I have been plunged into my dumps so deeply, as if I had been
lodged with Gaffer Noddy-cap. Dreamed indeed I have, and that right
lustily; but I could take along with me no more thereof that I did goodly
understand save only that I in my vision had a pretty, fair, young,
gallant, handsome woman, who no less lovingly and kindly treated and
entertained me, hugged, cherished, cockered, dandled, and made much
of me, as if I had been another neat dilly-darling minion, like Adonis.
Never was man more glad than I was then; my joy at that time was
incomparable. She flattered me, tickled me, stroked me, groped me,
frizzled me, curled me, kissed me, embraced me, laid her hands about
my neck, and now and then made jestingly pretty little horns above my
forehead. I told her in the like disport, as I did play the fool with her,
that she should rather place and fix them in a little below mine eyes,
that I might see the better what I should stick at with them; for, being
so situated, Momus then would find no fault therewith, as he did once
with the position of the horns of bulls. The wanton, toying girl,
notwithstanding any remonstrance of mine to the contrary, did always
drive and thrust them further in; yet thereby, which to me seemed
wonderful, she did not do me any hurt at all. A little after, though I
know not how, I thought I was transformed into a tabor, and she into a
chough.
My sleeping there being interrupted, I awaked in a start, angry,
displeased, perplexed, chafing, and very wroth. There have you a large
platterful of dreams, make thereupon good cheer, and, if you please,
spare not to interpret them according to the understanding which you
may have in them. Come, Carpalin, let us to breakfast. To my sense
and meaning, quoth Pantagruel, if I have skill or knowledge in the art
of divination by dreams, your wife will not really, and to the outward
appearance of the world, plant or set horns, and stick them fast in your
forehead, after a visible manner, as satyrs use to wear and carry them;
but she will be so far from preserving herself loyal in the discharge and
observance of a conjugal duty, that, on the contrary, she will violate her
plighted faith, break her marriage-oath, infringe all matrimonial ties,
prostitute her body to the dalliance of other men, and so make you a
cuckold. This point is clearly and manifestly explained and expounded
by Artemidorus just as I have related it. Nor will there be any
metamorphosis or transmutation made of you into a drum or tabor, but
you will surely be as soundly beaten as ever was tabor at a merry
wedding. Nor yet will she be changed into a chough, but will steal from
you, chiefly in the night, as is the nature of that thievish bird. Hereby
may you perceive your dreams to be in every jot conform and agreeable
to the Virgilian lots. A cuckold you will be, beaten and robbed. Then
cried out Father John with a loud voice, He tells the truth; upon my
conscience, thou wilt be a cuckold--an honest one, I warrant thee. O the
brave horns that will be borne by thee! Ha, ha, ha! Our good Master de
Cornibus. God save thee, and shield thee! Wilt thou be pleased to
preach but two words of a sermon to us, and I will go through the
parish church to gather up alms for the poor.
You are, quoth Panurge, very far mistaken in your interpretation; for
the matter is quite contrary to your sense thereof. My dream presageth
that I shall by marriage be stored with plenty of all manner of
goods--the hornifying of me showing that I will possess a cornucopia,
that Amalthaean horn which is called the horn of abundance, whereof
the fruition did still portend the wealth of the enjoyer. You possibly
will say that they are rather like to be satyr's horns; for you of these did
make some mention. Amen, Amen, Fiat, fiatur, ad differentiam papae.
Thus shall I have my touch-her-home still ready. My staff of love,
sempiternally in a good case, will, satyr-like, be never toiled out--a
thing which all men wish for, and send up their prayers to that purpose,
but such a thing as nevertheless is granted but to a few. Hence doth it
follow by a consequence as clear as the sunbeams that I will never be in
the danger of being made a cuckold, for the defect hereof is Causa sine
qua non; yea, the sole cause, as many think, of making husbands
cuckolds. What makes poor scoundrel rogues to beg, I pray you? Is it
not because they have not enough at home wherewith to fill their
bellies and their pokes? What is it makes the wolves to leave the woods?
Is it not the want of flesh meat? What maketh women whores? You
understand me well enough. And herein may I very well submit my
opinion to the judgment of learned lawyers, presidents, counsellors,
advocates, procurers, attorneys, and other glossers and commentators
on the venerable rubric, De frigidis et maleficiatis. You are, in truth, sir,
as it seems to me (excuse my boldness if I have transgressed), in a most
palpable and absurd error to attribute my horns to cuckoldry. Diana
wears them on her head after the manner of a crescent. Is she a
cucquean for that? How the devil can she be cuckolded who never yet
was married? Speak somewhat more correctly, I beseech you, lest she,
being offended, furnish you with a pair of horns shapen by the pattern
of those which she made for Actaeon. The goodly Bacchus also carries
horns,-- Pan, Jupiter Ammon, with a great many others. Are they all
cuckolds? If Jove be a cuckold, Juno is a whore. This follows by the
figure metalepsis: as to call a child, in the presence of his father and
mother, a bastard, or whore's son, is tacitly and underboard no less than
if he had said openly the father is a cuckold and his wife a punk. Let
our discourse come nearer to the purpose. The horns that my wife did
make me are horns of abundance, planted and grafted in my head for
the increase and shooting up of all good things. This will I affirm for
truth, upon my word, and pawn my faith and credit both upon it. As for
the rest, I will be no less joyful, frolic, glad, cheerful, merry, jolly, and
gamesome, than a well-bended tabor in the hands of a good drummer at
a nuptial feast, still making a noise, still rolling, still buzzing and
cracking. Believe me, sir, in that consisteth none of my least good
fortunes. And my wife will be jocund, feat, compt, neat, quaint, dainty,
trim, tricked up, brisk, smirk, and smug, even as a pretty little Cornish
chough. Who will not believe this, let hell or the gallows be the burden
of his Christmas carol.
I remark, quoth Pantagruel, the last point or particle which you did
speak of, and, having seriously conferred it with the first, find that at
the beginning you were delighted with the sweetness of your dream;
but in the end and final closure of it you startingly awaked, and on a
sudden were forthwith vexed in choler and annoyed. Yea, quoth
Panurge, the reason of that was because I had fasted too long. Flatter
not yourself, quoth Pantagruel; all will go to ruin. Know for a certain
truth, that every sleep that endeth with a starting, and leaves the person
irksome, grieved, and fretting, doth either signify a present evil, or
otherwise presageth and portendeth a future imminent mishap. To
signify an evil, that is to say, to show some sickness hardly curable, a
kind of pestilentious or malignant boil, botch, or sore, lying and lurking
hid, occult, and latent within the very centre of the body, which many
times doth by the means of sleep, whose nature is to reinforce and
strengthen the faculty and virtue of concoction, being according to the
theorems of physic to declare itself, and moves toward the outward
superficies. At this sad stirring is the sleeper's rest and ease disturbed
and broken, whereof the first feeling and stinging smart admonisheth
that he must patiently endure great pain and trouble, and thereunto
provide some remedy; as when we say proverbially, to incense hornets,
to move a stinking puddle, and to awake a sleeping lion, instead of
these more usual expressions, and of a more familiar and plain meaning,
to provoke angry persons, to make a thing the worse by meddling with
it, and to irritate a testy choleric man when he is at quiet. On the other
part, to presage or foretell an evil, especially in what concerneth the
exploits of the soul in matter of somnial divinations, is as much to say
as that it giveth us to understand that some dismal fortune or mischance
is destinated and prepared for us, which shortly will not fail to come to
pass. A clear and evident example hereof is to be found in the dream
and dreadful awaking of Hecuba, as likewise in that of Eurydice, the
wife of Orpheus, neither of which was (no) sooner finished, saith
Ennius, but that incontinently thereafter they awaked in a start, and
were affrighted horribly. Thereupon these accidents ensued: Hecuba
had her husband Priamus, together with her children, slain before her
eyes, and saw then the destruction of her country; and Eurydice died
speedily thereafter in a most miserable manner. Aeneas, dreaming that
he spoke to Hector a little after his decease, did on a sudden in a great
start awake, and was afraid. Now hereupon did follow this event: Troy
that same night was spoiled, sacked, and burnt. At another time the
same Aeneas dreaming that he saw his familiar geniuses and penates, in
a ghastly fright and astonishment awaked, of which terror and
amazement the issue was, that the very next day subsequent, by a most
horrible tempest on the sea, he was like to have perished and been cast
away. Moreover, Turnus being prompted, instigated, and stirred up by
the fantastic vision of an infernal fury to enter into a bloody war against
Aeneas, awaked in a start much troubled and disquieted in spirit; in
sequel whereof, after many notable and famous routs, defeats, and
discomfitures in open field, he came at last to be killed in a single
combat by the said Aeneas. A thousand other instances I could afford,
if it were needful, of this matter. Whilst I relate these stories of Aeneas,
remark the saying of Fabius Pictor, who faithfully averred that nothing
had at any time befallen unto, was done, or enterprised by him, whereof
he preallably had not notice, and beforehand foreseen it to the full, by
sure predictions altogether founded on the oracles of somnial divination.
To this there is no want of pregnant reasons, no more than of examples.
For if repose and rest in sleeping be a special gift and favour of the
gods, as is maintained by the philosophers, and by the poet attested in
these lines,
Then sleep, that heavenly gift, came to refresh Of human labourers the
wearied flesh;
such a gift or benefit can never finish or terminate in wrath and
indignation without portending some unlucky fate and most disastrous
fortune to ensue. Otherwise it were a molestation, and not an ease; a
scourge, and not a gift; at least, (not) proceeding from the gods above,
but from the infernal devils our enemies, according to the common
vulgar saying.
Suppose the lord, father, or master of a family, sitting at a very
sumptuous dinner, furnished with all manner of good cheer, and having
at his entry to the table his appetite sharp set upon his victuals, whereof
there was great plenty, should be seen rise in a start, and on a sudden
fling out of his chair, abandoning his meat, frighted, appalled, and in a
horrid terror, who should not know the cause hereof would wonder, and
be astonished exceedingly. But what? he heard his male servants cry,
Fire, fire, fire, fire! his serving-maids and women yell, Stop thief, stop
thief! and all his children shout as loud as ever they could, Murder, O
murder, murder! Then was it not high time for him to leave his
banqueting, for application of a remedy in haste, and to give speedy
order for succouring of his distressed household? Truly I remember that
the Cabalists and Massorets, interpreters of the sacred Scriptures, in
treating how with verity one might judge of evangelical apparitions
(because oftentimes the angel of Satan is disguised and transfigured
into an angel of light), said that the difference of these two mainly did
consist in this: the favourable and comforting angel useth in his
appearing unto man at first to terrify and hugely affright him, but in the
end he bringeth consolation, leaveth the person who hath seen him
joyful, well-pleased, fully content, and satisfied; on the other side, the
angel of perdition, that wicked, devilish, and malignant spirit, at his
appearance unto any person in the beginning cheereth up the heart of
his beholder, but at last forsakes him, and leaves him troubled, angry,
and perplexed.
Chapter 3.
XV.
Panurge's excuse and exposition of the monastic mystery concerning
powdered beef.
The Lord save those who see, and do not hear! quoth Panurge. I see
you well enough, but know not what it is that you have said. The
hunger- starved belly wanteth ears. For lack of victuals, before God, I
roar, bray, yell, and fume as in a furious madness. I have performed too
hard a task to-day, an extraordinary work indeed. He shall be craftier,
and do far greater wonders than ever did Mr. Mush, who shall be able
any more this year to bring me on the stage of preparation for a
dreaming verdict. Fie! not to sup at all, that is the devil. Pox take that
fashion! Come, Friar John, let us go break our fast; for, if I hit on such
a round refection in the morning as will serve thoroughly to fill the
mill-hopper and hogs-hide of my stomach, and furnish it with meat and
drink sufficient, then at a pinch, as in the case of some extreme
necessity which presseth, I could make a shift that day to forbear dining.
But not to sup! A plague rot that base custom, which is an error
offensive to Nature! That lady made the day for exercise, to travel,
work, wait on and labour in each his negotiation and employment; and
that we may with the more fervency and ardour prosecute our business,
she sets before us a clear burning candle, to wit, the sun's resplendency;
and at night, when she begins to take the light from us, she thereby
tacitly implies no less than if she would have spoken thus unto us: My
lads and lasses, all of you are good and honest folks, you have wrought
well to-day, toiled and turmoiled enough,--the night
approacheth,--therefore cast off these moiling cares of yours, desist
from all your swinking painful labours, and set your minds how to
refresh your bodies in the renewing of their vigour with good bread,
choice wine, and store of wholesome meats; then may you take some
sport and recreation, and after that lie down and rest yourselves, that
you may strongly, nimbly, lustily, and with the more alacrity
to-morrow attend on your affairs as formerly.
Falconers, in like manner, when they have fed their hawks, will not
suffer them to fly on a full gorge, but let them on a perch abide a little,
that they may rouse, bait, tower, and soar the better. That good pope
who was the first institutor of fasting understood this well enough; for
he ordained that our fast should reach but to the hour of noon; all the
remainder of that day was at our disposure, freely to eat and feed at any
time thereof. In ancient times there were but few that dined, as you
would say, some church men, monks and canons; for they have little
other occupation. Each day is a festival unto them, who diligently heed
the claustral proverb, De missa ad mensam. They do not use to linger
and defer their sitting down and placing of themselves at table, only so
long as they have a mind in waiting for the coming of the abbot; so
they fell to without ceremony, terms, or conditions; and everybody
supped, unless it were some vain, conceited, dreaming dotard. Hence
was a supper called coena, which showeth that it is common to all sorts
of people. Thou knowest it well, Friar John. Come, let us go, my dear
friend, in the name of all the devils of the infernal regions, let us go.
The gnawings of my stomach in this rage of hunger are so tearing, that
they make it bark like a mastiff. Let us throw some bread and beef into
his throat to pacify him, as once the sibyl did to Cerberus. Thou likest
best monastical brewis, the prime, the flower of the pot. I am for the
solid, principal verb that comes after-- the good brown loaf, always
accompanied with a round slice of the nine- lecture-powdered labourer.
I know thy meaning, answered Friar John; this metaphor is extracted
out of the claustral kettle. The labourer is the ox that hath wrought and
done the labour; after the fashion of nine lectures, that is to say, most
exquisitely well and thoroughly boiled. These holy religious fathers, by
a certain cabalistic institution of the ancients, not written, but carefully
by tradition conveyed from hand to hand, rising betimes to go to
morning prayers, were wont to flourish that their matutinal devotion
with some certain notable preambles before their entry into the church,
viz., they dunged in the dungeries, pissed in the pisseries, spit in the
spitteries, melodiously coughed in the cougheries, and doted in their
dotaries, that to the divine service they might not bring anything that
was unclean or foul. These things thus done, they very zealously made
their repair to the Holy Chapel, for so was in their canting language
termed the convent kitchen, where they with no small earnestness had
care that the beef-pot should be put on the crook for the breakfast of the
religious brothers of our Lord and Saviour; and the fire they would
kindle under the pot themselves. Now, the matins consisting of nine
lessons, (it) it was so incumbent on them, that must have risen the
rather for the more expedite despatching of them all. The sooner that
they rose, the sharper was their appetite and the barkings of their
stomachs, and the gnawings increased in the like proportion, and
consequently made these godly men thrice more a-hungered and athirst
than when their matins were hemmed over only with three lessons. The
more betimes they rose, by the said cabal, the sooner was the beef-pot
put on; the longer that the beef was on the fire, the better it was boiled;
the more it boiled, it was the tenderer; the tenderer that it was, the less
it troubled the teeth, delighted more the palate, less charged the
stomach, and nourished our good religious men the more substantially;
which is the only end and prime intention of the first founders, as
appears by this, that they eat not to live, but live to eat, and in this
world have nothing but their life. Let us go, Panurge.
Now have I understood thee, quoth Panurge, my plushcod friar, my
caballine and claustral ballock. I freely quit the costs, interest, and
charges, seeing you have so egregiously commented upon the most
especial chapter of the culinary and monastic cabal. Come along, my
Carpalin, and you, Friar John, my leather-dresser. Good morrow to you
all, my good lords; I have dreamed too much to have so little. Let us go.
Panurge had no sooner done speaking than Epistemon with a loud
voice said these words: It is a very ordinary and common thing
amongst men to conceive, foresee, know, and presage the misfortune,
bad luck, or disaster of another; but to have the understanding,
providence, knowledge, and prediction of a man's own mishap is very
scarce and rare to be found anywhere. This is exceeding judiciously
and prudently deciphered by Aesop in his Apologues, who there
affirmeth that every man in the world carrieth about his neck a wallet,
in the fore-bag whereof were contained the faults and mischances of
others always exposed to his view and knowledge; and in the other
scrip thereof, which hangs behind, are kept the bearer's proper
transgressions and inauspicious adventures, at no time seen by him, nor
thought upon, unless he be a person that hath a favourable aspect from
the heavens.
Chapter 3.
XVI.
How Pantagruel adviseth Panurge to consult with the Sibyl of
Panzoust.
A little while thereafter Pantagruel sent for Panurge and said unto him,
The affection which I bear you being now inveterate and settled in my
mind by a long continuance of time, prompteth me to the serious
consideration of your welfare and profit; in order whereto, remark what
I have thought thereon. It hath been told me that at Panzoust, near
Crouly, dwelleth a very famous sibyl, who is endowed with the skill of
foretelling all things to come. Take Epistemon in your company, repair
towards her, and hear what she will say unto you. She is possibly,
quoth Epistemon, some Canidia, Sagana, or Pythonissa, either whereof
with us is vulgarly called a witch,-- I being the more easily induced to
give credit to the truth of this character of her, that the place of her
abode is vilely stained with the abominable repute of abounding more
with sorcerers and witches than ever did the plains of Thessaly. I
should not, to my thinking, go thither willingly, for that it seems to me
a thing unwarrantable, and altogether forbidden in the law of Moses.
We are not Jews, quoth Pantagruel, nor is it a matter judiciously
confessed by her, nor authentically proved by others that she is a witch.
Let us for the present suspend our judgment, and defer till after your
return from thence the sifting and garbling of those niceties. Do we
know but that she may be an eleventh sibyl or a second Cassandra? But
although she were neither, and she did not merit the name or title of
any of these renowned prophetesses, what hazard, in the name of God,
do you run by offering to talk and confer with her of the instant
perplexity and perturbation of your thoughts? Seeing especially, and
which is most of all, she is, in the estimation of those that are
acquainted with her, held to know more, and to be of a deeper reach of
understanding, than is either customary to the country wherein she
liveth or to the sex whereof she is. What hindrance, hurt, or harm doth
the laudable desire of knowledge bring to any man, were it from a sot, a
pot, a fool, a stool, a winter mitten, a truckle for a pulley, the lid of a
goldsmith's crucible, an oil-bottle, or old slipper? You may remember
to have read, or heard at least, that Alexander the Great, immediately
after his having obtained a glorious victory over the King Darius in
Arbela, refused, in the presence of the splendid and illustrious courtiers
that were about him, to give audience to a poor certain despicable-like
fellow, who through the solicitations and mediation of some of his
royal attendants was admitted humbly to beg that grace and favour of
him. But sore did he repent, although in vain, a thousand and ten
thousand times thereafter, the surly state which he then took upon him
to the denial of so just a suit, the grant whereof would have been worth
unto him the value of a brace of potent cities. He was indeed victorious
in Persia, but withal so far distant from Macedonia, his hereditary
kingdom, that the joy of the one did not expel the extreme grief which
through occasion of the other he had inwardly conceived; for, not being
able with all his power to find or invent a convenient mean and
expedient how to get or come by the certainty of any news from thence,
both by reason of the huge remoteness of the places from one to
another, as also because of the impeditive interposition of many great
rivers, the interjacent obstacle of divers wild deserts, and obstructive
interjection of sundry almost inaccessible mountains,--whilst he was in
this sad quandary and solicitous pensiveness, which, you may suppose,
could not be of a small vexation to him, considering that it was a matter
of no great difficulty to run over his whole native soil, possess his
country, seize on his kingdom, install a new king in the throne, and
plant thereon foreign colonies, long before he could come to have any
advertisement of it: for obviating the jeopardy of so dreadful
inconveniency, and putting a fit remedy thereto, a certain Sidonian
merchant of a low stature but high fancy, very poor in show, and to the
outward appearance of little or no account, having presented himself
before him, went about to affirm and declare that he had excogitated
and hit upon a ready mean and way by the which those of his territories
at home should come to the certain notice of his Indian victories, and
himself be perfectly informed of the state and condition of Egypt and
Macedonia within less than five days. Whereupon the said Alexander,
plunged into a sullen animadvertency of mind, through his rash opinion
of the improbability of performing a so strange and impossible-like
undertaking, dismissed the merchant without giving ear to what he had
to say, and vilified him. What could it have cost him to hearken unto
what the honest man had invented and contrived for his good? What
detriment, annoyance, damage, or loss could he have undergone to
listen to the discovery of that secret which the good fellow would have
most willingly revealed unto him? Nature, I am persuaded, did not
without a cause frame our ears open, putting thereto no gate at all, nor
shutting them up with any manner of enclosures, as she hath done unto
the tongue, the eyes, and other such out-jetting parts of the body. The
cause, as I imagine, is to the end that every day and every night, and
that continually, we may be ready to hear, and by a perpetual hearing
apt to learn. For, of all the senses, it is the fittest for the reception of the
knowledge of arts, sciences, and disciplines; and it may be that man
was an angel, that is to say, a messenger sent from God, as Raphael was
to Tobit. Too suddenly did he contemn, despise, and misregard him;
but too long thereafter, by an untimely and too late repentance, did he
do penance for it. You say very well, answered Epistemon, yet shall
you never for all that induce me to believe that it can tend any way to
the advantage or commodity of a man to take advice and counsel of a
woman, namely, of such a woman, and the woman of such a country.
Truly I have found, quoth Panurge, a great deal of good in the counsel
of women, chiefly in that of the old wives amongst them; for every
time I consult with them I readily get a stool or two extraordinary, to
the great solace of my bumgut passage. They are as sleuthhounds in the
infallibility of their scent, and in their sayings no less sententious than
the rubrics of the law. Therefore in my conceit it is not an improper
kind of speech to call them sage or wise women. In confirmation of
which opinion of mine, the customary style of my language alloweth
them the denomination of presage women. The epithet of sage is due
unto them because they are surpassing dexterous in the knowledge of
most things. And I give them the title of presage, for that they divinely
foresee and certainly foretell future contingencies and events of things
to come. Sometimes I call them not maunettes, but monettes, from their
wholesome monitions. Whether it be so, ask Pythagoras, Socrates,
Empedocles, and our master Ortuinus. I furthermore praise and
commend above the skies the ancient memorable institution of the
pristine Germans, who ordained the responses and documents of old
women to be highly extolled, most cordially reverenced, and prized at a
rate in nothing inferior to the weight, test, and standard of the sanctuary.
And as they were respectfully prudent in receiving of these sound
advices, so by honouring and following them did they prove no less
fortunate in the happy success of all their endeavours. Witness the old
wife Aurinia, and the good mother Velled, in the days of Vespasian.
You need not any way doubt but that feminine old age is always
fructifying in qualities sublime--I would have said sibylline. Let us go,
by the help, let us go, by the virtue of God, let us go. Farewell, Friar
John, I recommend the care of my codpiece to you. Well, quoth
Epistemon, I will follow you, with this protestation nevertheless, that if
I happen to get a sure information, or otherwise find that she doth use
any kind of charm or enchantment in her responses, it may not be
imputed to me for a blame to leave you at the gate of her house,
without accompanying you any further in.
Chapter 3.
XVII.
How Panurge spoke to the Sibyl of Panzoust.
Their voyage was three days journeying. On the third whereof was
shown unto them the house of the vaticinatress standing on the knap or
top of a hill, under a large and spacious walnut-tree. Without great
difficulty they entered into that straw-thatched cottage, scurvily built,
naughtily movabled, and all besmoked. It matters not, quoth Epistemon;
Heraclitus, the grand Scotist and tenebrous darksome philosopher, was
nothing astonished at his introit into such a coarse and paltry habitation;
for he did usually show forth unto his sectators and disciples that the
gods made as cheerfully their residence in these mean homely
mansions as in sumptuous magnific palaces, replenished with all
manner of delight, pomp, and pleasure. I withal do really believe that
the dwelling-place of the so famous and renowned Hecate was just such
another petty cell as this is, when she made a feast therein to the valiant
Theseus; and that of no other better structure was the cot or cabin of
Hyreus, or Oenopion, wherein Jupiter, Neptune, and Mercury were not
ashamed, all three together, to harbour and sojourn a whole night, and
there to take a full and hearty repast; for the payment of the shot they
thankfully pissed Orion. They finding the ancient woman at a corner of
her own chimney, Epistemon said, She is indeed a true sibyl, and the
lively portrait of one represented by the Grei kaminoi of Homer. The
old hag was in a pitiful bad plight and condition in matter of the
outward state and complexion of her body, the ragged and tattered
equipage of her person in the point of accoutrement, and beggarly poor
provision of fare for her diet and entertainment; for she was ill
apparelled, worse nourished, toothless, blear-eyed, crook- shouldered,
snotty, her nose still dropping, and herself still drooping, faint, and
pithless; whilst in this woefully wretched case she was making ready
for her dinner porridge of wrinkled green coleworts, with a bit skin of
yellow bacon, mixed with a twice-before-cooked sort of waterish,
unsavoury broth, extracted out of bare and hollow bones. Epistemon
said, By the cross of a groat, we are to blame, nor shall we get from her
any response at all, for we have not brought along with us the branch of
gold. I have, quoth Panurge, provided pretty well for that, for here I
have it within my bag, in the substance of a gold ring, accompanied
with some fair pieces of small money. No sooner were these words
spoken, when Panurge coming up towards her, after the ceremonial
performance of a profound and humble salutation, presented her with
six neat's tongues dried in the smoke, a great butter-pot full of fresh
cheese, a borachio furnished with good beverage, and a ram's cod
stored with single pence, newly coined. At last he, with a low courtesy,
put on her medical finger a pretty handsome golden ring, whereinto
was right artificially enchased a precious toadstone of Beausse. This
done, in few words and very succinctly, did he set open and expose
unto her the motive reason of his coming, most civilly and courteously
entreating her that she might be pleased to vouchsafe to give him an
ample and plenary intelligence concerning the future good luck of his
intended marriage.
The old trot for a while remained silent, pensive, and grinning like a
dog; then, after she had set her withered breech upon the bottom of a
bushel, she took into her hands three old spindles, which when she had
turned and whirled betwixt her fingers very diversely and after several
fashions, she pried more narrowly into, by the trial of their points, the
sharpest whereof she retained in her hand, and threw the other two
under a stone trough. After this she took a pair of yarn windles, which
she nine times unintermittedly veered and frisked about; then at the
ninth revolution or turn, without touching them any more, maturely
perpending the manner of their motion, she very demurely waited on
their repose and cessation from any further stirring. In sequel whereof
she pulled off one of her wooden pattens, put her apron over her head,
as a priest uses to do his amice when he is going to sing mass, and with
a kind of antique, gaudy, party-coloured string knit it under her neck.
Being thus covered and muffled, she whiffed off a lusty good draught
out of the borachio, took three several pence forth of the ramcod fob,
put them into so many walnut-shells, which she set down upon the
bottom of a feather-pot, and then, after she had given them three whisks
of a broom besom athwart the chimney, casting into the fire half a
bavin of long heather, together with a branch of dry laurel, she
observed with a very hush and coy silence in what form they did burn,
and saw that, although they were in a flame, they made no kind of noise
or crackling din. Hereupon she gave a most hideous and horribly
dreadful shout, muttering betwixt her teeth some few barbarous words
of a strange termination.
This so terrified Panurge that he forthwith said to Epistemon, The devil
mince me into a gallimaufry if I do not tremble for fear! I do not think
but that I am now enchanted; for she uttereth not her voice in the terms
of any Christian language. O look, I pray you, how she seemeth unto
me to be by three full spans higher than she was when she began to
hood herself with her apron. What meaneth this restless wagging of her
slouchy chaps? What can be the signification of the uneven shrugging
of her hulchy shoulders? To what end doth she quaver with her lips,
like a monkey in the dismembering of a lobster? My ears through
horror glow; ah! how they tingle! I think I hear the shrieking of
Proserpina; the devils are breaking loose to be all here. O the foul, ugly,
and deformed beasts! Let us run away! By the hook of God, I am like
to die for fear! I do not love the devils; they vex me, and are unpleasant
fellows. Now let us fly, and betake us to our heels. Farewell, gammer;
thanks and gramercy for your goods! I will not marry; no, believe me, I
will not. I fairly quit my interest therein, and totally abandon and
renounce it from this time forward, even as much as at present. With
this, as he endeavoured to make an escape out of the room, the old
crone did anticipate his flight and make him stop. The way how she
prevented him was this: whilst in her hand she held the spindle, she
flung out to a back-yard close by her lodge, where, after she had peeled
off the barks of an old sycamore three several times, she very
summarily, upon eight leaves which dropped from thence, wrote with
the spindle-point some curt and briefly-couched verses, which she
threw into the air, then said unto them, Search after them if you will;
find them if you can; the fatal destinies of your marriage are written in
them.
No sooner had she done thus speaking than she did withdraw herself
unto her lurking-hole, where on the upper seat of the porch she tucked
up her gown, her coats, and smock, as high as her armpits, and gave
them a full inspection of the nockandroe; which being perceived by
Panurge, he said to Epistemon, God's bodikins, I see the sibyl's hole!
She suddenly then bolted the gate behind her, and was never since seen
any more. They jointly ran in haste after the fallen and dispersed leaves,
and gathered them at last, though not without great labour and toil, for
the wind had scattered them amongst the thorn-bushes of the valley.
When they had ranged them each after other in their due places, they
found out their sentence, as it is metrified in this octastich:
Thy fame upheld (Properly, as corrected by Ozell: Thy fame will be
shell'd By her, I trow.), Even so, so: And she with child Of thee: No.
Thy good end Suck she shall, And flay thee, friend, But not all.
Chapter 3.
XVIII.
How Pantagruel and Panurge did diversely expound the verses of the
Sibyl of Panzoust.
The leaves being thus collected and orderly disposed, Epistemon and
Panurge returned to Pantagruel's court, partly well pleased and other
part discontented; glad for their being come back, and vexed for the
trouble they had sustained by the way, which they found to be craggy,
rugged, stony, rough, and ill-adjusted. They made an ample and full
relation of their voyage unto Pantagruel, as likewise of the estate and
condition of the sibyl. Then, having presented to him the leaves of the
sycamore, they show him the short and twattle verses that were written
in them. Pantagruel, having read and considered the whole sum and
substance of the matter, fetched from his heart a deep and heavy sigh;
then said to Panurge, You are now, forsooth, in a good taking, and have
brought your hogs to a fine market. The prophecy of the sibyl doth
explain and lay out before us the same very predictions which have
been denoted, foretold, and presaged to us by the decree of the
Virgilian lots and the verdict of your own proper dreams, to wit, that
you shall be very much disgraced, shamed, and discredited by your
wife; for that she will make you a cuckold in prostituting herself to
others, being big with child by another than you,-- will steal from you a
great deal of your goods, and will beat you, scratch and bruise you,
even to plucking the skin in a part from off you,--will leave the print of
her blows in some member of your body. You understand as much,
answered Panurge, in the veritable interpretation and expounding of
recent prophecies as a sow in the matter of spicery. Be not offended, sir,
I beseech you, that I speak thus boldly; for I find myself a little in
choler, and that not without cause, seeing it is the contrary that is true.
Take heed, and give attentive ear unto my words. The old wife said that,
as the bean is not seen till first it be unhusked, and that its swad or hull
be shelled and peeled from off it, so is it that my virtue and
transcendent worth will never come by the mouth of fame to be blazed
abroad proportionable to the height, extent, and measure of the
excellency thereof, until preallably I get a wife and make the full half
of a married couple. How many times have I heard you say that the
function of a magistrate, or office of dignity, discovereth the merits,
parts, and endowments of the person so advanced and promoted, and
what is in him. That is to say, we are then best able to judge aright of
the deservings of a man when he is called to the management of affairs;
for when before he lived in a private condition, we could have no more
certain knowledge of him than of a bean within his husk. And thus
stands the first article explained; otherwise, could you imagine that the
good fame, repute, and estimation of an honest man should depend
upon the tail of a whore?
Now to the meaning of the second article! My wife will be with child,--
here lies the prime felicity of marriage,--but not of me. Copsody, that I
do believe indeed! It will be of a pretty little infant. O how heartily I
shall love it! I do already dote upon it; for it will be my dainty feedle-
darling, my genteel dilly-minion. From thenceforth no vexation, care,
or grief shall take such deep impression in my heart, how hugely great
or vehement soever it otherwise appear, but that it shall evanish
forthwith at the sight of that my future babe, and at the hearing of the
chat and prating of its childish gibberish. And blessed be the old wife.
By my truly, I have a mind to settle some good revenue or pension
upon her out of the readiest increase of the lands of my Salmigondinois;
not an inconstant and uncertain rent-seek, like that of witless,
giddy-headed bachelors, but sure and fixed, of the nature of the
well-paid incomes of regenting doctors. If this interpretation doth not
please you, think you my wife will bear me in her flanks, conceive with
me, and be of me delivered, as women use in childbed to bring forth
their young ones; so as that it may be said, Panurge is a second
Bacchus, he hath been twice born; he is re-born, as was Hippolytus,--as
was Proteus, one time of Thetis, and secondly, of the mother of the
philosopher Apollonius,--as were the two Palici, near the flood
Simaethos in Sicily. His wife was big of child with him. In him is
renewed and begun again the palintocy of the Megarians and the
palingenesy of Democritus. Fie upon such errors! To hear stuff of that
nature rends mine ears.
The words of the third article are: She will suck me at my best end.
Why not? That pleaseth me right well. You know the thing; I need not
tell you that it is my intercrural pudding with one end. I swear and
promise that, in what I can, I will preserve it sappy, full of juice, and as
well victualled for her use as may be. She shall not suck me, I believe,
in vain, nor be destitute of her allowance; there shall her justum both in
peck and lippy be furnished to the full eternally. You expound this
passage allegorically, and interpret it to theft and larceny. I love the
exposition, and the allegory pleaseth me; but not according to the sense
whereto you stretch it. It may be that the sincerity of the affection
which you bear me moveth you to harbour in your breast those
refractory thoughts concerning me, with a suspicion of my adversity to
come. We have this saying from the learned, That a marvellously
fearful thing is love, and that true love is never without fear. But, sir,
according to my judgment, you do understand both of and by yourself
that here stealth signifieth nothing else, no more than in a thousand
other places of Greek and Latin, old and modern writings, but the sweet
fruits of amorous dalliance, which Venus liketh best when reaped in
secret, and culled by fervent lovers filchingly. Why so, I prithee tell?
Because, when the feat of the loose-coat skirmish happeneth to be done
underhand and privily, between two well-disposed, athwart the steps of
a pair of stairs lurkingly, and in covert behind a suit of hangings, or
close hid and trussed upon an unbound faggot, it is more pleasing to the
Cyprian goddess, and to me also --I speak this without prejudice to any
better or more sound opinion--than to perform that culbusting art after
the Cynic manner, in the view of the clear sunshine, or in a rich tent,
under a precious stately canopy, within a glorious and sublime pavilion,
or yet on a soft couch betwixt rich curtains of cloth of gold, without
affrightment, at long intermediate respites, enjoying of pleasures and
delights a bellyfull, at all great ease, with a huge fly-flap fan of crimson
satin and a bunch of feathers of some East-Indian ostrich serving to
give chase unto the flies all round about; whilst, in the interim, the
female picks her teeth with a stiff straw picked even then from out of
the bottom of the bed she lies on. If you be not content with this my
exposition, are you of the mind that my wife will suck and sup me up
as people use to gulp and swallow oysters out of the shell? or as the
Cilician women, according to the testimony of Dioscorides, were wont
to do the grain of alkermes? Assuredly that is an error. Who seizeth on
it, doth neither gulch up nor swill down, but takes away what hath been
packed up, catcheth, snatcheth, and plies the play of hey-pass, repass.
The fourth article doth imply that my wife will flay me, but not all. O
the fine word! You interpret this to beating strokes and blows. Speak
wisely. Will you eat a pudding? Sir, I beseech you to raise up your
spirits above the low-sized pitch of earthly thoughts unto that height of
sublime contemplation which reacheth to the apprehension of the
mysteries and wonders of Dame Nature. And here be pleased to
condemn yourself, by a renouncing of those errors which you have
committed very grossly and somewhat perversely in expounding the
prophetic sayings of the holy sibyl. Yet put the case (albeit I yield not
to it) that, by the instigation of the devil, my wife should go about to
wrong me, make me a cuckold downwards to the very breech, disgrace
me otherwise, steal my goods from me, yea, and lay violently her hands
upon me;--she nevertheless should fail of her attempts and not attain to
the proposed end of her unreasonable undertakings. The reason which
induceth me hereto is grounded totally on this last point, which is
extracted from the profoundest privacies of a monastic pantheology, as
good Friar Arthur Wagtail told me once upon a Monday morning, as
we were (if I have not forgot) eating a bushel of trotter-pies; and I
remember well it rained hard. God give him the good morrow! The
women at the beginning of the world, or a little after, conspired to flay
the men quick, because they found the spirit of mankind inclined to
domineer it, and bear rule over them upon the face of the whole earth;
and, in pursuit of this their resolution, promised, confirmed, swore, and
covenanted amongst them all, by the pure faith they owe to the
nocturnal Sanct Rogero. But O the vain enterprises of women! O the
great fragility of that sex feminine! They did begin to flay the man, or
peel him (as says Catullus), at that member which of all the body they
loved best, to wit, the nervous and cavernous cane, and that above five
thousand years ago; yet have they not of that small part alone flayed
any more till this hour but the head. In mere despite whereof the Jews
snip off that parcel of the skin in circumcision, choosing far rather to be
called clipyards, rascals, than to be flayed by women, as are other
nations. My wife, according to this female covenant, will flay it to me,
if it be not so already. I heartily grant my consent thereto, but will not
give her leave to flay it all. Nay, truly will I not, my noble king.
Yea but, quoth Epistemon, you say nothing of her most dreadful cries
and exclamations when she and we both saw the laurel-bough burn
without yielding any noise or crackling. You know it is a very dismal
omen, an inauspicious sign, unlucky indice, and token formidable, bad,
disastrous, and most unhappy, as is certified by Propertius, Tibullus,
the quick philosopher Porphyrius, Eustathius on the Iliads of Homer,
and by many others. Verily, verily, quoth Panurge, brave are the
allegations which you bring me, and testimonies of two-footed calves.
These men were fools, as they were poets; and dotards, as they were
philosophers; full of folly, as they were of philosophy.
Chapter 3.
XIX.
How Pantagruel praiseth the counsel of dumb men.
Pantagruel, when this discourse was ended, held for a pretty while his
peace, seeming to be exceeding sad and pensive, then said to Panurge,
The malignant spirit misleads, beguileth, and seduceth you. I have read
that in times past the surest and most veritable oracles were not those
which either were delivered in writing or uttered by word of mouth in
speaking. For many times, in their interpretation, right witty, learned,
and ingenious men have been deceived through amphibologies,
equivoques, and obscurity of words, no less than by the brevity of their
sentences. For which cause Apollo, the god of vaticination, was
surnamed Loxias. Those which were represented then by signs and
outward gestures were accounted the truest and the most infallible.
Such was the opinion of Heraclitus. And Jupiter did himself in this
manner give forth in Ammon frequently predictions. Nor was he single
in this practice; for Apollo did the like amongst the Assyrians. His
prophesying thus unto those people moved them to paint him with a
large long beard, and clothes beseeming an old settled person of a most
posed, staid, and grave behaviour; not naked, young, and beardless, as
he was portrayed most usually amongst the Grecians. Let us make trial
of this kind of fatidicency; and go you take advice of some dumb
person without any speaking. I am content, quoth Panurge. But, says
Pantagruel, it were requisite that the dumb you consult with be such as
have been deaf from the hour of their nativity, and consequently dumb;
for none can be so lively, natural, and kindly dumb as he who never
heard.
How is it, quoth Panurge, that you conceive this matter? If you
apprehend it so, that never any spoke who had not before heard the
speech of others, I will from that antecedent bring you to infer very
logically a most absurd and paradoxical conclusion. But let it pass; I
will not insist on it. You do not then believe what Herodotus wrote of
two children, who, at the special command and appointment of
Psammeticus, King of Egypt, having been kept in a petty country
cottage, where they were nourished and entertained in a perpetual
silence, did at last, after a certain long space of time, pronounce this
word Bec, which in the Phrygian language signifieth bread. Nothing
less, quoth Pantagruel, do I believe than that it is a mere abusing of our
understandings to give credit to the words of those who say that there is
any such thing as a natural language. All speeches have had their
primary origin from the arbitrary institutions, accords, and agreements
of nations in their respective condescendments to what should be noted
and betokened by them. An articulate voice, according to the
dialecticians, hath naturally no signification at all; for that the sense and
meaning thereof did totally depend upon the good will and pleasure of
the first deviser and imposer of it. I do not tell you this without a cause;
for Bartholus, Lib. 5. de Verb. Oblig., very seriously reporteth that
even in his time there was in Eugubia one named Sir Nello de Gabrielis,
who, although he by a sad mischance became altogether deaf,
understood nevertheless everyone that talked in the Italian dialect
howsoever he expressed himself; and that only by looking on his
external gestures, and casting an attentive eye upon the divers motions
of his lips and chaps. I have read, I remember also, in a very literate
and eloquent author, that Tyridates, King of Armenia, in the days of
Nero, made a voyage to Rome, where he was received with great
honour and solemnity, and with all manner of pomp and magnificence.
Yea, to the end there might be a sempiternal amity and correspondence
preserved betwixt him and the Roman senate, there was no remarkable
thing in the whole city which was not shown unto him. At his departure
the emperor bestowed upon him many ample donatives of an
inestimable value; and besides, the more entirely to testify his affection
towards him, heartily entreated him to be pleased to make choice of any
whatsoever thing in Rome was most agreeable to his fancy, with a
promise juramentally confirmed that he should not be refused of his
demand. Thereupon, after a suitable return of thanks for a so gracious
offer, he required a certain Jack-pudding whom he had seen to act his
part most egregiously upon the stage, and whose meaning, albeit he
knew not what it was he had spoken, he understood perfectly enough
by the signs and gesticulations which he had made. And for this suit of
his, in that he asked nothing else, he gave this reason, that in the several
wide and spacious dominions which were reduced under the sway and
authority of his sovereign government, there were sundry countries and
nations much differing from one another in language, with whom,
whether he was to speak unto them or give any answer to their requests,
he was always necessitated to make use of divers sorts of truchman and
interpreters. Now with this man alone, sufficient for supplying all their
places, will that great inconveniency hereafter be totally removed;
seeing he is such a fine gesticulator, and in the practice of chirology an
artist so complete, expert, and dexterous, that with his very fingers he
doth speak. Howsoever, you are to pitch upon such a dumb one as is
deaf by nature and from his birth; to the end that his gestures and signs
may be the more vively and truly prophetic, and not counterfeit by the
intermixture of some adulterate lustre and affectation. Yet whether this
dumb person shall be of the male or female sex is in your option, lieth
at your discretion, and altogether dependeth on your own election.
I would more willingly, quoth Panurge, consult with and be advised by
a dumb woman, were it not that I am afraid of two things. The first is,
that the greater part of women, whatever be that they see, do always
represent unto their fancies, think, and imagine, that it hath some
relation to the sugared entering of the goodly ithyphallos, and graffing
in the cleft of the overturned tree the quickset imp of the pin of
copulation. Whatever signs, shows, or gestures we shall make, or
whatever our behaviour, carriage, or demeanour shall happen to be in
their view and presence, they will interpret the whole in reference to the
act of androgynation and the culbutizing exercise, by which means we
shall be abusively disappointed of our designs, in regard that she will
take all our signs for nothing else but tokens and representations of our
desire to entice her unto the lists of a Cyprian combat or catsenconny
skirmish. Do you remember what happened at Rome two hundred and
threescore years after the foundation thereof? A young Roman
gentleman encountering by chance, at the foot of Mount Celion, with a
beautiful Latin lady named Verona, who from her very cradle upwards
had always been both deaf and dumb, very civilly asked her, not
without a chironomatic Italianizing of his demand, with various
jectigation of his fingers and other gesticulations as yet customary
amongst the speakers of that country, what senators in her descent from
the top of the hill she had met with going up thither. For you are to
conceive that he, knowing no more of her deafness than dumbness, was
ignorant of both. She in the meantime, who neither heard nor
understood so much as one word of what he had said, straight imagined,
by all that she could apprehend in the lovely gesture of his manual
signs, that what he then required of her was what herself had a great
mind to, even that which a young man doth naturally desire of a woman.
Then was it that by signs, which in all occurrences of venereal love are
incomparably more attractive, valid, and efficacious than words, she
beckoned to him to come along with her to her house; which when he
had done, she drew him aside to a privy room, and then made a most
lively alluring sign unto him to show that the game did please her.
Whereupon, without any more advertisement, or so much as the
uttering of one word on either side, they fell to and bringuardized it
lustily.
The other cause of my being averse from consulting with dumb women
is, that to our signs they would make no answer at all, but suddenly fall
backwards in a divarication posture, to intimate thereby unto us the
reality of their consent to the supposed motion of our tacit demands. Or
if they should chance to make any countersigns responsory to our
propositions, they would prove so foolish, impertinent, and ridiculous,
that by them ourselves should easily judge their thoughts to have no
excursion beyond the duffling academy. You know very well how at
Brignoles, when the religious nun, Sister Fatbum, was made big with
child by the young Stiffly-stand-to't, her pregnancy came to be known,
and she cited by the abbess, and, in a full convention of the convent,
accused of incest. Her excuse was that she did not consent thereto, but
that it was done by the violence and impetuous force of the Friar
Stiffly-stand-to't. Hereto the abbess very austerely replying, Thou
naughty wicked girl, why didst thou not cry, A rape, a rape! then
should all of us have run to thy succour. Her answer was that the rape
was committed in the dortour, where she durst not cry because it was a
place of sempiternal silence. But, quoth the abbess, thou roguish wench,
why didst not thou then make some sign to those that were in the next
chamber beside thee? To this she answered that with her buttocks she
made a sign unto them as vigorously as she could, yet never one of
them did so much as offer to come to her help and assistance. But,
quoth the abbess, thou scurvy baggage, why didst thou not tell it me
immediately after the perpetration of the fact, that so we might orderly,
regularly, and canonically have accused him? I would have done so,
had the case been mine, for the clearer manifestation of mine innocency.
I truly, madam, would have done the like with all my heart and soul,
quoth Sister Fatbum, but that fearing I should remain in sin, and in the
hazard of eternal damnation, if prevented by a sudden death, I did
confess myself to the father friar before he went out of the room, who,
for my penance, enjoined me not to tell it, or reveal the matter unto any.
It were a most enormous and horrid offence, detestable before God and
the angels, to reveal a confession. Such an abominable wickedness
would have possibly brought down fire from heaven, wherewith to
have burnt the whole nunnery, and sent us all headlong to the
bottomless pit, to bear company with Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.
You will not, quoth Pantagruel, with all your jesting, make me laugh. I
know that all the monks, friars, and nuns had rather violate and infringe
the highest of the commandments of God than break the least of their
provincial statutes. Take you therefore Goatsnose, a man very fit for
your present purpose; for he is, and hath been, both dumb and deaf
from the very remotest infancy of his childhood.
Chapter 3.
XX.
How Goatsnose by signs maketh answer to Panurge.
Goatsnose being sent for, came the day thereafter to Pantagruel's court;
at his arrival to which Panurge gave him a fat calf, the half of a hog,
two puncheons of wine, one load of corn, and thirty francs of small
money; then, having brought him before Pantagruel, in presence of the
gentlemen of the bed-chamber he made this sign unto him. He yawned
a long time, and in yawning made without his mouth with the thumb of
his right hand the figure of the Greek letter Tau by frequent reiterations.
Afterwards he lifted up his eyes to heavenwards, then turned them in
his head like a she-goat in the painful fit of an absolute birth, in doing
whereof he did cough and sigh exceeding heavily. This done, after that
he had made demonstration of the want of his codpiece, he from under
his shirt took his placket-racket in a full grip, making it therewithal
clack very melodiously betwixt his thighs; then, no sooner had he with
his body stooped a little forwards, and bowed his left knee, but that
immediately thereupon holding both his arms on his breast, in a loose
faint-like posture, the one over the other, he paused awhile. Goatsnose
looked wistly upon him, and having heedfully enough viewed him all
over, he lifted up into the air his left hand, the whole fingers whereof he
retained fistwise close together, except the thumb and the forefinger,
whose nails he softly joined and coupled to one another. I understand,
quoth Pantagruel, what he meaneth by that sign. It denotes marriage,
and withal the number thirty, according to the profession of the
Pythagoreans. You will be married. Thanks to you, quoth Panurge, in
turning himself towards Goatsnose, my little sewer, pretty master's
mate, dainty bailie, curious sergeant-marshal, and jolly
catchpole-leader. Then did he lift higher up than before his said left
hand, stretching out all the five fingers thereof, and severing them as
wide from one another as he possibly could get done. Here, says
Pantagruel, doth he more amply and fully insinuate unto us, by the
token which he showeth forth of the quinary number, that you shall be
married. Yea, that you shall not only be affianced, betrothed, wedded,
and married, but that you shall furthermore cohabit and live jollily and
merrily with your wife; for Pythagoras called five the nuptial number,
which, together with marriage, signifieth the consummation of
matrimony, because it is composed of a ternary, the first of the odd, and
binary, the first of the even numbers, as of a male and female knit and
united together. In very deed it was the fashion of old in the city of
Rome at marriage festivals to light five wax tapers; nor was it permitted
to kindle any more at the magnific nuptials of the most potent and
wealthy, nor yet any fewer at the penurious weddings of the poorest
and most abject of the world. Moreover, in times past, the heathen or
paynims implored the assistance of five deities, or of one helpful, at
least, in five several good offices to those that were to be married. Of
this sort were the nuptial Jove, Juno, president of the feast, the fair
Venus, Pitho, the goddess of eloquence and persuasion, and Diana,
whose aid and succour was required to the labour of child-bearing.
Then shouted Panurge, O the gentle Goatsnose, I will give him a farm
near Cinais, and a windmill hard by Mirebalais! Hereupon the dumb
fellow sneezeth with an impetuous vehemency and huge concussion of
the spirits of the whole body, withdrawing himself in so doing with a
jerking turn towards the left hand. By the body of a fox new slain,
quoth Pantagruel, what is that? This maketh nothing for your advantage;
for he betokeneth thereby that your marriage will be inauspicious and
unfortunate. This sneezing, according to the doctrine of Terpsion, is the
Socratic demon. If done towards the right side, it imports and
portendeth that boldly and with all assurance one may go whither he
will and do what he listeth, according to what deliberation he shall be
pleased to have thereupon taken; his entries in the beginning, progress
in his proceedings, and success in the events and issues will be all
lucky, good, and happy. The quite contrary thereto is thereby implied
and presaged if it be done towards the left. You, quoth Panurge, do take
always the matter at the worst, and continually, like another Davus,
casteth in new disturbances and obstructions; nor ever yet did I know
this old paltry Terpsion worthy of citation but in points only of
cosenage and imposture. Nevertheless, quoth Pantagruel, Cicero hath
written I know not what to the same purpose in his Second Book of
Divination.
Panurge then, turning himself towards Goatsnose, made this sign unto
him. He inverted his eyelids upwards, wrenched his jaws from the right
to the left side, and drew forth his tongue half out of his mouth. This
done, he posited his left hand wholly open, the mid-finger wholly
excepted, which was perpendicularly placed upon the palm thereof, and
set it just in the room where his codpiece had been. Then did he keep
his right hand altogether shut up in a fist, save only the thumb, which
he straight turned backwards directly under the right armpit, and settled
it afterwards on that most eminent part of the buttocks which the Arabs
call the Al-Katim. Suddenly thereafter he made this interchange: he
held his right hand after the manner of the left, and posited it on the
place wherein his codpiece sometime was, and retaining his left hand in
the form and fashion of the right, he placed it upon his Al-Katim. This
altering of hands did he reiterate nine several times; at the last whereof
he reseated his eyelids into their own first natural position. Then doing
the like also with his jaws and tongue, he did cast a squinting look upon
Goatsnose, diddering and shivering his chaps, as apes use to do
nowadays, and rabbits, whilst, almost starved with hunger, they are
eating oats in the sheaf.
Then was it that Goatsnose, lifting up into the air his right hand wholly
open and displayed, put the thumb thereof, even close unto its first
articulation, between the two third joints of the middle and ring fingers,
pressing about the said thumb thereof very hard with them both, and,
whilst the remanent joints were contracted and shrunk in towards the
wrist, he stretched forth with as much straightness as he could the fore
and little fingers. That hand thus framed and disposed of he laid and
posited upon Panurge's navel, moving withal continually the aforesaid
thumb, and bearing up, supporting, or under-propping that hand upon
the above-specified fore and little fingers, as upon two legs. Thereafter
did he make in this posture his hand by little and little, and by degrees
and pauses, successively to mount from athwart the belly to the
stomach, from whence he made it to ascend to the breast, even upwards
to Panurge's neck, still gaining ground, till, having reached his chin, he
had put within the concave of his mouth his afore-mentioned thumb;
then fiercely brandishing the whole hand, which he made to rub and
grate against his nose, he heaved it further up, and made the fashion as
if with the thumb thereof he would have put out his eyes. With this
Panurge grew a little angry, and went about to withdraw and rid
himself from this ruggedly untoward dumb devil. But Goatsnose in the
meantime, prosecuting the intended purpose of his prognosticatory
response, touched very rudely, with the above-mentioned shaking
thumb, now his eyes, then his forehead, and after that the borders and
corners of his cap. At last Panurge cried out, saying, Before God,
master fool, if you do not let me alone, or that you will presume to vex
me any more, you shall receive from the best hand I have a mask
wherewith to cover your rascally scroundrel face, you paltry shitten
varlet. Then said Friar John, He is deaf, and doth not understand what
thou sayest unto him. Bulliballock, make sign to him of a hail of
fisticuffs upon the muzzle.
What the devil, quoth Panurge, means this busy restless fellow? What
is it that this polypragmonetic ardelion to all the fiends of hell doth aim
at? He hath almost thrust out mine eyes, as if he had been to poach
them in a skillet with butter and eggs. By God, da jurandi, I will feast
you with flirts and raps on the snout, interlarded with a double row of
bobs and finger-fillipings! Then did he leave him in giving him by way
of salvo a volley of farts for his farewell. Goatsnose, perceiving
Panurge thus to slip away from him, got before him, and, by mere
strength enforcing him to stand, made this sign unto him. He let fall his
right arm toward his knee on the same side as low as he could, and,
raising all the fingers of that hand into a close fist, passed his dexter
thumb betwixt the foremost and mid fingers thereto belonging. Then
scrubbing and swingeing a little with his left hand alongst and upon the
uppermost in the very bough of the elbow of the said dexter arm, the
whole cubit thereof, by leisure, fair and softly, at these thumpatory
warnings, did raise and elevate itself even to the elbow, and above it;
on a sudden did he then let it fall down as low as before, and after that,
at certain intervals and such spaces of time, raising and abasing it, he
made a show thereof to Panurge. This so incensed Panurge that he
forthwith lifted his hand to have stricken him the dumb roister and
given him a sound whirret on the ear, but that the respect and reverence
which he carried to the presence of Pantagruel restrained his choler and
kept his fury within bounds and limits. Then said Pantagruel, If the bare
signs now vex and trouble you, how much more grievously will you be
perplexed and disquieted with the real things which by them are
represented and signified! All truths agree and are consonant with one
another. This dumb fellow prophesieth and foretelleth that you will be
married, cuckolded, beaten, and robbed. As for the marriage, quoth
Panurge, I yield thereto, and acknowledge the verity of that point of his
prediction; as for the rest, I utterly abjure and deny it: and believe, sir, I
beseech you, if it may please you so to do, that in the matter of wives
and horses never any man was predestinated to a better fortune than I.
Chapter 3.
XXI.
How Panurge consulteth with an old French poet, named
Raminagrobis.
I never thought, said Pantagruel, to have encountered with any man so
headstrong in his apprehensions, or in his opinions so wilful, as I have
found you to be and see you are. Nevertheless, the better to clear and
extricate your doubts, let us try all courses, and leave no stone unturned
nor wind unsailed by. Take good heed to what I am to say unto you.
The swans, which are fowls consecrated to Apollo, never chant but in
the hour of their approaching death, especially in the Meander flood,
which is a river that runneth along some of the territories of Phrygia.
This I say, because Aelianus and Alexander Myndius write that they
had seen several swans in other places die, but never heard any of them
sing or chant before their death. However, it passeth for current that the
imminent death of a swan is presaged by his foregoing song, and that
no swan dieth until preallably he have sung.
After the same manner, poets, who are under the protection of Apollo,
when they are drawing near their latter end do ordinarily become
prophets, and by the inspiration of that god sing sweetly in vaticinating
things which are to come. It hath been likewise told me frequently, that
old decrepit men upon the brinks of Charon's banks do usher their
decease with a disclosure all at ease, to those that are desirous of such
informations, of the determinate and assured truth of future accidents
and contingencies. I remember also that Aristophanes, in a certain
comedy of his, calleth the old folks Sibyls, Eith o geron Zibullia. For as
when, being upon a pier by the shore, we see afar off mariners,
seafaring men, and other travellers alongst the curled waves of azure
Thetis within their ships, we then consider them in silence only, and
seldom proceed any further than to wish them a happy and prosperous
arrival; but when they do approach near to the haven, and come to wet
their keels within their harbour, then both with words and gestures we
salute them, and heartily congratulate their access safe to the port
wherein we are ourselves. Just so the angels, heroes, and good demons,
according to the doctrine of the Platonics, when they see mortals
drawing near unto the harbour of the grave, as the most sure and
calmest port of any, full of repose, ease, rest, tranquillity, free from the
troubles and solicitudes of this tumultuous and tempestuous world; then
is it that they with alacrity hail and salute them, cherish and comfort
them, and, speaking to them lovingly, begin even then to bless them
with illuminations, and to communicate unto them the abstrusest
mysteries of divination. I will not offer here to confound your memory
by quoting antique examples of Isaac, of Jacob, of Patroclus towards
Hector, of Hector towards Achilles, of Polymnestor towards
Agamemnon, of Hecuba, of the Rhodian renowned by Posidonius, of
Calanus the Indian towards Alexander the Great, of Orodes towards
Mezentius, and of many others. It shall suffice for the present that I
commemorate unto you the learned and valiant knight and cavalier
William of Bellay, late Lord of Langey, who died on the Hill of Tarara,
the 10th of January, in the climacteric year of his age, and of our
supputation 1543, according to the Roman account. The last three or
four hours of his life he did employ in the serious utterance of a very
pithy discourse, whilst with a clear judgment and spirit void of all
trouble he did foretell several important things, whereof a great deal is
come to pass, and the rest we wait for. Howbeit, his prophecies did at
that time seem unto us somewhat strange, absurd, and unlikely, because
there did not then appear any sign of efficacy enough to engage our
faith to the belief of what he did prognosticate. We have here, near to
the town of Villomere, a man that is both old and a poet, to wit,
Raminagrobis, who to his second wife espoused my Lady Broadsow,
on whom he begot the fair Basoche. It hath been told me he is a-dying,
and so near unto his latter end that he is almost upon the very last
moment, point, and article thereof. Repair thither as fast as you can,
and be ready to give an attentive ear to what he shall chant unto you. It
may be that you shall obtain from him what you desire, and that Apollo
will be pleased by his means to clear your scruples. I am content, quoth
Panurge. Let us go thither, Epistemon, and that both instantly and in all
haste, lest otherwise his death prevent our coming. Wilt thou come
along with us, Friar John? Yes, that I will, quoth Friar John, right
heartily to do thee a courtesy, my billy-ballocks; for I love thee with the
best of my milt and liver.
Thereupon, incontinently, without any further lingering, to the way
they all three went, and quickly thereafter--for they made good
speed--arriving at the poetical habitation, they found the jolly old man,
albeit in the agony of his departure from this world, looking cheerfully,
with an open countenance, splendid aspect, and behaviour full of
alacrity. After that Panurge had very civilly saluted him, he in a free
gift did present him with a gold ring, which he even then put upon the
medical finger of his left hand, in the collet or bezel whereof was
enchased an Oriental sapphire, very fair and large. Then, in imitation of
Socrates, did he make an oblation unto him of a fair white cock, which
was no sooner set upon the tester of his bed, than that, with a high
raised head and crest, lustily shaking his feather-coat, he crowed
stentoriphonically loud. This done, Panurge very courteously required
of him that he would vouchsafe to favour him with the grant and report
of his sense and judgment touching the future destiny of his intended
marriage. For answer hereto, when the honest old man had forthwith
commanded pen, paper, and ink to be brought unto him, and that he
was at the same call conveniently served with all the three, he wrote
these following verses:
Take, or not take her, Off, or on: Handy-dandy is your lot. When her
name you write, you blot. 'Tis undone, when all is done, Ended e'er it
was begun: Hardly gallop, if you trot, Set not forward when you run,
Nor be single, though alone, Take, or not take her.
Before you eat, begin to fast; For what shall be was never past. Say,
unsay, gainsay, save your breath: Then wish at once her life and death.
Take, or not take her.
These lines he gave out of his own hands unto them, saying unto them,
Go, my lads, in peace! the great God of the highest heavens be your
guardian and preserver! and do not offer any more to trouble or disquiet
me with this or any other business whatsoever. I have this same very
day, which is the last both of May and of me, with a greal deal of
labour, toil, and difficulty, chased out of my house a rabble of filthy,
unclean, and plaguily pestilentious rake-hells, black beasts, dusk, dun,
white, ash- coloured, speckled, and a foul vermin of other hues, whose
obtrusive importunity would not permit me to die at my own ease; for
by fraudulent and deceitful pricklings, ravenous, harpy-like graspings,
waspish stingings, and such-like unwelcome approaches, forged in the
shop of I know not what kind of insatiabilities, they went about to
withdraw and call me out of those sweet thoughts wherein I was
already beginning to repose myself and acquiesce in the contemplation
and vision, yea, almost in the very touch and taste of the happiness and
felicity which the good God hath prepared for his faithful saints and
elect in the other life and state of immortality. Turn out of their courses
and eschew them, step forth of their ways and do not resemble them;
meanwhile, let me be no more troubled by you, but leave me now in
silence, I beseech you.
Chapter 3.
XXII.
How Panurge patrocinates and defendeth the Order of the Begging
Friars.
Panurge, at his issuing forth of Raminagrobis's chamber, said, as if he
had been horribly affrighted, By the virtue of God, I believe that he is
an heretic; the devil take me, if I do not! he doth so villainously rail at
the Mendicant Friars and Jacobins, who are the two hemispheres of the
Christian world; by whose gyronomonic circumbilvaginations, as by
two celivagous filopendulums, all the autonomatic metagrobolism of
the Romish Church, when tottering and emblustricated with the
gibble-gabble gibberish of this odious error and heresy, is
homocentrically poised. But what harm, in the devil's name, have these
poor devils the Capuchins and Minims done unto him? Are not these
beggarly devils sufficiently wretched already? Who can imagine that
these poor snakes, the very extracts of ichthyophagy, are not
thoroughly enough besmoked and besmeared with misery, distress, and
calamity? Dost thou think, Friar John, by thy faith, that he is in the state
of salvation? He goeth, before God, as surely damned to thirty
thousand basketsful of devils as a pruning-bill to the lopping of a vine-
branch. To revile with opprobrious speeches the good and courageous
props and pillars of the Church,--is that to be called a poetical fury? I
cannot rest satisfied with him; he sinneth grossly, and blasphemeth
against the true religion. I am very much offended at his scandalizing
words and contumelious obloquy. I do not care a straw, quoth Friar
John, for what he hath said; for although everybody should twit and
jerk them, it were but a just retaliation, seeing all persons are served by
them with the like sauce: therefore do I pretend no interest therein. Let
us see, nevertheless, what he hath written. Panurge very attentively read
the paper which the old man had penned; then said to his two
fellow-travellers, The poor drinker doteth. Howsoever, I excuse him,
for that I believe he is now drawing near to the end and final closure of
his life. Let us go make his epitaph. By the answer which he hath given
us, I am not, I protest, one jot wiser than I was. Hearken here,
Epistemon, my little bully, dost not thou hold him to be very resolute in
his responsory verdicts? He is a witty, quick, and subtle sophister. I
will lay an even wager that he is a miscreant apostate. By the belly of a
stalled ox, how careful he is not to be mistaken in his words. He
answered but by disjunctives, therefore can it not be true which he saith;
for the verity of such-like propositions is inherent only in one of its two
members. O the cozening prattler that he is! I wonder if Santiago of
Bressure be one of these cogging shirks. Such was of old, quoth
Epistemon, the custom of the grand vaticinator and prophet Tiresias,
who used always, by way of a preface, to say openly and plainly at the
beginning of his divinations and predictions that what he was to tell
would either come to pass or not. And such is truly the style of all
prudently presaging prognosticators. He was nevertheless, quoth
Panurge, so unfortunately misadventurous in the lot of his own destiny,
that Juno thrust out both his eyes.
Yes, answered Epistemon, and that merely out of a spite and spleen for
having pronounced his award more veritable than she, upon the
question which was merrily proposed by Jupiter. But, quoth Panurge,
what archdevil is it that hath possessed this Master Raminagrobis, that
so unreasonably, and without any occasion, he should have so
snappishly and bitterly inveighed against these poor honest fathers,
Jacobins, Minors, and Minims? It vexeth me grievously, I assure you;
nor am I able to conceal my indignation. He hath transgressed most
enormously; his soul goeth infallibly to thirty thousand panniersful of
devils. I understand you not, quoth Epistemon, and it disliketh me very
much that you should so absurdly and perversely interpret that of the
Friar Mendicants which by the harmless poet was spoken of black
beasts, dun, and other sorts of other coloured animals. He is not in my
opinion guilty of such a sophistical and fantastic allegory as by that
phrase of his to have meant the Begging Brothers. He in downright
terms speaketh absolutely and properly of fleas, punies, hand worms,
flies, gnats, and other such-like scurvy vermin, whereof some are black,
some dun, some ash-coloured, some tawny, and some brown and dusky,
all noisome, molesting, tyrannous, cumbersome, and unpleasant
creatures, not only to sick and diseased folks, but to those also who are
of a sound, vigorous, and healthful temperament and constitution. It is
not unlikely that he may have the ascarids, and the lumbrics, and
worms within the entrails of his body. Possibly doth he suffer, as it is
frequent and usual amongst the Egyptians, together with all those who
inhabit the Erythraean confines, and dwell along the shores and coasts
of the Red Sea, some sour prickings and smart stingings in his arms and
legs of those little speckled dragons which the Arabians call meden.
You are to blame for offering to expound his words otherwise, and
wrong the ingenuous poet, and outrageously abuse and miscall the said
fraters, by an imputation of baseness undeservedly laid to their charge.
We still should, in such like discourses of fatiloquent soothsayers,
interpret all things to the best. Will you teach me, quoth Panurge, how
to discern flies among milk, or show your father the way how to beget
children? He is, by the virtue of God, an arrant heretic, a resolute,
formal heretic; I say, a rooted, combustible heretic, one as fit to burn as
the little wooden clock at Rochelle. His soul goeth to thirty thousand
cartsful of devils. Would you know whither? Cocks-body, my friend,
straight under Proserpina's close-stool, to the very middle of the self-
same infernal pan within which she, by an excrementitious evacuation,
voideth the faecal stuff of her stinking clysters, and that just upon the
left side of the great cauldron of three fathom height, hard by the claws
and talons of Lucifer, in the very darkest of the passage which leadeth
towards the black chamber of Demogorgon. O the villain!
Chapter 3.
XXIII.
How Panurge maketh the motion of a return to Raminagrobis.
Let us return, quoth Panurge, not ceasing, to the uttermost of our
abilities, to ply him with wholesome admonitions for the furtherance of
his salvation. Let us go back, for God's sake; let us go, in the name of
God. It will be a very meritorious work, and of great charity in us to
deal so in the matter, and provide so well for him that, albeit he come
to lose both body and life, he may at least escape the risk and danger of
the eternal damnation of his soul. We will by our holy persuasions
bring him to a sense and feeling of his escapes, induce him to
acknowledge his faults, move him to a cordial repentance of his errors,
and stir up in him such a sincere contrition of heart for his offences, as
will prompt him with all earnestness to cry mercy, and to beg pardon at
the hands of the good fathers, as well of the absent as of such as are
present. Whereupon we will take instrument formally and authentically
extended, to the end he be not, after his decease, declared an heretic,
and condemned, as were the hobgoblins of the provost's wife of
Orleans, to the undergoing of such punishments, pains, and tortures as
are due to and inflicted on those that inhabit the horrid cells of the
infernal regions; and withal incline, instigate, and persuade him to
bequeath and leave in legacy (by way of an amends and satisfaction for
the outrage and injury done to those good religious fathers throughout
all the convents, cloisters, and monasteries of this province), many
bribes, a great deal of mass-singing, store of obits, and that
sempiternally, on the anniversary day of his decease, every one of them
all be furnished with a quintuple allowance, and that the great borachio
replenished with the best liquor trudge apace along the tables, as well
of the young duckling monkitoes, lay brothers, and lowermost degree
of the abbey lubbards, as of the learned priests and reverend clerks,--the
very meanest of the novices and mitiants unto the order being equally
admitted to the benefit of those funerary and obsequial festivals with
the aged rectors and professed fathers. This is the surest ordinary means
whereby from God he may obtain forgiveness. Ho, ho, I am quite
mistaken; I digress from the purpose, and fly out of my discourse, as if
my spirits were a-wool-gathering. The devil take me, if I go thither!
Virtue God! The chamber is already full of devils. O what a swinging,
thwacking noise is now amongst them! O the terrible coil that they
keep! Hearken, do you not hear the rustling, thumping bustle of their
strokes and blows, as they scuffle with one another, like true devils
indeed, who shall gulp up the Raminagrobis soul, and be the first
bringer of it, whilst it is hot, to Monsieur Lucifer? Beware, and get you
hence! for my part, I will not go thither. The devil roast me if I go!
Who knows but that these hungry mad devils may in the haste of their
rage and fury of their impatience take a qui for a quo, and instead of
Raminagrobis snatch up poor Panurge frank and free? Though formerly,
when I was deep in debt, they always failed. Get you hence! I will not
go thither. Before God, the very bare apprehension thereof is like to kill
me. To be in a place where there are greedy, famished, and
hunger-starved devils; amongst factious devils--amidst trading and
trafficking devils--O the Lord preserve me! Get you hence! I dare pawn
my credit on it, that no Jacobin, Cordelier, Carmelite, Capuchin,
Theatin, or Minim will bestow any personal presence at his interment.
The wiser they, because he hath ordained nothing for them in his latter
will and testament. The devil take me, if I go thither. If he be damned,
to his own loss and hindrance be it. What the deuce moved him to be so
snappish and depravedly bent against the good fathers of the true
religion? Why did he cast them off, reject them, and drive them quite
out of his chamber, even in that very nick of time when he stood in
greatest need of the aid, suffrage, and assistance of their devout prayers
and holy admonitions? Why did not he by testament leave them, at
least, some jolly lumps and cantles of substantial meat, a parcel of
cheek-puffing victuals, and a little belly-timber and provision for the
guts of these poor folks, who have nothing but their life in this world?
Let him go thither who will, the devil take me if I go; for, if I should,
the devil would not fail to snatch me up. Cancro. Ho, the pox! Get you
hence, Friar John! Art thou content that thirty thousand wainload of
devils should get away with thee at this same very instant? If thou be,
at my request do these three things. First, give me thy purse; for besides
that thy money is marked with crosses, and the cross is an enemy to
charms, the same may befall to thee which not long ago happened to
John Dodin, collector of the excise of Coudray, at the ford of Vede,
when the soldiers broke the planks. This moneyed fellow, meeting at
the very brink of the bank of the ford with Friar Adam Crankcod, a
Franciscan observantin of Mirebeau, promised him a new frock,
provided that in the transporting of him over the water he would bear
him upon his neck and shoulders, after the manner of carrying dead
goats; for he was a lusty, strong-limbed, sturdy rogue. The condition
being agreed upon, Friar Crankcod trusseth himself up to his very
ballocks, and layeth upon his back, like a fair little Saint Christopher,
the load of the said supplicant Dodin, and so carried him gaily and with
a good will, as Aeneas bore his father Anchises through the
conflagration of Troy, singing in the meanwhile a pretty Ave Maris
Stella. When they were in the very deepest place of all the ford, a little
above the master-wheel of the water-mill, he asked if he had any coin
about him. Yes, quoth Dodin, a whole bagful; and that he needed not to
mistrust his ability in the performance of the promise which he had
made unto him concerning a new frock. How! quoth Friar Crankcod,
thou knowest well enough that by the express rules, canons, and
injunctions of our order we are forbidden to carry on us any kind of
money. Thou art truly unhappy, for having made me in this point to
commit a heinous trespass. Why didst thou not leave thy purse with the
miller? Without fail thou shalt presently receive thy reward for it; and if
ever hereafter I may but lay hold upon thee within the limits of our
chancel at Mirebeau, thou shalt have the Miserere even to the Vitulos.
With this, suddenly discharging himself of his burden, he throws me
down your Dodin headlong. Take example by this Dodin, my dear
friend Friar John, to the end that the devils may the better carry thee
away at thine own ease. Give me thy purse. Carry no manner of cross
upon thee. Therein lieth an evident and manifestly apparent danger. For
if you have any silver coined with a cross upon it, they will cast thee
down headlong upon some rocks, as the eagles use to do with the
tortoises for the breaking of their shells, as the bald pate of the poet
Aeschylus can sufficiently bear witness. Such a fall would hurt thee
very sore, my sweet bully, and I would be sorry for it. Or otherwise
they will let thee fall and tumble down into the high swollen waves of
some capacious sea, I know not where; but, I warrant thee, far enough
hence, as Icarus fell, which from thy name would afterwards get the
denomination of the Funnelian Sea.
Secondly, be out of debt. For the devils carry a great liking to those that
are out of debt. I have sore felt the experience thereof in mine own
particular; for now the lecherous varlets are always wooing me,
courting me, and making much of me, which they never did when I was
all to pieces. The soul of one in debt is insipid, dry, and heretical
altogether.
Thirdly, with the cowl and Domino de Grobis, return to Raminagrobis;
and in case, being thus qualified, thirty thousand boatsful of devils
forthwith come not to carry thee quite away, I shall be content to be at
the charge of paying for the pint and faggot. Now, if for the more
security thou wouldst some associate to bear thee company, let not me
be the comrade thou searchest for; think not to get a fellow-traveller of
me,--nay, do not. I advise thee for the best. Get you hence; I will not go
thither. The devil take me if I go. Notwithstanding all the fright that
you are in, quoth Friar John, I would not care so much as might
possibly be expected I should, if I once had but my sword in my hand.
Thou hast verily hit the nail on the head, quoth Panurge, and speakest
like a learned doctor, subtle and well-skilled in the art of devilry. At the
time when I was a student in the University of Toulouse (Tolette), that
same reverend father in the devil, Picatrix, rector of the diabological
faculty, was wont to tell us that the devils did naturally fear the bright
glancing of swords as much as the splendour and light of the sun. In
confirmation of the verity whereof he related this story, that Hercules,
at his descent into hell to all the devils of those regions, did not by half
so much terrify them with his club and lion's skin as afterwards Aeneas
did with his clear shining armour upon him, and his sword in his hand
well-furbished and unrusted, by the aid, counsel, and assistance of the
Sybilla Cumana. That was perhaps the reason why the senior John
Jacomo di Trivulcio, whilst he was a-dying at Chartres, called for his
cutlass, and died with a drawn sword in his hand, laying about him
alongst and athwart around the bed and everywhere within his reach,
like a stout, doughty, valorous and knight-like cavalier; by which
resolute manner of fence he scared away and put to flight all the devils
that were then lying in wait for his soul at the passage of his death.
When the Massorets and Cabalists are asked why it is that none of all
the devils do at any time enter into the terrestrial paradise? their answer
hath been, is, and will be still, that there is a cherubin standing at the
gate thereof with a flame-like glistering sword in his hand. Although, to
speak in the true diabological sense or phrase of Toledo, I must needs
confess and acknowledge that veritably the devils cannot be killed or
die by the stroke of a sword, I do nevertheless avow and maintain,
according to the doctrine of the said diabology, that they may suffer a
solution of continuity (as if with thy shable thou shouldst cut athwart
the flame of a burning fire, or the gross opacous exhalations of a thick
and obscure smoke), and cry out like very devils at their sense and
feeling of this dissolution, which in real deed I must aver and affirm is
devilishly painful, smarting, and dolorous.
When thou seest the impetuous shock of two armies, and vehement
violence of the push in their horrid encounter with one another, dost
thou think, Ballockasso, that so horrible a noise as is heard there
proceedeth from the voice and shouts of men, the dashing and jolting of
harness, the clattering and clashing of armies, the hacking and slashing
of battle-axes, the justling and crashing of pikes, the bustling and
breaking of lances, the clamour and shrieks of the wounded, the sound
and din of drums, the clangour and shrillness of trumpets, the neighing
and rushing in of horses, with the fearful claps and thundering of all
sorts of guns, from the double cannon to the pocket pistol inclusively? I
cannot goodly deny but that in these various things which I have
rehearsed there may be somewhat occasionative of the huge yell and
tintamarre of the two engaged bodies. But the most fearful and
tumultuous coil and stir, the terriblest and most boisterous garboil and
hurry, the chiefest rustling black santus of all, and most principal
hurlyburly springeth from the grievously plangorous howling and
lowing of devils, who pell-mell, in a hand-over-head confusion, waiting
for the poor souls of the maimed and hurt soldiery, receive unawares
some strokes with swords, and so by those means suffer a solution of
and division in the continuity of their aerial and invisible substances; as
if some lackey, snatching at the lard-slices stuck in a piece of roast
meat on the spit, should get from Mr. Greasyfist a good rap on the
knuckles with a cudgel. They cry out and shout like devils, even as
Mars did when he was hurt by Diomedes at the siege of Troy, who, as
Homer testifieth of him, did then raise his voice more horrifically loud
and sonoriferously high than ten thousand men together would have
been able to do. What maketh all this for our present purpose? I have
been speaking here of well-furbished armour and bright shining swords.
But so is it not, Friar John, with thy weapon; for by a long
discontinuance of work, cessation from labour, desisting from making
it officiate, and putting it into that practice wherein it had been
formerly accustomed, and, in a word, for want of occupation, it is, upon
my faith, become more rusty than the key-hole of an old powdering-tub.
Therefore it is expedient that you do one of these two things: either
furbish your weapon bravely, and as it ought to be, or otherwise have a
care that, in the rusty case it is in, you do not presume to return to the
house of Raminagrobis. For my part, I vow I will not go thither. The
devil take me if I go.
Chapter 3.
XXIV.
How Panurge consulteth with Epistemon.
Having left the town of Villomere, as they were upon their return
towards Pantagruel, Panurge, in addressing his discourse to Epistemon,
spoke thus: My most ancient friend and gossip, thou seest the
perplexity of my thoughts, and knowest many remedies for the removal
thereof; art thou not able to help and succour me? Epistemon,
thereupon taking the speech in hand, represented unto Panurge how the
open voice and common fame of the whole country did run upon no
other discourse but the derision and mockery of his new disguise;
wherefore his counsel unto him was that he would in the first place be
pleased to make use of a little hellebore for the purging of his brain of
that peccant humour which, through that extravagant and fantastic
mummery of his, had furnished the people with a too just occasion of
flouting and gibing, jeering and scoffing him, and that next he would
resume his ordinary fashion of accoutrement, and go apparelled as he
was wont to do. I am, quoth Panurge, my dear gossip Epistemon, of a
mind and resolution to marry, but am afraid of being a cuckold and to
be unfortunate in my wedlock. For this cause have I made a vow to
young St. Francis--who at Plessis-les-Tours is much reverenced of all
women, earnestly cried unto by them, and with great devotion, for he
was the first founder of the confraternity of good men, whom they
naturally covet, affect, and long for--to wear spectacles in my cap, and
to carry no codpiece in my breeches, until the present inquietude and
perturbation of my spirits be fully settled.
Truly, quoth Epistemon, that is a pretty jolly vow of thirteen to a dozen.
It is a shame to you, and I wonder much at it, that you do not return
unto yourself, and recall your senses from this their wild swerving and
straying abroad to that rest and stillness which becomes a virtuous man.
This whimsical conceit of yours brings me to the remembrance of a
solemn promise made by the shag-haired Argives, who, having in their
controversy against the Lacedaemonians for the territory of Thyrea, lost
the battle which they hoped should have decided it for their advantage,
vowed to carry never any hair on their heads till preallably they had
recovered the loss of both their honour and lands. As likewise to the
memory of the vow of a pleasant Spaniard called Michael Doris, who
vowed to carry in his hat a piece of the shin of his leg till he should be
revenged of him who had struck it off. Yet do not I know which of
these two deserveth most to wear a green and yellow hood with a hare's
ears tied to it, either the aforesaid vainglorious champion, or that
Enguerrant, who having forgot the art and manner of writing histories
set down by the Samosatian philosopher, maketh a most tediously long
narrative and relation thereof. For, at the first reading of such a profuse
discourse, one would think it had been broached for the introducing of
a story of great importance and moment concerning the waging of some
formidable war, or the notable change and mutation of potent states and
kingdoms; but, in conclusion, the world laugheth at the capricious
champion, at the Englishman who had affronted him, as also at their
scribbler Enguerrant, more drivelling at the mouth than a mustard pot.
The jest and scorn thereof is not unlike to that of the mountain of
Horace, which by the poet was made to cry out and lament most
enormously as a woman in the pangs and labour of child-birth, at which
deplorable and exorbitant cries and lamentations the whole
neighbourhood being assembled in expectation to see some marvellous
monstrous production, could at last perceive no other but the paltry,
ridiculous mouse.
Your mousing, quoth Panurge, will not make me leave my musing why
folks should be so frumpishly disposed, seeing I am certainly
persuaded that some flout who merit to be flouted at; yet, as my vow
imports, so will I do. It is now a long time since, by Jupiter Philos (A
mistake of the translator's.--M.), we did swear faith and amity to one
another. Give me your advice, billy, and tell me your opinion freely,
Should I marry or no? Truly, quoth Epistemon, the case is hazardous,
and the danger so eminently apparent that I find myself too weak and
insufficient to give you a punctual and peremptory resolution therein;
and if ever it was true that judgment is difficult in matters of the
medicinal art, what was said by Hippocrates of Lango, it is certainly so
in this case. True it is that in my brain there are some rolling fancies, by
means whereof somewhat may be pitched upon of a seeming efficacy
to the disentangling your mind of those dubious apprehensions
wherewith it is perplexed; but they do not thoroughly satisfy me. Some
of the Platonic sect affirm that whosoever is able to see his proper
genius may know his own destiny. I understand not their doctrine, nor
do I think that you adhere to them; there is a palpable abuse. I have
seen the experience of it in a very curious gentleman of the country of
Estangourre. This is one of the points. There is yet another not much
better. If there were any authority now in the oracles of Jupiter Ammon;
of Apollo in Lebadia, Delphos, Delos, Cyrra, Patara, Tegyres, Preneste,
Lycia, Colophon, or in the Castalian Fountain; near Antiochia in Syria,
between the Branchidians; of Bacchus in Dodona; of Mercury in Phares,
near Patras; of Apis in Egypt; of Serapis in Canope; of Faunus in
Menalia, and Albunea near Tivoli; of Tiresias in Orchomenus; of
Mopsus in Cilicia; of Orpheus in Lesbos, and of Trophonius in
Leucadia; I would in that case advise you, and possibly not, to go
thither for their judgment concerning the design and enterprise you
have in hand. But you know that they are all of them become as dumb
as so many fishes since the advent of that Saviour King whose coming
to this world hath made all oracles and prophecies to cease; as the
approach of the sun's radiant beams expelleth goblins, bugbears,
hobthrushes, broams, screech-owl-mates, night-walking spirits, and
tenebrions. These now are gone; but although they were as yet in
continuance and in the same power, rule, and request that formerly they
were, yet would not I counsel you to be too credulous in putting any
trust in their responses. Too many folks have been deceived thereby. It
stands furthermore upon record how Agrippina did charge the fair
Lollia with the crime of having interrogated the oracle of Apollo
Clarius, to understand if she should be at any time married to the
Emperor Claudius; for which cause she was first banished, and
thereafter put to a shameful and ignominious death.
But, saith Panurge, let us do better. The Ogygian Islands are not far
distant from the haven of Sammalo. Let us, after that we shall have
spoken to our king, make a voyage thither. In one of these four isles, to
wit, that which hath its primest aspect towards the sun setting, it is
reported, and I have read in good antique and authentic authors, that
there reside many soothsayers, fortune-tellers, vaticinators, prophets,
and diviners of things to come; that Saturn inhabiteth that place, bound
with fair chains of gold and within the concavity of a golden rock,
being nourished with divine ambrosia and nectar, which are daily in
great store and abundance transmitted to him from the heavens, by I do
not well know what kind of fowls,--it may be that they are the same
ravens which in the deserts are said to have fed St. Paul, the first
hermit,--he very clearly foretelleth unto everyone who is desirous to be
certified of the condition of his lot what his destiny will be, and what
future chance the Fates have ordained for him; for the Parcae, or Weird
Sisters, do not twist, spin, or draw out a thread, nor yet doth Jupiter
perpend, project, or deliberate anything which the good old celestial
father knoweth not to the full, even whilst he is asleep. This will be a
very summary abbreviation of our labour, if we but hearken unto him a
little upon the serious debate and canvassing of this my perplexity. That
is, answered Epistemon, a gullery too evident, a plain abuse and fib too
fabulous. I will not go, not I; I will not go.
Chapter 3.
XXV.
How Panurge consulteth with Herr Trippa.
Nevertheless, quoth Epistemon, continuing his discourse, I will tell you
what you may do, if you believe me, before we return to our king. Hard
by here, in the Brown-wheat (Bouchart) Island, dwelleth Herr Trippa.
You know how by the arts of astrology, geomancy, chiromancy,
metopomancy, and others of a like stuff and nature, he foretelleth all
things to come; let us talk a little, and confer with him about your
business. Of that, answered Panurge, I know nothing; but of this much
concerning him I am assured, that one day, and that not long since,
whilst he was prating to the great king of celestial, sublime, and
transcendent things, the lacqueys and footboys of the court, upon the
upper steps of stairs between two doors, jumbled, one after another, as
often as they listed, his wife, who is passable fair, and a pretty snug
hussy. Thus he who seemed very clearly to see all heavenly and
terrestrial things without spectacles, who discoursed boldly of
adventures past, with great confidence opened up present cases and
accidents, and stoutly professed the presaging of all future events and
contingencies, was not able, with all the skill and cunning that he had,
to perceive the bumbasting of his wife, whom he reputed to be very
chaste, and hath not till this hour got notice of anything to the contrary.
Yet let us go to him, seeing you will have it so; for surely we can never
learn too much. They on the very next ensuing day came to Herr
Trippa's lodging. Panurge, by way of donative, presented him with a
long gown lined all through with wolf-skins, with a short sword
mounted with a gilded hilt and covered with a velvet scabbard, and
with fifty good single angels; then in a familiar and friendly way did he
ask of him his opinion touching the affair. At the very first Herr Trippa,
looking on him very wistly in the face, said unto him: Thou hast the
metoposcopy and physiognomy of a cuckold,--I say, of a notorious and
infamous cuckold. With this, casting an eye upon Panurge's right hand
in all the parts thereof, he said, This rugged draught which I see here,
just under the mount of Jove, was never yet but in the hand of a
cuckold. Afterwards, he with a white lead pen swiftly and hastily drew
a certain number of diverse kinds of points, which by rules of
geomancy he coupled and joined together; then said: Truth itself is not
truer than that it is certain thou wilt be a cuckold a little after thy
marriage. That being done, he asked of Panurge the horoscope of his
nativity, which was no sooner by Panurge tendered unto him, than that,
erecting a figure, he very promptly and speedily formed and fashioned
a complete fabric of the houses of heaven in all their parts, whereof
when he had considered the situation and the aspects in their triplicities,
he fetched a deep sigh, and said: I have clearly enough already
discovered unto you the fate of your cuckoldry, which is unavoidable,
you cannot escape it. And here have I got of new a further assurance
thereof, so that I may now hardily pronounce and affirm, without any
scruple or hesitation at all, that thou wilt be a cuckold; that furthermore,
thou wilt be beaten by thine own wife, and that she will purloin, filch
and steal of thy goods from thee; for I find the seventh house, in all its
aspects, of a malignant influence, and every one of the planets
threatening thee with disgrace, according as they stand seated towards
one another, in relation to the horned signs of Aries, Taurus, and
Capricorn. In the fourth house I find Jupiter in a decadence, as also in a
tetragonal aspect to Saturn, associated with Mercury. Thou wilt be
soundly peppered, my good, honest fellow, I warrant thee. I will be?
answered Panurge. A plague rot thee, thou old fool and doting sot, how
graceless and unpleasant thou art! When all cuckolds shall be at a
general rendezvous, thou shouldst be their standard-bearer. But whence
comes this ciron-worm betwixt these two fingers? This Panurge said,
putting the forefinger of his left hand betwixt the fore and mid finger of
the right, which he thrust out towards Herr Trippa, holding them open
after the manner of two horns, and shutting into his fist his thumb with
the other fingers. Then, in turning to Epistemon, he said: Lo here the
true Olus of Martial, who addicted and devoted himself wholly to the
observing the miseries, crosses, and calamities of others, whilst his own
wife, in the interim, did keep an open bawdy-house. This varlet is
poorer than ever was Irus, and yet he is proud, vaunting, arrogant,
self-conceited, overweening, and more insupportable than seventeen
devils; in one word, Ptochalazon, which term of old was applied to the
like beggarly strutting coxcombs. Come, let us leave this madpash
bedlam, this hairbrained fop, and give him leave to rave and dose his
bellyful with his private and intimately acquainted devils, who, if they
were not the very worst of all infernal fiends, would never have
deigned to serve such a knavish barking cur as this is. He hath not
learnt the first precept of philosophy, which is, Know thyself; for whilst
he braggeth and boasteth that he can discern the least mote in the eye of
another, he is not able to see the huge block that puts out the sight of
both his eyes. This is such another Polypragmon as is by Plutarch
described. He is of the nature of the Lamian witches, who in foreign
places, in the houses of strangers, in public, and amongst the common
people, had a sharper and more piercing inspection into their affairs
than any lynx, but at home in their own proper dwelling-mansions were
blinder than moldwarps, and saw nothing at all. For their custom was,
at their return from abroad, when they were by themselves in private, to
take their eyes out of their head, from whence they were as easily
removable as a pair of spectacles from their nose, and to lay them up
into a wooden slipper which for that purpose did hang behind the door
of their lodging.
Panurge had no sooner done speaking, when Herr Trippa took into his
hand a tamarisk branch. In this, quoth Epistemon, he doth very well,
right, and like an artist, for Nicander calleth it the divinatory tree. Have
you a mind, quoth Herr Trippa, to have the truth of the matter yet more
fully and amply disclosed unto you by pyromancy, by aeromancy,
whereof Aristophanes in his Clouds maketh great estimation, by
hydromancy, by lecanomancy, of old in prime request amongst the
Assyrians, and thoroughly tried by Hermolaus Barbarus. Come hither,
and I will show thee in this platterful of fair fountain-water thy future
wife lechering and sercroupierizing it with two swaggering ruffians,
one after another. Yea, but have a special care, quoth Panurge, when
thou comest to put thy nose within mine arse, that thou forget not to
pull off thy spectacles. Herr Trippa, going on in his discourse, said, By
catoptromancy, likewise held in such account by the Emperor Didius
Julianus, that by means thereof he ever and anon foresaw all that which
at any time did happen or befall unto him. Thou shalt not need to put on
thy spectacles, for in a mirror thou wilt see her as clearly and
manifestly nebrundiated and billibodring it, as if I should show it in the
fountain of the temple of Minerva near Patras. By coscinomancy, most
religiously observed of old amidst the ceremonies of the ancient
Romans. Let us have a sieve and shears, and thou shalt see devils. By
alphitomancy, cried up by Theocritus in his Pharmaceutria. By
alentomancy, mixing the flour of wheat with oatmeal. By
astragalomancy, whereof I have the plots and models all at hand ready
for the purpose. By tyromancy, whereof we make some proof in a great
Brehemont cheese which I here keep by me. By giromancy, if thou
shouldst turn round circles, thou mightest assure thyself from me that
they would fall always on the wrong side. By sternomancy, which
maketh nothing for thy advantage, for thou hast an ill- proportioned
stomach. By libanomancy, for the which we shall need but a little
frankincense. By gastromancy, which kind of ventral fatiloquency was
for a long time together used in Ferrara by Lady Giacoma Rodogina,
the Engastrimythian prophetess. By cephalomancy, often practised
amongst the High Germans in their boiling of an ass's head upon
burning coals. By ceromancy, where, by the means of wax dissolved
into water, thou shalt see the figure, portrait, and lively representation
of thy future wife, and of her fredin fredaliatory belly-thumping blades.
By capnomancy. O the gallantest and most excellent of all secrets! By
axionomancy; we want only a hatchet and a jet-stone to be laid together
upon a quick fire of hot embers. O how bravely Homer was versed in
the practice hereof towards Penelope's suitors! By onymancy; for that
we have oil and wax. By tephromancy. Thou wilt see the ashes thus
aloft dispersed exhibiting thy wife in a fine posture. By botanomancy;
for the nonce I have some few leaves in reserve. By sicomancy; O
divine art in fig-tree leaves! By icthiomancy, in ancient times so
celebrated, and put in use by Tiresias and Polydamas, with the like
certainty of event as was tried of old at the Dina-ditch within that grove
consecrated to Apollo which is in the territory of the Lycians. By
choiromancy; let us have a great many hogs, and thou shalt have the
bladder of one of them. By cheromancy, as the bean is found in the
cake at the Epiphany vigil. By anthropomancy, practised by the Roman
Emperor Heliogabalus. It is somewhat irksome, but thou wilt endure it
well enough, seeing thou art destinated to be a cuckold. By a sibylline
stichomancy. By onomatomancy. How do they call thee? Chaw- turd,
quoth Panurge. Or yet by alectryomancy. If I should here with a
compass draw a round, and in looking upon thee, and considering thy
lot, divide the circumference thereof into four-and-twenty equal parts,
then form a several letter of the alphabet upon every one of them; and,
lastly, posit a barleycorn or two upon each of these so disposed letters,
I durst promise upon my faith and honesty that, if a young virgin cock
be permitted to range alongst and athwart them, he should only eat the
grains which are set and placed upon these letters, A. C.U.C.K.O.L.D.
T.H.O.U. S.H.A.L.T. B.E. And that as fatidically as, under the Emperor
Valens, most perplexedly desirous to know the name of him who
should be his successor to the empire, the cock vacticinating and
alectryomantic ate up the pickles that were posited on the letters
T.H.E.O.D. Or, for the more certainty, will you have a trial of your
fortune by the art of aruspiciny, by augury, or by extispiciny? By
turdispiciny, quoth Panurge. Or yet by the mystery of necromancy? I
will, if you please, suddenly set up again and revive someone lately
deceased, as Apollonius of Tyane did to Achilles, and the Pythoness in
the presence of Saul; which body, so raised up and requickened, will
tell us the sum of all you shall require of him: no more nor less than, at
the invocation of Erictho, a certain defunct person foretold to Pompey
the whole progress and issue of the fatal battle fought in the Pharsalian
fields. Or, if you be afraid of the dead, as commonly all cuckolds are, I
will make use of the faculty of sciomancy.
Go, get thee gone, quoth Panurge, thou frantic ass, to the devil, and be
buggered, filthy Bardachio that thou art, by some Albanian, for a
steeple- crowned hat. Why the devil didst not thou counsel me as well
to hold an emerald or the stone of a hyaena under my tongue, or to
furnish and provide myself with tongues of whoops, and hearts of green
frogs, or to eat of the liver and milt of some dragon, to the end that by
those means I might, at the chanting and chirping of swans and other
fowls, understand the substance of my future lot and destiny, as did of
old the Arabians in the country of Mesopotamia? Fifteen brace of
devils seize upon the body and soul of this horned renegado, miscreant
cuckold, the enchanter, witch, and sorcerer of Antichrist to all the
devils of hell! Let us return towards our king. I am sure he will not be
well pleased with us if he once come to get notice that we have been in
the kennel of this muffled devil. I repent my being come hither. I would
willingly dispense with a hundred nobles and fourteen yeomans, on
condition that he who not long since did blow in the bottom of my
breeches should instantly with his squirting spittle inluminate his
moustaches. O Lord God now! how the villain hath besmoked me with
vexation and anger, with charms and witchcraft, and with a terrible coil
and stir of infernal and Tartarian devils! The devil take him! Say Amen,
and let us go drink. I shall not have any appetite for my victuals, how
good cheer soever I make, these two days to come,--hardly these four.
Chapter 3.
XXVI.
How Panurge consulteth with Friar John of the Funnels.
Panurge was indeed very much troubled in mind and disquieted at the
words of Herr Trippa, and therefore, as he passed by the little village of
Huymes, after he had made his address to Friar John, in pecking at,
rubbing, and scratching his own left ear, he said unto him, Keep me a
little jovial and merry, my dear and sweet bully, for I find my brains
altogether metagrabolized and confounded, and my spirits in a most
dunsical puzzle at the bitter talk of this devilish, hellish, damned fool.
Hearken, my dainty cod.
Mellow C. Varnished C. Resolute C. Lead-coloured C. Renowned C.
Cabbage-like C. Knurled C. Matted C. Courteous C. Suborned C.
Genitive C. Fertile C. Desired C. Gigantal C. Whizzing C. Stuffed C.
Oval C. Neat C. Speckled C. Claustral C. Common C. Finely metalled
C. Virile C. Brisk C. Arabian-like C. Stayed C. Quick C. Trussed-up
Grey- Massive C. Bearlike C. hound-like C. Manual C. Partitional C.
Mounted C. Absolute C. Patronymic C. Sleeked C. Well-set C.
Cockney C. Diapered C. Gemel C. Auromercuriated C. Spotted C.
Turkish C. Robust C. Master C. Burning C. Appetizing C. Seeded C.
Thwacking C. Succourable C. Lusty C. Urgent C. Redoubtable C.
Jupped C. Handsome C. Affable C. Milked C. Prompt C. Memorable C.
Calfeted C. Fortunate C. Palpable C. Raised C. Boxwood C. Barbable
C. Odd C. Latten C. Tragical C. Steeled C. Unbridled C. Transpontine
C. Stale C. Hooked C. Digestive C. Orange-tawny C. Researched C.
Active C. Embroidered C. Encompassed C. Vital C. Glazed C.
Strouting out C. Magistral C. Interlarded C. Jolly C. Monachal C.
Burgher-like C. Lively C. Subtle C. Empowdered C. Gerundive C.
Hammering C. Ebonized C. Franked C. Clashing C. Brasiliated C.
Polished C. Tingling C. Organized C. Powdered Beef C. Usual C.
Passable C. Positive C. Exquisite C. Trunkified C. Spared C. Trim C.
Furious C. Bold C. Succulent C. Packed C. Lascivious C. Factious C.
Hooded C. Gluttonous C. Clammy C. Fat C. Boulting C. New-vamped
C. High-prized C. Snorting C. Improved C. Requisite C. Pilfering C.
Malling C. Laycod C. Shaking C. Sounding C. Hand-filling C. Bobbing
C. Battled C. Insuperable C. Chiveted C. Burly C. Agreeable C.
Fumbling C. Seditious C. Formidable C. Topsyturvying C. Wardian C.
Profitable C. Raging C. Protective C. Notable C. Piled up C. Twinkling
C. Musculous C. Filled up C. Able C. Subsidiary C. Manly C.
Algoristical C. Satiric C. Idle C. Odoriferous C. Repercussive C.
Membrous C. Pranked C. Convulsive C. Strong C. Jocund C.
Restorative C. Twin C. Routing C. Masculinating C. Belabouring C.
Purloining C. Incarnative C. Gentle C. Frolic C. Sigillative C. Stirring
C. Wagging C. Sallying C. Confident C. Ruffling C. Plump C. Nimble
C. Jumbling C. Thundering C. Roundheaded C. Rumbling C. Lechering
C. Figging C. Thumping C. Fulminating C. Helpful C. Bumping C.
Sparkling C. Spruce C. Cringeling C. Ramming C. Plucking C.
Berumpling C. Lusty C. Ramage C. Jogging C. Household C. Fine C.
Nobbing C. Pretty C. Fierce C. Touzing C. Astrolabian C. Brawny C.
Tumbling C. Algebraical C. Compt C. Fambling C. Venust C. Repaired
C. Overturning C. Aromatizing C. Soft C. Shooting C. Tricksy C. Wild
C. Culeting C. Paillard C. Renewed C. Jagged C. Gaillard C. Quaint C.
Pinked C. Broaching C. Starting C. Arsiversing C. Addle C. Fleshy C.
Polished C. Syndicated C. Auxiliary C. Slashed C. Hamed C. Stuffed C.
Clashing C. Leisurely C. Well-fed C. Wagging C. Cut C. Flourished C.
Scriplike C. Smooth C. Fallow C. Encremastered C. Depending C.
Sudden C. Bouncing C. Independent C. Graspful C. Levelling C.
Lingering C. Swillpow C. Fly-flap C. Rapping C. Crushing C.
Perinae-tegminal C. Reverend C. Creaking C. Squat-couching C.
Nodding C. Dilting C. Short-hung C. Disseminating C. Ready C. The
hypogastrian C. Affecting C. Vigorous C. Witness-bearing C. Affected
C. Skulking C. Testigerous C. Grappled C. Superlative C. Instrumental
C.
My harcabuzing cod and buttock-stirring ballock, Friar John, my friend,
I do carry a singular respect unto thee, and honour thee with all my
heart. Thy counsel I hold for a choice and delicate morsel; therefore
have I reserved it for the last bit. Give me thy advice freely, I beseech
thee, Should I marry or no? Friar John very merrily, and with a
sprightly cheerfulness, made this answer to him: Marry, in the devil's
name. Why not? What the devil else shouldst thou do but marry? Take
thee a wife, and furbish her harness to some tune. Swinge her skin-coat
as if thou wert beating on stock-fish; and let the repercussion of thy
clapper from her resounding metal make a noise as if a double peal of
chiming-bells were hung at the cremasters of thy ballocks. As I say
marry, so do I understand that thou shouldst fall to work as speedily as
may be; yea, my meaning is that thou oughtest to be so quick and
forward therein, as on this same very day, before sunset, to cause
proclaim thy banns of matrimony, and make provision of bedsteads. By
the blood of a hog's-pudding, till when wouldst thou delay the acting of
a husband's part? Dost thou not know, and is it not daily told unto thee,
that the end of the world approacheth? We are nearer it by three poles
and half a fathom than we were two days ago. The Antichrist is already
born; at least it is so reported by many. The truth is, that hitherto the
effects of his wrath have not reached further than to the scratching of
his nurse and governesses. His nails are not sharp enough as yet, nor
have his claws attained to their full growth,--he is little.
Crescat; Nos qui vivimus, multiplicemur.
It is written so, and it is holy stuff, I warrant you; the truth whereof is
like to last as long as a sack of corn may be had for a penny, and a
puncheon of pure wine for threepence. Wouldst thou be content to be
found with thy genitories full in the day of judgment? Dum venerit
judicari? Thou hast, quoth Panurge, a right, clear, and neat spirit, Friar
John, my metropolitan cod; thou speakst in very deed pertinently and to
purpose. That belike was the reason which moved Leander of Abydos
in Asia, whilst he was swimming through the Hellespontic sea to make
a visit to his sweetheart Hero of Sestus in Europe, to pray unto Neptune
and all the other marine gods, thus:
Now, whilst I go, have pity on me, And at my back returning drown
me.
He was loth, it seems, to die with his cods overgorged. He was to be
commended; therefore do I promise, that from henceforth no
malefactor shall by justice be executed within my jurisdiction of
Salmigondinois, who shall not, for a day or two at least before, be
permitted to culbut and foraminate onocrotalwise, that there remain not
in all his vessels to write a Greek Y. Such a precious thing should not
be foolishly cast away. He will perhaps therewith beget a male, and so
depart the more contentedly out of this life, that he shall have left
behind him one for one.
Chapter 3.
XXVII.
How Friar John merrily and sportingly counselleth Panurge.
By Saint Rigomet, quoth Friar John, I do advise thee to nothing, my
dear friend Panurge, which I would not do myself were I in thy place.
Only have a special care, and take good heed thou solder well together
the joints of the double-backed and two-bellied beast, and fortify thy
nerves so strongly, that there be no discontinuance in the knocks of the
venerean thwacking, else thou art lost, poor soul. For if there pass long
intervals betwixt the priapizing feats, and that thou make an
intermission of too large a time, that will befall thee which betides the
nurses if they desist from giving suck to children--they lose their milk;
and if continually thou do not hold thy aspersory tool in exercise, and
keep thy mentul going, thy lacticinian nectar will be gone, and it will
serve thee only as a pipe to piss out at, and thy cods for a wallet of
lesser value than a beggar's scrip. This is a certain truth I tell thee,
friend, and doubt not of it; for myself have seen the sad experiment
thereof in many, who cannot now do what they would, because before
they did not what they might have done: Ex desuetudine amittuntur
privilegia. Non-usage oftentimes destroys one's right, say the learned
doctors of the law; therefore, my billy, entertain as well as possibly
thou canst that hypogastrian lower sort of troglodytic people, that their
chief pleasure may be placed in the case of sempiternal labouring. Give
order that henceforth they live not, like idle gentlemen, idly upon their
rents and revenues, but that they may work for their livelihood by
breaking ground within the Paphian trenches. Nay truly, answered
Panurge, Friar John, my left ballock, I will believe thee, for thou
dealest plain with me, and fallest downright square upon the business,
without going about the bush with frivolous circumstances and
unnecessary reservations. Thou with the splendour of a piercing wit
hast dissipated all the lowering clouds of anxious apprehensions and
suspicions which did intimidate and terrify me; therefore the heavens
be pleased to grant to thee at all she-conflicts a stiff-standing fortune.
Well then, as thou hast said, so will I do; I will, in good faith,
marry,--in that point there shall be no failing, I promise thee,--and shall
have always by me pretty girls clothed with the name of my wife's
waiting-maids, that, lying under thy wings, thou mayest be
night-protector of their sisterhood.
Let this serve for the first part of the sermon. Hearken, quoth Friar John,
to the oracle of the bells of Varenes. What say they? I hear and
understand them, quoth Panurge; their sound is, by my thirst, more
uprightly fatidical than that of Jove's great kettles in Dodona. Hearken!
Take thee a wife, take thee a wife, and marry, marry, marry; for if thou
marry, thou shalt find good therein, herein, here in a wife thou shalt
find good; so marry, marry. I will assure thee that I shall be married; all
the elements invite and prompt me to it. Let this word be to thee a
brazen wall, by diffidence not to be broken through. As for the second
part of this our doctrine,--thou seemest in some measure to mistrust the
readiness of my paternity in the practising of my placket-racket within
the Aphrodisian tennis-court at all times fitting, as if the stiff god of
gardens were not favourable to me. I pray thee, favour me so much as
to believe that I still have him at a beck, attending always my
commandments, docile, obedient, vigorous, and active in all things and
everywhere, and never stubborn or refractory to my will or pleasure. I
need no more but to let go the reins, and slacken the leash, which is the
belly-point, and when the game is shown unto him, say, Hey, Jack, to
thy booty! he will not fail even then to flesh himself upon his prey, and
tuzzle it to some purpose. Hereby you may perceive, although my
future wife were as unsatiable and gluttonous in her voluptuousness
and the delights of venery as ever was the Empress Messalina, or yet
the Marchioness (of Oincester) in England, and I desire thee to give
credit to it, that I lack not for what is requisite to overlay the stomach of
her lust, but have wherewith aboundingly to please her. I am not
ignorant that Solomon said, who indeed of that matter speaketh
clerklike and learnedly,--as also how Aristotle after him declared for a
truth that, for the greater part, the lechery of a woman is ravenous and
unsatisfiable. Nevertheless, let such as are my friends who read those
passages receive from me for a most real verity, that I for such a Jill
have a fit Jack; and that, if women's things cannot be satiated, I have an
instrument indefatigable,--an implement as copious in the giving as can
in craving be their vade mecums. Do not here produce ancient
examples of the paragons of paillardice, and offer to match with my
testiculatory ability the Priapaean prowess of the fabulous fornicators,
Hercules, Proculus Caesar, and Mahomet, who in his Alkoran doth
vaunt that in his cods he had the vigour of three score bully ruffians;
but let no zealous Christian trust the rogue,--the filthy ribald rascal is a
liar. Nor shalt thou need to urge authorities, or bring forth the instance
of the Indian prince of whom Theophrastus, Plinius, and Athenaeus
testify, that with the help of a certain herb he was able, and had given
frequent experiments thereof, to toss his sinewy piece of generation in
the act of carnal concupiscence above three score and ten times in the
space of four-and-twenty hours. Of that I believe nothing, the number is
supposititious, and too prodigally foisted in. Give no faith unto it, I
beseech thee, but prithee trust me in this, and thy credulity therein shall
not be wronged, for it is true, and probatum est, that my pioneer of
nature--the sacred ithyphallian champion-- is of all stiff-intruding
blades the primest. Come hither, my ballocket, and hearken. Didst thou
ever see the monk of Castre's cowl? When in any house it was laid
down, whether openly in the view of all or covertly out of the sight of
any, such was the ineffable virtue thereof for excitating and stirring up
the people of both sexes unto lechery, that the whole inhabitants and
indwellers, not only of that, but likewise of all the circumjacent places
thereto, within three leagues around it, did suddenly enter into rut, both
beasts and folks, men and women, even to the dogs and hogs, rats and
cats.
I swear to thee that many times heretofore I have perceived and found
in my codpiece a certain kind of energy or efficacious virtue much
more irregular and of a greater anomaly than what I have related. I will
not speak to thee either of house or cottage, nor of church or market,
but only tell thee, that once at the representation of the Passion, which
was acted at Saint Maxents, I had no sooner entered within the pit of
the theatre, but that forthwith, by the virtue and occult property of it, on
a sudden all that were there, both players and spectators, did fall into
such an exorbitant temptation of lust, that there was not angel, man,
devil, nor deviless upon the place who would not then have
bricollitched it with all their heart and soul. The prompter forsook his
copy, he who played Michael's part came down to rights, the devils
issued out of hell and carried along with them most of the pretty little
girls that were there; yea, Lucifer got out of his fetters; in a word,
seeing the huge disorder, I disparked myself forth of that enclosed
place, in imitation of Cato the Censor, who perceiving, by reason of his
presence, the Floralian festivals out of order, withdrew himself.
Chapter 3.
XXVIII.
How Friar John comforteth Panurge in the doubtful matter of
cuckoldry.
I understand thee well enough, said Friar John; but time makes all
things plain. The most durable marble or porphyry is subject to old age
and decay. Though for the present thou possibly be not weary of the
exercise, yet is it like I will hear thee confess a few years hence that thy
cods hang dangling downwards for want of a better truss. I see thee
waxing a little hoar-headed already. Thy beard, by the distinction of
grey, white, tawny, and black, hath to my thinking the resemblance of a
map of the terrestrial globe or geographical chart. Look attentively
upon and take inspection of what I shall show unto thee. Behold there
Asia. Here are Tigris and Euphrates. Lo there Afric. Here is the
mountain of the Moon,-- yonder thou mayst perceive the fenny march
of Nilus. On this side lieth Europe. Dost thou not see the Abbey of
Theleme? This little tuft, which is altogether white, is the Hyperborean
Hills. By the thirst of my thropple, friend, when snow is on the
mountains, I say the head and the chin, there is not then any
considerable heat to be expected in the valleys and low countries of the
codpiece. By the kibes of thy heels, quoth Panurge, thou dost not
understand the topics. When snow is on the tops of the hills, lightning,
thunder, tempest, whirlwinds, storms, hurricanes, and all the devils of
hell rage in the valleys. Wouldst thou see the experience thereof, go to
the territory of the Switzers and earnestly perpend with thyself there the
situation of the lake of Wunderberlich, about four leagues distant from
Berne, on the Syon-side of the land. Thou twittest me with my grey
hairs, yet considerest not how I am of the nature of leeks, which with a
white head carry a green, fresh, straight, and vigorous tail. The truth is,
nevertheless (why should I deny it), that I now and then discern in
myself some indicative signs of old age. Tell this, I prithee, to nobody,
but let it be kept very close and secret betwixt us two; for I find the
wine much sweeter now, more savoury to my taste, and unto my palate
of a better relish than formerly I was wont to do; and withal, besides
mine accustomed manner, I have a more dreadful apprehension than I
ever heretofore have had of lighting on bad wine. Note and observe that
this doth argue and portend I know not what of the west and occident of
my time, and signifieth that the south and meridian of mine age is past.
But what then, my gentle companion? That doth but betoken that I will
hereafter drink so much the more. That is not, the devil hale it, the
thing that I fear; nor is it there where my shoe pinches. The thing that I
doubt most, and have greatest reason to dread and suspect is, that
through some long absence of our King Pantagruel (to whom I must
needs bear company should he go to all the devils of Barathrum), my
future wife shall make me a cuckold. This is, in truth, the long and
short on't. For I am by all those whom I have spoke to menaced and
threatened with a horned fortune, and all of them affirm it is the lot to
which from heaven I am predestinated. Everyone, answered Friar John,
that would be a cuckold is not one. If it be thy fate to be hereafter of the
number of that horned cattle, then may I conclude with an Ergo, thy
wife will be beautiful, and Ergo, thou wilt be kindly used by her.
Likewise with this Ergo, thou shalt be blessed with the fruition of many
friends and well-willers. And finally with this other Ergo, thou shalt be
saved and have a place in Paradise. These are monachal topics and
maxims of the cloister. Thou mayst take more liberty to sin. Thou shalt
be more at ease than ever. There will be never the less left for thee,
nothing diminished, but thy goods shall increase notably. And if so be
it was preordinated for thee, wouldst thou be so impious as not to
acquiesce in thy destiny? Speak, thou jaded cod.
Faded C. Louting C. Appellant C. Mouldy C. Discouraged C.
Swagging C. Musty C. Surfeited C. Withered C. Paltry C. Peevish C.
Broken-reined C. Senseless C. Translated C. Defective C. Foundered C.
Forlorn C. Crestfallen C. Distempered C. Unsavoury C. Felled C.
Bewrayed C. Worm-eaten C. Fleeted C. Inveigled C. Overtoiled C.
Cloyed C. Dangling C. Miserable C. Squeezed C. Stupid C. Steeped C.
Resty C. Seedless C. Kneaded-with-cold- Pounded C. Soaked C. water
C. Loose C. Coldish C. Hacked C. Fruitless C. Pickled C. Flaggy C.
Riven C. Churned C. Scrubby C. Pursy C. Filliped C. Drained C. Fusty
C. Singlefied C. Haled C. Jadish C. Begrimed C. Lolling C. Fistulous C.
Wrinkled C. Drenched C. Languishing C. Fainted C. Burst C.
Maleficiated C. Extenuated C. Stirred up C. Hectic C. Grim C. Mitred
C. Worn out C. Wasted C. Peddlingly furnished Ill-favoured C.
Inflamed C. C. Duncified C. Unhinged C. Rusty C. Macerated C.
Scurfy C. Exhausted C. Paralytic C. Straddling C. Perplexed C.
Degraded C. Putrefied C. Unhelved C. Benumbed C. Maimed C.
Fizzled C. Bat-like C. Overlechered C. Leprous C. Fart-shotten C.
Druggely C. Bruised C. Sunburnt C. Mitified C. Spadonic C. Pacified
C. Goat-ridden C. Boughty C. Blunted C. Weakened C. Mealy C.
Rankling tasted C. Ass-ridden C. Wrangling C. Rooted out C.
Puff-pasted C. Gangrened C. Costive C. St. Anthonified C. Crust-risen
C. Hailed on C. Untriped C. Ragged C. Cuffed C. Blasted C. Quelled C.
Buffeted C. Cut off C. Braggadocio C. Whirreted C. Beveraged C.
Beggarly C. Robbed C. Scarified C. Trepanned C. Neglected C.
Dashed C. Bedusked C. Lame C. Slashed C. Emasculated C. Confused
C. Enfeebled C. Corked C. Unsavoury C. Whore-hunting C.
Transparent C. Overthrown C. Deteriorated C. Vile C. Boulted C. Chill
C. Antedated C. Trod under C. Scrupulous C. Chopped C. Desolate C.
Crazed C. Pinked C. Declining C. Tasteless C. Cup-glassified C.
Stinking C. Sorrowful C. Harsh C. Crooked C. Murdered C. Beaten C.
Brabbling C. Matachin-like C. Barred C. Rotten C. Besotted C.
Abandoned C. Anxious C. Customerless C. Confounded C. Clouted C.
Minced C. Loutish C. Tired C. Exulcerated C. Borne down C. Proud C.
Patched C. Sparred C. Fractured C. Stupified C. Abashed C.
Melancholy C. Annihilated C. Unseasonable C. Coxcombly C. Spent C.
Oppressed C. Base C. Foiled C. Grated C. Bleaked C. Anguished C.
Falling away C. Detested C. Disfigured C. Smallcut C. Diaphanous C.
Disabled C. Disordered C. Unworthy C. Forceless C. Latticed C.
Checked C. Censured C. Ruined C. Mangled C. Cut C. Exasperated C.
Turned over C. Rifled C. Rejected C. Harried C. Undone C. Belammed
C. Flawed C. Corrected C. Fabricitant C. Froward C. Slit C. Perused C.
Ugly C. Skittish C. Emasculated C. Drawn C. Spongy C. Roughly
handled C. Riven C. Botched C. Examined C. Distasteful C. Dejected
C. Cracked C. Hanging C. Jagged C. Wayward C. Broken C. Pining C.
Haggled C. Limber C. Deformed C. Gleaning C. Effeminate C.
Mischieved C. Ill-favoured C. Kindled C. Cobbled C. Pulled C.
Evacuated C. Embased C. Drooping C. Grieved C. Ransacked C. Faint
C. Carking C. Despised C. Parched C. Disorderly C. Mangy C. Paltry C.
Empty C. Abased C. Cankered C. Disquieted C. Supine C. Void C.
Besysted C. Mended C. Vexed C. Confounded C. Dismayed C.
Bestunk C. Hooked C. Divorous C. Winnowed C. Unlucky C. Wearied
C. Decayed C. Sterile C. Sad C. Disastrous C. Beshitten C. Cross C.
Unhandsome C. Appeased C. Vain-glorious C. Stummed C. Caitiff C.
Poor C. Barren C. Woeful C. Brown C. Wretched C. Unseemly C.
Shrunken C. Feeble C. Heavy C. Abhorred C. Cast down C. Weak C.
Troubled C. Stopped C. Prostrated C. Scornful C. Kept under C.
Uncomely C. Dishonest C. Stubborn C. Naughty C. Reproved C.
Ground C. Laid flat C. Cocketed C. Retchless C. Suffocated C. Filthy
C. Weather-beaten C. Held down C. Shred C. Flayed C. Barked C.
Chawned C. Bald C. Hairless C. Short-winded C. Tossed C. Flamping
C. Branchless C. Flapping C. Hooded C. Chapped C. Cleft C. Wormy
C. Failing C. Meagre C. Besysted (In his anxiety to swell his catalogue
as much as possible, Sir Thomas Urquhart has set down this word
twice.) C. Deficient C. Dumpified C. Faulty C. Lean C. Suppressed C.
Bemealed C. Consumed C. Hagged C. Mortified C. Used C. Jawped C.
Scurvy C. Puzzled C. Havocked C. Bescabbed C. Allayed C.
Astonished C. Torn C. Spoiled C. Dulled C. Subdued C. Clagged C.
Slow C. Sneaking C. Palsy-stricken C. Plucked up C. Bare C. Amazed
C. Constipated C. Swart C. Bedunsed C. Blown C. Smutched C.
Extirpated C. Blockified C. Raised up C. Banged C. Pommelled C.
Chopped C. Stripped C. All-to-bemauled C. Flirted C. Hoary C. Fallen
away C. Blained C. Blotted C. Stale C. Rensy C. Sunk in C. Corrupted
C. Frowning C. Ghastly C. Beflowered C. Limping C. Unpointed C.
Amated C. Ravelled C. Beblistered C. Blackish C. Rammish C.
Wizened C. Underlaid C. Gaunt C. Beggar-plated C. Loathing C.
Beskimmered C. Douf C. Ill-filled C. Scraggy C. Clarty C. Bobbed C.
Lank C. Lumpish C. Mated C. Swashering C. Abject C. Tawny C.
Moiling C. Side C. Whealed C. Swinking C. Choked up C. Besmeared
C. Harried C. Backward C. Hollow C. Tugged C. Prolix C. Pantless C.
Towed C. Spotted C. Guizened C. Misused C. Crumpled C. Demiss C.
Adamitical C. Frumpled C. Refractory C.
Ballockatso to the devil, my dear friend Panurge, seeing it is so decreed
by the gods, wouldst thou invert the course of the planets, and make
them retrograde? Wouldst thou disorder all the celestial spheres, blame
the intelligences, blunt the spindles, joint the wherves, slander the
spinning quills, reproach the bobbins, revile the clew-bottoms, and
finally ravel and untwist all the threads of both the warp and the waft of
the weird Sister-Parcae? What a pox to thy bones dost thou mean, stony
cod? Thou wouldst if thou couldst, a great deal worse than the giants of
old intended to have done. Come hither, billicullion. Whether wouldst
thou be jealous without cause, or be a cuckold and know nothing of it?
Neither the one nor the other, quoth Panurge, would I choose to be. But
if I get an inkling of the matter, I will provide well enough, or there
shall not be one stick of wood within five hundred leagues about me
whereof to make a cudgel. In good faith, Friar John, I speak now
seriously unto thee, I think it will be my best not to marry. Hearken to
what the bells do tell me, now that we are nearer to them! Do not marry,
marry not, not, not, not, not; marry, marry not, not, not, not, not. If thou
marry, thou wilt miscarry, carry, carry; thou'lt repent it, resent it, sent it!
If thou marry, thou a cuckold, a cou-cou-cuckoo, cou-cou-cuckold thou
shalt be. By the worthy wrath of God, I begin to be angry. This
campanilian oracle fretteth me to the guts,--a March hare was never in
such a chafe as I am. O how I am vexed! You monks and friars of the
cowl-pated and hood-polled fraternity, have you no remedy nor salve
against this malady of graffing horns in heads? Hath nature so
abandoned humankind, and of her help left us so destitute, that married
men cannot know how to sail through the seas of this mortal life and be
safe from the whirlpools, quicksands, rocks, and banks that lie alongst
the coast of Cornwall.
I will, said Friar John, show thee a way and teach thee an expedient by
means whereof thy wife shall never make thee a cuckold without thy
knowledge and thine own consent. Do me the favour, I pray thee, quoth
Panurge, my pretty, soft, downy cod; now tell it, billy, tell it, I beseech
thee. Take, quoth Friar John, Hans Carvel's ring upon thy finger, who
was the King of Melinda's chief jeweller. Besides that this Hans Carvel
had the reputation of being very skilful and expert in the lapidary's
profession, he was a studious, learned, and ingenious man, a scientific
person, full of knowledge, a great philosopher, of a sound judgment, of
a prime wit, good sense, clear spirited, an honest creature, courteous,
charitable, a giver of alms, and of a jovial humour, a boon companion,
and a merry blade, if ever there was any in the world. He was
somewhat gorbellied, had a little shake in his head, and was in effect
unwieldy of his body. In his old age he took to wife the Bailiff of
Concordat's daughter, young, fair, jolly, gallant, spruce, frisk, brisk,
neat, feat, smirk, smug, compt, quaint, gay, fine, tricksy, trim, decent,
proper, graceful, handsome, beautiful, comely, and kind--a little too
much--to her neighbours and acquaintance.
Hereupon it fell out, after the expiring of a scantling of weeks, that
Master Carvel became as jealous as a tiger, and entered into a very
profound suspicion that his new-married gixy did keep
a-buttock-stirring with others. To prevent which inconveniency he did
tell her many tragical stories of the total ruin of several kingdoms by
adultery; did read unto her the legend of chaste wives; then made some
lectures to her in the praise of the choice virtue of pudicity, and did
present her with a book in commendation of conjugal fidelity; wherein
the wickedness of all licentious women was odiously detested; and
withal he gave her a chain enriched with pure oriental sapphires.
Notwithstanding all this, he found her always more and more inclined
to the reception of her neighbour copes-mates, that day by day his
jealousy increased. In sequel whereof, one night as he was lying by her,
whilst in his sleep the rambling fancies of the lecherous deportments of
his wife did take up the cellules of his brain, he dreamt that he
encountered with the devil, to whom he had discovered to the full the
buzzing of his head and suspicion that his wife did tread her shoe awry.
The devil, he thought, in this perplexity did for his comfort give him a
ring, and therewithal did kindly put it on his middle finger, saying,
Hans Carvel, I give thee this ring,--whilst thou carriest it upon that
finger, thy wife shall never carnally be known by any other than thyself
without thy special knowledge and consent. Gramercy, quoth Hans
Carvel, my lord devil, I renounce Mahomet if ever it shall come off my
finger. The devil vanished, as is his custom; and then Hans Carvel, full
of joy awaking, found that his middle finger was as far as it could reach
within the what-do-by-call-it of his wife. I did forget to tell thee how
his wife, as soon as she had felt the finger there, said, in recoiling her
buttocks, Off, yes, nay, tut, pish, tush, ay, lord, that is not the thing
which should be put up in that place. With this Hans Carvel thought
that some pilfering fellow was about to take the ring from him. Is not
this an infallible and sovereign antidote? Therefore, if thou wilt believe
me, in imitation of this example never fail to have continually the ring
of thy wife's commodity upon thy finger. When that was said, their
discourse and their way ended.
Chapter 3.
XXIX.
How Pantagruel convocated together a theologian, physician, lawyer,
and philosopher, for extricating Panurge out of the perplexity wherein
he was.
No sooner were they come into the royal palace, but they to the full
made report unto Pantagruel of the success of their expedition, and
showed him the response of Raminagrobis. When Pantagruel had read
it over and over again, the oftener he perused it being the better pleased
therewith, he said, in addressing his speech to Panurge, I have not as
yet seen any answer framed to your demand which affordeth me more
contentment. For in this his succinct copy of verses, he summarily and
briefly, yet fully enough expresseth how he would have us to
understand that everyone in the project and enterprise of marriage
ought to be his own carver, sole arbitrator of his proper thoughts, and
from himself alone take counsel in the main and peremptory closure of
what his determination should be, in either his assent to or dissent from
it. Such always hath been my opinion to you, and when at first you
spoke thereof to me I truly told you this same very thing; but tacitly
you scorned my advice, and would not harbour it within your mind. I
know for certain, and therefore may I with the greater confidence utter
my conception of it, that philauty, or self-love, is that which blinds
your judgment and deceiveth you.
Let us do otherwise, and that is this: Whatever we are, or have,
consisteth in three things--the soul, the body, and the goods. Now, for
the preservation of these three, there are three sorts of learned men
ordained, each respectively to have care of that one which is
recommended to his charge. Theologues are appointed for the soul,
physicians for the welfare of the body, and lawyers for the safety of our
goods. Hence it is that it is my resolution to have on Sunday next with
me at dinner a divine, a physician, and a lawyer, that with those three
assembled thus together we may in every point and particle confer at
large of your perplexity. By Saint Picot, answered Panurge, we never
shall do any good that way, I see it already. And you see yourself how
the world is vilely abused, as when with a foxtail one claps another's
breech to cajole him. We give our souls to keep to the theologues, who
for the greater part are heretics. Our bodies we commit to the
physicians, who never themselves take any physic. And then we entrust
our goods to the lawyers, who never go to law against one another. You
speak like a courtier, quoth Pantagruel. But the first point of your
assertion is to be denied; for we daily see how good theologues make it
their chief business, their whole and sole employment, by their deeds,
their words, and writings, to extirpate errors and heresies out of the
hearts of men, and in their stead profoundly plant the true and lively
faith. The second point you spoke of I commend; for, whereas the
professors of the art of medicine give so good order to the prophylactic,
or conservative part of their faculty, in what concerneth their proper
healths, that they stand in no need of making use of the other branch,
which is the curative or therapeutic, by medicaments. As for the third, I
grant it to be true, for learned advocates and counsellors at law are so
much taken up with the affairs of others in their consultations,
pleadings, and such-like patrocinations of those who are their clients,
that they have no leisure to attend any controversies of their own.
Therefore, on the next ensuing Sunday, let the divine be our godly
Father Hippothadee, the physician our honest Master Rondibilis, and
our legist our friend Bridlegoose. Nor will it be (to my thinking) amiss,
that we enter into the Pythagoric field, and choose for an assistant to
the three afore-named doctors our ancient faithful acquaintance, the
philosopher Trouillogan; especially seeing a perfect philosopher, such
as is Trouillogan, is able positively to resolve all whatsoever doubts
you can propose. Carpalin, have you a care to have them here all four
on Sunday next at dinner, without fail.
I believe, quoth Epistemon, that throughout the whole country, in all
the corners thereof, you could not have pitched upon such other four.
Which I speak not so much in regard of the most excellent
qualifications and accomplishments wherewith all of them are endowed
for the respective discharge and management of each his own vocation
and calling (wherein without all doubt or controversy they are the
paragons of the land, and surpass all others), as for that Rondibilis is
married now, who before was not,--Hippothadee was not before, nor is
yet,--Bridlegoose was married once, but is not now,--and Trouillogan is
married now, who wedded was to another wife before. Sir, if it may
stand with your good liking, I will ease Carpalin of some parcel of his
labour, and invite Bridlegoose myself, with whom I of a long time have
had a very intimate familiarity, and unto whom I am to speak on the
behalf of a pretty hopeful youth who now studieth at Toulouse, under
the most learned virtuous doctor Boissonet. Do what you deem most
expedient, quoth Pantagruel, and tell me if my recommendation can in
anything be steadable for the promoval of the good of that youth, or
otherwise serve for bettering of the dignity and office of the worthy
Boissonet, whom I do so love and respect for one of the ablest and
most sufficient in his way that anywhere are extant. Sir, I will use
therein my best endeavours, and heartily bestir myself about it.
Chapter 3.
XXX.
How the theologue, Hippothadee, giveth counsel to Panurge in the
matter and business of his nuptial enterprise.
The dinner on the subsequent Sunday was no sooner made ready than
that the afore-named invited guests gave thereto their appearance, all of
them, Bridlegoose only excepted, who was the deputy-governor of
Fonsbeton. At the ushering in of the second service Panurge, making a
low reverence, spake thus: Gentlemen, the question I am to propound
unto you shall be uttered in very few words--Should I marry or no? If
my doubt herein be not resolved by you, I shall hold it altogether
insolvable, as are the Insolubilia de Aliaco; for all of you are elected,
chosen, and culled out from amongst others, everyone in his own
condition and quality, like so many picked peas on a carpet.
The Father Hippothadee, in obedience to the bidding of Pantagruel, and
with much courtesy to the company, answered exceeding modestly
after this manner: My friend, you are pleased to ask counsel of us; but
first you must consult with yourself. Do you find any trouble or
disquiet in your body by the importunate stings and pricklings of the
flesh? That I do, quoth Panurge, in a hugely strong and almost
irresistible measure. Be not offended, I beseech you, good father, at the
freedom of my expression. No truly, friend, not I, quoth Hippothadee,
there is no reason why I should be displeased therewith. But in this
carnal strife and debate of yours have you obtained from God the gift
and special grace of continency? In good faith, not, quoth Panurge. My
counsel to you in that case, my friend, is that you marry, quoth
Hippothadee; for you should rather choose to marry once than to burn
still in fires of concupiscence. Then Panurge, with a jovial heart and a
loud voice, cried out, That is spoke gallantly, without
circumbilivaginating about and about, and never hitting it in its centred
point. Gramercy, my good father! In truth I am resolved now to marry,
and without fail I shall do it quickly. I invite you to my wedding. By
the body of a hen, we shall make good cheer, and be as merry as
crickets. You shall wear the bridegroom's colours, and, if we eat a
goose, my wife shall not roast it for me. I will entreat you to lead up the
first dance of the bridesmaids, if it may please you to do me so much
favour and honour. There resteth yet a small difficulty, a little scruple,
yea, even less than nothing, whereof I humbly crave your resolution.
Shall I be a cuckold, father, yea or no? By no means, answered
Hippothadee, will you be cuckolded, if it please God. O the Lord help
us now, quoth Panurge; whither are we driven to, good folks? To the
conditionals, which, according to the rules and precepts of the dialectic
faculty, admit of all contradictions and impossibilities. If my
Transalpine mule had wings, my Transalpine mule would fly, if it
please God, I shall not be a cuckold; but I shall be a cuckold, if it please
him. Good God, if this were a condition which I knew how to prevent,
my hopes should be as high as ever, nor would I despair. But you here
send me to God's privy council, to the closet of his little pleasures. You,
my French countrymen, which is the way you take to go thither?
My honest father, I believe it will be your best not to come to my
wedding. The clutter and dingle-dangle noise of marriage guests will
but disturb you, and break the serious fancies of your brain. You love
repose, with solitude and silence; I really believe you will not come.
And then you dance but indifferently, and would be out of countenance
at the first entry. I will send you some good things to your chamber,
together with the bride's favour, and there you may drink our health, if
it may stand with your good liking. My friend, quoth Hippothadee, take
my words in the sense wherein I meant them, and do not misinterpret
me. When I tell you,--If it please God,--do I to you any wrong therein?
Is it an ill expression? Is it a blaspheming clause or reserve any way
scandalous unto the world? Do not we thereby honour the Lord God
Almighty, Creator, Protector, and Conserver of all things? Is not that a
mean whereby we do acknowledge him to be the sole giver of all
whatsoever is good? Do not we in that manifest our faith that we
believe all things to depend upon his infinite and incomprehensible
bounty, and that without him nothing can be produced, nor after its
production be of any value, force, or power, without the concurring aid
and favour of his assisting grace? Is it not a canonical and authentic
exception, worthy to be premised to all our undertakings? Is it not
expedient that what we propose unto ourselves be still referred to what
shall be disposed of by the sacred will of God, unto which all things
must acquiesce in the heavens as well as on the earth? Is not that verily
a sanctifying of his holy name? My friend, you shall not be a cuckold,
if it please God, nor shall we need to despair of the knowledge of his
good will and pleasure herein, as if it were such an abstruse and
mysteriously hidden secret that for the clear understanding thereof it
were necessary to consult with those of his celestial privy council, or
expressly make a voyage unto the empyrean chamber where order is
given for the effectuating of his most holy pleasures. The great God
hath done us this good, that he hath declared and revealed them to us
openly and plainly, and described them in the Holy Bible. There will
you find that you shall never be a cuckold, that is to say, your wife
shall never be a strumpet, if you make choice of one of a commendable
extraction, descended of honest parents, and instructed in all piety and
virtue--such a one as hath not at any time haunted or frequented the
company or conversation of those that are of corrupt and depraved
manners, one loving and fearing God, who taketh a singular delight in
drawing near to him by faith and the cordial observing of his sacred
commandments--and finally, one who, standing in awe of the Divine
Majesty of the Most High, will be loth to offend him and lose the
favourable kindness of his grace through any defect of faith or
transgression against the ordinances of his holy law, wherein adultery
is most rigorously forbidden and a close adherence to her husband
alone most strictly and severely enjoined; yea, in such sort that she is to
cherish, serve, and love him above anything, next to God, that meriteth
to be beloved. In the interim, for the better schooling of her in these
instructions, and that the wholesome doctrine of a matrimonial duty
may take the deeper root in her mind, you must needs carry yourself so
on your part, and your behaviour is to be such, that you are to go before
her in a good example, by entertaining her unfeignedly with a conjugal
amity, by continually approving yourself in all your words and actions
a faithful and discreet husband; and by living, not only at home and
privately with your own household and family, but in the face also of
all men and open view of the world, devoutly, virtuously, and chastely,
as you would have her on her side to deport and to demean herself
towards you, as becomes a godly, loyal, and respectful wife, who
maketh conscience to keep inviolable the tie of a matrimonial oath. For
as that looking-glass is not the best which is most decked with gold and
precious stones, but that which representeth to the eye the liveliest
shapes of objects set before it, even so that wife should not be most
esteemed who richest is and of the noblest race, but she who, fearing
God, conforms herself nearest unto the humour of her husband.
Consider how the moon doth not borrow her light from Jupiter, Mars,
Mercury, or any other of the planets, nor yet from any of those splendid
stars which are set in the spangled firmament, but from her husband
only, the bright sun, which she receiveth from him more or less,
according to the manner of his aspect and variously bestowed
eradiations. Just so should you be a pattern to your wife in virtue,
goodly zeal, and true devotion, that by your radiance in darting on her
the aspect of an exemplary goodness, she, in your imitation, may
outshine the luminaries of all other women. To this effect you daily
must implore God's grace to the protection of you both. You would
have me then, quoth Panurge, twisting the whiskers of his beard on
either side with the thumb and forefinger of his left hand, to espouse
and take to wife the prudent frugal woman described by Solomon.
Without all doubt she is dead, and truly to my best remembrance I
never saw her; the Lord forgive me! Nevertheless, I thank you, father.
Eat this slice of marchpane, it will help your digestion; then shall you
be presented with a cup of claret hippocras, which is right healthful and
stomachal. Let us proceed.
Chapter 3.
XXXI.
How the physician Rondibilis counselleth Panurge.
Panurge, continuing his discourse, said, The first word which was
spoken by him who gelded the lubberly, quaffing monks of Saussiniac,
after that he had unstoned Friar Cauldaureil, was this, To the rest. In
like manner, I say, To the rest. Therefore I beseech you, my good
Master Rondibilis, should I marry or not? By the raking pace of my
mule, quoth Rondibilis, I know not what answer to make to this
problem of yours.
You say that you feel in you the pricking stings of sensuality, by which
you are stirred up to venery. I find in our faculty of medicine, and we
have founded our opinion therein upon the deliberate resolution and
final decision of the ancient Platonics, that carnal concupiscence is
cooled and quelled five several ways.
First, By the means of wine. I shall easily believe that, quoth Friar John,
for when I am well whittled with the juice of the grape I care for
nothing else, so I may sleep. When I say, quoth Rondibilis, that wine
abateth lust, my meaning is, wine immoderately taken; for by
intemperancy proceeding from the excessive drinking of strong liquor
there is brought upon the body of such a swill-down boozer a chillness
in the blood, a slackening in the sinews, a dissipation of the generative
seed, a numbness and hebetation of the senses, with a perversive
wryness and convulsion of the muscles--all which are great lets and
impediments to the act of generation. Hence it is that Bacchus, the god
of bibbers, tipplers, and drunkards, is most commonly painted beardless
and clad in a woman's habit, as a person altogether effeminate, or like a
libbed eunuch. Wine, nevertheless, taken moderately, worketh quite
contrary effects, as is implied by the old proverb, which saith that
Venus takes cold when not accompanied with Ceres and Bacchus. This
opinion is of great antiquity, as appeareth by the testimony of Diodorus
the Sicilian, and confirmed by Pausanias, and universally held amongst
the Lampsacians, that Don Priapus was the son of Bacchus and Venus.
Secondly, The fervency of lust is abated by certain drugs, plants, herbs,
and roots, which make the taker cold, maleficiated, unfit for, and
unable to perform the act of generation; as hath been often
experimented in the water-lily, heraclea, agnus castus, willow-twigs,
hemp-stalks, woodbine, honeysuckle, tamarisk, chaste tree, mandrake,
bennet, keckbugloss, the skin of a hippopotam, and many other such,
which, by convenient doses proportioned to the peccant humour and
constitution of the patient, being duly and seasonably received within
the body--what by their elementary virtues on the one side and peculiar
properties on the other--do either benumb, mortify, and beclumpse with
cold the prolific semence, or scatter and disperse the spirits which
ought to have gone along with and conducted the sperm to the places
destined and appointed for its reception, or lastly, shut up, stop, and
obstruct the ways, passages, and conduits through which the seed
should have been expelled, evacuated, and ejected. We have
nevertheless of those ingredients which, being of a contrary operation,
heat the blood, bend the nerves, unite the spirits, quicken the senses,
strengthen the muscles, and thereby rouse up, provoke, excite, and
enable a man to the vigorous accomplishment of the feat of amorous
dalliance. I have no need of those, quoth Panurge, God be thanked, and
you, my good master. Howsoever, I pray you, take no exception or
offence at these my words; for what I have said was not out of any
illwill I did bear to you, the Lord he knows.
Thirdly, The ardour of lechery is very much subdued and mated by
frequent labour and continual toiling. For by painful exercises and
laborious working so great a dissolution is brought upon the whole
body, that the blood, which runneth alongst the channels of the veins
thereof for the nourishment and alimentation of each of its members,
hath neither time, leisure, nor power to afford the seminal resudation,
or superfluity of the third concoction, which nature most carefully
reserves for the conservation of the individual, whose preservation she
more heedfully regardeth than the propagating of the species and the
multiplication of humankind. Whence it is that Diana is said to be
chaste, because she is never idle, but always busied about her hunting.
For the same reason was a camp or leaguer of old called castrum, as if
they would have said castum; because the soldiers, wrestlers, runners,
throwers of the bar, and other such-like athletic champions as are
usually seen in a military circumvallation, do incessantly travail and
turmoil, and are in a perpetual stir and agitation. To this purpose
Hippocrates also writeth in his book, De Aere, Aqua et Locis, that in
his time there were people in Scythia as impotent as eunuchs in the
discharge of a venerean exploit, because that without any cessation,
pause, or respite they were never from off horseback, or otherwise
assiduously employed in some troublesome and molesting drudgery.
On the other part, in opposition and repugnancy hereto, the
philosophers say that idleness is the mother of luxury. When it was
asked Ovid, Why Aegisthus became an adulterer? he made no other
answer but this, Because he was idle. Who were able to rid the world of
loitering and laziness might easily frustrate and disappoint Cupid of all
his designs, aims, engines, and devices, and so disable and appal him
that his bow, quiver, and darts should from thenceforth be a mere
needless load and burden to him, for that it could not then lie in his
power to strike or wound any of either sex with all the arms he had. He
is not, I believe, so expert an archer as that he can hit the cranes flying
in the air, or yet the young stags skipping through the thickets, as the
Parthians knew well how to do; that is to say, people moiling, stirring
and hurrying up and down, restless, and without repose. He must have
those hushed, still, quiet, lying at a stay, lither, and full of ease, whom
he is able, though his mother help him, to touch, much less to pierce
with all his arrows. In confirmation hereof, Theophrastus, being asked
on a time what kind of beast or thing he judged a toyish, wanton love to
be? he made answer, that it was a passion of idle and sluggish spirits.
From which pretty description of tickling love- tricks that of Diogenes's
hatching was not very discrepant, when he defined lechery the
occupation of folks destitute of all other occupation. For this cause the
Syconian engraver Canachus, being desirous to give us to understand
that sloth, drowsiness, negligence, and laziness were the prime
guardians and governesses of ribaldry, made the statue of Venus, not
standing, as other stone-cutters had used to do, but sitting.
Fourthly, The tickling pricks of incontinency are blunted by an eager
study; for from thence proceedeth an incredible resolution of the spirits,
that oftentimes there do not remain so many behind as may suffice to
push and thrust forwards the generative resudation to the places thereto
appropriated, and therewithal inflate the cavernous nerve whose office
is to ejaculate the moisture for the propagation of human progeny. Lest
you should think it is not so, be pleased but to contemplate a little the
form, fashion, and carriage of a man exceeding earnestly set upon some
learned meditation, and deeply plunged therein, and you shall see how
all the arteries of his brains are stretched forth and bent like the string
of a crossbow, the more promptly, dexterously, and copiously to
suppeditate, furnish, and supply him with store of spirits sufficient to
replenish and fill up the ventricles, seats, tunnels, mansions, receptacles,
and cellules of the common sense,--of the imagination, apprehension,
and fancy,--of the ratiocination, arguing, and resolution,--as likewise of
the memory, recordation, and remembrance; and with great alacrity,
nimbleness, and agility to run, pass, and course from the one to the
other, through those pipes, windings, and conduits which to skilful
anatomists are perceivable at the end of the wonderful net where all the
arteries close in a terminating point; which arteries, taking their rise and
origin from the left capsule of the heart, bring through several circuits,
ambages, and anfractuosities, the vital, to subtilize and refine them to
the ethereal purity of animal spirits. Nay, in such a studiously musing
person you may espy so extravagant raptures of one as it were out of
himself, that all his natural faculties for that time will seem to be
suspended from each their proper charge and office, and his exterior
senses to be at a stand. In a word, you cannot otherwise choose than
think that he is by an extraordinary ecstasy quite transported out of
what he was, or should be; and that Socrates did not speak improperly
when he said that philosophy was nothing else but a meditation upon
death. This possibly is the reason why Democritus deprived himself of
the sense of seeing, prizing at a much lower rate the loss of his sight
than the diminution of his contemplations, which he frequently had
found disturbed by the vagrant, flying-out strayings of his unsettled and
roving eyes. Therefore is it that Pallas, the goddess of wisdom, tutoress
and guardianess of such as are diligently studious and painfully
industrious, is, and hath been still accounted a virgin. The Muses upon
the same consideration are esteemed perpetual maids; and the Graces,
for the like reason, have been held to continue in a sempiternal
pudicity.
I remember to have read that Cupid, on a time being asked of his
mother Venus why he did not assault and set upon the Muses, his
answer was that he found them so fair, so sweet, so fine, so neat, so
wise, so learned, so modest, so discreet, so courteous, so virtuous, and
so continually busied and employed,--one in the speculation of the
stars,--another in the supputation of numbers,--the third in the
dimension of geometrical quantities,--the fourth in the composition of
heroic poems,--the fifth in the jovial interludes of a comic strain,--the
sixth in the stately gravity of a tragic vein,--the seventh in the
melodious disposition of musical airs,--the eighth in the completest
manner of writing histories and books on all sorts of subjects,--and the
ninth in the mysteries, secrets, and curiosities of all sciences, faculties,
disciplines, and arts whatsoever, whether liberal or mechanic,--that
approaching near unto them he unbended his bow, shut his quiver, and
extinguished his torch, through mere shame and fear that by mischance
he might do them some hurt or prejudice. Which done, he thereafter put
off the fillet wherewith his eyes were bound to look them in the face,
and to hear their melody and poetic odes. There took he the greatest
pleasure in the world, that many times he was transported with their
beauty and pretty behaviour, and charmed asleep by the harmony; so
far was he from assaulting them or interrupting their studies. Under this
article may be comprised what Hippocrates wrote in the afore-cited
treatise concerning the Scythians; as also that in a book of his entitled
Of Breeding and Production, where he hath affirmed all such men to be
unfit for generation as have their parotid arteries cut--whose situation is
beside the ears--for the reason given already when I was speaking of
the resolution of the spirits and of that spiritual blood whereof the
arteries are the sole and proper receptacles, and that likewise he doth
maintain a large portion of the parastatic liquor to issue and descend
from the brains and backbone.
Fifthly, By the too frequent reiteration of the act of venery. There did I
wait for you, quoth Panurge, and shall willingly apply it to myself,
whilst anyone that pleaseth may, for me, make use of any of the four
preceding. That is the very same thing, quoth Friar John, which Father
Scyllino, Prior of Saint Victor at Marseilles, calleth by the name of
maceration and taming of the flesh. I am of the same opinion,--and so
was the hermit of Saint Radegonde, a little above Chinon; for, quoth he,
the hermits of Thebaide can no more aptly or expediently macerate and
bring down the pride of their bodies, daunt and mortify their lecherous
sensuality, or depress and overcome the stubbornness and rebellion of
the flesh, than by duffling and fanfreluching it five-and-twenty or thirty
times a day. I see Panurge, quoth Rondibilis, neatly featured and
proportioned in all the members of his body, of a good temperament in
his humours, well-complexioned in his spirits, of a competent age, in
an opportune time, and of a reasonably forward mind to be married.
Truly, if he encounter with a wife of the like nature, temperament, and
constitution, he may beget upon her children worthy of some
transpontine monarchy; and the sooner he marry it will be the better for
him, and the more conducible for his profit if he would see and have
his children in his own time well provided for. Sir, my worthy master,
quoth Panurge, I will do it, do not you doubt thereof, and that quickly
enough, I warrant you. Nevertheless, whilst you were busied in the
uttering of your learned discourse, this flea which I have in mine ear
hath tickled me more than ever. I retain you in the number of my
festival guests, and promise you that we shall not want for mirth and
good cheer enough, yea, over and above the ordinary rate. And, if it
may please you, desire your wife to come along with you, together with
her she-friends and neighbours--that is to be understood--and there
shall be fair play.
Chapter 3.
XXXII.
How Rondibilis declareth cuckoldry to be naturally one of the
appendances of marriage.
There remaineth as yet, quoth Panurge, going on in his discourse, one
small scruple to be cleared. You have seen heretofore, I doubt not, in
the Roman standards, S.P.Q.R., Si, Peu, Que, Rien. Shall not I be a
cuckold? By the haven of safety, cried out Rondibilis, what is this you
ask of me? If you shall be a cuckold? My noble friend, I am married,
and you are like to be so very speedily; therefore be pleased, from my
experiment in the matter, to write in your brain with a steel pen this
subsequent ditton, There is no married man who doth not run the
hazard of being made a cuckold. Cuckoldry naturally attendeth
marriage. The shadow doth not more naturally follow the body, than
cuckoldry ensueth after marriage to place fair horns upon the husbands'
heads.
And when you shall happen to hear any man pronounce these three
words, He is married; if you then say he is, hath been, shall be, or may
be a cuckold, you will not be accounted an unskilful artist in framing of
true consequences. Tripes and bowels of all the devils, cries Panurge,
what do you tell me? My dear friend, answered Rondibilis, as
Hippocrates on a time was in the very nick of setting forwards from
Lango to Polystilo to visit the philosopher Democritus, he wrote a
familiar letter to his friend Dionysius, wherein he desired him that he
would, during the interval of his absence, carry his wife to the house of
her father and mother, who were an honourable couple and of good
repute; because I would not have her at my home, said he, to make
abode in solitude. Yet, notwithstanding this her residence beside her
parents, do not fail, quoth he, with a most heedful care and
circumspection to pry into her ways, and to espy what places she shall
go to with her mother, and who those be that shall repair unto her. Not,
quoth he, that I do mistrust her virtue, or that I seem to have any
diffidence of her pudicity and chaste behaviour,--for of that I have
frequently had good and real proofs,--but I must freely tell you, She is a
woman. There lies the suspicion.
My worthy friend, the nature of women is set forth before our eyes and
represented to us by the moon, in divers other things as well as in this,
that they squat, skulk, constrain their own inclinations, and, with all the
cunning they can, dissemble and play the hypocrite in the sight and
presence of their husbands; who come no sooner to be out of the way,
but that forthwith they take their advantage, pass the time merrily,
desist from all labour, frolic it, gad abroad, lay aside their counterfeit
garb, and openly declare and manifest the interior of their dispositions,
even as the moon, when she is in conjunction with the sun, is neither
seen in the heavens nor on the earth, but in her opposition, when
remotest from him, shineth in her greatest fulness, and wholly
appeareth in her brightest splendour whilst it is night. Thus women are
but women.
When I say womankind, I speak of a sex so frail, so variable, so
changeable, so fickle, inconstant, and imperfect, that in my opinion
Nature, under favour, nevertheless, of the prime honour and reverence
which is due unto her, did in a manner mistake the road which she had
traced formerly, and stray exceedingly from that excellence of
providential judgment by the which she had created and formed all
other things, when she built, framed, and made up the woman. And
having thought upon it a hundred and five times, I know not what else
to determine therein, save only that in the devising, hammering, forging,
and composing of the woman she hath had a much tenderer regard, and
by a great deal more respectful heed to the delightful consortship and
sociable delectation of the man, than to the perfection and
accomplishment of the individual womanishness or muliebrity. The
divine philosopher Plato was doubtful in what rank of living creatures
to place and collocate them, whether amongst the rational animals, by
elevating them to an upper seat in the specifical classis of humanity, or
with the irrational, by degrading them to a lower bench on the opposite
side, of a brutal kind, and mere bestiality. For nature hath posited in a
privy, secret, and intestine place of their bodies, a sort of member, by
some not impertinently termed an animal, which is not to be found in
men. Therein sometimes are engendered certain humours so saltish,
brackish, clammy, sharp, nipping, tearing, prickling, and most eagerly
tickling, that by their stinging acrimony, rending nitrosity, figging itch,
wriggling mordicancy, and smarting salsitude (for the said member is
altogether sinewy and of a most quick and lively feeling), their whole
body is shaken and ebrangled, their senses totally ravished and
transported, the operations of their judgment and understanding utterly
confounded, and all disordinate passions and perturbations of the mind
thoroughly and absolutely allowed, admitted, and approved of; yea, in
such sort that if nature had not been so favourable unto them as to have
sprinkled their forehead with a little tincture of bashfulness and
modesty, you should see them in a so frantic mood run mad after
lechery, and hie apace up and down with haste and lust, in quest of and
to fix some chamber-standard in their Paphian ground, that never did
the Proetides, Mimallonides, nor Lyaean Thyades deport themselves in
the time of their bacchanalian festivals more shamelessly, or with a so
affronted and brazen-faced impudency; because this terrible animal is
knit unto, and hath an union with all the chief and most principal parts
of the body, as to anatomists is evident. Let it not here be thought
strange that I should call it an animal, seeing therein I do no otherwise
than follow and adhere to the doctrine of the academic and peripatetic
philosophers. For if a proper motion be a certain mark and infallible
token of the life and animation of the mover, as Aristotle writeth, and
that any such thing as moveth of itself ought to be held animated and of
a living nature, then assuredly Plato with very good reason did give it
the denomination of an animal, for that he perceived and observed in it
the proper and self-stirring motions of suffocation, precipitation,
corrugation, and of indignation so extremely violent, that oftentimes by
them is taken and removed from the woman all other sense and moving
whatsoever, as if she were in a swounding lipothymy, benumbing
syncope, epileptic, apoplectic palsy, and true resemblance of a
pale-faced death.
Furthermore, in the said member there is a manifest discerning faculty
of scents and odours very perceptible to women, who feel it fly from
what is rank and unsavoury, and follow fragrant and aromatic smells. It
is not unknown to me how Cl. Galen striveth with might and main to
prove that these are not proper and particular notions proceeding
intrinsically from the thing itself, but accidentally and by chance. Nor
hath it escaped my notice how others of that sect have laboured hardly,
yea, to the utmost of their abilities, to demonstrate that it is not a
sensitive discerning or perception in it of the difference of wafts and
smells, but merely a various manner of virtue and efficacy passing forth
and flowing from the diversity of odoriferous substances applied near
unto it. Nevertheless, if you will studiously examine and seriously
ponder and weigh in Critolaus's balance the strength of their reasons
and arguments, you shall find that they, not only in this, but in several
other matters also of the like nature, have spoken at random, and rather
out of an ambitious envy to check and reprehend their betters than for
any design to make inquiry into the solid truth.
I will not launch my little skiff any further into the wide ocean of this
dispute, only will I tell you that the praise and commendation is not
mean and slender which is due to those honest and good women who,
living chastely and without blame, have had the power and virtue to
curb, range, and subdue that unbridled, heady, and wild animal to an
obedient, submissive, and obsequious yielding unto reason. Therefore
here will I make an end of my discourse thereon, when I shall have told
you that the said animal being once satiated--if it be possible that it can
be contented or satisfied--by that aliment which nature hath provided
for it out of the epididymal storehouse of man, all its former and
irregular and disordered motions are at an end, laid, and assuaged, all
its vehement and unruly longings lulled, pacified, and quieted, and all
the furious and raging lusts, appetites, and desires thereof appeased,
calmed, and extinguished. For this cause let it seem nothing strange
unto you if we be in a perpetual danger of being cuckolds, that is to say,
such of us as have not wherewithal fully to satisfy the appetite and
expectation of that voracious animal. Odds fish! quoth Panurge, have
you no preventive cure in all your medicinal art for hindering one's
head to be horny-graffed at home whilst his feet are plodding abroad?
Yes, that I have, my gallant friend, answered Rondibilis, and that which
is a sovereign remedy, whereof I frequently make use myself; and, that
you may the better relish, it is set down and written in the book of a
most famous author, whose renown is of a standing of two thousand
years. Hearken and take good heed. You are, quoth Panurge, by
cockshobby, a right honest man, and I love you with all my heart. Eat a
little of this quince-pie; it is very proper and convenient for the shutting
up of the orifice of the ventricle of the stomach, because of a kind of
astringent stypticity which is in that sort of fruit, and is helpful to the
first concoction. But what? I think I speak Latin before clerks. Stay till
I give you somewhat to drink out of this Nestorian goblet. Will you
have another draught of white hippocras? Be not afraid of the squinzy,
no. There is neither squinant, ginger, nor grains in it; only a little choice
cinnamon, and some of the best refined sugar, with the delicious white
wine of the growth of that vine which was set in the slips of the great
sorbapple above the walnut-tree.
Chapter 3.
XXXIII.
Rondibilis the physician's cure of cuckoldry.
At that time, quoth Rondibilis, when Jupiter took a view of the state of
his Olympic house and family, and that he had made the calendar of all
the gods and goddesses, appointing unto the festival of every one of
them its proper day and season, establishing certain fixed places and
stations for the pronouncing of oracles and relief of travelling pilgrims,
and ordaining victims, immolations, and sacrifices suitable and
correspondent to the dignity and nature of the worshipped and adored
deity--Did not he do, asked Panurge, therein as Tintouille, the Bishop
of Auxerre, is said once to have done? This noble prelate loved entirely
the pure liquor of the grape, as every honest and judicious man doth;
therefore was it that he had an especial care and regard to the bud of the
vine-tree as to the great- grandfather of Bacchus. But so it is, that for
sundry years together he saw a most pitiful havoc, desolation, and
destruction made amongst the sprouts, shootings, buds, blossoms, and
scions of the vines by hoary frost, dank fogs, hot mists, unseasonable
colds, chill blasts, thick hail, and other calamitous chances of foul
weather, happening, as he thought, by the dismal inauspiciousness of
the holy days of St. George, St. Mary, St. Paul, St. Eutrope, Holy Rood,
the Ascension, and other festivals, in that time when the sun passeth
under the sign of Taurus; and thereupon harboured in his mind this
opinion, that the afore-named saints were Saint Hail- flingers, Saint
Frost-senders, Saint Fog-mongers, and Saint Spoilers of the Vine-buds.
For which cause he went about to have transmitted their feasts from the
spring to the winter, to be celebrated between Christmas and Epiphany,
so the mother of the three kings called it, allowing them with all honour
and reverence the liberty then to freeze, hail, and rain as much as they
would; for that he knew that at such a time frost was rather profitable
than hurtful to the vine-buds, and in their steads to have placed the
festivals of St. Christopher, St. John the Baptist, St. Magdalene, St.
Anne, St. Domingo, and St. Lawrence; yea, and to have gone so far as
to collocate and transpose the middle of August in and to the beginning
of May, because during the whole space of their solemnity there was so
little danger of hoary frosts and cold mists, that no artificers are then
held in greater request than the afforders of refrigerating inventions,
makers of junkets, fit disposers of cooling shades, composers of green
arbours, and refreshers of wine.
Jupiter, said Rondibilis, forgot the poor devil Cuckoldry, who was then
in the court at Paris very eagerly soliciting a peddling suit at law for
one of his vassals and tenants. Within some few days thereafter, I have
forgot how many, when he got full notice of the trick which in his
absence was done unto him, he instantly desisted from prosecuting
legal processes in the behalf of others, full of solicitude to pursue after
his own business, lest he should be foreclosed, and thereupon he
appeared personally at the tribunal of the great Jupiter, displayed before
him the importance of his preceding merits, together with the
acceptable services which in obedience to his commandments he had
formerly performed; and therefore in all humility begged of him that he
would be pleased not to leave him alone amongst all the sacred
potentates, destitute and void of honour, reverence, sacrifices, and
festival ceremonies. To this petition Jupiter's answer was excusatory,
that all the places and offices of his house were bestowed. Nevertheless,
so importuned was he by the continual supplications of Monsieur
Cuckoldry, that he, in fine, placed him in the rank, list, roll, rubric, and
catalogue, and appointed honours, sacrifices, and festival rites to be
observed on earth in great devotion, and tendered to him with
solemnity. The feast, because there was no void, empty, nor vacant
place in all the calendar, was to be celebrated jointly with, and on the
same day that had been consecrated to the goddess Jealousy. His power
and dominion should be over married folks, especially such as had
handsome wives. His sacrifices were to be suspicion, diffidence,
mistrust, a lowering pouting sullenness, watchings, wardings,
researchings, plyings, explorations, together with the waylayings,
ambushes, narrow observations, and malicious doggings of the
husband's scouts and espials of the most privy actions of their wives.
Herewithal every married man was expressly and rigorously
commanded to reverence, honour, and worship him, to celebrate and
solemnize his festival with twice more respect than that of any other
saint or deity, and to immolate unto him with all sincerity and alacrity
of heart the above-mentioned sacrifices and oblations, under pain of
severe censures, threatenings, and comminations of these subsequent
fines, mulcts, amerciaments, penalties, and punishments to be inflicted
on the delinquents: that Monsieur Cuckoldry should never be
favourable nor propitious to them; that he should never help, aid,
supply, succour, nor grant them any subventitious furtherance,
auxiliary suffrage, or adminiculary assistance; that he should never
hold them in any reckoning, account, or estimation; that he should
never deign to enter within their houses, neither at the doors, windows,
nor any other place thereof; that he should never haunt nor frequent
their companies or conversations, how frequently soever they should
invocate him and call upon his name; and that not only he should leave
and abandon them to rot alone with their wives in a sempiternal
solitariness, without the benefit of the diversion of any copes-mate or
corrival at all, but should withal shun and eschew them, fly from them,
and eternally forsake and reject them as impious heretics and
sacrilegious persons, according to the accustomed manner of other gods
towards such as are too slack in offering up the duties and reverences
which ought to be performed respectively to their divinities--as is
evidently apparent in Bacchus towards negligent vine-dressers; in
Ceres, against idle ploughmen and tillers of the ground; in Pomona, to
unworthy fruiterers and costard-mongers; in Neptune, towards dissolute
mariners and seafaring men, in Vulcan, towards loitering smiths and
forgemen; and so throughout the rest. Now, on the contrary, this
infallible promise was added, that unto all those who should make a
holy day of the above-recited festival, and cease from all manner of
worldly work and negotiation, lay aside all their own most important
occasions, and to be so retchless, heedless, and careless of what might
concern the management of their proper affairs as to mind nothing else
but a suspicious espying and prying into the secret deportments of their
wives, and how to coop, shut up, hold at under, and deal cruelly and
austerely with them by all the harshness and hardships that an
implacable and every way inexorable jealousy can devise and suggest,
conform to the sacred ordinances of the afore-mentioned sacrifices and
oblations, he should be continually favourable to them, should love
them, sociably converse with them, should be day and night in their
houses, and never leave them destitute of his presence. Now I have said,
and you have heard my cure.
Ha, ha, ha! quoth Carpalin, laughing; this is a remedy yet more apt and
proper than Hans Carvel's ring. The devil take me if I do not believe it!
The humour, inclination, and nature of women is like the thunder,
whose force in its bolt or otherwise burneth, bruiseth, and breaketh
only hard, massive, and resisting objects, without staying or stopping at
soft, empty, and yielding matters. For it pasheth into pieces the steel
sword without doing any hurt to the velvet scabbard which ensheatheth
it. It chrusheth also and consumeth the bones without wounding or
endamaging the flesh wherewith they are veiled and covered. Just so it
is that women for the greater part never bend the contention, subtlety,
and contradictory disposition of their spirits unless it be to do what is
prohibited and forbidden.
Verily, quoth Hippothadee, some of our doctors aver for a truth that the
first woman of the world, whom the Hebrews call Eve, had hardly been
induced or allured into the temptation of eating of the fruit of the Tree
of Life if it had not been forbidden her so to do. And that you may give
the more credit to the validity of this opinion, consider how the
cautelous and wily tempter did commemorate unto her, for an
antecedent to his enthymeme, the prohibition which was made to taste
it, as being desirous to infer from thence, It is forbidden thee; therefore
thou shouldst eat of it, else thou canst not be a woman.
Chapter 3.
XXXIV.
How women ordinarily have the greatest longing after things
prohibited.
When I was, quoth Carpalin, a whoremaster at Orleans, the whole art of
rhetoric, in all its tropes and figures, was not able to afford unto me a
colour or flourish of greater force and value, nor could I by any other
form or manner of elocution pitch upon a more persuasive argument for
bringing young beautiful married ladies into the snares of adultery,
through alluring and enticing them to taste with me of amorous delights,
than with a lively sprightfulness to tell them in downright terms, and to
remonstrate to them with a great show of detestation of a crime so
horrid, how their husbands were jealous. This was none of my
invention. It is written, and we have laws, examples, reasons, and daily
experiences confirmative of the same. If this belief once enter into their
noddles, their husbands will infallibly be cuckolds; yea, by God, will
they, without swearing, although they should do like Semiramis,
Pasiphae, Egesta, the women of the Isle Mandez in Egypt, and other
such-like queanish flirting harlots mentioned in the writings of
Herodotus, Strabo, and such-like puppies.
Truly, quoth Ponocrates, I have heard it related, and it hath been told
me for a verity, that Pope John XXII., passing on a day through the
Abbey of Toucherome, was in all humility required and besought by
the abbess and other discreet mothers of the said convent to grant them
an indulgence by means whereof they might confess themselves to one
another, alleging that religious women were subject to some petty
secret slips and imperfections which would be a foul and burning
shame for them to discover and to reveal to men, how sacerdotal soever
their functions were; but that they would freelier, more familiarly, and
with greater cheerfulness, open to each other their offences, faults, and
escapes under the seal of confession. There is not anything, answered
the pope, fitting for you to impetrate of me which I would not most
willingly condescend unto; but I find one inconvenience. You know
confession should be kept secret, and women are not able to do so.
Exceeding well, quoth they, most holy father, and much more closely
than the best of men.
The said pope on the very same day gave them in keeping a pretty box,
wherein he purposely caused a little linnet to be put, willing them very
gently and courteously to lock it up in some sure and hidden place, and
promising them, by the faith of a pope, that he should yield to their
request if they would keep secret what was enclosed within that
deposited box, enjoining them withal not to presume one way nor other,
directly or indirectly, to go about the opening thereof, under pain of the
highest ecclesiastical censure, eternal excommunication. The
prohibition was no sooner made but that they did all of them boil with a
most ardent desire to know and see what kind of thing it was that was
within it. They thought long already that the pope was not gone, to the
end they might jointly, with the more leisure and ease, apply
themselves to the box-opening curiosity.
The holy father, after he had given them his benediction, retired and
withdrew himself to the pontifical lodgings of his own palace. But he
was hardly gone three steps from without the gates of their cloister
when the good ladies throngingly, and as in a huddled crowd, pressing
hard on the backs of one another, ran thrusting and shoving who should
be first at the setting open of the forbidden box and descrying of the
quod latitat within.
On the very next day thereafter the pope made them another visit, of a
full design, purpose, and intention, as they imagined, to despatch the
grant of their sought and wished-for indulgence. But before he would
enter into any chat or communing with them, he commanded the casket
to be brought unto him. It was done so accordingly; but, by your leave,
the bird was no more there. Then was it that the pope did represent to
their maternities how hard a matter and difficult it was for them to keep
secrets revealed to them in confession unmanifested to the ears of
others, seeing for the space of four-and-twenty hours they were not able
to lay up in secret a box which he had highly recommended to their
discretion, charge, and custody.
Welcome, in good faith, my dear master, welcome! It did me good to
hear you talk, the Lord be praised for all! I do not remember to have
seen you before now, since the last time that you acted at Montpellier
with our ancient friends, Anthony Saporra, Guy Bourguyer, Balthasar
Noyer, Tolet, John Quentin, Francis Robinet, John Perdrier, and
Francis Rabelais, the moral comedy of him who had espoused and
married a dumb wife. I was there, quoth Epistemon. The good honest
man her husband was very earnestly urgent to have the fillet of her
tongue untied, and would needs have her speak by any means. At his
desire some pains were taken on her, and partly by the industry of the
physician, other part by the expertness of the surgeon, the encyliglotte
which she had under her tongue being cut, she spoke and spoke again;
yea, within a few hours she spoke so loud, so much, so fiercely, and so
long, that her poor husband returned to the same physician for a recipe
to make her hold her peace. There are, quoth the physician, many
proper remedies in our art to make dumb women speak, but there are
none that ever I could learn therein to make them silent. The only cure
which I have found out is their husband's deafness. The wretch became
within few weeks thereafter, by virtue of some drugs, charms, or
enchantments which the physician had prescribed unto him, so deaf
that he could not have heard the thundering of nineteen hundred
cannons at a salvo. His wife perceiving that indeed he was as deaf as a
door-nail, and that her scolding was but in vain, sith that he heard her
not, she grew stark mad.
Some time after the doctor asked for his fee of the husband, who
answered that truly he was deaf, and so was not able to understand
what the tenour of his demand might be. Whereupon the leech bedusted
him with a little, I know not what, sort of powder, which rendered him
a fool immediately, so great was the stultificating virtue of that strange
kind of pulverized dose. Then did this fool of a husband and his mad
wife join together, and, falling on the doctor and the surgeon, did so
scratch, bethwack, and bang them that they were left half dead upon the
place, so furious were the blows which they received. I never in my
lifetime laughed so much as at the acting of that buffoonery.
Let us come to where we left off, quoth Panurge. Your words, being
translated from the clapper-dudgeons to plain English, do signify that it
is not very inexpedient that I marry, and that I should not care for being
a cuckold. You have there hit the nail on the head. I believe, master
doctor, that on the day of my marriage you will be so much taken up
with your patients, or otherwise so seriously employed, that we shall
not enjoy your company. Sir, I will heartily excuse your absence.
Stercus et urina medici sunt prandia prima. Ex aliis paleas, ex istis
collige grana.
You are mistaken, quoth Rondibilis, in the second verse of our distich,
for it ought to run thus--
Nobis sunt signa, vobis sunt prandia digna.
If my wife at any time prove to be unwell and ill at ease, I will look
upon the water which she shall have made in an urinal glass, quoth
Rondibilis, grope her pulse, and see the disposition of her hypogaster,
together with her umbilicary parts--according to the prescript rule of
Hippocrates, 2. Aph. 35--before I proceed any further in the cure of her
distemper. No, no, quoth Panurge, that will be but to little purpose.
Such a feat is for the practice of us that are lawyers, who have the
rubric, De ventre inspiciendo. Do not therefore trouble yourself about it,
master doctor; I will provide for her a plaster of warm guts. Do not
neglect your more urgent occasions otherwhere for coming to my
wedding. I will send you some supply of victuals to your own house,
without putting you to the trouble of coming abroad, and you shall
always be my special friend. With this, approaching somewhat nearer
to him, he clapped into his hand, without the speaking of so much as
one word, four rose nobles. Rondibilis did shut his fist upon them right
kindly; yet, as if it had displeased him to make acceptance of such
golden presents, he in a start, as if he had been wroth, said, He he, he,
he, he! there was no need of anything; I thank you nevertheless. From
wicked folks I never get enough, and I from honest people refuse
nothing. I shall be always, sir, at your command. Provided that I pay
you well, quoth Panurge. That, quoth Rondibilis, is understood.
Chapter 3.
XXXV.
How the philosopher Trouillogan handleth the difficulty of marriage.
As this discourse was ended, Pantagruel said to the philosopher
Trouillogan, Our loyal, honest, true, and trusty friend, the lamp from
hand to hand is come to you. It falleth to your turn to give an answer:
Should Panurge, pray you, marry, yea or no? He should do both, quoth
Trouillogan. What say you? asked Panurge. That which you have heard,
answered Trouillogan. What have I heard? replied Panurge. That which
I have said, replied Trouillogan. Ha, ha, ha! are we come to that pass?
quoth Panurge. Let it go nevertheless, I do not value it at a rush, seeing
we can make no better of the game. But howsoever tell me, Should I
marry or no? Neither the one nor the other, answered Trouillogan. The
devil take me, quoth Panurge, if these odd answers do not make me
dote, and may he snatch me presently away if I do understand you. Stay
awhile until I fasten these spectacles of mine on this left ear, that I may
hear you better. With this Pantagruel perceived at the door of the great
hall, which was that day their dining-room, Gargantua's little dog,
whose name was Kyne; for so was Toby's dog called, as is recorded.
Then did he say to these who were there present, Our king is not far
off,--let us all rise.
That word was scarcely sooner uttered, than that Gargantua with his
royal presence graced that banqueting and stately hall. Each of the
guests arose to do their king that reverence and duty which became
them. After that Gargantua had most affably saluted all the gentlemen
there present, he said, Good friends, I beg this favour of you, and
therein you will very much oblige me, that you leave not the places
where you sate nor quit the discourse you were upon. Let a chair be
brought hither unto this end of the table, and reach me a cupful of the
strongest and best wine you have, that I may drink to all the company.
You are, in faith, all welcome, gentlemen. Now let me know what talk
you were about. To this Pantagruel answered that at the beginning of
the second service Panurge had proposed a problematic theme, to wit,
whether he should marry, or not marry? that Father Hippothadee and
Doctor Rondibilis had already despatched their resolutions thereupon;
and that, just as his majesty was coming in, the faithful Trouillogan in
the delivery of his opinion hath thus far proceeded, that when Panurge
asked whether he ought to marry, yea or no? at first he made this
answer, Both together. When this same question was again propounded,
his second answer was, Neither the one nor the other. Panurge
exclaimeth that those answers are full of repugnancies and
contradictions, protesting that he understands them not, nor what it is
that can be meant by them. If I be not mistaken, quoth Gargantua, I
understand it very well. The answer is not unlike to that which was
once made by a philosopher in ancient times, who being interrogated if
he had a woman whom they named him to his wife? I have her, quoth
he, but she hath not me,--possessing her, by her I am not possessed.
Such another answer, quoth Pantagruel, was once made by a certain
bouncing wench of Sparta, who being asked if at any time she had had
to do with a man? No, quoth she, but sometimes men have had to do
with me. Well then, quoth Rondibilis, let it be a neuter in physic, as
when we say a body is neuter, when it is neither sick nor healthful, and
a mean in philosophy; that, by an abnegation of both extremes, and this
by the participation of the one and of the other. Even as when
lukewarm water is said to be both hot and cold; or rather, as when time
makes the partition, and equally divides betwixt the two, a while in the
one, another while as long in the other opposite extremity. The holy
Apostle, quoth Hippothadee, seemeth, as I conceive, to have more
clearly explained this point when he said, Those that are married, let
them be as if they were not married; and those that have wives, let them
be as if they had no wives at all. I thus interpret, quoth Pantagruel, the
having and not having of a wife. To have a wife is to have the use of
her in such a way as nature hath ordained, which is for the aid, society,
and solace of man, and propagating of his race. To have no wife is not
to be uxorious, play the coward, and be lazy about her, and not for her
sake to distain the lustre of that affection which man owes to God, or
yet for her to leave those offices and duties which he owes unto his
country, unto his friends and kindred, or for her to abandon and forsake
his precious studies, and other businesses of account, to wait still on her
will, her beck, and her buttocks. If we be pleased in this sense to take
having and not having of a wife, we shall indeed find no repugnancy
nor contradiction in the terms at all.
Chapter 3.
XXXVI.
A continuation of the answer of the Ephectic and Pyrrhonian
philosopher Trouillogan.
You speak wisely, quoth Panurge, if the moon were green cheese. Such
a tale once pissed my goose. I do not think but that I am let down into
that dark pit in the lowermost bottom whereof the truth was hid,
according to the saying of Heraclitus. I see no whit at all, I hear nothing,
understand as little, my senses are altogether dulled and blunted; truly I
do very shrewdly suspect that I am enchanted. I will now alter the
former style of my discourse, and talk to him in another strain. Our
trusty friend, stir not, nor imburse any; but let us vary the chance, and
speak without disjunctives. I see already that these loose and ill-joined
members of an enunciation do vex, trouble, and perplex you.
Now go on, in the name of God! Should I marry?
Trouillogan. There is some likelihood therein.
Panurge. But if I do not marry?
Trouil. I see in that no inconvenience.
Pan. You do not?
Trouil. None, truly, if my eyes deceive me not.
Pan. Yea, but I find more than five hundred.
Trouil. Reckon them.
Pan. This is an impropriety of speech, I confess; for I do no more
thereby but take a certain for an uncertain number, and posit the
determinate term for what is indeterminate. When I say, therefore, five
hundred, my meaning is many.
Trouil. I hear you.
Pan. Is it possible for me to live without a wife, in the name of all the
subterranean devils?
Trouil. Away with these filthy beasts.
Pan. Let it be, then, in the name of God; for my Salmigondinish people
use to say, To lie alone, without a wife, is certainly a brutish life. And
such a life also was it assevered to be by Dido in her lamentations.
Trouil. At your command.
Pan. By the pody cody, I have fished fair; where are we now? But will
you tell me? Shall I marry?
Trouil. Perhaps.
Pan. Shall I thrive or speed well withal?
Trouil. According to the encounter.
Pan. But if in my adventure I encounter aright, as I hope I will, shall I
be fortunate?
Trouil. Enough.
Pan. Let us turn the clean contrary way, and brush our former words
against the wool: what if I encounter ill?
Trouil. Then blame not me.
Pan. But, of courtesy, be pleased to give me some advice. I heartily
beseech you, what must I do?
Trouil. Even what thou wilt.
Pan. Wishy, washy; trolly, trolly.
Trouil. Do not invocate the name of anything, I pray you.
Pan. In the name of God, let it be so! My actions shall be regulated by
the rule and square of your counsel. What is it that you advise and
counsel me to do?
Trouil. Nothing.
Pan. Shall I marry?
Trouil. I have no hand in it.
Pan. Then shall I not marry?
Trouil. I cannot help it.
Pan. If I never marry, I shall never be a cuckold.
Trouil. I thought so.
Pan. But put the case that I be married.
Trouil. Where shall we put it?
Pan. Admit it be so, then, and take my meaning in that sense.
Trouil. I am otherwise employed.
Pan. By the death of a hog, and mother of a toad, O Lord! if I durst
hazard upon a little fling at the swearing game, though privily and
under thumb, it would lighten the burden of my heart and ease my
lights and reins exceedingly. A little patience nevertheless is requisite.
Well then, if I marry, I shall be a cuckold.
Trouil. One would say so.
Pan. Yet if my wife prove a virtuous, wise, discreet, and chaste woman,
I shall never be cuckolded.
Trouil. I think you speak congruously.
Pan. Hearken.
Trouil. As much as you will.
Pan. Will she be discreet and chaste? This is the only point I would be
resolved in.
Trouil. I question it.
Pan. You never saw her?
Trouil. Not that I know of.
Pan. Why do you then doubt of that which you know not?
Trouil. For a cause.
Pan. And if you should know her.
Trouil. Yet more.
Pan. Page, my pretty little darling, take here my cap,--I give it thee.
Have a care you do not break the spectacles that are in it. Go down to
the lower court. Swear there half an hour for me, and I shall in
compensation of that favour swear hereafter for thee as much as thou
wilt. But who shall cuckold me?
Trouil. Somebody.
Pan. By the belly of the wooden horse at Troy, Master Somebody, I
shall bang, belam thee, and claw thee well for thy labour.
Trouil. You say so.
Pan. Nay, nay, that Nick in the dark cellar, who hath no white in his
eye, carry me quite away with him if, in that case, whensoever I go
abroad from the palace of my domestic residence, I do not, with as
much circumspection as they use to ring mares in our country to keep
them from being sallied by stoned horses, clap a Bergamasco lock upon
my wife.
Trouil. Talk better.
Pan. It is bien chien, chie chante, well cacked and cackled, shitten, and
sung in matter of talk. Let us resolve on somewhat.
Trouil. I do not gainsay it.
Pan. Have a little patience. Seeing I cannot on this side draw any blood
of you, I will try if with the lancet of my judgment I be able to bleed
you in another vein. Are you married, or are you not?
Trouil. Neither the one nor the other, and both together.
Pan. O the good God help us! By the death of a buffle-ox, I sweat with
the toil and travail that I am put to, and find my digestion broke off,
disturbed, and interrupted, for all my phrenes, metaphrenes, and
diaphragms, back, belly, midriff, muscles, veins, and sinews are held in
a suspense and for a while discharged from their proper offices to
stretch forth their several powers and abilities for incornifistibulating
and laying up into the hamper of my understanding your various
sayings and answers.
Trouil. I shall be no hinderer thereof.
Pan. Tush, for shame! Our faithful friend, speak; are you married?
Trouil. I think so.
Pan. You were also married before you had this wife?
Trouil. It is possible.
Pan. Had you good luck in your first marriage?
Trouil. It is not impossible.
Pan. How thrive you with this second wife of yours?
Trouil. Even as it pleaseth my fatal destiny.
Pan. But what, in good earnest? Tell me--do you prosper well with her?
Trouil. It is likely.
Pan. Come on, in the name of God. I vow, by the burden of Saint
Christopher, that I had rather undertake the fetching of a fart forth of
the belly of a dead ass than to draw out of you a positive and
determinate resolution. Yet shall I be sure at this time to have a snatch
at you, and get my claws over you. Our trusty friend, let us shame the
devil of hell, and confess the verity. Were you ever a cuckold? I say,
you who are here, and not that other you who playeth below in the
tennis-court?
Trouil. No, if it was not predestinated.
Pan. By the flesh, blood, and body, I swear, reswear, forswear, abjure,
and renounce, he evades and avoids, shifts, and escapes me, and quite
slips and winds himself out of my grips and clutches.
At these words Gargantua arose and said, Praised be the good God in
all things, but especially for bringing the world into that height of
refinedness beyond what it was when I first came to be acquainted
therewith, that now the learnedst and most prudent philosophers are not
ashamed to be seen entering in at the porches and frontispieces of the
schools of the Pyrrhonian, Aporrhetic, Sceptic, and Ephectic sects.
Blessed be the holy name of God! Veritably, it is like henceforth to be
found an enterprise of much more easy undertaking to catch lions by
the neck, horses by the main, oxen by the horns, bulls by the muzzle,
wolves by the tail, goats by the beard, and flying birds by the feet, than
to entrap such philosophers in their words. Farewell, my worthy, dear,
and honest friends.
When he had done thus speaking, he withdrew himself from the
company. Pantagruel and others with him would have followed and
accompanied him, but he would not permit them so to do. No sooner
was Gargantua departed out of the banqueting-hall than that Pantagruel
said to the invited guests: Plato's Timaeus, at the beginning always of a
solemn festival convention, was wont to count those that were called
thereto. We, on the contrary, shall at the closure and end of this
treatment reckon up our number. One, two, three; where is the fourth? I
miss my friend Bridlegoose. Was not he sent for? Epistemon answered
that he had been at his house to bid and invite him, but could not meet
with him; for that a messenger from the parliament of Mirlingois, in
Mirlingues, was come to him with a writ of summons to cite and warn
him personally to appear before the reverend senators of the high court
there, to vindicate and justify himself at the bar of the crime of
prevarication laid to his charge, and to be peremptorily instanced
against him in a certain decree, judgment, or sentence lately awarded,
given, and pronounced by him; and that, therefore, he had taken horse
and departed in great haste from his own house, to the end that without
peril or danger of falling into a default or contumacy he might be the
better able to keep the prefixed and appointed time.
I will, quoth Pantagruel, understand how that matter goeth. It is now
above forty years that he hath been constantly the judge of Fonsbeton,
during which space of time he hath given four thousand definitive
sentences, of two thousand three hundred and nine whereof, although
appeal was made by the parties whom he had judicially condemned
from his inferior judicatory to the supreme court of the parliament of
Mirlingois, in Mirlingues, they were all of them nevertheless confirmed,
ratified, and approved of by an order, decree, and final sentence of the
said sovereign court, to the casting of the appellants, and utter
overthrow of the suits wherein they had been foiled at law, for ever and
a day. That now in his old age he should be personally summoned, who
in all the foregoing time of his life hath demeaned himself so
unblamably in the discharge of the office and vocation he had been
called unto, it cannot assuredly be that such a change hath happened
without some notorious misfortune and disaster. I am resolved to help
and assist him in equity and justice to the uttermost extent of my power
and ability. I know the malice, despite, and wickedness of the world to
be so much more nowadays exasperated, increased, and aggravated by
what it was not long since, that the best cause that is, how just and
equitable soever it be, standeth in great need to be succoured, aided,
and supported. Therefore presently, from this very instant forth, do I
purpose, till I see the event and closure thereof, most heedfully to
attend and wait upon it, for fear of some underhand tricky surprisal,
cavilling pettifoggery, or fallacious quirks in law, to his detriment, hurt,
or disadvantage.
Then dinner being done, and the tables drawn and removed, when
Pantagruel had very cordially and affectionately thanked his invited
guests for the favour which he had enjoyed of their company, he
presented them with several rich and costly gifts, such as jewels, rings
set with precious stones, gold and silver vessels, with a great deal of
other sort of plate besides, and lastly, taking of them all his leave,
retired himself into an inner chamber.
Chapter 3.
XXXVII.
How Pantagruel persuaded Panurge to take counsel of a fool.
When Pantagruel had withdrawn himself, he, by a little sloping window
in one of the galleries, perceived Panurge in a lobby not far from thence,
walking alone, with the gesture, carriage, and garb of a fond dotard,
raving, wagging, and shaking his hands, dandling, lolling, and nodding
with his head, like a cow bellowing for her calf; and, having then called
him nearer, spoke unto him thus: You are at this present, as I think, not
unlike to a mouse entangled in a snare, who the more that she goeth
about to rid and unwind herself out of the gin wherein she is caught, by
endeavouring to clear and deliver her feet from the pitch whereto they
stick, the foulier she is bewrayed with it, and the more strongly
pestered therein. Even so is it with you. For the more that you labour,
strive, and enforce yourself to disencumber and extricate your thoughts
out of the implicating involutions and fetterings of the grievous and
lamentable gins and springs of anguish and perplexity, the greater
difficulty there is in the relieving of you, and you remain faster bound
than ever. Nor do I know for the removal of this inconveniency any
remedy but one.
Take heed, I have often heard it said in a vulgar proverb, The wise may
be instructed by a fool. Seeing the answers and responses of sage and
judicious men have in no manner of way satisfied you, take advice of
some fool, and possibly by so doing you may come to get that counsel
which will be agreeable to your own heart's desire and contentment.
You know how by the advice and counsel and prediction of fools,
many kings, princes, states, and commonwealths have been preserved,
several battles gained, and divers doubts of a most perplexed intricacy
resolved. I am not so diffident of your memory as to hold it needful to
refresh it with a quotation of examples, nor do I so far undervalue your
judgment but that I think it will acquiesce in the reason of this my
subsequent discourse. As he who narrowly takes heed to what concerns
the dexterous management of his private affairs, domestic businesses,
and those adoes which are confined within the strait-laced compass of
one family, who is attentive, vigilant, and active in the economic rule
of his own house, whose frugal spirit never strays from home, who
loseth no occasion whereby he may purchase to himself more riches,
and build up new heaps of treasure on his former wealth, and who
knows warily how to prevent the inconveniences of poverty, is called a
worldly wise man, though perhaps in the second judgment of the
intelligences which are above he be esteemed a fool,--so, on the
contrary, is he most like, even in the thoughts of all celestial spirits, to
be not only sage, but to presage events to come by divine inspiration,
who laying quite aside those cares which are conducible to his body or
his fortunes, and, as it were, departing from himself, rids all his senses
of terrene affections, and clears his fancies of those plodding studies
which harbour in the minds of thriving men. All which neglects of
sublunary things are vulgarily imputed folly. After this manner, the son
of Picus, King of the Latins, the great soothsayer Faunus, was called
Fatuus by the witless rabble of the common people. The like we daily
see practised amongst the comic players, whose dramatic roles, in
distribution of the personages, appoint the acting of the fool to him who
is the wisest of the troop. In approbation also of this fashion the
mathematicians allow the very same horoscope to princes and to sots.
Whereof a right pregnant instance by them is given in the nativities of
Aeneas and Choroebus; the latter of which two is by Euphorion said to
have been a fool, and yet had with the former the same aspects and
heavenly genethliac influences.
I shall not, I suppose, swerve much from the purpose in hand, if I relate
unto you what John Andrew said upon the return of a papal writ, which
was directed to the mayor and burgesses of Rochelle, and after him by
Panorme, upon the same pontifical canon; Barbatias on the Pandects,
and recently by Jason in his Councils, concerning Seyny John, the
noted fool of Paris, and Caillet's fore great-grandfather. The case is this.
At Paris, in the roastmeat cookery of the Petit Chastelet, before the
cookshop of one of the roastmeat sellers of that lane, a certain hungry
porter was eating his bread, after he had by parcels kept it a while
above the reek and steam of a fat goose on the spit, turning at a great
fire, and found it, so besmoked with the vapour, to be savoury; which
the cook observing, took no notice, till after having ravined his penny
loaf, whereof no morsel had been unsmokified, he was about
decamping and going away. But, by your leave, as the fellow thought
to have departed thence shot-free, the master-cook laid hold upon him
by the gorget, and demanded payment for the smoke of his roast meat.
The porter answered, that he had sustained no loss at all; that by what
he had done there was no diminution made of the flesh; that he had
taken nothing of his, and that therefore he was not indebted to him in
anything. As for the smoke in question, that, although he had not been
there, it would howsoever have been evaporated; besides, that before
that time it had never been seen nor heard that roastmeat smoke was
sold upon the streets of Paris. The cook hereto replied, that he was not
obliged nor any way bound to feed and nourish for nought a porter
whom he had never seen before with the smoke of his roast meat, and
thereupon swore that if he would not forthwith content and satisfy him
with present payment for the repast which he had thereby got, that he
would take his crooked staves from off his back; which, instead of
having loads thereafter laid upon them, should serve for fuel to his
kitchen fires. Whilst he was going about so to do, and to have pulled
them to him by one of the bottom rungs which he had caught in his
hand, the sturdy porter got out of his grip, drew forth the knotty cudgel,
and stood to his own defence. The altercation waxed hot in words,
which moved the gaping hoidens of the sottish Parisians to run from all
parts thereabouts, to see what the issue would be of that babbling strife
and contention. In the interim of this dispute, to very good purpose
Seyny John, the fool and citizen of Paris, happened to be there, whom
the cook perceiving, said to the porter, Wilt thou refer and submit unto
the noble Seyny John the decision of the difference and controversy
which is betwixt us? Yes, by the blood of a goose, answered the porter,
I am content. Seyny John the fool, finding that the cook and porter had
compromised the determination of their variance and debate to the
discretion of his award and arbitrament, after that the reasons on either
side whereupon was grounded the mutual fierceness of their brawling
jar had been to the full displayed and laid open before him, commanded
the porter to draw out of the fob of his belt a piece of money, if he had
it. Whereupon the porter immediately without delay, in reverence to the
authority of such a judicious umpire, put the tenth part of a silver Philip
into his hand. This little Philip Seyny John took; then set it on his left
shoulder, to try by feeling if it was of a sufficient weight. After that,
laying it on the palm of his hand, he made it ring and tingle, to
understand by the ear if it was of a good alloy in the metal whereof it
was composed. Thereafter he put it to the ball or apple of his left eye, to
explore by the sight if it was well stamped and marked; all which being
done, in a profound silence of the whole doltish people who were there
spectators of this pageantry, to the great hope of the cook's and despair
of the porter's prevalency in the suit that was in agitation, he finally
caused the porter to make it sound several times upon the stall of the
cook's shop. Then with a presidential majesty holding his bauble
sceptre-like in his hand, muffling his head with a hood of marten skins,
each side whereof had the resemblance of an ape's face sprucified up
with ears of pasted paper, and having about his neck a bucked ruff,
raised, furrowed, and ridged with pointing sticks of the shape and
fashion of small organ pipes, he first with all the force of his lungs
coughed two or three times, and then with an audible voice pronounced
this following sentence: The court declareth that the porter who ate his
bread at the smoke of the roast, hath civilly paid the cook with the
sound of his money. And the said court ordaineth that everyone return
to his own home, and attend his proper business, without cost and
charges, and for a cause. This verdict, award, and arbitrament of the
Parisian fool did appear so equitable, yea, so admirable to the aforesaid
doctors, that they very much doubted if the matter had been brought
before the sessions for justice of the said place, or that the judges of the
Rota at Rome had been umpires therein, or yet that the Areopagites
themselves had been the deciders thereof, if by any one part, or all of
them together, it had been so judicially sententiated and awarded.
Therefore advise, if you will be counselled by a fool.
Chapter 3.
XXXVIII.
How Triboulet is set forth and blazed by Pantagruel and Panurge.
By my soul, quoth Panurge, that overture pleaseth me exceedingly well.
I will therefore lay hold thereon, and embrace it. At the very motioning
thereof my very right entrail seemeth to be widened and enlarged,
which was but just now hard-bound, contracted, and costive. But as we
have hitherto made choice of the purest and most refined cream of
wisdom and sapience for our counsel, so would I now have to preside
and bear the prime sway in our consultation as very a fool in the
supreme degree. Triboulet, quoth Pantagruel, is completely foolish, as I
conceive. Yes, truly, answered Panurge, he is properly and totally a
fool, a
Pantagruel. Panurge. Fatal f. Jovial f. Natural f. Mercurial f. Celestial f.
Lunatic f. Erratic f. Ducal f. Eccentric f. Common f. Aethereal and
Junonian f. Lordly f. Arctic f. Palatine f. Heroic f. Principal f. Genial f.
Pretorian f. Inconstant f. Elected f. Earthly f. Courtly f. Salacious and
sporting f. Primipilary f. Jocund and wanton f. Triumphant f. Pimpled f.
Vulgar f. Freckled f. Domestic f. Bell-tinging f. Exemplary f. Laughing
and lecherous f. Rare outlandish f. Nimming and filching f. Satrapal f.
Unpressed f. Civil f. First broached f. Popular f. Augustal f. Familiar f.
Caesarine f. Notable f. Imperial f. Favourized f. Royal f. Latinized f.
Patriarchal f. Ordinary f. Original f. Transcendent f. Loyal f. Rising f.
Episcopal f. Papal f. Doctoral f. Consistorian f. Monachal f. Conclavist
f. Fiscal f. Bullist f. Extravagant f. Synodal f. Writhed f. Doting and
raving f. Canonical f. Singular and surpassing f. Such another f. Special
and excelling f. Graduated f. Metaphysical f. Commensal f. Scatical f.
Primolicentiated f. Predicamental and categoric f. Train-bearing f.
Predicable and enunciatory f. Supererogating f. Decumane and
superlative f. Collateral f. Dutiful and officious f. Haunch and side f.
Optical and perspective f. Nestling, ninny, and youngling f. Algoristic f.
Flitting, giddy, and unsteady f. Algebraical f. Brancher, novice, and
cockney f. Cabalistical and Massoretical f. Haggard, cross, and froward
f. Talmudical f. Gentle, mild, and tractable f. Algamalized f.
Mail-coated f. Compendious f. Pilfering and purloining f. Abbreviated f.
Tail-grown f. Hyperbolical f. Grey peckled f. Anatomastical f.
Pleonasmical f. Allegorical f. Capital f. Tropological f. Hair-brained f.
Micher pincrust f. Cordial f. Heteroclit f. Intimate f. Summist f. Hepatic
f. Abridging f. Cupshotten and swilling f. Morrish f. Splenetic f.
Leaden-sealed f. Windy f. Mandatory f. Legitimate f. Compassionate f.
Azymathal f. Titulary f. Almicantarized f. Crouching, showking,
ducking f. Proportioned f. Grim, stern, harsh, and wayward f.
Chinnified f. Well-hung and timbered f. Swollen and puffed up f.
Ill-clawed, pounced, and pawed f. Overcockrifedlid and lified f.
Well-stoned f. Corallory f. Crabbed and unpleasing f. Eastern f.
Winded and untainted f. Sublime f. Kitchen haunting f. Crimson f.
Lofty and stately f. Ingrained f. Spitrack f. City f. Architrave f. Basely
accoutred f. Pedestal f. Mast-headed f. Tetragonal f. Modal f.
Renowned f. Second notial f. Rheumatic f. Cheerful and buxom f.
Flaunting and braggadocio f. Solemn f. Egregious f. Annual f.
Humourous and capricious f. Festival f. Rude, gross, and absurd f.
Recreative f. Large-measured f. Boorish and counterfeit f. Babble f.
Pleasant f. Down-right f. Privileged f. Broad-listed f. Rustical f.
Duncical-bearing f. Proper and peculiar f. Stale and over-worn f. Ever
ready f. Saucy and swaggering f. Diapasonal f. Full-bulked f. Resolute f.
Gallant and vainglorious f. Hieroglyphical f. Gorgeous and gaudy f.
Authentic f. Continual and intermitting f. Worthy f. Rebasing and
roundling f. Precious f. Prototypal and precedenting f. Fanatic f. Prating
f. Fantastical f. Catechetic f. Symphatic f. Cacodoxical f. Panic f.
Meridional f. Limbecked and distilled f. Nocturnal f. Comportable f.
Occidental f. Wretched and heartless f. Trifling f. Fooded f.
Astrological and figure-flinging f. Thick and threefold f. Genethliac
and horoscopal f. Damasked f. Knavish f. Fearney f. Idiot f.
Unleavened f. Blockish f. Baritonant f. Beetle-headed f. Pink and
spot-powdered f. Grotesque f. Musket-proof f. Impertinent f. Pedantic f.
Quarrelsome f. Strouting f. Unmannerly f. Wood f. Captious and
sophistical f. Greedy f. Soritic f. Senseless f. Catholoproton f.
Godderlich f. Hoti and Dioti f. Obstinate f. Alphos and Catati f.
Contradictory f. Pedagogical f. Daft f. Drunken f. Peevish f. Prodigal f.
Rash f. Plodding f.
Pantagruel. If there was any reason why at Rome the Quirinal holiday
of old was called the Feast of Fools, I know not why we may not for
the like cause institute in France the Tribouletic Festivals, to be
celebrated and solemnized over all the land.
Panurge. If all fools carried cruppers.
Pantagruel. If he were the god Fatuus of whom we have already made
mention, the husband of the goddess Fatua, his father would be Good
Day, and his grandmother Good Even.
Panurge. If all fools paced, albeit he be somewhat wry-legged, he
would overlay at least a fathom at every rake. Let us go toward him
without any further lingering or delay; we shall have, no doubt, some
fine resolution of him. I am ready to go, and long for the issue of our
progress impatiently. I must needs, quoth Pantagruel, according to my
former resolution therein, be present at Bridlegoose's trial. Nevertheless,
whilst I shall be upon my journey towards Mirelingues, which is on the
other side of the river of Loire, I will despatch Carpalin to bring along
with him from Blois the fool Triboulet. Then was Carpalin instantly
sent away, and Pantagruel, at the same time attended by his domestics,
Panurge, Epistemon, Ponocrates, Friar John, Gymnast, Ryzotomus, and
others, marched forward on the high road to Mirelingues.
Chapter 3.
XXXIX.
How Pantagruel was present at the trial of Judge Bridlegoose, who
decided causes and controversies in law by the chance and fortune of
the dice.
On the day following, precisely at the hour appointed, Pantagruel came
to Mirelingues. At his arrival the presidents, senators, and counsellors
prayed him to do them the honour to enter in with them, to hear the
decision of all the causes, arguments, and reasons which Bridlegoose in
his own defence would produce, why he had pronounced a certain
sentence against the subsidy-assessor, Toucheronde, which did not
seem very equitable to that centumviral court. Pantagruel very willingly
condescended to their desire, and accordingly entering in, found
Bridlegoose sitting within the middle of the enclosure of the said court
of justice; who immediately upon the coming of Pantagruel,
accompanied with the senatorian members of that worshipful judicatory,
arose, went to the bar, had his indictment read, and for all his reasons,
defences, and excuses, answered nothing else but that he was become
old, and that his sight of late was very much failed, and become
dimmer than it was wont to be; instancing therewithal many miseries
and calamities which old age bringeth along with it, and are
concomitant to wrinkled elders; which not. per Archid. d. lxxxvi. c.
tanta. By reason of which infirmity he was not able so distinctly and
clearly to discern the points and blots of the dice as formerly he had
been accustomed to do; whence it might very well have happened, said
he, as old dim-sighted Isaac took Jacob for Esau, that I after the same
manner, at the decision of causes and controversies in law, should have
been mistaken in taking a quatre for a cinque, or a trey for a deuce. This
I beseech your worships, quoth he, to take into your serious
consideration, and to have the more favourable opinion of my
uprightness, notwithstanding the prevarication whereof I am accused in
the matter of Toucheronde's sentence, that at the time of that decree's
pronouncing I only had made use of my small dice; and your worships,
said he, know very well how by the most authentic rules of the law it is
provided that the imperfections of nature should never be imputed unto
any for crimes and transgressions; as appeareth, ff. de re milit. l. qui
cum uno. ff. de reg. Jur. l. fere. ff. de aedil. edict. per totum. ff. de term.
mod. l. Divus Adrianus, resolved by Lud. Rom. in l. si vero. ff. Sol.
Matr. And who would offer to do otherwise, should not thereby accuse
the man, but nature, and the all-seeing providence of God, as is evident
in l. Maximum Vitium, c. de lib. praeter.
What kind of dice, quoth Trinquamelle, grand-president of the said
court, do you mean, my friend Bridlegoose? The dice, quoth
Bridlegoose, of sentences at law, decrees, and peremptory judgments,
Alea Judiciorum, whereof is written, Per Doct. 26. qu. 2. cap. sort. l.
nec emptio ff. de contrahend. empt. l. quod debetur. ff. de pecul. et ibi
Bartol., and which your worships do, as well as I, use, in this glorious
sovereign court of yours. So do all other righteous judges in their
decision of processes and final determination of legal differences,
observing that which hath been said thereof by D. Henri. Ferrandat, et
not. gl. in c. fin. de sortil. et l. sed cum ambo. ff. de jud. Ubi Docto.
Mark, that chance and fortune are good, honest, profitable, and
necessary for ending of and putting a final closure to dissensions and
debates in suits at law. The same hath more clearly been declared by
Bald. Bartol. et Alex. c. communia de leg. l. Si duo. But how is it that
you do these things? asked Trinquamelle. I very briefly, quoth
Bridlegoose, shall answer you, according to the doctrine and
instructions of Leg. ampliorem para. in refutatoriis. c. de appel.; which
is conform to what is said in Gloss l. 1. ff. quod met. causa. Gaudent
brevitate moderni. My practice is therein the same with that of your
other worships, and as the custom of the judicatory requires, unto
which our law commandeth us to have regard, and by the rule thereof
still to direct and regulate our actions and procedures; ut not. extra. de
consuet. in c. ex literis et ibi innoc. For having well and exactly seen,
surveyed, overlooked, reviewed, recognized, read, and read over again,
turned and tossed over, seriously perused and examined the bills of
complaint, accusations, impeachments, indictments, warnings, citations,
summonings, comparitions, appearances, mandates, commissions,
delegations, instructions, informations, inquests, preparatories,
productions, evidences, proofs, allegations, depositions, cross speeches,
contradictions, supplications, requests, petitions, inquiries, instruments
of the deposition of witnesses, rejoinders, replies, confirmations of
former assertions, duplies, triplies, answers to rejoinders, writings,
deeds, reproaches, disabling of exceptions taken, grievances, salvation
bills, re-examination of witnesses, confronting of them together,
declarations, denunciations, libels, certificates, royal missives, letters of
appeal, letters of attorney, instruments of compulsion, delineatories,
anticipatories, evocations, messages, dimissions, issues, exceptions,
dilatory pleas, demurs, compositions, injunctions, reliefs, reports,
returns, confessions, acknowledgments, exploits, executions, and other
such-like confects and spiceries, both at the one and the other side, as a
good judge ought to do, conform to what hath been noted thereupon.
Spec. de ordination. Paragr. 3. et Tit. de Offi. omn. jud. paragr. fin. et
de rescriptis praesentat. parag. 1.--I posit on the end of a table in my
closet all the pokes and bags of the defendant, and then allow unto him
the first hazard of the dice, according to the usual manner of your other
worships. And it is mentioned, l. favorabiliores. ff. de reg. jur. et in cap.
cum sunt eod. tit. lib. 6, which saith, Quum sunt partium jura obscura,
reo potius favendum est quam actori. That being done, I thereafter lay
down upon the other end of the same table the bags and satchels of the
plaintiff, as your other worships are accustomed to do, visum visu, just
over against one another; for Opposita juxta se posita clarius elucescunt:
ut not. in lib. 1. parag. Videamus. ff. de his qui sunt sui vel alieni juris,
et in l. munerum. para. mixta ff. de mun. et hon. Then do I likewise and
semblably throw the dice for him, and forthwith livre him his chance.
But, quoth Trinquamelle, my friend, how come you to know,
understand, and resolve the obscurity of these various and seeming
contrary passages in law, which are laid claim to by the suitors and
pleading parties? Even just, quoth Bridlegoose, after the fashion of
your other worships; to wit, when there are many bags on the one side
and on the other, I then use my little small dice, after the customary
manner of your other worships, in obedience to the law, Semper in
stipulationibus ff. de reg. jur. And the law ver(s)ified versifieth that,
Eod. tit. Semper in obscuris quod minimum est sequimur; canonized in
c. in obscuris. eod. tit. lib. 6. I have other large great dice, fair and
goodly ones, which I employ in the fashion that your other worships
use to do, when the matter is more plain, clear, and liquid, that is to say,
when there are fewer bags. But when you have done all these fine
things, quoth Trinquamelle, how do you, my friend, award your decrees,
and pronounce judgment? Even as your other worships, answered
Bridlegoose; for I give out sentence in his favour unto whom hath
befallen the best chance by dice, judiciary, tribunian, pretorial, what
comes first. So our laws command, ff. qui pot. in pign. l. creditor, c. de
consul. 1. Et de regul. jur. in 6. Qui prior est tempore potior est jure.
Chapter 3.
XL.
How Bridlegoose giveth reasons why he looked upon those law-actions
which he decided by the chance of the dice.
Yea but, quoth Trinquamelle, my friend, seeing it is by the lot, chance,
and throw of the dice that you award your judgments and sentences,
why do not you livre up these fair throws and chances the very same
day and hour, without any further procrastination or delay, that the
controverting party- pleaders appear before you? To what use can those
writings serve you, those papers and other procedures contained in the
bags and pokes of the law-suitors? To the very same use, quoth
Bridlegoose, that they serve your other worships. They are behooveful
unto me, and serve my turn in three things very exquisite, requisite, and
authentical. First, for formality sake, the omission whereof, that it
maketh all, whatever is done, to be of no force nor value, is excellently
well proved, by Spec. 1. tit. de instr. edit. et tit. de rescript. praesent.
Besides that, it is not unknown to you, who have had many more
experiments thereof than I, how oftentimes, in judicial proceedings, the
formalities utterly destroy the materialities and substances of the causes
and matters agitated; for Forma mutata, mutatur substantia. ff. ad exhib.
l. Julianus. ff. ad leg. Fal. l. si is qui quadraginta. Et extra de decim. c.
ad audientiam, et de celebrat. miss. c. in quadam.
Secondly, they are useful and steadable to me, even as unto your other
worships, in lieu of some other honest and healthful exercise. The late
Master Othoman Vadet (Vadere), a prime physician, as you would say,
Cod. de Comit. et Archi. lib. 12, hath frequently told me that the lack
and default of bodily exercise is the chief, if not the sole and only cause
of the little health and short lives of all officers of justice, such as your
worships and I am. Which observation was singularly well before him
noted and remarked by Bartholus in lib. 1. c. de sent. quae pro eo quod.
Therefore it is that the practice of such-like exercitations is appointed to
be laid hold on by your other worships, and consequently not to be
denied unto me, who am of the same profession; Quia accessorium
naturam sequitur principalis. de reg. jur. l. 6. et l. cum principalis. et l.
nihil dolo. ff. eod. tit. ff. de fide-juss. l. fide-juss. et extra de officio
deleg. cap. 1. Let certain honest and recreative sports and plays of
corporeal exercises be allowed and approved of; and so far, (ff. de allus.
et aleat. l. solent. et authent.) ut omnes obed. in princ. coll. 7. et ff. de
praescript. verb. l. si gratuitam et l. 1. cod. de spect. l. 11. Such also is
the opinion of D. Thom, in secunda, secundae Q. I. 168. Quoted in very
good purpose by D. Albert de Rosa, who fuit magnus practicus, and a
solemn doctor, as Barbatias attesteth in principiis consil. Wherefore the
reason is evidently and clearly deduced and set down before us in gloss.
in prooemio. ff. par. ne autem tertii.
Interpone tuis interdum gaudia curis.
In very deed, once, in the year a thousand four hundred fourscore and
ninth, having a business concerning the portion and inheritance of a
younger brother depending in the court and chamber of the four high
treasurers of France, whereinto as soon as ever I got leave to enter by a
pecuniary permission of the usher thereof,--as your other worships
know very well, that Pecuniae obediunt omnia, and there says Baldus,
in l. singularia. ff. si cert. pet. et Salic. in l. receptitia. Cod. de constit.
pecuni. et Card. in Clem. 1. de baptism.--I found them all recreating
and diverting themselves at the play called muss, either before or after
dinner; to me, truly, it is a thing altogether indifferent whether of the
two it was, provided that hic not., that the game of the muss is honest,
healthful, ancient, and lawful, a Muscho inventore, de quo cod. de petit.
haered. l. si post mortem. et Muscarii. Such as play and sport it at the
muss are excusable in and by law, lib. 1. c. de excus. artific. lib. 10.
And at the very same time was Master Tielman Picquet one of the
players of that game of muss. There is nothing that I do better
remember, for he laughed heartily when his fellow-members of the
aforesaid judicial chamber spoiled their caps in swingeing of his
shoulders. He, nevertheless, did even then say unto them, that the
banging and flapping of him, to the waste and havoc of their caps,
should not, at their return from the palace to their own houses, excuse
them from their wives, Per. c. extra. de praesumpt. et ibi gloss. Now,
resolutorie loquendo, I should say, according to the style and phrase of
your other worships, that there is no exercise, sport, game, play, nor
recreation in all this palatine, palatial, or parliamentary world, more
aromatizing and fragrant than to empty and void bags and purses, turn
over papers and writings, quote margins and backs of scrolls and rolls,
fill panniers, and take inspection of causes, Ex. Bart. et Joan. de Pra. in
l. falsa. de condit. et demonst. ff.
Thirdly, I consider, as your own worships use to do, that time ripeneth
and bringeth all things to maturity, that by time everything cometh to
be made manifest and patent, and that time is the father of truth and
virtue. Gloss. in l. 1. cod. de servit. authent. de restit. et ea quae pa. et
spec. tit. de requisit. cons. Therefore is it that, after the manner and
fashion of your other worships, I defer, protract, delay, prolong,
intermit, surcease, pause, linger, suspend, prorogate, drive out,
wire-draw, and shift off the time of giving a definitive sentence, to the
end that the suit or process, being well fanned and winnowed, tossed
and canvassed to and fro, narrowly, precisely, and nearly garbled, sifted,
searched, and examined, and on all hands exactly argued, disputed, and
debated, may, by succession of time, come at last to its full ripeness
and maturity. By means whereof, when the fatal hazard of the dice
ensueth thereupon, the parties cast or condemned by the said aleatory
chance will with much greater patience, and more mildly and gently,
endure and bear up the disastrous load of their misfortune, than if they
had been sentenced at their first arrival unto the court, as not. gl. ff. de
excus. tut. l. tria. onera.
Portatur leviter quod portat quisque libenter.
On the other part, to pass a decree or sentence when the action is raw,
crude, green, unripe, unprepared, as at the beginning, a danger would
ensue of a no less inconveniency than that which the physicians have
been wont to say befalleth to him in whom an imposthume is pierced
before it be ripe, or unto any other whose body is purged of a strong
predominating humour before its digestion. For as it is written, in
authent. haec constit. in Innoc. de constit. princip., so is the same
repeated in gloss. in c. caeterum. extra. de juram. calumn. Quod
medicamenta morbis exhibent, hoc jura negotiis. Nature furthermore
admonisheth and teacheth us to gather and reap, eat and feed on fruits
when they are ripe, and not before. Instit. de rer. div. paragr. is ad quem
et ff. de action. empt. l. Julianus. To marry likewise our daughters
when they are ripe, and no sooner, ff. de donation. inter vir. et uxor. l.
cum hic status. paragr. si quis sponsam. et 27 qu. 1. c. sicut dicit. gl.
Jam matura thoro plenis adoleverat annis Virginitas.
And, in a word, she instructeth us to do nothing of any considerable
importance, but in a full maturity and ripeness, 23. q. para ult. et 23. de
c. ultimo.
Chapter 3.
XLI.
How Bridlegoose relateth the history of the reconcilers of parties at
variance in matters of law.
I remember to the same purpose, quoth Bridlegoose, in continuing his
discourse, that in the time when at Poictiers I was a student of law
under Brocadium Juris, there was at Semerve one Peter Dandin, a very
honest man, careful labourer of the ground, fine singer in a church-desk,
of good repute and credit, and older than the most aged of all your
worships; who was wont to say that he had seen the great and goodly
good man, the Council of Lateran, with his wide and broad-brimmed
red hat. As also, that he had beheld and looked upon the fair and
beautiful Pragmatical Sanction his wife, with her huge rosary or
patenotrian chaplet of jet-beads hanging at a large sky-coloured ribbon.
This honest man compounded, atoned, and agreed more differences,
controversies, and variances at law than had been determined, voided,
and finished during his time in the whole palace of Poictiers, in the
auditory of Montmorillon, and in the town-house of the old Partenay.
This amicable disposition of his rendered him venerable and of great
estimation, sway, power, and authority throughout all the neighbouring
places of Chauvigny, Nouaille, Leguge, Vivonne, Mezeaux, Estables,
and other bordering and circumjacent towns, villages, and hamlets. All
their debates were pacified by him; he put an end to their brabbling
suits at law and wrangling differences. By his advice and counsels were
accords and reconcilements no less firmly made than if the verdict of a
sovereign judge had been interposed therein, although, in very deed, he
was no judge at all, but a right honest man, as you may well
conceive,--arg. in l. sed si unius. ff. de jure-jur. et de verbis obligatoriis
l.continuus. There was not a hog killed within three parishes of him
whereof he had not some part of the haslet and puddings. He was
almost every day invited either to a marriage banquet, christening feast,
an uprising or women-churching treatment, a birthday's anniversary
solemnity, a merry frolic gossiping, or otherwise to some delicious
entertainment in a tavern, to make some accord and agreement between
persons at odds and in debate with one another. Remark what I say; for
he never yet settled and compounded a difference betwixt any two at
variance, but he straight made the parties agreed and pacified to drink
together as a sure and infallible token and symbol of a perfect and
completely well- cemented reconciliation, sign of a sound and sincere
amity and proper mark of a new joy and gladness to follow
thereupon,--Ut not. per (Doct.) ff. de peric. et com. rei vend. l. 1. He
had a son, whose name was Tenot Dandin, a lusty, young, sturdy,
frisking roister, so help me God! who likewise, in imitation of his
peace-making father, would have undertaken and meddled with the
making up of variances and deciding of controversies betwixt
disagreeing and contentious party-pleaders; as you know,
Saepe solet similis esse patri. Et sequitur leviter filia matris iter.
Ut ait gloss. 6, quaest. 1. c. Si quis. gloss. de cons. dist. 5. c. 2. fin. et
est. not. per Doct. cod. de impub. et aliis substit. l. ult. et l. legitime. ff.
de stat. hom. gloss. in l. quod si nolit. ff. de aedil. edict. l. quisquis c. ad
leg. Jul. Majest. Excipio filios a Moniali susceptos ex Monacho. per
glos. in c. impudicas. 27. quaestione. 1. And such was his confidence to
have no worse success than his father, he assumed unto himself the title
of Law-strife-settler. He was likewise in these pacificatory negotiations
so active and vigilant--for, Vigilantibus jura subveniunt. ex l. pupillus.
ff. quae in fraud. cred. et ibid. l. non enim. et instit. in prooem.--that
when he had smelt, heard, and fully understood--ut ff.si quando paup.
fec. l. Agaso. gloss. in verb. olfecit, id est, nasum ad culum posuit--and
found that there was anywhere in the country a debatable matter at law,
he would incontinently thrust in his advice, and so forwardly intrude
his opinion in the business, that he made no bones of making offer, and
taking upon him to decide it, how difficult soever it might happen to be,
to the full contentment and satisfaction of both parties. It is written, Qui
non laborat non manducat; and the said gl. ff. de damn. infect. l.
quamvis, and Currere plus que le pas vetulam compellit egestas. gloss.
ff. de lib. agnosc. l. si quis. pro qua facit. l. si plures. c. de cond. incert.
But so hugely great was his misfortune in this his undertaking, that he
never composed any difference, how little soever you may imagine it
might have been, but that, instead of reconciling the parties at odds, he
did incense, irritate, and exasperate them to a higher point of dissension
and enmity than ever they were at before. Your worships know, I doubt
not, that,
Sermo datur cunctis, animi sapientia paucis.
Gl. ff. de alien. jud. mut. caus. fa. lib.2. This administered unto the
tavern-keepers, wine-drawers, and vintners of Semerve an occasion to
say, that under him they had not in the space of a whole year so much
reconciliation-wine, for so were they pleased to call the good wine of
Leguge, as under his father they had done in one half-hour's time. It
happened a little while thereafter that he made a most heavy regret
thereof to his father, attributing the causes of his bad success in
pacificatory enterprises to the perversity, stubbornness, froward, cross,
and backward inclinations of the people of his time; roundly, boldly,
and irreverently upbraiding, that if but a score of years before the world
had been so wayward, obstinate, pervicacious, implacable, and out of
all square, frame, and order as it was then, his father had never attained
to and acquired the honour and title of Strife-appeaser so irrefragably,
inviolably, and irrevocably as he had done. In doing whereof Tenot did
heinously transgress against the law which prohibiteth children to
reproach the actions of their parents; per gl. et Bart. l. 3. paragr. si quis.
ff. de cond. ob caus. et authent. de nupt. par. sed quod sancitum. col. 4.
To this the honest old father answered thus: My son Dandin, when Don
Oportet taketh place, this is the course which we must trace, gl. c. de
appell. l. eos etiam. For the road that you went upon was not the way to
the fuller's mill, nor in any part thereof was the form to be found
wherein the hare did sit. Thou hast not the skill and dexterity of settling
and composing differences. Why? Because thou takest them at the
beginning, in the very infancy and bud as it were, when they are green,
raw, and indigestible. Yet I know handsomely and featly how to
compose and settle them all. Why? Because I take them at their
decadence, in their weaning, and when they are pretty well digested. So
saith Gloss:
Dulcior est fructus post multa pericula ductus.
L. non moriturus. c. de contrahend. et committ. stip. Didst thou ever
hear the vulgar proverb, Happy is the physician whose coming is
desired at the declension of a disease? For the sickness being come to a
crisis is then upon the decreasing hand, and drawing towards an end,
although the physician should not repair thither for the cure thereof;
whereby, though nature wholly do the work, he bears away the palm
and praise thereof. My pleaders, after the same manner, before I did
interpose my judgment in the reconciling of them, were waxing faint in
their contestations. Their altercation heat was much abated, and, in
declining from their former strife, they of themselves inclined to a firm
accommodation of their differences; because there wanted fuel to that
fire of burning rancour and despiteful wrangling whereof the lower sort
of lawyers were the kindlers. That is to say, their purses were emptied
of coin, they had not a win in their fob, nor penny in their bag,
wherewith to solicit and present their actions.
Deficiente pecu, deficit omne, nia.
There wanted then nothing but some brother to supply the place of a
paranymph, brawl-broker, proxenete, or mediator, who, acting his part
dexterously, should be the first broacher of the motion of an agreement,
for saving both the one and the other party from that hurtful and
pernicious shame whereof he could not have avoided the imputation
when it should have been said that he was the first who yielded and
spoke of a reconcilement, and that therefore, his cause not being good,
and being sensible where his shoe did pinch him, he was willing to
break the ice, and make the greater haste to prepare the way for a
condescendment to an amicable and friendly treaty. Then was it that I
came in pudding time, Dandin, my son, nor is the fat of bacon more
relishing to boiled peas than was my verdict then agreeable to them.
This was my luck, my profit, and good fortune. I tell thee, my jolly son
Dandin, that by this rule and method I could settle a firm peace, or at
least clap up a cessation of arms and truce for many years to come,
betwixt the Great King and the Venetian State, the Emperor and the
Cantons of Switzerland, the English and the Scots, and betwixt the
Pope and the Ferrarians. Shall I go yet further? Yea, as I would have
God to help me, betwixt the Turk and the Sophy, the Tartars and the
Muscoviters. Remark well what I am to say unto thee. I would take
them at that very instant nick of time when both those of the one and
the other side should be weary and tired of making war, when they had
voided and emptied their own cashes and coffers of all treasure and
coin, drained and exhausted the purses and bags of their subjects, sold
and mortgaged their domains and proper inheritances, and totally
wasted, spent, and consumed the munition, furniture, provision, and
victuals that were necessary for the continuance of a military
expedition. There I am sure, by God, or by his Mother, that, would they,
would they not, in spite of all their teeths, they should be forced to have
a little respite and breathing time to moderate the fury and cruel rage of
their ambitious aims. This is the doctrine in Gl. 37. d. c. si quando.
Odero, si potero; si non, invitus amabo.
Chapter 3.
XLII.
How suits at law are bred at first, and how they come afterwards to
their perfect growth.
For this cause, quoth Bridlegoose, going on in his discourse, I
temporize and apply myself to the times, as your other worships use to
do, waiting patiently for the maturity of the process, full growth and
perfection thereof in all its members, to wit, the writings and the bags.
Arg. in l. si major. c. commun. divid. et de cons. di. 1. c. solemnitates,
et ibi gl. A suit in law at its production, birth, and first beginning,
seemeth to me, as unto your other worships, shapeless, without form or
fashion, incomplete, ugly and imperfect, even as a bear at his first
coming into the world hath neither hands, skin, hair, nor head, but is
merely an inform, rude, and ill-favoured piece and lump of flesh, and
would remain still so, if his dam, out of the abundance of her affection
to her hopeful cub, did not with much licking put his members into that
figure and shape which nature had provided for those of an arctic and
ursinal kind; ut not. Doct. ff. ad l. Aquil. l. 3. in fin. Just so do I see, as
your other worships do, processes and suits in law, at their first
bringing forth, to be numberless, without shape, deformed, and
disfigured, for that then they consist only of one or two writings, or
copies of instruments, through which defect they appear unto me, as to
your other worships, foul, loathsome, filthy, and misshapen beasts. But
when there are heaps of these legiformal papers packed, piled, laid up
together, impoked, insatchelled, and put up in bags, then is it that with
a good reason we may term that suit, to which, as pieces, parcels, parts,
portions, and members thereof, they do pertain and belong,
well-formed and fashioned, big-limbed, strong- set, and in all and each
of its dimensions most completely membered. Because forma dat esse.
rei. l. si is qui. ff. ad leg. Falcid. in c. cum dilecta. de rescript. Barbat.
consil. 12. lib. 2, and before him, Baldus, in c. ult. extra. de consuet. et
l. Julianus ad exhib. ff. et l. quaesitum. ff. de leg. 3. The manner is such
as is set down in gl. p. quaest. 1. c. Paulus.
Debile principium melior fortuna sequetur.
Like your other worships, also the sergeants, catchpoles, pursuivants,
messengers, summoners, apparitors, ushers, door-keepers, pettifoggers,
attorneys, proctors, commissioners, justices of the peace, judge
delegates, arbitrators, overseers, sequestrators, advocates, inquisitors,
jurors, searchers, examiners, notaries, tabellions, scribes, scriveners,
clerks, pregnotaries, secondaries, and expedanean judges, de quibus tit.
est. l. 3. c., by sucking very much, and that exceeding forcibly, and
licking at the purses of the pleading parties, they, to the suits already
begot and engendered, form, fashion, and frame head, feet, claws,
talons, beaks, bills, teeth, hands, veins, sinews, arteries, muscles,
humours, and so forth, through all the similary and dissimilary parts of
the whole; which parts, particles, pendicles, and appurtenances are the
law pokes and bags, gl. de cons. d. 4. c. accepisti. Qualis vestis erit,
talia corda gerit. Hic notandum est, that in this respect the pleaders,
litigants, and law- suitors are happier than the officers, ministers, and
administrators of justice. For beatius est dare quam accipere. ff.
commun. l. 3. extra. de celebr. Miss. c. cum Marthae. et 24. quaest. 1.
cap. Od. gl.
Affectum dantis pensat censura tonantis.
Thus becometh the action or process by their care and industry to be of
a complete and goodly bulk, well shaped, framed, formed, and
fashioned according to the canonical gloss.
Accipe, sume, cape, sunt verba placentia Papae.
Which speech hath been more clearly explained by Albert de Ros, in
verbo Roma.
Roma manus rodit, quas rodere non valet, odit. Dantes custodit, non
dantes spernit, et odit.
The reason whereof is thought to be this:
Ad praesens ova cras pullis sunt meliora.
ut est gl. in l. quum hi. ff. de transact. Nor is this all; for the
inconvenience of the contrary is set down in gloss. c. de allu. l. fin.
Quum labor in damno est, crescit mortalis egestas.
In confirmation whereof we find that the true etymology and exposition
of the word process is purchase, viz. of good store of money to the
lawyers, and of many pokes--id est, prou-sacks--to the pleaders, upon
which subject we have most celestial quips, gibes, and girds.
Ligitando jura crescunt; litigando jus acquiritur.
Item gl. in cap. illud extrem. de praesumpt. et c. de prob. l. instrum. l.
non epistolis. l. non nudis.
Et si non prosunt singula, multa juvant.
Yea but, asked Trinquamelle, how do you proceed, my friend, in
criminal causes, the culpable and guilty party being taken and seized
upon flagrante crimine? Even as your other worships use to do,
answered Bridlegoose. First, I permit the plaintiff to depart from the
court, enjoining him not to presume to return thither till he preallably
should have taken a good sound and profound sleep, which is to serve
for the prime entry and introduction to the legal carrying on of the
business. In the next place, a formal report is to be made to me of his
having slept. Thirdly, I issue forth a warrant to convene him before me.
Fourthly, he is to produce a sufficient and authentic attestation of his
having thoroughly and entirely slept, conform to the Gloss. 37. Quest. 7.
c. Si quis cum.
Quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus.
Being thus far advanced in the formality of the process, I find that this
consopiating act engendereth another act, whence ariseth the
articulating of a member. That again produceth a third act, fashionative
of another member; which third bringing forth a fourth, procreative of
another act. New members in a no fewer number are shapen and framed,
one still breeding and begetting another--as, link after link, the coat of
mail at length is made--till thus, piece after piece, by little and little, by
information upon information, the process be completely well formed
and perfect in all his members. Finally, having proceeded this length, I
have recourse to my dice, nor is it to be thought that this interruption,
respite, or interpellation is by me occasioned without very good reason
inducing me thereunto, and a notable experience of a most convincing
and irrefragable force.
I remember, on a time, that in the camp at Stockholm there was a
certain Gascon named Gratianauld, native of the town of Saint Sever,
who having lost all his money at play, and consecutively being very
angry thereat--as you know, Pecunia est alter sanguis, ut ait Anto. de
Burtio, in c. accedens. 2. extra ut lit. non contest. et Bald. in l. si tuis. c.
de opt. leg. per tot.in l. advocati. c. de advoc. div. jud. Pecunia est vita
hominis et optimus fide-jussor in necessitatibus--did, at his coming
forth of the gaming-house, in the presence of the whole company that
was there, with a very loud voice speak in his own language these
following words: Pao cap de bious hillots, que maux de pipes bous
tresbire: ares que de pergudes sont les mires bingt, et quouatre
bagnelles, ta pla donnerien pics, trucs, et patacts, Sey degun de bous
aulx, qui boille truquar ambe iou a bels embis. Finding that none would
make him any answer, he passed from thence to that part of the leaguer
where the huff-snuff, honder sponder, swashbuckling High Germans
were, to whom he renewed these very terms, provoking them to fight
with him; but all the return he had from them to his stout challenge was
only, Der Gasconner thut sich ausz mit ein iedem zu schlagen, aber er
ist geneigter zu stehlen, darum, liebe frawen, habt sorg zu euerm
hauszrath. Finding also that none of that band of Teutonic soldiers
offered himself to the combat, he passed to that quarter of the leaguer
where the French freebooting adventurers were encamped, and
reiterating unto them what he had before repeated to the Dutch warriors,
challenged them likewise to fight with him, and therewithal made some
pretty little Gasconado frisking gambols to oblige them the more
cheerfully and gallantly to cope with him in the lists of a duellizing
engagement; but no answer at all was made unto him. Whereupon the
Gascon, despairing of meeting with any antagonists, departed from
thence, and laying himself down not far from the pavilions of the grand
Christian cavalier Crissie, fell fast asleep. When he had thoroughly
slept an hour or two, another adventurous and all-hazarding blade of
the forlorn hope of the lavishingly wasting gamesters, having also lost
all his moneys, sallied forth with sword in his hand, of a firm resolution
to fight with the aforesaid Gascon, seeing he had lost as well as he.
Ploratur lachrymis amissa pecunia veris,
saith the Gl. de poenitent. distinct. 3. c. sunt plures. To this effect
having made inquiry and search for him throughout the whole camp,
and in sequel thereof found him asleep, he said unto him, Up, ho, good
fellow, in the name of all the devils of hell, rise up, rise up, get up! I
have lost my money as well as thou hast done; let us therefore go fight
lustily together, grapple and scuffle it to some purpose. Thou mayest
look and see that my tuck is no longer than thy rapier. The Gascon,
altogether astonished at his unexpected provocation, without altering
his former dialect spoke thus: Cap de Saint Arnault, quau seys to you,
qui me rebeillez? Que mau de taberne te gire. Ho Saint Siobe, cap de
Gascoigne, ta pla dormy jou, quand aquoest taquain me bingut estee.
The venturous roister inviteth him again to the duel, but the Gascon,
without condescending to his desire, said only this: He paovret jou
tesquinerie ares, que son pla reposat. Vayne un pauque te pausar com
jou, peusse truqueren. Thus, in forgetting his loss, he forgot the
eagerness which he had to fight. In conclusion, after that the other had
likewise slept a little, they, instead of fighting, and possibly killing one
another, went jointly to a sutler's tent, where they drank together very
amicably, each upon the pawn of his sword. Thus by a little sleep was
pacified the ardent fury of two warlike champions. There, gossip,
comes the golden word of John Andr. in cap. ult. de sent. et re. judic. l.
sexto.
Sedendo, et dormiendo fit anima prudens.
Chapter 3.
XLIII.
How Pantagruel excuseth Bridlegoose in the matter of sentencing
actions at law by the chance of the dice.
With this Bridlegoose held his peace. Whereupon Trinquamelle bid
him withdraw from the court--which accordingly was done--and then
directed his discourse to Pantagruel after this manner: It is fitting, most
illustrious prince, not only by reason of the deep obligations wherein
this present parliament, together with the whole marquisate of
Mirelingues, stand bound to your royal highness for the innumerable
benefits which, as effects of mere grace, they have received from your
incomparable bounty, but for that excellent wit also, prime judgment,
and admirable learning wherewith Almighty God, the giver of all good
things, hath most richly qualified and endowed you, we tender and
present unto you the decision of this new, strange, and paradoxical case
of Bridlegoose; who, in your presence, to your both hearing and seeing,
hath plainly confessed his final judging and determinating of suits of
law by the mere chance and fortune of the dice. Therefore do we
beseech you that you may be pleased to give sentence therein as unto
you shall seem most just and equitable. To this Pantagruel answered:
Gentlemen, it is not unknown to you how my condition is somewhat
remote from the profession of deciding law controversies; yet, seeing
you are pleased to do me the honour to put that task upon me, instead
of undergoing the office of a judge I will become your humble
supplicant. I observe, gentlemen, in this Bridlegoose several things
which induce me to represent before you that it is my opinion he should
be pardoned. In the first place, his old age; secondly, his simplicity; to
both which qualities our statute and common laws, civil and municipal
together, allow many excuses for any slips or escapes which, through
the invincible imperfection of either, have been inconsiderately
stumbled upon by a person so qualified. Thirdly, gentlemen, I must
needs display before you another case, which in equity and justice
maketh much for the advantage of Bridlegoose, to wit, that this one,
sole, and single fault of his ought to be quite forgotten, abolished, and
swallowed up by that immense and vast ocean of just dooms and
sentences which heretofore he hath given and pronounced; his
demeanours, for these forty years and upwards that he hath been a
judge, having been so evenly balanced in the scales of uprightness, that
envy itself till now could not have been so impudent as to accuse and
twit him with any act worthy of a check or reprehension; as, if a drop of
the sea were thrown into the Loire, none could perceive or say that by
this single drop the whole river should be salt and brackish.
Truly, it seemeth unto me, that in the whole series of Bridlegoose's
juridical decrees there hath been I know not what of extraordinary
savouring of the unspeakable benignity of God, that all those his
preceding sentences, awards, and judgments, have been confirmed and
approved of by yourselves in this your own venerable and sovereign
court. For it is usual, as you know well, with him whose ways are
inscrutable, to manifest his own ineffable glory in blunting the
perspicacy of the eyes of the wise, in weakening the strength of potent
oppressors, in depressing the pride of rich extortioners, and in erecting,
comforting, protecting, supporting, upholding, and shoring up the poor,
feeble, humble, silly, and foolish ones of the earth. But, waiving all
these matters, I shall only beseech you, not by the obligations which
you pretend to owe to my family, for which I thank you, but for that
constant and unfeigned love and affection which you have always
found in me, both on this and on the other side of Loire, for the
maintenance and establishment of your places, offices, and dignities,
that for this one time you would pardon and forgive him upon these
two conditions. First, that he satisfy, or put a sufficient surety for the
satisfaction of the party wronged by the injustice of the sentence in
question. For the fulfilment of this article I will provide sufficiently.
And, secondly, that for his subsidiary aid in the weighty charge of
administrating justice you would be pleased to appoint and assign unto
him some pretty little virtuous counsellor, younger, learneder, and
wiser than he, by the square and rule of whose advice he may regulate,
guide, temper, and moderate in times coming all his judiciary
procedures; or otherwise, if you intend totally to depose him from his
office, and to deprive him altogether of the state and dignity of a judge,
I shall cordially entreat you to make a present and free gift of him to me,
who shall find in my kingdoms charges and employments enough
wherewith to embusy him, for the bettering of his own fortunes and
furtherance of my service. In the meantime, I implore the Creator,
Saviour, and Sanctifier of all good things, in his grace, mercy, and
kindness, to preserve you all now and evermore, world without end.
These words thus spoken, Pantagruel, vailing his cap and making a leg
with such a majestic garb as became a person of his paramount degree
and eminency, farewelled Trinquamelle, the president and
master-speaker of that Mirelinguesian parliament, took his leave of the
whole court, and went out of the chamber; at the door whereof finding
Panurge, Epistemon, Friar John, and others, he forthwith, attended by
them, walked to the outer gate, where all of them immediately took
horse to return towards Gargantua. Pantagruel by the way related to
them from point to point the manner of Bridlegoose's sententiating
differences at law. Friar John said that he had seen Peter Dandin, and
was acquainted with him at that time when he sojourned in the
monastery of Fontaine le Comte, under the noble Abbot Ardillon.
Gymnast likewise affirmed that he was in the tent of the grand
Christian cavalier De Crissie, when the Gascon, after his sleep, made
answer to the adventurer. Panurge was somewhat incredulous in the
matter of believing that it was morally possible Bridlegoose should
have been for such a long space of time so continually fortunate in that
aleatory way of deciding law debates. Epistemon said to Pantagruel,
Such another story, not much unlike to that in all the circumstances
thereof, is vulgarly reported of the provost of Montlehery. In good
sooth, such a perpetuity of good luck is to be wondered at. To have hit
right twice or thrice in a judgment so given by haphazard might have
fallen out well enough, especially in controversies that were ambiguous,
intricate, abstruse, perplexed, and obscure.
Chapter 3.
XLIV.
How Pantagruel relateth a strange history of the perplexity of human
judgment.
Seeing you talk, quoth Pantagruel, of dark, difficult, hard, and knotty
debates, I will tell you of one controverted before Cneius Dolabella,
proconsul in Asia. The case was this.
A wife in Smyrna had of her first husband a child named Abece. He
dying, she, after the expiring of a year and day, married again, and to
her second husband bore a boy called Effege. A pretty long time
thereafter it happened, as you know the affection of stepfathers and
stepdams is very rare towards the children of the first fathers and
mothers deceased, that this husband, with the help of his son Effege,
secretly, wittingly, willingly, and treacherously murdered Abece. The
woman came no sooner to get information of the fact, but, that it might
not go unpunished, she caused kill them both, to revenge the death of
her first son. She was apprehended and carried before Cneius Dolabella,
in whose presence she, without dissembling anything, confessed all that
was laid to her charge; yet alleged that she had both right and reason on
her side for the killing of them. Thus was the state of the question. He
found the business so dubious and intricate, that he knew not what to
determine therein, nor which of the parties to incline to. On the one
hand, it was an execrable crime to cut off at once both her second
husband and her son. On the other hand, the cause of the murder
seemed to be so natural, as to be grounded upon the law of nations and
the rational instinct of all the people of the world, seeing they two
together had feloniously and murderously destroyed her first son; not
that they had been in any manner of way wronged, outraged, or injured
by him, but out of an avaricious intent to possess his inheritance. In this
doubtful quandary and uncertainty what to pitch upon, he sent to the
Areopagites then sitting at Athens to learn and obtain their advice and
judgment. That judicious senate, very sagely perpending the reasons of
his perplexity, sent him word to summon her personally to compear
before him a precise hundred years thereafter, to answer to some
interrogatories touching certain points which were not contained in the
verbal defence. Which resolution of theirs did import that it was in their
opinion a so difficult and inextricable matter that they knew not what to
say or judge therein. Who had decided that plea by the chance and
fortune of the dice, could not have erred nor awarded amiss on which
side soever he had passed his casting and condemnatory sentence. If
against the woman, she deserved punishment for usurping sovereign
authority by taking that vengeance at her own hand, the inflicting
whereof was only competent to the supreme power to administer justice
in criminal cases. If for her, the just resentment of a so atrocious injury
done unto her, in murdering her innocent son, did fully excuse and
vindicate her of any trespass or offence about that particular committed
by her. But this continuation of Bridlegoose for so many years still
hitting the nail on the head, never missing the mark, and always
judging aright, by the mere throwing of the dice and chance thereof, is
that which most astonisheth and amazeth me.
To answer, quoth Pantagruel (Epistemon, says the English edition of
1694, following the reading of the modern French editions. Le Duchat
has pointed out the mistake.--M.), categorically to that which you
wonder at, I must ingeniously confess and avow that I cannot; yet,
conjecturally to guess at the reason of it, I would refer the cause of that
marvellously long- continued happy success in the judiciary results of
his definitive sentences to the favourable aspect of the heavens and
benignity of the intelligences; who, out of their love to goodness, after
having contemplated the pure simplicity and sincere unfeignedness of
Judge Bridlegoose in the acknowledgment of his inabilities, did
regulate that for him by chance which by the profoundest act of his
maturest deliberation he was not able to reach unto. That, likewise,
which possibly made him to diffide in his own skill and capacity,
notwithstanding his being an expert and understanding lawyer, for
anything that I know to the contrary, was the knowledge and
experience which he had of the antinomies, contrarieties, antilogies,
contradictions, traversings, and thwartings of laws, customs, edicts,
statutes, orders, and ordinances, in which dangerous opposition, equity
and justice being structured and founded on either of the opposite terms,
and a gap being thereby opened for the ushering in of injustice and
iniquity through the various interpretations of self-ended lawyers, being
assuredly persuaded that the infernal calumniator, who frequently
transformeth himself into the likeness of a messenger or angel of light,
maketh use of these cross glosses and expositions in the mouths and
pens of his ministers and servants, the perverse advocates, bribing
judges, law- monging attorneys, prevaricating counsellors, and other
such-like law- wresting members of a court of justice, to turn by those
means black to white, green to grey, and what is straight to a crooked
ply. For the more expedient doing whereof, these diabolical ministers
make both the pleading parties believe that their cause is just and
righteous; for it is well known that there is no cause, how bad soever,
which doth not find an advocate to patrocinate and defend it,--else
would there be no process in the world, no suits at law, nor pleadings at
the bar. He did in these extremities, as I conceive, most humbly
recommend the direction of his judicial proceedings to the upright
judge of judges, God Almighty; did submit himself to the conduct and
guideship of the blessed Spirit in the hazard and perplexity of the
definitive sentence, and, by this aleatory lot, did as it were implore and
explore the divine decree of his goodwill and pleasure, instead of that
which we call the final judgment of a court. To this effect, to the better
attaining to his purpose, which was to judge righteously, he did, in my
opinion, throw and turn the dice, to the end that by the providence
aforesaid the best chance might fall to him whose action was uprightest,
and backed with greatest reason. In doing whereof he did not stray from
the sense of Talmudists, who say that there is so little harm in that
manner of searching the truth, that in the anxiety and perplexedness of
human wits God oftentimes manifesteth the secret pleasure of his
divine will.
Furthermore, I will neither think nor say, nor can I believe, that the
unstraightness is so irregular, or the corruption so evident, of those of
the parliament of Mirelingois in Mirelingues, before whom Bridlegoose
was arraigned for prevarication, that they will maintain it to be a worse
practice to have the decision of a suit at law referred to the chance and
hazard of a throw of the dice, hab nab, or luck as it will, than to have it
remitted to and passed by the determination of those whose hands are
full of blood and hearts of wry affections. Besides that, their principal
direction in all law matters comes to their hands from one Tribonian, a
wicked, miscreant, barbarous, faithless and perfidious knave, so
pernicious, unjust, avaricious, and perverse in his ways, that it was his
ordinary custom to sell laws, edicts, declarations, constitutions, and
ordinances, as at an outroop or putsale, to him who offered most for
them. Thus did he shape measures for the pleaders, and cut their
morsels to them by and out of these little parcels, fragments, bits,
scantlings, and shreds of the law now in use, altogether concealing,
suppressing, disannulling, and abolishing the remainder, which did
make for the total law; fearing that, if the whole law were made
manifest and laid open to the knowledge of such as are interested in it,
and the learned books of the ancient doctors of the law upon the
exposition of the Twelve Tables and Praetorian Edicts, his villainous
pranks, naughtiness, and vile impiety should come to the public notice
of the world. Therefore were it better, in my conceit, that is to say, less
inconvenient, that parties at variance in any juridical case should in the
dark march upon caltrops than submit the determination of what is their
right to such unhallowed sentences and horrible decrees; as Cato in his
time wished and advised that every judiciary court should be paved
with caltrops.
Chapter 3.
XLV.
How Panurge taketh advice of Triboulet.
On the sixth day thereafter Pantagruel was returned home at the very
same hour that Triboulet was by water come from Blois. Panurge, at his
arrival, gave him a hog's bladder puffed up with wind, and resounding
because of the hard peas that were within it. Moreover he did present
him with a gilt wooden sword, a hollow budget made of a tortoise shell,
an osier-wattled wicker-bottle full of Breton wine, and five-and-twenty
apples of the orchard of Blandureau.
If he be such a fool, quoth Carpalin, as to be won with apples, there is
no more wit in his pate than in the head of an ordinary cabbage.
Triboulet girded the sword and scrip to his side, took the bladder in his
hand, ate some few of the apples, and drunk up all the wine. Panurge
very wistly and heedfully looking upon him said, I never yet saw a fool,
and I have seen ten thousand francs worth of that kind of cattle, who
did not love to drink heartily, and by good long draughts. When
Triboulet had done with his drinking, Panurge laid out before him and
exposed the sum of the business wherein he was to require his advice,
in eloquent and choicely-sorted terms, adorned with flourishes of
rhetoric. But, before he had altogether done, Triboulet with his fist gave
him a bouncing whirret between the shoulders, rendered back into his
hand again the empty bottle, fillipped and flirted him in the nose with
the hog's bladder, and lastly, for a final resolution, shaking and
wagging his head strongly and disorderly, he answered nothing else but
this, By God, God, mad fool, beware the monk, Buzansay hornpipe!
These words thus finished, he slipped himself out of the company, went
aside, and, rattling the bladder, took a huge delight in the melody of the
rickling crackling noise of the peas. After which time it lay not in the
power of them all to draw out of his chaps the articulate sound of one
syllable, insomuch that, when Panurge went about to interrogate him
further, Triboulet drew his wooden sword, and would have stuck him
therewith. I have fished fair now, quoth Panurge, and brought my pigs
to a fine market. Have I not got a brave determination of all my doubts,
and a response in all things agreeable to the oracle that gave it? He is a
great fool, that is not to be denied, yet is he a greater fool who brought
him hither to me,--That bolt, quoth Carpalin, levels point-blank at
me,--but of the three I am the greatest fool, who did impart the secret of
my thoughts to such an idiot ass and native ninny.
Without putting ourselves to any stir or trouble in the least, quoth
Pantagruel, let us maturely and seriously consider and perpend the
gestures and speech which he hath made and uttered. In them, veritably,
quoth he, have I remarked and observed some excellent and notable
mysteries; yea, of such important worth and weight, that I shall never
henceforth be astonished, nor think strange, why the Turks with a great
deal of worship and reverence honour and respect natural fools equally
with their primest doctors, muftis, divines, and prophets. Did not you
take heed, quoth he, a little before he opened his mouth to speak, what
a shogging, shaking, and wagging his head did keep? By the approved
doctrine of the ancient philosophers, the customary ceremonies of the
most expert magicians, and the received opinions of the learnedest
lawyers, such a brangling agitation and moving should by us all be
judged to proceed from, and be quickened and suscitated by the coming
and inspiration of the prophetizing and fatidical spirit, which, entering
briskly and on a sudden into a shallow receptacle of a debile substance
(for, as you know, and as the proverb shows it, a little head containeth
not much brains), was the cause of that commotion. This is conform to
what is avouched by the most skilful physicians, when they affirm that
shakings and tremblings fall upon the members of a human body, partly
because of the heaviness and violent impetuosity of the burden and
load that is carried, and, other part, by reason of the weakness and
imbecility that is in the virtue of the bearing organ. A manifest example
whereof appeareth in those who, fasting, are not able to carry to their
head a great goblet full of wine without a trembling and a shaking in
the hand that holds it. This of old was accounted a prefiguration and
mystical pointing out of the Pythian divineress, who used always,
before the uttering of a response from the oracle, to shake a branch of
her domestic laurel. Lampridius also testifieth that the Emperor
Heliogabalus, to acquire unto himself the reputation of a soothsayer,
did, on several holy days of prime solemnnity, in the presence of the
fanatic rabble, make the head of his idol by some slight within the body
thereof publicly to shake. Plautus, in his Asinaria, declareth likewise,
that Saurias, whithersoever he walked, like one quite distracted of his
wits kept such a furious lolling and mad-like shaking of his head, that
he commonly affrighted those who casually met with him in his way.
The said author in another place, showing a reason why Charmides
shook and brangled his head, assevered that he was transported and in
an ecstasy. Catullus after the same manner maketh mention, in his
Berecynthia and Atys, of the place wherein the Menades, Bacchical
women, she-priests of the Lyaean god, and demented prophetesses,
carrying ivy boughs in their hands, did shake their heads. As in the like
case, amongst the Galli, the gelded priests of Cybele were wont to do in
the celebrating of their festivals. Whence, too, according to the sense of
the ancient theologues, she herself has her denomination, for kubistan
signifieth to turn round, whirl about, shake the head, and play the part
of one that is wry-necked.
Semblably Titus Livius writeth that, in the solemnization time of the
Bacchanalian holidays at Rome, both men and women seemed to
prophetize and vaticinate, because of an affected kind of wagging of
the head, shrugging of the shoulders, and jectigation of the whole body,
which they used then most punctually. For the common voice of the
philosophers, together with the opinion of the people, asserteth for an
irrefragable truth that vaticination is seldom by the heavens bestowed
on any without the concomitancy of a little frenzy and a head-shaking,
not only when the said presaging virtue is infused, but when the person
also therewith inspired declareth and manifesteth it unto others. The
learned lawyer Julian, being asked on a time if that slave might be truly
esteemed to be healthful and in a good plight who had not only
conversed with some furious, maniac, and enraged people, but in their
company had also prophesied, yet without a noddle-shaking concussion,
answered that, seeing there was no head-wagging at the time of his
predictions, he might be held for sound and compotent enough. Is it not
daily seen how schoolmasters, teachers, tutors, and instructors of
children shake the heads of their disciples, as one would do a pot in
holding it by the lugs, that by this erection, vellication, stretching, and
pulling their ears, which, according to the doctrine of the sage
Egyptians, is a member consecrated to the memory, they may stir them
up to recollect their scattered thoughts, bring home those fancies of
theirs which perhaps have been extravagantly roaming abroad upon
strange and uncouth objects, and totally range their judgments, which
possibly by disordinate affections have been made wild, to the rule and
pattern of a wise, discreet, virtuous, and philosophical discipline. All
which Virgil acknowledgeth to be true, in the branglement of Apollo
Cynthius.
Chapter 3.
XLVI.
How Pantagruel and Panurge diversely interpret the words of Triboulet.
He says you are a fool. And what kind of fool? A mad fool, who in
your old age would enslave yourself to the bondage of matrimony, and
shut your pleasures up within a wedlock whose key some ruffian
carries in his codpiece. He says furthermore, Beware of the monk.
Upon mine honour, it gives me in my mind that you will be cuckolded
by a monk. Nay, I will engage mine honour, which is the most precious
pawn I could have in my possession although I were sole and peaceable
dominator over all Europe, Asia, and Africa, that, if you marry, you
will surely be one of the horned brotherhood of Vulcan. Hereby may
you perceive how much I do attribute to the wise foolery of our
morosoph Triboulet. The other oracles and responses did in the general
prognosticate you a cuckold, without descending so near to the point of
a particular determination as to pitch upon what vocation amongst the
several sorts of men he should profess who is to be the copesmate of
your wife and hornifier of your proper self. Thus noble Triboulet tells it
us plainly, from whose words we may gather with all ease imaginable
that your cuckoldry is to be infamous, and so much the more
scandalous that your conjugal bed will be incestuously contaminated
with the filthiness of a monkery lecher. Moreover, he says that you will
be the hornpipe of Buzansay, that is to say, well-horned, hornified, and
cornuted. And, as Triboulet's uncle asked from Louis the Twelfth, for a
younger brother of his own who lived at Blois, the hornpipes of
Buzansay, for the organ pipes, through the mistake of one word for
another, even so, whilst you think to marry a wise, humble, calm,
discreet, and honest wife, you shall unhappily stumble upon one witless,
proud, loud, obstreperous, bawling, clamorous, and more unpleasant
than any Buzansay hornpipe. Consider withal how he flirted you on the
nose with the bladder, and gave you a sound thumping blow with his
fist upon the ridge of the back. This denotates and presageth that you
shall be banged, beaten, and fillipped by her, and that also she will steal
of your goods from you, as you stole the hog's bladder from the little
boys of Vaubreton.
Flat contrary, quoth Panurge;--not that I would impudently exempt
myself from being a vassal in the territory of folly. I hold of that
jurisdiction, and am subject thereto, I confess it. And why should I not?
For the whole world is foolish. In the old Lorraine language, fou for tou,
all and fool, were the same thing. Besides, it is avouched by Solomon
that infinite is the number of fools. From an infinity nothing can be
deducted or abated, nor yet, by the testimony of Aristotle, can anything
thereto be added or subjoined. Therefore were I a mad fool if, being a
fool, I should not hold myself a fool. After the same manner of
speaking, we may aver the number of the mad and enraged folks to be
infinite. Avicenna maketh no bones to assert that the several kinds of
madness are infinite. Though this much of Triboulet's words tend little
to my advantage, howbeit the prejudice which I sustain thereby be
common with me to all other men, yet the rest of his talk and gesture
maketh altogether for me. He said to my wife, Be wary of the monkey;
that is as much as if she should be cheery, and take as much delight in a
monkey as ever did the Lesbia of Catullus in her sparrow; who will for
his recreation pass his time no less joyfully at the exercise of snatching
flies than heretofore did the merciless fly- catcher Domitian. Withal he
meant, by another part of his discourse, that she should be of a jovial
country-like humour, as gay and pleasing as a harmonious hornpipe of
Saulieau or Buzansay. The veridical Triboulet did therein hint at what I
liked well, as perfectly knowing the inclinations and propensions of my
mind, my natural disposition, and the bias of my interior passions and
affections. For you may be assured that my humour is much better
satisfied and contented with the pretty, frolic, rural, dishevelled
shepherdesses, whose bums through their coarse canvas smocks smell
of the clover grass of the field, than with those great ladies in magnific
courts, with their flandan top-knots and sultanas, their polvil, pastillos,
and cosmetics. The homely sound, likewise, of a rustical hornpipe is
more agreeable to my ears than the curious warbling and musical
quavering of lutes, theorbos, viols, rebecs, and violins. He gave me a
lusty rapping thwack on my back,--what then? Let it pass, in the name
and for the love of God, as an abatement of and deduction from so
much of my future pains in purgatory. He did it not out of any evil
intent. He thought, belike, to have hit some of the pages. He is an
honest fool, and an innocent changeling. It is a sin to harbour in the
heart any bad conceit of him. As for myself, I heartily pardon him. He
flirted me on the nose. In that there is no harm; for it importeth nothing
else but that betwixt my wife and me there will occur some toyish
wanton tricks which usually happen to all new-married folks.
Chapter 3.
XLVII.
How Pantagruel and Panurge resolved to make a visit to the oracle of
the holy bottle.
There is as yet another point, quoth Panurge, which you have not at all
considered on, although it be the chief and principal head of the matter.
He put the bottle in my hand and restored it me again. How interpret
you that passage? What is the meaning of that? He possibly, quoth
Pantagruel, signifieth thereby that your wife will be such a drunkard as
shall daily take in her liquor kindly, and ply the pots and bottles apace.
Quite otherwise, quoth Panurge; for the bottle was empty. I swear to
you, by the prickling brambly thorn of St. Fiacre in Brie, that our
unique morosoph, whom I formerly termed the lunatic Triboulet,
referreth me, for attaining to the final resolution of my scruple, to the
response-giving bottle. Therefore do I renew afresh the first vow which
I made, and here in your presence protest and make oath, by Styx and
Acheron, to carry still spectacles in my cap, and never to wear a
codpiece in my breeches, until upon the enterprise in hand of my
nuptial undertaking I shall have obtained an answer from the holy
bottle. I am acquainted with a prudent, understanding, and discreet
gentleman, and besides a very good friend of mine, who knoweth the
land, country, and place where its temple and oracle is built and posited.
He will guide and conduct us thither sure and safely. Let us go thither, I
beseech you. Deny me not, and say not nay; reject not the suit I make
unto you, I entreat you. I will be to you an Achates, a Damis, and
heartily accompany you all along in the whole voyage, both in your
going forth and coming back. I have of a long time known you to be a
great lover of peregrination, desirous still to learn new things, and still
to see what you had never seen before.
Very willingly, quoth Pantagruel, I condescend to your request. But
before we enter in upon our progress towards the accomplishment of so
far a journey, replenished and fraught with eminent perils, full of
innumerable hazards, and every way stored with evident and manifest
dangers,--What dangers? quoth Panurge, interrupting him. Dangers fly
back, run from, and shun me whithersoever I go, seven leagues around,
as in the presence of the sovereign a subordinate magistracy is eclipsed;
or as clouds and darkness quite evanish at the bright coming of a
radiant sun; or as all sores and sicknesses did suddenly depart at the
approach of the body of St. Martin a Quande. Nevertheless, quoth
Pantagruel, before we adventure to set forwards on the road of our
projected and intended voyage, some few points are to be discussed,
expedited, and despatched. First, let us send back Triboulet to Blois.
Which was instantly done, after that Pantagruel had given him a frieze
coat. Secondly, our design must be backed with the advice and counsel
of the king my father. And, lastly, it is most needful and expedient for
us that we search for and find out some sibyl to serve us for a guide,
truchman, and interpreter. To this Panurge made answer, that his friend
Xenomanes would abundantly suffice for the plenary discharge and
performance of the sibyl's office; and that, furthermore, in passing
through the Lanternatory revelling country, they should take along with
them a learned and profitable Lanternesse, which would be no less
useful to them in their voyage than was the sibyl to Aeneas in his
descent to the Elysian fields. Carpalin, in the interim, as he was upon
the conducting away of Triboulet, in his passing by hearkened a little to
the discourse they were upon; then spoke out, saying, Ho, Panurge,
master freeman, take my Lord Debitis at Calais alongst with you, for he
is goud-fallot, a good fellow. He will not forget those who have been
debitors; these are Lanternes. Thus shall you not lack for both fallot
and lanterne. I may safely with the little skill I have, quoth Pantagruel,
prognosticate that by the way we shall engender no melancholy. I
clearly perceive it already. The only thing that vexeth me is, that I
cannot speak the Lanternatory language. I shall, answered Panurge,
speak for you all. I understand it every whit as well as I do mine own
maternal tongue; I have been no less used to it than to the vulgar
French.
Briszmarg dalgotbrick nubstzne zos. Isquebsz prusq: albok crinqs
zacbac. Mizbe dilbarskz morp nipp stancz bos, Strombtz, Panurge,
walmap quost gruszbac.
Now guess, friend Epistemon, what this is. They are, quoth Epistemon,
names of errant devils, passant devils, and rampant devils. These words
of thine, dear friend of mine, are true, quoth Panurge; yet are they terms
used in the language of the court of the Lanternish people. By the way,
as we go upon our journey, I will make to thee a pretty little dictionary,
which, notwithstanding, shall not last you much longer than a pair of
new shoes. Thou shalt have learned it sooner than thou canst perceive
the dawning of the next subsequent morning. What I have said in the
foregoing tetrastich is thus translated out of the Lanternish tongue into
our vulgar dialect:
All miseries attended me, whilst I A lover was, and had no good
thereby. Of better luck the married people tell; Panurge is one of those,
and knows it well.
There is little more, then, quoth Pantagruel, to be done, but that we
understand what the will of the king my father will be therein, and
purchase his consent.
Chapter 3.
XLVIII.
How Gargantua showeth that the children ought not to marry without
the special knowledge and advice of their fathers and mothers.
No sooner had Pantagruel entered in at the door of the great hall of the
castle, than that he encountered full butt with the good honest
Gargantua coming forth from the council board, unto whom he made a
succinct and summary narrative of what had passed and occurred,
worthy of his observation, in his travels abroad, since their last
interview; then, acquainting him with the design he had in hand,
besought him that it might stand with his goodwill and pleasure to grant
him leave to prosecute and go through-stitch with the enterprise which
he had undertaken. The good man Gargantua, having in one hand two
great bundles of petitions endorsed and answered, and in the other
some remembrancing notes and bills, to put him in mind of such other
requests of supplicants, which, albeit presented, had nevertheless been
neither read nor heard, he gave both to Ulric Gallet, his ancient and
faithful Master of Requests; then drew aside Pantagruel, and, with a
countenance more serene and jovial than customary, spoke to him thus:
I praise God, and have great reason so to do, my most dear son, that he
hath been pleased to entertain in you a constant inclination to virtuous
actions. I am well content that the voyage which you have motioned to
me be by you accomplished, but withal I could wish you would have a
mind and desire to marry, for that I see you are of competent years.
Panurge in the meanwhile was in a readiness of preparing and
providing for remedies, salves, and cures against all such lets, obstacles,
and impediments as he could in the height of his fancy conceive might
by Gargantua be cast in the way of their itinerary design. Is it your
pleasure, most dear father, that you speak? answered Pantagruel. For
my part, I have not yet thought upon it. In all this affair I wholly submit
and rest in your good liking and paternal authority. For I shall rather
pray unto God that he would throw me down stark dead at your feet, in
your pleasure, than that against your pleasure I should be found married
alive. I never yet heard that by any law, whether sacred or profane, yea,
amongst the rudest and most barbarous nations in the world, it was
allowed and approved of that children may be suffered and tolerated to
marry at their own goodwill and pleasure, without the knowledge,
advice, or consent asked and had thereto of their fathers, mothers, and
nearest kindred. All legislators, everywhere upon the face of the whole
earth, have taken away and removed this licentious liberty from
children, and totally reserved it to the discretion of the parents.
My dearly beloved son, quoth Gargantua, I believe you, and from my
heart thank God for having endowed you with the grace of having both
a perfect notice of and entire liking to laudable and praiseworthy things;
and that through the windows of your exterior senses he hath
vouchsafed to transmit unto the interior faculties of your mind nothing
but what is good and virtuous. For in my time there hath been found on
the continent a certain country, wherein are I know not what kind of
Pastophorian mole-catching priests, who, albeit averse from engaging
their proper persons into a matrimonial duty, like the pontifical flamens
of Cybele in Phrygia, as if they were capons, and not cocks full of
lasciviousness, salacity, and wantonness, who yet have, nevertheless, in
the matter of conjugal affairs, taken upon them to prescribe laws and
ordinances to married folks. I cannot goodly determine what I should
most abhor, detest, loathe, and abominate,--whether the tyrannical
presumption of those dreaded sacerdotal mole-catchers, who, not being
willing to contain and coop up themselves within the grates and
trellises of their own mysterious temples, do deal in, meddle with,
obtrude upon, and thrust their sickles into harvests of secular
businesses quite contrary and diametrically opposite to the quality, state,
and condition of their callings, professions, and vocations; or the
superstitious stupidity and senseless scrupulousness of married folks,
who have yielded obedience, and submitted their bodies, fortunes, and
estates to the discretion and authority of such odious, perverse,
barbarous, and unreasonable laws. Nor do they see that which is clearer
than the light and splendour of the morning star,--how all these nuptial
and connubial sanctions, statutes, and ordinances have been decreed,
made, and instituted for the sole benefit, profit, and advantage of the
flaminal mysts and mysterious flamens, and nothing at all for the good,
utility, or emolument of the silly hoodwinked married people. Which
administereth unto others a sufficient cause for rendering these
churchmen suspicious of iniquity, and of an unjust and fraudulent
manner of dealing, no more to be connived at nor countenanced, after
that it be well weighed in the scales of reason, than if with a reciprocal
temerity the laics, by way of compensation, would impose laws to be
followed and observed by those mysts and flamens, how they should
behave themselves in the making and performance of their rites and
ceremonies, and after what manner they ought to proceed in the
offering up and immolating of their various oblations, victims, and
sacrifices; seeing that, besides the decimation and tithe- haling of their
goods, they cut off and take parings, shreddings, and clippings of the
gain proceeding from the labour of their hands and sweat of their brows,
therewith to entertain themselves the better. Upon which consideration,
in my opinion, their injunctions and commands would not prove so
pernicious and impertinent as those of the ecclesiastic power unto
which they had tendered their blind obedience. For, as you have very
well said, there is no place in the world where, legally, a licence is
granted to the children to marry without the advice and consent of their
parents and kindred. Nevertheless, by those wicked laws and
mole-catching customs, whereat there is a little hinted in what I have
already spoken to you, there is no scurvy, measly, leprous, or pocky
ruffian, pander, knave, rogue, skellum, robber, or thief, pilloried,
whipped, and burn-marked in his own country for his crimes and
felonies, who may not violently snatch away and ravish what maid
soever he had a mind to pitch upon, how noble, how fair, how rich,
honest, and chaste soever she be, and that out of the house of her own
father, in his own presence, from the bosom of her mother, and in the
sight and despite of her friends and kindred looking on a so woeful
spectacle, provided that the rascal villain be so cunning as to associate
unto himself some mystical flamen, who, according to the covenant
made betwixt them two, shall be in hope some day to participate of the
prey.
Could the Goths, the Scyths, or Massagets do a worse or more cruel act
to any of the inhabitants of a hostile city, when, after the loss of many
of their most considerable commanders, the expense of a great deal of
money, and a long siege, they shall have stormed and taken it by a
violent and impetuous assault? May not these fathers and mothers,
think you, be sorrowful and heavy-hearted when they see an unknown
fellow, a vagabond stranger, a barbarous lout, a rude cur, rotten,
fleshless, putrified, scraggy, boily, botchy, poor, a forlorn caitiff and
miserable sneak, by an open rapt snatch away before their own eyes
their so fair, delicate, neat, well-behavioured, richly-provided-for and
healthful daughters, on whose breeding and education they had spared
no cost nor charges, by bringing them up in an honest discipline to all
the honourable and virtuous employments becoming one of their sex
descended of a noble parentage, hoping by those commendable and
industrious means in an opportune and convenient time to bestow them
on the worthy sons of their well-deserving neighbours and ancient
friends, who had nourished, entertained, taught, instructed, and
schooled their children with the same care and solicitude, to make them
matches fit to attain to the felicity of a so happy marriage, that from
them might issue an offspring and progeny no less heirs to the laudable
endowments and exquisite qualifications of their parents, whom they
every way resemble, than to their personal and real estates, movables,
and inheritances? How doleful, trist, and plangorous would such a sight
and pageantry prove unto them? You shall not need to think that the
collachrymation of the Romans and their confederates at the decease of
Germanicus Drusus was comparable to this lamentation of theirs?
Neither would I have you to believe that the discomfort and anxiety of
the Lacedaemonians, when the Greek Helen, by the perfidiousness of
the adulterous Trojan, Paris, was privily stolen away out of their
country, was greater or more pitiful than this ruthful and deplorable
collugency of theirs? You may very well imagine that Ceres at the
ravishment of her daughter Proserpina was not more attristed, sad, nor
mournful than they. Trust me, and your own reason, that the loss of
Osiris was not so regrettable to Isis, nor did Venus so deplore the death
of Adonis, nor yet did Hercules so bewail the straying of Hylas, nor
was the rapt of Polyxena more throbbingly resented and condoled by
Priamus and Hecuba, than this aforesaid accident would be
sympathetically bemoaned, grievous, ruthful, and anxious to the
woefully desolate and disconsolate parents.
Notwithstanding all this, the greater part of so vilely abused parents are
so timorous and afraid of devils and hobgoblins, and so deeply plunged
in superstition, that they dare not gainsay nor contradict, much less
oppose and resist those unnatural and impious actions, when the
mole-catcher hath been present at the perpetrating of the fact, and a
party contractor and covenanter in that detestable bargain. What do
they do then? They wretchedly stay at their own miserable homes,
destitute of their well- beloved daughters, the fathers cursing the days
and the hours wherein they were married, and the mothers howling and
crying that it was not their fortune to have brought forth abortive issues
when they happened to be delivered of such unfortunate girls, and in
this pitiful plight spend at best the remainder of their time with tears
and weeping for those their children, of and from whom they expected,
(and, with good reason, should have obtained and reaped,) in these
latter days of theirs, joy and comfort. Other parents there have been, so
impatient of that affront and indignity put upon them and their families,
that, transported with the extremity of passion, in a mad and frantic
mood, through the vehemency of a grievous fury and raging sorrow,
have drowned, hanged, killed, and otherwise put violent hands on
themselves. Others, again, of that parental relation have, upon the
reception of the like injury, been of a more magnanimous and heroic
spirit, who, in imitation and at the example of the children of Jacob
revenging upon the Sichemites the rapt of their sister Dinah, having
found the rascally ruffian in the association of his mystical
mole-catcher closely and in hugger-mugger conferring, parleying, and
coming with their daughters, for the suborning, corrupting, depraving,
perverting, and enticing these innocent unexperienced maids unto filthy
lewdnesses, have, without any further advisement on the matter, cut
them instantly into pieces, and thereupon forthwith thrown out upon the
fields their so dismembered bodies, to serve for food unto the wolves
and ravens. Upon the chivalrous, bold, and courageous achievement of
a so valiant, stout, and manlike act, the other mole-catching symmysts
have been so highly incensed, and have so chafed, fretted, and fumed
thereat, that, bills of complaint and accusations having been in a most
odious and detestable manner put in before the competent judges, the
arm of secular authority hath with much importunity and impetuosity
been by them implored and required, they proudly contending that the
servants of God would become contemptible if exemplary punishment
were not speedily taken upon the persons of the perpetrators of such an
enormous, horrid, sacrilegious, crying, heinous, and execrable crime.
Yet neither by natural equity, by the law of nations, nor by any imperial
law whatsoever, hath there been found so much as one rubric,
paragraph, point, or tittle, by the which any kind of chastisement or
correction hath been adjudged due to be inflicted upon any for their
delinquency in that kind. Reason opposeth, and nature is repugnant. For
there is no virtuous man in the world who both naturally and with good
reason will not be more hugely troubled in mind, hearing of the news of
the rapt, disgrace, ignominy, and dishonour of his daughter, than of her
death. Now any man, finding in hot blood one who with a forethought
felony hath murdered his daughter, may, without tying himself to the
formalities and circumstances of a legal proceeding, kill him on a
sudden and out of hand without incurring any hazard of being attainted
and apprehended by the officers of justice for so doing. What wonder is
it then? Or how little strange should it appear to any rational man, if a
lechering rogue, together with his mole-catching abettor, be entrapped
in the flagrant act of suborning his daughter, and stealing her out of his
house, though herself consent thereto, that the father in such a case of
stain and infamy by them brought upon his family, should put them
both to a shameful death, and cast their carcasses upon dunghills to be
devoured and eaten up by dogs and swine, or otherwise fling them a
little further off to the direption, tearing, and rending asunder of their
joints and members by the wild beasts of the field (as unworthy to
receive the gentle, the desired, the last kind embraces of the great Alma
Mater, the earth, commonly called burial).
Dearly beloved son, have an especial care that after my decease none of
these laws be received in any of your kingdoms; for whilst I breathe, by
the grace and assistance of God, I shall give good order. Seeing,
therefore, you have totally referred unto my discretion the disposure of
you in marriage, I am fully of an opinion that I shall provide
sufficiently well for you in that point. Make ready and prepare yourself
for Panurge's voyage. Take along with you Epistemon, Friar John, and
such others as you will choose. Do with my treasures what unto
yourself shall seem most expedient. None of your actions, I promise
you, can in any manner of way displease me. Take out of my arsenal
Thalasse whatsoever equipage, furniture, or provision you please,
together with such pilots, mariners, and truchmen as you have a mind
to, and with the first fair and favourable wind set sail and make out to
sea in the name of God our Saviour. In the meanwhile, during your
absence, I shall not be neglective of providing a wife for you, nor of
those preparations which are requisite to be made for the more
sumptuous solemnizing of your nuptials with a most splendid feast, if
ever there was any in the world, since the days of Ahasuerus.
Chapter 3.
XLIX.
How Pantagruel did put himself in a readiness to go to sea; and of the
herb named Pantagruelion.
Within very few days after that Pantagruel had taken his leave of the
good Gargantua, who devoutly prayed for his son's happy voyage, he
arrived at the seaport, near to Sammalo, accompanied with Panurge,
Epistemon, Friar John of the Funnels, Abbot of Theleme, and others of
the royal house, especially with Xenomanes the great traveller and
thwarter of dangerous ways, who was come at the bidding and
appointment of Panurge, of whose castlewick of Salmigondin he did
hold some petty inheritance by the tenure of a mesne fee. Pantagruel,
being come thither, prepared and made ready for launching a fleet of
ships, to the number of those which Ajax of Salamine had of old
equipped in convoy of the Grecian soldiery against the Trojan state. He
likewise picked out for his use so many mariners, pilots, sailors,
interpreters, artificers, officers, and soldiers, as he thought fitting, and
therewithal made provision of so much victuals of all sorts, artillery,
munition of divers kinds, clothes, moneys, and other such luggage,
stuff, baggage, chaffer, and furniture, as he deemed needful for
carrying on the design of a so tedious, long, and perilous voyage.
Amongst other things, it was observed how he caused some of his
vessels to be fraught and loaded with a great quantity of an herb of his
called Pantagruelion, not only of the green and raw sort of it, but of the
confected also, and of that which was notably well befitted for present
use after the fashion of conserves. The herb Pantagruelion hath a little
root somewhat hard and rough, roundish, terminating in an obtuse and
very blunt point, and having some of its veins, strings, or filaments
coloured with some spots of white, never fixeth itself into the ground
above the profoundness almost of a cubit, or foot and a half. From the
root thereof proceedeth the only stalk, orbicular, cane-like, green
without, whitish within, and hollow like the stem of smyrnium, olus
atrum, beans, and gentian, full of long threads, straight, easy to be
broken, jagged, snipped, nicked, and notched a little after the manner of
pillars and columns, slightly furrowed, chamfered, guttered, and
channelled, and full of fibres, or hairs like strings, in which consisteth
the chief value and dignity of the herb, especially in that part thereof
which is termed mesa, as he would say the mean, and in that other,
which hath got the denomination of milasea. Its height is commonly of
five or six foot. Yet sometimes it is of such a tall growth as doth
surpass the length of a lance, but that is only when it meeteth with a
sweet, easy, warm, wet, and well-soaked soil--as is the ground of the
territory of Olone, and that of Rasea, near to Preneste in Sabinia--and
that it want not for rain enough about the season of the fishers' holidays
and the estival solstice. There are many trees whose height is by it very
far exceeded, and you might call it dendromalache by the authority of
Theophrastus. The plant every year perisheth,--the tree neither in the
trunk, root, bark, or boughs being durable.
From the stalk of this Pantagruelian plant there issue forth several large
and great branches, whose leaves have thrice as much length as breadth,
always green, roughish, and rugged like the orcanet, or Spanish bugloss,
hardish, slit round about like unto a sickle, or as the saxifragum, betony,
and finally ending as it were in the points of a Macedonian spear, or of
such a lancet as surgeons commonly make use of in their
phlebotomizing tiltings. The figure and shape of the leaves thereof is
not much different from that of those of the ash-tree, or of agrimony;
the herb itself being so like the Eupatorian plant that many skilful
herbalists have called it the Domestic Eupator, and the Eupator the
Wild Pantagruelion. These leaves are in equal and parallel distances
spread around the stalk by the number in every rank either of five or
seven, nature having so highly favoured and cherished this plant that
she hath richly adorned it with these two odd, divine, and mysterious
numbers. The smell thereof is somewhat strong, and not very pleasing
to nice, tender, and delicate noses. The seed enclosed therein mounteth
up to the very top of its stalk, and a little above it.
This is a numerous herb; for there is no less abundance of it than of any
other whatsoever. Some of these plants are spherical, some rhomboid,
and some of an oblong shape, and all of those either black,
bright-coloured, or tawny, rude to the touch, and mantled with a
quickly-blasted-away coat, yet such a one as is of a delicious taste and
savour to all shrill and sweetly- singing birds, such as linnets,
goldfinches, larks, canary birds, yellow- hammers, and others of that
airy chirping choir; but it would quite extinguish the natural heat and
procreative virtue of the semence of any man who would eat much and
often of it. And although that of old amongst the Greeks there was
certain kinds of fritters and pancakes, buns and tarts, made thereof,
which commonly for a liquorish daintiness were presented on the table
after supper to delight the palate and make the wine relish the better;
yet is it of a difficult concoction, and offensive to the stomach. For it
engendereth bad and unwholesome blood, and with its exorbitant heat
woundeth them with grievous, hurtful, smart, and noisome vapours.
And, as in divers plants and trees there are two sexes, male and female,
which is perceptible in laurels, palms, cypresses, oaks, holms, the
daffodil, mandrake, fern, the agaric, mushroom, birthwort, turpentine,
pennyroyal, peony, rose of the mount, and many other such like, even
so in this herb there is a male which beareth no flower at all, yet it is
very copious of and abundant in seed. There is likewise in it a female,
which hath great store and plenty of whitish flowers, serviceable to
little or no purpose, nor doth it carry in it seed of any worth at all, at
least comparable to that of the male. It hath also a larger leaf, and much
softer than that of the male, nor doth it altogether grow to so great a
height. This Pantagruelion is to be sown at the first coming of the
swallows, and is to be plucked out of the ground when the grasshoppers
begin to be a little hoarse.
Chapter 3.
L.
How the famous Pantagruelion ought to be prepared and wrought.
The herb Pantagruelion, in September, under the autumnal equinox, is
dressed and prepared several ways, according to the various fancies of
the people and diversity of the climates wherein it groweth. The first
instruction which Pantagruel gave concerning it was to divest and
despoil the stalk and stem thereof of all its flowers and seeds, to
macerate and mortify it in pond, pool, or lake water, which is to be
made run a little for five days together (Properly--'lake water, which is
to be made stagnant, not current, for five days together.'--M.) if the
season be dry and the water hot, or for full nine or twelve days if the
weather be cloudish and the water cold. Then must it be parched before
the sun till it be drained of its moisture. After this it is in the shadow,
where the sun shines not, to be peeled and its rind pulled off. Then are
the fibres and strings thereof to be parted, wherein, as we have already
said, consisteth its prime virtue, price, and efficacy, and severed from
the woody part thereof, which is unprofitable, and serveth hardly to any
other use than to make a clear and glistering blaze, to kindle the fire,
and for the play, pastime, and disport of little children, to blow up hogs'
bladders and make them rattle. Many times some use is made thereof
by tippling sweet-lipped bibbers, who out of it frame quills and pipes,
through which they with their liquor-attractive breath suck up the new
dainty wine from the bung of the barrel. Some modern Pantagruelists,
to shun and avoid that manual labour which such a separating and
partitional work would of necessity require, employ certain cataractic
instruments, composed and formed after the same manner that the
froward, pettish, and angry Juno did hold the fingers of both her hands
interwovenly clenched together when she would have hindered the
childbirth delivery of Alcmena at the nativity of Hercules; and athwart
those cataracts they break and bruise to very trash the woody parcels,
thereby to preserve the better the fibres, which are the precious and
excellent parts. In and with this sole operation do these acquiesce and
are contented, who, contrary to the received opinion of the whole earth,
and in a manner paradoxical to all philosophers, gain their livelihoods
backwards, and by recoiling. But those that love to hold it at a higher
rate, and prize it according to its value, for their own greater profit do
the very same which is told us of the recreation of the three fatal sister
Parcae, or of the nocturnal exercise of the noble Circe, or yet of the
excuse which Penelope made to her fond wooing youngsters and
effeminate courtiers during the long absence of her husband Ulysses.
By these means is this herb put into a way to display its inestimable
virtues, whereof I will discover a part; for to relate all is a thing
impossible to do. I have already interpreted and exposed before you the
denomination thereof. I find that plants have their names given and
bestowed upon them after several ways. Some got the name of him
who first found them out, knew them, sowed them, improved them by
culture, qualified them to tractability, and appropriated them to the uses
and subserviences they were fit for, as the Mercuriale from Mercury;
Panacea from Panace, the daughter of Aesculapius; Armois from
Artemis, who is Diana; Eupatoria from the king Eupator; Telephion
from Telephus; Euphorbium from Euphorbus, King Juba's physician;
Clymenos from Clymenus; Alcibiadium from Alcibiades; Gentiane
from Gentius, King of Sclavonia, and so forth, through a great many
other herbs or plants. Truly, in ancient times this prerogative of
imposing the inventor's name upon an herb found out by him was held
in a so great account and estimation, that, as a controversy arose
betwixt Neptune and Pallas from which of them two that land should
receive its denomination which had been equally found out by them
both together--though thereafter it was called and had the appellation of
Athens, from Athene, which is Minerva--just so would Lynceus, King
of Scythia, have treacherously slain the young Triptolemus, whom
Ceres had sent to show unto mankind the invention of corn, which until
then had been utterly unknown, to the end that, after the murder of the
messenger, whose death he made account to have kept secret, he might,
by imposing, with the less suspicion of false dealing, his own name
upon the said found out seed, acquire unto himself an immortal honour
and glory for having been the inventor of a grain so profitable and
necessary to and for the use of human life. For the wickedness of which
treasonable attempt he was by Ceres transformed into that wild beast
which by some is called a lynx and by others an ounce. Such also was
the ambition of others upon the like occasion, as appeareth by that very
sharp wars and of a long continuance have been made of old betwixt
some residentiary kings in Cappadocia upon this only debate, of whose
name a certain herb should have the appellation; by reason of which
difference, so troublesome and expensive to them all, it was by them
called Polemonion, and by us for the same cause termed Make-bate.
Other herbs and plants there are which retain the names of the countries
from whence they were transported, as the Median apples from Media,
where they first grew; Punic apples from Punicia, that is to say,
Carthage; Ligusticum, which we call lovage, from Liguria, the coast of
Genoa; Rhubarb from a flood in Barbary, as Ammianus attesteth, called
Ru; Santonica from a region of that name; Fenugreek from Greece;
Gastanes from a country so called; Persicaria from Persia; Sabine from
a territory of that appellation; Staechas from the Staechad Islands;
Spica Celtica from the land of the Celtic Gauls, and so throughout a
great many other, which were tedious to enumerate. Some others, again,
have obtained their denominations by way of antiphrasis, or contrariety;
as Absinth, because it is contrary to Psinthos, for it is bitter to the taste
in drinking; Holosteon, as if it were all bones, whilst, on the contrary,
there is no frailer, tenderer, nor brittler herb in the whole production of
nature than it.
There are some other sorts of herbs which have got their names from
their virtues and operations, as Aristolochia, because it helpeth women
in childbirth; Lichen, for that it cureth the disease of that name; Mallow,
because it mollifieth; Callithricum, because it maketh the hair of a
bright colour; Alyssum, Ephemerum, Bechium, Nasturtium, Aneban
(Henbane), and so forth through many more.
Other some there are which have obtained their names from the
admirable qualities that are found to be in them, as Heliotropium,
which is the marigold, because it followeth the sun, so that at the sun
rising it displayeth and spreads itself out, at his ascending it mounteth,
at his declining it waneth, and when he is set it is close shut; Adianton,
because, although it grow near unto watery places, and albeit you
should let it lie in water a long time, it will nevertheless retain no
moisture nor humidity; Hierachia, Eringium, and so throughout a great
many more. There are also a great many herbs and plants which have
retained the very same names of the men and women who have been
metamorphosed and transformed in them, as from Daphne the laurel is
called also Daphne; Myrrh from Myrrha, the daughter of Cinarus;
Pythis from Pythis; Cinara, which is the artichoke, from one of that
name; Narcissus, with Saffron, Smilax, and divers others.
Many herbs likewise have got their names of those things which they
seem to have some resemblance to; as Hippuris, because it hath the
likeness of a horse's tail; Alopecuris, because it representeth in
similitude the tail of a fox; Psyllion, from a flea which it resembleth;
Delphinium, for that it is like a dolphin fish; Bugloss is so called
because it is an herb like an ox's tongue; Iris, so called because in its
flowers it hath some resemblance of the rainbow; Myosota, because it
is like the ear of a mouse; Coronopus, for that it is of the likeness of a
crow's foot. A great many other such there are, which here to recite
were needless. Furthermore, as there are herbs and plants which have
had their names from those of men, so by a reciprocal denomination
have the surnames of many families taken their origin from them, as
the Fabii, a fabis, beans; the Pisons, a pisis, peas; the Lentuli from
lentils; the Cicerons; a ciceribus, vel ciceris, a sort of pulse called
chickpease, and so forth. In some plants and herbs the resemblance or
likeness hath been taken from a higher mark or object, as when we say
Venus' navel, Venus' hair, Venus' tub, Jupiter's beard, Jupiter's eye,
Mars' blood, the Hermodactyl or Mercury's fingers, which are all of
them names of herbs, as there are a great many more of the like
appellation. Others, again, have received their denomination from their
forms, such as the Trefoil, because it is three-leaved; Pentaphylon, for
having five leaves; Serpolet, because it creepeth along the ground;
Helxine, Petast, Myrobalon, which the Arabians called Been, as if you
would say an acorn, for it hath a kind of resemblance thereto, and
withal is very oily.
Chapter 3.
LI.
Why it is called Pantagruelion, and of the admirable virtues thereof.
By such-like means of attaining to a denomination--the fabulous ways
being only from thence excepted, for the Lord forbid that we should
make use of any fables in this a so veritable history--is this herb called
Pantagruelion, for Pantagruel was the inventor thereof. I do not say of
the plant itself, but of a certain use which it serves for, exceeding
odious and hateful to thieves and robbers, unto whom it is more
contrarious and hurtful than the strangle-weed and chokefitch is to the
flax, the cats- tail to the brakes, the sheave-grass to the mowers of hay,
the fitches to the chickney-pease, the darnel to barley, the hatchet-fitch
to the lentil pulse, the antramium to the beans, tares to wheat, ivy to
walls, the water- lily to lecherous monks, the birchen rod to the
scholars of the college of Navarre in Paris, colewort to the vine-tree,
garlic to the loadstone, onions to the sight, fern-seed to women with
child, willow-grain to vicious nuns, the yew-tree shade to those that
sleep under it, wolfsbane to wolves and libbards, the smell of fig-tree to
mad bulls, hemlock to goslings, purslane to the teeth, or oil to trees. For
we have seen many of those rogues, by virtue and right application of
this herb, finish their lives short and long, after the manner of Phyllis,
Queen of Thracia, of Bonosus, Emperor of Rome, of Amata, King
Latinus's wife, of Iphis, Autolycus, Lycambe, Arachne, Phaedra, Leda,
Achius, King of Lydia, and many thousands more, who were chiefly
angry and vexed at this disaster therein, that, without being otherwise
sick or evil-disposed in their bodies, by a touch only of the
Pantagruelion they came on a sudden to have the passage obstructed,
and their pipes, through which were wont to bolt so many jolly sayings
and to enter so many luscious morsels, stopped, more cleverly than
ever could have done the squinancy.
Others have been heard most woefully to lament, at the very instant
when Atropos was about to cut the thread of their life, that Pantagruel
held them by the gorge. But, well-a-day, it was not Pantagruel; he
never was an executioner. It was the Pantagruelion, manufactured and
fashioned into an halter; and serving in the place and office of a cravat.
In that, verily, they solecized and spoke improperly, unless you would
excuse them by a trope, which alloweth us to posit the inventor in the
place of the thing invented, as when Ceres is taken for bread, and
Bacchus put instead of wine. I swear to you here, by the good and frolic
words which are to issue out of that wine-bottle which is a-cooling
below in the copper vessel full of fountain water, that the noble
Pantagruel never snatched any man by the throat, unless it was such a
one as was altogether careless and neglective of those obviating
remedies which were preventive of the thirst to come.
It is also termed Pantagruelion by a similitude. For Pantagruel, at the
very first minute of his birth, was no less tall than this herb is long
whereof I speak unto you, his measure having been then taken the more
easy that he was born in the season of the great drought, when they
were busiest in the gathering of the said herb, to wit, at that time when
Icarus's dog, with his fiery bawling and barking at the sun, maketh the
whole world Troglodytic, and enforceth people everywhere to hide
themselves in dens and subterranean caves. It is likewise called
Pantagruelion because of the notable and singular qualities, virtues, and
properties thereof. For as Pantagruel hath been the idea, pattern,
prototype, and exemplary of all jovial perfection and
accomplishment--in the truth whereof I believe there is none of you
gentlemen drinkers that putteth any question--so in this Pantagruelion
have I found so much efficacy and energy, so much completeness and
excellency, so much exquisiteness and rarity, and so many admirable
effects and operations of a transcendent nature, that if the worth and
virtue thereof had been known when those trees, by the relation of the
prophet, made election of a wooden king to rule and govern over them,
it without all doubt would have carried away from all the rest the
plurality of votes and suffrages.
Shall I yet say more? If Oxylus, the son of Orius, had begotten this
plant upon his sister Hamadryas, he had taken more delight in the value
and perfection of it alone than in all his eight children, so highly
renowned by our ablest mythologians that they have sedulously
recommended their names to the never-failing tuition of an eternal
remembrance. The eldest child was a daughter, whose name was Vine;
the next born was a boy, and his name was Fig-tree; the third was
called Walnut-tree; the fourth Oak; the fifth Sorbapple-tree; the sixth
Ash; the seventh Poplar, and the last had the name of Elm, who was the
greatest surgeon in his time. I shall forbear to tell you how the juice or
sap thereof, being poured and distilled within the ears, killeth every
kind of vermin that by any manner of putrefaction cometh to be bred
and engendered there, and destroyeth also any whatsoever other animal
that shall have entered in thereat. If, likewise, you put a little of the said
juice within a pail or bucket full of water, you shall see the water
instantly turn and grow thick therewith as if it were milk- curds,
whereof the virtue is so great that the water thus curded is a present
remedy for horses subject to the colic, and such as strike at their own
flanks. The root thereof well boiled mollifieth the joints, softeneth the
hardness of shrunk-in sinews, is every way comfortable to the nerves,
and good against all cramps and convulsions, as likewise all cold and
knotty gouts. If you would speedily heal a burning, whether occasioned
by water or fire, apply thereto a little raw Pantagruelion, that is to say,
take it so as it cometh out of the ground, without bestowing any other
preparation or composition upon it; but have a special care to change it
for some fresher in lieu thereof as soon as you shall find it waxing dry
upon the sore.
Without this herb kitchens would be detested, the tables of
dining-rooms abhorred, although there were great plenty and variety of
most dainty and sumptuous dishes of meat set down upon them, and the
choicest beds also, how richly soever adorned with gold, silver, amber,
ivory, porphyry, and the mixture of most precious metals, would
without it yield no delight or pleasure to the reposers in them. Without
it millers could neither carry wheat, nor any other kind of corn to the
mill, nor would they be able to bring back from thence flour, or any
other sort of meal whatsoever. Without it, how could the papers and
writs of lawyers' clients be brought to the bar? Seldom is the mortar,
lime, or plaster brought to the workhouse without it. Without it, how
should the water be got out of a draw-well? In what case would
tabellions, notaries, copists, makers of counterpanes, writers, clerks,
secretaries, scriveners, and such-like persons be without it? Were it not
for it, what would become of the toll- rates and rent-rolls? Would not
the noble art of printing perish without it? Whereof could the chassis or
paper-windows be made? How should the bells be rung? The altars of
Isis are adorned therewith, the Pastophorian priests are therewith clad
and accoutred, and whole human nature covered and wrapped therein at
its first position and production in and into this world. All the lanific
trees of Seres, the bumbast and cotton bushes in the territories near the
Persian Sea and Gulf of Bengala, the Arabian swans, together with the
plants of Malta, do not all the them clothe, attire, and apparel so many
persons as this one herb alone. Soldiers are nowadays much better
sheltered under it than they were in former times, when they lay in tents
covered with skins. It overshadows the theatres and amphitheatres from
the heat of a scorching sun. It begirdeth and encompasseth forests,
chases, parks, copses, and groves, for the pleasure of hunters. It
descendeth into the salt and fresh of both sea and river- waters for the
profit of fishers. By it are boots of all sizes, buskins, gamashes,
brodkins, gambadoes, shoes, pumps, slippers, and every cobbled ware
wrought and made steadable for the use of man. By it the butt and
rover-bows are strung, the crossbows bended, and the slings made fixed.
And, as if it were an herb every whit as holy as the vervain, and
reverenced by ghosts, spirits, hobgoblins, fiends, and phantoms, the
bodies of deceased men are never buried without it.
I will proceed yet further. By the means of this fine herb the invisible
substances are visibly stopped, arrested, taken, detained, and prisoner-
like committed to their receptive gaols. Heavy and ponderous weights
are by it heaved, lifted up, turned, veered, drawn, carried, and every
way moved quickly, nimbly, and easily, to the great profit and
emolument of humankind. When I perpend with myself these and
such-like marvellous effects of this wonderful herb, it seemeth strange
unto me how the invention of so useful a practice did escape through so
many by-past ages the knowledge of the ancient philosophers,
considering the inestimable utility which from thence proceeded, and
the immense labour which without it they did undergo in their pristine
elucubrations. By virtue thereof, through the retention of some aerial
gusts, are the huge rambarges, mighty galleons, the large floats, the
Chiliander, the Myriander ships launched from their stations and set
a-going at the pleasure and arbitrament of their rulers, conders, and
steersmen. By the help thereof those remote nations whom nature
seemed so unwilling to have discovered to us, and so desirous to have
kept them still in abscondito and hidden from us, that the ways through
which their countries were to be reached unto were not only totally
unknown, but judged also to be altogether impermeable and
inaccessible, are now arrived to us, and we to them.
Those voyages outreached flights of birds and far surpassed the scope
of feathered fowls, how swift soever they had been on the wing, and
notwithstanding that advantage which they have of us in swimming
through the air. Taproban hath seen the heaths of Lapland, and both the
Javas and Riphaean mountains; wide distant Phebol shall see Theleme,
and the Islanders drink of the flood Euphrates. By it the chill-mouthed
Boreas hath surveyed the parched mansions of the torrid Auster, and
Eurus visited the regions which Zephyrus hath under his command; yea,
in such sort have interviews been made by the assistance of this sacred
herb, that, maugre longitudes and latitudes, and all the variations of the
zones, the Periaecian people, and Antoecian, Amphiscian, Heteroscian,
and Periscian had oft rendered and received mutual visits to and from
other, upon all the climates. These strange exploits bred such
astonishment to the celestial intelligences, to all the marine and
terrestrial gods, that they were on a sudden all afraid. From which
amazement, when they saw how, by means of this blest Pantagruelion,
the Arctic people looked upon the Antarctic, scoured the Atlantic
Ocean, passed the tropics, pushed through the torrid zone, measured all
the zodiac, sported under the equinoctial, having both poles level with
their horizon, they judged it high time to call a council for their own
safety and preservation.
The Olympic gods, being all and each of them affrighted at the sight of
such achievements, said: Pantagruel hath shapen work enough for us,
and put us more to a plunge and nearer our wits' end by this sole herb
of his than did of old the Aloidae by overturning mountains. He very
speedily is to be married, and shall have many children by his wife. It
lies not in our power to oppose this destiny; for it hath passed through
the hands and spindles of the Fatal Sisters, necessity's inexorable
daughters. Who knows but by his sons may be found out an herb of
such another virtue and prodigious energy, as that by the aid thereof, in
using it aright according to their father's skill, they may contrive a way
for humankind to pierce into the high aerian clouds, get up unto the
springhead of the hail, take an inspection of the snowy sources, and
shut and open as they please the sluices from whence proceed the
floodgates of the rain; then, prosecuting their aethereal voyage, they
may step in unto the lightning workhouse and shop, where all the
thunderbolts are forged, where, seizing on the magazine of heaven and
storehouse of our warlike fire-munition, they may discharge a bouncing
peal or two of thundering ordnance for joy of their arrival to these new
supernal places, and, charging those tonitrual guns afresh, turn the
whole force of that artillery against ourselves wherein we most
confided. Then is it like they will set forward to invade the territories of
the Moon, whence, passing through both Mercury and Venus, the Sun
will serve them for a torch, to show the way from Mars to Jupiter and
Saturn. We shall not then be able to resist the impetuosity of their
intrusion, nor put a stoppage to their entering in at all, whatever regions,
domiciles, or mansions of the spangled firmament they shall have any
mind to see, to stay in, to travel through for their recreation. All the
celestial signs together, with the constellations of the fixed stars, will
jointly be at their devotion then. Some will take up their lodging at the
Ram, some at the Bull, and others at the Twins; some at the Crab, some
at the Lion Inn, and others at the sign of the Virgin; some at the
Balance, others at the Scorpion, and others will be quartered at the
Archer; some will be harboured at the Goat, some at the Water-pourer's
sign, some at the Fishes; some will lie at the Crown, some at the Harp,
some at the Golden Eagle and the Dolphin; some at the Flying Horse,
some at the Ship, some at the great, some at the little Bear; and so
throughout the glistening hostelries of the whole twinkling asteristic
welkin. There will be sojourners come from the earth, who, longing
after the taste of the sweet cream, of their own skimming off, from the
best milk of all the dairy of the Galaxy, will set themselves at table
down with us, drink of our nectar and ambrosia, and take to their own
beds at night for wives and concubines our fairest goddesses, the only
means whereby they can be deified. A junto hereupon being
convocated, the better to consult upon the manner of obviating a so
dreadful danger, Jove, sitting in his presidential throne, asked the votes
of all the other gods, which, after a profound deliberation amongst
themselves on all contingencies, they freely gave at last, and then
resolved unanimously to withstand the shocks of all whatsoever
sublunary assaults.
Chapter 3.
LII.
How a certain kind of Pantagruelion is of that nature that the fire is not
able to consume it.
I have already related to you great and admirable things; but, if you
might be induced to adventure upon the hazard of believing some other
divinity of this sacred Pantagruelion, I very willingly would tell it you.
Believe it, if you will, or otherwise, believe it not, I care not which of
them you do, they are both alike to me. It shall be sufficient for my
purpose to have told you the truth, and the truth I will tell you. But to
enter in thereat, because it is of a knaggy, difficult, and rugged access,
this is the question which I ask of you. If I had put within this bottle
two pints, the one of wine and the other of water, thoroughly and
exactly mingled together, how would you unmix them? After what
manner would you go about to sever them, and separate the one liquor
from the other, in such sort that you render me the water apart, free
from the wine, and the wine also pure, without the intermixture of one
drop of water, and both of them in the same measure, quantity, and
taste that I had embottled them? Or, to state the question otherwise. If
your carmen and mariners, entrusted for the provision of your houses
with the bringing of a certain considerable number of tuns, puncheons,
pipes, barrels, and hogsheads of Graves wine, or of the wine of Orleans,
Beaune, and Mireveaux, should drink out the half, and afterwards with
water fill up the other empty halves of the vessels as full as before, as
the Limosins use to do in their carriages by wains and carts of the
wines of Argenton and Sangaultier; after that, how would you part the
water from the wine, and purify them both in such a case? I understand
you well enough. Your meaning is, that I must do it with an ivy funnel.
That is written, it is true, and the verity thereof explored by a thousand
experiments; you have learned to do this feat before, I see it. But those
that have never known it, nor at any time have seen the like, would
hardly believe that it were possible. Let us nevertheless proceed.
But put the case, we were now living in the age of Sylla, Marius,
Caesar, and other such Roman emperors, or that we were in the time of
our ancient Druids, whose custom was to burn and calcine the dead
bodies of their parents and lords, and that you had a mind to drink the
ashes or cinders of your wives or fathers in the infused liquor of some
good white-wine, as Artemisia drunk the dust and ashes of her husband
Mausolus; or otherwise, that you did determine to have them reserved
in some fine urn or reliquary pot; how would you save the ashes apart,
and separate them from those other cinders and ashes into which the
fuel of the funeral and bustuary fire hath been converted? Answer, if
you can. By my figgins, I believe it will trouble you so to do.
Well, I will despatch, and tell you that, if you take of this celestial
Pantagruelion so much as is needful to cover the body of the defunct,
and after that you shall have enwrapped and bound therein as hard and
closely as you can the corpse of the said deceased persons, and sewed
up the folding-sheet with thread of the same stuff, throw it into the fire,
how great or ardent soever it be it matters not a straw, the fire through
this Pantagruelion will burn the body and reduce to ashes the bones
thereof, and the Pantagruelion shall be not only not consumed nor burnt,
but also shall neither lose one atom of the ashes enclosed within it, nor
receive one atom of the huge bustuary heap of ashes resulting from the
blazing conflagration of things combustible laid round about it, but
shall at last, when taken out of the fire, be fairer, whiter, and much
cleaner than when you did put it in at first. Therefore it is called
Asbeston, which is as much to say as incombustible. Great plenty is to
be found thereof in Carpasia, as likewise in the climate Dia Sienes, at
very easy rates. O how rare and admirable a thing it is, that the fire
which devoureth, consumeth, and destroyeth all such things else,
should cleanse, purge, and whiten this sole Pantagruelion Carpasian
Asbeston! If you mistrust the verity of this relation, and demand for
further confirmation of my assertion a visible sign, as the Jews and
such incredulous infidels use to do, take a fresh egg, and orbicularly, or
rather ovally, enfold it within this divine Pantagruelion. When it is so
wrapped up, put it in the hot embers of a fire, how great or ardent
soever it be, and having left it there as long as you will, you shall at last,
at your taking it out of the fire, find the egg roasted hard, and as it were
burnt, without any alteration, change, mutation, or so much as a
calefaction of the sacred Pantagruelion. For less than a million of
pounds sterling, modified, taken down, and amoderated to the twelfth
part of one fourpence halfpenny farthing, you are able to put it to a trial
and make proof thereof.
Do not think to overmatch me here, by paragoning with it in the way of
a more eminent comparison the Salamander. That is a fib; for, albeit a
little ordinary fire, such as is used in dining-rooms and chambers,
gladden, cheer up, exhilarate, and quicken it, yet may I warrantably
enough assure that in the flaming fire of a furnace it will, like any other
animated creature, be quickly suffocated, choked, consumed, and
destroyed. We have seen the experiment thereof, and Galen many ages
ago hath clearly demonstrated and confirmed it, Lib. 3, De
temperamentis, and Dioscorides maintaineth the same doctrine, Lib. 2.
Do not here instance in competition with this sacred herb the feather
alum or the wooden tower of Pyraeus, which Lucius Sylla was never
able to get burnt; for that Archelaus, governor of the town for
Mithridates, King of Pontus, had plastered it all over on the outside
with the said alum. Nor would I have you to compare therewith the
herb which Alexander Cornelius called Eonem, and said that it had
some resemblance with that oak which bears the mistletoe, and that it
could neither be consumed nor receive any manner of prejudice by fire
nor by water, no more than the mistletoe, of which was built, said he,
the so renowned ship Argos. Search where you please for those that
will believe it. I in that point desire to be excused. Neither would I wish
you to parallel therewith--although I cannot deny but that it is of a very
marvellous nature--that sort of tree which groweth alongst the
mountains of Brianson and Ambrun, which produceth out of his root
the good agaric. From its body it yieldeth unto us a so excellent rosin,
that Galen hath been bold to equal it to the turpentine. Upon the
delicate leaves thereof it retaineth for our use that sweet heavenly
honey which is called the manna, and, although it be of a gummy, oily,
fat, and greasy substance, it is, notwithstanding, unconsumable by any
fire. It is in Greek and Latin called Larix. The Alpinese name is Melze.
The Antenorides and Venetians term it Larege; which gave occasion to
that castle in Piedmont to receive the denomination of Larignum, by
putting Julius Caesar to a stand at his return from amongst the Gauls.
Julius Caesar commanded all the yeomen, boors, hinds, and other
inhabitants in, near unto, and about the Alps and Piedmont, to bring all
manner of victuals and provision for an army to those places which on
the military road he had appointed to receive them for the use of his
marching soldiery. To which ordinance all of them were obedient, save
only those as were within the garrison of Larignum, who, trusting in the
natural strength of the place, would not pay their contribution. The
emperor, purposing to chastise them for their refusal, caused his whole
army to march straight towards that castle, before the gate whereof was
erected a tower built of huge big spars and rafters of the larch-tree, fast
bound together with pins and pegs of the same wood, and
interchangeably laid on one another, after the fashion of a pile or stack
of timber, set up in the fabric thereof to such an apt and convenient
height that from the parapet above the portcullis they thought with
stones and levers to beat off and drive away such as should approach
thereto.
When Caesar had understood that the chief defence of those within the
castle did consist in stones and clubs, and that it was not an easy matter
to sling, hurl, dart, throw, or cast them so far as to hinder the
approaches, he forthwith commanded his men to throw great store of
bavins, faggots, and fascines round about the castle, and when they had
made the heap of a competent height, to put them all in a fair fire;
which was thereupon incontinently done. The fire put amidst the
faggots was so great and so high that it covered the whole castle, that
they might well imagine the tower would thereby be altogether burnt to
dust, and demolished. Nevertheless, contrary to all their hopes and
expectations, when the flame ceased, and that the faggots were quite
burnt and consumed, the tower appeared as whole, sound, and entire as
ever. Caesar, after a serious consideration had thereof, commanded a
compass to be taken without the distance of a stone cast from the castle
round about it there, with ditches and entrenchments to form a blockade;
which when the Larignans understood, they rendered themselves upon
terms. And then by a relation from them it was that Caesar learned the
admirable nature and virtue of this wood, which of itself produceth
neither fire, flame, nor coal, and would, therefore, in regard of that rare
quality of incombustibility, have been admitted into this rank and
degree of a true Pantagruelional plant; and that so much the rather, for
that Pantagruel directed that all the gates, doors, angiports, windows,
gutters, fretticed and embowed ceilings, cans, (cants?) and other
whatsoever wooden furniture in the abbey of Theleme, should be all
materiated of this kind of timber. He likewise caused to cover therewith
the sterns, stems, cook-rooms or laps, hatches, decks, courses, bends,
and walls of his carricks, ships, galleons, galleys, brigantines, foists,
frigates, crears, barques, floats, pinks, pinnaces, hoys, ketches, capers,
and other vessels of his Thalassian arsenal; were it not that the wood or
timber of the larch-tree, being put within a large and ample furnace full
of huge vehemently flaming fire proceeding from the fuel of other sorts
and kinds of wood, cometh at last to be corrupted, consumed,
dissipated, and destroyed, as are stones in a lime-kiln. But this
Pantagruelion Asbeston is rather by the fire renewed and cleansed than
by the flames thereof consumed or changed. Therefore,
Arabians, Indians, Sabaeans, Sing not, in hymns and Io Paeans, Your
incense, myrrh, or ebony. Come here, a nobler plant to see, And carry
home, at any rate, Some seed, that you may propagate. If in your soil it
takes, to heaven A thousand thousand thanks be given; And say with
France, it goodly goes, Where the Pantagruelion grows.
END OF BOOK III
BOOK IV.
THE FOURTH BOOK
The Translator's Preface.
Reader,--I don't know what kind of a preface I must write to find thee
courteous, an epithet too often bestowed without a cause. The author of
this work has been as sparing of what we call good nature, as most
readers are nowadays. So I am afraid his translator and commentator is
not to expect much more than has been showed them. What's worse,
there are but two sorts of taking prefaces, as there are but two kinds of
prologues to plays; for Mr. Bays was doubtless in the right when he
said that if thunder and lightning could not fright an audience into
complaisance, the sight of the poet with a rope about his neck might
work them into pity. Some, indeed, have bullied many of you into
applause, and railed at your faults that you might think them without
any; and others, more safely, have spoken kindly of you, that you might
think, or at least speak, as favourably of them, and be flattered into
patience. Now, I fancy, there's nothing less difficult to attempt than the
first method; for, in this blessed age, 'tis as easy to find a bully without
courage, as a whore without beauty, or a writer without wit; though
those qualifications are so necessary in their respective professions.
The mischief is, that you seldom allow any to rail besides yourselves,
and cannot bear a pride which shocks your own. As for wheedling you
into a liking of a work, I must confess it seems the safest way; but
though flattery pleases you well when it is particular, you hate it, as
little concerning you, when it is general. Then we knights of the quill
are a stiff-necked generation, who as seldom care to seem to doubt the
worth of our writings, and their being liked, as we love to flatter more
than one at a time; and had rather draw our pens, and stand up for the
beauty of our works (as some arrant fools use to do for that of their
mistresses) to the last drop of our ink. And truly this submission, which
sometimes wheedles you into pity, as seldom decoys you into love, as
the awkward cringing of an antiquated fop, as moneyless as he is ugly,
affects an experienced fair one. Now we as little value your pity as a
lover his mistress's, well satisfied that it is only a less uncivil way of
dismissing us. But what if neither of these two ways will work upon
you, of which doleful truth some of our playwrights stand so many
living monuments? Why, then, truly I think on no other way at present
but blending the two into one; and, from this marriage of huffing and
cringing, there will result a new kind of careless medley, which,
perhaps, will work upon both sorts of readers, those who are to be
hectored, and those whom we must creep to. At least, it is like to please
by its novelty; and it will not be the first monster that has pleased you
when regular nature could not do it.
If uncommon worth, lively wit, and deep learning, wove into
wholesome satire, a bold, good, and vast design admirably pursued,
truth set out in its true light, and a method how to arrive to its oracle,
can recommend a work, I am sure this has enough to please any
reasonable man. The three books published some time since, which are
in a manner an entire work, were kindly received; yet, in the French,
they come far short of these two, which are also entire pieces; for the
satire is all general here, much more obvious, and consequently more
entertaining. Even my long explanatory preface was not thought
improper. Though I was so far from being allowed time to make it
methodical, that at first only a few pages were intended; yet as fast as
they were printed I wrote on, till it proved at last like one of those
towns built little at first, then enlarged, where you see promiscuously
an odd variety of all sorts of irregular buildings. I hope the remarks I
give now will not please less; for, as I have translated the work which
they explain, I had more time to make them, though as little to write
them. It would be needless to give here a large account of my
performance; for, after all, you readers care no more for this or that
apology, or pretence of Mr. Translator, if the version does not please
you, than we do for a blundering cook's excuse after he has spoiled a
good dish in the dressing. Nor can the first pretend to much praise,
besides that of giving his author's sense in its full extent, and copying
his style, if it is to be copied; since he has no share in the invention or
disposition of what he translates. Yet there was no small difficulty in
doing Rabelais justice in that double respect; the obsolete words and
turns of phrase, and dark subjects, often as darkly treated, make the
sense hard to be understood even by a Frenchman, and it cannot be
easy to give it the free easy air of an original; for even what seems most
common talk in one language, is what is often the most difficult to be
made so in another; and Horace's thoughts of comedy may be well
applied to this:
Creditur, ex medio quia res arcessit, habere Sudoris minimum; sed
habet commoedia tantum Plus oneris, quanto veniae minus.
Far be it from me, for all this, to value myself upon hitting the words of
cant in which my drolling author is so luxuriant; for though such words
have stood me in good stead, I scarce can forbear thinking myself
unhappy in having insensibly hoarded up so much gibberish and
Billingsgate trash in my memory; nor could I forbear asking of myself,
as an Italian cardinal said on another account, D'onde hai tu pigliato
tante coglionerie? Where the devil didst thou rake up all these
fripperies?
It was not less difficult to come up to the author's sublime expressions.
Nor would I have attempted such a task, but that I was ambitious of
giving a view of the most valuable work of the greatest genius of his
age, to the Mecaenas and best genius of this. For I am not overfond of
so ungrateful a task as translating, and would rejoice to see less
versions and more originals; so the latter were not as bad as many of
the first are, through want of encouragement. Some indeed have
deservedly gained esteem by translating; yet not many condescend to
translate, but such as cannot invent; though to do the first well requires
often as much genius as to do the latter.
I wish, reader, thou mayest be as willing to do my author justice, as I
have strove to do him right. Yet, if thou art a brother of the quill, it is
ten to one thou art too much in love with thy own dear productions to
admire those of one of thy trade. However, I know three or four who
have not such a mighty opinion of themselves; but I'll not name them,
lest I should be obliged to place myself among them. If thou art one of
those who, though they never write, criticise everyone that does;
avaunt!--Thou art a professed enemy of mankind and of thyself, who
wilt never be pleased nor let anybody be so, and knowest no better way
to fame than by striving to lessen that of others; though wouldst thou
write thou mightst be soon known, even by the butterwomen, and fly
through the world in bandboxes. If thou art of the dissembling tribe, it
is thy office to rail at those books which thou huggest in a corner. If
thou art one of those eavesdroppers, who would have their moroseness
be counted gravity, thou wilt condemn a mirth which thou art past
relishing; and I know no other way to quit the score than by writing (as
like enough I may) something as dull, or duller than thyself, if possible.
If thou art one of those critics in dressing, those extempores of fortune,
who, having lost a relation and got an estate, in an instant set up for wit
and every extravagance, thou'lt either praise or discommend this book,
according to the dictates of some less foolish than thyself, perhaps of
one of those who, being lodged at the sign of the box and dice, will
know better things than to recommend to thee a work which bids thee
beware of his tricks. This book might teach thee to leave thy follies; but
some will say it does not signify much to some fools whether they are
so or not; for when was there a fool that thought himself one? If thou
art one of those who would put themselves upon us for learned men in
Greek and Hebrew, yet are mere blockheads in English, and patch
together old pieces of the ancients to get themselves clothes out of them,
thou art too severely mauled in this work to like it. Who then will?
some will cry. Nay, besides these, many societies that make a great
figure in the world are reflected on in this book; which caused Rabelais
to study to be dark, and even bedaub it with many loose expressions,
that he might not be thought to have any other design than to droll; in a
manner bewraying his book that his enemies might not bite it. Truly,
though now the riddle is expounded, I would advise those who read it
not to reflect on the author, lest he be thought to have been beforehand
with them, and they be ranked among those who have nothing to show
for their honesty but their money, nothing for their religion but their
dissembling, or a fat benefice, nothing for their wit but their dressing,
for their nobility but their title, for their gentility but their sword, for
their courage but their huffing, for their preferment but their assurance,
for their learning but their degrees, or for their gravity but their
wrinkles or dulness. They had better laugh at one another here, as it is
the custom of the world. Laughing is of all professions; the miser may
hoard, the spendthrift squander, the politician plot, the lawyer wrangle,
and the gamester cheat; still their main design is to be able to laugh at
one another; and here they may do it at a cheap and easy rate. After all,
should this work fail to please the greater number of readers, I am sure
it cannot miss being liked by those who are for witty mirth and a
chirping bottle; though not by those solid sots who seem to have
drudged all their youth long only that they might enjoy the sweet
blessing of getting drunk every night in their old age. But those men of
sense and honour who love truth and the good of mankind in general
above all other things will undoubtedly countenance this work. I will
not gravely insist upon its usefulness, having said enough of it in the
preface (Motteux' Preface to vol. I of Rabelais, ed. 1694.) to the first
part. I will only add, that as Homer in his Odyssey makes his hero
wander ten years through most parts of the then known world, so
Rabelais, in a three months' voyage, makes Pantagruel take a view of
almost all sorts of people and professions; with this difference,
however, between the ancient mythologist and the modern, that while
the Odyssey has been compared to a setting sun in respect to the Iliads,
Rabelais' last work, which is this Voyage to the Oracle of the Bottle (by
which he means truth) is justly thought his masterpiece, being wrote
with more spirit, salt, and flame, than the first part of his works. At near
seventy years of age, his genius, far from being drained, seemed to
have acquired fresh vigour and new graces the more it exerted itself;
like those rivers which grow more deep, large, majestic, and useful by
their course. Those who accuse the French of being as sparing of their
wit as lavish of their words will find an Englishman in our author. I
must confess indeed that my countrymen and other southern nations
temper the one with the other in a manner as they do their wine with
water, often just dashing the latter with a little of the first. Now here
men love to drink their wine pure; nay, sometimes it will not satisfy
unless in its very quintessence, as in brandies; though an excess of this
betrays want of sobriety, as much as an excess of wit betrays a want of
judgment. But I must conclude, lest I be justly taxed with wanting both.
I will only add, that as every language has its peculiar graces, seldom or
never to be acquired by a foreigner, I cannot think I have given my
author those of the English in every place; but as none compelled me to
write, I fear to ask a pardon which yet the generous temper of this
nation makes me hope to obtain. Albinus, a Roman, who had written in
Greek, desired in his preface to be forgiven his faults of language; but
Cato asked him in derision whether any had forced him to write in a
tongue of which he was not an absolute master. Lucullus wrote a
history in the same tongue, and said he had scattered some false Greek
in it to let the world know it was the work of a Roman. I will not say as
much of my writings, in which I study to be as little incorrect as the
hurry of business and shortness of time will permit; but I may better
say, as Tully did of the history of his consulship, which he also had
written in Greek, that what errors may be found in the diction are crept
in against my intent. Indeed, Livius Andronicus and Terence, the one a
Greek, the other a Carthaginian, wrote successfully in Latin, and the
latter is perhaps the most perfect model of the purity and urbanity of
that tongue; but I ought not to hope for the success of those great men.
Yet am I ambitious of being as subservient to the useful diversion of
the ingenious of this nation as I can, which I have endeavoured in this
work, with hopes to attempt some greater tasks if ever I am happy
enough to have more leisure. In the meantime it will not displease me,
if it is known that this is given by one who, though born and educated
in France, has the love and veneration of a loyal subject for this nation,
one who, by a fatality, which with many more made him say,
Nos patriam fugimus et dulcia linquimus arva,
is obliged to make the language of these happy regions as natural to
him as he can, and thankfully say with the rest, under this Protestant
government,
Deus nobis haec otia fecit.
The Author's Epistle Dedicatory.
To the most Illustrious Prince and most Reverend Lord Odet, Cardinal
de Chastillon.
You know, most illustrious prince, how often I have been, and am daily
pressed and required by great numbers of eminent persons, to proceed
in the Pantagruelian fables; they tell me that many languishing, sick,
and disconsolate persons, perusing them, have deceived their grief,
passed their time merrily, and been inspired with new joy and comfort.
I commonly answer that I aimed not at glory and applause when I
diverted myself with writing, but only designed to give by my pen, to
the absent who labour under affliction, that little help which at all times
I willingly strive to give to the present that stand in need of my art and
service. Sometimes I at large relate to them how Hippocrates in several
places, and particularly in lib. 6. Epidem., describing the institution of
the physician his disciple, and also Soranus of Ephesus, Oribasius,
Galen, Hali Abbas, and other authors, have descended to particulars, in
the prescription of his motions, deportment, looks, countenance,
gracefulness, civility, cleanliness of face, clothes, beard, hair, hands,
mouth, even his very nails; as if he were to play the part of a lover in
some comedy, or enter the lists to fight some enemy. And indeed the
practice of physic is properly enough compared by Hippocrates to a
fight, and also to a farce acted between three persons, the patient, the
physician, and the disease. Which passage has sometimes put me in
mind of Julia's saying to Augustus her father. One day she came before
him in a very gorgeous, loose, lascivious dress, which very much
displeased him, though he did not much discover his discontent. The
next day she put on another, and in a modest garb, such as the chaste
Roman ladies wore, came into his presence. The kind father could not
then forbear expressing the pleasure which he took to see her so much
altered, and said to her: Oh! how much more this garb becomes and is
commendable in the daughter of Augustus. But she, having her excuse
ready, answered: This day, sir, I dressed myself to please my father's
eye; yesterday, to gratify that of my husband. Thus disguised in looks
and garb, nay even, as formerly was the fashion, with a rich and
pleasant gown with four sleeves, which was called philonium according
to Petrus Alexandrinus in 6. Epidem., a physician might answer to such
as might find the metamorphosis indecent: Thus have I accoutred
myself, not that I am proud of appearing in such a dress, but for the
sake of my patient, whom alone I wholly design to please, and no wise
offend or dissatisfy. There is also a passage in our father Hippocrates,
in the book I have named, which causes some to sweat, dispute, and
labour; not indeed to know whether the physician's frowning,
discontented, and morose Catonian look render the patient sad, and his
joyful, serene, and pleasing countenance rejoice him; for experience
teaches us that this is most certain; but whether such sensations of grief
or pleasure are produced by the apprehension of the patient observing
his motions and qualities in his physician, and drawing from thence
conjectures of the end and catastrophe of his disease; as, by his pleasing
look, joyful and desirable events, and by his sorrowful and unpleasing
air, sad and dismal consequences; or whether those sensations be
produced by a transfusion of the serene or gloomy, aerial or terrestrial,
joyful or melancholic spirits of the physician into the person of the
patient, as is the opinion of Plato, Averroes, and others.
Above all things, the forecited authors have given particular directions
to physicians about the words, discourse, and converse which they
ought to have with their patients; everyone aiming at one point, that is,
to rejoice them without offending God, and in no wise whatsoever to
vex or displease them. Which causes Herophilus much to blame the
physician Callianax, who, being asked by a patient of his, Shall I die?
impudently made him this answer:
Patroclus died, whom all allow By much a better man than you.
Another, who had a mind to know the state of his distemper, asking
him, after our merry Patelin's way: Well, doctor, does not my water tell
you I shall die? He foolishly answered, No; if Latona, the mother of
those lovely twins, Phoebus and Diana, begot thee. Galen, lib. 4,
Comment. 6. Epidem., blames much also Quintus his tutor, who, a
certain nobleman of Rome, his patient, saying to him, You have been at
breakfast, my master, your breath smells of wine; answered arrogantly,
Yours smells of fever; which is the better smell of the two, wine or a
putrid fever? But the calumny of certain cannibals, misanthropes,
perpetual eavesdroppers, has been so foul and excessive against me,
that it had conquered my patience, and I had resolved not to write one
jot more. For the least of their detractions were that my books are all
stuffed with various heresies, of which, nevertheless, they could not
show one single instance; much, indeed, of comical and facetious
fooleries, neither offending God nor the king (and truly I own they are
the only subject and only theme of these books), but of heresy not a
word, unless they interpreted wrong, and against all use of reason and
common language, what I had rather suffer a thousand deaths, if it were
possible, than have thought; as who should make bread to be stone, a
fish to be a serpent, and an egg to be a scorpion. This, my lord,
emboldened me once to tell you, as I was complaining of it in your
presence, that if I did not esteem myself a better Christian than they
show themselves towards me, and if my life, writings, words, nay
thoughts, betrayed to me one single spark of heresy, or I should in a
detestable manner fall into the snares of the spirit of detraction,
Diabolos, who, by their means, raises such crimes against me; I would
then, like the phoenix, gather dry wood, kindle a fire, and burn myself
in the midst of it. You were then pleased to say to me that King Francis,
of eternal memory, had been made sensible of those false accusations;
and that having caused my books (mine, I say, because several, false
and infamous, have been wickedly laid to me) to be carefully and
distinctly read to him by the most learned and faithful anagnost in this
kingdom, he had not found any passage suspicious; and that he
abhorred a certain envious, ignorant, hypocritical informer, who
grounded a mortal heresy on an n put instead of an m by the
carelessness of the printers.
As much was done by his son, our most gracious, virtuous, and blessed
sovereign, Henry, whom Heaven long preserve! so that he granted you
his royal privilege and particular protection for me against my
slandering adversaries.
You kindly condescended since to confirm me these happy news at
Paris; and also lately, when you visited my Lord Cardinal du Bellay,
who, for the benefit of his health, after a lingering distemper, was
retired to St. Maur, that place (or rather paradise) of salubrity, serenity,
conveniency, and all desirable country pleasures.
Thus, my lord, under so glorious a patronage, I am emboldened once
more to draw my pen, undaunted now and secure; with hopes that you
will still prove to me, against the power of detraction, a second Gallic
Hercules in learning, prudence, and eloquence; an Alexicacos in virtue,
power, and authority; you, of whom I may truly say what the wise
monarch Solomon saith of Moses, that great prophet and captain of
Israel, Ecclesiast. 45: A man fearing and loving God, who found favour
in the sight of all flesh, well- beloved both of God and man; whose
memorial is blessed. God made him like to the glorious saints, and
magnified him so, that his enemies stood in fear of him; and for him
made wonders; made him glorious in the sight of kings, gave him a
commandment for his people, and by him showed his light; he
sanctified him in his faithfulness and meekness, and chose him out of
all men. By him he made us to hear his voice, and caused by him the
law of life and knowledge to be given.
Accordingly, if I shall be so happy as to hear anyone commend those
merry composures, they shall be adjured by me to be obliged and pay
their thanks to you alone, as also to offer their prayers to Heaven for the
continuance and increase of your greatness; and to attribute no more to
me than my humble and ready obedience to your commands; for by
your most honourable encouragement you at once have inspired me
with spirit and with invention; and without you my heart had failed me,
and the fountain-head of my animal spirits had been dry. May the Lord
keep you in his blessed mercy!
My Lord,
Your most humble, and most devoted Servant,
Francis Rabelais, Physician.
Paris, this 28th of January, MDLII.
The Author's Prologue.
Good people, God save and keep you! Where are you? I can't see you:
stay--I'll saddle my nose with spectacles--oh, oh! 'twill be fair anon: I
see you. Well, you have had a good vintage, they say: this is no bad
news to Frank, you may swear. You have got an infallible cure against
thirst: rarely performed of you, my friends! You, your wives, children,
friends, and families are in as good case as hearts can wish; it is well, it
is as I would have it: God be praised for it, and if such be his will, may
you long be so. For my part, I am thereabouts, thanks to his blessed
goodness; and by the means of a little Pantagruelism (which you know
is a certain jollity of mind, pickled in the scorn of fortune), you see me
now hale and cheery, as sound as a bell, and ready to drink, if you will.
Would you know why I'm thus, good people? I will even give you a
positive answer-- Such is the Lord's will, which I obey and revere; it
being said in his word, in great derision to the physician neglectful of
his own health, Physician, heal thyself.
Galen had some knowledge of the Bible, and had conversed with the
Christians of his time, as appears lib. 11. De Usu Partium; lib. 2. De
Differentiis Pulsuum, cap. 3, and ibid. lib. 3. cap. 2. and lib. De Rerum
Affectibus (if it be Galen's). Yet 'twas not for any such veneration of
holy writ that he took care of his own health. No, it was for fear of
being twitted with the saying so well known among physicians:
Iatros allon autos elkesi bruon.
He boasts of healing poor and rich, Yet is himself all over itch.
This made him boldly say, that he did not desire to be esteemed a
physician, if from his twenty-eighth year to his old age he had not lived
in perfect health, except some ephemerous fevers, of which he soon rid
himself; yet he was not naturally of the soundest temper, his stomach
being evidently bad. Indeed, as he saith, lib. 5, De Sanitate tuenda, that
physician will hardly be thought very careful of the health of others
who neglects his own. Asclepiades boasted yet more than this; for he
said that he had articled with fortune not to be reputed a physician if he
could be said to have been sick since he began to practise physic to his
latter age, which he reached, lusty in all his members and victorious
over fortune; till at last the old gentleman unluckily tumbled down
from the top of a certain ill-propped and rotten staircase, and so there
was an end of him.
If by some disaster health is fled from your worships to the right or to
the left, above or below, before or behind, within or without, far or near,
on this side or the other side, wheresoever it be, may you presently,
with the help of the Lord, meet with it. Having found it, may you
immediately claim it, seize it, and secure it. The law allows it; the king
would have it so; nay, you have my advice for it. Neither more nor less
than the law- makers of old did fully empower a master to claim and
seize his runaway servant wherever he might be found. Odds-bodikins,
is it not written and warranted by the ancient customs of this noble, so
rich, so flourishing realm of France, that the dead seizes the quick? See
what has been declared very lately in that point by that learned, wise,
courteous, humane and just civilian, Andrew Tiraqueau, one of the
judges in the most honourable court of Parliament at Paris. Health is
our life, as Ariphron the Sicyonian wisely has it; without health life is
not life, it is not living life: abios bios, bios abiotos. Without health life
is only a languishment and an image of death. Therefore, you that want
your health, that is to say, that are dead, seize the quick; secure life to
yourselves, that is to say, health.
I have this hope in the Lord, that he will hear our supplications,
considering with what faith and zeal we pray, and that he will grant this
our wish because it is moderate and mean. Mediocrity was held by the
ancient sages to be golden, that is to say, precious, praised by all men,
and pleasing in all places. Read the sacred Bible, you will find the
prayers of those who asked moderately were never unanswered. For
example, little dapper Zaccheus, whose body and relics the monks of St.
Garlick, near Orleans, boast of having, and nickname him St. Sylvanus;
he only wished to see our blessed Saviour near Jerusalem. It was but a
small request, and no more than anybody then might pretend to. But
alas! he was but low-built; and one of so diminutive a size, among the
crowd, could not so much as get a glimpse of him. Well then he struts,
stands on tiptoes, bustles, and bestirs his stumps, shoves and makes
way, and with much ado clambers up a sycamore. Upon this, the Lord,
who knew his sincere affection, presented himself to his sight, and was
not only seen by him, but heard also; nay, what is more, he came to his
house and blessed his family.
One of the sons of the prophets in Israel felling would near the river
Jordan, his hatchet forsook the helve and fell to the bottom of the river;
so he prayed to have it again ('twas but a small request, mark ye me),
and having a strong faith, he did not throw the hatchet after the helve,
as some spirits of contradiction say by way of scandalous blunder, but
the helve after the hatchet, as you all properly have it. Presently two
great miracles were seen: up springs the hatchet from the bottom of the
water, and fixes itself to its old acquaintance the helve. Now had he
wished to coach it to heaven in a fiery chariot like Elias, to multiply in
seed like Abraham, be as rich as Job, strong as Samson, and beautiful
as Absalom, would he have obtained it, d'ye think? I' troth, my friends,
I question it very much.
Now I talk of moderate wishes in point of hatchet (but harkee me, be
sure you don't forget when we ought to drink), I will tell you what is
written among the apologues of wise Aesop the Frenchman. I mean the
Phrygian and Trojan, as Max. Planudes makes him; from which people,
according to the most faithful chroniclers, the noble French are
descended. Aelian writes that he was of Thrace and Agathias, after
Herodotus, that he was of Samos; 'tis all one to Frank.
In his time lived a poor honest country fellow of Gravot, Tom
Wellhung by name, a wood-cleaver by trade, who in that low drudgery
made shift so to pick up a sorry livelihood. It happened that he lost his
hatchet. Now tell me who ever had more cause to be vexed than poor
Tom? Alas, his whole estate and life depended on his hatchet; by his
hatchet he earned many a fair penny of the best woodmongers or
log-merchants among whom he went a-jobbing; for want of his hatchet
he was like to starve; and had death but met with him six days after
without a hatchet, the grim fiend would have mowed him down in the
twinkling of a bedstaff. In this sad case he began to be in a heavy
taking, and called upon Jupiter with the most eloquent prayers--for you
know necessity was the mother of eloquence. With the whites of his
eyes turned up towards heaven, down on his marrow-bones, his arms
reared high, his fingers stretched wide, and his head bare, the poor
wretch without ceasing was roaring out, by way of litany, at every
repetition of his supplications, My hatchet, Lord Jupiter, my hatchet!
my hatchet! only my hatchet, O Jupiter, or money to buy another, and
nothing else! alas, my poor hatchet!
Jupiter happened then to be holding a grand council about certain
urgent affairs, and old gammer Cybele was just giving her opinion, or,
if you would rather have it so, it was young Phoebus the beau; but, in
short, Tom's outcries and lamentations were so loud that they were
heard with no small amazement at the council-board, by the whole
consistory of the gods. What a devil have we below, quoth Jupiter, that
howls so horridly? By the mud of Styx, have not we had all along, and
have not we here still enough to do, to set to rights a world of damned
puzzling businesses of consequence? We made an end of the fray
between Presthan, King of Persia, and Soliman the Turkish emperor,
we have stopped up the passages between the Tartars and the
Muscovites; answered the Xeriff's petition; done the same to that of
Golgots Rays; the state of Parma's despatched; so is that of Maidenburg,
that of Mirandola, and that of Africa, that town on the Mediterranean
which we call Aphrodisium; Tripoli by carelessness has got a new
master; her hour was come.
Here are the Gascons cursing and damning, demanding the restitution
of their bells.
In yonder corner are the Saxons, Easterlings, Ostrogoths, and Germans,
nations formerly invincible, but now aberkeids, bridled, curbed, and
brought under a paltry diminutive crippled fellow; they ask us revenge,
relief, restitution of their former good sense and ancient liberty.
But what shall we do with this same Ramus and this Galland, with a
pox to them, who, surrounded with a swarm of their scullions,
blackguard ragamuffins, sizars, vouchers, and stipulators, set together
by the ears the whole university of Paris? I am in a sad quandary about
it, and for the heart's blood of me cannot tell yet with whom of the two
to side.
Both seem to me notable fellows, and as true cods as ever pissed. The
one has rose-nobles, I say fine and weighty ones; the other would
gladly have some too. The one knows something; the other's no dunce.
The one loves the better sort of men; the other's beloved by 'em. The
one is an old cunning fox; the other with tongue and pen, tooth and nail,
falls foul on the ancient orators and philosophers, and barks at them
like a cur.
What thinkest thou of it, say, thou bawdy Priapus? I have found thy
counsel just before now, et habet tua mentula mentem.
King Jupiter, answered Priapus, standing up and taking off his cowl, his
snout uncased and reared up, fiery and stiffly propped, since you
compare the one to a yelping snarling cur and the other to sly Reynard
the fox, my advice is, with submission, that without fretting or puzzling
your brains any further about 'em, without any more ado, even serve
'em both as, in the days of yore, you did the dog and the fox. How?
asked Jupiter; when? who were they? where was it? You have a rare
memory, for aught I see! returned Priapus. This right worshipful father
Bacchus, whom we have here nodding with his crimson phiz, to be
revenged on the Thebans had got a fairy fox, who, whatever mischief
he did, was never to be caught or wronged by any beast that wore a
head.
The noble Vulcan here present had framed a dog of Monesian brass,
and with long puffing and blowing put the spirit of life into him; he
gave it to you, you gave it your Miss Europa, Miss Europa gave it
Minos, Minos gave it Procris, Procris gave it Cephalus. He was also of
the fairy kind; so that, like the lawyers of our age, he was too hard for
all other sorts of creatures; nothing could scape the dog. Now who
should happen to meet but these two? What do you think they did? Dog
by his destiny was to take fox, and fox by his fate was not to be taken.
The case was brought before your council: you protested that you
would not act against the fates; and the fates were contradictory. In
short, the end and result of the matter was, that to reconcile two
contradictions was an impossibility in nature. The very pang put you
into a sweat; some drops of which happening to light on the earth,
produced what the mortals call cauliflowers. All our noble consistory,
for want of a categorical resolution, were seized with such a horrid
thirst, that above seventy-eight hogsheads of nectar were swilled down
at that sitting. At last you took my advice, and transmogrified them into
stones; and immediately got rid of your perplexity, and a truce with
thirst was proclaimed through this vast Olympus. This was the year of
flabby cods, near Teumessus, between Thebes and Chalcis.
After this manner, it is my opinion that you should petrify this dog and
this fox. The metamorphosis will not be incongruous; for they both
bear the name of Peter. And because, according to the Limosin proverb,
to make an oven's mouth there must be three stones, you may associate
them with Master Peter du Coignet, whom you formerly petrified for
the same cause. Then those three dead pieces shall be put in an
equilateral trigone somewhere in the great temple at Paris--in the
middle of the porch, if you will--there to perform the office of
extinguishers, and with their noses put out the lighted candles, torches,
tapers, and flambeaux; since, while they lived, they still lighted,
ballock-like, the fire of faction, division, ballock sects, and wrangling
among those idle bearded boys, the students. And this will be an
everlasting monument to show that those puny self-conceited pedants,
ballock-framers, were rather contemned than condemned by you. Dixi,
I have said my say.
You deal too kindly by them, said Jupiter, for aught I see, Monsieur
Priapus. You do not use to be so kind to everybody, let me tell you; for
as they seek to eternize their names, it would be much better for them
to be thus changed into hard stones than to return to earth and
putrefaction. But now to other matters. Yonder behind us, towards the
Tuscan sea and the neighbourhood of Mount Apennine, do you see
what tragedies are stirred up by certain topping ecclesiastical bullies?
This hot fit will last its time, like the Limosins' ovens, and then will be
cooled, but not so fast.
We shall have sport enough with it; but I foresee one inconveniency;
for methinks we have but little store of thunder ammunition since the
time that you, my fellow gods, for your pastime lavished them away to
bombard new Antioch, by my particular permission; as since, after your
example, the stout champions who had undertaken to hold the fortress
of Dindenarois against all comers fairly wasted their powder with
shooting at sparrows, and then, not having wherewith to defend
themselves in time of need, valiantly surrendered to the enemy, who
were already packing up their awls, full of madness and despair, and
thought on nothing but a shameful retreat. Take care this be remedied,
son Vulcan; rouse up your drowsy Cyclopes, Asteropes, Brontes, Arges,
Polyphemus, Steropes, Pyracmon, and so forth, set them at work, and
make them drink as they ought.
Never spare liquor to such as are at hot work. Now let us despatch this
bawling fellow below. You, Mercury, go see who it is, and know what
he wants. Mercury looked out at heaven's trapdoor, through which, as I
am told, they hear what is said here below. By the way, one might well
enough mistake it for the scuttle of a ship; though Icaromenippus said it
was like the mouth of a well. The light-heeled deity saw that it was
honest Tom, who asked for his lost hatchet; and accordingly he made
his report to the synod. Marry, said Jupiter, we are finely helped up, as
if we had now nothing else to do here but to restore lost hatchets. Well,
he must have it then for all this, for so 'tis written in the Book of Fate
(do you hear?), as well as if it was worth the whole duchy of Milan.
The truth is, the fellow's hatchet is as much to him as a kingdom to a
king. Come, come, let no more words be scattered about it; let him
have his hatchet again.
Now, let us make an end of the difference betwixt the Levites and
mole- catchers of Landerousse. Whereabouts were we? Priapus was
standing in the chimney-corner, and having heard what Mercury had
reported, said in a most courteous and jovial manner: King Jupiter,
while by your order and particular favour I was garden-keeper-general
on earth, I observed that this word hatchet is equivocal to many things;
for it signifies a certain instrument by the means of which men fell and
cleave timber. It also signifies (at least I am sure it did formerly) a
female soundly and frequently thumpthumpriggletickletwiddletobyed.
Thus I perceived that every cock of the game used to call his doxy his
hatchet; for with that same tool (this he said lugging out and exhibiting
his nine-inch knocker) they so strongly and resolutely shove and drive
in their helves, that the females remain free from a fear epidemical
amongst their sex, viz., that from the bottom of the male's belly the
instrument should dangle at his heel for want of such feminine props.
And I remember, for I have a member, and a memory too, ay, and a
fine memory, large enough to fill a butter- firkin; I remember, I say,
that one day of tubilustre (horn-fair) at the festivals of goodman Vulcan
in May, I heard Josquin Des Prez, Olkegan, Hobrecht, Agricola,
Brumel, Camelin, Vigoris, De la Fage, Bruyer, Prioris, Seguin, De la
Rue, Midy, Moulu, Mouton, Gascogne, Loyset, Compere, Penet, Fevin,
Rousee, Richard Fort, Rousseau, Consilion, Constantio Festi, Jacquet
Bercan, melodiously singing the following catch on a pleasant green:
Long John to bed went to his bride, And laid a mallet by his side: What
means this mallet, John? saith she. Why! 'tis to wedge thee home, quoth
he. Alas! cried she, the man's a fool: What need you use a wooden tool?
When lusty John does to me come, He never shoves but with his bum.
Nine Olympiads, and an intercalary year after (I have a rare member, I
would say memory; but I often make blunders in the symbolization and
colligance of those two words), I heard Adrian Villart, Gombert,
Janequin, Arcadet, Claudin, Certon, Manchicourt, Auxerre, Villiers,
Sandrin, Sohier, Hesdin, Morales, Passereau, Maille, Maillart, Jacotin,
Heurteur, Verdelot, Carpentras, L'Heritier, Cadeac, Doublet, Vermont,
Bouteiller, Lupi, Pagnier, Millet, Du Moulin, Alaire, Maraut, Morpain,
Gendre, and other merry lovers of music, in a private garden, under
some fine shady trees, round about a bulwark of flagons, gammons,
pasties, with several coated quails, and laced mutton, waggishly
singing:
Since tools without their hafts are useless lumber, And hatchets without
helves are of that number; That one may go in t'other, and may match it,
I'll be the helve, and thou shalt be the hatchet.
Now would I know what kind of hatchet this bawling Tom wants? This
threw all the venerable gods and goddesses into a fit of laughter, like
any microcosm of flies; and even set limping Vulcan a-hopping and
jumping smoothly three or four times for the sake of his dear. Come,
come, said Jupiter to Mercury, run down immediately, and cast at the
poor fellow's feet three hatchets: his own, another of gold, and a third
of massy silver, all of one size; then having left it to his will to take his
choice, if he take his own, and be satisfied with it, give him the other
two; if he take another, chop his head off with his own; and henceforth
serve me all those losers of hatchets after that manner. Having said this,
Jupiter, with an awkward turn of his head, like a jackanapes swallowing
of pills, made so dreadful a phiz that all the vast Olympus quaked again.
Heaven's foot messenger, thanks to his low-crowned narrow-brimmed
hat, his plume of feathers, heel-pieces, and running stick with pigeon
wings, flings himself out at heaven's wicket, through the idle deserts of
the air, and in a trice nimbly alights upon the earth, and throws at friend
Tom's feet the three hatchets, saying unto him: Thou hast bawled long
enough to be a-dry; thy prayers and request are granted by Jupiter: see
which of these three is thy hatchet, and take it away with thee.
Wellhung lifts up the golden hatchet, peeps upon it, and finds it very
heavy; then staring on Mercury, cries, Codszouks, this is none of mine;
I won't ha't: the same he did with the silver one, and said, 'Tis not this
neither, you may e'en take them again. At last he takes up his own
hatchet, examines the end of the helve, and finds his mark there; then,
ravished with joy, like a fox that meets some straggling poultry, and
sneering from the tip of the nose, he cried, By the mass, this is my
hatchet, master god; if you will leave it me, I will sacrifice to you a
very good and huge pot of milk brimful, covered with fine strawberries,
next ides of May.
Honest fellow, said Mercury, I leave it thee; take it; and because thou
hast wished and chosen moderately in point of hatchet, by Jupiter's
command I give thee these two others; thou hast now wherewith to
make thyself rich: be honest. Honest Tom gave Mercury a whole
cartload of thanks, and revered the most great Jupiter. His old hatchet
he fastens close to his leathern girdle, and girds it above his breech like
Martin of Cambray; the two others, being more heavy, he lays on his
shoulder. Thus he plods on, trudging over the fields, keeping a good
countenance amongst his neighbours and fellow-parishioners, with one
merry saying or other after Patelin's way. The next day, having put on a
clean white jacket, he takes on his back the two precious hatchets and
comes to Chinon, the famous city, noble city, ancient city, yea, the first
city in the world, according to the judgment and assertion of the most
learned Massorets. At Chinon he turned his silver hatchet into fine
testons, crown-pieces, and other white cash; his golden hatchet into fine
angels, curious ducats, substantial ridders, spankers, and rose-nobles;
then with them purchases a good number of farms, barns, houses,
out-houses, thatched houses, stables, meadows, orchards, fields,
vineyards, woods, arable lands, pastures, ponds, mills, gardens,
nurseries, oxen, cows, sheep, goats, swine, hogs, asses, horses, hens,
cocks, capons, chickens, geese, ganders, ducks, drakes, and a world of
all other necessaries, and in a short time became the richest man in the
country, nay, even richer than that limping scrape-good Maulevrier. His
brother bumpkins, and the other yeomen and country-puts thereabouts,
perceiving his good fortune, were not a little amazed, insomuch that
their former pity of poor Tom was soon changed into an envy of his so
great and unexpected rise; and as they could not for their souls devise
how this came about, they made it their business to pry up and down,
and lay their heads together, to inquire, seek, and inform themselves by
what means, in what place, on what day, what hour, how, why, and
wherefore, he had come by this great treasure.
At last, hearing it was by losing his hatchet, Ha, ha! said they, was
there no more to do but to lose a hatchet to make us rich? Mum for that;
'tis as easy as pissing a bed, and will cost but little. Are then at this time
the revolutions of the heavens, the constellations of the firmament, and
aspects of the planets such, that whosoever shall lose a hatchet shall
immediately grow rich? Ha, ha, ha! by Jove, you shall e'en be lost, an't
please you, my dear hatchet. With this they all fairly lost their hatchets
out of hand. The devil of one that had a hatchet left; he was not his
mother's son that did not lose his hatchet. No more was wood felled or
cleaved in that country through want of hatchets. Nay, the Aesopian
apologue even saith that certain petty country gents of the lower class,
who had sold Wellhung their little mill and little field to have
wherewithal to make a figure at the next muster, having been told that
his treasure was come to him by that only means, sold the only badge
of their gentility, their swords, to purchase hatchets to go lose them, as
the silly clodpates did, in hopes to gain store of chink by that loss.
You would have truly sworn they had been a parcel of your petty
spiritual usurers, Rome-bound, selling their all, and borrowing of others,
to buy store of mandates, a pennyworth of a new-made pope.
Now they cried out and brayed, and prayed and bawled, and lamented,
and invoked Jupiter: My hatchet! my hatchet! Jupiter, my hatchet! on
this side, My hatchet! on that side, My hatchet! Ho, ho, ho, ho, Jupiter,
my hatchet! The air round about rung again with the cries and howlings
of these rascally losers of hatchets.
Mercury was nimble in bringing them hatchets; to each offering that
which he had lost, as also another of gold, and a third of silver.
Every he still was for that of gold, giving thanks in abundance to the
great giver, Jupiter; but in the very nick of time that they bowed and
stooped to take it from the ground, whip, in a trice, Mercury lopped off
their heads, as Jupiter had commanded; and of heads thus cut off the
number was just equal to that of the lost hatchets.
You see how it is now; you see how it goes with those who in the
simplicity of their hearts wish and desire with moderation. Take
warning by this, all you greedy, fresh-water sharks, who scorn to wish
for anything under ten thousand pounds; and do not for the future run
on impudently, as I have sometimes heard you wishing, Would to God
I had now one hundred seventy- eight millions of gold! Oh! how I
should tickle it off. The deuce on you, what more might a king, an
emperor, or a pope wish for? For that reason, indeed, you see that after
you have made such hopeful wishes, all the good that comes to you of
it is the itch or the scab, and not a cross in your breeches to scare the
devil that tempts you to make these wishes: no more than those two
mumpers, wishers after the custom of Paris; one of whom only wished
to have in good old gold as much as hath been spent, bought, and sold
in Paris, since its first foundations were laid, to this hour; all of it
valued at the price, sale, and rate of the dearest year in all that space of
time. Do you think the fellow was bashful? Had he eaten sour plums
unpeeled? Were his teeth on edge, I pray you? The other wished Our
Lady's Church brimful of steel needles, from the floor to the top of the
roof, and to have as many ducats as might be crammed into as many
bags as might be sewed with each and everyone of those needles, till
they were all either broke at the point or eye. This is to wish with a
vengeance! What think you of it? What did they get by't, in your
opinion? Why at night both my gentlemen had kibed heels, a tetter in
the chin, a churchyard cough in the lungs, a catarrh in the throat, a
swingeing boil at the rump, and the devil of one musty crust of a brown
george the poor dogs had to scour their grinders with. Wish therefore
for mediocrity, and it shall be given unto you, and over and above yet;
that is to say, provided you bestir yourself manfully, and do your best
in the meantime.
Ay, but say you, God might as soon have given me seventy-eight
thousand as the thirteenth part of one half; for he is omnipotent, and a
million of gold is no more to him than one farthing. Oh, ho! pray tell
me who taught you to talk at this rate of the power and predestination
of God, poor silly people? Peace, tush, st, st, st! fall down before his
sacred face and own the nothingness of your nothing.
Upon this, O ye that labour under the affliction of the gout, I ground
my hopes; firmly believing, that if so it pleases the divine goodness,
you shall obtain health; since you wish and ask for nothing else, at least
for the present. Well, stay yet a little longer with half an ounce of
patience.
The Genoese do not use, like you, to be satisfied with wishing health
alone, when after they have all the livelong morning been in a brown
study, talked, pondered, ruminated, and resolved in the counting-houses
of whom and how they may squeeze the ready, and who by their craft
must be hooked in, wheedled, bubbled, sharped, overreached, and
choused; they go to the exchange, and greet one another with a Sanita e
guadagno, Messer! health and gain to you, sir! Health alone will not go
down with the greedy curmudgeons; they over and above must wish for
gain, with a pox to 'em; ay, and for the fine crowns, or scudi di
Guadaigne; whence, heaven be praised! it happens many a time that the
silly wishers and woulders are baulked, and get neither.
Now, my lads, as you hope for good health, cough once aloud with
lungs of leather; take me off three swingeing bumpers; prick up your
ears; and you shall hear me tell wonders of the noble and good
Pantagruel.
THE FOURTH BOOK.
Chapter 4.
I.
How Pantagruel went to sea to visit the oracle of Bacbuc, alias the Holy
Bottle.
In the month of June, on Vesta's holiday, the very numerical day on
which Brutus, conquering Spain, taught its strutting dons to truckle
under him, and that niggardly miser Crassus was routed and knocked
on the head by the Parthians, Pantagruel took his leave of the good
Gargantua, his royal father. The old gentleman, according to the
laudable custom of the primitive Christians, devoutly prayed for the
happy voyage of his son and his whole company, and then they took
shipping at the port of Thalassa. Pantagruel had with him Panurge,
Friar John des Entomeures, alias of the Funnels, Epistemon, Gymnast,
Eusthenes, Rhizotome, Carpalin, cum multis aliis, his ancient servants
and domestics; also Xenomanes, the great traveller, who had crossed so
many dangerous roads, dikes, ponds, seas, and so forth, and was come
some time before, having been sent for by Panurge.
For certain good causes and considerations him thereunto moving, he
had left with Gargantua, and marked out, in his great and universal
hydrographical chart, the course which they were to steer to visit the
Oracle of the Holy Bottle Bacbuc. The number of ships were such as I
described in the third book, convoyed by a like number of triremes,
men of war, galleons, and feluccas, well-rigged, caulked, and stored
with a good quantity of Pantagruelion.
All the officers, droggermen, pilots, captains, mates, boatswains,
midshipmen, quartermasters, and sailors, met in the Thalamege,
Pantagruel's principal flag-ship, which had in her stern for her ensign a
huge large bottle, half silver well polished, the other half gold
enamelled with carnation; whereby it was easy to guess that white and
red were the colours of the noble travellers, and that they went for the
word of the Bottle.
On the stern of the second was a lantern like those of the ancients,
industriously made with diaphanous stone, implying that they were to
pass by Lanternland. The third ship had for her device a fine deep china
ewer. The fourth, a double-handed jar of gold, much like an ancient urn.
The fifth, a famous can made of sperm of emerald. The sixth, a monk's
mumping bottle made of the four metals together. The seventh, an
ebony funnel, all embossed and wrought with gold after the Tauchic
manner. The eighth, an ivy goblet, very precious, inlaid with gold. The
ninth, a cup of fine Obriz gold. The tenth, a tumbler of aromatic
agoloch (you call it lignum aloes) edged with Cyprian gold, after the
Azemine make. The eleventh, a golden vine-tub of mosaic work. The
twelfth, a runlet of unpolished gold, covered with a small vine of large
Indian pearl of Topiarian work. Insomuch that there was not a man,
however in the dumps, musty, sour- looked, or melancholic he were,
not even excepting that blubbering whiner Heraclitus, had he been there,
but seeing this noble convoy of ships and their devices, must have been
seized with present gladness of heart, and, smiling at the conceit, have
said that the travellers were all honest topers, true pitcher-men, and
have judged by a most sure prognostication that their voyage, both
outward and homeward-bound, would be performed in mirth and
perfect health.
In the Thalamege, where was the general meeting, Pantagruel made a
short but sweet exhortation, wholly backed with authorities from
Scripture upon navigation; which being ended, with an audible voice
prayers were said in the presence and hearing of all the burghers of
Thalassa, who had flocked to the mole to see them take shipping. After
the prayers was melodiously sung a psalm of the holy King David,
which begins, When Israel went out of Egypt; and that being ended,
tables were placed upon deck, and a feast speedily served up. The
Thalassians, who had also borne a chorus in the psalm, caused store of
belly-timber to be brought out of their houses. All drank to them; they
drank to all; which was the cause that none of the whole company gave
up what they had eaten, nor were sea-sick, with a pain at the head and
stomach; which inconveniency they could not so easily have prevented
by drinking, for some time before, salt water, either alone or mixed
with wine; using quinces, citron peel, juice of pomegranates, sourish
sweetmeats, fasting a long time, covering their stomachs with paper, or
following such other idle remedies as foolish physicians prescribe to
those that go to sea.
Having often renewed their tipplings, each mother's son retired on
board his own ship, and set sail all so fast with a merry gale at
south-east; to which point of the compass the chief pilot, James Brayer
by name, had shaped his course, and fixed all things accordingly. For
seeing that the Oracle of the Holy Bottle lay near Cathay, in the Upper
India, his advice, and that of Xenomanes also, was not to steer the
course which the Portuguese use, while sailing through the torrid zone,
and Cape Bona Speranza, at the south point of Africa, beyond the
equinoctial line, and losing sight of the northern pole, their guide, they
make a prodigious long voyage; but rather to keep as near the parallel
of the said India as possible, and to tack to the westward of the said
pole, so that winding under the north, they might find themselves in the
latitude of the port of Olone, without coming nearer it for fear of being
shut up in the frozen sea; whereas, following this canonical turn, by the
said parallel, they must have that on the right to the eastward, which at
their departure was on their left.
This proved a much shorter cut; for without shipwreck, danger, or loss
of men, with uninterrupted good weather, except one day near the
island of the Macreons, they performed in less than four months the
voyage of Upper India, which the Portuguese, with a thousand
inconveniences and innumerable dangers, can hardly complete in three
years. And it is my opinion, with submission to better judgments, that
this course was perhaps steered by those Indians who sailed to
Germany, and were honourably received by the King of the Swedes,
while Quintus Metellus Celer was proconsul of the Gauls; as Cornelius
Nepos, Pomponius Mela, and Pliny after them tell us.
Chapter 4.
II.
How Pantagruel bought many rarities in the island of Medamothy.
That day and the two following they neither discovered land nor
anything new; for they had formerly sailed that way: but on the fourth
they made an island called Medamothy, of a fine and delightful
prospect, by reason of the vast number of lighthouses and high marble
towers in its circuit, which is not less than that of Canada (sic).
Pantagruel, inquiring who governed there, heard that it was King
Philophanes, absent at that time upon account of the marriage of his
brother Philotheamon with the infanta of the kingdom of Engys.
Hearing this, he went ashore in the harbour, and while every ship's
crew watered, passed his time in viewing divers pictures, pieces of
tapestry, animals, fishes, birds, and other exotic and foreign
merchandises, which were along the walks of the mole and in the
markets of the port. For it was the third day of the great and famous fair
of the place, to which the chief merchants of Africa and Asia resorted.
Out of these Friar John bought him two rare pictures; in one of which
the face of a man that brings in an appeal was drawn to the life; and in
the other a servant that wants a master, with every needful particular,
action, countenance, look, gait, feature, and deportment, being an
original by Master Charles Charmois, principal painter to King
Megistus; and he paid for them in the court fashion, with conge and
grimace. Panurge bought a large picture, copied and done from the
needle-work formerly wrought by Philomela, showing to her sister
Progne how her brother-in-law Tereus had by force handselled her
copyhold, and then cut out her tongue that she might not (as women
will) tell tales. I vow and swear by the handle of my paper lantern that
it was a gallant, a mirific, nay, a most admirable piece. Nor do you
think, I pray you, that in it was the picture of a man playing the beast
with two backs with a female; this had been too silly and gross: no, no;
it was another-guise thing, and much plainer. You may, if you please,
see it at Theleme, on the left hand as you go into the high gallery.
Epistemon bought another, wherein were painted to the life the ideas of
Plato and the atoms of Epicurus. Rhizotome purchased another,
wherein Echo was drawn to the life. Pantagruel caused to be bought, by
Gymnast, the life and deeds of Achilles, in seventy-eight pieces of
tapestry, four fathom long, and three fathom broad, all of Phrygian silk,
embossed with gold and silver; the work beginning at the nuptials of
Peleus and Thetis, continuing to the birth of Achilles; his youth,
described by Statius Papinius; his warlike achievements, celebrated by
Homer; his death and obsequies, written by Ovid and Quintus Calaber;
and ending at the appearance of his ghost, and Polyxena's sacrifice,
rehearsed by Euripides.
He also caused to be bought three fine young unicorns; one of them a
male of a chestnut colour, and two grey dappled females; also a tarand,
whom he bought of a Scythian of the Gelones' country.
A tarand is an animal as big as a bullock, having a head like a stag, or a
little bigger, two stately horns with large branches, cloven feet, hair
long like that of a furred Muscovite, I mean a bear, and a skin almost as
hard as steel armour. The Scythian said that there are but few tarands to
be found in Scythia, because it varieth its colour according to the
diversity of the places where it grazes and abides, and represents the
colour of the grass, plants, trees, shrubs, flowers, meadows, rocks, and
generally of all things near which it comes. It hath this common with
the sea-pulp, or polypus, with the thoes, with the wolves of India, and
with the chameleon, which is a kind of a lizard so wonderful that
Democritus hath written a whole book of its figure and anatomy, as
also of its virtue and propriety in magic. This I can affirm, that I have
seen it change its colour, not only at the approach of things that have a
colour, but by its own voluntary impulse, according to its fear or other
affections; as, for example, upon a green carpet I have certainly seen it
become green; but having remained there some time, it turned yellow,
blue, tanned, and purple in course, in the same manner as you see a
turkey-cock's comb change colour according to its passions. But what
we find most surprising in this tarand is, that not only its face and skin,
but also its hair could take whatever colour was about it. Near Panurge,
with his kersey coat, its hair used to turn grey; near Pantagruel, with his
scarlet mantle, its hair and skin grew red; near the pilot, dressed after
the fashion of the Isiacs of Anubis in Egypt, its hair seemed all white,
which two last colours the chameleons cannot borrow.
When the creature was free from any fear or affection, the colour of its
hair was just such as you see that of the asses of Meung.
Chapter 4.
III.
How Pantagruel received a letter from his father Gargantua, and of the
strange way to have speedy news from far distant places.
While Pantagruel was taken up with the purchase of those foreign
animals, the noise of ten guns and culverins, together with a loud and
joyful cheer of all the fleet, was heard from the mole. Pantagruel
looked towards the haven, and perceived that this was occasioned by
the arrival of one of his father Gargantua's celoces, or advice-boats,
named the Chelidonia; because on the stern of it was carved in
Corinthian brass a sea-swallow, which is a fish as large as a dare-fish of
Loire, all flesh, without scale, with cartilaginous wings (like a bat's)
very long and broad, by the means of which I have seen them fly about
three fathom above water, about a bow- shot. At Marseilles 'tis called
lendole. And indeed that ship was as light as a swallow, so that it rather
seemed to fly on the sea than to sail. Malicorne, Gargantua's esquire
carver, was come in her, being sent expressly by his master to have an
account of his son's health and circumstances, and to bring him
credentials. When Malicorne had saluted Pantagruel, before the prince
opened the letters, the first thing he said to him was, Have you here the
Gozal, the heavenly messenger? Yes, sir, said he; here it is swaddled up
in this basket. It was a grey pigeon, taken out of Gargantua's
dove-house, whose young ones were just hatched when the advice-boat
was going off.
If any ill fortune had befallen Pantagruel, he would have fastened some
black ribbon to his feet; but because all things had succeeded happily
hitherto, having caused it to be undressed, he tied to its feet a white
ribbon, and without any further delay let it loose. The pigeon presently
flew away, cutting the air with an incredible speed, as you know that
there is no flight like a pigeon's, especially when it hath eggs or young
ones, through the extreme care which nature hath fixed in it to relieve
and be with its young; insomuch that in less than two hours it
compassed in the air the long tract which the advice-boat, with all her
diligence, with oars and sails, and a fair wind, could not go through in
less than three days and three nights; and was seen as it went into the
dove-house in its nest. Whereupon Gargantua, hearing that it had the
white ribbon on, was joyful and secure of his son's welfare. This was
the custom of the noble Gargantua and Pantagruel when they would
have speedy news of something of great concern; as the event of some
battle, either by sea or land; the surrendering or holding out of some
strong place; the determination of some difference of moment; the safe
or unhappy delivery of some queen or great lady; the death or recovery
of their sick friends or allies, and so forth. They used to take the gozal,
and had it carried from one to another by the post, to the places whence
they desired to have news. The gozal, bearing either a black or white
ribbon, according to the occurrences and accidents, used to remove
their doubts at its return, making in the space of one hour more way
through the air than thirty postboys could have done in one natural day.
May not this be said to redeem and gain time with a vengeance, think
you? For the like service, therefore, you may believe as a most true
thing that in the dove-houses of their farms there were to be found all
the year long store of pigeons hatching eggs or rearing their young.
Which may be easily done in aviaries and voleries by the help of
saltpetre and the sacred herb vervain.
The gozal being let fly, Pantagruel perused his father Gargantua's letter,
the contents of which were as followeth:
My dearest Son,--The affection that naturally a father bears a beloved
son is so much increased in me by reflecting on the particular gifts
which by the divine goodness have been heaped on thee, that since thy
departure it hath often banished all other thoughts out of my mind,
leaving my heart wholly possessed with fear lest some misfortune has
attended thy voyage; for thou knowest that fear was ever the attendant
of true and sincere love. Now because, as Hesiod saith, A good
beginning of anything is the half of it; or, Well begun's half done,
according to the old saying; to free my mind from this anxiety I have
expressly despatched Malicorne, that he may give me a true account of
thy health at the beginning of thy voyage. For if it be good, and such as
I wish it, I shall easily foresee the rest.
I have met with some diverting books, which the bearer will deliver
thee; thou mayest read them when thou wantest to unbend and ease thy
mind from thy better studies. He will also give thee at large the news at
court. The peace of the Lord be with thee. Remember me to Panurge,
Friar John, Epistemon, Xenomanes, Gymnast, and thy other principal
domestics. Dated at our paternal seat, this 13th day of June.
Thy father and friend, Gargantua.
Chapter 4.
IV.
How Pantagruel writ to his father Gargantua, and sent him several
curiosities.
Pantagruel, having perused the letter, had a long conference with the
esquire Malicorne; insomuch that Panurge, at last interrupting them,
asked him, Pray, sir, when do you design to drink? When shall we
drink? When shall the worshipful esquire drink? What a devil! have
you not talked long enough to drink? It is a good motion, answered
Pantagruel: go, get us something ready at the next inn; I think 'tis the
Centaur. In the meantime he writ to Gargantua as followeth, to be sent
by the aforesaid esquire:
Most gracious Father,--As our senses and animal faculties are more
discomposed at the news of events unexpected, though desired (even to
an immediate dissolution of the soul from the body), than if those
accidents had been foreseen, so the coming of Malicorne hath much
surprised and disordered me. For I had no hopes to see any of your
servants, or to hear from you, before I had finished our voyage; and
contented myself with the dear remembrance of your august majesty,
deeply impressed in the hindmost ventricle of my brain, often
representing you to my mind.
But since you have made me happy beyond expectation by the perusal
of your gracious letter, and the faith I have in your esquire hath revived
my spirits by the news of your welfare, I am as it were compelled to do
what formerly I did freely, that is, first to praise the blessed Redeemer,
who by his divine goodness preserves you in this long enjoyment of
perfect health; then to return you eternal thanks for the fervent affection
which you have for me your most humble son and unprofitable servant.
Formerly a Roman, named Furnius, said to Augustus, who had received
his father into favour, and pardoned him after he had sided with Antony,
that by that action the emperor had reduced him to this extremity, that
for want of power to be grateful, both while he lived and after it, he
should be obliged to be taxed with ingratitude. So I may say, that the
excess of your fatherly affection drives me into such a strait, that I shall
be forced to live and die ungrateful; unless that crime be redressed by
the sentence of the Stoics, who say that there are three parts in a benefit,
the one of the giver, the other of the receiver, the third of the
remunerator; and that the receiver rewards the giver when he freely
receives the benefit and always remembers it; as, on the contrary, that
man is most ungrateful who despises and forgets a benefit. Therefore,
being overwhelmed with infinite favours, all proceeding from your
extreme goodness, and on the other side wholly incapable of making
the smallest return, I hope at least to free myself from the imputation of
ingratitude, since they can never be blotted out of my mind; and my
tongue shall never cease to own that to thank you as I ought transcends
my capacity.
As for us, I have this assurance in the Lord's mercy and help, that the
end of our voyage will be answerable to its beginning, and so it will be
entirely performed in health and mirth. I will not fail to set down in a
journal a full account of our navigation, that at our return you may have
an exact relation of the whole.
I have found here a Scythian tarand, an animal strange and wonderful
for the variations of colour on its skin and hair, according to the
distinction of neighbouring things; it is as tractable and easily kept as a
lamb. Be pleased to accept of it.
I also send you three young unicorns, which are the tamest of creatures.
I have conferred with the esquire, and taught him how they must be fed.
These cannot graze on the ground by reason of the long horn on their
forehead, but are forced to browse on fruit trees, or on proper racks, or
to be fed by hand, with herbs, sheaves, apples, pears, barley, rye, and
other fruits and roots, being placed before them.
I am amazed that ancient writers should report them to be so wild,
furious, and dangerous, and never seen alive; far from it, you will find
that they are the mildest things in the world, provided they are not
maliciously offended. Likewise I send you the life and deeds of
Achilles in curious tapestry; assuring you whatever rarities of animals,
plants, birds, or precious stones, and others, I shall be able to find and
purchase in our travels, shall be brought to you, God willing, whom I
beseech, by his blessed grace, to preserve you.
From Medamothy, this 15th of June. Panurge, Friar John, Epistemon,
Zenomanes, Gymnast, Eusthenes, Rhizotome, and Carpalin, having
most humbly kissed your hand, return your salute a thousand times.
Your most dutiful son and servant, Pantagruel.
While Pantagruel was writing this letter, Malicorne was made welcome
by all with a thousand goodly good-morrows and how-d'ye's; they
clung about him so that I cannot tell you how much they made of him,
how many humble services, how many from my love and to my love
were sent with him. Pantagruel, having writ his letters, sat down at
table with him, and afterwards presented him with a large chain of gold,
weighing eight hundred crowns, between whose septenary links some
large diamonds, rubies, emeralds, turquoise stones, and unions were
alternately set in. To each of his bark's crew he ordered to be given five
hundred crowns. To Gargantua, his father, he sent the tarand covered
with a cloth of satin, brocaded with gold, and the tapestry containing
the life and deeds of Achilles, with the three unicorns in friezed cloth of
gold trappings; and so they left Medamothy--Malicorne to return to
Gargantua, Pantagruel to proceed in his voyage, during which
Epistemon read to him the books which the esquire had brought, and
because he found them jovial and pleasant, I shall give you an account
of them, if you earnestly desire it.
Chapter 4.
V.
How Pantagruel met a ship with passengers returning from
Lanternland.
On the fifth day we began already to wind by little and little about the
pole; going still farther from the equinoctial line, we discovered a
merchant-man to the windward of us. The joy for this was not small on
both sides; we in hopes to hear news from sea, and those in the
merchant-man from land. So we bore upon 'em, and coming up with
them we hailed them; and finding them to be Frenchmen of Xaintonge,
backed our sails and lay by to talk to them. Pantagruel heard that they
came from Lanternland; which added to his joy, and that of the whole
fleet. We inquired about the state of that country, and the way of living
of the Lanterns; and were told that about the latter end of the following
July was the time prefixed for the meeting of the general chapter of the
Lanterns; and that if we arrived there at that time, as we might easily,
we should see a handsome, honourable, and jolly company of Lanterns;
and that great preparations were making, as if they intended to
lanternize there to the purpose. We were told also that if we touched at
the great kingdom of Gebarim, we should be honourably received and
treated by the sovereign of that country, King Ohabe, who, as well as
all his subjects, speaks Touraine French.
While we were listening to these news, Panurge fell out with one
Dingdong, a drover or sheep-merchant of Taillebourg. The occasion of
the fray was thus:
This same Dingdong, seeing Panurge without a codpiece, with his
spectacles fastened to his cap, said to one of his comrades, Prithee, look,
is there not a fine medal of a cuckold? Panurge, by reason of his
spectacles, as you may well think, heard more plainly by half with his
ears than usually; which caused him (hearing this) to say to the saucy
dealer in mutton, in a kind of a pet:
How the devil should I be one of the hornified fraternity, since I am not
yet a brother of the marriage-noose, as thou art; as I guess by thy ill-
favoured phiz?
Yea, verily, quoth the grazier, I am married, and would not be
otherwise for all the pairs of spectacles in Europe; nay, not for all the
magnifying gimcracks in Africa; for I have got me the cleverest,
prettiest, handsomest, properest, neatest, tightest, honestest, and
soberest piece of woman's flesh for my wife that is in all the whole
country of Xaintonge; I'll say that for her, and a fart for all the rest. I
bring her home a fine eleven-inch-long branch of red coral for her
Christmas-box. What hast thou to do with it? what's that to thee? who
art thou? whence comest thou, O dark lantern of Antichrist? Answer, if
thou art of God. I ask thee, by the way of question, said Panurge to him
very seriously, if with the consent and countenance of all the elements,
I had gingumbobbed, codpieced, and
thumpthumpriggledtickledtwiddled thy so clever, so pretty, so
handsome, so proper, so neat, so tight, so honest, and so sober female
importance, insomuch that the stiff deity that has no forecast, Priapus
(who dwells here at liberty, all subjection of fastened codpieces, or
bolts, bars, and locks, abdicated), remained sticking in her natural
Christmas-box in such a lamentable manner that it were never to come
out, but eternally should stick there unless thou didst pull it out with thy
teeth; what wouldst thou do? Wouldst thou everlastingly leave it there,
or wouldst thou pluck it out with thy grinders? Answer me, O thou ram
of Mahomet, since thou art one of the devil's gang. I would, replied the
sheepmonger, take thee such a woundy cut on this spectacle-bearing
lug of thine with my trusty bilbo as would smite thee dead as a herring.
Thus, having taken pepper in the nose, he was lugging out his sword,
but, alas!--cursed cows have short horns,--it stuck in the scabbard; as
you know that at sea cold iron will easily take rust by reason of the
excessive and nitrous moisture. Panurge, so smitten with terror that his
heart sunk down to his midriff, scoured off to Pantagruel for help; but
Friar John laid hand on his flashing scimitar that was new ground, and
would certainly have despatched Dingdong to rights, had not the
skipper and some of his passengers beseeched Pantagruel not to suffer
such an outrage to be committed on board his ship. So the matter was
made up, and Panurge and his antagonist shaked fists, and drank in
course to one another in token of a perfect reconciliation.
Chapter 4.
VI.
How, the fray being over, Panurge cheapened one of Dingdong's sheep.
This quarrel being hushed, Panurge tipped the wink upon Epistemon
and Friar John, and taking them aside, Stand at some distance out of the
way, said he, and take your share of the following scene of mirth. You
shall have rare sport anon, if my cake be not dough, and my plot do but
take. Then addressing himself to the drover, he took off to him a
bumper of good lantern wine. The other pledged him briskly and
courteously. This done, Panurge earnestly entreated him to sell him one
of his sheep.
But the other answered him, Is it come to that, friend and neighbour?
Would you put tricks upon travellers? Alas, how finely you love to play
upon poor folk! Nay, you seem a rare chapman, that's the truth on't. Oh,
what a mighty sheep-merchant you are! In good faith, you look liker
one of the diving trade than a buyer of sheep. Adzookers, what a
blessing it would be to have one's purse well lined with chink near your
worship at a tripe-house when it begins to thaw! Humph, humph, did
not we know you well, you might serve one a slippery trick! Pray do
but see, good people, what a mighty conjuror the fellow would be
reckoned. Patience, said Panurge; but waiving that, be so kind as to sell
me one of your sheep. Come, how much? What do you mean, master of
mine? answered the other. They are long-wool sheep; from these did
Jason take his golden fleece. The gold of the house of Burgundy was
drawn from them. Zwoons, man, they are oriental sheep, topping sheep,
fatted sheep, sheep of quality. Be it so, said Panurge; but sell me one of
them, I beseech you; and that for a cause, paying you ready money
upon the nail, in good and lawful occidental current cash. Wilt say how
much? Friend, neighbour, answered the seller of mutton, hark ye me a
little, on the ear.
Panurge. On which side you please; I hear you.
Dingdong. You are going to Lanternland, they say.
Panurge. Yea, verily.
Dingdong. To see fashions?
Panurge. Even so.
Dingdong. And be merry?
Panurge. And be merry.
Dingdong. Your name is, as I take it, Robin Mutton?
Panurge. As you please for that, sweet sir.
Dingdong. Nay, without offence.
Panurge. So I would have it.
Dingdong. You are, as I take it, the king's jester; aren't you?
Panurge. Ay, ay, anything.
Dingdong. Give me your hand--humph, humph, you go to see fashions,
you are the king's jester, your name is Robin Mutton! Do you see this
same ram? His name, too, is Robin. Here, Robin, Robin, Robin! Baea,
baea, baea. Hath he not a rare voice?
Panurge. Ay, marry has he, a very fine and harmonious voice.
Dingdong. Well, this bargain shall be made between you and me, friend
and neighbour; we will get a pair of scales, then you Robin Mutton
shall be put into one of them, and Tup Robin into the other. Now I will
hold you a peck of Busch oysters that in weight, value, and price he
shall outdo you, and you shall be found light in the very numerical
manner as when you shall be hanged and suspended.
Patience, said Panurge; but you would do much for me and your whole
posterity if you would chaffer with me for him, or some other of his
inferiors. I beg it of you; good your worship, be so kind. Hark ye,
friend of mine, answered the other; with the fleece of these your fine
Rouen cloth is to be made; your Leominster superfine wool is mine
arse to it; mere flock in comparison. Of their skins the best cordovan
will be made, which shall be sold for Turkey and Montelimart, or for
Spanish leather at least. Of the guts shall be made fiddle and harp
strings that will sell as dear as if they came from Munican or Aquileia.
What do you think on't, hah? If you please, sell me one of them, said
Panurge, and I will be yours for ever. Look, here's ready cash. What's
the price? This he said exhibiting his purse stuffed with new
Henricuses.
Chapter 4.
VII.
Which if you read you'll find how Panurge bargained with Dingdong.
Neighbour, my friend, answered Dingdong, they are meat for none but
kings and princes; their flesh is so delicate, so savoury, and so dainty
that one would swear it melted in the mouth. I bring them out of a
country where the very hogs, God be with us, live on nothing but
myrobolans. The sows in the styes when they lie-in (saving the honour
of this good company) are fed only with orange-flowers. But, said
Panurge, drive a bargain with me for one of them, and I will pay you
for't like a king, upon the honest word of a true Trojan; come, come,
what do you ask? Not so fast, Robin, answered the trader; these sheep
are lineally descended from the very family of the ram that wafted
Phryxus and Helle over the sea since called the Hellespont. A pox on't,
said Panurge, you are clericus vel addiscens! Ita is a cabbage, and vere
a leek, answered the merchant. But, rr, rrr, rrrr, rrrrr, hoh Robin, rr,
rrrrrrr, you don't understand that gibberish, do you? Now I think on't,
over all the fields where they piss, corn grows as fast as if the Lord had
pissed there; they need neither be tilled nor dunged. Besides, man, your
chemists extract the best saltpetre in the world out of their urine. Nay,
with their very dung (with reverence be it spoken) the doctors in our
country make pills that cure seventy-eight kinds of diseases, the least of
which is the evil of St. Eutropius of Xaintes, from which, good Lord,
deliver us! Now what do you think on't, neighbour, my friend? The
truth is, they cost me money, that they do. Cost what they will, cried
Panurge, trade with me for one of them, paying you well. Our friend,
quoth the quacklike sheepman, do but mind the wonders of nature that
are found in those animals, even in a member which one would think
were of no use. Take me but these horns, and bray them a little with an
iron pestle, or with an andiron, which you please, it is all one to me;
then bury them wherever you will, provided it be where the sun may
shine, and water them frequently; in a few months I'll engage you will
have the best asparagus in the world, not even excepting those of
Ravenna. Now, come and tell me whether the horns of your other
knights of the bull's feather have such a virtue and wonderful
propriety?
Patience, said Panurge. I don't know whether you be a scholar or no,
pursued Dingdong; I have seen a world of scholars, I say great scholars,
that were cuckolds, I'll assure you. But hark you me, if you were a
scholar, you should know that in the most inferior members of those
animals, which are the feet, there is a bone, which is the heel, the
astragalus, if you will have it so, wherewith, and with that of no other
creature breathing, except the Indian ass and the dorcades of Libya,
they used in old times to play at the royal game of dice, whereat
Augustus the emperor won above fifty thousand crowns one evening.
Now such cuckolds as you will be hanged ere you get half so much at it.
Patience, said Panurge; but let us despatch. And when, my friend and
neighbour, continued the canting sheepseller, shall I have duly praised
the inward members, the shoulders, the legs, the knuckles, the neck, the
breast, the liver, the spleen, the tripes, the kidneys, the bladder,
wherewith they make footballs; the ribs, which serve in Pigmyland to
make little crossbows to pelt the cranes with cherry-stones; the head,
which with a little brimstone serves to make a miraculous decoction to
loosen and ease the belly of costive dogs? A turd on't, said the skipper
to his preaching passenger, what a fiddle-faddle have we here? There is
too long a lecture by half: sell him if thou wilt; if thou won't, don't let
the man lose more time. I hate a gibble-gabble and a rimble-ramble talk.
I am for a man of brevity. I will, for your sake, replied the holder-forth;
but then he shall give me three livres, French money, for each pick and
choose. It is a woundy price, cried Panurge; in our country I could have
five, nay six, for the money; see that you do not overreach me, master.
You are not the first man whom I have known to have fallen, even
sometimes to the endangering, if not breaking, of his own neck, for
endeavouring to rise all at once. A murrain seize thee for a blockheaded
booby, cried the angry seller of sheep; by the worthy vow of Our Lady
of Charroux, the worst in this flock is four times better than those
which the Coraxians in Tuditania, a country of Spain, used to sell for a
gold talent each; and how much dost thou think, thou Hibernian fool,
that a talent of gold was worth? Sweet sir, you fall into a passion, I see,
returned Panurge; well, hold, here is your money. Panurge, having paid
his money, chose him out of all the flock a fine topping ram; and as he
was hauling it along, crying out and bleating, all the rest, hearing and
bleating in concert, stared to see whither their brother-ram should be
carried. In the meanwhile the drover was saying to his shepherds: Ah!
how well the knave could choose him out a ram; the whoreson has skill
in cattle. On my honest word, I reserved that very piece of flesh for the
Lord of Cancale, well knowing his disposition; for the good man is
naturally overjoyed when he holds a good-sized handsome shoulder of
mutton, instead of a left-handed racket, in one hand, with a good sharp
carver in the other. God wot, how he belabours himself then.
Chapter 4.
VIII.
How Panurge caused Dingdong and his sheep to be drowned in the sea.
On a sudden, you would wonder how the thing was so soon done--for
my part I cannot tell you, for I had not leisure to mind it--our friend
Panurge, without any further tittle-tattle, throws you his ram overboard
into the middle of the sea, bleating and making a sad noise. Upon this
all the other sheep in the ship, crying and bleating in the same tone,
made all the haste they could to leap nimbly into the sea, one after
another; and great was the throng who should leap in first after their
leader. It was impossible to hinder them; for you know that it is the
nature of sheep always to follow the first wheresoever it goes; which
makes Aristotle, lib. 9. De. Hist. Animal., mark them for the most silly
and foolish animals in the world. Dingdong, at his wits' end, and stark
staring mad, as a man who saw his sheep destroy and drown
themselves before his face, strove to hinder and keep them back with
might and main; but all in vain: they all one after t'other frisked and
jumped into the sea, and were lost. At last he laid hold on a huge sturdy
one by the fleece, upon the deck of the ship, hoping to keep it back, and
so save that and the rest; but the ram was so strong that it proved too
hard for him, and carried its master into the herring pond in spite of his
teeth--where it is supposed he drank somewhat more than his fill, so
that he was drowned--in the same manner as one-eyed Polyphemus'
sheep carried out of the den Ulysses and his companions. The like
happened to the shepherds and all their gang, some laying hold on their
beloved tup, this by the horns, t'other by the legs, a third by the rump,
and others by the fleece; till in fine they were all of them forced to sea,
and drowned like so many rats. Panurge, on the gunnel of the ship, with
an oar in his hand, not to help them you may swear, but to keep them
from swimming to the ship and saving themselves from drowning,
preached and canted to them all the while like any little Friar (Oliver)
Maillard, or another Friar John Burgess; laying before them rhetorical
commonplaces concerning the miseries of this life and the blessings
and felicity of the next; assuring them that the dead were much happier
than the living in this vale of misery, and promised to erect a stately
cenotaph and honorary tomb to every one of them on the highest
summit of Mount Cenis at his return from Lanternland; wishing them,
nevertheless, in case they were not yet disposed to shake hands with
this life, and did not like their salt liquor, they might have the good luck
to meet with some kind whale which might set them ashore safe and
sound on some blessed land of Gotham, after a famous example.
The ship being cleared of Dingdong and his tups: Is there ever another
sheepish soul left lurking on board? cried Panurge. Where are those of
Toby Lamb and Robin Ram that sleep while the rest are a-feeding?
Faith, I can't tell myself. This was an old coaster's trick. What think'st
of it, Friar John, hah? Rarely performed, answered Friar John; only
methinks that as formerly in war, on the day of battle, a double pay was
commonly promised the soldiers for that day; for if they overcame,
there was enough to pay them; and if they lost, it would have been
shameful for them to demand it, as the cowardly foresters did after the
battle of Cerizoles; likewise, my friend, you ought not to have paid
your man, and the money had been saved. A fart for the money, said
Panurge; have I not had above fifty thousand pounds' worth of sport?
Come now, let's be gone; the wind is fair. Hark you me, my friend John;
never did man do me a good turn, but I returned, or at least
acknowledged it; no, I scorn to be ungrateful; I never was, nor ever will
be. Never did man do me an ill one without rueing the day that he did it,
either in this world or the next. I am not yet so much a fool neither.
Thou damn'st thyself like any old devil, quoth Friar John; it is written,
Mihi vindictam, &c. Matter of breviary, mark ye me (Motteux adds
unnecessarily (by way of explanation), 'that's holy stuff.').
Chapter 4.
IX.
How Pantagruel arrived at the island of Ennasin, and of the strange
ways of being akin in that country.
We had still the wind at south-south-west, and had been a whole day
without making land. On the third day, at the flies' uprising (which, you
know, is some two or three hours after the sun's), we got sight of a
triangular island, very much like Sicily for its form and situation. It was
called the Island of Alliances.
The people there are much like your carrot-pated Poitevins, save only
that all of them, men, women, and children, have their noses shaped
like an ace of clubs. For that reason the ancient name of the country
was Ennasin. They were all akin, as the mayor of the place told us; at
least they boasted so.
You people of the other world esteem it a wonderful thing that, out of
the family of the Fabii at Rome, on a certain day, which was the 13th of
February, at a certain gate, which was the Porta Carmentalis, since
named Scelerata, formerly situated at the foot of the Capitol, between
the Tarpeian rock and the Tiber, marched out against the Veientes of
Etruria three hundred and six men bearing arms, all related to each
other, with five thousand other soldiers, every one of them their vassals,
who were all slain near the river Cremera, that comes out of the lake of
Beccano. Now from this same country of Ennasin, in case of need,
above three hundred thousand, all relations and of one family, might
march out. Their degrees of consanguinity and alliance are very strange;
for being thus akin and allied to one another, we found that none was
either father or mother, brother or sister, uncle or aunt, nephew or niece,
son-in-law or daughter- in-law, godfather or godmother, to the other;
unless, truly, a tall flat- nosed old fellow, who, as I perceived, called a
little shitten-arsed girl of three or four years old, father, and the child
called him daughter.
Their distinction of degrees of kindred was thus: a man used to call a
woman, my lean bit; the woman called him, my porpoise. Those, said
Friar John, must needs stink damnably of fish when they have rubbed
their bacon one with the other. One, smiling on a young buxom
baggage, said, Good morrow, dear currycomb. She, to return him his
civility, said, The like to you, my steed. Ha! ha! ha! said Panurge, that
is pretty well, in faith; for indeed it stands her in good stead to
currycomb this steed. Another greeted his buttock with a Farewell, my
case. She replied, Adieu, trial. By St. Winifred's placket, cried Gymnast,
this case has been often tried. Another asked a she-friend of his, How is
it, hatchet? She answered him, At your service, dear helve. Odds belly,
saith Carpalin, this helve and this hatchet are well matched. As we went
on, I saw one who, calling his she-relation, styled her my crumb, and
she called him, my crust.
Quoth one to a brisk, plump, juicy female, I am glad to see you, dear
tap. So am I to find you so merry, sweet spiggot, replied she. One
called a wench, his shovel; she called him, her peal: one named his, my
slipper; and she, my foot: another, my boot; she, my shasoon.
In the same degree of kindred, one called his, my butter; she called him,
my eggs; and they were akin just like a dish of buttered eggs. I heard
one call his, my tripe, and she him, my faggot. Now I could not, for the
heart's blood of me, pick out or discover what parentage, alliance,
affinity, or consanguinity was between them, with reference to our
custom; only they told us that she was faggot's tripe. (Tripe de fagot
means the smallest sticks in a faggot.) Another, complimenting his
convenient, said, Yours, my shell; she replied, I was yours before,
sweet oyster. I reckon, said Carpalin, she hath gutted his oyster.
Another long-shanked ugly rogue, mounted on a pair of high-heeled
wooden slippers, meeting a strapping, fusty, squabbed dowdy, says he
to her, How is't my top? She was short upon him, and arrogantly
replied, Never the better for you, my whip. By St. Antony's hog, said
Xenomanes, I believe so; for how can this whip be sufficient to lash
this top?
A college professor, well provided with cod, and powdered and prinked
up, having a while discoursed with a great lady, taking his leave with
these words, Thank you, sweetmeat; she cried, There needs no thanks,
sour-sauce. Saith Pantagruel, This is not altogether incongruous, for
sweet meat must have sour sauce. A wooden loggerhead said to a
young wench, It is long since I saw you, bag; All the better, cried she,
pipe. Set them together, said Panurge, then blow in their arses, it will
be a bagpipe. We saw, after that, a diminutive humpbacked gallant,
pretty near us, taking leave of a she-relation of his, thus: Fare thee well,
friend hole; she reparteed, Save thee, friend peg. Quoth Friar John,
What could they say more, were he all peg and she all hole? But now
would I give something to know if every cranny of the hole can be
stopped up with that same peg.
A bawdy bachelor, talking with an old trout, was saying, Remember,
rusty gun. I will not fail, said she, scourer. Do you reckon these two to
be akin? said Pantagruel to the mayor. I rather take them to be foes. In
our country a woman would take this as a mortal affront. Good people
of t'other world, replied the mayor, you have few such and so near
relations as this gun and scourer are to one another; for they both come
out of one shop. What, was the shop their mother? quoth Panurge.
What mother, said the mayor, does the man mean? That must be some
of your world's affinity; we have here neither father nor mother. Your
little paltry fellows that live on t'other side the water, poor rogues,
booted with wisps of hay, may indeed have such; but we scorn it. The
good Pantagruel stood gazing and listening; but at those words he had
like to have lost all patience. (Here Motteux adds an aside--'os kai nun
o Ermeneutes. P.M.').
Having very exactly viewed the situation of the island and the way of
living of the Enassed nation, we went to take a cup of the creature at a
tavern, where there happened to be a wedding after the manner of the
country. Bating that shocking custom, there was special good cheer.
While we were there, a pleasant match was struck up betwixt a female
called Pear (a tight thing, as we thought, but by some, who knew better
things, said to be quaggy and flabby), and a young soft male, called
Cheese, somewhat sandy. (Many such matches have been, and they
were formerly much commended.) In our country we say, Il ne fut
onques tel mariage, qu'est de la poire et du fromage; there is no match
like that made between the pear and the cheese; and in many other
places good store of such bargains have been driven. Besides, when the
women are at their last prayers, it is to this day a noted saying, that
after cheese comes nothing.
In another room I saw them marrying an old greasy boot to a young
pliable buskin. Pantagruel was told that young buskin took old boot to
have and to hold because she was of special leather, in good case, and
waxed, seared, liquored, and greased to the purpose, even though it had
been for the fisherman that went to bed with his boots on. In another
room below, I saw a young brogue taking a young slipper for better for
worse; which, they told us, was neither for the sake of her piety, parts,
or person, but for the fourth comprehensive p, portion; the spankers,
spur-royals, rose- nobles, and other coriander seed with which she was
quilted all over.
Chapter 4.
X.
How Pantagruel went ashore at the island of Chely, where he saw King
St. Panigon.
We sailed right before the wind, which we had at west, leaving those
odd alliancers with their ace-of-clubs snouts, and having taken height
by the sun, stood in for Chely, a large, fruitful, wealthy, and
well-peopled island. King St. Panigon, first of the name, reigned there,
and, attended by the princes his sons and the nobles of his court, came
as far as the port to receive Pantagruel, and conducted him to his palace;
near the gate of which the queen, attended by the princesses her
daughters and the court ladies, received us. Panigon directed her and all
her retinue to salute Pantagruel and his men with a kiss; for such was
the civil custom of the country; and they were all fairly bussed
accordingly, except Friar John, who stepped aside and sneaked off
among the king's officers. Panigon used all the entreaties imaginable to
persuade Pantagruel to tarry there that day and the next; but he would
needs be gone, and excused himself upon the opportunity of wind and
weather, which, being oftener desired than enjoyed, ought not to be
neglected when it comes. Panigon, having heard these reasons, let us go,
but first made us take off some five-and-twenty or thirty bumpers each.
Pantagruel, returning to the port, missed Friar John, and asked why he
was not with the rest of the company. Panurge could not tell how to
excuse him, and would have gone back to the palace to call him, when
Friar John overtook them, and merrily cried, Long live the noble
Panigon! As I love my belly, he minds good eating, and keeps a noble
house and a dainty kitchen. I have been there, boys. Everything goes
about by dozens. I was in good hopes to have stuffed my puddings
there like a monk. What! always in a kitchen, friend? said Pantagruel.
By the belly of St. Cramcapon, quoth the friar, I understand the
customs and ceremonies which are used there much better than all the
formal stuff, antique postures, and nonsensical fiddle-faddle that must
be used with those women, magni magna, shittencumshita, cringes,
grimaces, scrapes, bows, and congees; double honours this way, triple
salutes that way, the embrace, the grasp, the squeeze, the hug, the leer,
the smack, baso las manos de vostra merce, de vostra maesta. You are
most tarabin, tarabas, Stront; that's downright Dutch. Why all this ado?
I don't say but a man might be for a bit by the bye and away, to be
doing as well as his neighbours; but this little nasty cringing and
courtesying made me as mad as any March devil. You talk of kissing
ladies; by the worthy and sacred frock I wear, I seldom venture upon it,
lest I be served as was the Lord of Guyercharois. What was it? said
Pantagruel; I know him. He is one of the best friends I have.
He was invited to a sumptuous feast, said Friar John, by a relation and
neighbour of his, together with all the gentlemen and ladies in the
neighbourhood. Now some of the latter expecting his coming, dressed
the pages in women's clothes, and finified them like any babies; then
ordered them to meet my lord at his coming near the drawbridge. So
the complimenting monsieur came, and there kissed the petticoated lads
with great formality. At last the ladies, who minded passages in the
gallery, burst out with laughing, and made signs to the pages to take off
their dress; which the good lord having observed, the devil a bit he
durst make up to the true ladies to kiss them, but said, that since they
had disguised the pages, by his great grandfather's helmet, these were
certainly the very footmen and grooms still more cunningly disguised.
Odds fish, da jurandi, why do not we rather remove our humanities into
some good warm kitchen of God, that noble laboratory, and there
admire the turning of the spits, the harmonious rattling of the jacks and
fenders, criticise on the position of the lard, the temperature of the
pottages, the preparation for the dessert, and the order of the wine
service? Beati immaculati in via. Matter of breviary, my masters.
Chapter 4.
XI.
Why monks love to be in kitchens.
This, said Epistemon, is spoke like a true monk; I mean like a right
monking monk, not a bemonked monastical monkling. Truly you put
me in mind of some passages that happened at Florence, some twenty
years ago, in a company of studious travellers, fond of visiting the
learned, and seeing the antiquities of Italy, among whom I was. As we
viewed the situation and beauty of Florence, the structure of the dome,
the magnificence of the churches and palaces, we strove to outdo one
another in giving them their due; when a certain monk of Amiens,
Bernard Lardon by name, quite angry, scandalized, and out of all
patience, told us, I don't know what the devil you can find in this same
town, that is so much cried up; for my part I have looked and pored and
stared as well as the best of you; I think my eyesight is as clear as
another body's, and what can one see after all? There are fine houses,
indeed and that's all. But the cage does not feed the birds. God and
Monsieur St. Bernard, our good patron, be with us! in all this same
town I have not seen one poor lane of roasting cooks; and yet I have not
a little looked about and sought for so necessary a part of a
commonwealth: ay, and I dare assure you that I have pried up and
down with the exactness of an informer; as ready to number, both to the
right and left, how many, and on what side, we might find most
roasting cooks, as a spy would be to reckon the bastions of a town.
Now at Amiens, in four, nay, five times less ground than we have trod
in our contemplations, I could have shown you above fourteen streets
of roasting cooks, most ancient, savoury, and aromatic. I cannot
imagine what kind of pleasure you can have taken in gazing on the
lions and Africans (so methinks you call their tigers) near the belfry, or
in ogling the porcupines and estridges in the Lord Philip Strozzi's
palace. Faith and truth I had rather see a good fat goose at the spit. This
porphyry, those marbles are fine; I say nothing to the contrary; but our
cheesecakes at Amiens are far better in my mind. These ancient statues
are well made; I am willing to believe it; but, by St. Ferreol of
Abbeville, we have young wenches in our country which please me
better a thousand times.
What is the reason, asked Friar John, that monks are always to be found
in kitchens, and kings, emperors, and popes are never there? Is there
not, said Rhizotome, some latent virtue and specific propriety hid in the
kettles and pans, which, as the loadstone attracts iron, draws the monks
there, and cannot attract emperors, popes, or kings? Or is it a natural
induction and inclination, fixed in the frocks and cowls, which of itself
leads and forceth those good religious men into kitchens, whether they
will or no? He would speak of forms following matter, as Averroes
calls them, answered Epistemon. Right, said Friar John.
I will not offer to solve this problem, said Pantagruel; for it is
somewhat ticklish, and you can hardly handle it without coming off
scurvily; but I will tell you what I have heard.
Antigonus, King of Macedon, one day coming into one of the tents,
where his cooks used to dress his meat, and finding there poet
Antagoras frying a conger, and holding the pan himself, merrily asked
him, Pray, Mr. Poet, was Homer frying congers when he wrote the
deeds of Agamemnon? Antagoras readily answered: But do you think,
sir, that when Agamemnon did them he made it his business to know if
any in his camp were frying congers? The king thought it an indecency
that a poet should be thus a-frying in a kitchen; and the poet let the king
know that it was a more indecent thing for a king to be found in such a
place. I'll clap another story upon the neck of this, quoth Panurge, and
will tell you what Breton Villandry answered one day to the Duke of
Guise.
They were saying that at a certain battle of King Francis against
Charles the Fifth, Breton, armed cap-a-pie to the teeth, and mounted
like St. George, yet sneaked off, and played least in sight during the
engagement. Blood and oons, answered Breton, I was there, and can
prove it easily; nay, even where you, my lord, dared not have been. The
duke began to resent this as too rash and saucy; but Breton easily
appeased him, and set them all a-laughing. Egad, my lord, quoth he, I
kept out of harm's way; I was all the while with your page Jack,
skulking in a certain place where you had not dared hide your head as I
did. Thus discoursing, they got to their ships, and left the island of
Chely.
Chapter 4.
XII.
How Pantagruel passed by the land of Pettifogging, and of the strange
way of living among the Catchpoles.
Steering our course forwards the next day, we passed through
Pettifogging, a country all blurred and blotted, so that I could hardly
tell what to make on't. There we saw some pettifoggers and catchpoles,
rogues that will hang their father for a groat. They neither invited us to
eat or drink; but, with a multiplied train of scrapes and cringes, said
they were all at our service for the Legem pone.
One of our droggermen related to Pantagruel their strange way of living,
diametrically opposed to that of our modern Romans; for at Rome a
world of folks get an honest livelihood by poisoning, drubbing,
lambasting, stabbing, and murthering; but the catchpoles earn theirs by
being thrashed; so that if they were long without a tight lambasting, the
poor dogs with their wives and children would be starved. This is just,
quoth Panurge, like those who, as Galen tells us, cannot erect the
cavernous nerve towards the equinoctial circle unless they are soundly
flogged. By St. Patrick's slipper, whoever should jerk me so, would
soon, instead of setting me right, throw me off the saddle, in the devil's
name.
The way is this, said the interpreter. When a monk, levite, close-fisted
usurer, or lawyer owes a grudge to some neighbouring gentleman, he
sends to him one of those catchpoles or apparitors, who nabs, or at least
cites him, serves a writ or warrant upon him, thumps, abuses, and
affronts him impudently by natural instinct, and according to his pious
instructions; insomuch, that if the gentleman hath but any guts in his
brains, and is not more stupid than a gyrin frog, he will find himself
obliged either to apply a faggot-stick or his sword to the rascal's
jobbernowl, give him the gentle lash, or make him cut a caper out at the
window, by way of correction. This done, Catchpole is rich for four
months at least, as if bastinadoes were his real harvest; for the monk,
levite, usurer, or lawyer will reward him roundly; and my gentleman
must pay him such swingeing damages that his acres must bleed for it,
and he be in danger of miserably rotting within a stone doublet, as if he
had struck the king.
Quoth Panurge, I know an excellent remedy against this used by the
Lord of Basche. What is it? said Pantagruel. The Lord of Basche, said
Panurge, was a brave, honest, noble-spirited gentleman, who, at his
return from the long war in which the Duke of Ferrara, with the help of
the French, bravely defended himself against the fury of Pope Julius the
Second, was every day cited, warned, and prosecuted at the suit and for
the sport and fancy of the fat prior of St. Louant.
One morning, as he was at breakfast with some of his domestics (for he
loved to be sometimes among them) he sent for one Loire, his baker,
and his spouse, and for one Oudart, the vicar of his parish, who was
also his butler, as the custom was then in France; then said to them
before his gentlemen and other servants: You all see how I am daily
plagued with these rascally catchpoles. Truly, if you do not lend me
your helping hand, I am finally resolved to leave the country, and go
fight for the sultan, or the devil, rather than be thus eternally teased.
Therefore, to be rid of their damned visits, hereafter, when any of them
come here, be ready, you baker and your wife, to make your personal
appearance in my great hall, in your wedding clothes, as if you were
going to be affianced. Here, take these ducats, which I give you to keep
you in a fitting garb. As for you, Sir Oudart, be sure you make your
personal appearance there in your fine surplice and stole, not forgetting
your holy water, as if you were to wed them. Be you there also, Trudon,
said he to his drummer, with your pipe and tabor. The form of
matrimony must be read, and the bride kissed; then all of you, as the
witnesses used to do in this country, shall give one another the
remembrance of the wedding, which you know is to be a blow with
your fist, bidding the party struck remember the nuptials by that token.
This will but make you have the better stomach to your supper; but
when you come to the catchpole's turn, thrash him thrice and threefold,
as you would a sheaf of green corn; do not spare him; maul him, drub
him, lambast him, swinge him off, I pray you. Here, take these steel
gauntlets, covered with kid. Head, back, belly, and sides, give him
blows innumerable; he that gives him most shall be my best friend.
Fear not to be called to an account about it; I will stand by you; for the
blows must seem to be given in jest, as it is customary among us at all
weddings.
Ay, but how shall we know the catchpole? said the man of God. All
sorts of people daily resort to this castle. I have taken care of that,
replied the lord. When some fellow, either on foot, or on a scurvy jade,
with a large broad silver ring on his thumb, comes to the door, he is
certainly a catchpole; the porter having civilly let him in, shall ring the
bell; then be all ready, and come into the hall, to act the tragi-comedy
whose plot I have now laid for you.
That numerical day, as chance would have it, came an old fat ruddy
catchpole. Having knocked at the gate, and then pissed, as most men
will do, the porter soon found him out, by his large greasy
spatterdashes, his jaded hollow-flanked mare, his bagful of writs and
informations dangling at his girdle, but, above all, by the large silver
hoop on his left thumb.
The porter was civil to him, admitted him in kindly, and rung the bell
briskly. As soon as the baker and his wife heard it, they clapped on
their best clothes, and made their personal appearance in the hall,
keeping their gravities like a new-made judge. The dominie put on his
surplice and stole, and as he came out of his office, met the catchpole,
had him in there, and made him suck his face a good while, while the
gauntlets were drawing on all hands; and then told him, You are come
just in pudding-time; my lord is in his right cue. We shall feast like
kings anon; here is to be swingeing doings; we have a wedding in the
house; here, drink and cheer up; pull away.
While these two were at it hand-to-fist, Basche, seeing all his people in
the hall in their proper equipage, sends for the vicar. Oudart comes with
the holy-water pot, followed by the catchpole, who, as he came into the
hall, did not forget to make good store of awkward cringes, and then
served Basche with a writ. Basche gave him grimace for grimace,
slipped an angel into his mutton-fist, and prayed him to assist at the
contract and ceremony; which he did. When it was ended, thumps and
fisticuffs began to fly about among the assistants; but when it came to
the catchpole's turn, they all laid on him so unmercifully with their
gauntlets that they at last settled him, all stunned and battered, bruised
and mortified, with one of his eyes black and blue, eight ribs bruised,
his brisket sunk in, his omoplates in four quarters, his under jawbone in
three pieces; and all this in jest, and no harm done. God wot how the
levite belaboured him, hiding within the long sleeve of his canonical
shirt his huge steel gauntlet lined with ermine; for he was a strong-built
ball, and an old dog at fisticuffs. The catchpole, all of a bloody
tiger-like stripe, with much ado crawled home to L'Isle Bouchart, well
pleased and edified, however, with Basche's kind reception; and, with
the help of the good surgeons of the place, lived as long as you would
have him. From that time to this, not a word of the business; the
memory of it was lost with the sound of the bells that rung with joy at
his funeral.
Chapter 4.
XIII.
How, like Master Francis Villon, the Lord of Basche commended his
servants.
The catchpole being packed off on blind Sorrel--so he called his
one-eyed mare--Basche sent for his lady, her women, and all his
servants, into the arbour of his garden; had wine brought, attended with
good store of pasties, hams, fruit, and other table-ammunition, for a
nunchion; drank with them joyfully, and then told them this story:
Master Francis Villon in his old age retired to St. Maxent in Poitou,
under the patronage of a good honest abbot of the place. There to make
sport for the mob, he undertook to get the Passion acted, after the way,
and in the dialect of the country. The parts being distributed, the play
having been rehearsed, and the stage prepared, he told the mayor and
aldermen that the mystery might be ready after Niort fair, and that there
only wanted properties and necessaries, but chiefly clothes fit for the
parts; so the mayor and his brethren took care to get them.
Villon, to dress an old clownish father greybeard, who was to represent
God the father, begged of Friar Stephen Tickletoby, sacristan to the
Franciscan friars of the place, to lend him a cope and a stole.
Tickletoby refused him, alleging that by their provincial statutes it was
rigorously forbidden to give or lend anything to players. Villon replied
that the statute reached no farther than farces, drolls, antics, loose and
dissolute games, and that he asked no more than what he had seen
allowed at Brussels and other places. Tickletoby notwithstanding
peremptorily bid him provide himself elsewhere if he would, and not to
hope for anything out of his monastical wardrobe. Villon gave an
account of this to the players, as of a most abominable action; adding,
that God would shortly revenge himself, and make an example of
Tickletoby.
The Saturday following he had notice given him that Tickletoby, upon
the filly of the convent--so they call a young mare that was never
leaped yet-- was gone a-mumping to St. Ligarius, and would be back
about two in the afternoon. Knowing this, he made a cavalcade of his
devils of the Passion through the town. They were all rigged with
wolves', calves', and rams' skins, laced and trimmed with sheep's heads,
bull's feathers, and large kitchen tenterhooks, girt with broad leathern
girdles, whereat hanged dangling huge cow-bells and horse-bells,
which made a horrid din. Some held in their claws black sticks full of
squibs and crackers; others had long lighted pieces of wood, upon
which, at the corner of every street, they flung whole handfuls of
rosin-dust, that made a terrible fire and smoke. Having thus led them
about, to the great diversion of the mob and the dreadful fear of little
children, he finally carried them to an entertainment at a summer-house
without the gate that leads to St. Ligarius.
As they came near to the place, he espied Tickletoby afar off, coming
home from mumping, and told them in macaronic verse:
Hic est de patria, natus, de gente belistra, Qui solet antiqua bribas
portare bisacco. (Motteux reads:
'Hic est mumpator natus de gente Cucowli, Qui solet antiquo Scrappas
portare bisacco.')
A plague on his friarship, said the devils then; the lousy beggar would
not lend a poor cope to the fatherly father; let us fright him. Well said,
cried Villon; but let us hide ourselves till he comes by, and then charge
him home briskly with your squibs and burning sticks. Tickletoby
being come to the place, they all rushed on a sudden into the road to
meet him, and in a frightful manner threw fire from all sides upon him
and his filly foal, ringing and tingling their bells, and howling like so
many real devils, Hho, hho, hho, hho, brrou, rrou, rrourrs, rrrourrs, hoo,
hou, hou hho, hho, hhoi. Friar Stephen, don't we play the devils rarely?
The filly was soon scared out of her seven senses, and began to start, to
funk it, to squirt it, to trot it, to fart it, to bound it, to gallop it, to kick it,
to spurn it, to calcitrate it, to wince it, to frisk it, to leap it, to curvet it,
with double jerks, and bum-motions; insomuch that she threw down
Tickletoby, though he held fast by the tree of the pack-saddle with
might and main. Now his straps and stirrups were of cord; and on the
right side his sandals were so entangled and twisted that he could not
for the heart's blood of him get out his foot. Thus he was dragged about
by the filly through the road, scratching his bare breech all the way; she
still multiplying her kicks against him, and straying for fear over hedge
and ditch, insomuch that she trepanned his thick skull so that his cockle
brains were dashed out near the Osanna or high-cross. Then his arms
fell to pieces, one this way and the other that way; and even so were his
legs served at the same time. Then she made a bloody havoc with his
puddings; and being got to the convent, brought back only his right foot
and twisted sandal, leaving them to guess what was become of the rest.
Villon, seeing that things had succeeded as he intended, said to his
devils, You will act rarely, gentlemen devils, you will act rarely; I dare
engage you'll top your parts. I defy the devils of Saumur, Douay,
Montmorillon, Langez, St. Espain, Angers; nay, by gad, even those of
Poictiers, for all their bragging and vapouring, to match you.
Thus, friends, said Basche, I foresee that hereafter you will act rarely
this tragical farce, since the very first time you have so skilfully
hampered, bethwacked, belammed, and bebumped the catchpole. From
this day I double your wages. As for you, my dear, said he to his lady,
make your gratifications as you please; you are my treasurer, you know.
For my part, first and foremost, I drink to you all. Come on, box it
about; it is good and cool. In the second place, you, Mr. Steward, take
this silver basin; I give it you freely. Then you, my gentlemen of the
horse, take these two silver-gilt cups, and let not the pages be
horsewhipped these three months. My dear, let them have my best
white plumes of feathers, with the gold buckles to them. Sir Oudart,
this silver flagon falls to your share; this other I give to the cooks. To
the valets de chambre I give this silver basket; to the grooms, this
silver-gilt boat; to the porter, these two plates; to the hostlers, these ten
porringers. Trudon, take you these silver spoons and this sugar-box.
You, footman, take this large salt. Serve me well, and I will remember
you. For, on the word of a gentleman, I had rather bear in war one
hundred blows on my helmet in the service of my country than be once
cited by these knavish catchpoles merely to humour this same
gorbellied prior.
Chapter 4.
XIV.
A further account of catchpoles who were drubbed at Basche's house.
Four days after another young, long-shanked, raw-boned catchpole
coming to serve Basche with a writ at the fat prior's request, was no
sooner at the gate but the porter smelt him out and rung the bell; at
whose second pull all the family understood the mystery. Loire was
kneading his dough; his wife was sifting meal; Oudart was toping in his
office; the gentlemen were playing at tennis; the Lord Basche at
in-and-out with my lady; the waiting- men and gentle-women at
push-pin; the officers at lanterloo, and the pages at hot-cockles, giving
one another smart bangs. They were all immediately informed that a
catchpole was housed.
Upon this Oudart put on his sacerdotal, and Loire and his wife their
nuptial badges; Trudon piped it, and then tabored it like mad; all made
haste to get ready, not forgetting the gauntlets. Basche went into the
outward yard; there the catchpole meeting him fell on his
marrow-bones, begged of him not to take it ill if he served him with a
writ at the suit of the fat prior; and in a pathetic speech let him know
that he was a public person, a servant to the monking tribe, apparitor to
the abbatial mitre, ready to do as much for him, nay, for the least of his
servants, whensoever he would employ and use him.
Nay, truly, said the lord, you shall not serve your writ till you have
tasted some of my good Quinquenays wine, and been a witness to a
wedding which we are to have this very minute. Let him drink and
refresh himself, added he, turning towards the levitical butler, and then
bring him into the hall. After which, Catchpole, well stuffed and
moistened, came with Oudart to the place where all the actors in the
farce stood ready to begin. The sight of their game set them a-laughing,
and the messenger of mischief grinned also for company's sake. Then
the mysterious words were muttered to and by the couple, their hands
joined, the bride bussed, and all besprinkled with holy water. While
they were bringing wine and kickshaws, thumps began to trot about by
dozens. The catchpole gave the levite several blows. Oudart, who had
his gauntlet hid under his canonical shirt, draws it on like a mitten, and
then, with his clenched fist, souse he fell on the catchpole and mauled
him like a devil; the junior gauntlets dropped on him likewise like so
many battering rams. Remember the wedding by this, by that, by these
blows, said they. In short, they stroked him so to the purpose that he
pissed blood out at mouth, nose, ears, and eyes, and was bruised,
thwacked, battered, bebumped, and crippled at the back, neck, breast,
arms, and so forth. Never did the bachelors at Avignon in carnival time
play more melodiously at raphe than was then played on the catchpole's
microcosm. At last down he fell.
They threw a great deal of wine on his snout, tied round the sleeve of
his doublet a fine yellow and green favour, and got him upon his snotty
beast, and God knows how he got to L'Isle Bouchart; where I cannot
truly tell you whether he was dressed and looked after or no, both by
his spouse and the able doctors of the country; for the thing never came
to my ears.
The next day they had a third part to the same tune, because it did not
appear by the lean catchpole's bag that he had served his writ. So the fat
prior sent a new catchpole, at the head of a brace of bums for his garde
du corps, to summon my lord. The porter ringing the bell, the whole
family was overjoyed, knowing that it was another rogue. Basche was
at dinner with his lady and the gentlemen; so he sent for the catchpole,
made him sit by him, and the bums by the women, and made them eat
till their bellies cracked with their breeches unbuttoned. The fruit being
served, the catchpole arose from table, and before the bums cited
Basche. Basche kindly asked him for a copy of the warrant, which the
other had got ready; he then takes witness and a copy of the summons.
To the catchpole and his bums he ordered four ducats for civility
money. In the meantime all were withdrawn for the farce. So Trudon
gave the alarm with his tabor. Basche desired the catchpole to stay and
see one of his servants married, and witness the contract of marriage,
paying him his fee. The catchpole slapdash was ready, took out his
inkhorn, got paper immediately, and his bums by him.
Then Loire came into the hall at one door, and his wife with the
gentlewomen at another, in nuptial accoutrements. Oudart, in
pontificalibus, takes them both by their hands, asketh them their will,
giveth them the matrimonial blessing, and was very liberal of holy
water. The contract written, signed, and registered, on one side was
brought wine and comfits; on the other, white and
orange-tawny-coloured favours were distributed; on another, gauntlets
privately handed about.
Chapter 4.
XV.
How the ancient custom at nuptials is renewed by the catchpole.
The catchpole, having made shift to get down a swingeing sneaker of
Breton wine, said to Basche, Pray, sir, what do you mean? You do not
give one another the memento of the wedding. By St. Joseph's wooden
shoe, all good customs are forgot. We find the form, but the hare is
scampered; and the nest, but the birds are flown. There are no true
friends nowadays. You see how, in several churches, the ancient
laudable custom of tippling on account of the blessed saints O O, at
Christmas, is come to nothing. The world is in its dotage, and
doomsday is certainly coming all so fast. Now come on; the wedding,
the wedding, the wedding; remember it by this. This he said, striking
Basche and his lady; then her women and the levite. Then the tabor
beat a point of war, and the gauntlets began to do their duty; insomuch
that the catchpole had his crown cracked in no less than nine places.
One of the bums had his right arm put out of joint, and the other his
upper jaw-bone or mandibule dislocated so that it hid half his chin,
with a denudation of the uvula, and sad loss of the molar, masticatory,
and canine teeth. Then the tabor beat a retreat; the gauntlets were
carefully hid in a trice, and sweetmeats afresh distributed to renew the
mirth of the company. So they all drank to one another, and especially
to the catchpole and his bums. But Oudart cursed and damned the
wedding to the pit of hell, complaining that one of the bums had utterly
disincornifistibulated his nether shoulder-blade. Nevertheless, he
scorned to be thought a flincher, and made shift to tope to him on the
square.
The jawless bum shrugged up his shoulders, joined his hands, and by
signs begged his pardon; for speak he could not. The sham bridegroom
made his moan, that the crippled bum had struck him such a horrid
thump with his shoulder-of-mutton fist on the nether elbow that he was
grown quite esperruquanchuzelubelouzerireliced down to his very heel,
to the no small loss of mistress bride.
But what harm had poor I done? cried Trudon, hiding his left eye with
his kerchief, and showing his tabor cracked on one side; they were not
satisfied with thus poaching, black and bluing, and
morrambouzevezengouzequoquemorgasacbaquevezinemaffreliding my
poor eyes, but they have also broke my harmless drum. Drums indeed
are commonly beaten at weddings, and it is fit they should; but
drummers are well entertained and never beaten. Now let Beelzebub
e'en take the drum, to make his devilship a nightcap. Brother, said the
lame catchpole, never fret thyself; I will make thee a present of a fine,
large, old patent, which I have here in my bag, to patch up thy drum,
and for Madame St. Ann's sake I pray thee forgive us. By Our Lady of
Riviere, the blessed dame, I meant no more harm than the child unborn.
One of the equerries, who, hopping and halting like a mumping cripple,
mimicked the good limping Lord de la Roche Posay, directed his
discourse to the bum with the pouting jaw, and told him: What, Mr.
Manhound, was it not enough thus to have
morcrocastebezasteverestegrigeligoscopapopondrillated us all in our
upper members with your botched mittens, but you must also apply
such morderegripippiatabirofreluchamburelurecaquelurintimpaniments
on our shinbones with the hard tops and extremities of your cobbled
shoes. Do you call this children's play? By the mass, 'tis no jest. The
bum, wringing his hands, seemed to beg his pardon, muttering with his
tongue, Mon, mon, mon, vrelon, von, von, like a dumb man. The bride
crying laughed, and laughing cried, because the catchpole was not
satisfied with drubbing her without choice or distinction of members,
but had also rudely roused and toused her, pulled off her topping, and
not having the fear of her husband before his eyes, treacherously
trepignemanpenillorifrizonoufresterfumbled tumbled and squeezed her
lower parts. The devil go with it, said Basche; there was much need
indeed that this same Master King (this was the catchpole's name)
should thus break my wife's back; however, I forgive him now; these
are little nuptial caresses. But this I plainly perceive, that he cited me
like an angel, and drubbed me like a devil. He had something in him of
Friar Thumpwell. Come, for all this, I must drink to him, and to you
likewise, his trusty esquires. But, said his lady, why hath he been so
very liberal of his manual kindness to me, without the least provocation?
I assure you, I by no means like it; but this I dare say for him, that he
hath the hardest knuckles that ever I felt on my shoulders. The steward
held his left arm in a scarf, as if it had been rent and torn in twain. I
think it was the devil, said he, that moved me to assist at these nuptials;
shame on ill luck; I must needs be meddling with a pox, and now see
what I have got by the bargain, both my arms are wretchedly
engoulevezinemassed and bruised. Do you call this a wedding? By St.
Bridget's tooth, I had rather be at that of a Tom T--d-man. This is, o'
my word, even just such another feast as was that of the Lapithae,
described by the philosopher of Samosata. One of the bums had lost his
tongue. The other two, tho' they had more need to complain, made their
excuse as well as they could, protesting that they had no ill design in
this dumbfounding; begging that, for goodness sake, they would
forgive them; and so, tho' they could hardly budge a foot, or wag along,
away they crawled. About a mile from Basche's seat, the catchpole
found himself somewhat out of sorts. The bums got to L'Isle Bouchart,
publicly saying that since they were born they had never seen an
honester gentleman than the Lord of Basche, or civiller people than his,
and that they had never been at the like wedding (which I verily
believe); but that it was their own faults if they had been tickled off,
and tossed about from post to pillar, since themselves had began the
beating. So they lived I cannot exactly tell you how many days after
this. But from that time to this it was held for a certain truth that
Basche's money was more pestilential, mortal, and pernicious to the
catchpoles and bums than were formerly the aurum Tholosanum and
the Sejan horse to those that possessed them. Ever since this he lived
quietly, and Basche's wedding grew into a common proverb.
Chapter 4.
XVI.
How Friar John made trial of the nature of the catchpoles.
This story would seem pleasant enough, said Pantagruel, were we not
to have always the fear of God before our eyes. It had been better, said
Epistemon, if those gauntlets had fallen upon the fat prior. Since he
took a pleasure in spending his money partly to vex Basche, partly to
see those catchpoles banged, good lusty thumps would have done well
on his shaved crown, considering the horrid concussions nowadays
among those puny judges. What harm had done those poor devils the
catchpoles? This puts me in mind, said Pantagruel, of an ancient
Roman named L. Neratius. He was of noble blood, and for some time
was rich; but had this tyrannical inclination, that whenever he went out
of doors he caused his servants to fill their pockets with gold and silver,
and meeting in the street your spruce gallants and better sort of beaux,
without the least provocation, for his fancy, he used to strike them hard
on the face with his fist; and immediately after that, to appease them
and hinder them from complaining to the magistrates, he would give
them as much money as satisfied them according to the law of the
twelve tables. Thus he used to spend his revenue, beating people for the
price of his money. By St. Bennet's sacred boot, quoth Friar John, I will
know the truth of it presently.
This said, he went on shore, put his hand in his fob, and took out
twenty ducats; then said with a loud voice, in the hearing of a shoal of
the nation of catchpoles, Who will earn twenty ducats for being beaten
like the devil? Io, Io, Io, said they all; you will cripple us for ever, sir,
that is most certain; but the money is tempting. With this they were all
thronging who should be first to be thus preciously beaten. Friar John
singled him out of the whole knot of these rogues in grain, a
red-snouted catchpole, who upon his right thumb wore a thick broad
silver hoop, wherein was set a good large toadstone. He had no sooner
picked him out from the rest, but I perceived that they all muttered and
grumbled; and I heard a young thin-jawed catchpole, a notable scholar,
a pretty fellow at his pen, and, according to public report, much cried
up for his honesty at Doctors' Commons, making his complaint and
muttering because this same crimson phiz carried away all the practice,
and that if there were but a score and a half of bastinadoes to be got, he
would certainly run away with eight and twenty of them. But all this
was looked upon to be nothing but mere envy.
Friar John so unmercifully thrashed, thumped, and belaboured
Red-snout, back and belly, sides, legs, and arms, head, feet, and so
forth, with the home and frequently repeated application of one of the
best members of a faggot, that I took him to be a dead man; then he
gave him the twenty ducats, which made the dog get on his legs,
pleased like a little king or two. The rest were saying to Friar John, Sir,
sir, brother devil, if it please you to do us the favour to beat some of us
for less money, we are all at your devilship's command, bags, papers,
pens, and all. Red-snout cried out against them, saying, with a loud
voice, Body of me, you little prigs, will you offer to take the bread out
of my mouth? will you take my bargain over my head? would you draw
and inveigle from me my clients and customers? Take notice, I
summon you before the official this day sevennight; I will law and claw
you like any old devil of Vauverd, that I will--Then turning himself
towards Friar John, with a smiling and joyful look, he said to him,
Reverend father in the devil, if you have found me a good hide, and
have a mind to divert yourself once more by beating your humble
servant, I will bate you half in half this time rather than lose your
custom; do not spare me, I beseech you; I am all, and more than all,
yours, good Mr. Devil; head, lungs, tripes, guts, and garbage; and that
at a pennyworth, I'll assure you. Friar John never heeded his proffers,
but even left them. The other catchpoles were making addresses to
Panurge, Epistemon, Gymnast, and others, entreating them charitably
to bestow upon their carcasses a small beating, for otherwise they were
in danger of keeping a long fast; but none of them had a stomach to it.
Some time after, seeking fresh water for the ship's company, we met a
couple of old female catchpoles of the place, miserably howling and
weeping in concert. Pantagruel had kept on board, and already had
caused a retreat to be sounded. Thinking that they might be related to
the catchpole that was bastinadoed, we asked them the occasion of their
grief. They replied that they had too much cause to weep; for that very
hour, from an exalted triple tree, two of the honestest gentlemen in
Catchpole-land had been made to cut a caper on nothing. Cut a caper
on nothing, said Gymnast; my pages use to cut capers on the ground; to
cut a caper on nothing should be hanging and choking, or I am out. Ay,
ay, said Friar John; you speak of it like St. John de la Palisse.
We asked them why they treated these worthy persons with such a
choking hempen salad. They told us they had only borrowed, alias
stolen, the tools of the mass and hid them under the handle of the parish.
This is a very allegorical way of speaking, said Epistemon.
Chapter 4.
XVII.
How Pantagruel came to the islands of Tohu and Bohu; and of the
strange death of Wide-nostrils, the swallower of windmills.
That day Pantagruel came to the two islands of Tohu and Bohu, where
the devil a bit we could find anything to fry with. For one Wide-nostrils,
a huge giant, had swallowed every individual pan, skillet, kettle, frying-
pan, dripping-pan, and brass and iron pot in the land, for want of
windmills, which were his daily food. Whence it happened that
somewhat before day, about the hour of his digestion, the greedy churl
was taken very ill with a kind of a surfeit, or crudity of stomach,
occasioned, as the physicians said, by the weakness of the concocting
faculty of his stomach, naturally disposed to digest whole windmills at
a gust, yet unable to consume perfectly the pans and skillets; though it
had indeed pretty well digested the kettles and pots, as they said they
knew by the hypostases and eneoremes of four tubs of second-hand
drink which he had evacuated at two different times that morning. They
made use of divers remedies, according to art, to give him ease; but all
would not do; the distemper prevailed over the remedies; insomuch that
the famous Wide- nostrils died that morning of so strange a death that I
think you ought no longer to wonder at that of the poet Aeschylus. It
had been foretold him by the soothsayers that he would die on a certain
day by the ruin of something that should fall on him. The fatal day
being come in its turn, he removed himself out of town, far from all
houses, trees, (rocks,) or any other things that can fall and endanger by
their ruin; and strayed in a large field, trusting himself to the open sky;
there very secure, as he thought, unless indeed the sky should happen to
fall, which he held to be impossible. Yet they say that the larks are
much afraid of it; for if it should fall, they must all be taken.
The Celts that once lived near the Rhine--they are our noble valiant
French--in ancient times were also afraid of the sky's falling; for being
asked by Alexander the Great what they feared most in this world,
hoping well they would say that they feared none but him, considering
his great achievements, they made answer that they feared nothing but
the sky's falling; however, not refusing to enter into a confederacy with
so brave a king, if you believe Strabo, lib. 7, and Arrian, lib. I.
Plutarch also, in his book of the face that appears on the body of the
moon, speaks of one Phenaces, who very much feared the moon should
fall on the earth, and pitied those that live under that planet, as the
Aethiopians and Taprobanians, if so heavy a mass ever happened to fall
on them, and would have feared the like of heaven and earth had they
not been duly propped up and borne by the Atlantic pillars, as the
ancients believed, according to Aristotle's testimony, lib. 5, Metaphys.
Notwithstanding all this, poor Aeschylus was killed by the fall of the
shell of a tortoise, which falling from betwixt the claws of an eagle
high in the air, just on his head, dashed out his brains.
Neither ought you to wonder at the death of another poet, I mean old
jolly Anacreon, who was choked with a grape-stone. Nor at that of
Fabius the Roman praetor, who was choked with a single goat's hair as
he was supping up a porringer of milk. Nor at the death of that bashful
fool, who by holding in his wind, and for want of letting out a
bum-gunshot, died suddenly in the presence of the Emperor Claudius.
Nor at that of the Italian buried on the Via Flaminia at Rome, who in
his epitaph complains that the bite of a she-puss on his little finger was
the cause of his death. Nor of that of Q. Lecanius Bassus, who died
suddenly of so small a prick with a needle on his left thumb that it
could hardly be discerned. Nor of Quenelault, a Norman physician,
who died suddenly at Montpellier, merely for having sideways took a
worm out of his hand with a penknife. Nor of Philomenes, whose
servant having got him some new figs for the first course of his dinner,
whilst he went to fetch wine, a straggling well-hung ass got into the
house, and seeing the figs on the table, without further invitation
soberly fell to. Philomenes coming into the room and nicely observing
with what gravity the ass ate its dinner, said to the man, who was come
back, Since thou hast set figs here for this reverend guest of ours to eat,
methinks it is but reason thou also give him some of this wine to drink.
He had no sooner said this, but he was so excessively pleased, and fell
into so exorbitant a fit of laughter, that the use of his spleen took that of
his breath utterly away, and he immediately died. Nor of Spurius
Saufeius, who died supping up a soft-boiled egg as he came out of a
bath. Nor of him who, as Boccaccio tells us, died suddenly by picking
his grinders with a sage-stalk. Nor of Phillipot Placut, who being brisk
and hale, fell dead as he was paying an old debt; which causes, perhaps,
many not to pay theirs, for fear of the like accident. Nor of the painter
Zeuxis, who killed himself with laughing at the sight of the antique
jobbernowl of an old hag drawn by him. Nor, in short, of a thousand
more of which authors write, as Varrius, Pliny, Valerius, J. Baptista
Fulgosus, and Bacabery the elder. In short, Gaffer Wide-nostrils
choked himself with eating a huge lump of fresh butter at the mouth of
a hot oven by the advice of physicians.
They likewise told us there that the King of Cullan in Bohu had routed
the grandees of King Mecloth, and made sad work with the fortresses
of Belima.
After this, we sailed by the islands of Nargues and Zargues; also by the
islands of Teleniabin and Geleniabin, very fine and fruitful in
ingredients for clysters; and then by the islands of Enig and Evig, on
whose account formerly the Landgrave of Hesse was swinged off with
a vengeance.
Chapter 4.
XVIII.
How Pantagruel met with a great storm at sea.
The next day we espied nine sail that came spooning before the wind;
they were full of Dominicans, Jesuits, Capuchins, Hermits, Austins,
Bernardins, Egnatins, Celestins, Theatins, Amadeans, Cordeliers,
Carmelites, Minims, and the devil and all of other holy monks and
friars, who were going to the Council of Chesil, to sift and garble some
new articles of faith against the new heretics. Panurge was overjoyed to
see them, being most certain of good luck for that day and a long train
of others. So having courteously saluted the blessed fathers, and
recommended the salvation of his precious soul to their devout prayers
and private ejaculations, he caused seventy- eight dozen of Westphalia
hams, units of pots of caviare, tens of Bolonia sausages, hundreds of
botargoes, and thousands of fine angels, for the souls of the dead, to be
thrown on board their ships. Pantagruel seemed metagrabolized, dozing,
out of sorts, and as melancholic as a cat. Friar John, who soon
perceived it, was inquiring of him whence should come this unusual
sadness; when the master, whose watch it was, observing the fluttering
of the ancient above the poop, and seeing that it began to overcast,
judged that we should have wind; therefore he bid the boatswain call all
hands upon deck, officers, sailors, foremast-men, swabbers, and
cabin-boys, and even the passengers; made them first settle their
topsails, take in their spritsail; then he cried, In with your topsails,
lower the foresail, tallow under parrels, braid up close all them sails,
strike your topmasts to the cap, make all sure with your sheeps-feet,
lash your guns fast. All this was nimbly done. Immediately it blowed a
storm; the sea began to roar and swell mountain-high; the rut of the sea
was great, the waves breaking upon our ship's quarter; the north-west
wind blustered and overblowed; boisterous gusts, dreadful clashing,
and deadly scuds of wind whistled through our yards and made our
shrouds rattle again. The thunder grumbled so horridly that you would
have thought heaven had been tumbling about our ears; at the same
time it lightened, rained, hailed; the sky lost its transparent hue, grew
dusky, thick, and gloomy, so that we had no other light than that of the
flashes of lightning and rending of the clouds. The hurricanes, flaws,
and sudden whirlwinds began to make a flame about us by the
lightnings, fiery vapours, and other aerial ejaculations. Oh, how our
looks were full of amazement and trouble, while the saucy winds did
rudely lift up above us the mountainous waves of the main! Believe me,
it seemed to us a lively image of the chaos, where fire, air, sea, land,
and all the elements were in a refractory confusion. Poor Panurge
having with the full contents of the inside of his doublet plentifully fed
the fish, greedy enough of such odious fare, sat on the deck all in a
heap, with his nose and arse together, most sadly cast down, moping
and half dead; invoked and called to his assistance all the blessed he-
and she-saints he could muster up; swore and vowed to confess in time
and place convenient, and then bawled out frightfully, Steward, maitre
d'hotel, see ho! my friend, my father, my uncle, prithee let us have a
piece of powdered beef or pork; we shall drink but too much anon, for
aught I see. Eat little and drink the more will hereafter be my motto, I
fear. Would to our dear Lord, and to our blessed, worthy, and sacred
Lady, I were now, I say, this very minute of an hour, well on shore, on
terra firma, hale and easy. O twice and thrice happy those that plant
cabbages! O destinies, why did you not spin me for a cabbage-planter?
O how few are there to whom Jupiter hath been so favourable as to
predestinate them to plant cabbages! They have always one foot on the
ground, and the other not far from it. Dispute who will of felicity and
summum bonum, for my part whosoever plants cabbages is now, by
my decree, proclaimed most happy; for as good a reason as the
philosopher Pyrrho, being in the same danger, and seeing a hog near
the shore eating some scattered oats, declared it happy in two respects;
first, because it had plenty of oats, and besides that, was on shore. Ha,
for a divine and princely habitation, commend me to the cows' floor.
Murder! This wave will sweep us away, blessed Saviour! O my friends!
a little vinegar. I sweat again with mere agony. Alas! the mizen-sail's
split, the gallery's washed away, the masts are sprung, the maintop-
masthead dives into the sea; the keel is up to the sun; our shrouds are
almost all broke, and blown away. Alas! alas! where is our main course?
Al is verlooren, by Godt! our topmast is run adrift. Alas! who shall
have this wreck? Friend, lend me here behind you one of these whales.
Your lantern is fallen, my lads. Alas! do not let go the main-tack nor
the bowline. I hear the block crack; is it broke? For the Lord's sake, let
us have the hull, and let all the rigging be damned. Be, be, be, bous,
bous, bous. Look to the needle of your compass, I beseech you, good
Sir Astrophil, and tell us, if you can, whence comes this storm. My
heart's sunk down below my midriff. By my troth, I am in a sad fright,
bou, bou, bou, bous, bous, I am lost for ever. I conskite myself for mere
madness and fear. Bou, bou, bou, bou, Otto to to to to ti. Bou, bou, bou,
ou, ou, ou, bou, bou, bous. I sink, I'm drowned, I'm gone, good people,
I'm drowned.
Chapter 4.
XIX.
What countenances Panurge and Friar John kept during the storm.
Pantagruel, having first implored the help of the great and Almighty
Deliverer, and prayed publicly with fervent devotion, by the pilot's
advice held tightly the mast of the ship. Friar John had stripped himself
to his waistcoat, to help the seamen. Epistemon, Ponocrates, and the
rest did as much. Panurge alone sat on his breech upon deck, weeping
and howling. Friar John espied him going on the quarter-deck, and said
to him, Odzoons! Panurge the calf, Panurge the whiner, Panurge the
brayer, would it not become thee much better to lend us here a helping
hand than to lie lowing like a cow, as thou dost, sitting on thy stones
like a bald-breeched baboon? Be, be, be, bous, bous, bous, returned
Panurge; Friar John, my friend, my good father, I am drowning, my
dear friend! I drown! I am a dead man, my dear father in God; I am a
dead man, my friend; your cutting hanger cannot save me from this;
alas! alas! we are above ela. Above the pitch, out of tune, and off the
hinges. Be, be, be, bou, bous. Alas! we are now above g sol re ut. I sink,
I sink, ha, my father, my uncle, my all. The water is got into my shoes
by the collar; bous, bous, bous, paish, hu, hu, hu, he, he, he, ha, ha, I
drown. Alas! alas! Hu, hu, hu, hu, hu, hu, hu, be, be, bous, bous,
bobous, bobous, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, alas! alas! Now I am like your
tumblers, my feet stand higher than my head. Would to heaven I were
now with those good holy fathers bound for the council whom we met
this morning, so godly, so fat, so merry, so plump and comely. Holos,
bolos, holas, holas, alas! This devilish wave (mea culpa Deus), I mean
this wave of God, will sink our vessel. Alas! Friar John, my father, my
friend, confession. Here I am down on my knees; confiteor; your holy
blessing. Come hither and be damned, thou pitiful devil, and help us,
said Friar John (who fell a-swearing and cursing like a tinker), in the
name of thirty legions of black devils, come; will you come? Do not let
us swear at this time, said Panurge; holy father, my friend, do not swear,
I beseech you; to-morrow as much as you please. Holos, holos, alas!
our ship leaks. I drown, alas, alas! I will give eighteen hundred
thousand crowns to anyone that will set me on shore, all berayed and
bedaubed as I am now. If ever there was a man in my country in the
like pickle. Confiteor, alas! a word or two of testament or codicil at
least. A thousand devils seize the cuckoldy cow-hearted mongrel, cried
Friar John. Ods-belly, art thou talking here of making thy will now we
are in danger, and it behoveth us to bestir our stumps lustily, or never?
Wilt thou come, ho devil? Midshipman, my friend; O the rare
lieutenant; here Gymnast, here on the poop. We are, by the mass, all
beshit now; our light is out. This is hastening to the devil as fast as it
can. Alas, bou, bou, bou, bou, bou, alas, alas, alas, alas! said Panurge;
was it here we were born to perish? Oh! ho! good people, I drown, I die.
Consummatum est. I am sped--Magna, gna, gna, said Friar John. Fie
upon him, how ugly the shitten howler looks. Boy, younker, see hoyh.
Mind the pumps or the devil choke thee. Hast thou hurt thyself? Zoons,
here fasten it to one of these blocks. On this side, in the devil's name,
hay--so, my boy. Ah, Friar John, said Panurge, good ghostly father,
dear friend, don't let us swear, you sin. Oh, ho, oh, ho, be be be bous,
bous, bhous, I sink, I die, my friends. I die in charity with all the world.
Farewell, in manus. Bohus bohous, bhousowauswaus. St. Michael of
Aure! St. Nicholas! now, now or never, I here make you a solemn vow,
and to our Saviour, that if you stand by me this time, I mean if you set
me ashore out of this danger, I will build you a fine large little chapel
or two, between Quande and Montsoreau, where neither cow nor calf
shall feed. Oh ho, oh ho. Above eighteen pailfuls or two of it are got
down my gullet; bous, bhous, bhous, bhous, how damned bitter and salt
it is! By the virtue, said Friar John, of the blood, the flesh, the belly, the
head, if I hear thee again howling, thou cuckoldy cur, I'll maul thee
worse than any sea-wolf. Ods-fish, why don't we take him up by the
lugs and throw him overboard to the bottom of the sea? Hear, sailor; ho,
honest fellow. Thus, thus, my friend, hold fast above. In truth, here is a
sad lightning and thundering; I think that all the devils are got loose; it
is holiday with them; or else Madame Proserpine is in child's labour: all
the devils dance a morrice.
Chapter 4.
XX.
How the pilots were forsaking their ships in the greatest stress of
weather.
Oh, said Panurge, you sin, Friar John, my former crony! former, I say,
for at this time I am no more, you are no more. It goes against my heart
to tell it you; for I believe this swearing doth your spleen a great deal of
good; as it is a great ease to a wood-cleaver to cry hem at every blow,
and as one who plays at ninepins is wonderfully helped if, when he
hath not thrown his bowl right, and is like to make a bad cast, some
ingenious stander-by leans and screws his body halfway about on that
side which the bowl should have took to hit the pins. Nevertheless, you
offend, my sweet friend. But what do you think of eating some kind of
cabirotadoes? Wouldn't this secure us from this storm? I have read that
the ministers of the gods Cabiri, so much celebrated by Orpheus,
Apollonius, Pherecydes, Strabo, Pausanias, and Herodotus were always
secure in time of storm. He dotes, he raves, the poor devil! A thousand,
a million, nay, a hundred million of devils seize the hornified doddipole.
Lend's a hand here, hoh, tiger, wouldst thou? Here, on the starboard
side. Ods-me, thou buffalo's head stuffed with relics, what ape's
paternoster art thou muttering and chattering here between thy teeth?
That devil of a sea-calf is the cause of all this storm, and is the only
man who doth not lend a helping hand. By G--, if I come near thee, I'll
fetch thee out by the head and ears with a vengeance, and chastise thee
like any tempestative devil. Here, mate, my lad, hold fast, till I have
made a double knot. O brave boy! Would to heaven thou wert abbot of
Talemouze, and that he that is were guardian of Croullay. Hold, brother
Ponocrates, you will hurt yourself, man. Epistemon, prithee stand off
out of the hatchway. Methinks I saw the thunder fall there but just now.
Con the ship, so ho--Mind your steerage. Well said, thus, thus, steady,
keep her thus, get the longboat clear-- steady. Ods-fish, the beak-head
is staved to pieces. Grumble, devils, fart, belch, shite, a t--d o' the wave.
If this be weather, the devil's a ram. Nay, by G--, a little more would
have washed me clear away into the current. I think all the legions of
devils hold here their provincial chapter, or are polling, canvassing, and
wrangling for the election of a new rector. Starboard; well said. Take
heed; have a care of your noddle, lad, in the devil's name. So ho,
starboard, starboard. Be, be, be, bous, bous, bous, cried Panurge; bous,
bous, be, be, be, bous, bous, I am lost. I see neither heaven nor earth; of
the four elements we have here only fire and water left. Bou, bou, bou,
bous, bous, bous. Would it were the pleasure of the worthy divine
bounty that I were at this present hour in the close at Seuille, or at
Innocent's the pastry-cook over against the painted wine-vault at
Chinon, though I were to strip to my doublet, and bake the petti-pasties
myself.
Honest man, could not you throw me ashore? you can do a world of
good things, they say. I give you all Salmigondinois, and my large
shore full of whelks, cockles, and periwinkles, if, by your industry, I
ever set foot on firm ground. Alas, alas! I drown. Harkee, my friends,
since we cannot get safe into port, let us come to an anchor in some
road, no matter whither. Drop all your anchors; let us be out of danger,
I beseech you. Here, honest tar, get you into the chains, and heave the
lead, an't please you. Let us know how many fathom water we are in.
Sound, friend, in the Lord Harry's name. Let us know whether a man
might here drink easily without stooping. I am apt to believe one might.
Helm a-lee, hoh, cried the pilot. Helm a-lee; a hand or two at the helm;
about ships with her; helm a-lee, helm a-lee. Stand off from the leech of
the sail. Hoh! belay, here make fast below; hoh, helm a-lee, lash sure
the helm a-lee, and let her drive. Is it come to that? said Pantagruel; our
good Saviour then help us. Let her lie under the sea, cried James
Brahier, our chief mate; let her drive. To prayers, to prayers; let all
think on their souls, and fall to prayers; nor hope to escape but by a
miracle. Let us, said Panurge, make some good pious kind of vow; alas,
alas, alas! bou, bou, be, be, be, bous, bous, bous, oho, oho, oho, oho, let
us make a pilgrim; come, come, let every man club his penny towards
it, come on. Here, here, on this side, said Friar John, in the devil's name.
Let her drive, for the Lord's sake unhang the rudder; hoh, let her drive,
let her drive, and let us drink, I say, of the best and most cheering; d'ye
hear, steward? produce, exhibit; for, d'ye see this, and all the rest will
as well go to the devil out of hand. A pox on that wind-broker Aeolus,
with his fluster-blusters. Sirrah, page, bring me here my drawer (for so
he called his breviary); stay a little here; haul, friend, thus. Odzoons,
here is a deal of hail and thunder to no purpose. Hold fast above, I pray
you. When have we All- saints day? I believe it is the unholy holiday of
all the devil's crew. Alas! said Panurge, Friar John damns himself here
as black as buttermilk for the nonce. Oh, what a good friend I lose in
him. Alas, alas! this is another gats-bout than last year's. We are falling
out of Scylla into Charybdis. Oho! I drown. Confiteor; one poor word
or two by way of testament, Friar John, my ghostly father; good Mr.
Abstractor, my crony, my Achates, Xenomanes, my all. Alas! I drown;
two words of testament here upon this ladder.
Chapter 4.
XXI.
A continuation of the storm, with a short discourse on the subject of
making testaments at sea.
To make one's last will, said Epistemon, at this time that we ought to
bestir ourselves and help our seamen, on the penalty of being drowned,
seems to me as idle and ridiculous a maggot as that of some of Caesar's
men, who, at their coming into the Gauls, were mightily busied in
making wills and codicils; bemoaned their fortune and the absence of
their spouses and friends at Rome, when it was absolutely necessary for
them to run to their arms and use their utmost strength against
Ariovistus their enemy.
This also is to be as silly as that jolt-headed loblolly of a carter, who,
having laid his waggon fast in a slough, down on his marrow-bones
was calling on the strong-backed deity, Hercules, might and main, to
help him at a dead lift, but all the while forgot to goad on his oxen and
lay his shoulder to the wheels, as it behoved him; as if a Lord have
mercy upon us alone would have got his cart out of the mire.
What will it signify to make your will now? for either we shall come
off or drown for it. If we 'scape, it will not signify a straw to us; for
testaments are of no value or authority but by the death of the testators.
If we are drowned, will it not be drowned too? Prithee, who will
transmit it to the executors? Some kind wave will throw it ashore, like
Ulysses, replied Panurge; and some king's daughter, going to fetch a
walk in the fresco, on the evening will find it, and take care to have it
proved and fulfilled; nay, and have some stately cenotaph erected to my
memory, as Dido had to that of her goodman Sichaeus; Aeneas to
Deiphobus, upon the Trojan shore, near Rhoete; Andromache to Hector,
in the city of Buthrot; Aristotle to Hermias and Eubulus; the Athenians
to the poet Euripides; the Romans to Drusus in Germany, and to
Alexander Severus, their emperor, in the Gauls; Argentier to
Callaischre; Xenocrates to Lysidices; Timares to his son Teleutagoras;
Eupolis and Aristodice to their son Theotimus; Onestus to Timocles;
Callimachus to Sopolis, the son of Dioclides; Catullus to his brother;
Statius to his father; Germain of Brie to Herve, the Breton tarpaulin.
Art thou mad, said Friar John, to run on at this rate? Help, here, in the
name of five hundred thousand millions of cartloads of devils, help!
may a shanker gnaw thy moustachios, and the three rows of
pock-royals and cauliflowers cover thy bum and turd-barrel instead of
breeches and codpiece. Codsooks, our ship is almost overset. Ods-death,
how shall we clear her? it is well if she do not founder. What a devilish
sea there runs! She'll neither try nor hull; the sea will overtake her, so
we shall never 'scape; the devil 'scape me. Then Pantagruel was heard
to make a sad exclamation, saying, with a loud voice, Lord save us, we
perish; yet not as we would have it, but thy holy will be done. The Lord
and the blessed Virgin be with us, said Panurge. Holos, alas, I drown;
be be be bous, be bous, bous; in manus. Good heavens, send me some
dolphin to carry me safe on shore, like a pretty little Arion. I shall make
shift to sound the harp, if it be not unstrung. Let nineteen legions of
black devils seize me, said Friar John. (The Lord be with us! whispered
Panurge, between his chattering teeth.) If I come down to thee, I'll
show thee to some purpose that the badge of thy humanity dangles at a
calf's breech, thou ragged, horned, cuckoldy booby--mgna, mgnan,
mgnan--come hither and help us, thou great weeping calf, or may thirty
millions of devils leap on thee. Wilt thou come, sea-calf? Fie; how ugly
the howling whelp looks. What, always the same ditty? Come on now,
my bonny drawer. This he said, opening his breviary. Come forward,
thou and I must be somewhat serious for a while; let me peruse thee
stiffly. Beatus vir qui non abiit. Pshaw, I know all this by heart; let us
see the legend of Mons. St. Nicholas.
Horrida tempestas montem turbavit acutum.
Tempest was a mighty flogger of lads at Mountagu College. If pedants
be damned for whipping poor little innocent wretches their scholars, he
is, upon my honour, by this time fixed within Ixion's wheel, lashing the
crop- eared, bobtailed cur that gives it motion. If they are saved for
having whipped innocent lads, he ought to be above the--
Chapter 4.
XXII.
An end of the storm.
Shore, shore! cried Pantagruel. Land to, my friends, I see land! Pluck
up a good spirit, boys, 'tis within a kenning. So! we are not far from a
port.--I see the sky clearing up to the northwards.--Look to the south-
east! Courage, my hearts, said the pilot; now she'll bear the hullock of a
sail; the sea is much smoother; some hands aloft to the maintop. Put the
helm a-weather. Steady! steady! Haul your after-mizen bowlines. Haul,
haul, haul! Thus, thus, and no near. Mind your steerage; bring your
main- tack aboard. Clear your sheets; clear your bowlines; port, port.
Helm a-lee. Now to the sheet on the starboard side, thou son of a whore.
Thou art mightily pleased, honest fellow, quoth Friar John, with
hearing make mention of thy mother. Luff, luff, cried the quartermaster
that conned the ship, keep her full, luff the helm. Luff. It is, answered
the steersman. Keep her thus. Get the bonnets fixed. Steady, steady.
That is well said, said Friar John now, this is something like a tansy.
Come, come, come, children, be nimble. Good. Luff, luff, thus. Helm
a-weather. That's well said and thought on. Methinks the storm is
almost over. It was high time, faith; however, the Lord be thanked. Our
devils begin to scamper. Out with all your sails. Hoist your sails. Hoist.
That is spoke like a man, hoist, hoist. Here, a God's name, honest
Ponocrates; thou art a lusty fornicator; the whoreson will get none but
boys. Eusthenes, thou art a notable fellow. Run up to the fore-topsail.
Thus, thus. Well said, i' faith; thus, thus. I dare not fear anything all this
while, for it is holiday. Vea, vea, vea! huzza! This shout of the seaman
is not amiss, and pleases me, for it is holiday. Keep her full thus. Good.
Cheer up, my merry mates all, cried out Epistemon; I see already
Castor on the right. Be, be, bous, bous, bous, said Panurge; I am much
afraid it is the bitch Helen. It is truly Mixarchagenas, returned
Epistemon, if thou likest better that denomination, which the Argives
give him. Ho, ho! I see land too; let her bear in with the harbour; I see a
good many people on the beach; I see a light on an obeliscolychny.
Shorten your sails, said the pilot; fetch the sounding line; we must
double that point of land, and mind the sands. We are clear of them,
said the sailors. Soon after, Away she goes, quoth the pilot, and so doth
the rest of our fleet; help came in good season.
By St. John, said Panurge, this is spoke somewhat like. O the sweet
word! there is the soul of music in it. Mgna, mgna, mgna, said Friar
John; if ever thou taste a drop of it, let the devil's dam taste me, thou
ballocky devil. Here, honest soul, here's a full sneaker of the very best.
Bring the flagons; dost hear, Gymnast: and that same large pasty
jambic, gammonic, as you will have it. Take heed you pilot her in right.
Cheer up, cried out Pantagruel; cheer up, my boys; let us be ourselves
again. Do you see yonder, close by our ship, two barks, three sloops,
five ships, eight pinks, four yawls, and six frigates making towards us,
sent by the good people of the neighbouring island to our relief? But
who is this Ucalegon below, that cries and makes such a sad moan?
Were it not that I hold the mast firmly with both my hands, and keep it
straighter than two hundred tacklings--I would--It is, said Friar John,
that poor devil Panurge, who is troubled with a calf's ague; he quakes
for fear when his belly's full. If, said Pantagruel, he hath been afraid
during this dreadful hurricane and dangerous storm, provided (waiving
that) he hath done his part like a man, I do not value him a jot the less
for it. For as to fear in all encounters is the mark of a heavy and
cowardly heart, as Agamemnon did, who for that reason is
ignominiously taxed by Achilles with having dog's eyes and a stag's
heart; so, not to fear when the case is evidently dreadful is a sign of
want or smallness of judgment. Now, if anything ought to be feared in
this life, next to offending God, I will not say it is death. I will not
meddle with the disputes of Socrates and the academics, that death of
itself is neither bad nor to be feared, but I will affirm that this kind of
shipwreck is to be feared, or nothing is. For, as Homer saith, it is a
grievous, dreadful, and unnatural thing to perish at sea. And indeed
Aeneas, in the storm that took his fleet near Sicily, was grieved that he
had not died by the hand of the brave Diomedes, and said that those
were three, nay four times happy, who perished in the conflagration at
Troy. No man here hath lost his life, the Lord our Saviour be eternally
praised for it! but in truth here is a ship sadly out of order. Well, we
must take care to have the damage repaired. Take heed we do not run
aground and bulge her.
Chapter 4.
XXIII.
How Panurge played the good fellow when the storm was over.
What cheer, ho, fore and aft? quoth Panurge. Oh ho! all is well, the
storm is over. I beseech ye, be so kind as to let me be the first that is
sent on shore; for I would by all means a little untruss a point. Shall I
help you still? Here, let me see, I will coil this rope; I have plenty of
courage, and of fear as little as may be. Give it me yonder, honest tar.
No, no, I have not a bit of fear. Indeed, that same decumane wave that
took us fore and aft somewhat altered my pulse. Down with your sails;
well said. How now, Friar John? you do nothing. Is it time for us to
drink now? Who can tell but St. Martin's running footman Belzebuth
may still be hatching us some further mischief? Shall I come and help
you again? Pork and peas choke me, if I do heartily repent, though too
late, not having followed the doctrine of the good philosopher who tells
us that to walk by the sea and to navigate by the shore are very safe and
pleasant things; just as 'tis to go on foot when we hold our horse by the
bridle. Ha! ha! ha! by G--, all goes well. Shall I help you here too? Let
me see, I will do this as it should be, or the devil's in't.
Epistemon, who had the inside of one of his hands all flayed and
bloody, having held a tackling with might and main, hearing what
Pantagruel had said, told him: You may believe, my lord, I had my
share of fear as well as Panurge; yet I spared no pains in lending my
helping hand. I considered that, since by fatal and unavoidable
necessity we must all die, it is the blessed will of God that we die this
or that hour, and this or that kind of death. Nevertheless, we ought to
implore, invoke, pray, beseech, and supplicate him; but we must not
stop there; it behoveth us also to use our endeavours on our side, and,
as the holy writ saith, to co-operate with him.
You know what C. Flaminius, the consul, said when by Hannibal's
policy he was penned up near the lake of Peruse, alias Thrasymene.
Friends, said he to his soldiers, you must not hope to get out of this
place barely by vows or prayers to the gods; no, 'tis by fortitude and
strength we must escape and cut ourselves a way with the edge of our
swords through the midst of our enemies.
Sallust likewise makes M. Portius Cato say this: The help of the gods is
not obtained by idle vows and womanish complaints; 'tis by vigilance,
labour, and repeated endeavours that all things succeed according to
our wishes and designs. If a man in time of need and danger is
negligent, heartless, and lazy, in vain he implores the gods; they are
then justly angry and incensed against him. The devil take me, said
Friar John,--I'll go his halves, quoth Panurge,--if the close of Seville
had not been all gathered, vintaged, gleaned, and destroyed, if I had
only sung contra hostium insidias (matter of breviary) like all the rest
of the monking devils, and had not bestirred myself to save the
vineyard as I did, despatching the truant picaroons of Lerne with the
staff of the cross.
Let her sink or swim a God's name, said Panurge, all's one to Friar John;
he doth nothing; his name is Friar John Do-little; for all he sees me here
a-sweating and puffing to help with all my might this honest tar, first of
the name.--Hark you me, dear soul, a word with you; but pray be not
angry. How thick do you judge the planks of our ship to be? Some two
good inches and upwards, returned the pilot; don't fear. Ods-kilderkins,
said Panurge, it seems then we are within two fingers' breadth of
damnation.
Is this one of the nine comforts of matrimony? Ah, dear soul, you do
well to measure the danger by the yard of fear. For my part, I have none
on't; my name is William Dreadnought. As for heart, I have more than
enough on't. I mean none of your sheep's heart; but of wolf's heart--the
courage of a bravo. By the pavilion of Mars, I fear nothing but danger.
Chapter 4.
XXIV.
How Panurge was said to have been afraid without reason during the
storm.
Good morrow, gentlemen, said Panurge; good morrow to you all; you
are in very good health, thanks to heaven and yourselves; you are all
heartily welcome, and in good time. Let us go on shore.--Here,
coxswain, get the ladder over the gunnel; man the sides; man the
pinnace, and get her by the ship's side. Shall I lend you a hand here? I
am stark mad for want of business, and would work like any two yokes
of oxen. Truly this is a fine place, and these look like a very good
people. Children, do you want me still in anything? do not spare the
sweat of my body, for God's sake. Adam--that is, man--was made to
labour and work, as the birds were made to fly. Our Lord's will is that
we get our bread with the sweat of our brows, not idling and doing
nothing, like this tatterdemalion of a monk here, this Friar Jack, who is
fain to drink to hearten himself up, and dies for fear.- -Rare weather.--I
now find the answer of Anacharsis, the noble philosopher, very proper.
Being asked what ship he reckoned the safest, he replied: That which is
in the harbour. He made a yet better repartee, said Pantagruel, when
somebody inquiring which is greater, the number of the living or that of
the dead, he asked them amongst which of the two they reckoned those
that are at sea, ingeniously implying that they are continually in danger
of death, dying alive, and living die. Portius Cato also said that there
were but three things of which he would repent: if ever he had trusted
his wife with his secret, if he had idled away a day, and if he had ever
gone by sea to a place which he could visit by land. By this dignified
frock of mine, said Friar John to Panurge, friend, thou hast been afraid
during the storm without cause or reason; for thou wert not born to be
drowned, but rather to be hanged and exalted in the air, or to be roasted
in the midst of a jolly bonfire. My lord, would you have a good cloak
for the rain; leave me off your wolf and badger-skin mantle; let
Panurge but be flayed, and cover yourself with his hide. But do not
come near the fire, nor near your blacksmith's forges, a God's name; for
in a moment you will see it in ashes. Yet be as long as you please in the
rain, snow, hail, nay, by the devil's maker, throw yourself or dive down
to the very bottom of the water, I'll engage you'll not be wet at all. Have
some winter boots made of it, they'll never take in a drop of water;
make bladders of it to lay under boys to teach them to swim, instead of
corks, and they will learn without the least danger. His skin, then, said
Pantagruel, should be like the herb called true maiden's hair, which
never takes wet nor moistness, but still keeps dry, though you lay it at
the bottom of the water as long as you please; and for that reason is
called Adiantos.
Friend Panurge, said Friar John, I pray thee never be afraid of water;
thy life for mine thou art threatened with a contrary element. Ay, ay,
replied Panurge, but the devil's cooks dote sometimes, and are apt to
make horrid blunders as well as others; often putting to boil in water
what was designed to be roasted on the fire; like the head-cooks of our
kitchen, who often lard partridges, queests, and stock-doves with intent
to roast them, one would think; but it happens sometimes that they e'en
turn the partridges into the pot to be boiled with cabbages, the queests
with leek pottage, and the stock-doves with turnips. But hark you me,
good friends, I protest before this noble company, that as for the chapel
which I vowed to Mons. St. Nicholas between Quande and Montsoreau,
I honestly mean that it shall be a chapel of rose-water, which shall be
where neither cow nor calf shall be fed; for between you and I, I intend
to throw it to the bottom of the water. Here is a rare rogue for you, said
Eusthenes; here is a pure rogue, a rogue in grain, a rogue enough, a
rogue and a half. He is resolved to make good the Lombardic proverb,
Passato el pericolo, gabbato el santo.
The devil was sick, the devil a monk would be; The devil was well, the
devil a monk was he.
Chapter 4.
XXV.
How, after the storm, Pantagruel went on shore in the islands of the
Macreons.
Immediately after we went ashore at the port of an island which they
called the island of the Macreons. The good people of the place
received us very honourably. An old Macrobius (so they called their
eldest elderman) desired Pantagruel to come to the town-house to
refresh himself and eat something, but he would not budge a foot from
the mole till all his men were landed. After he had seen them, he gave
order that they should all change clothes, and that some of all the stores
in the fleet should be brought on shore, that every ship's crew might
live well; which was accordingly done, and God wot how well they all
toped and caroused. The people of the place brought them provisions in
abundance. The Pantagruelists returned them more; as the truth is,
theirs were somewhat damaged by the late storm. When they had well
stuffed the insides of their doublets, Pantagruel desired everyone to
lend their help to repair the damage; which they readily did. It was easy
enough to refit there; for all the inhabitants of the island were
carpenters and all such handicrafts as are seen in the arsenal at Venice.
None but the largest island was inhabited, having three ports and ten
parishes; the rest being overrun with wood and desert, much like the
forest of Arden. We entreated the old Macrobius to show us what was
worth seeing in the island; which he did; and in the desert and dark
forest we discovered several old ruined temples, obelisks, pyramids,
monuments, and ancient tombs, with divers inscriptions and epitaphs;
some of them in hieroglyphic characters; others in the Ionic dialect;
some in the Arabic, Agarenian, Slavonian, and other tongues; of which
Epistemon took an exact account. In the interim, Panurge said to Friar
John, Is this the island of the Macreons? Macreon signifies in Greek an
old man, or one much stricken in years. What is that to me? said Friar
John; how can I help it? I was not in the country when they christened
it. Now I think on't, quoth Panurge, I believe the name of mackerel
(Motteux adds, between brackets,--'that's a Bawd in French.') was
derived from it; for procuring is the province of the old, as
buttock-riggling is that of the young. Therefore I do not know but this
may be the bawdy or Mackerel Island, the original and prototype of the
island of that name at Paris. Let's go and dredge for cock-oysters. Old
Macrobius asked, in the Ionic tongue, How, and by what industry and
labour, Pantagruel got to their port that day, there having been such
blustering weather and such a dreadful storm at sea. Pantagruel told
him that the Almighty Preserver of mankind had regarded the
simplicity and sincere affection of his servants, who did not travel for
gain or sordid profit, the sole design of their voyage being a studious
desire to know, see, and visit the Oracle of Bacbuc, and take the word
of the Bottle upon some difficulties offered by one of the company;
nevertheless this had not been without great affliction and evident
danger of shipwreck. After that, he asked him what he judged to be the
cause of that terrible tempest, and if the adjacent seas were thus
frequently subject to storms; as in the ocean are the Ratz of Sammaieu,
Maumusson, and in the Mediterranean sea the Gulf of Sataly,
Montargentan, Piombino, Capo Melio in Laconia, the Straits of
Gibraltar, Faro di Messina, and others.
Chapter 4.
XXVI.
How the good Macrobius gave us an account of the mansion and
decease of the heroes.
The good Macrobius then answered, Friendly strangers, this island is
one of the Sporades; not of your Sporades that lie in the Carpathian sea,
but one of the Sporades of the ocean; in former times rich, frequented,
wealthy, populous, full of traffic, and in the dominions of the rulers of
Britain, but now, by course of time, and in these latter ages of the world,
poor and desolate, as you see. In this dark forest, above seventy-eight
thousand Persian leagues in compass, is the dwelling-place of the
demons and heroes that are grown old, and we believe that some one of
them died yesterday; since the comet which we saw for three days
before together, shines no more; and now it is likely that at his death
there arose this horrible storm; for while they are alive all happiness
attends both this and the adjacent islands, and a settled calm and
serenity. At the death of every one of them, we commonly hear in the
forest loud and mournful groans, and the whole land is infested with
pestilence, earthquakes, inundations, and other calamities; the air with
fogs and obscurity, and the sea with storms and hurricanes. What you
tell us seems to me likely enough, said Pantagruel. For as a torch or
candle, as long as it hath life enough and is lighted, shines round about,
disperses its light, delights those that are near it, yields them its service
and clearness, and never causes any pain or displeasure; but as soon as
'tis extinguished, its smoke and evaporation infects the air, offends the
bystanders, and is noisome to all; so, as long as those noble and
renowned souls inhabit their bodies, peace, profit, pleasure, and honour
never leave the places where they abide; but as soon as they leave them,
both the continent and adjacent islands are annoyed with great
commotions; in the air fogs, darkness, thunder, hail; tremblings,
pulsations, agitations of the earth; storms and hurricanes at sea;
together with sad complaints amongst the people, broaching of
religions, changes in governments, and ruins of commonwealths.
We had a sad instance of this lately, said Epistemon, at the death of that
valiant and learned knight, William du Bellay; during whose life
France enjoyed so much happiness, that all the rest of the world looked
upon it with envy, sought friendship with it, and stood in awe of its
power; but soon after his decease it hath for a considerable time been
the scorn of the rest of the world.
Thus, said Pantagruel, Anchises being dead at Drepani in Sicily,
Aeneas was dreadfully tossed and endangered by a storm; and perhaps
for the same reason Herod, that tyrant and cruel King of Judaea, finding
himself near the pangs of a horrid kind of death--for he died of a
phthiriasis, devoured by vermin and lice; as before him died L. Sylla,
Pherecydes the Syrian, the preceptor of Pythagoras, the Greek poet
Alcmaeon, and others--and foreseeing that the Jews would make
bonfires at his death, caused all the nobles and magistrates to be
summoned to his seraglio out of all the cities, towns, and castles of
Judaea, fraudulently pretending that he had some things of moment to
impart to them. They made their personal appearance; whereupon he
caused them all to be shut up in the hippodrome of the seraglio; then
said to his sister Salome and Alexander her husband: I am certain that
the Jews will rejoice at my death; but if you will observe and perform
what I tell you, my funeral shall be honourable, and there will be a
general mourning. As soon as you see me dead, let my guards, to whom
I have already given strict commission to that purpose, kill all the
noblemen and magistrates that are secured in the hippodrome. By these
means all Jewry shall, in spite of themselves, be obliged to mourn and
lament, and foreigners will imagine it to be for my death, as if some
heroic soul had left her body. A desperate tyrant wished as much when
he said, When I die, let earth and fire be mixed together; which was as
good as to say, let the whole world perish. Which saying the tyrant
Nero altered, saying, While I live, as Suetonius affirms it. This
detestable saying, of which Cicero, lib. De Finib., and Seneca, lib. 2,
De Clementia, make mention, is ascribed to the Emperor Tiberius by
Dion Nicaeus and Suidas.
Chapter 4.
XXVII.
Pantagruel's discourse of the decease of heroic souls; and of the
dreadful prodigies that happened before the death of the late Lord de
Langey.
I would not, continued Pantagruel, have missed the storm that hath thus
disordered us, were I also to have missed the relation of these things
told us by this good Macrobius. Neither am I unwilling to believe what
he said of a comet that appears in the sky some days before such a
decease. For some of those souls are so noble, so precious, and so
heroic that heaven gives us notice of their departing some days before it
happens. And as a prudent physician, seeing by some symptoms that
his patient draws towards his end, some days before gives notice of it to
his wife, children, kindred, and friends, that, in that little time he hath
yet to live, they may admonish him to settle all things in his family, to
tutor and instruct his children as much as he can, recommend his relict
to his friends in her widowhood, and declare what he knows to be
necessary about a provision for the orphans; that he may not be
surprised by death without making his will, and may take care of his
soul and family; in the same manner the heavens, as it were joyful for
the approaching reception of those blessed souls, seem to make
bonfires by those comets and blazing meteors, which they at the same
time kindly design should prognosticate to us here that in a few days
one of those venerable souls is to leave her body and this terrestrial
globe. Not altogether unlike this was what was formerly done at Athens
by the judges of the Areopagus. For when they gave their verdict to
cast or clear the culprits that were tried before them, they used certain
notes according to the substance of the sentences; by Theta signifying
condemnation to death; by T, absolution; by A, ampliation or a demur,
when the case was not sufficiently examined. Thus having publicly set
up those letters, they eased the relations and friends of the prisoners,
and such others as desired to know their doom, of their doubts.
Likewise by these comets, as in ethereal characters, the heavens silently
say to us, Make haste, mortals, if you would know or learn of the
blessed souls anything concerning the public good or your private
interest; for their catastrophe is near, which being past, you will vainly
wish for them afterwards.
The good-natured heavens still do more; and that mankind may be
declared unworthy of the enjoyment of those renowned souls, they
fright and astonish us with prodigies, monsters, and other foreboding
signs that thwart the order of nature.
Of this we had an instance several days before the decease of the heroic
soul of the learned and valiant Chevalier de Langey, of whom you have
already spoken. I remember it, said Epistemon; and my heart still
trembles within me when I think on the many dreadful prodigies that
we saw five or six days before he died. For the Lords D'Assier,
Chemant, one-eyed Mailly, St. Ayl, Villeneufue-la-Guyart, Master
Gabriel, physician of Savillan, Rabelais, Cohuau, Massuau, Majorici,
Bullou, Cercu, alias Bourgmaistre, Francis Proust, Ferron, Charles
Girard, Francis Bourre, and many other friends and servants to the
deceased, all dismayed, gazed on each other without uttering one word;
yet not without foreseeing that France would in a short time be
deprived of a knight so accomplished and necessary for its glory and
protection, and that heaven claimed him again as its due. By the tufted
tip of my cowl, cried Friar John, I am e'en resolved to become a scholar
before I die. I have a pretty good headpiece of my own, you must own.
Now pray give me leave to ask you a civil question. Can these same
heroes or demigods you talk of die? May I never be damned if I was
not so much a lobcock as to believe they had been immortal, like so
many fine angels. Heaven forgive me! but this most reverend father,
Macroby, tells us they die at last. Not all, returned Pantagruel.
The Stoics held them all to be mortal, except one, who alone is
immortal, impassible, invisible. Pindar plainly saith that there is no
more thread, that is to say, no more life, spun from the distaff and flax
of the hard- hearted Fates for the goddesses Hamadryades than there is
for those trees that are preserved by them, which are good, sturdy,
downright oaks; whence they derived their original, according to the
opinion of Callimachus and Pausanias in Phoci. With whom concurs
Martianus Capella. As for the demigods, fauns, satyrs, sylvans,
hobgoblins, aegipanes, nymphs, heroes, and demons, several men have,
from the total sum, which is the result of the divers ages calculated by
Hesiod, reckoned their life to be 9720 years; that sum consisting of four
special numbers orderly arising from one, the same added together and
multiplied by four every way amounts to forty; these forties, being
reduced into triangles by five times, make up the total of the aforesaid
number. See Plutarch, in his book about the Cessation of Oracles.
This, said Friar John, is not matter of breviary; I may believe as little or
as much of it as you and I please. I believe, said Pantagruel, that all
intellectual souls are exempted from Atropos's scissors. They are all
immortal, whether they be of angels, or demons, or human; yet I will
tell you a story concerning this that is very strange, but is written and
affirmed by several learned historians.
Chapter 4.
XXVIII.
How Pantagruel related a very sad story of the death of the heroes.
Epitherses, the father of Aemilian the rhetorician, sailing from Greece
to Italy in a ship freighted with divers goods and passengers, at night
the wind failed 'em near the Echinades, some islands that lie between
the Morea and Tunis, and the vessel was driven near Paxos. When they
were got thither, some of the passengers being asleep, others awake, the
rest eating and drinking, a voice was heard that called aloud, Thamous!
which cry surprised them all. This same Thamous was their pilot, an
Egyptian by birth, but known by name only to some few travellers. The
voice was heard a second time calling Thamous, in a frightful tone; and
none making answer, but trembling and remaining silent, the voice was
heard a third time, more dreadful than before.
This caused Thamous to answer: Here am I; what dost thou call me for?
What wilt thou have me do? Then the voice, louder than before, bid
him publish when he should come to Palodes, that the great god Pan
was dead.
Epitherses related that all the mariners and passengers, having heard
this, were extremely amazed and frighted; and that, consulting among
themselves whether they had best conceal or divulge what the voice
had enjoined, Thamous said his advice was that if they happened to
have a fair wind they should proceed without mentioning a word on't,
but if they chanced to be becalmed he would publish what he had heard.
Now when they were near Palodes they had no wind, neither were they
in any current. Thamous then getting up on the top of the ship's
forecastle, and casting his eyes on the shore, said that he had been
commanded to proclaim that the great god Pan was dead. The words
were hardly out of his mouth, when deep groans, great lamentations,
and doleful shrieks, not of one person, but of many together, were
heard from the land.
The news of this--many being present then--was soon spread at Rome;
insomuch that Tiberius, who was then emperor, sent for this Thamous,
and having heard him gave credit to his words. And inquiring of the
learned in his court and at Rome who was that Pan, he found by their
relation that he was the son of Mercury and Penelope, as Herodotus and
Cicero in his third book of the Nature of the Gods had written before.
For my part, I understand it of that great Saviour of the faithful who
was shamefully put to death at Jerusalem by the envy and wickedness
of the doctors, priests, and monks of the Mosaic law. And methinks my
interpretation is not improper; for he may lawfully be said in the Greek
tongue to be Pan, since he is our all. For all that we are, all that we live,
all that we have, all that we hope, is him, by him, from him, and in him.
He is the good Pan, the great shepherd, who, as the loving shepherd
Corydon affirms, hath not only a tender love and affection for his sheep,
but also for their shepherds. At his death, complaints, sighs, fears, and
lamentations were spread through the whole fabric of the universe,
whether heavens, land, sea, or hell.
The time also concurs with this interpretation of mine; for this most
good, most mighty Pan, our only Saviour, died near Jerusalem during
the reign of Tiberius Caesar.
Pantagruel, having ended this discourse, remained silent and full of
contemplation. A little while after we saw the tears flow out of his eyes
as big as ostrich's eggs. God take me presently if I tell you one single
syllable of a lie in the matter.
Chapter 4.
XXIX.
How Pantagruel sailed by the Sneaking Island, where Shrovetide
reigned.
The jovial fleet being refitted and repaired, new stores taken in, the
Macreons over and above satisfied and pleased with the money spent
there by Pantagruel, our men in better humour than they used to be, if
possible, we merrily put to sea the next day, near sunset, with a
delicious fresh gale.
Xenomanes showed us afar off the Sneaking Island, where reigned
Shrovetide, of whom Pantagruel had heard much talk formerly; for that
reason he would gladly have seen him in person, had not Xenomanes
advised him to the contrary; first, because this would have been much
out of our way, and then for the lean cheer which he told us was to be
found at that prince's court, and indeed all over the island.
You can see nothing there for your money, said he, but a huge
greedy-guts, a tall woundy swallower of hot wardens and mussels; a
long-shanked mole- catcher; an overgrown bottler of hay; a
mossy-chinned demi-giant, with a double shaven crown, of lantern
breed; a very great loitering noddy-peaked youngster, banner-bearer to
the fish-eating tribe, dictator of mustard- land, flogger of little children,
calciner of ashes, father and foster- father to physicians, swarming with
pardons, indulgences, and stations; a very honest man; a good catholic,
and as brimful of devotion as ever he can hold.
He weeps the three-fourth parts of the day, and never assists at any
weddings; but, give the devil his due, he is the most industrious
larding- stick and skewer-maker in forty kingdoms.
About six years ago, as I passed by Sneaking-land, I brought home a
large skewer from thence, and made a present of it to the butchers of
Quande, who set a great value upon them, and that for a cause. Some
time or other, if ever we live to come back to our own country, I will
show you two of them fastened on the great church porch. His usual
food is pickled coats of mail, salt helmets and head-pieces, and salt
sallets; which sometimes makes him piss pins and needles. As for his
clothing, 'tis comical enough o' conscience, both for make and colour;
for he wears grey and cold, nothing before, and nought behind, with the
sleeves of the same.
You will do me a kindness, said Pantagruel, if, as you have described
his clothes, food, actions, and pastimes, you will also give me an
account of his shape and disposition in all his parts. Prithee do, dear
cod, said Friar John, for I have found him in my breviary, and then
follow the movable holy days. With all my heart, answered Xenomanes;
we may chance to hear more of him as we touch at the Wild Island, the
dominions of the squab Chitterlings, his enemies, against whom he is
eternally at odds; and were it not for the help of the noble Carnival,
their protector and good neighbour, this meagre-looked lozelly
Shrovetide would long before this have made sad work among them,
and rooted them out of their habitation. Are these same Chitterlings,
said Friar John, male or female, angels or mortals, women or maids?
They are, replied Xenomanes, females in sex, mortal in kind, some of
them maids, others not. The devil have me, said Friar John, if I ben't for
them. What a shameful disorder in nature, is it not, to make war against
women? Let's go back and hack the villain to pieces. What! meddle
with Shrovetide? cried Panurge, in the name of Beelzebub, I am not yet
so weary of my life. No, I'm not yet so mad as that comes to. Quid juris?
Suppose we should find ourselves pent up between the Chitterlings and
Shrovetide? between the anvil and the hammers? Shankers and buboes!
stand off! godzooks, let us make the best of our way. I bid you good
night, sweet Mr. Shrovetide; I recommend to you the Chitterlings, and
pray don't forget the puddings.
Chapter 4.
XXX.
How Shrovetide is anatomized and described by Xenomanes.
As for the inward parts of Shrovetide, said Xenomanes; his brain is (at
least, it was in my time) in bigness, colours, substance, and strength,
much like the left cod of a he hand-worm.
The ventricles of his said brain, The stomach, like a belt. like an auger.
The pylorus, like a pitchfork. The worm-like excrescence, like The
windpipe, like an oyster- a Christmas-box. knife. The membranes, like
a monk's The throat, like a pincushion cowl. stuffed with oakum. The
funnel, like a mason's chisel. The lungs, like a prebend's fur- The fornix,
like a casket. gown. The glandula pinealis, like a bag- The heart, like a
cope. pipe. The mediastine, like an earthen The rete mirabile, like a
gutter. cup. The dug-like processus, like a The pleura, like a crow's bill.
patch. The arteries, like a watch-coat. The tympanums, like a whirli-
The midriff, like a montero-cap. gig. The liver, like a double-tongued
The rocky bones, like a goose- mattock. wing. The veins, like a
sash-window. The nape of the neck, like a paper The spleen, like a
catcall. lantern. The guts, like a trammel. The nerves, like a pipkin. The
gall, like a cooper's adze. The uvula, like a sackbut. The entrails, like a
gauntlet. The palate, like a mitten. The mesentery, like an abbot's The
spittle, like a shuttle. mitre. The almonds, like a telescope. The hungry
gut, like a button. The bridge of his nose, like a The blind gut, like a
breastplate. wheelbarrow. The colon, like a bridle. The head of the
larynx, like a The arse-gut, like a monk's vintage-basket. leathern bottle.
The kidneys, like a trowel. The ligaments, like a tinker's The loins, like
a padlock. budget. The ureters, like a pothook. The bones, like
three-cornered The emulgent veins, like two cheesecakes. gilliflowers.
The marrow, like a wallet. The spermatic vessels, like a cully- The
cartilages, like a field- mully-puff. tortoise, alias a mole. The parastata,
like an inkpot. The glandules in the mouth, like The bladder, like a
stone-bow. a pruning-knife. The neck, like a mill-clapper. The animal
spirits, like swingeing The mirach, or lower parts of the fisticuffs. belly,
like a high-crowned hat. The blood-fermenting, like a The siphach, or
its inner rind, multiplication of flirts on the like a wooden cuff. nose.
The muscles, like a pair of bellows. The urine, like a figpecker. The
tendons, like a hawking- The sperm, like a hundred ten- glove. penny
nails.
And his nurse told me, that being married to Mid-lent, he only begot a
good number of local adverbs and certain double fasts.
His memory he had like a scarf. His undertakings, like the ballast His
common sense, like a buzzing of a galleon. of bees. His understanding,
like a torn His imagination, like the chime breviary. of a set of bells.
His notions, like snails crawling His thoughts, like a flight of star- out
of strawberries. lings. His will, like three filberts in a His conscience,
like the unnest- porringer. ling of a parcel of young His desire, like six
trusses of hay. herons. His judgment, like a shoeing- His deliberations,
like a set of horn. organs. His discretion, like the truckle of His
repentance, like the carriage a pulley. of a double cannon. His reason,
like a cricket.
Chapter 4.
XXXI.
Shrovetide's outward parts anatomized.
Shrovetide, continued Xenomanes, is somewhat better proportioned in
his outward parts, excepting the seven ribs which he had over and
above the common shape of men.
His toes were like a virginal on The peritoneum, or caul wherein an
organ. his bowels were wrapped, like His nails, like a gimlet. a
billiard-table. His feet, like a guitar. His back, like an overgrown rack-
His heels, like a club. bent crossbow. The soles of his feet, like a cru-
The vertebrae, or joints of his cible. backbone, like a bagpipe. His legs,
like a hawk's lure. His ribs, like a spinning-wheel. His knees, like a
joint-stool. His brisket, like a canopy. His thighs, like a steel cap. His
shoulder-blades, like a mortar. His hips, like a wimble. His breast, like
a game at nine- His belly as big as a tun, buttoned pins. after the old
fashion, with a His paps, like a hornpipe. girdle riding over the middle
His armpits, like a chequer. of his bosom. His shoulders, like a
hand-barrow. His navel, like a cymbal. His arms, like a riding-hood.
His groin, like a minced pie. His fingers, like a brotherhood's His
member, like a slipper. andirons. His purse, like an oil cruet. The
fibulae, or lesser bones of his His genitals, like a joiner's planer. legs,
like a pair of stilts. Their erecting muscles, like a His shin-bones, like
sickles. racket. His elbows, like a mouse-trap. The perineum, like a
flageolet. His hands, like a curry-comb. His arse-hole, like a crystal
look- His neck, like a talboy. ing-glass. His throat, like a felt to distil
hip- His bum, like a harrow. pocras. The knob in his throat, like a His
loins, like a butter-pot. barrel, where hanged two His jaws, like a caudle
cup. brazen wens, very fine and His teeth, like a hunter's staff.
harmonious, in the shape of an Of such colt's teeth as his, hourglass.
you will find one at Colonges His beard, like a lantern. les Royaux in
Poitou, and His chin, like a mushroom. two at La Brosse in Xaintonge,
His ears, like a pair of gloves. on the cellar door. His nose, like a
buskin. His tongue, like a jew's-harp. His nostrils, like a forehead cloth.
His mouth, like a horse-cloth. His eyebrows, like a dripping-pan. His
face embroidered like a mule's On his left brow was a mark of
pack-saddle. the shape and bigness of an His head contrived like a still.
urinal. His skull, like a pouch. His eyelids, like a fiddle. The suturae, or
seams of his skull, His eyes, like a comb-box. like the annulus
piscatoris, or His optic nerves, like a tinder- the fisher's signet. box. His
skin, like a gabardine. His forehead, like a false cup. His epidermis, or
outward skin, His temples, like the cock of a like a bolting-cloth.
cistern. His hair, like a scrubbing-brush. His cheeks, like a pair of
wooden His fur, such as above said. shoes.
Chapter 4.
XXXII.
A continuation of Shrovetide's countenance.
'Tis a wonderful thing, continued Xenomanes, to hear and see the state
of Shrovetide.
If he chanced to spit, it was whole When he trembled, it was large
basketsful of goldfinches. venison pasties. If he blowed his nose, it was
When he did sweat, it was old pickled grigs. ling with butter sauce.
When he wept, it was ducks with When he belched, it was bushels
onion sauce. of oysters. When he sneezed, it was whole When he
muttered, it was lawyers' tubfuls of mustard. revels. When he coughed,
it was boxes When he hopped about, it was of marmalade. letters of
licence and protec- When he sobbed, it was water- tions. cresses. When
he stepped back, it was When he yawned, it was potfuls sea
cockle-shells. of pickled peas. When he slabbered, it was com- When
he sighed, it was dried mon ovens. neats' tongues. When he was hoarse,
it was an When he whistled, it was a whole entry of morrice-dancers.
scuttleful of green apes. When he broke wind, it was dun When he
snored, it was a whole cows' leather spatterdashes. panful of fried beans.
When he funked, it was washed- When he frowned, it was soused
leather boots. hogs' feet. When he scratched himself, it When he spoke,
it was coarse was new proclamations. brown russet cloth; so little
When he sung, it was peas in it was like crimson silk, with cods. which
Parisatis desired that When he evacuated, it was mush- the words of
such as spoke to rooms and morilles. her son Cyrus, King of Persia,
When he puffed, it was cabbages should be interwoven. with oil, alias
caules amb'olif. When he blowed, it was indulg- When he talked, it was
the last ence money-boxes. year's snow. When he winked, it was
buttered When he dreamt, it was of a buns. cock and a bull. When he
grumbled, it was March When he gave nothing, so much cats. for the
bearer. When he nodded, it was iron- If he thought to himself, it was
bound waggons. whimsies and maggots. When he made mouths, it was
If he dozed, it was leases of lands. broken staves.
What is yet more strange, he used to work doing nothing, and did
nothing though he worked; caroused sleeping, and slept carousing, with
his eyes open, like the hares in our country, for fear of being taken
napping by the Chitterlings, his inveterate enemies; biting he laughed,
and laughing bit; eat nothing fasting, and fasted eating nothing;
mumbled upon suspicion, drank by imagination, swam on the tops of
high steeples, dried his clothes in ponds and rivers, fished in the air,
and there used to catch decumane lobsters; hunted at the bottom of the
herring-pond, and caught there ibexes, stamboucs, chamois, and other
wild goats; used to put out the eyes of all the crows which he took
sneakingly; feared nothing but his own shadow and the cries of fat kids;
used to gad abroad some days, like a truant schoolboy; played with the
ropes of bells on festival days of saints; made a mallet of his fist, and
writ on hairy parchment prognostications and almanacks with his huge
pin-case.
Is that the gentleman? said Friar John. He is my man; this is the very
fellow I looked for. I will send him a challenge immediately. This is,
said Pantagruel, a strange and monstrous sort of man, if I may call him
a man. You put me in mind of the form and looks of Amodunt and
Dissonance. How were they made? said Friar John. May I be peeled
like a raw onion if ever I heard a word of them. I'll tell you what I read
of them in some ancient apologues, replied Pantagruel.
Physis--that is to say, Nature--at her first burthen begat Beauty and
Harmony without carnal copulation, being of herself very fruitful and
prolific. Antiphysis, who ever was the counter part of Nature,
immediately, out of a malicious spite against her for her beautiful and
honourable productions, in opposition begot Amodunt and Dissonance
by copulation with Tellumon. Their heads were round like a football,
and not gently flatted on both sides, like the common shape of men.
Their ears stood pricked up like those of asses; their eyes, as hard as
those of crabs, and without brows, stared out of their heads, fixed on
bones like those of our heels; their feet were round like tennis-balls;
their arms and hands turned backwards towards their shoulders; and
they walked on their heads, continually turning round like a ball,
topsy-turvy, heels over head.
Yet--as you know that apes esteem their young the handsomest in the
world-- Antiphysis extolled her offspring, and strove to prove that their
shape was handsomer and neater than that of the children of Physis,
saying that thus to have spherical heads and feet, and walk in a circular
manner, wheeling round, had something in it of the perfection of the
divine power, which makes all beings eternally turn in that fashion; and
that to have our feet uppermost, and the head below them, was to
imitate the Creator of the universe; the hair being like the roots, and the
legs like the branches of man; for trees are better planted by their roots
than they could be by their branches. By this demonstration she implied
that her children were much more to be praised for being like a
standing tree, than those of Physis, that made a figure of a tree upside
down. As for the arms and hands, she pretended to prove that they were
more justly turned towards the shoulders, because that part of the body
ought not to be without defence, while the forepart is duly fenced with
teeth, which a man cannot only use to chew, but also to defend himself
against those things that offend him. Thus, by the testimony and
astipulation of the brute beasts, she drew all the witless herd and mob
of fools into her opinion, and was admired by all brainless and
nonsensical people.
Since that, she begot the hypocritical tribes of eavesdropping
dissemblers, superstitious pope-mongers, and priest-ridden bigots, the
frantic Pistolets, (the demoniacal Calvins, impostors of Geneva,) the
scrapers of benefices, apparitors with the devil in them, and other
grinders and squeezers of livings, herb-stinking hermits, gulligutted
dunces of the cowl, church vermin, false zealots, devourers of the
substance of men, and many more other deformed and ill-favoured
monsters, made in spite of nature.
Chapter 4.
XXXIII.
How Pantagruel discovered a monstrous physeter, or whirlpool, near
the Wild Island.
About sunset, coming near the Wild Island, Pantagruel spied afar off a
huge monstrous physeter (a sort of whale, which some call a whirlpool),
that came right upon us, neighing, snorting, raised above the waves
higher than our main-tops, and spouting water all the way into the air
before itself, like a large river falling from a mountain. Pantagruel
showed it to the pilot and to Xenomanes.
By the pilot's advice the trumpets of the Thalamege were sounded to
warn all the fleet to stand close and look to themselves. This alarm
being given, all the ships, galleons, frigates, brigantines, according to
their naval discipline, placed themselves in the order and figure of an Y
(upsilon), the letter of Pythagoras, as cranes do in their flight, and like
an acute angle, in whose cone and basis the Thalamege placed herself
ready to fight smartly. Friar John with the grenadiers got on the
forecastle.
Poor Panurge began to cry and howl worse than ever. Babille-babou,
said he, shrugging up his shoulders, quivering all over with fear, there
will be the devil upon dun. This is a worse business than that t'other
day. Let us fly, let us fly; old Nick take me if it is not Leviathan,
described by the noble prophet Moses in the life of patient Job. It will
swallow us all, ships and men, shag, rag, and bobtail, like a dose of
pills. Alas! it will make no more of us, and we shall hold no more room
in its hellish jaws, than a sugarplum in an ass's throat. Look, look, 'tis
upon us; let us wheel off, whip it away, and get ashore. I believe 'tis the
very individual sea-monster that was formerly designed to devour
Andromeda; we are all undone. Oh! for some valiant Perseus here now
to kill the dog.
I'll do its business presently, said Pantagruel; fear nothing. Ods-belly,
said Panurge, remove the cause of my fear then. When the devil would
you have a man be afraid but when there is so much cause? If your
destiny be such as Friar John was saying a while ago, replied
Pantagruel, you ought to be afraid of Pyroeis, Eous, Aethon, and
Phlegon, the sun's coach-horses, that breathe fire at the nostrils; and not
of physeters, that spout nothing but water at the snout and mouth. Their
water will not endanger your life; and that element will rather save and
preserve than hurt or endanger you.
Ay, ay, trust to that, and hang me, quoth Panurge; yours is a very pretty
fancy. Ods-fish! did I not give you a sufficient account of the elements'
transmutation, and the blunders that are made of roast for boiled, and
boiled for roast? Alas! here 'tis; I'll go hide myself below. We are dead
men, every mother's son of us. I see upon our main-top that merciless
hag Atropos, with her scissors new ground, ready to cut our threads all
at one snip. Oh! how dreadful and abominable thou art; thou hast
drowned a good many beside us, who never made their brags of it. Did
it but spout good, brisk, dainty, delicious white wine, instead of this
damned bitter salt water, one might better bear with it, and there would
be some cause to be patient; like that English lord, who being doomed
to die, and had leave to choose what kind of death he would, chose to
be drowned in a butt of malmsey. Here it is. Oh, oh! devil! Sathanas!
Leviathan! I cannot abide to look upon thee, thou art so abominably
ugly. Go to the bar, go take the pettifoggers.
Chapter 4.
XXXIV.
How the monstrous physeter was slain by Pantagruel.
The physeter, coming between the ships and the galleons, threw water
by whole tuns upon them, as if it had been the cataracts of the Nile in
Ethiopia. On the other side, arrows, darts, gleaves, javelins, spears,
harping-irons, and partizans, flew upon it like hail. Friar John did not
spare himself in it. Panurge was half dead for fear. The artillery roared
and thundered like mad, and seemed to gall it in good earnest, but did
but little good; for the great iron and brass cannon-shot entering its skin
seemed to melt like tiles in the sun.
Pantagruel then, considering the weight and exigency of the matter,
stretched out his arms and showed what he could do. You tell us, and it
is recorded, that Commudus, the Roman emperor, could shoot with a
bow so dexterously that at a good distance he would let fly an arrow
through a child's fingers and never touch them. You also tell us of an
Indian archer, who lived when Alexander the Great conquered India,
and was so skilful in drawing the bow, that at a considerable distance
he would shoot his arrows through a ring, though they were three cubits
long, and their iron so large and weighty that with them he used to
pierce steel cutlasses, thick shields, steel breastplates, and generally
what he did hit, how firm, resisting, hard, and strong soever it were.
You also tell us wonders of the industry of the ancient Franks, who
were preferred to all others in point of archery; and when they hunted
either black or dun beasts, used to rub the head of their arrows with
hellebore, because the flesh of the venison struck with such an arrow
was more tender, dainty, wholesome, and delicious--paring off,
nevertheless, the part that was touched round about. You also talk of
the Parthians, who used to shoot backwards more dexterously than
other nations forwards; and also celebrate the skill of the Scythians in
that art, who sent once to Darius, King of Persia, an ambassador that
made him a present of a bird, a frog, a mouse, and five arrows, without
speaking one word; and being asked what those presents meant, and if
he had commission to say anything, answered that he had not; which
puzzled and gravelled Darius very much, till Gobrias, one of the seven
captains that had killed the magi, explained it, saying to Darius: By
these gifts and offerings the Scythians silently tell you that except the
Persians like birds fly up to heaven, or like mice hide themselves near
the centre of the earth, or like frogs dive to the very bottom of ponds
and lakes, they shall be destroyed by the power and arrows of the
Scythians.
The noble Pantagruel was, without comparison, more admirable yet in
the art of shooting and darting; for with his dreadful piles and darts,
nearly resembling the huge beams that support the bridges of Nantes,
Saumur, Bergerac, and at Paris the millers' and the changers' bridges, in
length, size, weight, and iron-work, he at a mile's distance would open
an oyster and never touch the edges; he would snuff a candle without
putting it out; would shoot a magpie in the eye; take off a boot's
under-sole, or a riding- hood's lining, without soiling them a bit; turn
over every leaf of Friar John's breviary, one after another, and not tear
one.
With such darts, of which there was good store in the ship, at the first
blow he ran the physeter in at the forehead so furiously that he pierced
both its jaws and tongue; so that from that time to this it no more
opened its guttural trapdoor, nor drew and spouted water. At the second
blow he put out its right eye, and at the third its left; and we had all the
pleasure to see the physeter bearing those three horns in its forehead,
somewhat leaning forwards in an equilateral triangle.
Meanwhile it turned about to and fro, staggering and straying like one
stunned, blinded, and taking his leave of the world. Pantagruel, not
satisfied with this, let fly another dart, which took the monster under
the tail likewise sloping; then with three other on the chine, in a
perpendicular line, divided its flank from the tail to the snout at an
equal distance. Then he larded it with fifty on one side, and after that,
to make even work, he darted as many on its other side; so that the
body of the physeter seemed like the hulk of a galleon with three masts,
joined by a competent dimension of its beams, as if they had been the
ribs and chain- wales of the keel; which was a pleasant sight. The
physeter then giving up the ghost, turned itself upon its back, as all
dead fishes do; and being thus overturned, with the beams and darts
upside down in the sea, it seemed a scolopendra or centipede, as that
serpent is described by the ancient sage Nicander.
Chapter 4.
XXXV.
How Pantagruel went on shore in the Wild Island, the ancient abode of
the Chitterlings.
The boat's crew of the ship Lantern towed the physeter ashore on the
neighbouring shore, which happened to be the Wild Island, to make an
anatomical dissection of its body and save the fat of its kidneys, which,
they said, was very useful and necessary for the cure of a certain
distemper, which they called want of money. As for Pantagruel, he took
no manner of notice of the monster; for he had seen many such, nay,
bigger, in the Gallic ocean. Yet he condescended to land in the Wild
Island, to dry and refresh some of his men (whom the physeter had
wetted and bedaubed), at a small desert seaport towards the south,
seated near a fine pleasant grove, out of which flowed a delicious brook
of fresh, clear, and purling water. Here they pitched their tents and set
up their kitchens; nor did they spare fuel.
Everyone having shifted as they thought fit, Friar John rang the bell,
and the cloth was immediately laid, and supper brought in. Pantagruel
eating cheerfully with his men, much about the second course
perceived certain little sly Chitterlings clambering up a high tree near
the pantry, as still as so many mice. Which made him ask Xenomanes
what kind of creatures these were, taking them for squirrels, weasels,
martins, or ermines. They are Chitterlings, replied Xenomanes. This is
the Wild Island of which I spoke to you this morning; there hath been
an irreconcilable war this long time between them and Shrovetide, their
malicious and ancient enemy. I believe that the noise of the guns which
we fired at the physeter hath alarmed them, and made them fear their
enemy was come with his forces to surprise them, or lay the island
waste, as he hath often attempted to do; though he still came off but
bluely, by reason of the care and vigilance of the Chitterlings, who (as
Dido said to Aeneas's companions that would have landed at Carthage
without her leave or knowledge) were forced to watch and stand upon
their guard, considering the malice of their enemy and the
neighbourhood of his territories.
Pray, dear friend, said Pantagruel, if you find that by some honest
means we may bring this war to an end, and reconcile them together,
give me notice of it; I will use my endeavours in it with all my heart,
and spare nothing on my side to moderate and accommodate the points
in dispute between both parties.
That's impossible at this time, answered Xenomanes. About four years
ago, passing incognito by this country, I endeavoured to make a peace,
or at least a long truce among them; and I had certainly brought them to
be good friends and neighbours if both one and the other parties would
have yielded to one single article. Shrovetide would not include in the
treaty of peace the wild puddings nor the highland sausages, their
ancient gossips and confederates. The Chitterlings demanded that the
fort of Cacques might be under their government, as is the Castle of
Sullouoir, and that a parcel of I don't know what stinking villains,
murderers, robbers, that held it then, should be expelled. But they could
not agree in this, and the terms that were offered seemed too hard to
either party. So the treaty broke off, and nothing was done.
Nevertheless, they became less severe, and gentler enemies than they
were before; but since the denunciation of the national Council of
Chesil, whereby they were roughly handled, hampered, and cited;
whereby also Shrovetide was declared filthy, beshitten, and berayed, in
case he made any league or agreement with them; they are grown
wonderfully inveterate, incensed, and obstinate against one another,
and there is no way to remedy it. You might sooner reconcile cats and
rats, or hounds and hares together.
Chapter 4.
XXXVI.
How the wild Chitterlings laid an ambuscado for Pantagruel.
While Xenomanes was saying this, Friar John spied twenty or thirty
young slender-shaped Chitterlings posting as fast as they could towards
their town, citadel, castle, and fort of Chimney, and said to Pantagruel,
I smell a rat; there will be here the devil upon two sticks, or I am much
out. These worshipful Chitterlings may chance to mistake you for
Shrovetide, though you are not a bit like him. Let us once in our lives
leave our junketing for a while, and put ourselves in a posture to give
'em a bellyful of fighting, if they would be at that sport. There can be
no false Latin in this, said Xenomanes; Chitterlings are still Chitterlings,
always double-hearted and treacherous.
Pantagruel then arose from table to visit and scour the thicket, and
returned presently; having discovered, on the left, an ambuscade of
squab Chitterlings; and on the right, about half a league from thence, a
large body of huge giant-like armed Chitterlings ranged in battalia
along a little hill, and marching furiously towards us at the sound of
bagpipes, sheep's paunches, and bladders, the merry fifes and drums,
trumpets, and clarions, hoping to catch us as Moss caught his mare. By
the conjecture of seventy-eight standards which we told, we guessed
their number to be two and forty thousand, at a modest computation.
Their order, proud gait, and resolute looks made us judge that they
were none of your raw, paltry links, but old warlike Chitterlings and
Sausages. From the foremost ranks to the colours they were all armed
cap-a-pie with small arms, as we reckoned them at a distance, yet very
sharp and case- hardened. Their right and left wings were lined with a
great number of forest puddings, heavy pattipans, and horse sausages,
all of them tall and proper islanders, banditti, and wild.
Pantagruel was very much daunted, and not without cause; though
Epistemon told him that it might be the use and custom of the
Chitterlingonians to welcome and receive thus in arms their foreign
friends, as the noble kings of France are received and saluted at their
first coming into the chief cities of the kingdom after their
advancement to the crown. Perhaps, said he, it may be the usual guard
of the queen of the place, who, having notice given her by the junior
Chitterlings of the forlorn hope whom you saw on the tree, of the
arrival of your fine and pompous fleet, hath judged that it was without
doubt some rich and potent prince, and is come to visit you in person.
Pantagruel, little trusting to this, called a council, to have their advice at
large in this doubtful case. He briefly showed them how this way of
reception with arms had often, under colour of compliment and
friendship, been fatal. Thus, said he, the Emperor Antonius Caracalla at
one time destroyed the citizens of Alexandria, and at another time cut
off the attendants of Artabanus, King of Persia, under colour of
marrying his daughter, which, by the way, did not pass unpunished, for
a while after this cost him his life.
Thus Jacob's children destroyed the Sichemites, to revenge the rape of
their sister Dinah. By such another hypocritical trick Gallienus, the
Roman emperor, put to death the military men in Constantinople. Thus,
under colour of friendship, Antonius enticed Artavasdes, King of
Armenia; then, having caused him to be bound in heavy chains and
shackled, at last put him to death.
We find a thousand such instances in history; and King Charles VI. is
justly commended for his prudence to this day, in that, coming back
victorious over the Ghenters and other Flemings to his good city of
Paris, and when he came to Bourget, a league from thence, hearing that
the citizens with their mallets--whence they got the name of
Maillotins--were marched out of town in battalia, twenty thousand
strong, he would not go into the town till they had laid down their arms
and retired to their respective homes; though they protested to him that
they had taken arms with no other design than to receive him with the
greater demonstration of honour and respect.
Chapter 4.
XXXVII.
How Pantagruel sent for Colonel Maul-chitterling and Colonel
Cut-pudding; with a discourse well worth your hearing about the names
of places and persons.
The resolution of the council was that, let things be how they would, it
behoved the Pantagruelists to stand upon their guard. Therefore
Carpalin and Gymnast were ordered by Pantagruel to go for the soldiers
that were on board the Cup galley, under the command of Colonel
Maul-chitterling, and those on board the Vine-tub frigate, under the
command of Colonel Cut- pudding the younger. I will ease Gymnast of
that trouble, said Panurge, who wanted to be upon the run; you may
have occasion for him here. By this worthy frock of mine, quoth Friar
John, thou hast a mind to slip thy neck out of the collar and absent
thyself from the fight, thou white- livered son of a dunghill! Upon my
virginity thou wilt never come back. Well, there can be no great loss in
thee; for thou wouldst do nothing here but howl, bray, weep, and
dishearten the good soldiers. I will certainly come back, said Panurge,
Friar John, my ghostly father, and speedily too; do but take care that
these plaguy Chitterlings do not board our ships. All the while you will
be a-fighting I will pray heartily for your victory, after the example of
the valiant captain and guide of the people of Israel, Moses. Having
said this, he wheeled off.
Then said Epistemon to Pantagruel: The denomination of these two
colonels of yours, Maul-chitterling and Cut-pudding, promiseth us
assurance, success, and victory, if those Chitterlings should chance to
set upon us. You take it rightly, said Pantagruel, and it pleaseth me to
see you foresee and prognosticate our victory by the names of our
colonels.
This way of foretelling by names is not new; it was in old times
celebrated and religiously observed by the Pythagoreans. Several great
princes and emperors have formerly made good use of it. Octavianus
Augustus, second emperor of the Romans, meeting on a day a country
fellow named Eutychus-- that is, fortunate--driving an ass named
Nicon--that is, in Greek, Victorian--moved by the signification of the
ass's and ass-driver's names, remained assured of all prosperity and
victory.
The Emperor Vespasian being once all alone at prayers in the temple of
Serapis, at the sight and unexpected coming of a certain servant of his
named Basilides--that is, royal--whom he had left sick a great way
behind, took hopes and assurance of obtaining the empire of the
Romans. Regilian was chosen emperor by the soldiers for no other
reason but the signification of his name. See the Cratylus of the divine
Plato. (By my thirst, I will read it, said Rhizotome; I hear you so often
quote it.) See how the Pythagoreans, by reason of the names and
numbers, conclude that Patroclus was to fall by the hand of Hector;
Hector by Achilles; Achilles by Paris; Paris by Philoctetes. I am quite
lost in my understanding when I reflect upon the admirable invention
of Pythagoras, who by the number, either even or odd, of the syllables
of every name, would tell you of what side a man was lame,
hulch-backed, blind, gouty, troubled with the palsy, pleurisy, or any
other distemper incident to humankind; allotting even numbers to the
left (Motteux reads--'even numbers to the Right, and odd ones to the
Left.'), and odd ones to the right side of the body.
Indeed, said Epistemon, I saw this way of syllabizing tried at Xaintes at
a general procession, in the presence of that good, virtuous, learned and
just president, Brian Vallee, Lord of Douhait. When there went by a
man or woman that was either lame, blind of one eye, or humpbacked,
he had an account brought him of his or her name; and if the syllables
of the name were of an odd number, immediately, without seeing the
persons, he declared them to be deformed, blind, lame, or crooked of
the right side; and of the left, if they were even in number; and such
indeed we ever found them.
By this syllabical invention, said Pantagruel, the learned have affirmed
that Achilles kneeling was wounded by the arrow of Paris in the right
heel, for his name is of odd syllables (here we ought to observe that the
ancients used to kneel the right foot); and that Venus was also wounded
before Troy in the left hand, for her name in Greek is Aphrodite, of
four syllables; Vulcan lamed of his left foot for the same reason; Philip,
King of Macedon, and Hannibal, blind of the right eye; not to speak of
sciaticas, broken bellies, and hemicranias, which may be distinguished
by this Pythagorean reason.
But returning to names: do but consider how Alexander the Great, son
of King Philip, of whom we spoke just now, compassed his
undertaking merely by the interpretation of a name. He had besieged
the strong city of Tyre, and for several weeks battered it with all his
power; but all in vain. His engines and attempts were still baffled by
the Tyrians, which made him finally resolve to raise the siege, to his
great grief; foreseeing the great stain which such a shameful retreat
would be to his reputation. In this anxiety and agitation of mind he fell
asleep and dreamed that a satyr was come into his tent, capering,
skipping, and tripping it up and down, with his goatish hoofs, and that
he strove to lay hold on him. But the satyr still slipped from him, till at
last, having penned him up into a corner, he took him. With this he
awoke, and telling his dream to the philosophers and sages of his court,
they let him know that it was a promise of victory from the gods, and
that he should soon be master of Tyre; the word satyros divided in two
being sa Tyros, and signifying Tyre is thine; and in truth, at the next
onset, he took the town by storm, and by a complete victory reduced
that stubborn people to subjection.
On the other hand, see how, by the signification of one word, Pompey
fell into despair. Being overcome by Caesar at the battle of Pharsalia,
he had no other way left to escape but by flight; which attempting by
sea, he arrived near the island of Cyprus, and perceived on the shore
near the city of Paphos a beautiful and stately palace; now asking the
pilot what was the name of it, he told him that it was called kakobasilea,
that is, evil king; which struck such a dread and terror in him that he
fell into despair, as being assured of losing shortly his life; insomuch
that his complaints, sighs, and groans were heard by the mariners and
other passengers. And indeed, a while after, a certain strange peasant,
called Achillas, cut off his head.
To all these examples might be added what happened to L. Paulus
Emilius when the senate elected him imperator, that is, chief of the
army which they sent against Perses, King of Macedon. That evening
returning home to prepare for his expedition, and kissing a little
daughter of his called Trasia, she seemed somewhat sad to him. What is
the matter, said he, my chicken? Why is my Trasia thus sad and
melancholy? Daddy, replied the child, Persa is dead. This was the name
of a little bitch which she loved mightily. Hearing this, Paulus took
assurance of a victory over Perses.
If time would permit us to discourse of the sacred Hebrew writ, we
might find a hundred noted passages evidently showing how religiously
they observed proper names and their significations.
He had hardly ended this discourse, when the two colonels arrived with
their soldiers, all well armed and resolute. Pantagruel made them a
short speech, entreating them to behave themselves bravely in case they
were attacked; for he could not yet believe that the Chitterlings were so
treacherous; but he bade them by no means to give the first offence,
giving them Carnival for the watchword.
Chapter 4.
XXXVIII.
How Chitterlings are not to be slighted by men.
You shake your empty noddles now, jolly topers, and do not believe
what I tell you here, any more than if it were some tale of a tub. Well,
well, I cannot help it. Believe it if you will; if you won't, let it alone.
For my part, I very well know what I say. It was in the Wild Island, in
our voyage to the Holy Bottle. I tell you the time and place; what
would you have more? I would have you call to mind the strength of
the ancient giants that undertook to lay the high mountain Pelion on the
top of Ossa, and set among those the shady Olympus, to dash out the
gods' brains, unnestle them, and scour their heavenly lodgings. Theirs
was no small strength, you may well think, and yet they were nothing
but Chitterlings from the waist downwards, or at least serpents, not to
tell a lie for the matter.
The serpent that tempted Eve, too, was of the Chitterling kind, and yet
it is recorded of him that he was more subtle than any beast of the field.
Even so are Chitterlings. Nay, to this very hour they hold in some
universities that this same tempter was the Chitterling called
Ithyphallus, into which was transformed bawdy Priapus, arch-seducer
of females in paradise, that is, a garden, in Greek.
Pray now tell me who can tell but that the Swiss, now so bold and
warlike, were formerly Chitterlings? For my part, I would not take my
oath to the contrary. The Himantopodes, a nation very famous in
Ethiopia, according to Pliny's description, are Chitterlings, and nothing
else. If all this will not satisfy your worships, or remove your
incredulity, I would have you forthwith (I mean drinking first, that
nothing be done rashly) visit Lusignan, Parthenay, Vouant, Mervant,
and Ponzauges in Poitou. There you will find a cloud of witnesses, not
of your affidavit-men of the right stamp, but credible time out of mind,
that will take their corporal oath, on Rigome's knuckle-bone, that
Melusina their founder or foundress, which you please, was woman
from the head to the prick-purse, and thence downwards was a
serpentine Chitterling, or if you'll have it otherwise, a Chitterlingdized
serpent. She nevertheless had a genteel and noble gait, imitated to this
very day by your hop-merchants of Brittany, in their paspie and country
dances.
What do you think was the cause of Erichthonius's being the first
inventor of coaches, litters, and chariots? Nothing but because Vulcan
had begot him with Chitterlingdized legs, which to hide he chose to
ride in a litter, rather than on horseback; for Chitterlings were not yet in
esteem at that time.
The Scythian nymph, Ora, was likewise half woman and half
Chitterling, and yet seemed so beautiful to Jupiter that nothing could
serve him but he must give her a touch of his godship's kindness; and
accordingly he had a brave boy by her, called Colaxes; and therefore I
would have you leave off shaking your empty noddles at this, as if it
were a story, and firmly believe that nothing is truer than the gospel.
Chapter 4.
XXXIX.
How Friar John joined with the cooks to fight the Chitterlings.
Friar John seeing these furious Chitterlings thus boldly march up, said
to Pantagruel, Here will be a rare battle of hobby-horses, a pretty kind
of puppet-show fight, for aught I see. Oh! what mighty honour and
wonderful glory will attend our victory! I would have you only be a
bare spectator of this fight, and for anything else leave me and my men
to deal with them. What men? said Pantagruel. Matter of breviary,
replied Friar John. How came Potiphar, who was head-cook of
Pharaoh's kitchens, he that bought Joseph, and whom the said Joseph
might have made a cuckold if he had not been a Joseph; how came he, I
say, to be made general of all the horse in the kingdom of Egypt? Why
was Nabuzardan, King Nebuchadnezzar's head-cook, chosen to the
exclusion of all other captains to besiege and destroy Jerusalem? I hear
you, replied Pantagruel. By St. Christopher's whiskers, said Friar John,
I dare lay a wager that it was because they had formerly engaged
Chitterlings, or men as little valued; whom to rout, conquer, and
destroy, cooks are without comparison more fit than cuirassiers and
gendarmes armed at all points, or all the horse and foot in the world.
You put me in mind, said Pantagruel, of what is written amongst the
facetious and merry sayings of Cicero. During the more than civil wars
between Caesar and Pompey, though he was much courted by the first,
he naturally leaned more to the side of the latter. Now one day hearing
that the Pompeians in a certain rencontre had lost a great many men, he
took a fancy to visit their camp. There he perceived little strength, less
courage, but much disorder. From that time, foreseeing that things
would go ill with them, as it since happened, he began to banter now
one and then another, and be very free of his cutting jests; so some of
Pompey's captains, playing the good fellows to show their assurance,
told him, Do you see how many eagles we have yet? (They were then
the device of the Romans in war.) They might be of use to you, replied
Cicero, if you had to do with magpies.
Thus, seeing we are to fight Chitterlings, pursued Pantagruel, you infer
thence that it is a culinary war, and have a mind to join with the cooks.
Well, do as you please, I'll stay here in the meantime, and wait for the
event of the rumpus.
Friar John went that very moment among the sutlers, into the cooks'
tents, and told them in a pleasing manner: I must see you crowned with
honour and triumph this day, my lads; to your arms are reserved such
achievements as never yet were performed within the memory of man.
Ods-belly, do they make nothing of the valiant cooks? Let us go fight
yonder fornicating Chitterlings! I'll be your captain. But first let's drink,
boys. Come on! let us be of good cheer. Noble captain, returned the
kitchen tribe, this was spoken like yourself; bravely offered. Huzza! we
are all at your excellency's command, and we live and die by you. Live,
live, said Friar John, a God's name; but die by no means. That is the
Chitterlings' lot; they shall have their bellyful of it. Come on then, let
us put ourselves in order; Nabuzardan's the word.
Chapter 4.
XL.
How Friar John fitted up the sow; and of the valiant cooks that went
into it.
Then, by Friar John's order, the engineers and their workmen fitted up
the great sow that was in the ship Leathern Bottle. It was a wonderful
machine, so contrived that, by means of large engines that were round
about it in rows, it throw'd forked iron bars and four-squared steel bolts;
and in its hold two hundred men at least could easily fight, and be
sheltered. It was made after the model of the sow of Riole, by the
means of which Bergerac was retaken from the English in the reign of
Charles the Sixth.
Here are the names of the noble and valiant cooks who went into the
sow, as the Greeks did into the Trojan horse:
Sour-sauce. Crisp-pig. Carbonado. Sweet-meat. Greasy-slouch.
Sop-in-pan. Greedy-gut. Fat-gut. Pick-fowl. Liquorice-chops.
Bray-mortar. Mustard-pot. Soused-pork. Lick-sauce. Hog's-haslet.
Slap-sauce. Hog's-foot. Chopped-phiz. Cock-broth. Hodge-podge.
Gallimaufry. Slipslop.
All these noble cooks in their coat-of-arms did bear, in a field gules, a
larding-pin vert, charged with a chevron argent.
Lard, hog's-lard. Pinch-lard. Snatch-lard. Nibble-lard. Top-lard.
Gnaw-lard. Filch-lard. Pick-lard. Scrape-lard. Fat-lard. Save-lard.
Chew-lard.
Gaillard (by syncope) born near Rambouillet. The said culinary doctor's
name was Gaillardlard, in the same manner as you use to say idolatrous
for idololatrous.
Stiff-lard. Cut-lard. Waste-lard. Watch-lard. Mince-lard. Ogle-lard.
Sweet-lard. Dainty-lard. Weigh-lard. Eat-lard. Fresh-lard. Gulch-lard.
Snap-lard. Rusty-lard. Eye-lard. Catch-lard.
Names unknown among the Marranes and Jews.
Ballocky. Thirsty. Porridge-pot. Pick-sallat. Kitchen-stuff. Lick-dish.
Broil-rasher. Verjuice. Salt-gullet. Coney-skin. Save-dripping.
Snail-dresser. Dainty-chops. Watercress. Soup-monger. Pie-wright.
Scrape-turnip. Brewis-belly. Pudding-pan. Trivet. Chine-picker.
Toss-pot. Monsieur Ragout. Suck-gravy. Mustard-sauce. Crack-pipkin.
Macaroon. Claret-sauce. Scrape-pot. Skewer-maker. Swill-broth.
Smell-smock. He was afterwards taken from the kitchen and removed
to chamber-practice, for the service of the noble Cardinal
Hunt-venison.
Rot-roast. Hog's gullet. Fox-tail. Dish-clout. Sirloin. Fly-flap. Save-suet.
Spit-mutton. Old Grizzle. Fire-fumbler. Fritter-frier. Ruff-belly.
Pillicock. Flesh-smith. Saffron-sauce. Long-tool. Cram-gut.
Strutting-tom. Prick-pride. Tuzzy-mussy. Slashed-snout. Prick-madam.
Jacket-liner. Smutty-face. Pricket. Guzzle-drink.
Mondam, that first invented madam's sauce, and for that discovery was
thus called in the Scotch-French dialect.
Loblolly. Sloven. Trencher-man. Slabber-chops. Swallow-pitcher.
Goodman Goosecap. Scum-pot. Wafer-monger. Munch-turnip.
Gully-guts. Snap-gobbet. Pudding-bag. Rinse-pot. Scurvy-phiz.
Pig-sticker. Drink-spiller.
Robert. He invented Robert's sauce, so good and necessary for roasted
coneys, ducks, fresh pork, poached eggs, salt fish, and a thousand other
such dishes.
Cold-eel. Frying-pan. Big-snout. Thornback. Man of dough.
Lick-finger. Gurnard. Sauce-doctor. Tit-bit. Grumbling-gut.
Waste-butter. Sauce-box. Alms-scrip. Shitbreech. All-fours. Taste-all.
Thick-brawn. Whimwham. Scrap-merchant. Tom T--d. Baste-roast.
Belly-timberman. Mouldy-crust. Gaping-hoyden. Hashee. Hasty.
Calf's-pluck. Frig-palate. Red-herring. Leather-breeches.
Powdering-tub. Cheesecake.
All these noble cooks went into the sow, merry, cheery, hale, brisk, old
dogs at mischief, and ready to fight stoutly. Friar John ever and anon
waving his huge scimitar, brought up the rear, and double-locked the
doors on the inside.
Chapter 4.
XLI.
How Pantagruel broke the Chitterlings at the knees.
The Chitterlings advanced so near that Pantagruel perceived that they
stretched their arms and already began to charge their lances, which
caused him to send Gymnast to know what they meant, and why they
thus, without the least provocation, came to fall upon their old trusty
friends, who had neither said nor done the least ill thing to them.
Gymnast being advanced near their front, bowed very low, and said to
them as loud as ever he could: We are friends, we are friends; all, all of
us your friends, yours, and at your command; we are for Carnival, your
old confederate. Some have since told me that he mistook, and said
cavernal instead of carnival.
Whatever it was, the word was no sooner out of his mouth but a huge
little squab Sausage, starting out of the front of their main body, would
have griped him by the collar. By the helmet of Mars, said Gymnast, I
will swallow thee; but thou shalt only come in in chips and slices; for,
big as thou art, thou couldst never come in whole. This spoke, he lugs
out his trusty sword, Kiss-mine-arse (so he called it) with both his fists,
and cut the Sausage in twain. Bless me, how fat the foul thief was! it
puts me in mind of the huge bull of Berne, that was slain at Marignan
when the drunken Swiss were so mauled there. Believe me, it had little
less than four inches' lard on its paunch.
The Sausage's job being done, a crowd of others flew upon Gymnast,
and had most scurvily dragged him down when Pantagruel with his
men came up to his relief. Then began the martial fray,
higgledy-piggledy. Maul-chitterling did maul chitterlings; Cut-pudding
did cut puddings; Pantagruel did break the Chitterlings at the knees;
Friar John played at least in sight within his sow, viewing and
observing all things; when the Pattipans that lay in ambuscade most
furiously sallied out upon Pantagruel.
Friar John, who lay snug all this while, by that time perceiving the rout
and hurlyburly, set open the doors of his sow and sallied out with his
merry Greeks, some of them armed with iron spits, others with
andirons, racks, fire-shovels, frying-pans, kettles, grid-irons, oven forks,
tongs, dripping pans, brooms, iron pots, mortars, pestles, all in battle
array, like so many housebreakers, hallooing and roaring out all
together most frightfully, Nabuzardan, Nabuzardan, Nabuzardan. Thus
shouting and hooting they fought like dragons, and charged through the
Pattipans and Sausages. The Chitterlings perceiving this fresh
reinforcement, and that the others would be too hard for 'em, betook
themselves to their heels, scampering off with full speed, as if the devil
had come for them. Friar John, with an iron crow, knocked them down
as fast as hops; his men, too, were not sparing on their side. Oh, what a
woeful sight it was! the field was all over strewed with heaps of dead or
wounded Chitterlings; and history relates that had not heaven had a
hand in it, the Chitterling tribe had been totally routed out of the world
by the culinary champions. But there happened a wonderful thing, you
may believe as little or as much of it as you please.
From the north flew towards us a huge, fat, thick, grizzly swine, with
long and large wings, like those of a windmill; its plumes red crimson,
like those of a phenicoptere (which in Languedoc they call flaman); its
eyes were red, and flaming like a carbuncle; its ears green, like a Prasin
emerald; its teeth like a topaz; its tail long and black, like jet; its feet
white, diaphanous and transparent like a diamond, somewhat broad,
and of the splay kind, like those of geese, and as Queen Dick's used to
be at Toulouse in the days of yore. About its neck it wore a gold collar,
round which were some Ionian characters, whereof I could pick out but
two words, US ATHENAN, hog-teaching Minerva.
The sky was clear before; but at that monster's appearance it changed
so mightily for the worse that we were all amazed at it. As soon as the
Chitterlings perceived the flying hog, down they all threw their
weapons and fell on their knees, lifting up their hands joined together,
without speaking one word, in a posture of adoration. Friar John and
his party kept on mincing, felling, braining, mangling, and spitting the
Chitterlings like mad; but Pantagruel sounded a retreat, and all hostility
ceased.
The monster having several times hovered backwards and forwards
between the two armies, with a tail-shot voided above twenty-seven
butts of mustard on the ground; then flew away through the air, crying
all the while, Carnival, Carnival, Carnival.
Chapter 4.
XLII.
How Pantagruel held a treaty with Niphleseth, Queen of the
Chitterlings.
The monster being out of sight, and the two armies remaining silent,
Pantagruel demanded a parley with the lady Niphleseth, Queen of the
Chitterlings, who was in her chariot by the standards; and it was easily
granted. The queen alighted, courteously received Pantagruel, and was
glad to see him. Pantagruel complained to her of this breach of peace;
but she civilly made her excuse, telling him that a false information had
caused all this mischief; her spies having brought her word that
Shrovetide, their mortal foe, was landed, and spent his time in
examining the urine of physeters.
She therefore entreated him to pardon them their offence, telling him
that sir-reverence was sooner found in Chitterlings than gall; and
offering, for herself and all her successors, to hold of him and his the
whole island and country; to obey him in all his commands, be friends
to his friends, and foes to his foes; and also to send every year, as an
acknowledgment of their homage, a tribute of seventy-eight thousand
royal Chitterlings, to serve him at his first course at table six months in
the year; which was punctually performed. For the next day she sent the
aforesaid quantity of royal Chitterlings to the good Gargantua, under
the conduct of young Niphleseth, infanta of the island.
The good Gargantua made a present of them to the great King of Paris.
But by change of air, and for want of mustard (the natural balsam and
restorer of Chitterlings), most of them died. By the great king's
particular grant they were buried in heaps in a part of Paris to this day
called La Rue pavee d'Andouilles, the street paved with Chitterlings. At
the request of the ladies at his court young Niphleseth was preserved,
honourably used, and since that married to heart's content; and was the
mother of many children, for which heaven be praised.
Pantagruel civilly thanked the queen, forgave all offences, refused the
offer she had made of her country, and gave her a pretty little knife.
After that he asked several nice questions concerning the apparition of
that flying hog. She answered that it was the idea of Carnival, their
tutelary god in time of war, first founder and original of all the
Chitterling race; for which reason he resembled a hog, for Chitterlings
drew their extraction from hogs.
Pantagruel asking to what purpose and curative indication he had
voided so much mustard on the earth, the queen replied that mustard
was their sanc- greal and celestial balsam, of which, laying but a little
in the wounds of the fallen Chitterlings, in a very short time the
wounded were healed and the dead restored to life. Pantagruel held no
further discourse with the queen, but retired a-shipboard. The like did
all the boon companions, with their implements of destruction and their
huge sow.
Chapter 4.
XLIII.
How Pantagruel went into the island of Ruach.
Two days after we arrived at the island of Ruach; and I swear to you,
by the celestial hen and chickens, that I found the way of living of the
people so strange and wonderful that I can't, for the heart's blood of me,
half tell it you. They live on nothing but wind, eat nothing but wind,
and drink nothing but wind. They have no other houses but
weathercocks. They sow no other seeds but the three sorts of
windflowers, rue, and herbs that may make one break wind to the
purpose; these scour them off carefully. The common sort of people to
feed themselves make use of feather, paper, or linen fans, according to
their abilities. As for the rich, they live by the means of windmills.
When they would have some noble treat, the tables are spread under
one or two windmills. There they feast as merry as beggars, and during
the meal their whole talk is commonly of the goodness, excellency,
salubrity, and rarity of winds; as you, jolly topers, in your cups
philosophize and argue upon wines. The one praises the south-east, the
other the south-west; this the west and by south, and this the east and
by north; another the west, and another the east; and so of the rest. As
for lovers and amorous sparks, no gale for them like a smock-gale. For
the sick they use bellows as we use clysters among us.
Oh! said to me a little diminutive swollen bubble, that I had now but a
bladderful of that same Languedoc wind which they call Cierce. The
famous physician, Scurron, passing one day by this country, was telling
us that it is so strong that it will make nothing of overturning a loaded
waggon. Oh! what good would it not do my Oedipodic leg. The biggest
are not the best; but, said Panurge, rather would I had here a large butt
of that same good Languedoc wine that grows at Mirevaux,
Canteperdrix, and Frontignan.
I saw a good likely sort of a man there, much resembling Ventrose,
tearing and fuming in a grievous fret with a tall burly groom and a
pimping little page of his, laying them on, like the devil, with a buskin.
Not knowing the cause of his anger, at first I thought that all this was
by the doctor's advice, as being a thing very healthy to the master to be
in a passion and to his man to be banged for it. But at last I heard him
taxing his man with stealing from him, like a rogue as he was, the
better half of a large leathern bag of an excellent southerly wind, which
he had carefully laid up, like a hidden reserve, against the cold weather.
They neither exonerate, dung, piss, nor spit in that island; but, to make
amends, they belch, fizzle, funk, and give tail-shots in abundance. They
are troubled with all manner of distempers; and, indeed, all distempers
are engendered and proceed from ventosities, as Hippocrates
demonstrates, lib. De Flatibus. But the most epidemical among them is
the wind-cholic. The remedies which they use are large clysters,
whereby they void store of windiness. They all die of dropsies and
tympanies, the men farting and the women fizzling; so that their soul
takes her leave at the back-door.
Some time after, walking in the island, we met three hairbrained airy
fellows, who seemed mightily puffed up, and went to take their pastime
and view the plovers, who live on the same diet as themselves, and
abound in the island. I observed that, as your true topers when they
travel carry flasks, leathern bottles, and small runlets along with them,
so each of them had at his girdle a pretty little pair of bellows. If they
happened to want wind, by the help of those pretty bellows they
immediately drew some, fresh and cool, by attraction and reciprocal
expulsion; for, as you well know, wind essentially defined is nothing
but fluctuating and agitated air.
A while after, we were commanded, in the king's name, not to receive
for three hours any man or woman of the country on board our ships;
some having stolen from him a rousing fart, of the very individual wind
which old goodman Aeolus the snorer gave Ulysses to conduct his ship
whenever it should happen to be becalmed. Which fart the king kept
religiously, like another sanc-greal, and performed a world of
wonderful cures with it in many dangerous diseases, letting loose and
distributing to the patient only as much of it as might frame a virginal
fart; which is, if you must know, what our sanctimonials, alias nuns, in
their dialect call ringing backwards.
Chapter 4.
XLIV.
How small rain lays a high wind.
Pantagruel commended their government and way of living, and said to
their hypenemian mayor: If you approve Epicurus's opinion, placing the
summum bonum in pleasure (I mean pleasure that's easy and free from
toil), I esteem you happy; for your food being wind, costs you little or
nothing, since you need but blow. True, sir, returned the mayor; but,
alas! nothing is perfect here below; for too often when we are at table,
feeding on some good blessed wind of God as on celestial manna,
merry as so many friars, down drops on a sudden some small rain,
which lays our wind, and so robs us of it. Thus many a meal's lost for
want of meat.
Just so, quoth Panurge, Jenin Toss-pot of Quinquenais, evacuating
some wine of his own burning on his wife's posteriors, laid the
ill-fumed wind that blowed out of their centre as out of some
magisterial Aeolipile. Here is a kind of a whim on that subject which I
made formerly:
One evening when Toss-pot had been at his butts, And Joan his fat
spouse crammed with turnips her guts, Together they pigged, nor did
drink so besot him But he did what was done when his daddy begot
him. Now when to recruit he'd fain have been snoring, Joan's back-door
was filthily puffing and roaring; So for spite he bepissed her, and
quickly did find That a very small rain lays a very high wind.
We are also plagued yearly with a very great calamity, cried the mayor;
for a giant called Wide-nostrils, who lives in the island of Tohu, comes
hither every spring to purge, by the advice of his physicians, and
swallows us, like so many pills, a great number of windmills, and of
bellows also, at which his mouth waters exceedingly.
Now this is a sad mortification to us here, who are fain to fast over
three or four whole Lents every year for this, besides certain petty
Lents, ember weeks, and other orison and starving tides. And have you
no remedy for this? asked Pantagruel. By the advice of our Mezarims,
replied the mayor, about the time that he uses to give us a visit, we
garrison our windmills with good store of cocks and hens. The first
time that the greedy thief swallowed them, they had like to have done
his business at once; for they crowed and cackled in his maw, and
fluttered up and down athwart and along in his stomach, which threw
the glutton into a lipothymy cardiac passion and dreadful and
dangerous convulsions, as if some serpent, creeping in at his mouth,
had been frisking in his stomach.
Here is a comparative as altogether incongruous and impertinent, cried
Friar John, interrupting them; for I have formerly heard that if a serpent
chance to get into a man's stomach it will not do him the least hurt, but
will immediately get out if you do but hang the patient by the heels and
lay a panful of warm milk near his mouth. You were told this, said
Pantagruel, and so were those who gave you this account; but none ever
saw or read of such a cure. On the contrary, Hippocrates, in his fifth
book of Epidem, writes that such a case happening in his time the
patient presently died of a spasm and convulsion.
Besides the cocks and hens, said the mayor, continuing his story, all the
foxes in the country whipped into Wide-nostril's mouth, posting after
the poultry; which made such a stir with Reynard at their heels, that he
grievously fell into fits each minute of an hour.
At last, by the advice of a Baden enchanter, at the time of the paroxysm
he used to flay a fox by way of antidote and counter-poison. Since that
he took better advice, and eases himself with taking a clyster made with
a decoction of wheat and barley corns, and of livers of goslings; to the
first of which the poultry run, and the foxes to the latter. Besides, he
swallows some of your badgers or fox-dogs by the way of pills and
boluses. This is our misfortune.
Cease to fear, good people, cried Pantagruel; this huge Wide-nostrils,
this same swallower of windmills, is no more, I will assure you; he died,
being stifled and choked with a lump of fresh butter at the mouth of a
hot oven, by the advice of his physicians.
Chapter 4.
XLV.
How Pantagruel went ashore in the island of Pope-Figland.
The next morning we arrived at the island of Pope-figs; formerly a rich
and free people, called the Gaillardets, but now, alas! miserably poor,
and under the yoke of the Papimen. The occasion of it was this:
On a certain yearly high holiday, the burgomaster, syndics, and topping
rabbies of the Gaillardets chanced to go into the neighbouring island
Papimany to see the festival and pass away the time. Now one of them
having espied the pope's picture (with the sight of which, according to a
laudable custom, the people were blessed on high-offering holidays),
made mouths at it, and cried, A fig for it! as a sign of manifest
contempt and derision. To be revenged of this affront, the Papimen,
some days after, without giving the others the least warning, took arms,
and surprised, destroyed, and ruined the whole island of the Gaillardets;
putting the men to the sword, and sparing none but the women and
children, and those too only on condition to do what the inhabitants of
Milan were condemned to by the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa.
These had rebelled against him in his absence, and ignominiously
turned the empress out of the city, mounting her a-horseback on a mule
called Thacor, with her breech foremost towards the old jaded mule's
head, and her face turned towards the crupper. Now Frederick being
returned, mastered them, and caused so careful a search to be made that
he found out and got the famous mule Thacor. Then the hangman by
his order clapped a fig into the mule's jimcrack, in the presence of the
enslaved cits that were brought into the middle of the great
market-place, and proclaimed in the emperor's name, with trumpets,
that whosoever of them would save his own life should publicly pull
the fig out with his teeth, and after that put it in again in the very
individual cranny whence he had draw'd it without using his hands, and
that whoever refused to do this should presently swing for it and die in
his shoes. Some sturdy fools, standing upon their punctilio, chose
honourably to be hanged rather than submit to so shameful and
abominable a disgrace; and others, less nice in point of ceremony, took
heart of grace, and even resolved to have at the fig, and a fig for't,
rather than make a worse figure with a hempen collar, and die in the air
at so short warning. Accordingly, when they had neatly picked out the
fig with their teeth from old Thacor's snatch-blatch, they plainly
showed it the headsman, saying, Ecco lo fico, Behold the fig!
By the same ignominy the rest of these poor distressed Gaillardets
saved their bacon, becoming tributaries and slaves, and the name of
Pope-figs was given them, because they said, A fig for the pope's image.
Since this, the poor wretches never prospered, but every year the devil
was at their doors, and they were plagued with hail, storms, famine, and
all manner of woes, as an everlasting punishment for the sin of their
ancestors and relations. Perceiving the misery and calamity of that
generation, we did not care to go further up into the country, contenting
ourselves with going into a little chapel near the haven to take some
holy water. It was dilapidated and ruined, wanting also a cover--like
Saint Peter at Rome. When we were in, as we dipped our fingers in the
sanctified cistern, we spied in the middle of that holy pickle a fellow
muffled up with stoles, all under water, like a diving duck, except the
tip of his snout to draw his breath. About him stood three priests, true
shavelings, clean shorn and polled, who were muttering strange words
to the devils out of a conjuring book.
Pantagruel was not a little amazed at this, and inquiring what kind of
sport these were at, was told that for three years last past the plague had
so dreadfully raged in the island that the better half of it had been
utterly depopulated, and the lands lay fallow and unoccupied. Now, the
mortality being over, this same fellow who had crept into the holy tub,
having a large piece of ground, chanced to be sowing it with white
winter wheat at the very minute of an hour that a kind of a silly sucking
devil, who could not yet write or read, or hail and thunder, unless it
were on parsley or coleworts, and got leave of his master Lucifer to go
into this island of Pope-figs, where the devils were very familiar with
the men and women, and often went to take their pastime.
This same devil being got thither, directed his discourse to the
husbandman, and asked him what he was doing. The poor man told him
that he was sowing the ground with corn to help him to subsist the next
year. Ay, but the ground is none of thine, Mr. Plough-jobber, cried the
devil, but mine; for since the time that you mocked the pope all this
land has been proscribed, adjudged, and abandoned to us. However, to
sow corn is not my province; therefore I will give thee leave to sow the
field, that is to say, provided we share the profit. I will, replied the
farmer. I mean, said the devil, that of what the land shall bear, two lots
shall be made, one of what shall grow above ground, the other of what
shall be covered with earth. The right of choosing belongs to me; for I
am a devil of noble and ancient race; thou art a base clown. I therefore
choose what shall lie under ground, take thou what shall be above.
When dost thou reckon to reap, hah? About the middle of July, quoth
the farmer. Well, said the devil, I'll not fail thee then; in the meantime,
slave as thou oughtest. Work, clown, work. I am going to tempt to the
pleasing sin of whoring the nuns of Dryfart, the sham saints of the cowl,
and the gluttonish crew. I am more than sure of these. They need but
meet, and the job is done; true fire and tinder, touch and take; down
falls nun, and up gets friar.
Chapter 4.
XLVI.
How a junior devil was fooled by a husbandman of Pope-Figland.
In the middle of July the devil came to the place aforesaid with all his
crew at his heels, a whole choir of the younger fry of hell; and having
met the farmer, said to him, Well, clodpate, how hast thou done since I
went? Thou and I must share the concern. Ay, master devil, quoth the
clown; it is but reason we should. Then he and his men began to cut
and reap the corn; and, on the other side, the devil's imps fell to work,
grubbing up and pulling out the stubble by the root.
The countryman had his corn thrashed, winnowed it, put in into sacks,
and went with it to market. The same did the devil's servants, and sat
them down there by the man to sell their straw. The countryman sold
off his corn at a good rate, and with the money filled an old kind of a
demi-buskin which was fastened to his girdle. But the devil a sou the
devils took; far from taking handsel, they were flouted and jeered by
the country louts.
Market being over, quoth the devil to the farmer, Well, clown, thou
hast choused me once, it is thy fault; chouse me twice, 'twill be mine.
Nay, good sir devil, replied the farmer; how can I be said to have
choused you, since it was your worship that chose first? The truth is,
that by this trick you thought to cheat me, hoping that nothing would
spring out of the earth for my share, and that you should find whole
underground the corn which I had sowed, and with it tempt the poor
and needy, the close hypocrite, or the covetous griper; thus making
them fall into your snares. But troth, you must e'en go to school yet;
you are no conjurer, for aught I see; for the corn that was sow'd is dead
and rotten, its corruption having caused the generation of that which
you saw me sell. So you chose the worst, and therefore are cursed in
the gospel. Well, talk no more of it, quoth the devil; what canst thou
sow our field with for next year? If a man would make the best of it,
answered the ploughman, 'twere fit he sow it with radish. Now, cried
the devil, thou talkest like an honest fellow, bumpkin. Well, sow me
good store of radish, I'll see and keep them safe from storms, and will
not hail a bit on them. But hark ye me, this time I bespeak for my share
what shall be above ground; what's under shall be thine. Drudge on,
looby, drudge on. I am going to tempt heretics; their souls are dainty
victuals when broiled in rashers and well powdered. My Lord Lucifer
has the griping in the guts; they'll make a dainty warm dish for his
honour's maw.
When the season of radishes was come, our devil failed not to meet in
the field, with a train of rascally underlings, all waiting devils, and
finding there the farmer and his men, he began to cut and gather the
leaves of the radishes. After him the farmer with his spade dug up the
radishes, and clapped them up into pouches. This done, the devil, the
farmer, and their gangs, hied them to market, and there the farmer
presently made good money of his radishes; but the poor devil took
nothing; nay, what was worse, he was made a common laughing-stock
by the gaping hoidens. I see thou hast played me a scurvy trick, thou
villainous fellow, cried the angry devil; at last I am fully resolved even
to make an end of the business betwixt thee and myself about the
ground, and these shall be the terms: we will clapperclaw each other,
and whoever of us two shall first cry Hold, shall quit his share of the
field, which shall wholly belong to the conqueror. I fix the time for this
trial of skill on this day seven-night; assure thyself that I'll claw thee off
like a devil. I was going to tempt your fornicators, bailiffs, perplexers
of causes, scriveners, forgers of deeds, two-handed counsellors,
prevaricating solicitors, and other such vermin; but they were so civil
as to send me word by an interpreter that they are all mine already.
Besides, our master Lucifer is so cloyed with their souls that he often
sends them back to the smutty scullions and slovenly devils of his
kitchen, and they scarce go down with them, unless now and then,
when they are high-seasoned.
Some say there is no breakfast like a student's, no dinner like a lawyer's,
no afternoon's nunchion like a vine-dresser's, no supper like a
tradesman's, no second supper like a serving-wench's, and none of these
meals equal to a frockified hobgoblin's. All this is true enough.
Accordingly, at my Lord Lucifer's first course, hobgoblins, alias imps
in cowls, are a standing dish. He willingly used to breakfast on students;
but, alas! I do not know by what ill luck they have of late years joined
the Holy Bible to their studies; so the devil a one we can get down
among us; and I verily believe that unless the hypocrites of the tribe of
Levi help us in it, taking from the enlightened book-mongers their St.
Paul, either by threats, revilings, force, violence, fire, and faggot, we
shall not be able to hook in any more of them to nibble at below. He
dines commonly on counsellors, mischief-mongers, multipliers of
lawsuits, such as wrest and pervert right and law and grind and fleece
the poor; he never fears to want any of these. But who can endure to be
wedded to a dish?
He said t'other day, at a full chapter, that he had a great mind to eat the
soul of one of the fraternity of the cowl that had forgot to speak for
himself in his sermon, and he promised double pay and a large pension
to anyone that should bring him such a titbit piping hot. We all went
a-hunting after such a rarity, but came home without the prey; for they
all admonish the good women to remember their convent. As for
afternoon nunchions, he has left them off since he was so woefully
griped with the colic; his fosterers, sutlers, charcoal-men, and boiling
cooks having been sadly mauled and peppered off in the northern
countries.
His high devilship sups very well on tradesmen, usurers, apothecaries,
cheats, coiners, and adulterers of wares. Now and then, when he is on
the merry pin, his second supper is of serving-wenches who, after they
have by stealth soaked their faces with their master's good liquor, fill
up the vessel with it at second hand, or with other stinking water.
Well, drudge on, boor, drudge on; I am going to tempt the students of
Trebisonde to leave father and mother, forego for ever the established
and common rule of living, disclaim and free themselves from obeying
their lawful sovereign's edicts, live in absolute liberty, proudly despise
everyone, laugh at all mankind, and taking the fine jovial little cap of
poetic licence, become so many pretty hobgoblins.
Chapter 4.
XLVII.
How the devil was deceived by an old woman of Pope-Figland.
The country lob trudged home very much concerned and thoughtful,
you may swear; insomuch that his good woman, seeing him thus look
moping, weened that something had been stolen from him at market;
but when she had heard the cause of his affliction and seen his budget
well lined with coin, she bade him be of good cheer, assuring him that
he would be never the worse for the scratching bout in question;
wishing him only to leave her to manage that business, and not trouble
his head about it; for she had already contrived how to bring him off
cleverly. Let the worst come to the worst, said the husbandman, it will
be but a scratch; for I'll yield at the first stroke, and quit the field. Quit a
fart, replied the wife; he shall have none of the field. Rely upon me, and
be quiet; let me alone to deal with him. You say he is a pimping little
devil, that is enough; I will soon make him give up the field, I will
warrant you. Indeed, had he been a great devil, it had been somewhat.
The day that we landed in the island happened to be that which the
devil had fixed for the combat. Now the countryman having, like a
good Catholic, very fairly confessed himself, and received betimes in
the morning, by the advice of the vicar had hid himself, all but the
snout, in the holy-water pot, in the posture in which we found him; and
just as they were telling us this story, news came that the old woman
had fooled the devil and gained the field. You may not be sorry,
perhaps, to hear how this happened.
The devil, you must know, came to the poor man's door, and rapping
there, cried, So ho! ho, the house! ho, clodpate! where art thou? Come
out with a vengeance; come out with a wannion; come out and be
damned; now for clawing. Then briskly and resolutely entering the
house, and not finding the countryman there, he spied his wife lying on
the ground, piteously weeping and howling. What is the matter? asked
the devil. Where is he? what does he? Oh! that I knew where he is,
replied threescore and five; the wicked rogue, the butcherly dog, the
murderer! He has spoiled me; I am undone; I die of what he has done
me. How, cried the devil, what is it? I'll tickle him off for you
by-and-by. Alas! cried the old dissembler, he told me, the butcher, the
tyrant, the tearer of devils told me that he had made a match to scratch
with you this day, and to try his claws he did but just touch me with his
little finger here betwixt the legs, and has spoiled me for ever. Oh! I am
a dead woman; I shall never be myself again; do but see! Nay, and
besides, he talked of going to the smith's to have his pounces sharpened
and pointed. Alas! you are undone, Mr. Devil; good sir, scamper
quickly, I am sure he won't stay; save yourself, I beseech you. While
she said this she uncovered herself up to the chin, after the manner in
which the Persian women met their children who fled from the fight,
and plainly showed her what do ye call them. The frightened devil,
seeing the enormous solution of the continuity in all its dimensions,
blessed himself, and cried out, Mahon, Demiourgon, Megaera, Alecto,
Persephone! 'slife, catch me here when he comes! I am gone! 'sdeath,
what a gash! I resign him the field.
Having heard the catastrophe of the story, we retired a-shipboard, not
being willing to stay there any longer. Pantagruel gave to the poor's box
of the fabric of the church eighteen thousand good royals, in
commiseration of the poverty of the people and the calamity of the
place.
Chapter 4.
XLVIII.
How Pantagruel went ashore at the island of Papimany.
Having left the desolate island of the Pope-figs, we sailed for the space
of a day very fairly and merrily, and made the blessed island of
Papimany. As soon as we had dropt anchor in the road, before we had
well moored our ship with ground-tackle, four persons in different
garbs rowed towards us in a skiff. One of them was dressed like a monk
in his frock, draggle- tailed, and booted; the other like a falconer, with a
lure, and a long- winged hawk on his fist; the third like a solicitor, with
a large bag, full of informations, subpoenas, breviates, bills, writs,
cases, and other implements of pettifogging; the fourth looked like one
of your vine-barbers about Ocleans, with a jaunty pair of canvas
trousers, a dosser, and a pruning knife at his girdle.
As soon as the boat had clapped them on board, they all with one voice
asked, Have you seen him, good passengers, have you seen him? Who?
asked Pantagruel. You know who, answered they. Who is it? asked
Friar John. 'Sblood and 'ounds, I'll thrash him thick and threefold. This
he said thinking that they inquired after some robber, murderer, or
church-breaker. Oh, wonderful! cried the four; do not you foreign
people know the one? Sirs, replied Epistemon, we do not understand
those terms; but if you will be pleased to let us know who you mean,
we will tell you the truth of the matter without any more ado. We mean,
said they, he that is. Did you ever see him? He that is, returned
Pantagruel, according to our theological doctrine, is God, who said to
Moses, I am that I am. We never saw him, nor can he be beheld by
mortal eyes. We mean nothing less than that supreme God who rules in
heaven, replied they; we mean the god on earth. Did you ever see him?
Upon my honour, replied Carpalin, they mean the pope. Ay, ay,
answered Panurge; yea, verily, gentlemen, I have seen three of them,
whose sight has not much bettered me. How! cried they, our sacred
decretals inform us that there never is more than one living. I mean
successively, one after the other, returned Panurge; otherwise I never
saw more than one at a time.
O thrice and four times happy people! cried they; you are welcome, and
more than double welcome! They then kneeled down before us and
would have kissed our feet, but we would not suffer it, telling them that
should the pope come thither in his own person, 'tis all they could do to
him. No, certainly, answered they, for we have already resolved upon
the matter. We would kiss his bare arse without boggling at it, and eke
his two pounders; for he has a pair of them, the holy father, that he has;
we find it so by our fine decretals, otherwise he could not be pope. So
that, according to our subtle decretaline philosophy, this is a necessary
consequence: he is pope; therefore he has genitories, and should
genitories no more be found in the world, the world could no more
have a pope.
While they were talking thus, Pantagruel inquired of one of the
coxswain's crew who those persons were. He answered that they were
the four estates of the island, and added that we should be made as
welcome as princes, since we had seen the pope. Panurge having been
acquainted with this by Pantagruel, said to him in his ear, I swear and
vow, sir, 'tis even so; he that has patience may compass anything.
Seeing the pope had done us no good; now, in the devil's name, 'twill
do us a great deal. We then went ashore, and the whole country, men,
women, and children, came to meet us as in a solemn procession. Our
four estates cried out to them with a loud voice, They have seen him!
they have seen him! they have seen him! That proclamation being made,
all the mob kneeled before us, lifting up their hands towards heaven,
and crying, O happy men! O most happy! and this acclamation lasted
above a quarter of an hour.
Then came the Busby (!) of the place, with all his pedagogues, ushers,
and schoolboys, whom he magisterially flogged, as they used to whip
children in our country formerly when some criminal was hanged, that
they might remember it. This displeased Pantagruel, who said to them,
Gentlemen, if you do not leave off whipping these poor children, I am
gone. The people were amazed, hearing his stentorian voice; and I saw
a little hump with long fingers say to the hypodidascal, What, in the
name of wonder! do all those that see the pope grow as tall as yon huge
fellow that threatens us? Ah! how I shall think time long till I have seen
him too, that I may grow and look as big. In short, the acclamations
were so great that Homenas (so they called their bishop) hastened
thither on an unbridled mule with green trappings, attended by his
apposts (as they said) and his supposts, or officers bearing crosses,
banners, standards, canopies, torches, holy-water pots, &c. He too
wanted to kiss our feet (as the good Christian Valfinier did to Pope
Clement), saying that one of their hypothetes, that's one of the
scavengers, scourers, and commentators of their holy decretals, had
written that, in the same manner as the Messiah, so long and so much
expected by the Jews, at last appeared among them; so, on some happy
day of God, the pope would come into that island; and that, while they
waited for that blessed time, if any who had seen him at Rome or
elsewhere chanced to come among them, they should be sure to make
much of them, feast them plentifully, and treat them with a great deal
of reverence. However, we civilly desired to be excused.
Chapter 4.
XLIX.
How Homenas, Bishop of Papimany, showed us the Uranopet
decretals.
Homenas then said to us: 'Tis enjoined us by our holy decretals to visit
churches first and taverns after. Therefore, not to decline that fine
institution, let us go to church; we will afterwards go and feast
ourselves. Man of God, quoth Friar John, do you go before, we'll
follow you. You spoke in the matter properly, and like a good Christian;
'tis long since we saw any such. For my part, this rejoices my mind
very much, and I verily believe that I shall have the better stomach after
it. Well, 'tis a happy thing to meet with good men! Being come near the
gate of the church, we spied a huge thick book, gilt, and covered all
over with precious stones, as rubies, emeralds, (diamonds,) and pearls,
more, or at least as valuable as those which Augustus consecrated to
Jupiter Capitolinus. This book hanged in the air, being fastened with
two thick chains of gold to the zoophore of the porch. We looked on it
and admired it. As for Pantagruel, he handled it and dandled it and
turned it as he pleased, for he could reach it without straining; and he
protested that whenever he touched it, he was seized with a pleasant
tickling at his fingers' end, new life and activity in his arms, and a
violent temptation in his mind to beat one or two sergeants, or such
officers, provided they were not of the shaveling kind. Homenas then
said to us, The law was formerly given to the Jews by Moses, written
by God himself. At Delphos, before the portal of Apollo's temple, this
sentence, GNOTHI SEAUTON, was found written with a divine hand.
And some time after it, EI was also seen, and as divinely written and
transmitted from heaven. Cybele's image was brought out of heaven,
into a field called Pessinunt, in Phrygia; so was that of Diana to Tauris,
if you will believe Euripides; the oriflamme, or holy standard, was
transmitted out of heaven to the noble and most Christian kings of
France, to fight against the unbelievers. In the reign of Numa Pompilius,
second King of the Romans, the famous copper buckler called Ancile
was seen to descend from heaven. At Acropolis, near Athens,
Minerva's statue formerly fell from the empyreal heaven. In like
manner the sacred decretals which you see were written with the hand
of an angel of the cherubim kind. You outlandish people will hardly
believe this, I fear. Little enough, of conscience, said Panurge. And
then, continued Homenas, they were miraculously transmitted to us
here from the very heaven of heavens; in the same manner as the river
Nile is called Diipetes by Homer, the father of all philosophy--the holy
decretals always excepted. Now, because you have seen the pope, their
evangelist and everlasting protector, we will give you leave to see and
kiss them on the inside, if you think meet. But then you must fast three
days before, and canonically confess; nicely and strictly mustering up
and inventorizing your sins, great and small, so thick that one single
circumstance of them may not escape you; as our holy decretals, which
you see, direct. This will take up some time. Man of God, answered
Panurge, we have seen and descried decrees, and eke decretals enough
o' conscience; some on paper, other on parchment, fine and gay like
any painted paper lantern, some on vellum, some in manuscript, and
others in print; so you need not take half these pains to show us these.
We'll take the goodwill for the deed, and thank you as much as if we
had. Ay, marry, said Homenas, but you never saw these that are
angelically written. Those in your country are only transcripts from
ours; as we find it written by one of our old decretaline scholiasts. For
me, do not spare me; I do not value the labour, so I may serve you. Do
but tell me whether you will be confessed and fast only three short little
days of God? As for shriving, answered Panurge, there can be no great
harm in't; but this same fasting, master of mine, will hardly down with
us at this time, for we have so very much overfasted ourselves at sea
that the spiders have spun their cobwebs over our grinders. Do but look
on this good Friar John des Entomeures (Homenas then courteously
demi-clipped him about the neck), some moss is growing in his throat
for want of bestirring and exercising his chaps. He speaks the truth,
vouched Friar John; I have so much fasted that I'm almost grown
hump-shouldered. Come, then, let's go into the church, said Homenas;
and pray forgive us if for the present we do not sing you a fine high
mass. The hour of midday is past, and after it our sacred decretals
forbid us to sing mass, I mean your high and lawful mass. But I'll say a
low and dry one for you. I had rather have one moistened with some
good Anjou wine, cried Panurge; fall to, fall to your low mass, and
despatch. Ods-bodikins, quoth Friar John, it frets me to the guts that I
must have an empty stomach at this time of day; for, had I eaten a good
breakfast and fed like a monk, if he should chance to sing us the
Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, I had then brought thither bread
and wine for the traits passes (those that are gone before). Well,
patience; pull away, and save tide; short and sweet, I pray you, and this
for a cause.
Chapter 4.
L.
How Homenas showed us the archetype, or representation of a pope.
Mass being mumbled over, Homenas took a huge bundle of keys out of
a trunk near the head altar, and put thirty-two of them into so many
keyholes; put back so many springs; then with fourteen more mastered
so many padlocks, and at last opened an iron window strongly barred
above the said altar. This being done, in token of great mystery he
covered himself with wet sackcloth, and drawing a curtain of crimson
satin, showed us an image daubed over, coarsely enough, to my
thinking; then he touched it with a pretty long stick, and made us all
kiss the part of the stick that had touched the image. After this he said
unto us, What think you of this image? It is the likeness of a pope,
answered Pantagruel; I know it by the triple crown, his furred amice,
his rochet, and his slipper. You are in the right, said Homenas; it is the
idea of that same good god on earth whose coming we devoutly await,
and whom we hope one day to see in this country. O happy, wished-for,
and much-expected day! and happy, most happy you, whose propitious
stars have so favoured you as to let you see the living and real face of
this good god on earth! by the single sight of whose picture we obtain
full remission of all the sins which we remember that we have
committed, as also a third part and eighteen quarantaines of the sins
which we have forgot; and indeed we only see it on high annual
holidays.
This caused Pantagruel to say that it was a work like those which
Daedalus used to make, since, though it were deformed and ill drawn,
nevertheless some divine energy, in point of pardons, lay hid and
concealed in it. Thus, said Friar John, at Seuille, the rascally beggars
being one evening on a solemn holiday at supper in the spital, one
bragged of having got six blancs, or twopence halfpenny; another eight
liards, or twopence; a third, seven caroluses, or sixpence; but an old
mumper made his vaunts of having got three testons, or five shillings.
Ah, but, cried his comrades, thou hast a leg of God; as if, continued
Friar John, some divine virtue could lie hid in a stinking ulcerated
rotten shank. Pray, said Pantagruel, when you are for telling us some
such nauseous tale, be so kind as not to forget to provide a basin, Friar
John; I'll assure you, I had much ado to forbear bringing up my
breakfast. Fie! I wonder a man of your coat is not ashamed to use thus
the sacred name of God in speaking of things so filthy and abominable!
fie, I say. If among your monking tribes such an abuse of words is
allowed, I beseech you leave it there, and do not let it come out of the
cloisters. Physicians, said Epistemon, thus attribute a kind of divinity to
some diseases. Nero also extolled mushrooms, and, in a Greek proverb,
termed them divine food, because with them he had poisoned Claudius
his predecessor. But methinks, gentlemen, this same picture is not
over-like our late popes. For I have seen them, not with their pallium,
amice, or rochet on, but with helmets on their heads, more like the top
of a Persian turban; and while the Christian commonwealth was in
peace, they alone were most furiously and cruelly making war. This
must have been then, returned Homenas, against the rebellious,
heretical Protestants; reprobates who are disobedient to the holiness of
this good god on earth. 'Tis not only lawful for him to do so, but it is
enjoined him by the sacred decretals; and if any dare transgress one
single iota against their commands, whether they be emperors, kings,
dukes, princes, or commonwealths, he is immediately to pursue them
with fire and sword, strip them of all their goods, take their kingdoms
from them, proscribe them, anathematize them, and destroy not only
their bodies, those of their children, relations, and others, but damn also
their souls to the very bottom of the most hot and burning cauldron in
hell. Here, in the devil's name, said Panurge, the people are no heretics;
such as was our Raminagrobis, and as they are in Germany and
England. You are Christians of the best edition, all picked and culled,
for aught I see. Ay, marry are we, returned Homenas, and for that
reason we shall all be saved. Now let us go and bless ourselves with
holy water, and then to dinner.
Chapter 4.
LI.
Table-talk in praise of the decretals.
Now, topers, pray observe that while Homenas was saying his dry mass,
three collectors, or licensed beggars of the church, each of them with a
large basin, went round among the people, with a loud voice: Pray
remember the blessed men who have seen his face. As we came out of
the temple they brought their basins brimful of Papimany chink to
Homenas, who told us that it was plentifully to feast with; and that, of
this contribution and voluntary tax, one part should be laid out in good
drinking, another in good eating, and the remainder in both, according
to an admirable exposition hidden in a corner of their holy decretals;
which was performed to a T, and that at a noted tavern not much unlike
that of Will's at Amiens. Believe me, we tickled it off there with
copious cramming and numerous swilling.
I made two notable observations at that dinner: the one, that there was
not one dish served up, whether of cabrittas, capons, hogs (of which
latter there is great plenty in Papimany), pigeons, coneys, leverets,
turkeys, or others, without abundance of magistral stuff; the other, that
every course, and the fruit also, were served up by unmarried females
of the place, tight lasses, I'll assure you, waggish, fair,
good-conditioned, and comely, spruce, and fit for business. They were
all clad in fine long white albs, with two girts; their hair interwoven
with narrow tape and purple ribbon, stuck with roses, gillyflowers,
marjoram, daffadowndillies, thyme, and other sweet flowers.
At every cadence they invited us to drink and bang it about, dropping
us neat and genteel courtesies; nor was the sight of them unwelcome to
all the company; and as for Friar John, he leered on them sideways, like
a cur that steals a capon. When the first course was taken off, the
females melodiously sung us an epode in the praise of the sacrosanct
decretals; and then the second course being served up, Homenas, joyful
and cheery, said to one of the she-butlers, Light here, Clerica.
Immediately one of the girls brought him a tall-boy brimful of
extravagant wine. He took fast hold of it, and fetching a deep sigh, said
to Pantagruel, My lord, and you, my good friends, here's t'ye, with all
my heart; you are all very welcome. When he had tipped that off, and
given the tall-boy to the pretty creature, he lifted up his voice and said,
O most holy decretals, how good is good wine found through your
means! This is the best jest we have had yet, observed Panurge. But it
would still be a better, said Pantagruel, if they could turn bad wine into
good.
O seraphic Sextum! continued Homenas, how necessary are you not to
the salvation of poor mortals! O cherubic Clementinae! how perfectly
the perfect institution of a true Christian is contained and described in
you! O angelical Extravagantes! how many poor souls that wander up
and down in mortal bodies through this vale of misery would perish
were it not for you! When, ah! when shall this special gift of grace be
bestowed on mankind, as to lay aside all other studies and concerns, to
use you, to peruse you, to understand you, to know you by heart, to
practise you, to incorporate you, to turn you into blood, and incentre
you into the deepest ventricles of their brains, the inmost marrow of
their bones, and most intricate labyrinth of their arteries? Then, ah! then,
and no sooner than then, nor otherwise than thus, shall the world be
happy! While the old man was thus running on, Epistemon rose and
softly said to Panurge: For want of a close-stool, I must even leave you
for a moment or two; this stuff has unbunged the orifice of my
mustard-barrel; but I'll not tarry long.
Then, ah! then, continued Homenas, no hail, frost, ice, snow,
overflowing, or vis major; then plenty of all earthly goods here below.
Then uninterrupted and eternal peace through the universe, an end of
all wars, plunderings, drudgeries, robbing, assassinates, unless it be to
destroy these cursed rebels the heretics. Oh! then, rejoicing,
cheerfulness, jollity, solace, sports, and delicious pleasures, over the
face of the earth. Oh! what great learning, inestimable erudition, and
god-like precepts are knit, linked, rivetted, and mortised in the divine
chapters of these eternal decretals!
Oh! how wonderfully, if you read but one demi-canon, short paragraph,
or single observation of these sacrosanct decretals, how wonderfully, I
say, do you not perceive to kindle in your hearts a furnace of divine
love, charity towards your neighbour (provided he be no heretic), bold
contempt of all casual and sublunary things, firm content in all your
affections, and ecstatic elevation of soul even to the third heaven.
Chapter 4.
LII.
A continuation of the miracles caused by the decretals.
Wisely, brother Timothy, quoth Panurge, did am, did am; he says blew;
but, for my part, I believe as little of it as I can. For one day by chance I
happened to read a chapter of them at Poictiers, at the most
decretalipotent Scotch doctor's, and old Nick turn me into bumfodder,
if this did not make me so hide-bound and costive, that for four or five
days I hardly scumbered one poor butt of sir-reverence; and that, too,
was full as dry and hard, I protest, as Catullus tells us were those of his
neighbour Furius:
Nec toto decies cacas in anno, Atque id durius est faba, et lapillis:
Quod tu si manibus teras, fricesque, Non unquam digitum inquinare
posses.
Oh, ho! cried Homenas; by'r lady, it may be you were then in the state
of mortal sin, my friend. Well turned, cried Panurge; this was a new
strain, egad.
One day, said Friar John, at Seuille, I had applied to my posteriors, by
way of hind-towel, a leaf of an old Clementinae which our
rent-gatherer, John Guimard, had thrown out into the green of our
cloister. Now the devil broil me like a black pudding, if I wasn't so
abominably plagued with chaps, chawns, and piles at the fundament,
that the orifice of my poor nockandroe was in a most woeful pickle for
I don't know how long. By'r our lady, cried Homenas, it was a plain
punishment of God for the sin that you had committed in beraying that
sacred book, which you ought rather to have kissed and adored; I say
with an adoration of latria, or of hyperdulia at least. The Panormitan
never told a lie in the matter.
Saith Ponocrates: At Montpelier, John Chouart having bought of the
monks of St. Olary a delicate set of decretals, written on fine large
parchment of Lamballe, to beat gold between the leaves, not so much
as a piece that was beaten in them came to good, but all were
dilacerated and spoiled. Mark this! cried Homenas; 'twas a divine
punishment and vengeance.
At Mans, said Eudemon, Francis Cornu, apothecary, had turned an old
set of Extravagantes into waste paper. May I never stir, if whatever was
lapped up in them was not immediately corrupted, rotten, and spoiled;
incense, pepper, cloves, cinnamon, saffron, wax, cassia, rhubarb,
tamarinds, all drugs and spices, were lost without exception. Mark,
mark, quoth Homenas, an effect of divine justice! This comes of
putting the sacred Scriptures to such profane uses.
At Paris, said Carpalin, Snip Groignet the tailor had turned an old
Clementinae into patterns and measures, and all the clothes that were
cut on them were utterly spoiled and lost; gowns, hoods, cloaks,
cassocks, jerkins, jackets, waistcoats, capes, doublets, petticoats, corps
de robes, farthingales, and so forth. Snip, thinking to cut a hood, would
cut you out a codpiece; instead of a cassock he would make you a
high-crowned hat; for a waistcoat he'd shape you out a rochet; on the
pattern of a doublet he'd make you a thing like a frying-pan. Then his
journeymen having stitched it up did jag it and pink it at the bottom,
and so it looked like a pan to fry chestnuts. Instead of a cape he made a
buskin; for a farthingale he shaped a montero cap; and thinking to make
a cloak, he'd cut out a pair of your big out-strouting Swiss breeches,
with panes like the outside of a tabor. Insomuch that Snip was
condemned to make good the stuffs to all his customers; and to this day
poor Cabbage's hair grows through his hood and his arse through his
pocket-holes. Mark, an effect of heavenly wrath and vengeance! cried
Homenas.
At Cahusac, said Gymnast, a match being made by the lords of Estissac
and Viscount Lausun to shoot at a mark, Perotou had taken to pieces a
set of decretals and set one of the leaves for the white to shoot at. Now
I sell, nay, I give and bequeath for ever and aye, the mould of my
doublet to fifteen hundred hampers full of black devils, if ever any
archer in the country (though they are singular marksmen in Guienne)
could hit the white. Not the least bit of the holy scribble was
contaminated or touched; nay, and Sansornin the elder, who held stakes,
swore to us, figues dioures, hard figs (his greatest oath), that he had
openly, visibly, and manifestly seen the bolt of Carquelin moving right
to the round circle in the middle of the white; and that just on the point,
when it was going to hit and enter, it had gone aside above seven foot
and four inches wide of it towards the bakehouse.
Miracle! cried Homenas, miracle! miracle! Clerica, come wench, light,
light here. Here's to you all, gentlemen; I vow you seem to me very
sound Christians. While he said this, the maidens began to snicker at
his elbow, grinning, giggling, and twittering among themselves. Friar
John began to paw, neigh, and whinny at the snout's end, as one ready
to leap, or at least to play the ass, and get up and ride tantivy to the
devil like a beggar on horseback.
Methinks, said Pantagruel, a man might have been more out of danger
near the white of which Gymnast spoke than was formerly Diogenes
near another. How is that? asked Homenas; what was it? Was he one of
our decretalists? Rarely fallen in again, egad, said Epistemon, returning
from stool; I see he will hook his decretals in, though by the head and
shoulders.
Diogenes, said Pantagruel, one day for pastime went to see some
archers that shot at butts, one of whom was so unskilful, that when it
was his turn to shoot all the bystanders went aside, lest he should
mistake them for the mark. Diogenes had seen him shoot extremely
wide of it; so when the other was taking aim a second time, and the
people removed at a great distance to the right and left of the white, he
placed himself close by the mark, holding that place to be the safest,
and that so bad an archer would certainly rather hit any other.
One of the Lord d'Estissac's pages at last found out the charm, pursued
Gymnast, and by his advice Perotou put in another white made up of
some papers of Pouillac's lawsuit, and then everyone shot cleverly.
At Landerousse, said Rhizotome, at John Delif's wedding were very
great doings, as 'twas then the custom of the country. After supper
several farces, interludes, and comical scenes were acted; they had also
several morris-dancers with bells and tabors, and divers sorts of masks
and mummers were let in. My schoolfellows and I, to grace the festival
to the best of our power (for fine white and purple liveries had been
given to all of us in the morning), contrived a merry mask with store of
cockle-shells, shells of snails, periwinkles, and such other. Then for
want of cuckoo-pint, or priest-pintle, lousebur, clote, and paper, we
made ourselves false faces with the leaves of an old Sextum that had
been thrown by and lay there for anyone that would take it up, cutting
out holes for the eyes, nose, and mouth. Now, did you ever hear the like
since you were born? When we had played our little boyish antic tricks,
and came to take off our sham faces, we appeared more hideous and
ugly than the little devils that acted the Passion at Douay; for our faces
were utterly spoiled at the places which had been touched by those
leaves. One had there the small-pox; another, God's token, or the
plague-spot; a third, the crinckums; a fourth, the measles; a fifth,
botches, pushes, and carbuncles; in short, he came off the least hurt
who only lost his teeth by the bargain. Miracle! bawled out Homenas,
miracle!
Hold, hold! cried Rhizotome; it is not yet time to clap. My sister Kate
and my sister Ren had put the crepines of their hoods, their ruffles,
snuffekins, and neck-ruffs new washed, starched, and ironed, into that
very book of decretals; for, you must know, it was covered with thick
boards and had strong clasps. Now, by the virtue of God--Hold,
interrupted Homenas, what god do you mean? There is but one,
answered Rhizotome. In heaven, I grant, replied Homenas; but we have
another here on earth, do you see? Ay, marry have we, said Rhizotome;
but on my soul I protest I had quite forgot it. Well then, by the virtue of
god the pope, their pinners, neck-ruffs, bib, coifs, and other linen
turned as black as a charcoal-man's sack. Miracle! cried Homenas. Here,
Clerica, light me here; and prithee, girl, observe these rare stories. How
comes it to pass then, asked Friar John, that people say,
Ever since decrees had tails, And gendarmes lugged heavy mails, Since
each monk would have a horse, All went here from bad to worse.
I understand you, answered Homenas; this is one of the quirks and little
satires of the new-fangled heretics.
Chapter 4.
LIII.
How by the virtue of the decretals, gold is subtilely drawn out of
France to Rome.
I would, said Epistemon, it had cost me a pint of the best tripe that ever
can enter into gut, so we had but compared with the original the
dreadful chapters, Execrabilis, De multa, Si plures; De annatis per
totum; Nisi essent; Cum ad monasterium; Quod delectio; Mandatum;
and certain others, that draw every year out of France to Rome four
hundred thousand ducats and more.
Do you make nothing of this? asked Homenas. Though, methinks, after
all, it is but little, if we consider that France, the most Christian, is the
only nurse the see of Rome has. However, find me in the whole world a
book, whether of philosophy, physic, law, mathematics, or other
humane learning, nay, even, by my God, of the Holy Scripture itself,
will draw as much money thence? None, none, psha, tush, blurt, pish;
none can. You may look till your eyes drop out of your head, nay, till
doomsday in the afternoon, before you can find another of that energy;
I'll pass my word for that.
Yet these devilish heretics refuse to learn and know it. Burn 'em, tear
'em, nip 'em with hot pincers, drown 'em, hang 'em, spit 'em at the
bunghole, pelt 'em, paut 'em, bruise 'em, beat 'em, cripple 'em,
dismember 'em, cut 'em, gut 'em, bowel 'em, paunch 'em, thrash 'em,
slash 'em, gash 'em, chop 'em, slice 'em, slit 'em, carve 'em, saw 'em,
bethwack 'em, pare 'em, hack 'em, hew 'em, mince 'em, flay 'em, boil
'em, broil 'em, roast 'em, toast 'em, bake 'em, fry 'em, crucify 'em, crush
'em, squeeze 'em, grind 'em, batter 'em, burst 'em, quarter 'em, unlimb
'em, behump 'em, bethump 'em, belam 'em, belabour 'em, pepper 'em,
spitchcock 'em, and carbonade 'em on gridirons, these wicked heretics!
decretalifuges, decretalicides, worse than homicides, worse than
patricides, decretalictones of the devil of hell.
As for you other good people, I must earnestly pray and beseech you to
believe no other thing, to think on, say, undertake, or do no other thing,
than what's contained in our sacred decretals and their corollaries, this
fine Sextum, these fine Clementinae, these fine Extravagantes. O deific
books! So shall you enjoy glory, honour, exaltation, wealth, dignities,
and preferments in this world; be revered and dreaded by all, preferred,
elected, and chosen above all men.
For there is not under the cope of heaven a condition of men out of
which you'll find persons fitter to do and handle all things than those
who by divine prescience, eternal predestination, have applied
themselves to the study of the holy decretals.
Would you choose a worthy emperor, a good captain, a fit general in
time of war, one that can well foresee all inconveniences, avoid all
dangers, briskly and bravely bring his men on to a breach or attack, still
be on sure grounds, always overcome without loss of his men, and
know how to make a good use of his victory? Take me a decretist. No,
no, I mean a decretalist. Ho, the foul blunder, whispered Epistemon.
Would you, in time of peace, find a man capable of wisely governing
the state of a commonwealth, of a kingdom, of an empire, of a
monarchy; sufficient to maintain the clergy, nobility, senate, and
commons in wealth, friendship, unity, obedience, virtue, and honesty?
Take a decretalist.
Would you find a man who, by his exemplary life, eloquence, and
pious admonitions, may in a short time, without effusion of human
blood, conquer the Holy Land, and bring over to the holy Church the
misbelieving Turks, Jews, Tartars, Muscovites, Mamelukes, and
Sarrabonites? Take me a decretalist.
What makes, in many countries, the people rebellious and depraved,
pages saucy and mischievous, students sottish and duncical? Nothing
but that their governors and tutors were not decretalists.
But what, on your conscience, was it, do you think, that established,
confirmed, and authorized those fine religious orders with whom you
see the Christian world everywhere adorned, graced, and illustrated, as
the firmament is with its glorious stars? The holy decretals.
What was it that founded, underpropped, and fixed, and now maintains,
nourishes, and feeds the devout monks and friars in convents,
monasteries, and abbeys; so that did they not daily and mightily pray
without ceasing, the world would be in evident danger of returning to
its primitive chaos? The sacred decretals.
What makes and daily increases the famous and celebrated patrimony
of St. Peter in plenty of all temporal, corporeal, and spiritual blessings?
The holy decretals.
What made the holy apostolic see and pope of Rome, in all times, and
at this present, so dreadful in the universe, that all kings, emperors,
potentates, and lords, willing, nilling, must depend upon him, hold of
him, be crowned, confirmed, and authorized by him, come thither to
strike sail, buckle, and fall down before his holy slipper, whose picture
you have seen? The mighty decretals of God.
I will discover you a great secret. The universities of your world have
commonly a book, either open or shut, in their arms and devices; what
book do you think it is? Truly, I do not know, answered Pantagruel; I
never read it. It is the decretals, said Homenas, without which the
privileges of all universities would soon be lost. You must own that I
have taught you this; ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!
Here Homenas began to belch, to fart, to funk, to laugh, to slaver, and
to sweat; and then he gave his huge greasy four-cornered cap to one of
the lasses, who clapped it on her pretty head with a great deal of joy,
after she had lovingly bussed it, as a sure token that she should be first
married. Vivat, cried Epistemon, fifat, bibat, pipat.
O apocalyptic secret! continued Homenas; light, light, Clerica; light
here with double lanterns. Now for the fruit, virgins.
I was saying, then, that giving yourselves thus wholly to the study of
the holy decretals, you will gain wealth and honour in this world. I add,
that in the next you will infallibly be saved in the blessed kingdom of
heaven, whose keys are given to our good god and decretaliarch. O my
good god, whom I adore and never saw, by thy special grace open unto
us, at the point of death at least, this most sacred treasure of our holy
Mother Church, whose protector, preserver, butler, chief-larder,
administrator, and disposer thou art; and take care, I beseech thee, O
lord, that the precious works of supererogation, the goodly pardons, do
not fail us in time of need; so that the devils may not find an
opportunity to gripe our precious souls, and the dreadful jaws of hell
may not swallow us. If we must pass through purgatory thy will be
done. It is in thy power to draw us out of it when thou pleasest. Here
Homenas began to shed huge hot briny tears, to beat his breast, and kiss
his thumbs in the shape of a cross.
Chapter 4.
LIV.
How Homenas gave Pantagruel some bon-Christian pears.
Epistemon, Friar John, and Panurge, seeing this doleful catastrophe,
began, under the cover of their napkins, to cry Meeow, meeow, meeow;
feigning to wipe their eyes all the while as if they had wept. The
wenches were doubly diligent, and brought brimmers of Clementine
wine to every one, besides store of sweetmeats; and thus the feasting
was revived.
Before we arose from table, Homenas gave us a great quantity of fair
large pears, saying, Here, my good friends, these are singular good
pears. You will find none such anywhere else, I dare warrant. Every
soil bears not everything, you know. India alone boasts black ebony;
the best incense is produced in Sabaea; the sphragitid earth at Lemnos;
so this island is the only place where such fine pears grow. You may, if
you please, make seminaries with their pippins in your country.
I like their taste extremely, said Pantagruel. If they were sliced, and put
into a pan on the fire with wine and sugar, I fancy they would be very
wholesome meat for the sick, as well as for the healthy. Pray what do
you call 'em? No otherwise than you have heard, replied Homenas. We
are a plain downright sort of people, as God would have it, and call figs,
figs; plums, plums; and pears, pears. Truly, said Pantagruel, if I live to
go home--which I hope will be speedily, God willing--I'll set off and
graff some in my garden in Touraine, by the banks of the Loire, and
will call them bon-Christian or good-Christian pears, for I never saw
better Christians than are these good Papimans. I would like him two to
one better yet, said Friar John, would he but give us two or three
cartloads of yon buxom lasses. Why, what would you do with them?
cried Homenas. Quoth Friar John, No harm, only bleed the
kind-hearted souls straight between the two great toes with certain
clever lancets of the right stamp; by which operation good Christian
children would be inoculated upon them, and the breed be multiplied in
our country, in which there are not many over-good, the more's the
pity.
Nay, verily, replied Homenas, we cannot do this; for you would make
them tread their shoes awry, crack their pipkins, and spoil their shapes.
You love mutton, I see; you will run at sheep. I know you by that same
nose and hair of yours, though I never saw your face before. Alas! alas!
how kind you are! And would you indeed damn your precious soul?
Our decretals forbid this. Ah, I wish you had them at your finger's-end.
Patience, said Friar John; but, si tu non vis dare, praesta, quaesumus.
Matter of breviary. As for that, I defy all the world, and I fear no man
that wears a head and a hood, though he were a crystalline, I mean a
decretaline doctor.
Dinner being over, we took our leave of the right reverend Homenas,
and of all the good people, humbly giving thanks; and, to make them
amends for their kind entertainment, promised them that, at our coming
to Rome, we would make our applications so effectually to the pope
that he would speedily be sure to come to visit them in person. After
this we went o'board.
Pantagruel, by an act of generosity, and as an acknowledgment of the
sight of the pope's picture, gave Homenas nine pieces of double friezed
cloth of gold to be set before the grates of the window. He also caused
the church box for its repairs and fabric to be quite filled with double
crowns of gold; and ordered nine hundred and fourteen angels to be
delivered to each of the lasses who had waited at table, to buy them
husbands when they could get them.
Chapter 4.
LV.
How Pantagruel, being at sea, heard various unfrozen words.
When we were at sea, junketting, tippling, discoursing, and telling
stories, Pantagruel rose and stood up to look out; then asked us, Do you
hear nothing, gentlemen? Methinks I hear some people talking in the
air, yet I can see nobody. Hark! According to his command we listened,
and with full ears sucked in the air as some of you suck oysters, to find
if we could hear some sound scattered through the sky; and to lose
none of it, like the Emperor Antoninus some of us laid their hands
hollow next to their ears; but all this would not do, nor could we hear
any voice. Yet Pantagruel continued to assure us he heard various
voices in the air, some of men, and some of women.
At last we began to fancy that we also heard something, or at least that
our ears tingled; and the more we listened, the plainer we discerned the
voices, so as to distinguish articulate sounds. This mightily frightened
us, and not without cause; since we could see nothing, yet heard such
various sounds and voices of men, women, children, horses, &c.,
insomuch that Panurge cried out, Cods-belly, there is no fooling with
the devil; we are all beshit, let's fly. There is some ambuscado
hereabouts. Friar John, art thou here my love? I pray thee, stay by me,
old boy. Hast thou got thy swindging tool? See that it do not stick in
thy scabbard; thou never scourest it half as it should be. We are undone.
Hark! They are guns, gad judge me. Let's fly, I do not say with hands
and feet, as Brutus said at the battle of Pharsalia; I say, with sails and
oars. Let's whip it away. I never find myself to have a bit of courage at
sea; in cellars and elsewhere I have more than enough. Let's fly and
save our bacon. I do not say this for any fear that I have; for I dread
nothing but danger, that I don't; I always say it that shouldn't. The free
archer of Baignolet said as much. Let us hazard nothing, therefore, I
say, lest we come off bluely. Tack about, helm a-lee, thou son of a
bachelor. Would I were now well in Quinquenais, though I were never
to marry. Haste away, let's make all the sail we can. They'll be too hard
for us; we are not able to cope with them; they are ten to our one, I'll
warrant you. Nay, and they are on their dunghill, while we do not know
the country. They will be the death of us. We'll lose no honour by
flying. Demosthenes saith that the man that runs away may fight
another day. At least let us retreat to the leeward. Helm a-lee; bring the
main-tack aboard, haul the bowlines, hoist the top-gallants. We are all
dead men; get off, in the devil's name, get off.
Pantagruel, hearing the sad outcry which Panurge made, said, Who
talks of flying? Let's first see who they are; perhaps they may be
friends. I can discover nobody yet, though I can see a hundred miles
round me. But let's consider a little. I have read that a philosopher
named Petron was of opinion that there were several worlds that
touched each other in an equilateral triangle; in whose centre, he said,
was the dwelling of truth; and that the words, ideas, copies, and images
of all things past and to come resided there; round which was the age;
and that with success of time part of them used to fall on mankind like
rheums and mildews, just as the dew fell on Gideon's fleece, till the age
was fulfilled.
I also remember, continued he, that Aristotle affirms Homer's words to
be flying, moving, and consequently animated. Besides, Antiphanes
said that Plato's philosophy was like words which, being spoken in
some country during a hard winter, are immediately congealed, frozen
up, and not heard; for what Plato taught young lads could hardly be
understood by them when they were grown old. Now, continued he, we
should philosophize and search whether this be not the place where
those words are thawed.
You would wonder very much should this be the head and lyre of
Orpheus. When the Thracian women had torn him to pieces they threw
his head and lyre into the river Hebrus, down which they floated to the
Euxine sea as far as the island of Lesbos; the head continually uttering
a doleful song, as it were lamenting the death of Orpheus, and the lyre,
with the wind's impulse moving its strings and harmoniously
accompanying the voice. Let's see if we cannot discover them
hereabouts.
Chapter 4.
LVI.
How among the frozen words Pantagruel found some odd ones.
The skipper made answer: Be not afraid, my lord; we are on the
confines of the Frozen Sea, on which, about the beginning of last
winter, happened a great and bloody fight between the Arimaspians and
the Nephelibates. Then the words and cries of men and women, the
hacking, slashing, and hewing of battle-axes, the shocking, knocking,
and jolting of armours and harnesses, the neighing of horses, and all
other martial din and noise, froze in the air; and now, the rigour of the
winter being over, by the succeeding serenity and warmth of the
weather they melt and are heard.
By jingo, quoth Panurge, the man talks somewhat like. I believe him.
But couldn't we see some of 'em? I think I have read that, on the edge
of the mountain on which Moses received the Judaic law, the people
saw the voices sensibly. Here, here, said Pantagruel, here are some that
are not yet thawed. He then threw us on the deck whole handfuls of
frozen words, which seemed to us like your rough sugar-plums, of
many colours, like those used in heraldry; some words gules (this
means also jests and merry sayings), some vert, some azure, some
black, some or (this means also fair words); and when we had
somewhat warmed them between our hands, they melted like snow, and
we really heard them, but could not understand them, for it was a
barbarous gibberish. One of them only, that was pretty big, having been
warmed between Friar John's hands, gave a sound much like that of
chestnuts when they are thrown into the fire without being first cut,
which made us all start. This was the report of a field-piece in its time,
cried Friar John.
Panurge prayed Pantagruel to give him some more; but Pantagruel told
him that to give words was the part of a lover. Sell me some then, I
pray you, cried Panurge. That's the part of a lawyer, returned
Pantagruel. I would sooner sell you silence, though at a dearer rate; as
Demosthenes formerly sold it by the means of his argentangina, or
silver squinsy.
However, he threw three or four handfuls of them on the deck; among
which I perceived some very sharp words, and some bloody words,
which the pilot said used sometimes to go back and recoil to the place
whence they came, but it was with a slit weasand. We also saw some
terrible words, and some others not very pleasant to the eye.
When they had been all melted together, we heard a strange noise, hin,
hin, hin, hin, his, tick, tock, taack, bredelinbrededack, frr, frr, frr, bou,
bou, bou, bou, bou, bou, bou, bou, track, track, trr, trr, trr, trrr, trrrrrr,
on, on, on, on, on, on, ououououon, gog, magog, and I do not know
what other barbarous words, which the pilot said were the noise made
by the charging squadrons, the shock and neighing of horses.
Then we heard some large ones go off like drums and fifes, and others
like clarions and trumpets. Believe me, we had very good sport with
them. I would fain have saved some merry odd words, and have
preserved them in oil, as ice and snow are kept, and between clean
straw. But Pantagruel would not let me, saying that 'tis a folly to hoard
up what we are never like to want or have always at hand, odd, quaint,
merry, and fat words of gules never being scarce among all good and
jovial Pantagruelists.
Panurge somewhat vexed Friar John, and put him in the pouts; for he
took him at his word while he dreamed of nothing less. This caused the
friar to threaten him with such a piece of revenge as was put upon G.
Jousseaume, who having taken the merry Patelin at his word when he
had overbid himself in some cloth, was afterwards fairly taken by the
horns like a bullock by his jovial chapman, whom he took at his word
like a man. Panurge, well knowing that threatened folks live long,
bobbed and made mouths at him in token of derision, then cried, Would
I had here the word of the Holy Bottle, without being thus obliged to go
further in pilgrimage to her.
Chapter 4.
LVII.
How Pantagruel went ashore at the dwelling of Gaster, the first master
of arts in the world.
That day Pantagruel went ashore in an island which, for situation and
governor, may be said not to have its fellow. When you just come into
it, you find it rugged, craggy, and barren, unpleasant to the eye, painful
to the feet, and almost as inaccessible as the mountain of Dauphine,
which is somewhat like a toadstool, and was never climbed as any can
remember by any but Doyac, who had the charge of King Charles the
Eighth's train of artillery.
This same Doyac with strange tools and engines gained that mountain's
top, and there he found an old ram. It puzzled many a wise head to
guess how it got thither. Some said that some eagle or great horncoot,
having carried it thither while it was yet a lambkin, it had got away and
saved itself among the bushes.
As for us, having with much toil and sweat overcome the difficult ways
at the entrance, we found the top of the mountain so fertile, healthful,
and pleasant, that I thought I was then in the true garden of Eden, or
earthly paradise, about whose situation our good theologues are in such
a quandary and keep such a pother.
As for Pantagruel, he said that here was the seat of Arete--that is as
much as to say, virtue--described by Hesiod. This, however, with
submission to better judgments. The ruler of this place was one Master
Gaster, the first master of arts in this world. For, if you believe that fire
is the great master of arts, as Tully writes, you very much wrong him
and yourself; alas! Tully never believed this. On the other side, if you
fancy Mercury to be the first inventor of arts, as our ancient Druids
believed of old, you are mightily beside the mark. The satirist's
sentence, that affirms Master Gaster to be the master of all arts, is true.
With him peacefully resided old goody Penia, alias Poverty, the mother
of the ninety-nine Muses, on whom Porus, the lord of Plenty, formerly
begot Love, that noble child, the mediator of heaven and earth, as Plato
affirms in Symposio.
We were all obliged to pay our homage and swear allegiance to that
mighty sovereign; for he is imperious, severe, blunt, hard, uneasy,
inflexible; you cannot make him believe, represent to him, or persuade
him anything.
He does not hear; and as the Egyptians said that Harpocrates, the god of
silence, named Sigalion in Greek, was astome, that is, without a mouth,
so Gaster was created without ears, even like the image of Jupiter in
Candia.
He only speaks by signs, but those signs are more readily obeyed by
everyone than the statutes of senates or commands of monarchs.
Neither will he admit the least let or delay in his summons. You say
that when a lion roars all the beasts at a considerable distance round
about, as far as his roar can be heard, are seized with a shivering. This
is written, it is true, I have seen it. I assure you that at Master Gaster's
command the very heavens tremble, and all the earth shakes. His
command is called, Do this or die. Needs must when the devil drives;
there's no gainsaying of it.
The pilot was telling us how, on a certain time, after the manner of the
members that mutinied against the belly, as Aesop describes it, the
whole kingdom of the Somates went off into a direct faction against
Gaster, resolving to throw off his yoke; but they soon found their
mistake, and most humbly submitted, for otherwise they had all been
famished.
What company soever he is in, none dispute with him for precedence or
superiority; he still goes first, though kings, emperors, or even the pope,
were there. So he held the first place at the council of Basle; though
some will tell you that the council was tumultuous by the contention
and ambition of many for priority.
Everyone is busied and labours to serve him, and indeed, to make
amends for this, he does this good to mankind, as to invent for them all
arts, machines, trades, engines, and crafts; he even instructs brutes in
arts which are against their nature, making poets of ravens, jackdaws,
chattering jays, parrots, and starlings, and poetesses of magpies,
teaching them to utter human language, speak, and sing; and all for the
gut. He reclaims and tames eagles, gerfalcons, falcons gentle, sakers,
lanners, goshawks, sparrowhawks, merlins, haggards, passengers, wild
rapacious birds; so that, setting them free in the air whenever he thinks
fit, as high and as long as he pleases, he keeps them suspended,
straying, flying, hovering, and courting him above the clouds. Then on
a sudden he makes them stoop, and come down amain from heaven
next to the ground; and all for the gut.
Elephants, lions, rhinoceroses, bears, horses, mares, and dogs, he
teaches to dance, prance, vault, fight, swim, hide themselves, fetch and
carry what he pleases; and all for the gut.
Salt and fresh-water fish, whales, and the monsters of the main, he
brings them up from the bottom of the deep; wolves he forces out of the
woods, bears out of the rocks, foxes out of their holes, and serpents out
of the ground, and all for the gut.
In short, he is so unruly, that in his rage he devours all men and beasts;
as was seen among the Vascons, when Q. Metellus besieged them in
the Sertorian wars, among the Saguntines besieged by Hannibal; among
the Jews besieged by the Romans, and six hundred more; and all for the
gut. When his regent Penia takes a progress, wherever she moves all
senates are shut up, all statutes repealed, all orders and proclamations
vain; she knows, obeys, and has no law. All shun her, in every place
choosing rather to expose themselves to shipwreck at sea, and venture
through fire, rocks, caves, and precipices, than be seized by that most
dreadful tormentor.
Chapter 4.
LVIII.
How, at the court of the master of ingenuity, Pantagruel detested the
Engastrimythes and the Gastrolaters.
At the court of that great master of ingenuity, Pantagruel observed two
sorts of troublesome and too officious apparitors, whom he very much
detested. The first were called Engastrimythes; the others, Gastrolaters.
The first pretended to be descended of the ancient race of Eurycles, and
for this brought the authority of Aristophanes in his comedy called the
Wasps; whence of old they were called Euryclians, as Plato writes, and
Plutarch in his book of the Cessation of Oracles. In the holy decrees, 26,
qu. 3, they are styled Ventriloqui; and the same name is given them in
Ionian by Hippocrates, in his fifth book of Epid., as men who speak
from the belly. Sophocles calls them Sternomantes. These were
soothsayers, enchanters, cheats, who gulled the mob, and seemed not to
speak and give answers from the mouth, but from the belly.
Such a one, about the year of our Lord 1513, was Jacoba Rodogina, an
Italian woman of mean extract; from whose belly we, as well as an
infinite number of others at Ferrara and elsewhere, have often heard the
voice of the evil spirit speak, low, feeble, and small, indeed, but yet
very distinct, articulate, and intelligible, when she was sent for out of
curiosity by the lords and princes of the Cisalpine Gaul. To remove all
manner of doubt, and be assured that this was not a trick, they used to
have her stripped stark naked, and caused her mouth and nose to be
stopped. This evil spirit would be called Curled-pate, or Cincinnatulo,
seeming pleased when any called him by that name, at which he was
always ready to answer. If any spoke to him of things past or present,
he gave pertinent answers, sometimes to the amazement of the hearers;
but if of things to come, then the devil was gravelled, and used to lie as
fast as a dog can trot. Nay, sometimes he seemed to own his ignorance,
instead of an answer letting out a rousing fart, or muttering some words
with barbarous and uncouth inflexions, and not to be understood.
As for the Gastrolaters, they stuck close to one another in knots and
gangs. Some of them merry, wanton, and soft as so many milk-sops;
others louring, grim, dogged, demure, and crabbed; all idle, mortal foes
to business, spending half their time in sleeping and the rest in doing
nothing, a rent-charge and dead unnecessary weight on the earth, as
Hesiod saith; afraid, as we judged, of offending or lessening their
paunch. Others were masked, disguised, and so oddly dressed that it
would have done you good to have seen them.
There's a saying, and several ancient sages write, that the skill of nature
appears wonderful in the pleasure which she seems to have taken in the
configuration of sea-shells, so great is their variety in figures, colours,
streaks, and inimitable shapes. I protest the variety we perceived in the
dresses of the gastrolatrous coquillons was not less. They all owned
Gaster for their supreme god, adored him as a god, offered him
sacrifices as to their omnipotent deity, owned no other god, served,
loved, and honoured him above all things.
You would have thought that the holy apostle spoke of those when he
said (Phil. chap. 3), Many walk, of whom I have told you often, and
now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ:
whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly. Pantagruel
compared them to the Cyclops Polyphemus, whom Euripides brings in
speaking thus: I only sacrifice to myself--not to the gods--and to this
belly of mine, the greatest of all the gods.
Chapter 4.
LIX.
Of the ridiculous statue Manduce; and how and what the Gastrolaters
sacrifice to their ventripotent god.
While we fed our eyes with the sight of the phizzes and actions of these
lounging gulligutted Gastrolaters, we on a sudden heard the sound of a
musical instrument called a bell; at which all of them placed
themselves in rank and file as for some mighty battle, everyone
according to his office, degree, and seniority.
In this order they moved towards Master Gaster, after a plump, young,
lusty, gorbellied fellow, who on a long staff fairly gilt carried a wooden
statue, grossly carved, and as scurvily daubed over with paint; such a
one as Plautus, Juvenal, and Pomp. Festus describe it. At Lyons during
the Carnival it is called Maschecroute or Gnawcrust; they call'd this
Manduce.
It was a monstrous, ridiculous, hideous figure, fit to fright little children;
its eyes were bigger than its belly, and its head larger than all the rest of
its body; well mouth-cloven however, having a goodly pair of wide,
broad jaws, lined with two rows of teeth, upper tier and under tier,
which, by the magic of a small twine hid in the hollow part of the
golden staff, were made to clash, clatter, and rattle dreadfully one
against another; as they do at Metz with St. Clement's dragon.
Coming near the Gastrolaters I saw they were followed by a great
number of fat waiters and tenders, laden with baskets, dossers, hampers,
dishes, wallets, pots, and kettles. Then, under the conduct of Manduce,
and singing I do not know what dithyrambics, crepalocomes, and
epenons, opening their baskets and pots, they offered their god:
White hippocras, Fricassees, nine Cold loins of veal, with dry toasts.
sorts. with spice. White bread. Monastical brewis. Zinziberine. Brown
bread. Gravy soup. Beatille pies. Carbonadoes, six Hotch-pots. Brewis.
sorts. Soft bread. Marrow-bones, toast, Brawn. Household bread. and
cabbage. Sweetbreads. Capirotadoes. Hashes.
Eternal drink intermixed. Brisk delicate white wine led the van; claret
and champagne followed, cool, nay, as cold as the very ice, I say, filled
and offered in large silver cups. Then they offered:
Chitterlings, gar- Chines and peas. Hams. nished with mus- Hog's
haslets. Brawn heads. tard. Scotch collops. Powdered venison,
Sausages. Puddings. with turnips. Neats' tongues. Cervelats. Pickled
olives. Hung beef. Bologna sausages.
All this associated with sempiternal liquor. Then they housed within his
muzzle:
Legs of mutton, with Ribs of pork, with Caponets. shallots. onion sauce.
Caviare and toast. Olias. Roast capons, basted Fawns, deer. Lumber
pies, with with their own Hares, leverets. hot sauce. dripping. Plovers.
Partridges and young Flamingoes. Herons, and young partridges.
Cygnets. herons. Dwarf-herons. A reinforcement of Olives. Teals.
vinegar intermixed. Thrushes. Duckers. Venison pasties. Young
sea-ravens. Bitterns. Lark pies. Geese, goslings. Shovellers. Dormice
pies. Queests. Curlews. Cabretto pasties. Widgeons. Wood-hens.
Roebuck pasties. Mavises. Coots, with leeks. Pigeon pies. Grouses. Fat
kids. Kid pasties. Turtles. Shoulders of mutton, Capon pies.
Doe-coneys. with capers. Bacon pies. Hedgehogs. Sirloins of beef.
Soused hog's feet. Snites. Breasts of veal. Fried pasty-crust. Then large
puffs. Pheasants and phea- Forced capons. Thistle-finches. sant poots.
Parmesan cheese. Whore's farts. Peacocks. Red and pale hip- Fritters.
Storks. pocras. Cakes, sixteen sorts. Woodcocks. Gold-peaches. Crisp
wafers. Snipes. Artichokes. Quince tarts. Ortolans. Dry and wet sweet-
Curds and cream. Turkey cocks, hen meats, seventy- Whipped cream.
turkeys, and turkey eight sorts. Preserved mirabo- poots. Boiled hens,
and fat lans. Stock-doves, and capons marinated. Jellies. wood-culvers.
Pullets, with eggs. Welsh barrapyclids. Pigs, with wine sauce. Chickens.
Macaroons. Blackbirds, ousels, and Rabbits, and sucking Tarts, twenty
sorts. rails. rabbits. Lemon cream, rasp- Moorhens. Quails, and young
berry cream, &c. Bustards, and bustard quails. Comfits, one hundred
poots. Pigeons, squabs, and colours. Fig-peckers. squeakers. Cream
wafers. Young Guinea hens. Fieldfares. Cream cheese.
Vinegar brought up the rear to wash the mouth, and for fear of the
squinsy; also toasts to scour the grinders.
Chapter 4.
LX.
What the Gastrolaters sacrificed to their god on interlarded fish-days.
Pantagruel did not like this pack of rascally scoundrels with their
manifold kitchen sacrifices, and would have been gone had not
Epistemon prevailed with him to stay and see the end of the farce. He
then asked the skipper what the idle lobcocks used to sacrifice to their
gorbellied god on interlarded fish-days. For his first course, said the
skipper, they gave him:
Caviare. tops, bishop's-cods, Red herrings. Botargoes. celery, chives,
ram- Pilchards. Fresh butter. pions, jew's-ears (a Anchovies. Pease soup.
sort of mushrooms Fry of tunny. Spinach. that sprout out of
Cauliflowers. Fresh herrings, full old elders), spara- Beans. roed. gus,
wood-bind, Salt salmon. Salads, a hundred and a world of Pickled grigs.
varieties, of cres- others. Oysters in the shell. ses, sodden hop-
Then he must drink, or the devil would gripe him at the throat; this,
therefore, they take care to prevent, and nothing is wanting. Which
being done, they give him lampreys with hippocras sauce:
Gurnards. Thornbacks. Fried oysters. Salmon trouts. Sleeves. Cockles.
Barbels, great and Sturgeons. Prawns. small. Sheath-fish. Smelts.
Roaches. Mackerels. Rock-fish. Cockerels. Maids. Gracious lords.
Minnows. Plaice. Sword-fish. Skate-fish. Sharplings. Soles. Lamprels.
Tunnies. Mussels. Jegs. Silver eels. Lobsters. Pickerels. Chevins. Great
prawns. Golden carps. Crayfish. Dace. Burbates. Pallours. Bleaks.
Salmons. Shrimps. Tenches. Salmon-peels. Congers. Ombres. Dolphins.
Porpoises. Fresh cods. Barn trouts. Bases. Dried melwels.
Miller's-thumbs. Shads. Darefish. Precks. Murenes, a sort of Fausens,
and grigs. Bret-fish. lampreys. Eel-pouts. Flounders. Graylings.
Tortoises. Sea-nettles. Smys. Serpents, i.e. wood- Mullets. Turbots. eels.
Gudgeons. Trout, not above a Dories. Dabs and sandings. foot long.
Moor-game. Haddocks. Salmons. Perches. Carps. Meagers. Loaches.
Pikes. Sea-breams. Crab-fish. Bottitoes. Halibuts. Snails and whelks.
Rochets. Dog's tongue, or kind Frogs. Sea-bears. fool.
If, when he had crammed all this down his guttural trapdoor, he did not
immediately make the fish swim again in his paunch, death would pack
him off in a trice. Special care is taken to antidote his godship with
vine- tree syrup. Then is sacrificed to him haberdines, poor-jack,
minglemangled, mismashed, &c.
Eggs fried, beaten, sliced, roasted in Green-fish. buttered, poached, the
embers, tossed Sea-batts. hardened, boiled, in the chimney, &c. Cod's
sounds. broiled, stewed, Stock-fish. Sea-pikes.
Which to concoct and digest the more easily, vinegar is multiplied. For
the latter part of their sacrifices they offer:
Rice milk, and hasty Stewed prunes, and Raisins. pudding. baked
bullace. Dates. Buttered wheat, and Pistachios, or fistic Chestnut and
wal- flummery. nuts. nuts. Water-gruel, and Figs. Filberts.
milk-porridge. Almond butter. Parsnips. Frumenty and bonny Skirret
root. Artichokes. clamber. White-pot. Perpetuity of soaking with the
whole.
It was none of their fault, I will assure you, if this same god of theirs
was not publicly, preciously, and plentifully served in the sacrifices,
better yet than Heliogabalus's idol; nay, more than Bel and the Dragon
in Babylon, under King Belshazzar. Yet Gaster had the manners to own
that he was no god, but a poor, vile, wretched creature. And as King
Antigonus, first of the name, when one Hermodotus (as poets will
flatter, especially princes) in some of his fustian dubbed him a god, and
made the sun adopt him for his son, said to him: My lasanophore (or, in
plain English, my groom of the close-stool) can give thee the lie; so
Master Gaster very civilly used to send back his bigoted worshippers to
his close-stool, to see, smell, taste, philosophize, and examine what
kind of divinity they could pick out of his sir-reverence.
Chapter 4.
LXI.
How Gaster invented means to get and preserve corn.
Those gastrolatrous hobgoblins being withdrawn, Pantagruel carefully
minded the famous master of arts, Gaster. You know that, by the
institution of nature, bread has been assigned him for provision and
food; and that, as an addition to this blessing, he should never want the
means to get bread.
Accordingly, from the beginning he invented the smith's art, and
husbandry to manure the ground, that it might yield him corn; he
invented arms and the art of war to defend corn; physic and astronomy,
with other parts of mathematics which might be useful to keep corn a
great number of years in safety from the injuries of the air, beasts,
robbers, and purloiners; he invented water, wind, and handmills, and a
thousand other engines to grind corn and to turn it into meal; leaven to
make the dough ferment, and the use of salt to give it a savour; for he
knew that nothing bred more diseases than heavy, unleavened,
unsavoury bread.
He found a way to get fire to bake it; hour-glasses, dials, and clocks to
mark the time of its baking; and as some countries wanted corn, he
contrived means to convey some out of one country into another.
He had the wit to pimp for asses and mares, animals of different species,
that they might copulate for the generation of a third, which we call
mules, more strong and fit for hard service than the other two. He
invented carts and waggons to draw him along with greater ease; and as
seas and rivers hindered his progress, he devised boats, galleys, and
ships (to the astonishment of the elements) to waft him over to
barbarous, unknown, and far distant nations, thence to bring, or thither
to carry corn.
Besides, seeing that when he had tilled the ground, some years the corn
perished in it for want of rain in due season, in others rotted or was
drowned by its excess, sometimes spoiled by hail, eat by worms in the
ear, or beaten down by storms, and so his stock was destroyed on the
ground; we were told that ever since the days of yore he has found out a
way to conjure the rain down from heaven only with cutting certain
grass, common enough in the field, yet known to very few, some of
which was then shown us. I took it to be the same as the plant, one of
whose boughs being dipped by Jove's priest in the Agrian fountain on
the Lycian mountain in Arcadia, in time of drought raised vapours
which gathered into clouds, and then dissolved into rain that kindly
moistened the whole country.
Our master of arts was also said to have found a way to keep the rain
up in the air, and make it to fall into the sea; also to annihilate the hail,
suppress the winds, and remove storms as the Methanensians of
Troezene used to do. And as in the fields thieves and plunderers
sometimes stole and took by force the corn and bread which others had
toiled to get, he invented the art of building towns, forts, and castles, to
hoard and secure that staff of life. On the other hand, finding none in
the fields, and hearing that it was hoarded up and secured in towns,
forts, and castles, and watched with more care than ever were the
golden pippins of the Hesperides, he turned engineer, and found ways
to beat, storm, and demolish forts and castles with machines and
warlike thunderbolts, battering-rams, ballists, and catapults, whose
shapes were shown to us, not over-well understood by our engineers,
architects, and other disciples of Vitruvius; as Master Philibert de
l'Orme, King Megistus's principal architect, has owned to us.
And seeing that sometimes all these tools of destruction were baffled
by the cunning subtlety or the subtle cunning (which you please) of
fortifiers, he lately invented cannons, field-pieces, culverins, bombards,
basiliskos, murdering instruments that dart iron, leaden, and brazen
balls, some of them outweighing huge anvils. This by the means of a
most dreadful powder, whose hellish compound and effect has even
amazed nature, and made her own herself outdone by art, the
Oxydracian thunders, hails, and storms by which the people of that
name immediately destroyed their enemies in the field being but mere
potguns to these. For one of our great guns when used is more dreadful,
more terrible, more diabolical, and maims, tears, breaks, slays, mows
down, and sweeps away more men, and causes a greater consternation
and destruction than a hundred thunderbolts.
Chapter 4.
LXII.
How Gaster invented an art to avoid being hurt or touched by
cannon-balls.
Gaster having secured himself with his corn within strongholds, has
sometimes been attacked by enemies; his fortresses, by that thrice
threefold cursed instrument, levelled and destroyed; his dearly beloved
corn and bread snatched out of his mouth and sacked by a titanic force;
therefore he then sought means to preserve his walls, bastions, rampiers,
and sconces from cannon-shot, and to hinder the bullets from hitting
him, stopping them in their flight, or at least from doing him or the
besieged walls any damage. He showed us a trial of this which has been
since used by Fronton, and is now common among the pastimes and
harmless recreations of the Thelemites. I will tell you how he went to
work, and pray for the future be a little more ready to believe what
Plutarch affirms to have tried. Suppose a herd of goats were all
scampering as if the devil drove them, do but put a bit of eringo into the
mouth of the hindmost nanny, and they will all stop stock still in the
time you can tell three.
Thus Gaster, having caused a brass falcon to be charged with a
sufficient quantity of gunpowder well purged from its sulphur, and
curiously made up with fine camphor, he then had a suitable ball put
into the piece, with twenty-four little pellets like hail-shot, some round,
some pearl fashion; then taking his aim and levelling it at a page of his,
as if he would have hit him on the breast. About sixty strides off the
piece, halfway between it and the page in a right line, he hanged on a
gibbet by a rope a very large siderite or iron-like stone, otherwise called
herculean, formerly found on Ida in Phrygia by one Magnes, as
Nicander writes, and commonly called loadstone; then he gave fire to
the prime on the piece's touch-hole, which in an instant consuming the
powder, the ball and hail-shot were with incredible violence and
swiftness hurried out of the gun at its muzzle, that the air might
penetrate to its chamber, where otherwise would have been a vacuum,
which nature abhors so much, that this universal machine, heaven, air,
land, and sea, would sooner return to the primitive chaos than admit the
least void anywhere. Now the ball and small shot, which threatened the
page with no less than quick destruction, lost their impetuosity and
remained suspended and hovering round the stone; nor did any of them,
notwithstanding the fury with which they rushed, reach the page.
Master Gaster could do more than all this yet, if you will believe me;
for he invented a way how to cause bullets to fly backwards, and recoil
on those that sent them with as great a force, and in the very numerical
parallel for which the guns were planted. And indeed, why should he
have thought this difficult? seeing the herb ethiopis opens all locks
whatsoever, and an echinus or remora, a silly weakly fish, in spite of all
the winds that blow from the thirty-two points of the compass, will in
the midst of a hurricane make you the biggest first-rate remain stock
still, as if she were becalmed or the blustering tribe had blown their last.
Nay, and with the flesh of that fish, preserved with salt, you may fish
gold out of the deepest well that was ever sounded with a plummet; for
it will certainly draw up the precious metal, since Democritus affirmed
it. Theophrastus believed and experienced that there was an herb at
whose single touch an iron wedge, though never so far driven into a
huge log of the hardest wood that is, would presently come out; and it
is this same herb your hickways, alias woodpeckers, use, when with
some mighty axe anyone stops up the hole of their nests, which they
industriously dig and make in the trunk of some sturdy tree. Since stags
and hinds, when deeply wounded with darts, arrows, and bolts, if they
do but meet the herb called dittany, which is common in Candia, and
eat a little of it, presently the shafts come out and all is well again; even
as kind Venus cured her beloved byblow Aeneas when he was
wounded on the right thigh with an arrow by Juturna, Turnus's sister.
Since the very wind of laurels, fig-trees, or sea-calves makes the
thunder sheer off insomuch that it never strikes them. Since at the sight
of a ram, mad elephants recover their former senses. Since mad bulls
coming near wild fig-trees, called caprifici, grow tame, and will not
budge a foot, as if they had the cramp. Since the venomous rage of
vipers is assuaged if you but touch them with a beechen bough. Since
also Euphorion writes that in the isle of Samos, before Juno's temple
was built there, he has seen some beasts called neades, whose voice
made the neighbouring places gape and sink into a chasm and abyss. In
short, since elders grow of a more pleasing sound, and fitter to make
flutes, in such places where the crowing of cocks is not heard, as the
ancient sages have writ and Theophrastus relates; as if the crowing of a
cock dulled, flattened, and perverted the wood of the elder, as it is said
to astonish and stupify with fear that strong and resolute animal, a lion.
I know that some have understood this of wild elder, that grows so far
from towns or villages that the crowing of cocks cannot reach near it;
and doubtless that sort ought to be preferred to the stenching common
elder that grows about decayed and ruined places; but others have
understood this in a higher sense, not literal, but allegorical, according
to the method of the Pythagoreans, as when it was said that Mercury's
statue could not be made of every sort of wood; to which sentence they
gave this sense, that God is not to be worshipped in a vulgar form, but
in a chosen and religious manner. In the same manner, by this elder
which grows far from places where cocks are heard, the ancients meant
that the wise and studious ought not to give their minds to trivial or
vulgar music, but to that which is celestial, divine, angelical, more
abstracted, and brought from remoter parts, that is, from a region where
the crowing of cocks is not heard; for, to denote a solitary and
unfrequented place, we say cocks are never heard to crow there.
Chapter 4.
LXIII.
How Pantagruel fell asleep near the island of Chaneph, and of the
problems proposed to be solved when he waked.
The next day, merrily pursuing our voyage, we came in sight of the
island of Chaneph, where Pantagruel's ship could not arrive, the wind
chopping about, and then failing us so that we were becalmed, and
could hardly get ahead, tacking about from starboard to larboard, and
larboard to starboard, though to our sails we added drabblers.
With this accident we were all out of sorts, moping, drooping,
metagrabolized, as dull as dun in the mire, in C sol fa ut flat, out of
tune, off the hinges, and I-don't-know-howish, without caring to speak
one single syllable to each other.
Pantagruel was taking a nap, slumbering and nodding on the
quarter-deck by the cuddy, with an Heliodorus in his hand; for still it
was his custom to sleep better by book than by heart.
Epistemon was conjuring, with his astrolabe, to know what latitude we
were in.
Friar John was got into the cook-room, examining, by the ascendant of
the spits and the horoscope of ragouts and fricassees, what time of day
it might then be.
Panurge (sweet baby!) held a stalk of Pantagruelions, alias hemp, next
his tongue, and with it made pretty bubbles and bladders.
Gymnast was making tooth-pickers with lentisk.
Ponocrates, dozing, dozed, and dreaming, dreamed; tickled himself to
make himself laugh, and with one finger scratched his noddle where it
did not itch.
Carpalin, with a nutshell and a trencher of verne (that's a card in
Gascony), was making a pretty little merry windmill, cutting the card
longways into four slips, and fastening them with a pin to the convex of
the nut, and its concave to the tarred side of the gunnel of the ship.
Eusthenes, bestriding one of the guns, was playing on it with his fingers
as if it had been a trump-marine.
Rhizotome, with the soft coat of a field tortoise, alias ycleped a mole,
was making himself a velvet purse.
Xenomanes was patching up an old weather-beaten lantern with a
hawk's jesses.
Our pilot (good man!) was pulling maggots out of the seamen's noses.
At last Friar John, returning from the forecastle, perceived that
Pantagruel was awake. Then breaking this obstinate silence, he briskly
and cheerfully asked him how a man should kill time, and raise good
weather, during a calm at sea.
Panurge, whose belly thought his throat cut, backed the motion
presently, and asked for a pill to purge melancholy.
Epistemon also came on, and asked how a man might be ready to
bepiss himself with laughing when he has no heart to be merry.
Gymnast, arising, demanded a remedy for a dimness of eyes.
Ponocrates, after he had a while rubbed his noddle and shaken his ears,
asked how one might avoid dog-sleep. Hold! cried Pantagruel, the
Peripatetics have wisely made a rule that all problems, questions, and
doubts which are offered to be solved ought to be certain, clear, and
intelligible. What do you mean by dog-sleep? I mean, answered
Ponocrates, to sleep fasting in the sun at noonday, as the dogs do.
Rhizotome, who lay stooping on the pump, raised his drowsy head, and
lazily yawning, by natural sympathy set almost everyone in the ship
a-yawning too; then he asked for a remedy against oscitations and
gapings.
Xenomanes, half puzzled, and tired out with new-vamping his
antiquated lantern, asked how the hold of the stomach might be so well
ballasted and freighted from the keel to the main hatch, with stores well
stowed, that our human vessels might not heel or be walt, but well
trimmed and stiff.
Carpalin, twirling his diminutive windmill, asked how many motions
are to be felt in nature before a gentleman may be said to be hungry.
Eusthenes, hearing them talk, came from between decks, and from the
capstan called out to know why a man that is fasting, bit by a serpent
also fasting, is in greater danger of death than when man and serpent
have eat their breakfasts;--why a man's fasting-spittle is poisonous to
serpents and venomous creatures.
One single solution may serve for all your problems, gentlemen,
answered Pantagruel; and one single medicine for all such symptoms
and accidents. My answer shall be short, not to tire you with a long
needless train of pedantic cant. The belly has no ears, nor is it to be
filled with fair words; you shall be answered to content by signs and
gestures. As formerly at Rome, Tarquin the Proud, its last king, sent an
answer by signs to his son Sextus, who was among the Gabii at Gabii.
(Saying this, he pulled the string of a little bell, and Friar John hurried
away to the cook-room.) The son having sent his father a messenger to
know how he might bring the Gabii under a close subjection, the king,
mistrusting the messenger, made him no answer, and only took him
into his privy garden, and in his presence with his sword lopped off the
heads of the tall poppies that were there. The express returned without
any other despatch, yet having related to the prince what he had seen
his father do, he easily understood that by those signs he advised him to
cut off the heads of the chief men in the town, the better to keep under
the rest of the people.
Chapter 4.
LXIV.
How Pantagruel gave no answer to the problems.
Pantagruel then asked what sort of people dwelt in that damned island.
They are, answered Xenomanes, all hypocrites, holy mountebanks,
tumblers of beads, mumblers of ave-marias, spiritual comedians, sham
saints, hermits, all of them poor rogues who, like the hermit of Lormont
between Blaye and Bordeaux, live wholly on alms given them by
passengers. Catch me there if you can, cried Panurge; may the devil's
head-cook conjure my bumgut into a pair of bellows if ever you find
me among them! Hermits, sham saints, living forms of mortification,
holy mountebanks, avaunt! in the name of your father Satan, get out of
my sight! When the devil's a hog, you shall eat bacon. I shall not forget
yet awhile our fat Concilipetes of Chesil. O that Beelzebub and
Astaroth had counselled them to hang themselves out of the way, and
they had done't! we had not then suffered so much by devilish storms
as we did for having seen 'em. Hark ye me, dear rogue, Xenomanes, my
friend, I prithee are these hermits, hypocrites, and eavesdroppers maids
or married? Is there anything of the feminine gender among them?
Could a body hypocritically take there a small hypocritical touch? Will
they lie backwards, and let out their fore-rooms? There's a fine question
to be asked, cried Pantagruel. Yes, yes, answered Xenomanes; you may
find there many goodly hypocritesses, jolly spiritual actresses, kind
hermitesses, women that have a plaguy deal of religion; then there's the
copies of 'em, little hypocritillons, sham sanctitos, and hermitillons.
Foh! away with them, cried Friar John; a young saint, an old devil!
(Mark this, an old saying, and as true a one as, a young whore, an old
saint.) Were there not such, continued Xenomanes, the isle of Chaneph,
for want of a multiplication of progeny, had long ere this been desert
and desolate.
Pantagruel sent them by Gymnast in the pinnace seventy-eight
thousand fine pretty little gold half-crowns, of those that are marked
with a lantern. After this he asked, What's o'clock? Past nine, answered
Epistemon. It is then the best time to go to dinner, said Pantagruel; for
the sacred line so celebrated by Aristophanes in his play called
Concionatrices is at hand, never failing when the shadow is
decempedal.
Formerly, among the Persians, dinner-time was at a set hour only for
kings; as for all others, their appetite and their belly was their clock;
when that chimed, they thought it time to go to dinner. So we find in
Plautus a certain parasite making a heavy do, and sadly railing at the
inventors of hour-glasses and dials as being unnecessary things, there
being no clock more regular than the belly.
Diogenes being asked at what times a man ought to eat, answered, The
rich when he is hungry, the poor when he has anything to eat.
Physicians more properly say that the canonical hours are,
To rise at five, to dine at nine, To sup at five, to sleep at nine.
The famous king Petosiris's magic was different,--Here the officers for
the gut came in, and got ready the tables and cupboards; laid the cloth,
whose sight and pleasant smell were very comfortable; and brought
plates, napkins, salts, tankards, flagons, tall-boys, ewers, tumblers, cups,
goblets, basins, and cisterns.
Friar John, at the head of the stewards, sewers, yeomen of the pantry,
and of the mouth, tasters, carvers, cupbearers, and cupboard-keepers,
brought four stately pasties, so huge that they put me in mind of the
four bastions at Turin. Ods-fish, how manfully did they storm them!
What havoc did they make with the long train of dishes that came after
them! How bravely did they stand to their pan-puddings, and paid off
their dust! How merrily did they soak their noses!
The fruit was not yet brought in, when a fresh gale at west and by north
began to fill the main-course, mizen-sail, fore-sail, tops, and top-
gallants; for which blessing they all sung divers hymns of thanks and
praise.
When the fruit was on the table, Pantagruel asked, Now tell me,
gentlemen, are your doubts fully resolved or no? I gape and yawn no
more, answered Rhizotome. I sleep no longer like a dog, said
Ponocrates. I have cleared my eyesight, said Gymnast. I have broke my
fast, said Eusthenes; so that for this whole day I shall be secure from
the danger of my spittle.
Asps. Black wag leg-flies. Domeses. Amphisbenes. Spanish flies.
Dryinades. Anerudutes. Catoblepes. Dragons. Abedissimons. Horned
snakes. Elopes. Alhartrafz. Caterpillars. Enhydrides. Ammobates.
Crocodiles. Falvises. Apimaos. Toads. Galeotes. Alhatrabans.
Nightmares. Harmenes. Aractes. Mad dogs. Handons. Asterions.
Colotes. Icles. Alcharates. Cychriodes. Jarraries. Arges. Cafezates.
Ilicines. Spiders. Cauhares. Pharaoh's mice. Starry lizards. Snakes.
Kesudures. Attelabes. Cuhersks, two- Sea-hares. Ascalabotes. tongued
adders. Chalcidic newts. Haemorrhoids. Amphibious ser- Footed
serpents. Basilisks. pents. Manticores. Fitches. Cenchres. Molures.
Sucking water- Cockatrices. Mouse-serpents. snakes. Dipsades.
Shrew-mice. Miliares. Salamanders. Stinkfish. Megalaunes.
Slowworms. Stuphes. Spitting-asps. Stellions. Sabrins. Porphyri.
Scorpenes. Blood-sucking flies. Pareades. Scorpions. Hornfretters.
Phalanges. Hornworms. Scolopendres. Penphredons. Scalavotins.
Tarantulas. Pinetree-worms. Solofuidars. Blind worms. Ruteles.
Deaf-asps. Tetragnathias. Worms. Horseleeches. Teristales. Rhagions.
Salt-haters. Vipers, &c. Rhaganes. Rot-serpents.
Chapter 4.
LXV.
How Pantagruel passed the time with his servants.
In what hierarchy of such venomous creatures do you place Panurge's
future spouse? asked Friar John. Art thou speaking ill of women, cried
Panurge, thou mangy scoundrel, thou sorry, noddy-peaked shaveling
monk? By the cenomanic paunch and gixy, said Epistemon, Euripides
has written, and makes Andromache say it, that by industry, and the
help of the gods, men had found remedies against all poisonous
creatures; but none was yet found against a bad wife.
This flaunting Euripides, cried Panurge, was gabbling against women
every foot, and therefore was devoured by dogs, as a judgment from
above; as Aristophanes observes. Let's go on. Let him speak that is next.
I can leak now like any stone-horse, said then Epistemon. I am, said
Xenomanes, full as an egg and round as a hoop; my ship's hold can
hold no more, and will now make shift to bear a steady sail. Said
Carpalin, A truce with thirst, a truce with hunger; they are strong, but
wine and meat are stronger. I'm no more in the dumps cried Panurge;
my heart's a pound lighter. I'm in the right cue now, as brisk as a
body-louse, and as merry as a beggar. For my part, I know what I do
when I drink; and it is a true thing (though 'tis in your Euripides) that is
said by that jolly toper Silenus of blessed memory, that--
The man's emphatically mad, Who drinks the best, yet can be sad.
We must not fail to return our humble and hearty thanks to the Being
who, with this good bread, this cool delicious wine, these good meats
and rare dainties, removes from our bodies and minds these pains and
perturbations, and at the same time fills us with pleasure and with food.
But methinks, sir, you did not give an answer to Friar John's question;
which, as I take it, was how to raise good weather. Since you ask no
more than this easy question, answered Pantagruel, I'll strive to give
you satisfaction; and some other time we'll talk of the rest of the
problems, if you will.
Well then, Friar John asked how good weather might be raised. Have
we not raised it? Look up and see our full topsails. Hark how the wind
whistles through the shrouds, what a stiff gale it blows. Observe the
rattling of the tacklings, and see the sheets that fasten the mainsail
behind; the force of the wind puts them upon the stretch. While we
passed our time merrily, the dull weather also passed away; and while
we raised the glasses to our mouths, we also raised the wind by a secret
sympathy in nature.
Thus Atlas and Hercules clubbed to raise and underprop the falling sky,
if you'll believe the wise mythologists, but they raised it some half an
inch too high, Atlas to entertain his guest Hercules more pleasantly,
and Hercules to make himself amends for the thirst which some time
before had tormented him in the deserts of Africa. Your good father,
said Friar John, interrupting him, takes care to free many people from
such an inconveniency; for I have been told by many venerable doctors
that his chief-butler, Turelupin, saves above eighteen hundred pipes of
wine yearly to make servants, and all comers and goers, drink before
they are a-dry. As the camels and dromedaries of a caravan, continued
Pantagruel, use to drink for the thirst that's past, for the present, and for
that to come, so did Hercules; and being thus excessively raised, this
gave new motion to the sky, which is that of titubation and trepidation,
about which our crackbrained astrologers make such a pother. This,
said Panurge, makes the saying good:
While jolly companions carouse it together, A fig for the storm, it gives
way to good weather.
Nay, continued Pantagruel, some will tell you that we have not only
shortened the time of the calm, but also much disburthened the ship;
not like Aesop's basket, by easing it of the provision, but by breaking
our fasts; and that a man is more terrestrial and heavy when fasting than
when he has eaten and drank, even as they pretend that he weighs more
dead than living. However it is, you will grant they are in the right who
take their morning's draught and breakfast before a long journey; then
say that the horses will perform the better, and that a spur in the head is
worth two in the flank; or, in the same horse dialect--
That a cup in the pate Is a mile in the gate.
Don't you know that formerly the Amycleans worshipped the noble
Bacchus above all other gods, and gave him the name of Psila, which in
the Doric dialect signifies wings; for, as the birds raise themselves by a
towering flight with their wings above the clouds, so, with the help of
soaring Bacchus, the powerful juice of the grape, our spirits are exalted
to a pitch above themselves, our bodies are more sprightly, and their
earthly parts become soft and pliant.
Chapter 4.
LXVI.
How, by Pantagruel's order, the Muses were saluted near the isle of
Ganabim.
This fair wind and as fine talk brought us in sight of a high land, which
Pantagruel discovering afar off, showed it Xenomanes, and asked him,
Do you see yonder to the leeward a high rock with two tops, much like
Mount Parnassus in Phocis? I do plainly, answered Xenomanes; 'tis the
isle of Ganabim. Have you a mind to go ashore there? No, returned
Pantagruel. You do well, indeed, said Xenomanes; for there is nothing
worth seeing in the place. The people are all thieves; yet there is the
finest fountain in the world, and a very large forest towards the right
top of the mountain. Your fleet may take in wood and water there.
He that spoke last, spoke well, quoth Panurge; let us not by any means
be so mad as to go among a parcel of thieves and sharpers. You may
take my word for't, this place is just such another as, to my knowledge,
formerly were the islands of Sark and Herm, between the smaller and
the greater Britain; such as was the Poneropolis of Philip in Thrace;
islands of thieves, banditti, picaroons, robbers, ruffians, and murderers,
worse than raw-head and bloody-bones, and full as honest as the senior
fellows of the college of iniquity, the very outcasts of the county gaol's
common-side. As you love yourself, do not go among 'em. If you go
you'll come off but bluely, if you come off at all. If you will not believe
me, at least believe what the good and wise Xenomanes tells you; for
may I never stir if they are not worse than the very cannibals; they
would certainly eat us alive. Do not go among 'em, I pray you; it were
safer to take a journey to hell. Hark! by Cod's body, I hear 'em ringing
the alarm-bell most dreadfully, as the Gascons about Bordeaux used
formerly to do against the commissaries and officers for the tax on salt,
or my ears tingle. Let's sheer off.
Believe me, sir, said Friar John, let's rather land; we will rid the world
of that vermin, and inn there for nothing. Old Nick go with thee for me,
quoth Panurge. This rash hairbrained devil of a friar fears nothing, but
ventures and runs on like a mad devil as he is, and cares not a rush what
becomes of others; as if everyone was a monk, like his friarship. A pox
on grinning honour, say I. Go to, returned the friar, thou mangy
noddy-peak! thou forlorn druggle-headed sneaksby! and may a million
of black devils anatomize thy cockle brain. The hen-hearted rascal is so
cowardly that he berays himself for fear every day. If thou art so afraid,
dunghill, do not go; stay here and be hanged; or go and hide thy
loggerhead under Madam Proserpine's petticoat.
Panurge hearing this, his breech began to make buttons; so he slunk in
in an instant, and went to hide his head down in the bread-room among
the musty biscuits and the orts and scraps of broken bread.
Pantagruel in the meantime said to the rest: I feel a pressing retraction
in my soul, which like a voice admonishes me not to land there.
Whenever I have felt such a motion within me I have found myself
happy in avoiding what it directed me to shun, or in undertaking what it
prompted me to do; and I never had occasion to repent following its
dictates.
As much, said Epistemon, is related of the daemon of Socrates, so
celebrated among the Academics. Well then, sir, said Friar John, while
the ship's crew water have you a mind to have good sport? Panurge is
got down somewhere in the hold, where he is crept into some corner,
and lurks like a mouse in a cranny. Let 'em give the word for the
gunner to fire yon gun over the round-house on the poop; this will
serve to salute the Muses of this Anti-parnassus; besides, the powder
does but decay in it. You are in the right, said Pantagruel; here, give the
word for the gunner.
The gunner immediately came, and was ordered by Pantagruel to fire
that gun, and then charge it with fresh powder, which was soon done.
The gunners of the other ships, frigates, galleons, and galleys of the
fleet, hearing us fire, gave every one a gun to the island; which made
such a horrid noise that you would have sworn heaven had been
tumbling about our ears.
Chapter 4.
LXVII.
How Panurge berayed himself for fear; and of the huge cat Rodilardus,
which he took for a puny devil.
Panurge, like a wild, addle-pated, giddy-goat, sallies out of the bread-
room in his shirt, with nothing else about him but one of his stockings,
half on, half off, about his heel, like a rough-footed pigeon; his hair and
beard all bepowdered with crumbs of bread in which he had been over
head and ears, and a huge and mighty puss partly wrapped up in his
other stocking. In this equipage, his chaps moving like a monkey's
who's a-louse-hunting, his eyes staring like a dead pig's, his teeth
chattering, and his bum quivering, the poor dog fled to Friar John, who
was then sitting by the chain-wales of the starboard side of the ship,
and prayed him heartily to take pity on him and keep him in the
safeguard of his trusty bilbo; swearing, by his share of Papimany, that
he had seen all hell broke loose.
Woe is me, my Jacky, cried he, my dear Johnny, my old crony, my
brother, my ghostly father! all the devils keep holiday, all the devils
keep their feast to-day, man. Pork and peas choke me if ever thou
sawest such preparations in thy life for an infernal feast. Dost thou see
the smoke of hell's kitchens? (This he said, showing him the smoke of
the gunpowder above the ships.) Thou never sawest so many damned
souls since thou wast born; and so fair, so bewitching they seem, that
one would swear they are Stygian ambrosia. I thought at first, God
forgive me! that they had been English souls; and I don't know but that
this morning the isle of Horses, near Scotland, was sacked, with all the
English who had surprised it, by the lords of Termes and Essay.
Friar John, at the approach of Panurge, was entertained with a kind of
smell that was not like that of gunpowder, nor altogether so sweet as
musk; which made him turn Panurge about, and then he saw that his
shirt was dismally bepawed and berayed with fresh sir-reverence. The
retentive faculty of the nerve which restrains the muscle called
sphincter ('tis the arse-hole, an it please you) was relaxated by the
violence of the fear which he had been in during his fantastic visions.
Add to this the thundering noise of the shooting, which seems more
dreadful between decks than above. Nor ought you to wonder at such a
mishap; for one of the symptoms and accidents of fear is, that it often
opens the wicket of the cupboard wherein second-hand meat is kept for
a time. Let's illustrate this noble theme with some examples.
Messer Pantolfe de la Cassina of Siena, riding post from Rome, came
to Chambery, and alighting at honest Vinet's took one of the pitchforks
in the stable; then turning to the innkeeper, said to him, Da Roma in
qua io non son andato del corpo. Di gratia piglia in mano questa forcha,
et fa mi paura. (I have not had a stool since I left Rome. I pray thee take
this pitchfork and fright me.) Vinet took it, and made several offers as
if he would in good earnest have hit the signor, but all in vain; so the
Sienese said to him, Si tu non fai altramente, tu non fai nulla; pero
sforzati di adoperarli piu guagliardamente. (If thou dost not go another
way to work, thou hadst as good do nothing; therefore try to bestir
thyself more briskly.) With this, Vinet lent him such a swinging stoater
with the pitchfork souse between the neck and the collar of his jerkin,
that down fell signor on the ground arsyversy, with his spindle shanks
wide straggling over his poll. Then mine host sputtering, with a
full-mouthed laugh, said to his guest, By Beelzebub's bumgut, much
good may it do you, Signore Italiano. Take notice this is datum
Camberiaci, given at Chambery. 'Twas well the Sienese had untrussed
his points and let down his drawers; for this physic worked with him as
soon as he took it, and as copious was the evacuation as that of nine
buffaloes and fourteen missificating arch- lubbers. Which operation
being over, the mannerly Sienese courteously gave mine host a whole
bushel of thanks, saying to him, Io ti ringratio, bel messere; cosi
facendo tu m' ai esparmiata la speza d'un servitiale. (I thank thee, good
landlord; by this thou hast e'en saved me the expense of a clyster.)
I'll give you another example of Edward V., King of England. Master
Francis Villon, being banished France, fled to him, and got so far into
his favour as to be privy to all his household affairs. One day the king,
being on his close-stool, showed Villon the arms of France, and said to
him, Dost thou see what respect I have for thy French kings? I have
none of their arms anywhere but in this backside, near my close-stool.
Ods- life, said the buffoon, how wise, prudent, and careful of your
health your highness is! How carefully your learned doctor, Thomas
Linacre, looks after you! He saw that now you grow old you are
inclined to be somewhat costive, and every day were fain to have an
apothecary, I mean a suppository or clyster, thrust into your royal
nockandroe; so he has, much to the purpose, induced you to place here
the arms of France; for the very sight of them puts you into such a
dreadful fright that you immediately let fly as much as would come
from eighteen squattering bonasi of Paeonia. And if they were painted
in other parts of your house, by jingo, you would presently conskite
yourself wherever you saw them. Nay, had you but here a picture of the
great oriflamme of France, ods-bodikins, your tripes and bowels would
be in no small danger of dropping out at the orifice of your posteriors.
But henh, henh, atque iterum henh.
A silly cockney am I not, As ever did from Paris come? And with a
rope and sliding knot My neck shall know what weighs my bum.
A cockney of short reach, I say, shallow of judgment and judging
shallowly, to wonder that you should cause your points to be untrussed
in your chamber before you come into this closet. By'r lady, at first I
thought your close-stool had stood behind the hangings of your bed;
otherwise it seemed very odd to me you should untruss so far from the
place of evacuation. But now I find I was a gull, a wittol, a woodcock, a
mere ninny, a dolt-head, a noddy, a changeling, a calf-lolly, a doddipoll.
You do wisely, by the mass, you do wisely; for had you not been ready
to clap your hind face on the mustard-pot as soon as you came within
sight of these arms--mark ye me, cop's body--the bottom of your
breeches had supplied the office of a close- stool.
Friar John, stopping the handle of his face with his left hand, did, with
the forefinger of the right, point out Panurge's shirt to Pantagruel, who,
seeing him in this pickle, scared, appalled, shivering, raving, staring,
berayed, and torn with the claws of the famous cat Rodilardus, could
not choose but laugh, and said to him, Prithee what wouldst thou do
with this cat? With this cat? quoth Panurge; the devil scratch me if I did
not think it had been a young soft-chinned devil, which, with this same
stocking instead of mitten, I had snatched up in the great hutch of hell
as thievishly as any sizar of Montague college could have done. The
devil take Tybert! I feel it has all bepinked my poor hide, and drawn on
it to the life I don't know how many lobsters' whiskers. With this he
threw his boar-cat down.
Go, go, said Pantagruel, be bathed and cleaned, calm your fears, put on
a clean shift, and then your clothes. What! do you think I am afraid?
cried Panurge. Not I, I protest. By the testicles of Hercules, I am more
hearty, bold, and stout, though I say it that should not, than if I had
swallowed as many flies as are put into plumcakes and other paste at
Paris from Midsummer to Christmas. But what's this? Hah! oh, ho!
how the devil came I by this? Do you call this what the cat left in the
malt, filth, dirt, dung, dejection, faecal matter, excrement, stercoration,
sir-reverence, ordure, second-hand meats, fumets, stronts, scybal, or
spyrathe? 'Tis Hibernian saffron, I protest. Hah, hah, hah! 'tis Irish
saffron, by Shaint Pautrick, and so much for this time. Selah. Let's
drink.
THE FIFTH BOOK
The Author's Prologue.
Indefatigable topers, and you, thrice precious martyrs of the smock,
give me leave to put a serious question to your worships while you are
idly striking your codpieces, and I myself not much better employed.
Pray, why is it that people say that men are not such sots nowadays as
they were in the days of yore? Sot is an old word that signifies a dunce,
dullard, jolthead, gull, wittol, or noddy, one without guts in his brains,
whose cockloft is unfurnished, and, in short, a fool. Now would I know
whether you would have us understand by this same saying, as indeed
you logically may, that formerly men were fools and in this generation
are grown wise? How many and what dispositions made them fools?
How many and what dispositions were wanting to make 'em wise?
Why were they fools? How should they be wise? Pray, how came you
to know that men were formerly fools? How did you find that they are
now wise? Who the devil made 'em fools? Who a God's name made
'em wise? Who d'ye think are most, those that loved mankind foolish,
or those that love it wise? How long has it been wise? How long
otherwise? Whence proceeded the foregoing folly? Whence the
following wisdom? Why did the old folly end now, and no later? Why
did the modern wisdom begin now, and no sooner? What were we the
worse for the former folly? What the better for the succeeding wisdom?
How should the ancient folly be come to nothing? How should this
same new wisdom be started up and established?
Now answer me, an't please you. I dare not adjure you in stronger terms,
reverend sirs, lest I make your pious fatherly worships in the least
uneasy. Come, pluck up a good heart; speak the truth and shame the
devil. Be cheery, my lads; and if you are for me, take me off three or
five bumpers of the best, while I make a halt at the first part of the
sermon; then answer my question. If you are not for me, avaunt! avoid,
Satan! For I swear by my great-grandmother's placket (and that's a
horrid oath), that if you don't help me to solve that puzzling problem, I
will, nay, I already do repent having proposed it; for still I must remain
nettled and gravelled, and a devil a bit I know how to get off. Well,
what say you? I'faith, I begin to smell you out. You are not yet disposed
to give me an answer; nor I neither, by these whiskers. Yet to give
some light into the business, I'll e'en tell you what had been anciently
foretold in the matter by a venerable doctor, who, being moved by the
spirit in a prophetic vein, wrote a book ycleped the Prelatical Bagpipe.
What d'ye think the old fornicator saith? Hearken, you old noddies,
hearken now or never.
The jubilee's year, when all like fools were shorn, Is about thirty
supernumerary. O want of veneration! fools they seemed, But,
persevering, with long breves, at last No more they shall be gaping
greedy fools. For they shall shell the shrub's delicious fruit, Whose
flower they in the spring so much had feared.
Now you have it, what do you make on't? The seer is ancient, the style
laconic, the sentences dark like those of Scotus, though they treat of
matters dark enough in themselves. The best commentators on that
good father take the jubilee after the thirtieth to be the years that are
included in this present age till 1550 (there being but one jubilee every
fifty years). Men shall no longer be thought fools next green peas
season.
The fools, whose number, as Solomon certifies, is infinite, shall go to
pot like a parcel of mad bedlamites as they are; and all manner of folly
shall have an end, that being also numberless, according to Avicenna,
maniae infinitae sunt species. Having been driven back and hidden
towards the centre during the rigour of the winter, 'tis now to be seen
on the surface, and buds out like the trees. This is as plain as a nose in a
man's face; you know it by experience; you see it. And it was formerly
found out by that great good man Hippocrates, Aphorism Verae etenim
maniae, &c. This world therefore wisifying itself, shall no longer dread
the flower and blossoms of every coming spring, that is, as you may
piously believe, bumper in hand and tears in eyes, in the woeful time of
Lent, which used to keep them company.
Whole cartloads of books that seemed florid, flourishing, and flowery,
gay, and gaudy as so many butterflies, but in the main were tiresome,
dull, soporiferous, irksome, mischievous, crabbed, knotty, puzzling,
and dark as those of whining Heraclitus, as unintelligible as the
numbers of Pythagoras, that king of the bean, according to Horace;
those books, I say, have seen their best days and shall soon come to
nothing, being delivered to the executing worms and merciless petty
chandlers; such was their destiny, and to this they were predestinated.
In their stead beans in cod are started up; that is, these merry and
fructifying Pantagruelian books, so much sought nowadays in
expectation of the following jubilee's period; to the study of which
writings all people have given their minds, and accordingly have
gained the name of wise.
Now I think I have fairly solved and resolved your problem; then
reform, and be the better for it. Hem once or twice like hearts of oak;
stand to your pan-puddings, and take me off your bumpers, nine
go-downs, and huzza! since we are like to have a good vintage, and
misers hang themselves. Oh! they will cost me an estate in hempen
collars if fair weather hold. For I hereby promise to furnish them with
twice as much as will do their business on free cost, as often as they
will take the pains to dance at a rope's end providently to save charges,
to the no small disappointment of the finisher of the law.
Now, my friends, that you may put in for a share of this new wisdom,
and shake off the antiquated folly this very moment, scratch me out of
your scrolls and quite discard the symbol of the old philosopher with
the golden thigh, by which he has forbidden you to eat beans; for you
may take it for a truth granted among all professors in the science of
good eating, that he enjoined you not to taste of them only with the
same kind intent that a certain fresh-water physician had when he did
forbid to Amer, late Lord of Camelotiere, kinsman to the lawyer of that
name, the wing of the partridge, the rump of the chicken, and the neck
of the pigeon, saying, Ala mala, rumpum dubium, collum bonum, pelle
remota. For the duncical dog-leech was so selfish as to reserve them for
his own dainty chops, and allowed his poor patients little more than the
bare bones to pick, lest they should overload their squeamish stomachs.
To the heathen philosopher succeeded a pack of Capuchins, monks who
forbid us the use of beans, that is, Pantagruelian books. They seem to
follow the example of Philoxenus and Gnatho, one of whom was a
Sicilian of fulsome memory, the ancient master-builders of their
monastic cram-gut voluptuousness, who, when some dainty bit was
served up at a feast, filthily used to spit on it, that none but their nasty
selves might have the stomach to eat of it, though their liquorish chops
watered never so much after it.
So those hideous, snotty, phthisicky, eaves-dropping, musty, moving
forms of mortification, both in public and private, curse those dainty
books, and like toads spit their venom upon them.
Now, though we have in our mother-tongue several excellent works in
verse and prose, and, heaven be praised! but little left of the trash and
trumpery stuff of those duncical mumblers of ave-maries and the
barbarous foregoing Gothic age, I have made bold to choose to chirrup
and warble my plain ditty, or, as they say, to whistle like a goose
among the swans, rather than be thought deaf among so many pretty
poets and eloquent orators. And thus I am prouder of acting the clown,
or any other under- part, among the many ingenious actors in that noble
play, than of herding among those mutes, who, like so many shadows
and ciphers, only serve to fill up the house and make up a number,
gaping and yawning at the flies, and pricking up their lugs, like so
many Arcadian asses, at the striking up of the music; thus silently
giving to understand that their fopships are tickled in the right place.
Having taken this resolution, I thought it would not be amiss to move
my Diogenical tub, that you might not accuse me of living without
example. I see a swarm of our modern poets and orators, your Colinets,
Marots, Drouets, Saint Gelais, Salels, Masuels, and many more, who,
having commenced masters in Apollo's academy on Mount Parnassus,
and drunk brimmers at the Caballin fountain among the nine merry
Muses, have raised our vulgar tongue, and made it a noble and
everlasting structure. Their works are all Parian marble, alabaster,
porphyry, and royal cement; they treat of nothing but heroic deeds,
mighty things, grave and difficult matters, and this in a crimson,
alamode, rhetorical style. Their writings are all divine nectar, rich, racy,
sparkling, delicate, and luscious wine. Nor does our sex wholly engross
this honour; ladies have had their share of the glory; one of them, of the
royal blood of France, whom it were a profanation but to name here,
surprises the age at once by the transcendent and inventive genius in
her writings and the admirable graces of her style. Imitate those great
examples if you can; for my part I cannot. Everyone, you know, cannot
go to Corinth. When Solomon built the temple, all could not give gold
by handfuls.
Since then 'tis not in my power to improve our architecture as much as
they, I am e'en resolved to do like Renault of Montauban: I'll wait on
the masons, set on the pot for the masons, cook for the stone-cutters;
and since it was not my good luck to be cut out for one of them, I will
live and die the admirer of their divine writings.
As for you, little envious prigs, snarling bastards, puny critics, you'll
soon have railed your last; go hang yourselves, and choose you out
some well-spread oak, under whose shade you may swing in state, to
the admiration of the gaping mob; you shall never want rope enough.
While I here solemnly protest before my Helicon, in the presence of my
nine mistresses the Muses, that if I live yet the age of a dog, eked out
with that of three crows, sound wind and limbs, like the old Hebrew
captain Moses, Xenophilus the musician, and Demonax the philosopher,
by arguments no ways impertinent, and reasons not to be disputed, I
will prove, in the teeth of a parcel of brokers and retailers of ancient
rhapsodies and such mouldy trash, that our vulgar tongue is not so
mean, silly, inept, poor, barren, and contemptible as they pretend. Nor
ought I to be afraid of I know not what botchers of old threadbare stuff,
a hundred and a hundred times clouted up and pieced together;
wretched bunglers that can do nothing but new-vamp old rusty saws;
beggarly scavengers that rake even the muddiest canals of antiquity for
scraps and bits of Latin as insignificant as they are often uncertain.
Beseeching our grandees of Witland that, as when formerly Apollo had
distributed all the treasures of his poetical exchequer to his favourites,
little hulchbacked Aesop got for himself the office of apologue-monger;
in the same manner, since I do not aspire higher, they would not deny
me that of puny rhyparographer, or riffraff follower of the sect of
Pyreicus.
I dare swear they will grant me this; for they are all so kind, so good-
natured, and so generous, that they'll ne'er boggle at so small a request.
Therefore, both dry and hungry souls, pot and trenchermen, fully
enjoying those books, perusing, quoting them in their merry
conventicles, and observing the great mysteries of which they treat,
shall gain a singular profit and fame; as in the like case was done by
Alexander the Great with the books of prime philosophy composed by
Aristotle.
O rare! belly on belly! what swillers, what twisters will there be!
Then be sure all you that take care not to die of the pip, be sure, I say,
you take my advice, and stock yourselves with good store of such
books as soon as you meet with them at the booksellers; and do not
only shell those beans, but e'en swallow them down like an opiate
cordial, and let them be in you; I say, let them be within you; then you
shall find, my beloved, what good they do to all clever shellers of
beans.
Here is a good handsome basketful of them, which I here lay before
your worships; they were gathered in the very individual garden
whence the former came. So I beseech you, reverend sirs, with as much
respect as was ever paid by dedicating author, to accept of the gift, in
hopes of somewhat better against next visit the swallows give us.
THE FIFTH BOOK.
Chapter 5.
I.
How Pantagruel arrived at the Ringing Island, and of the noise that we
heard.
Pursuing our voyage, we sailed three days without discovering
anything; on the fourth we made land. Our pilot told us that it was the
Ringing Island, and indeed we heard a kind of a confused and often
repeated noise, that seemed to us at a great distance not unlike the
sound of great, middle- sized, and little bells rung all at once, as 'tis
customary at Paris, Tours, Gergeau, Nantes, and elsewhere on high
holidays; and the nearer we came to the land the louder we heard that
jangling.
Some of us doubted that it was the Dodonian kettle, or the portico
called Heptaphone in Olympia, or the eternal humming of the colossus
raised on Memnon's tomb in Thebes of Egypt, or the horrid din that
used formerly to be heard about a tomb at Lipara, one of the Aeolian
islands. But this did not square with chorography.
I do not know, said Pantagruel, but that some swarms of bees
hereabouts may be taking a ramble in the air, and so the neighbourhood
make this dingle- dangle with pans, kettles, and basins, the corybantine
cymbals of Cybele, grandmother of the gods, to call them back. Let's
hearken. When we were nearer, among the everlasting ringing of these
indefatigable bells we heard the singing, as we thought, of some men.
For this reason, before we offered to land on the Ringing Island,
Pantagruel was of opinion that we should go in the pinnace to a small
rock, near which we discovered an hermitage and a little garden. There
we found a diminutive old hermit, whose name was Braguibus, born at
Glenay. He gave us a full account of all the jangling, and regaled us
after a strange sort of fashion--four livelong days did he make us fast,
assuring us that we should not be admitted into the Ringing Island
otherwise, because it was then one of the four fasting, or ember weeks.
As I love my belly, quoth Panurge, I by no means understand this
riddle. Methinks this should rather be one of the four windy weeks; for
while we fast we are only puffed up with wind. Pray now, good father
hermit, have not you here some other pastime besides fasting?
Methinks it is somewhat of the leanest; we might well enough be
without so many palace holidays and those fasting times of yours. In
my Donatus, quoth Friar John, I could find yet but three times or tenses,
the preterit, the present, and the future; doubtless here the fourth ought
to be a work of supererogation. That time or tense, said Epistemon, is
aorist, derived from the preter-imperfect tense of the Greeks, admitted
in war (?) and odd cases. Patience perforce is a remedy for a mad dog.
Saith the hermit: It is, as I told you, fatal to go against this; whosoever
does it is a rank heretic, and wants nothing but fire and faggot, that's
certain. To deal plainly with you, my dear pater, cried Panurge, being at
sea, I much more fear being wet than being warm, and being drowned
than being burned.
Well, however, let us fast, a God's name; yet I have fasted so long that
it has quite undermined my flesh, and I fear that at last the bastions of
this bodily fort of mine will fall to ruin. Besides, I am much more
afraid of vexing you in this same trade of fasting; for the devil a bit I
understand anything in it, and it becomes me very scurvily, as several
people have told me, and I am apt to believe them. For my part, I have
no great stomach to fasting; for alas! it is as easy as pissing a bed, and a
trade of which anybody may set up; there needs no tools. I am much
more inclined not to fast for the future; for to do so there is some stock
required, and some tools are set a-work. No matter, since you are so
steadfast, and would have us fast, let us fast as fast as we can, and then
breakfast in the name of famine. Now we are come to these esurial idle
days. I vow I had quite put them out of my head long ago. If we must
fast, said Pantagruel, I see no other remedy but to get rid of it as soon
as we can, as we would out of a bad way. I'll in that space of time
somewhat look over my papers, and examine whether the marine study
be as good as ours at land. For Plato, to describe a silly, raw, ignorant
fellow, compares him to those that are bred on shipboard, as we would
do one bred up in a barrel, who never saw anything but through the
bung-hole.
To tell you the short and the long of the matter, our fasting was most
hideous and terrible; for the first day we fasted on fisticuffs, the second
at cudgels, the third at sharps, and the fourth at blood and wounds: such
was the order of the fairies.
Chapter 5.
II.
How the Ringing Island had been inhabited by the Siticines, who were
become birds.
Having fasted as aforesaid, the hermit gave us a letter for one whom he
called Albian Camar, Master Aedituus of the Ringing Island; but
Panurge greeting him called him Master Antitus. He was a little queer
old fellow, bald-pated, with a snout whereat you might easily have
lighted a card- match, and a phiz as red as a cardinal's cap. He made us
all very welcome, upon the hermit's recommendation, hearing that we
had fasted, as I have told you.
When we had well stuffed our puddings, he gave us an account of what
was remarkable in the island, affirming that it had been at first
inhabited by the Siticines; but that, according to the course of
nature--as all things, you know, are subject to change--they were
become birds.
There I had a full account of all that Atteius Capito, Paulus, Marcellus,
A. Gellius, Athenaeus, Suidas, Ammonius, and others had writ of the
Siticines and Sicinnists; and then we thought we might as easily believe
the transmutations of Nectymene, Progne, Itys, Alcyone, Antigone,
Tereus, and other birds. Nor did we think it more reasonable to doubt
of the transmogrification of the Macrobian children into swans, or that
of the men of Pallene in Thrace into birds, as soon as they had bathed
themselves in the Tritonic lake. After this the devil a word could we get
out of him but of birds and cages.
The cages were spacious, costly, magnificent, and of an admirable
architecture. The birds were large, fine, and neat accordingly, looking
as like the men in my country as one pea does like another; for they ate
and drank like men, muted like men, endued or digested like men,
farted like men, but stunk like devils; slept, billed, and trod their
females like men, but somewhat oftener: in short, had you seen and
examined them from top to toe, you would have laid your head to a
turnip that they had been mere men. However, they were nothing less,
as Master Aedituus told us; assuring us, at the same time, that they
were neither secular nor laic; and the truth is, the diversity of their
feathers and plumes did not a little puzzle us.
Some of them were all over as white as swans, others as black as crows,
many as grey as owls, others black and white like magpies, some all
red like red-birds, and others purple and white like some pigeons. He
called the males clerg-hawks, monk-hawks, priest-hawks, abbot-hawks,
bish-hawks, cardin-hawks, and one pope-hawk, who is a species by
himself. He called the females clerg-kites, nun-kites, priest-kites,
abbess-kites, bish-kites, cardin-kites, and pope-kites.
However, said he, as hornets and drones will get among the bees, and
there do nothing but buzz, eat, and spoil everything; so, for these last
three hundred years, a vast swarm of bigottelloes flocked, I do not
know how, among these goodly birds every fifth full moon, and have
bemuted, berayed, and conskited the whole island. They are so
hard-favoured and monstrous that none can abide them. For their wry
necks make a figure like a crooked billet; their paws are hairy, like
those of rough-footed pigeons; their claws and pounces, belly and
breech, like those of the Stymphalid harpies. Nor is it possible to root
them out, for if you get rid of one, straight four-and-twenty new ones
fly thither.
There had been need of another monster-hunter such as was Hercules;
for Friar John had like to have run distracted about it, so much he was
nettled and puzzled in the matter. As for the good Pantagruel, he was
even served as was Messer Priapus, contemplating the sacrifices of
Ceres, for want of skin.
Chapter 5.
III.
How there is but one pope-hawk in the Ringing Island.
We then asked Master Aedituus why there was but one pope-hawk
among such venerable birds multiplied in all their species. He answered
that such was the first institution and fatal destiny of the stars that the
clerg-hawks begot the priest-hawks and monk-hawks without carnal
copulation, as some bees are born of a young bull; the priest-hawks
begat the bish-hawks, the bish-hawks the stately cardin-hawks, and the
stately cardin-hawks, if they live long enough, at last come to be
pope-hawk.
Of this last kind there never is more than one at a time, as in a beehive
there is but one king, and in the world is but one sun.
When the pope-hawk dies, another arises in his stead out of the whole
brood of cardin-hawks, that is, as you must understand it all along,
without carnal copulation. So that there is in that species an individual
unity, with a perpetuity of succession, neither more or less than in the
Arabian phoenix.
'Tis true that, about two thousand seven hundred and sixty moons ago,
two pope-hawks were seen upon the face of the earth; but then you
never saw in your lives such a woeful rout and hurly-burly as was all
over this island. For all these same birds did so peck, clapperclaw, and
maul one another all that time, that there was the devil and all to do,
and the island was in a fair way of being left without inhabitants. Some
stood up for this pope- hawk, some for t'other. Some, struck with a
dumbness, were as mute as so many fishes; the devil a note was to be
got out of them; part of the merry bells here were as silent as if they
had lost their tongues, I mean their clappers.
During these troublesome times they called to their assistance the
emperors, kings, dukes, earls, barons, and commonwealths of the world
that live on t'other side the water; nor was this schism and sedition at an
end till one of them died, and the plurality was reduced to a unity.
We then asked what moved those birds to be thus continually chanting
and singing. He answered that it was the bells that hung on the top of
their cages. Then he said to us, Will you have me make these
monk-hawks whom you see bardocuculated with a bag such as you use
to still brandy, sing like any woodlarks? Pray do, said we. He then gave
half-a-dozen pulls to a little rope, which caused a diminutive bell to
give so many ting-tangs; and presently a parcel of monk-hawks ran to
him as if the devil had drove 'em, and fell a-singing like mad.
Pray, master, cried Panurge, if I also rang this bell could I make those
other birds yonder, with red-herring-coloured feathers, sing? Ay, marry
would you, returned Aedituus. With this Panurge hanged himself (by
the hands, I mean) at the bell-rope's end, and no sooner made it speak
but those smoked birds hied them thither and began to lift up their
voices and make a sort of untowardly hoarse noise, which I grudge to
call singing. Aedituus indeed told us that they fed on nothing but fish,
like the herns and cormorants of the world, and that they were a fifth
kind of cucullati newly stamped.
He added that he had been told by Robert Valbringue, who lately
passed that way in his return from Africa, that a sixth kind was to fly
hither out of hand, which he called capus-hawks, more grum,
vinegar-faced, brain-sick, froward, and loathsome than any kind
whatsoever in the whole island. Africa, said Pantagruel, still uses to
produce some new and monstrous thing.
Chapter 5.
IV.
How the birds of the Ringing Island were all passengers.
Since you have told us, said Pantagruel, how the pope-hawk is begot by
the cardin-hawks, the cardin-hawks by the bish-hawks, and the
bish-hawks by the priest-hawks, and the priest-hawks by the
clerg-hawks, I would gladly know whence you have these same
clerg-hawks. They are all of them passengers, or travelling birds,
returned Aedituus, and come hither from t'other world; part out of a
vast country called Want-o'-bread, the rest out of another toward the
west, which they style Too-many-of-'em. From these two countries
flock hither, every year, whole legions of these clerg-hawks, leaving
their fathers, mothers, friends, and relations.
This happens when there are too many children, whether male or
female, in some good family of the latter country; insomuch that the
house would come to nothing if the paternal estate were shared among
them all (as reason requires, nature directs, and God commands). For
this cause parents use to rid themselves of that inconveniency by
packing off the younger fry, and forcing them to seek their fortune in
this isle Bossart (Crooked Island). I suppose he means L'Isle Bouchart,
near Chinon, cried Panurge. No, replied t'other, I mean Bossart
(Crooked), for there is not one in ten among them but is either crooked,
crippled, blinking, limping, ill-favoured, deformed, or an unprofitable
load to the earth.
'Twas quite otherwise among the heathens, said Pantagruel, when they
used to receive a maiden among the number of vestals; for Leo
Antistius affirms that it was absolutely forbidden to admit a virgin into
that order if she had any vice in her soul or defect in her body, though it
were but the smallest spot on any part of it. I can hardly believe,
continued Aedituus, that their dams on t'other side the water go nine
months with them; for they cannot endure them nine years, nay, scarce
seven sometimes, in the house, but by putting only a shirt over the
other clothes of the young urchins, and lopping off I don't well know
how many hairs from their crowns, mumbling certain apostrophized
and expiatory words, they visibly, openly, and plainly, by a
Pythagorical metempsychosis, without the least hurt, transmogrify
them into such birds as you now see; much after the fashion of the
Egyptian heathens, who used to constitute their isiacs by shaving them
and making them put on certain linostoles, or surplices. However, I
don't know, my good friends, but that these she-things, whether
clerg-kites, monk-kites, and abbess-kites, instead of singing pleasant
verses and charisteres, such as used to be sung to Oromasis by
Zoroaster's institution, may be bellowing out such catarates and
scythropys (cursed lamentable and wretched imprecations) as were
usually offered to the Arimanian demon; being thus in devotion for
their kind friends and relations that transformed them into birds,
whether when they were maids, or thornbacks, in their prime, or at their
last prayers.
But the greatest numbers of our birds came out of Want-o'-bread, which,
though a barren country, where the days are of a most tedious lingering
length, overstocks this whole island with the lower class of birds. For
hither fly the asapheis that inhabit that land, either when they are in
danger of passing their time scurvily for want of belly-timber, being
unable, or, what's more likely, unwilling to take heart of grace and
follow some honest lawful calling, or too proud-hearted and lazy to go
to service in some sober family. The same is done by your frantic
inamoradoes, who, when crossed in their wild desires, grow stark
staring mad, and choose this life suggested to them by their despair, too
cowardly to make them swing, like their brother Iphis of doleful
memory. There is another sort, that is, your gaol-birds, who, having
done some rogue's trick or other heinous villainy, and being sought up
and down to be trussed up and made to ride the two or three-legged
mare that groans for them, warily scour off and come here to save their
bacon; because all these sorts of birds are here provided for, and grow
in an instant as fat as hogs, though they came as lean as rakes; for
having the benefit of the clergy, they are as safe as thieves in a mill
within this sanctuary.
But, asked Pantagruel, do these birds never return to the world where
they were hatched? Some do, answered Aedituus; formerly very few,
very seldom, very late, and very unwillingly; however, since some
certain eclipses, by the virtue of the celestial constellations, a great
crowd of them fled back to the world. Nor do we fret or vex ourselves a
jot about it; for those that stay wisely sing, The fewer the better cheer;
and all those that fly away, first cast off their feathers here among these
nettles and briars.
Accordingly we found some thrown by there; and as we looked up and
down, we chanced to light on what some people will hardly thank us
for having discovered; and thereby hangs a tale.
Chapter 5.
V.
Of the dumb Knight-hawks of the Ringing Island.
These words were scarce out of his mouth when some five-and-twenty
or thirty birds flew towards us; they were of a hue and feather like
which we had not seen anything in the whole island. Their plumes were
as changeable as the skin of the chameleon, and the flower of tripolion,
or teucrion. They had all under the left wing a mark like two diameters
dividing a circle into equal parts, or, if you had rather have it so, like a
perpendicular line falling on a right line. The marks which each of them
bore were much of the same shape, but of different colours; for some
were white, others green, some red, others purple, and some blue. Who
are those? asked Panurge; and how do you call them? They are
mongrels, quoth Aedituus.
We call them knight-hawks, and they have a great number of rich
commanderies (fat livings) in your world. Good your worship, said I,
make them give us a song, an't please you, that we may know how they
sing. They scorn your words, cried Aedituus; they are none of your
singing-birds; but, to make amends, they feed as much as the best two
of them all. Pray where are their hens? where are their females? said I.
They have none, answered Aedituus. How comes it to pass then, asked
Panurge, that they are thus bescabbed, bescurfed, all embroidered o'er
the phiz with carbuncles, pushes, and pock-royals, some of which
undermine the handles of their faces? This same fashionable and
illustrious disease, quoth Aedituus, is common among that kind of birds,
because they are pretty apt to be tossed on the salt deep.
He then acquainted us with the occasion of their coming. This next to
us, said he, looks so wistfully upon you to see whether he may not find
among your company a stately gaudy kind of huge dreadful birds of
prey, which yet are so untoward that they ne'er could be brought to the
lure nor to perch on the glove. They tell us that there are such in your
world, and that some of them have goodly garters below the knee with
an inscription about them which condemns him (qui mal y pense) who
shall think ill of it to be berayed and conskited. Others are said to wear
the devil in a string before their paunches; and others a ram's skin. All
that's true enough, good Master Aedituus, quoth Panurge; but we have
not the honour to be acquainted with their knightships.
Come on, cried Aedituus in a merry mood, we have had chat enough o'
conscience! let's e'en go drink. And eat, quoth Panurge. Eat, replied
Aedituus, and drink bravely, old boy; twist like plough-jobbers and
swill like tinkers. Pull away and save tide, for nothing is so dear and
precious as time; therefore we will be sure to put it to a good use.
He would fain have carried us first to bathe in the bagnios of the
cardin- hawks, which are goodly delicious places, and have us licked
over with precious ointments by the alyptes, alias rubbers, as soon as
we should come out of the bath. But Pantagruel told him that he could
drink but too much without that. He then led us into a spacious delicate
refectory, or fratery-room, and told us: Braguibus the hermit made you
fast four days together; now, contrariwise, I'll make you eat and drink
of the best four days through stitch before you budge from this place.
But hark ye me, cried Panurge, may not we take a nap in the mean time?
Ay, ay, answered Aedituus; that is as you shall think good; for he that
sleeps, drinks. Good Lord! how we lived! what good bub! what dainty
cheer! O what a honest cod was this same Aedituus!
Chapter 5.
VI.
How the birds are crammed in the Ringing Island.
Pantagruel looked I don't know howish, and seemed not very well
pleased with the four days' junketting which Aedituus enjoined us.
Aedituus, who soon found it out, said to him, You know, sir, that seven
days before winter, and seven days after, there is no storm at sea; for
then the elements are still out of respect for the halcyons, or
king-fishers, birds sacred to Thetis, which then lay their eggs and hatch
their young near the shore. Now here the sea makes itself amends for
this long calm; and whenever any foreigners come hither it grows
boisterous and stormy for four days together. We can give no other
reason for it but that it is a piece of its civility, that those who come
among us may stay whether they will or no, and be copiously feasted
all the while with the incomes of the ringing. Therefore pray don't think
your time lost; for, willing, nilling, you'll be forced to stay, unless you
are resolved to encounter Juno, Neptune, Doris, Aeolus, and his
fluster-busters, and, in short, all the pack of ill-natured left-handed
godlings and vejoves. Do but resolve to be cheery, and fall-to briskly.
After we had pretty well stayed our stomachs with some tight snatches,
Friar John said to Aedituus, For aught I see, you have none but a parcel
of birds and cages in this island of yours, and the devil a bit of one of
them all that sets his hand to the plough, or tills the land whose fat he
devours; their whole business is to be frolic, to chirp it, to whistle it, to
warble it, tossing it, and roar it merrily night and day. Pray then, if I
may be so bold, whence comes this plenty and overflowing of all
dainty bits and good things which we see among you? From all the
other world, returned Aedituus, if you except some part of the northern
regions, who of late years have stirred up the jakes. Mum! they may
chance ere long to rue the day they did so; their cows shall have
porridge, and their dogs oats; there will be work made among them,
that there will. Come, a fig for't, let's drink. But pray what countrymen
are you? Touraine is our country, answered Panurge. Cod so, cried
Aedituus, you were not then hatched of an ill bird, I will say that for
you, since the blessed Touraine is your mother; for from thence there
comes hither every year such a vast store of good things, that we were
told by some folks of the place that happened to touch at this island,
that your Duke of Touraine's income will not afford him to eat his
bellyful of beans and bacon (a good dish spoiled between Moses and
Pythagoras) because his predecessors have been more than liberal to
these most holy birds of ours, that we might here munch it, twist it,
cram it, gorge it, craw it, riot it, junket it, and tickle it off, stuffing our
puddings with dainty pheasants, partridges, pullets with eggs, fat
capons of Loudunois, and all sorts of venison and wild fowl. Come,
box it about; tope on, my friends. Pray do you see yon jolly birds that
are perched together, how fat, how plump, and in good case they look,
with the income that Touraine yields us! And in faith they sing rarely
for their good founders, that is the truth on't. You never saw any
Arcadian birds mumble more fairly than they do over a dish when they
see these two gilt batons, or when I ring for them those great bells that
you see above their cages. Drink on, sirs, whip it away. Verily, friends,
'tis very fine drinking to-day, and so 'tis every day o' the week; then
drink on, toss it about, here's to you with all my soul. You are most
heartily welcome; never spare it, I pray you; fear not we should ever
want good bub and belly-timber; for, look here, though the sky were of
brass, and the earth of iron, we should not want wherewithal to stuff the
gut, though they were to continue so seven or eight years longer than
the famine in Egypt. Let us then, with brotherly love and charity,
refresh ourselves here with the creature.
Woons, man, cried Panurge, what a rare time you have on't in this
world! Psha, returned Aedituus, this is nothing to what we shall have in
t'other; the Elysian fields will be the least that can fall to our lot. Come,
in the meantime let us drink here; come, here's to thee, old fuddlecap.
Your first Siticines, said I, were superlatively wise in devising thus a
means for you to compass whatever all men naturally covet so much,
and so few, or, to speak more properly, none can enjoy together--I
mean, a paradise in this life, and another in the next. Sure you were
born wrapt in your mother's smickets! O happy creatures! O more than
men! Would I had the luck to fare like you! (Motteux inserts Chapter
XVI. after Chapter VI.)
Chapter 5.
VII.
How Panurge related to Master Aedituus the fable of the horse and the
ass.
When we had crammed and crammed again, Aedituus took us into a
chamber that was well furnished, hung with tapestry, and finely gilt.
Thither he caused to be brought store of mirobolans, cashou, green
ginger preserved, with plenty of hippocras, and delicious wine. With
those antidotes, that were like a sweet Lethe, he invited us to forget the
hardships of our voyage; and at the same time he sent plenty of
provisions on board our ship that rid in the harbour. After this, we e'en
jogged to bed for that night; but the devil a bit poor pilgarlic could
sleep one wink--the everlasting jingle-jangle of the bells kept me awake
whether I would or no.
About midnight Aedituus came to wake us that we might drink. He
himself showed us the way, saying: You men of t'other world say that
ignorance is the mother of all evil, and so far you are right; yet for all
that you do not take the least care to get rid of it, but still plod on, and
live in it, with it, and by it; for which a plaguy deal of mischief lights
on you every day, and you are right enough served--you are perpetually
ailing somewhat, making a moan, and never right. It is what I was
ruminating upon just now. And, indeed, ignorance keeps you here
fastened in bed, just as that bully-rock Mars was detained by Vulcan's
art; for all the while you do not mind that you ought to spare some of
your rest, and be as lavish as you can of the goods of this famous island.
Come, come, you should have eaten three breakfasts already; and take
this from me for a certain truth, that if you would consume the
mouth-ammunition of this island, you must rise betimes; eat them, they
multiply; spare them, they diminish.
For example, mow a field in due season, and the grass will grow
thicker and better; don't mow it, and in a short time 'twill be floored
with moss. Let's drink, and drink again, my friends; come, let's all
carouse it. The leanest of our birds are now singing to us all; we'll drink
to them, if you please. Let's take off one, two, three, nine bumpers. Non
zelus, sed caritas.
When day, peeping in the east, made the sky turn from black to red like
a boiling lobster, he waked us again to take a dish of monastical brewis.
From that time we made but one meal, that only lasted the whole day;
so that I cannot well tell how I may call it, whether dinner, supper,
nunchion, or after-supper; only, to get a stomach, we took a turn or two
in the island, to see and hear the blessed singing-birds.
At night Panurge said to Aedituus: Give me leave, sweet sir, to tell you
a merry story of something that happened some three and twenty
moons ago in the country of Chastelleraud.
One day in April, a certain gentleman's groom, Roger by name, was
walking his master's horses in some fallow ground. There 'twas his
good fortune to find a pretty shepherdess feeding her bleating sheep
and harmless lambkins on the brow of a neighbouring mountain, in the
shade of an adjacent grove; near her, some frisking kids tripped it over
a green carpet of nature's own spreading, and, to complete the
landscape, there stood an ass. Roger, who was a wag, had a dish of chat
with her, and after some ifs, ands, and buts, hems and heighs on her
side, got her in the mind to get up behind him, to go and see his stable,
and there take a bit by the bye in a civil way. While they were holding a
parley, the horse, directing his discourse to the ass (for all brute beasts
spoke that year in divers places), whispered these words in his ear: Poor
ass, how I pity thee! thou slavest like any hack, I read it on thy crupper.
Thou dost well, however, since God has created thee to serve mankind;
thou art a very honest ass, but not to be better rubbed down,
currycombed, trapped, and fed than thou art, seems to me indeed to be
too hard a lot. Alas! thou art all rough-coated, in ill plight, jaded,
foundered, crestfallen, and drooping, like a mooting duck, and feedest
here on nothing but coarse grass, or briars and thistles. Therefore do but
pace it along with me, and thou shalt see how we noble steeds, made by
nature for war, are treated. Come, thou'lt lose nothing by coming; I'll
get thee a taste of my fare. I' troth, sir, I can but love you and thank you,
returned the ass; I'll wait on you, good Mr. Steed. Methinks, gaffer ass,
you might as well have said Sir Grandpaw Steed. O! cry mercy, good
Sir Grandpaw, returned the ass; we country clowns are somewhat gross,
and apt to knock words out of joint. However, an't please you, I will
come after your worship at some distance, lest for taking this run my
side should chance to be firked and curried with a vengeance, as it is
but too often, the more is my sorrow.
The shepherdess being got behind Roger, the ass followed, fully
resolved to bait like a prince with Roger's steed; but when they got to
the stable, the groom, who spied the grave animal, ordered one of his
underlings to welcome him with a pitchfork and currycomb him with a
cudgel. The ass, who heard this, recommended himself mentally to the
god Neptune, and was packing off, thinking and syllogizing within
himself thus: Had not I been an ass, I had not come here among great
lords, when I must needs be sensible that I was only made for the use of
the small vulgar. Aesop had given me a fair warning of this in one of
his fables. Well, I must e'en scamper or take what follows. With this he
fell a-trotting, and wincing, and yerking, and calcitrating, alias kicking,
and farting, and funking, and curvetting, and bounding, and springing,
and galloping full drive, as if the devil had come for him in propria
persona.
The shepherdess, who saw her ass scour off, told Roger that it was her
cattle, and desired he might be kindly used, or else she would not stir
her foot over the threshold. Friend Roger no sooner knew this but he
ordered him to be fetched in, and that my master's horses should rather
chop straw for a week together than my mistress's beast should want his
bellyful of corn.
The most difficult point was to get him back; for in vain the youngsters
complimented and coaxed him to come. I dare not, said the ass; I am
bashful. And the more they strove by fair means to bring him with them,
the more the stubborn thing was untoward, and flew out at the heels;
insomuch that they might have been there to this hour, had not his
mistress advised them to toss oats in a sieve or in a blanket, and call
him; which was done, and made him wheel about and say, Oats, with a
witness! oats shall go to pot. Adveniat; oats will do, there's evidence in
the case; but none of the rubbing down, none of the firking. Thus
melodiously singing (for, as you know, that Arcadian bird's note is very
harmonious) he came to the young gentleman of the horse, alias black
garb, who brought him to the stable.
When he was there, they placed him next to the great horse his friend,
rubbed him down, currycombed him, laid clean straw under him up to
the chin, and there he lay at rack and manger, the first stuffed with
sweet hay, the latter with oats; which when the horse's
valet-dear-chambre sifted, he clapped down his lugs, to tell them by
signs that he could eat it but too well without sifting, and that he did not
deserve so great an honour.
When they had well fed, quoth the horse to the ass; Well, poor ass, how
is it with thee now? How dost thou like this fare? Thou wert so nice at
first, a body had much ado to get thee hither. By the fig, answered the
ass, which, one of our ancestors eating, Philemon died laughing, this is
all sheer ambrosia, good Sir Grandpaw; but what would you have an
ass say? Methinks all this is yet but half cheer. Don't your worships
here now and then use to take a leap? What leaping dost thou mean?
asked the horse; the devil leap thee! dost thou take me for an ass? In
troth, Sir Grandpaw, quoth the ass, I am somewhat of a blockhead, you
know, and cannot, for the heart's blood of me, learn so fast the court
way of speaking of you gentlemen horses; I mean, don't you stallionize
it sometimes here among your mettled fillies? Tush, whispered the
horse, speak lower; for, by Bucephalus, if the grooms but hear thee they
will maul and belam thee thrice and threefold, so that thou wilt have
but little stomach to a leaping bout. Cod so, man, we dare not so much
as grow stiff at the tip of the lowermost snout, though it were but to
leak or so, for fear of being jerked and paid out of our lechery. As for
anything else, we are as happy as our master, and perhaps more. By this
packsaddle, my old acquaintance, quoth the ass, I have done with you;
a fart for thy litter and hay, and a fart for thy oats; give me the thistles
of our fields, since there we leap when we list. Eat less, and leap more,
I say; it is meat, drink, and cloth to us. Ah! friend Grandpaw, it would
do thy heart good to see us at a fair, when we hold our provincial
chapter! Oh! how we leap it, while our mistresses are selling their
goslings and other poultry! With this they parted. Dixi; I have done.
Panurge then held his peace. Pantagruel would have had him to have
gone on to the end of the chapter; but Aedituus said, A word to the wise
is enough; I can pick out the meaning of that fable, and know who is
that ass, and who the horse; but you are a bashful youth, I perceive.
Well, know that there's nothing for you here; scatter no words. Yet,
returned Panurge, I saw but even now a pretty kind of a cooing
abbess-kite as white as a dove, and her I had rather ride than lead. May
I never stir if she is not a dainty bit, and very well worth a sin or two.
Heaven forgive me! I meant no more harm in it than you; may the harm
I meant in it befall me presently.
Chapter 5.
VIII.
How with much ado we got a sight of the pope-hawk.
Our junketting and banqueting held on at the same rate the third day as
the two former. Pantagruel then earnestly desired to see the pope-hawk;
but Aedituus told him it was not such an easy matter to get a sight of
him. How, asked Pantagruel, has he Plato's helmet on his crown,
Gyges's ring on his pounces, or a chameleon on his breast, to make him
invisible when he pleases? No, sir, returned Aedituus; but he is
naturally of pretty difficult access. However, I'll see and take care that
you may see him, if possible. With this he left us piddling; then within
a quarter of an hour came back, and told us the pope-hawk is now to be
seen. So he led us, without the least noise, directly to the cage wherein
he sat drooping, with his feathers staring about him, attended by a brace
of little cardin-hawks and six lusty fusty bish-hawks.
Panurge stared at him like a dead pig, examining exactly his figure, size,
and motions. Then with a loud voice he said, A curse light on the
hatcher of the ill bird; o' my word, this is a filthy whoop-hooper. Tush,
speak softly, said Aedituus; by G--, he has a pair of ears, as formerly
Michael de Matiscones remarked. What then? returned Panurge; so
hath a whoopcat. So, said Aedituus; if he but hear you speak such
another blasphemous word, you had as good be damned. Do you see
that basin yonder in his cage? Out of it shall sally thunderbolts and
lightnings, storms, bulls, and the devil and all, that will sink you down
to Peg Trantum's, an hundred fathom under ground. It were better to
drink and be merry, quoth Friar John.
Panurge was still feeding his eyes with the sight of the pope-hawk and
his attendants, when somewhere under his cage he perceived a
madge-howlet. With this he cried out, By the devil's maker, master,
there's roguery in the case; they put tricks upon travellers here more
than anywhere else, and would make us believe that a t--d's a sugarloaf.
What damned cozening, gulling, and coney-catching have we here! Do
you see this madge-howlet? By Minerva, we are all beshit. Odsoons,
said Aedituus, speak softly, I tell you. It is no madge-howlet, no
she-thing on my honest word; but a male, and a noble bird.
May we not hear the pope-hawk sing? asked Pantagruel. I dare not
promise that, returned Aedituus; for he only sings and eats at his own
hours. So don't I, quoth Panurge; poor pilgarlic is fain to make
everybody's time his own; if they have time, I find time. Come, then,
let us go drink, if you will. Now this is something like a tansy, said
Aedituus; you begin to talk somewhat like; still speak in that fashion,
and I'll secure you from being thought a heretic. Come on, I am of your
mind.
As we went back to have t'other fuddling bout, we spied an old
green-headed bish-hawk, who sat moping with his mate and three jolly
bittern attendants, all snoring under an arbour. Near the old cuff stood a
buxom abbess-kite that sung like any linnet; and we were so mightily
tickled with her singing that I vow and swear we could have wished all
our members but one turned into ears, to have had more of the melody.
Quoth Panurge, This pretty cherubim of cherubims is here breaking her
head with chanting to this huge, fat, ugly face, who lies grunting all the
while like a hog as he is. I will make him change his note presently, in
the devil's name. With this he rang a bell that hung over the
bish-hawk's head; but though he rang and rang again, the devil a bit
bish-hawk would hear; the louder the sound, the louder his snoring.
There was no making him sing. By G--, quoth Panurge, you old
buzzard, if you won't sing by fair means, you shall by foul. Having said
this, he took up one of St. Stephen's loaves, alias a stone, and was going
to hit him with it about the middle. But Aedituus cried to him, Hold,
hold, honest friend! strike, wound, poison, kill, and murder all the kings
and princes in the world, by treachery or how thou wilt, and as soon as
thou wouldst unnestle the angels from their cockloft. Pope-hawk will
pardon thee all this. But never be so mad as to meddle with these
sacred birds, as much as thou lovest the profit, welfare, and life not
only of thyself, and thy friends and relations alive or dead, but also of
those that may be born hereafter to the thousandth generation; for so
long thou wouldst entail misery upon them. Do but look upon that
basin. Catso! let us rather drink, then, quoth Panurge. He that spoke last,
spoke well, Mr. Antitus, quoth Friar John; while we are looking on
these devilish birds we do nothing but blaspheme; and while we are
taking a cup we do nothing but praise God. Come on, then, let's go
drink; how well that word sounds!
The third day (after we had drank, as you must understand) Aedituus
dismissed us. We made him a present of a pretty little Perguois knife,
which he took more kindly than Artaxerxes did the cup of cold water
that was given him by a clown. He most courteously thanked us, and
sent all sorts of provisions aboard our ships, wished us a prosperous
voyage and success in our undertakings, and made us promise and
swear by Jupiter of stone to come back by his territories. Finally he said
to us, Friends, pray note that there are many more stones in the world
than men; take care you don't forget it.
Chapter 5.
IX.
How we arrived at the island of Tools.
Having well ballasted the holds of our human vessels, we weighed
anchor, hoised up sail, stowed the boats, set the land, and stood for the
offing with a fair loom gale, and for more haste unpareled the
mizen-yard, and launched it and the sail over the lee-quarter, and fitted
gyves to keep it steady, and boomed it out; so in three days we made
the island of Tools, that is altogether uninhabited. We saw there a great
number of trees which bore mattocks, pickaxes, crows, weeding-hooks,
scythes, sickles, spades, trowels, hatchets, hedging-bills, saws, adzes,
bills, axes, shears, pincers, bolts, piercers, augers, and wimbles.
Others bore dags, daggers, poniards, bayonets, square-bladed tucks,
stilettoes, poniardoes, skeans, penknives, puncheons, bodkins, swords,
rapiers, back-swords, cutlasses, scimitars, hangers, falchions, glaives,
raillons, whittles, and whinyards.
Whoever would have any of these needed but to shake the tree, and
immediately they dropped down as thick as hops, like so many ripe
plums; nay, what's more, they fell on a kind of grass called scabbard,
and sheathed themselves in it cleverly. But when they came down,
there was need of taking care lest they happened to touch the head, feet,
or other parts of the body. For they fell with the point downwards, and
in they stuck, or slit the continuum of some member, or lopped it off
like a twig; either of which generally was enough to have killed a man,
though he were a hundred years old, and worth as many thousand
spankers, spur-royals, and rose-nobles.
Under some other trees, whose names I cannot justly tell you, I saw
some certain sorts of weeds that grew and sprouted like pikes, lances,
javelins, javelots, darts, dartlets, halberds, boar-spears, eel-spears,
partizans, tridents, prongs, trout-staves, spears, half-pikes, and
hunting-staves. As they sprouted up and chanced to touch the tree,
straight they met with their heads, points, and blades, each suitable to
its kind, made ready for them by the trees over them, as soon as every
individual wood was grown up, fit for its steel; even like the children's
coats, that are made for them as soon as they can wear them and you
wean them of their swaddling clothes. Nor do you mutter, I pray you, at
what Plato, Anaxagoras, and Democritus have said. Ods-fish! they
were none of your lower-form gimcracks, were they?
Those trees seemed to us terrestrial animals, in no wise so different
from brute beasts as not to have skin, fat, flesh, veins, arteries,
ligaments, nerves, cartilages, kernels, bones, marrow, humours,
matrices, brains, and articulations; for they certainly have some, since
Theophrastus will have it so. But in this point they differed from other
animals, that their heads, that is, the part of their trunks next to the root,
are downwards; their hair, that is, their roots, in the earth; and their feet,
that is, their branches, upside down; as if a man should stand on his
head with outstretched legs. And as you, battered sinners, on whom
Venus has bestowed something to remember her, feel the approach of
rains, winds, cold, and every change of weather, at your ischiatic legs
and your omoplates, by means of the perpetual almanack which she has
fixed there; so these trees have notice given them, by certain sensations
which they have at their roots, stocks, gums, paps, or marrow, of the
growth of the staves under them, and accordingly they prepare suitable
points and blades for them beforehand. Yet as all things, except God,
are sometimes subject to error, nature itself not free from it when it
produceth monstrous things, likewise I observed something amiss in
these trees. For a half-pike that grew up high enough to reach the
branches of one of these instrumentiferous trees, happened no sooner to
touch them but, instead of being joined to an iron head, it impaled a
stubbed broom at the fundament. Well, no matter, 'twill serve to sweep
the chimney. Thus a partizan met with a pair of garden shears. Come,
all's good for something; 'twill serve to nip off little twigs and destroy
caterpillars. The staff of a halberd got the blade of a scythe, which
made it look like a hermaphrodite. Happy-be- lucky, 'tis all a case;
'twill serve for some mower. Oh, 'tis a great blessing to put our trust in
the Lord! As we went back to our ships I spied behind I don't know
what bush, I don't know what folks, doing I don't know what business,
in I don't know what posture, scouring I don't know what tools, in I
don't know what manner, and I don't know what place.
Chapter 5.
X.
How Pantagruel arrived at the island of Sharping.
We left the island of Tools to pursue our voyage, and the next day
stood in for the island of Sharping, the true image of Fontainebleau, for
the land is so very lean that the bones, that is, the rocks, shoot through
its skin. Besides, 'tis sandy, barren, unhealthy, and unpleasant. Our pilot
showed us there two little square rocks which had eight equal points in
the shape of a cube. They were so white that I might have mistaken
them for alabaster or snow, had he not assured us they were made of
bone.
He told us that twenty chance devils very much feared in our country
dwelt there in six different storeys, and that the biggest twins or braces
of them were called sixes, and the smallest ambs-ace; the rest cinques,
quatres, treys, and deuces. When they were conjured up, otherwise
coupled, they were called either sice cinque, sice quatre, sice trey, sice
deuce, and sice ace; or cinque quatre, cinque trey, and so forth. I made
there a shrewd observation. Would you know what 'tis, gamesters? 'Tis
that there are very few of you in the world but what call upon and
invoke the devils. For the dice are no sooner thrown on the board, and
the greedy gazing sparks have hardly said, Two sixes, Frank; but Six
devils damn it! cry as many of them. If ambs-ace; then, A brace of
devils broil me! will they say. Quatre-deuce, Tom; The deuce take it!
cries another. And so on to the end of the chapter. Nay, they don't
forget sometimes to call the black cloven-footed gentlemen by their
Christian names and surnames; and what is stranger yet, they use them
as their greatest cronies, and make them so often the executors of their
wills, not only giving themselves, but everybody and everything, to the
devil, that there's no doubt but he takes care to seize, soon or late,
what's so zealously bequeathed him. Indeed, 'tis true Lucifer does not
always immediately appear by his lawful attorneys; but, alas! 'tis not
for want of goodwill; he is really to be excused for his delay; for what
the devil would you have a devil do? He and his black guards are then
at some other places, according to the priority of the persons that call
on them; therefore, pray let none be so venturesome as to think that the
devils are deaf and blind.
He then told us that more wrecks had happened about those square
rocks, and a greater loss of body and goods, than about all the Syrtes,
Scyllas and Charybdes, Sirens, Strophades, and gulfs in the universe. I
had not much ado to believe it, remembering that formerly, among the
wise Egyptians, Neptune was described in hieroglyphics for the first
cube, Apollo by an ace, Diana by a deuce, Minerva by seven, and so
forth.
He also told us that there was a phial of sanc-greal, a most divine thing,
and known to a few. Panurge did so sweeten up the syndics of the place
that they blessed us with the sight of 't; but it was with three times more
pother and ado, with more formalities and antic tricks, than they show
the pandects of Justinian at Florence, or the holy Veronica at Rome. I
never saw such a sight of flambeaux, torches, and hagios, sanctified
tapers, rush-lights, and farthing candles in my whole life. After all, that
which was shown us was only the ill-faced countenance of a roasted
coney.
All that we saw there worth speaking of was a good face set upon an ill
game, and the shells of the two eggs formerly laid up and hatched by
Leda, out of which came Castor and Pollux, fair Helen's brothers.
These same syndics sold us a piece of 'em for a song, I mean, for a
morsel of bread. Before we went we bought a parcel of hats and caps of
the manufacture of the place, which, I fear, will turn to no very good
account; nor are those who shall take 'em off our hands more likely to
commend their wearing.
Chapter 5.
XI.
How we passed through the wicket inhabited by Gripe-men-all,
Archduke of the Furred Law-cats.
From thence Condemnation was passed by us. 'Tis another damned
barren island, whereat none for the world cared to touch. Then we went
through the wicket; but Pantagruel had no mind to bear us company,
and 'twas well he did not, for we were nabbed there, and clapped into
lob's-pound by order of Gripe-men-all, Archduke of the Furred
Law-cats, because one of our company would ha' put upon a sergeant
some hats of the Sharping Island.
The Furred Law-cats are most terrible and dreadful monsters, they
devour little children, and trample over marble stones. Pray tell me,
noble topers, do they not deserve to have their snouts slit? The hair of
their hides doesn't lie outward, but inwards, and every mother's son of
'em for his device wears a gaping pouch, but not all in the same manner;
for some wear it tied to their neck scarfwise, others upon the breech,
some on the paunch, others on the side, and all for a cause, with reason
and mystery. They have claws so very strong, long, and sharp that
nothing can get from 'em that is once fast between their clutches.
Sometimes they cover their heads with mortar-like caps, at other times
with mortified caparisons.
As we entered their den, said a common mumper, to whom we had
given half a teston, Worshipful culprits, God send you a good
deliverance! Examine well, said he, the countenance of these stout
props and pillars of this catch-coin law and iniquity; and pray observe,
that if you still live but six olympiads, and the age of two dogs more,
you'll see these Furred Law- cats lords of all Europe, and in peaceful
possession of all the estates and dominions belonging to it; unless, by
divine providence, what's got over the devil's back is spent under his
belly, or the goods which they unjustly get perish with their prodigal
heirs. Take this from an honest beggar.
Among 'em reigns the sixth essence; by the means of which they gripe
all, devour all, conskite all, burn all, draw all, hang all, quarter all,
behead all, murder all, imprison all, waste all, and ruin all, without the
least notice of right or wrong; for among them vice is called virtue;
wickedness, piety; treason, loyalty; robbery, justice. Plunder is their
motto, and when acted by them is approved by all men, except the
heretics; and all this they do because they dare; their authority is
sovereign and irrefragable. For a sign of the truth of what I tell you,
you'll find that there the mangers are above the racks. Remember
hereafter that a fool told you this; and if ever plague, famine, war, fire,
earthquakes, inundations, or other judgments befall the world, do not
attribute 'em to the aspects and conjunctions of the malevolent planets;
to the abuses of the court of Romania, or the tyranny of secular kings
and princes; to the impostures of the false zealots of the cowl, heretical
bigots, false prophets, and broachers of sects; to the villainy of griping
usurers, clippers, and coiners; or to the ignorance, impudence, and
imprudence of physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries; nor to the
lewdness of adulteresses and destroyers of by-blows; but charge them
all, wholly and solely, to the inexpressible, incredible, and inestimable
wickedness and ruin which is continually hatched, brewed, and
practised in the den or shop of those Furred Law-cats. Yet 'tis no more
known in the world than the cabala of the Jews, the more's the pity; and
therefore 'tis not detested, chastised, and punished as 'tis fit it should be.
But should all their villainy be once displayed in its true colours and
exposed to the people, there never was, is, nor will be any spokesman
so sweet-mouthed, whose fine colloguing tongue could save 'em; nor
any law so rigorous and draconic that could punish 'em as they deserve;
nor yet any magistrate so powerful as to hinder their being burnt alive
in their coneyburrows without mercy. Even their own furred kittlings,
friends, and relations would abominate 'em.
For this reason, as Hannibal was solemnly sworn by his father Amilcar
to pursue the Romans with the utmost hatred as long as ever he lived,
so my late father has enjoined me to remain here without, till God
Almighty's thunder reduce them there within to ashes, like other
presumptuous Titans, profane wretches, and opposers of God; since
mankind is so inured to their oppressions that they either do not
remember, foresee, or have a sense of the woes and miseries which
they have caused; or, if they have, either will not, dare not, or cannot
root 'em out.
How, said Panurge, say you so? Catch me there and hang me! Damme,
let's march off! This noble beggar has scared me worse than thunder in
autumn (Motteux gives 'than the thunder would do them.'). Upon this
we were filing off; but, alas! we found ourselves trapped--the door was
double- locked and barricadoed. Some messengers of ill news told us it
was full as easy to get in there as into hell, and no less hard to get out.
Ay, there indeed lay the difficulty, for there is no getting loose without
a pass and discharge in due course from the bench. This for no other
reason than because folks go easier out of a church than out of a
sponging-house, and because they could not have our company when
they would. The worst on't was when we got through the wicket; for we
were carried, to get out our pass or discharge, before a more dreadful
monster than ever was read of in the legends of knight-errantry. They
called him Gripe-men-all. I can't tell what to compare it to better than
to a Chimaera, a Sphinx, a Cerberus; or to the image of Osiris, as the
Egyptians represented him, with three heads, one of a roaring lion,
t'other of a fawning cur, and the last of a howling, prowling wolf,
twisted about with a dragon biting his tail, surrounded with fiery rays.
His hands were full of gore, his talons like those of the harpies, his
snout like a hawk's bill, his fangs or tusks like those of an overgrown
brindled wild boar; his eyes were flaming like the jaws of hell, all
covered with mortars interlaced with pestles, and nothing of his arms
was to be seen but his clutches. His hutch, and that of the warren-cats
his collaterals, was a long, spick-and-span new rack, a-top of which (as
the mumper told us) some large stately mangers were fixed in the
reverse. Over the chief seat was the picture of an old woman holding
the case or scabbard of a sickle in her right hand, a pair of scales in her
left, with spectacles on her nose; the cups or scales of the balance were
a pair of velvet pouches, the one full of bullion, which overpoised
t'other, empty and long, hoisted higher than the middle of the beam. I'm
of opinion it was the true effigies of Justice Gripe-men-all; far different
from the institution of the ancient Thebans, who set up the statues of
their dicasts without hands, in marble, silver, or gold, according to their
merit, even after their death.
When we made our personal appearance before him, a sort of I don't
know what men, all clothed with I don't know what bags and pouches,
with long scrolls in their clutches, made us sit down upon a cricket
(such as criminals sit on when tried in France). Quoth Panurge to 'em,
Good my lords, I'm very well as I am; I'd as lief stand, an't please you.
Besides, this same stool is somewhat of the lowest for a man that has
new breeches and a short doublet. Sit you down, said Gripe-men-all
again, and look that you don't make the court bid you twice. Now,
continued he, the earth shall immediately open its jaws and swallow
you up to quick damnation if you don't answer as you should.
Chapter 5.
XII.
How Gripe-men-all propounded a riddle to us.
When we were sat, Gripe-men-all, in the middle of his furred cats,
called to us in a hoarse dreadful voice, Well, come on, give me
presently--an answer. Well, come on, muttered Panurge between his
teeth, give, give me presently--a comforting dram. Hearken to the court,
continued Gripe-men- all.
An Enigma.
A young tight thing, as fair as may be, Without a dad conceived a baby,
And brought him forth without the pother In labour made by teeming
mother. Yet the cursed brat feared not to gripe her, But gnawed, for
haste, her sides like viper. Then the black upstart boldly sallies, And
walks and flies o'er hills and valleys. Many fantastic sons of wisdom,
Amazed, foresaw their own in his doom; And thought like an old
Grecian noddy, A human spirit moved his body.
Give, give me out of hand--an answer to this riddle, quoth
Gripe-men-all. Give, give me--leave to tell you, good, good my lord,
answered Panurge, that if I had but a sphinx at home, as Verres one of
your precursors had, I might then solve your enigma presently. But
verily, good my lord, I was not there; and, as I hope to be saved, am as
innocent in the matter as the child unborn. Foh, give me--a better
answer, cried Gripe-men-all; or, by gold, this shall not serve your turn.
I'll not be paid in such coin; if you have nothing better to offer, I'll let
your rascalship know that it had been better for you to have fallen into
Lucifer's own clutches than into ours. Dost thou see 'em here, sirrah?
hah? and dost thou prate here of thy being innocent, as if thou couldst
be delivered from our racks and tortures for being so? Give
me--Patience! thou widgeon. Our laws are like cobwebs; your silly
little flies are stopped, caught, and destroyed therein, but your stronger
ones break them, and force and carry them which way they please.
Likewise, don't think we are so mad as to set up our nets to snap up
your great robbers and tyrants. No, they are somewhat too hard for us,
there's no meddling with them; for they would make no more of us than
we make of the little ones. But you paltry, silly, innocent wretches must
make us amends; and, by gold, we will innocentize your fopship with a
wannion, you never were so innocentized in your days; the devil shall
sing mass among ye.
Friar John, hearing him run on at that mad rate, had no longer the
power to remain silent, but cried to him, Heigh-day! Prithee, Mr. Devil
in a coif, wouldst thou have a man tell thee more than he knows? Hasn't
the fellow told you he does not know a word of the business? His name
is Twyford. A plague rot you! won't truth serve your turns? Why, how
now, Mr. Prate- apace, cried Gripe-men-all, taking him short, marry
come up, who made you so saucy as to open your lips before you were
spoken to? Give me-- Patience! By gold! this is the first time since I
have reigned that anyone has had the impudence to speak before he was
bidden. How came this mad fellow to break loose? (Villain, thou liest,
said Friar John, without stirring his lips.) Sirrah, sirrah, continued
Gripe-men-all, I doubt thou wilt have business enough on thy hands
when it comes to thy turn to answer. (Damme, thou liest, said Friar
John, silently.) Dost thou think, continued my lord, thou art in the
wilderness of your foolish university, wrangling and bawling among
the idle, wandering searchers and hunters after truth? By gold, we have
here other fish to fry; we go another gate's-way to work, that we do. By
gold, people here must give categorical answers to what they don't
know. By gold, they must confess they have done those things which
they have not nor ought to have done. By gold, they must protest that
they know what they never knew in their lives; and, after all, patience
perforce must be their only remedy, as well as a mad dog's. Here silly
geese are plucked, yet cackle not. Sirrah, give me--an account whether
you had a letter of attorney, or whether you were feed or no, that you
offered to bawl in another man's cause? I see you had no authority to
speak, and I may chance to have you wed to something you won't like.
Oh, you devils, cried Friar John, proto-devils, panto-devils, you would
wed a monk, would you? Ho hu! ho hu! A heretic! a heretic! I'll give
thee out for a rank heretic.
Chapter 5.
XIII.
How Panurge solved Gripe-men-all's riddle.
Gripe-men-all, as if he had not heard what Friar John said, directed his
discourse to Panurge, saying to him, Well, what have you to say for
yourself, Mr. Rogue-enough, hah? Give, give me out of hand--an
answer. Say? quoth Panurge; why, what would you have me say? I say
that we are damnably beshit, since you give no heed at all to the equity
of the plea, and the devil sings among you. Let this answer serve for all,
I beseech you, and let us go out about our business; I am no longer able
to hold out, as gad shall judge me.
Go to, go to, cried Gripe-men-all; when did you ever hear that for these
three hundred years last past anybody ever got out of this weel without
leaving something of his behind him? No, no, get out of the trap if you
can without losing leather, life, or at least some hair, and you will have
done more than ever was done yet. For why, this would bring the
wisdom of the court into question, as if we had took you up for nothing,
and dealt wrongfully by you. Well, by hook or by crook, we must have
something out of you. Look ye, it is a folly to make a rout for a fart and
ado; one word is as good as twenty. I have no more to say to thee, but
that, as thou likest thy former entertainment, thou wilt tell me more of
the next; for it will go ten times worse with thee unless, by gold, you
give me--a solution to the riddle I propounded. Give, give--it, without
any more ado.
By gold, quoth Panurge, 'tis a black mite or weevil which is born of a
white bean, and sallies out at the hole which he makes gnawing it; the
mite being turned into a kind of fly, sometimes walks and sometimes
flies over hills and dales. Now Pythagoras, the philosopher, and his sect,
besides many others, wondering at its birth in such a place (which
makes some argue for equivocal generation), thought that by a
metempsychosis the body of that insect was the lodging of a human
soul. Now, were you men here, after your welcomed death, according
to his opinion, your souls would most certainly enter into the body of
mites or weevils; for in your present state of life you are good for
nothing in the world but to gnaw, bite, eat, and devour all things, so in
the next you'll e'en gnaw and devour your mother's very sides, as the
vipers do. Now, by gold, I think I have fairly solved and resolved your
riddle.
May my bauble be turned into a nutcracker, quoth Friar John, if I could
not almost find in my heart to wish that what comes out at my bunghole
were beans, that these evil weevils might feed as they deserve.
Panurge then, without any more ado, threw a large leathern purse
stuffed with gold crowns (ecus au soleil) among them.
The Furred Law-cats no sooner heard the jingling of the chink but they
all began to bestir their claws, like a parcel of fiddlers running a
division; and then fell to't, squimble, squamble, catch that catch can.
They all said aloud, These are the fees, these are the gloves; now, this is
somewhat like a tansy. Oh! 'twas a pretty trial, a sweet trial, a dainty
trial. O' my word, they did not starve the cause. These are none of your
snivelling forma pauperis's; no, they are noble clients, gentlemen every
inch of them. By gold, it is gold, quoth Panurge, good old gold, I'll
assure you.
Saith Gripe-men-all, The court, upon a full hearing (of the gold, quoth
Panurge), and weighty reasons given, finds the prisoners not guilty, and
accordingly orders them to be discharged out of custody, paying their
fees. Now, gentlemen, proceed, go forwards, said he to us; we have not
so much of the devil in us as we have of his hue; though we are stout,
we are merciful.
As we came out at the wicket, we were conducted to the port by a
detachment of certain highland griffins, scribere cum dashoes, who
advised us before we came to our ships not to offer to leave the place
until we had made the usual presents, first to the Lady Gripe-men-all,
then to all the Furred Law-pusses; otherwise we must return to the
place from whence we came. Well, well, said Friar John, we'll fumble
in our fobs, examine every one of us his concern, and e'en give the
women their due; we'll ne'er boggle or stick out on that account; as we
tickled the men in the palm, we'll tickle the women in the right place.
Pray, gentlemen, added they, don't forget to leave somewhat behind
you for us poor devils to drink your healths. O lawd! never fear,
answered Friar John, I don't remember that I ever went anywhere yet
where the poor devils are not remembered and encouraged.
Chapter 5.
XIV.
How the Furred Law-cats live on corruption.
Friar John had hardly said those words ere he perceived seventy-eight
galleys and frigates just arriving at the port. So he hied him thither to
learn some news; and as he asked what goods they had o' board, he
soon found that their whole cargo was venison, hares, capons, turkeys,
pigs, swine, bacon, kids, calves, hens, ducks, teals, geese, and other
poultry and wildfowl.
He also spied among these some pieces of velvet, satin, and damask.
This made him ask the new-comers whither and to whom they were
going to carry those dainty goods. They answered that they were for
Gripe-men-all and the Furred Law-cats.
Pray, asked he, what is the true name of all these things in your country
language? Corruption, they replied. If they live on corruption, said the
friar, they will perish with their generation. May the devil be damned, I
have it now: their fathers devoured the good gentlemen who, according
to their state of life, used to go much a-hunting and hawking, to be the
better inured to toil in time of war; for hunting is an image of a martial
life, and Xenophon was much in the right of it when he affirmed that
hunting had yielded a great number of excellent warriors, as well as the
Trojan horse. For my part, I am no scholar; I have it but by hearsay, yet
I believe it. Now the souls of those brave fellows, according to Gripe-
men-all's riddle, after their decease enter into wild boars, stags,
roebucks, herns, and such other creatures which they loved, and in
quest of which they went while they were men; and these Furred
Law-cats, having first destroyed and devoured their castles, lands,
demesnes, possessions, rents, and revenues, are still seeking to have
their blood and soul in another life. What an honest fellow was that
same mumper who had forewarned us of all these things, and bid us
take notice of the mangers above the racks!
But, said Panurge to the new-comers, how do you come by all this
venison? Methinks the great king has issued out a proclamation strictly
inhibiting the destroying of stags, does, wild boars, roebucks, or other
royal game, on pain of death. All this is true enough, answered one for
the rest, but the great king is so good and gracious, you must know, and
these Furred Law-cats so curst and cruel, so mad, and thirsting after
Christian blood, that we have less cause to fear in trespassing against
that mighty sovereign's commands than reason to hope to live if we do
not continually stop the mouths of these Furred Law-cats with such
bribes and corruption. Besides, added he, to-morrow Gripe-men-all
marries a furred law-puss of his to a high and mighty double-furred
law-tybert. Formerly we used to call them chop-hay; but alas! they are
not such neat creatures now as to eat any, or chew the cud. We call
them chop-hares, chop-partridges, chop- woodcocks, chop-pheasants,
chop-pullets, chop-venison, chop-coneys, chop- pigs, for they scorn to
feed on coarser meat. A t--d for their chops, cried Friar John, next year
we'll have 'em called chop-dung, chop-stront, chop-filth.
Would you take my advice? added he to the company. What is it?
answered we. Let's do two things, returned he. First, let us secure all
this venison and wild fowl--I mean, paying well for them; for my part, I
am but too much tired already with our salt meat, it heats my flanks so
horribly. In the next place, let's go back to the wicket, and destroy all
these devilish Furred Law-cats. For my part, quoth Panurge, I know
better things; catch me there, and hang me. No, I am somewhat more
inclined to be fearful than bold; I love to sleep in a whole skin.
Chapter 5.
XV.
How Friar John talks of rooting out the Furred Law-cats.
Virtue of the frock, quoth Friar John, what kind of voyage are we
making? A shitten one, o' my word; the devil of anything we do but
fizzling, farting, funking, squattering, dozing, raving, and doing
nothing. Ods- belly, 'tisn't in my nature to lie idle; I mortally hate it.
Unless I am doing some heroic feat every foot, I can't sleep one wink o'
nights. Damn it, did you then take me along with you for your chaplain,
to sing mass and shrive you? By Maundy Thursday, the first of ye all
that comes to me on such an account shall be fitted; for the only
penance I'll enjoin shall be, that he immediately throw himself
headlong overboard into the sea like a base cowhearted son of ten
fathers. This in deduction of the pains of purgatory.
What made Hercules such a famous fellow, d'ye think? Nothing but
that while he travelled he still made it his business to rid the world of
tyrannies, errors, dangers, and drudgeries; he still put to death all
robbers, all monsters, all venomous serpents and hurtful creatures. Why
then do we not follow his example, doing as he did in the countries
through which we pass? He destroyed the Stymphalides, the Lernaean
hydra, Cacus, Antheus, the Centaurs, and what not; I am no clericus,
those that are such tell me so.
In imitation of that noble by-blow, let's destroy and root out these
wicked Furred Law-cats, that are a kind of ravenous devils; thus we
shall remove all manner of tyranny out of the land. Mawmet's tutor
swallow me body and soul, tripes and guts, if I would stay to ask your
help or advice in the matter were I but as strong as he was. Come, he
that would be thought a gentleman, let him storm a town; well, then,
shall we go? I dare swear we'll do their business for them with a wet
finger; they'll bear it, never fear; since they could swallow down more
foul language that came from us than ten sows and their babies could
swill hogwash. Damn 'em, they don't value all the ill words or
dishonour in the world at a rush, so they but get the coin into their
purses, though they were to have it in a shitten clout. Come, we may
chance to kill 'em all, as Hercules would have done had they lived in
his time. We only want to be set to work by another Eurystheus, and
nothing else for the present, unless it be what I heartily wish them, that
Jupiter may give 'em a short visit, only some two or three hours long,
and walk among their lordships in the same equipage that attended him
when he came last to his Miss Semele, jolly Bacchus's mother.
'Tis a very great mercy, quoth Panurge, that you have got out of their
clutches. For my part, I have no stomach to go there again; I'm hardly
come to myself yet, so scared and appalled I was. My hair still stands
up an end when I think on't; and most damnably troubled I was there,
for three very weighty reasons. First, because I was troubled. Secondly,
because I was troubled. Thirdly and lastly, because I was troubled.
Hearken to me a little on thy right side, Friar John, my left cod, since
thou'lt not hear at the other. Whenever the maggot bites thee to take a
trip down to hell and visit the tribunal of Minos, Aeacus,
Rhadamanthus, (and Dis,) do but tell me, and I'll be sure to bear thee
company, and never leave thee as long as my name's Panurge, but will
wade over Acheron, Styx, and Cocytus, drink whole bumpers of
Lethe's water--though I mortally hate that element-- and even pay thy
passage to that bawling, cross-grained ferryman, Charon. But as for the
damned wicket, if thou art so weary of thy life as to go thither again,
thou mayst e'en look for somebody else to bear thee company, for I'll
not move one step that way; e'en rest satisfied with this positive answer.
By my good will I'll not stir a foot to go thither as long as I live, any
more than Calpe will come over to Abyla (Here Motteux adds the
following note: 'Calpe is a mountain in Spain that faces another, called
Abyla, in Mauritania, both said to have been severed by Hercules.').
Was Ulysses so mad as to go back into the Cyclop's cave to fetch his
sword? No, marry was he not. Now I have left nothing behind me at the
wicket through forgetfulness; why then should I think of going thither?
Well, quoth Friar John, as good sit still as rise up and fall; what cannot
be cured must be endured. But, prithee, let's hear one another speak.
Come, wert thou not a wise doctor to fling away a whole purse of gold
on those mangy scoundrels? Ha! A squinsy choke thee! we were too
rich, were we? Had it not been enough to have thrown the hell-hounds
a few cropped pieces of white cash?
How could I help it? returned Panurge. Did you not see how
Gripe-men-all held his gaping velvet pouch, and every moment roared
and bellowed, By gold, give me out of hand; by gold, give, give, give
me presently? Now, thought I to myself, we shall never come off
scot-free. I'll e'en stop their mouths with gold, that the wicket may be
opened, and we may get out; the sooner the better. And I judged that
lousy silver would not do the business; for, d'ye see, velvet pouches do
not use to gape for little paltry clipt silver and small cash; no, they are
made for gold, my friend John; that they are, my dainty cod. Ah! when
thou hast been larded, basted, and roasted, as I was, thou wilt hardly
talk at this rate, I doubt. But now what is to be done? We are enjoined
by them to go forwards.
The scabby slabberdegullions still waited for us at the port, expecting
to be greased in the fist as well as their masters. Now when they
perceived that we were ready to put to sea, they came to Friar John and
begged that we would not forget to gratify the apparitors before we
went off, according to the assessment for the fees at our discharge. Hell
and damnation! cried Friar John; are ye here still, ye bloodhounds, ye
citing, scribbling imps of Satan? Rot you, am I not vexed enough
already, but you must have the impudence to come and plague me, ye
scurvy fly-catchers you? By cob's- body, I'll gratify your ruffianships as
you deserve; I'll apparitorize you presently with a wannion, that I will.
With this, he lugged out his slashing cutlass, and in a mighty heat came
out of the ship to cut the cozening varlets into steaks, but they
scampered away and got out of sight in a trice.
However, there was somewhat more to do, for some of our sailors,
having got leave of Pantagruel to go ashore while we were had before
Gripe-men-all, had been at a tavern near the haven to make much of
themselves, and roar it, as seamen will do when they come into some
port. Now I don't know whether they had paid their reckoning to the
full or no, but, however it was, an old fat hostess, meeting Friar John on
the quay, was making a woeful complaint before a sergeant, son-in-law
to one of the furred law- cats, and a brace of bums, his assistants.
The friar, who did not much care to be tired with their impertinent
prating, said to them, Harkee me, ye lubberly gnat-snappers! do ye
presume to say that our seamen are not honest men? I'll maintain they
are, ye dotterels, and will prove it to your brazen faces, by justice--I
mean, this trusty piece of cold iron by my side. With this he lugged it
out and flourished with it. The forlorn lobcocks soon showed him their
backs, betaking themselves to their heels; but the old fusty landlady
kept her ground, swearing like any butter-whore that the tarpaulins
were very honest cods, but that they only forgot to pay for the bed on
which they had lain after dinner, and she asked fivepence, French
money, for the said bed. May I never sup, said the friar, if it be not
dog-cheap; they are sorry guests and unkind customers, that they are;
they do not know when they have a pennyworth, and will not always
meet with such bargains. Come, I myself will pay you the money, but I
would willingly see it first.
The hostess immediately took him home with her, and showed him the
bed, and having praised it for all its good qualifications, said that she
thought as times went she was not out of the way in asking fivepence
for it. Friar John then gave her the fivepence; and she no sooner turned
her back but he presently began to rip up the ticking of the feather-bed
and bolster, and threw all the feathers out at the window. In the
meantime the old hag came down and roared out for help, crying out
murder to set all the neighbourhood in an uproar. Yet she also fell to
gathering the feathers that flew up and down in the air, being scattered
by the wind. Friar John let her bawl on, and, without any further ado,
marched off with the blanket, quilt, and both the sheets, which he
brought aboard undiscovered, for the air was darkened with the feathers,
as it uses sometimes to be with snow. He gave them away to the sailors;
then said to Pantagruel that beds were much cheaper at that place than
in Chinnonois, though we have there the famous geese of Pautile; for
the old beldam had asked him but fivepence for a bed which in
Chinnonois had been worth about twelve francs. (As soon as Friar John
and the rest of the company were embarked, Pantagruel set sail. But
there arose a south-east wind, which blew so vehemently they lost their
way, and in a manner going back to the country of the Furred Law-cats,
they entered into a huge gulf, where the sea ran so high and terrible that
the shipboy on the top of the mast cried out he again saw the habitation
of Gripe-men-all; upon which Panurge, frightened almost out of his
wits, roared out, Dear master, in spite of the wind and waves, change
your course, and turn the ship's head about. O my friend, let us come no
more into that cursed country where I left my purse. So the wind
carried them near an island, where however they did not dare at first to
land, but entered about a mile off. (Motteux omitted this passage
altogether in the edition of 1694. It was restored by Ozell in the edition
of 1738.))
Chapter 5.
XVI.
How Pantagruel came to the island of the Apedefers, or Ignoramuses,
with long claws and crooked paws, and of terrible adventures and
monsters there.
As soon as we had cast anchor and had moored the ship, the pinnace
was put over the ship's side and manned by the coxswain's crew. When
the good Pantagruel had prayed publicly, and given thanks to the Lord
that had delivered him from so great a danger, he stepped into it with
his whole company to go on shore, which was no ways difficult to do,
for, as the sea was calm and the winds laid, they soon got to the cliffs.
When they were set on shore, Epistemon, who was admiring the
situation of the place and the strange shape of the rocks, discovered
some of the natives. The first he met had on a short purple gown, a
doublet cut in panes, like a Spanish leather jerkin, half sleeves of satin,
and the upper part of them leather, a coif like a black pot tipped with tin.
He was a good likely sort of a body, and his name, as we heard
afterwards, was Double-fee. Epistemon asked him how they called
those strange craggy rocks and deep valleys. He told them it was a
colony brought out of Attorneyland, and called Process, and that if we
forded the river somewhat further beyond the rocks we should come
into the island of the Apedefers. By the memory of the decretals, said
Friar John, tell us, I pray you, what you honest men here live on? Could
not a man take a chirping bottle with you to taste your wine? I can see
nothing among you but parchment, ink-horns, and pens. We live on
nothing else, returned Double-fee; and all who live in this place must
come through my hands. How, quoth Panurge, are you a shaver, then?
Do you fleece 'em? Ay, ay, their purse, answered Double-fee; nothing
else. By the foot of Pharaoh, cried Panurge, the devil a sou will you get
of me. However, sweet sir, be so kind as to show an honest man the
way to those Apedefers, or ignorant people, for I come from the land of
the learned, where I did not learn over much.
Still talking on, they got to the island of the Apedefers, for they were
soon got over the ford. Pantagruel was not a little taken up with
admiring the structure and habitation of the people of the place. For
they live in a swingeing wine-press, fifty steps up to it. You must know
there are some of all sorts, little, great, private, middle-sized, and so
forth. You go through a large peristyle, alias a long entry set about with
pillars, in which you see, in a kind of landscape, the ruins of almost the
whole world, besides so many great robbers' gibbets, so many gallows
and racks, that 'tis enough to fright you out of your seven senses.
Double-fee perceiving that Pantagruel was taken up with contemplating
those things, Let us go further, sir, said he to him; all this is nothing yet.
Nothing, quotha, cried Friar John; by the soul of my overheated
codpiece, friend Panurge and I here shake and quiver for mere hunger. I
had rather be drinking than staring at these ruins. Pray come along, sir,
said Double-fee. He then led us into a little wine-press that lay
backwards in a blind corner, and was called Pithies in the language of
the country. You need not ask whether Master John and Panurge made
much of their sweet selves there; it is enough that I tell you there was
no want of Bolognia sausages, turkey poots, capons, bustards, malmsey,
and all other sorts of good belly-timber, very well dressed.
A pimping son of ten fathers, who, for want of a better, did the office of
a butler, seeing that Friar John had cast a sheep's eye at a choice bottle
that stood near a cupboard by itself, at some distance from the rest of
the bottellic magazine, like a jack-in-an-office said to Pantagruel, Sir, I
perceive that one of your men here is making love to this bottle. He
ogles it, and would fain caress it; but I beg that none offer to meddle
with it; for it is reserved for their worships. How, cried Panurge, there
are some grandees here then, I see. It is vintage time with you, I
perceive.
Then Double-fee led us up to a private staircase, and showed us into a
room, whence, without being seen, out at a loophole we could see their
worships in the great wine-press, where none could be admitted
without their leave. Their worships, as he called them, were about a
score of fusty crack-ropes and gallow-clappers, or rather more, all
posted before a bar, and staring at each other like so many dead pigs.
Their paws were as long as a crane's foot, and their claws
four-and-twenty inches long at least; for you must know they are
enjoined never to pare off the least chip of them, so that they grow as
crooked as a Welsh hook or a hedging-bill.
We saw a swingeing bunch of grapes that are gathered and squeezed in
that country, brought in by them. As soon as it was laid down, they
clapped it into the press, and there was not a bit of it out of which each
of them did not squeeze some oil of gold; insomuch that the poor grape
was tried with a witness, and brought off so drained and picked, and so
dry, that there was not the least moisture, juice, or substance left in it;
for they had pressed out its very quintessence.
Double-fee told us they had not often such huge bunches; but, let the
worst come to the worst, they were sure never to be without others in
their press. But hark you me, master of mine, asked Panurge, have they
not some of different growth? Ay, marry have they, quoth Double-fee.
Do you see here this little bunch, to which they are going to give t'other
wrench? It is of tithe-growth, you must know; they crushed, wrung,
squeezed and strained out the very heart's blood of it but the other day;
but it did not bleed freely; the oil came hard, and smelt of the priest's
chest; so that they found there was not much good to be got out of it.
Why then, said Pantagruel, do they put it again into the press? Only,
answered Double- fee, for fear there should still lurk some juice among
the husks and hullings in the mother of the grape. The devil be damned!
cried Friar John; do you call these same folks illiterate lobcocks and
duncical doddipolls? May I be broiled like a red herring if I do not
think they are wise enough to skin a flint and draw oil out of a brick
wall. So they are, said Double-fee; for they sometimes put castles,
parks, and forests into the press, and out of them all extract aurum
potabile. You mean portabile, I suppose, cried Epistemon, such as may
be borne. I mean as I said, replied Double-fee, potabile, such as may be
drunk; for it makes them drink many a good bottle more than otherwise
they should.
But I cannot better satisfy you as to the growth of the vine-tree sirup
that is here squeezed out of grapes, than in desiring you to look yonder
in that back-yard, where you will see above a thousand different
growths that lie waiting to be squeezed every moment. Here are some
of the public and some of the private growth; some of the builders'
fortifications, loans, gifts, and gratuities, escheats, forfeitures, fines,
and recoveries, penal statutes, crown lands, and demesne, privy purse,
post-offices, offerings, lordships of manors, and a world of other
growths, for which we want names. Pray, quoth Epistemon, tell me of
what growth is that great one, with all those little grapelings about it.
Oh, oh! returned Double-fee, that plump one is of the treasury, the very
best growth in the whole country. Whenever anyone of that growth is
squeezed, there is not one of their worships but gets juice enough of it
to soak his nose six months together. When their worships were up,
Pantagruel desired Double-fee to take us into that great wine-press,
which he readily did. As soon as we were in, Epistemon, who
understood all sorts of tongues, began to show us many devices on the
press, which was large and fine, and made of the wood of the cross--at
least Double-fee told us so. On each part of it were names of everything
in the language of the country. The spindle of the press was called
receipt; the trough, cost and damages; the hole for the vice-pin, state;
the side-boards, money paid into the office; the great beam, respite of
homage; the branches, radietur; the side-beams, recuperetur; the fats,
ignoramus; the two-handled basket, the rolls; the treading-place,
acquittance; the dossers, validation; the panniers, authentic decrees; the
pailes, potentials; the funnels, quietus est.
By the Queen of the Chitterlings, quoth Panurge, all the hieroglyphics
of Egypt are mine a-- to this jargon. Why! here are a parcel of words
full as analogous as chalk and cheese, or a cat and a cart-wheel! But
why, prithee, dear Double-fee, do they call these worshipful dons of
yours ignorant fellows? Only, said Double-fee, because they neither are,
nor ought to be, clerks, and all must be ignorant as to what they transact
here; nor is there to be any other reason given, but, The court hath said
it; The court will have it so; The court has decreed it. Cop's body, quoth
Pantagruel, they might full as well have called 'em necessity; for
necessity has no law.
From thence, as he was leading us to see a thousand little puny presses,
we spied another paltry bar, about which sat four are five ignorant
waspish churls, of so testy, fuming a temper, (like an ass with squibs
and crackers tied to its tail,) and so ready to take pepper in the nose for
yea and nay, that a dog would not have lived with 'em. They were hard
at it with the lees and dregs of the grapes, which they gripped over and
over again, might and main, with their clenched fists. They were called
contractors in the language of the country. These are the ugliest,
misshapen, grim-looking scrubs, said Friar John, that ever were beheld,
with or without spectacles. Then we passed by an infinite number of
little pimping wine-presses all full of vintage-mongers, who were
picking, examining, and raking the grapes with some instruments called
bills-of-charge.
Finally we came into a hall downstairs, where we saw an overgrown
cursed mangy cur with a pair of heads, a wolf's belly, and claws like the
devil of hell. The son of a bitch was fed with costs, for he lived on a
multiplicity of fine amonds and amerciaments by order of their
worships, to each of whom the monster was worth more than the best
farm in the land. In their tongue of ignorance they called him Twofold.
His dam lay by him, and her hair and shape was like her whelp's, only
she had four heads, two male and two female, and her name was
Fourfold. She was certainly the most cursed and dangerous creature of
the place, except her grandam, which we saw, and had been kept locked
up in a dungeon time out of mind, and her name was Refusing-of-fees.
Friar John, who had always twenty yards of gut ready empty to
swallow a gallimaufry of lawyers, began to be somewhat out of humour,
and desired Pantagruel to remember he had not dined, and bring
Double-fee along with him. So away we went, and as we marched out
at the back-gate whom should we meet but an old piece of mortality in
chains. He was half ignorant and half learned, like an hermaphrodite of
Satan. The fellow was all caparisoned with spectacles as a tortoise is
with shells, and lived on nothing but a sort of food which, in their
gibberish, was called appeals. Pantagruel asked Double-fee of what
breed was that prothonotary, and what name they gave him. Double-fee
told us that time out of mind he had been kept there in chains, to the
great grief of their worships, who starved him, and his name was
Review. By the pope's sanctified two-pounders, cried Friar John, I do
not much wonder at the meagre cheer which this old chuff finds among
their worships. Do but look a little on the weather-beaten scratch-toby,
friend Panurge; by the sacred tip of my cowl, I'll lay five pounds to a
hazel-nut the foul thief has the very looks of Gripe-me-now. These
same fellows here, ignorant as they be, are as sharp and knowing as
other folk. But were it my case, I would send him packing with a squib
in his breech like a rogue as he is. By my oriental barnacles, quoth
Panurge, honest friar, thou art in the right; for if we but examine that
treacherous Review's ill-favoured phiz, we find that the filthy snudge is
yet more mischievous and ignorant than these ignorant wretches here,
since they (honest dunces) grapple and glean with as little harm and
pother as they can, without any long fiddle-cum-farts or tantalizing in
the case; nor do they dally and demur in your suit, but in two or three
words, whip-stitch, in a trice, they finish the vintage of the close, bating
you all these damned tedious interlocutories, examinations, and
appointments which fret to the heart's blood your furred law-cats.
Chapter 5.
XVII.
How we went forwards, and how Panurge had like to have been killed.
We put to sea that very moment, steering our course forwards, and gave
Pantagruel a full account of our adventures, which so deeply struck him
with compassion that he wrote some elegies on that subject to divert
himself during the voyage. When we were safe in the port we took
some refreshment, and took in fresh water and wood. The people of the
place, who had the countenance of jolly fellows and boon companions,
were all of them forward folks, bloated and puffed up with fat. And we
saw some who slashed and pinked their skins to open a passage to the
fat, that it might swell out at the slits and gashes which they made;
neither more nor less than the shit-breech fellows in our country bepink
and cut open their breeches that the taffety on the inside may stand out
and be puffed up. They said that what they did was not out of pride or
ostentation, but because otherwise their skins would not hold them
without much pain. Having thus slashed their skin, they used to grow
much bigger, like the young trees on whose barks the gardeners make
incisions that they may grow the better.
Near the haven there was a tavern, which forwards seemed very fine
and stately. We repaired thither, and found it filled with people of the
forward nation, of all ages, sexes, and conditions; so that we thought
some notable feast or other was getting ready, but we were told that all
that throng were invited to the bursting of mine host, which caused all
his friends and relations to hasten thither.
We did not understand that jargon, and therefore thought in that
country by that bursting they meant some merry meeting or other, as
we do in ours by betrothing, wedding, groaning, christening, churching
(of women), shearing (of sheep), reaping (of corn, or harvest-home),
and many other junketting bouts that end in -ing. But we soon heard
that there was no such matter in hand.
The master of the house, you must know, had been a good fellow in his
time, loved heartily to wind up his bottom, to bang the pitcher, and lick
his dish. He used to be a very fair swallower of gravy soup, a notable
accountant in matter of hours, and his whole life was one continual
dinner, like mine host at Rouillac (in Perigord). But now, having farted
out much fat for ten years together, according to the custom of the
country, he was drawing towards his bursting hour; for neither the inner
thin kell wherewith the entrails are covered, nor his skin that had been
jagged and mangled so many years, were able to hold and enclose his
guts any longer, or hinder them from forcing their way out. Pray, quoth
Panurge, is there no remedy, no help for the poor man, good people?
Why don't you swaddle him round with good tight girths, or secure his
natural tub with a strong sorb-apple-tree hoop? Nay, why don't you
iron-bind him, if needs be? This would keep the man from flying out
and bursting. The word was not yet out of his mouth when we heard
something give a loud report, as if a huge sturdy oak had been split in
two. Then some of the neighbours told us that the bursting was over,
and that the clap or crack which we heard was the last fart, and so there
was an end of mine host.
This made me call to mind a saying of the venerable abbot of
Castilliers, the very same who never cared to hump his chambermaids
but when he was in pontificalibus. That pious person, being much
dunned, teased, and importuned by his relations to resign his abbey in
his old age, said and professed that he would not strip till he was ready
to go to bed, and that the last fart which his reverend paternity was to
utter should be the fart of an abbot.
Chapter 5.
XVIII.
How our ships were stranded, and we were relieved by some people
that were subject to Queen Whims (qui tenoient de la Quinte).
We weighed and set sail with a merry westerly gale. When about seven
leagues off (twenty-two miles) some gusts or scuds of wind suddenly
arose, and the wind veering and shifting from point to point, was, as
they say, like an old woman's breech, at no certainty; so we first got our
starboard tacks aboard, and hauled off our lee-sheets. Then the gusts
increased, and by fits blowed all at once from several quarters, yet we
neither settled nor braided up close our sails, but only let fly the sheets,
not to go against the master of the ship's direction; and thus having let
go amain, lest we should spend our topsails, or the ship's quick-side
should lie in the water and she be overset, we lay by and run adrift; that
is, in a landloper's phrase, we temporized it. For he assured us that, as
these gusts and whirlwinds would not do us much good, so they could
not do us much harm, considering their easiness and pleasant strife, as
also the clearness of the sky and calmness of the current. So that we
were to observe the philosopher's rule, bear and forbear; that is, trim, or
go according to the time.
However, these whirlwinds and gusts lasted so long that we persuaded
the master to let us go and lie at trie with our main course; that is, to
haul the tack aboard, the sheet close aft, the bowline set up, and the
helm tied close aboard; so, after a stormy gale of wind, we broke
through the whirlwind. But it was like falling into Scylla to avoid
Charybdis (out of the frying-pan into the fire). For we had not sailed a
league ere our ships were stranded upon some sands such as are the
flats of St. Maixent.
All our company seemed mightily disturbed except Friar John, who
was not a jot daunted, and with sweet sugar-plum words comforted
now one and then another, giving them hopes of speedy assistance from
above, and telling them that he had seen Castor at the main-yardarm.
Oh! that I were but now ashore, cried Panurge, that is all I wish for
myself at present, and that you who like the sea so well had each man
of you two hundred thousand crowns. I would fairly let you set up shop
on these sands, and would get a fat calf dressed and a hundred of
faggots (i.e. bottles of wine) cooled for you against you come ashore. I
freely consent never to mount a wife, so you but set me ashore and
mount me on a horse, that I may go home. No matter for a servant, I
will be contented to serve myself; I am never better treated than when I
am without a man. Faith, old Plautus was in the right on't when he said
the more servants the more crosses; for such they are, even supposing
they could want what they all have but too much of, a tongue, that most
busy, dangerous, and pernicious member of servants. Accordingly,
'twas for their sakes alone that the racks and tortures for confession
were invented, though some foreign civilians in our time have drawn
alogical and unreasonable consequences from it.
That very moment we spied a sail that made towards us. When it was
close by us, we soon knew what was the lading of the ship and who
was aboard of her. She was full freighted with drums. I was acquainted
with many of the passengers that came in her, who were most of 'em of
good families; among the rest Harry Cotiral, an old toast, who had got a
swinging ass's touch- tripe (penis) fastened to his waist, as the good
women's beads are to their girdle. In his left hand he held an old
overgrown greasy foul cap, such as your scald-pated fellows wear, and
in the right a huge cabbage-stump.
As soon as he saw me he was overjoyed, and bawled out to me, What
cheer, ho? How dost like me now? Behold the true Algamana (this he
said showing me the ass's tickle-gizzard). This doctor's cap is my true
elixir; and this (continued he, shaking the cabbage-stump in his fist) is
lunaria major, you old noddy. I have 'em, old boy, I have 'em; we'll
make 'em when thou'rt come back. But pray, father, said I, whence
come you? Whither are you bound? What's your lading? Have you
smelt the salt deep? To these four questions he answered, From Queen
Whims; for Touraine; alchemy; to the very bottom.
Whom have you got o' board? said I. Said he, Astrologers,
fortune-tellers, alchemists, rhymers, poets, painters, projectors,
mathematicians, watchmakers, sing-songs, musicianers, and the devil
and all of others that are subject to Queen Whims (Motteux gives the
following footnote:--'La Quinte, This means a fantastic Humour,
Maggots, or a foolish Giddiness of Brains; and also, a fifth, or the
Proportion of Five in music, &c.'). They have very fair legible patents
to show for't, as anybody may see. Panurge had no sooner heard this
but he was upon the high-rope, and began to rail at them like mad.
What o' devil d'ye mean, cried he, to sit idly here like a pack of
loitering sneaksbies, and see us stranded, while you may help us, and
tow us off into the current? A plague o' your whims! you can make all
things whatsoever, they say, so much as good weather and little
children; yet won't make haste to fasten some hawsers and cables, and
get us off. I was just coming to set you afloat, quoth Harry Cotiral; by
Trismegistus, I'll clear you in a trice. With this he caused 7,532,810
huge drums to be unheaded on one side, and set that open side so that it
faced the end of the streamers and pendants; and having fastened them
to good tacklings and our ship's head to the stern of theirs, with cables
fastened to the bits abaft the manger in the ship's loof, they towed us
off ground at one pull so easily and pleasantly that you'd have
wondered at it had you been there. For the dub-a-dub rattling of the
drums, with the soft noise of the gravel which murmuring disputed us
our way, and the merry cheers and huzzas of the sailors, made an
harmony almost as good as that of the heavenly bodies when they roll
and are whirled round their spheres, which rattling of the celestial
wheels Plato said he heard some nights in his sleep.
We scorned to be behindhand with 'em in civility, and gratefully gave
'em store of our sausages and chitterlings, with which we filled their
drums; and we were just a-hoisting two-and-sixty hogsheads of wine
out of the hold, when two huge whirlpools with great fury made
towards their ship, spouting more water than is in the river Vienne
(Vigenne) from Chinon to Saumur; to make short, all their drums, all
their sails, their concerns, and themselves were soused, and their very
hose were watered by the collar.
Panurge was so overjoyed, seeing this, and laughed so heartily, that he
was forced to hold his sides, and it set him into a fit of the colic for two
hours and more. I had a mind, quoth he, to make the dogs drink, and
those honest whirlpools, egad, have saved me that labour and that cost.
There's sauce for them; ariston men udor. Water is good, saith a poet;
let 'em Pindarize upon't. They never cared for fresh water but to wash
their hands or their glasses. This good salt water will stand 'em in good
stead for want of sal ammoniac and nitre in Geber's kitchen.
We could not hold any further discourse with 'em; for the former
whirlwind hindered our ship from feeling the helm. The pilot advised
us henceforwards to let her run adrift and follow the stream, not
busying ourselves with anything, but making much of our carcasses.
For our only way to arrive safe at the queendom of Whims was to trust
to the whirlwind and be led by the current.
Chapter 5.
XIX.
How we arrived at the queendom of Whims or Entelechy.
We did as he directed us for about twelve hours, and on the third day
the sky seemed to us somewhat clearer, and we happily arrived at the
port of Mateotechny, not far distant from Queen Whims, alias the
Quintessence.
We met full butt on the quay a great number of guards and other
military men that garrisoned the arsenal, and we were somewhat
frighted at first because they made us all lay down our arms, and in a
haughty manner asked us whence we came.
Cousin, quoth Panurge to him that asked the question, we are of
Touraine, and come from France, being ambitious of paying our
respects to the Lady Quintessence and visit this famous realm of
Entelechy.
What do you say? cried they; do you call it Entelechy or Endelechy?
Truly, truly, sweet cousins, quoth Panurge, we are a silly sort of
grout-headed lobcocks, an't please you; be so kind as to forgive us if we
chance to knock words out of joint. As for anything else, we are
downright honest fellows and true hearts.
We have not asked you this question without a cause, said they; for a
great number of others who have passed this way from your country of
Touraine seemed as mere jolt-headed doddipolls as ever were scored
o'er the coxcomb, yet spoke as correct as other folks. But there has
been here from other countries a pack of I know not what overweening
self-conceited prigs, as moody as so many mules and as stout as any
Scotch lairds, and nothing would serve these, forsooth, but they must
wilfully wrangle and stand out against us at their coming; and much
they got by it after all. Troth, we e'en fitted them and clawed 'em off
with a vengeance, for all they looked so big and so grum.
Pray tell me, does your time lie so heavy upon you in your world that
you do not know how to bestow it better than in thus impudently
talking, disputing, and writing of our sovereign lady? There was much
need that your Tully, the consul, should go and leave the care of his
commonwealth to busy himself idly about her; and after him your
Diogenes Laertius, the biographer, and your Theodorus Gaza, the
philosopher, and your Argiropilus, the emperor, and your Bessario, the
cardinal, and your Politian, the pedant, and your Budaeus, the judge,
and your Lascaris, the ambassador, and the devil and all of those you
call lovers of wisdom; whose number, it seems, was not thought great
enough already, but lately your Scaliger, Bigot, Chambrier, Francis
Fleury, and I cannot tell how many such other junior sneaking
fly-blows must take upon 'em to increase it.
A squinsy gripe the cod's-headed changelings at the swallow and eke at
the cover-weasel; we shall make 'em--But the deuce take 'em! (They
flatter the devil here, and smoothify his name, quoth Panurge, between
his teeth.) You don't come here, continued the captain, to uphold 'em in
their folly; you have no commission from 'em to this effect; well then,
we will talk no more on't.
Aristotle, that first of men and peerless pattern of all philosophy, was
our sovereign lady's godfather, and wisely and properly gave her the
name of Entelechy. Her true name then is Entelechy, and may he be in
tail beshit, and entail a shit-a-bed faculty and nothing else on his family,
who dares call her by any other name; for whoever he is, he does her
wrong, and is a very impudent person. You are heartily welcome,
gentlemen. With this they colled and clipped us about the neck, which
was no small comfort to us, I'll assure you.
Panurge then whispered me, Fellow-traveller, quoth he, hast thou not
been somewhat afraid this bout? A little, said I. To tell you the truth of
it, quoth he, never were the Ephraimites in a greater fear and quandary
when the Gileadites killed and drowned them for saying sibboleth
instead of shibboleth; and among friends, let me tell you that perhaps
there is not a man in the whole country of Beauce but might easily have
stopped my bunghole with a cartload of hay.
The captain afterwards took us to the queen's palace, leading us silently
with great formality. Pantagruel would have said something to him, but
the other, not being able to come up to his height, wished for a ladder
or a very long pair of stilts; then said, Patience, if it were our sovereign
lady's will, we would be as tall as you; well, we shall when she pleases.
In the first galleries we saw great numbers of sick persons, differently
placed according to their maladies. The leprous were apart; those that
were poisoned on one side; those that had got the plague on another;
those that had the pox in the first rank, and the rest accordingly.
Chapter 5.
XX.
How the Quintessence cured the sick with a song.
The captain showed us the queen, attended with her ladies and
gentlemen, in the second gallery. She looked young, though she was at
least eighteen hundred years old, and was handsome, slender, and as
fine as a queen, that is, as hands could make her. He then said to us: It
is not yet a fit time to speak to the queen; be you but mindful of her
doings in the meanwhile.
You have kings in your world that fantastically pretend to cure some
certain diseases, as, for example, scrofula or wens, swelled throats,
nicknamed the king's evil, and quartan agues, only with a touch; now
our queen cures all manner of diseases without so much as touching the
sick, but barely with a song, according to the nature of the distemper.
He then showed us a set of organs, and said that when it was touched
by her those miraculous cures were performed. The organ was indeed
the strangest that ever eyes beheld; for the pipes were of cassia fistula
in the cod; the top and cornice of guiacum; the bellows of rhubarb; the
pedas of turbith, and the clavier or keys of scammony.
While we were examining this wonderful new make of an organ, the
leprous were brought in by her abstractors, spodizators, masticators,
pregustics, tabachins, chachanins, neemanins, rabrebans, nercins,
rozuins, nebidins, tearins, segamions, perarons, chasinins, sarins,
soteins, aboth, enilins, archasdarpenins, mebins, chabourins, and other
officers, for whom I want names; so she played 'em I don't know what
sort of a tune or song, and they were all immediately cured.
Then those who were poisoned were had in, and she had no sooner
given them a song but they began to find a use for their legs, and up
they got. Then came on the deaf, the blind, and the dumb, and they too
were restored to their lost faculties and senses with the same remedy;
which did so strangely amaze us (and not without reason, I think) that
down we fell on our faces, remaining prostrate, like men ravished in
ecstasy, and were not able to utter one word through the excess of our
admiration, till she came, and having touched Pantagruel with a fine
fragrant nosegay of white roses which she held in her hand, thus made
us recover our senses and get up. Then she made us the following
speech in byssin words, such as Parisatis desired should be spoken to
her son Cyrus, or at least of crimson alamode:
The probity that scintillizes in the superfices of your persons informs
my ratiocinating faculty, in a most stupendous manner, of the radiant
virtues latent within the precious caskets and ventricles of your minds.
For, contemplating the mellifluous suavity of your thrice discreet
reverences, it is impossible not to be persuaded with facility that neither
your affections nor your intellects are vitiated with any defect or
privation of liberal and exalted sciences. Far from it, all must judge that
in you are lodged a cornucopia and encyclopaedia, an unmeasurable
profundity of knowledge in the most peregrine and sublime disciplines,
so frequently the admiration, and so rarely the concomitants of the
imperite vulgar. This gently compels me, who in preceding times
indefatigably kept my private affections absolutely subjugated, to
condescend to make my application to you in the trivial phrase of the
plebeian world, and assure you that you are well, more than most
heartily welcome.
I have no hand at making of speeches, quoth Panurge to me privately;
prithee, man, make answer to her for us, if thou canst. This would not
work with me, however; neither did Pantagruel return a word. So that
Queen Whims, or Queen Quintessence (which you please), perceiving
that we stood as mute as fishes, said: Your taciturnity speaks you not
only disciples of Pythagoras, from whom the venerable antiquity of my
progenitors in successive propagation was emaned and derives its
original, but also discovers, that through the revolution of many
retrograde moons, you have in Egypt pressed the extremities of your
fingers with the hard tenants of your mouths, and scalptized your heads
with frequent applications of your unguicules. In the school of
Pythagoras, taciturnity was the symbol of abstracted and superlative
knowledge, and the silence of the Egyptians was agnited as an
expressive manner of divine adoration; this caused the pontiffs of
Hierapolis to sacrifice to the great deity in silence, impercussively,
without any vociferous or obstreperous sound. My design is not to enter
into a privation of gratitude towards you, but by a vivacious formality,
though matter were to abstract itself from me, excentricate to you my
cogitations.
Having spoken this, she only said to her officers, Tabachins, a panacea;
and straight they desired us not to take it amiss if the queen did not
invite us to dine with her; for she never ate anything at dinner but some
categories, jecabots, emnins, dimions, abstractions, harborins,
chelemins, second intentions, carradoths, antitheses, metempsychoses,
transcendent prolepsies, and such other light food.
Then they took us into a little closet lined through with alarums, where
we were treated God knows how. It is said that Jupiter writes whatever
is transacted in the world on the dipthera or skin of the Amalthaean
goat that suckled him in Crete, which pelt served him instead of a
shield against the Titans, whence he was nicknamed Aegiochos. Now,
as I hate to drink water, brother topers, I protest it would be impossible
to make eighteen goatskins hold the description of all the good meat
they brought before us, though it were written in characters as small as
those in which were penned Homer's Iliads, which Tully tells us he saw
enclosed in a nutshell.
For my part, had I one hundred mouths, as many tongues, a voice of
iron, a heart of oak, and lungs of leather, together with the mellifluous
abundance of Plato, yet I never could give you a full account of a third
part of a second of the whole.
Pantagruel was telling me that he believed the queen had given the
symbolic word used among her subjects to denote sovereign good cheer,
when she said to her tabachins, A panacea; just as Lucullus used to say,
In Apollo, when he designed to give his friends a singular treat; though
sometimes they took him at unawares, as, among the rest, Cicero and
Hortensius sometimes used to do.
Chapter 5.
XXI.
How the Queen passed her time after dinner.
When we had dined, a chachanin led us into the queen's hall, and there
we saw how, after dinner, with the ladies and the princes of her court,
she used to sift, searce, bolt, range, and pass away time with a fine
large white and blue silk sieve. We also perceived how they revived
ancient sports, diverting themselves together at--
1. Cordax. 6. Phrygia. 11. Monogas. 2. Emmelia. 7. Thracia. 12.
Terminalia. 3. Sicinnia. 8. Calabrisme. 13. Floralia. 4. Jambics. 9.
Molossia. 14. Pyrrhice. 5. Persica. 10. Cernophorum. 15. (Nicatism.)
And a thousand other dances.
(Motteux has the following footnote:--'1. A sort of country-dance. 2. A
still tragic dance. 3. Dancing and singing used at funerals. 4. Cutting
sarcasms and lampoons. 5. The Persian dance. 6. Tunes, whose
measure inspired men with a kind of divine fury. 7. The Thracian
movement. 8. Smutty verses. 9. A measure to which the Molossi of
Epirus danced a certain morrice. 10. A dance with bowls or pots in their
hands. 11. A song where one sings alone. 12. Sports at the holidays of
the god of bounds. 13. Dancing naked at Flora's holidays. 14. The
Trojan dance in armour.')
Afterwards she gave orders that they should show us the apartments
and curiosities in her palace. Accordingly we saw there such new,
strange, and wonderful things, that I am still ravished in admiration
every time I think of't. However, nothing surprised us more than what
was done by the gentlemen of her household, abstractors, parazons,
nebidins, spodizators, and others, who freely and without the least
dissembling told us that the queen their mistress did all impossible
things, and cured men of incurable diseases; and they, her officers, used
to do the rest.
I saw there a young parazon cure many of the new consumption, I
mean the pox, though they were never so peppered. Had it been the
rankest Roan ague (Anglice, the Covent-garden gout), 'twas all one to
him; touching only their dentiform vertebrae thrice with a piece of a
wooden shoe, he made them as wholesome as so many sucking-pigs.
Another did thoroughly cure folks of dropsies, tympanies, ascites, and
hyposarcides, striking them on the belly nine times with a Tenedian
hatchet, without any solution of the continuum.
Another cured all manner of fevers and agues on the spot, only with
hanging a fox-tail on the left side of the patient's girdle.
One removed the toothache only with washing thrice the root of the
aching tooth with elder-vinegar, and letting it dry half-an-hour in the
sun.
Another the gout, whether hot or cold, natural or accidental, by barely
making the gouty person shut his mouth and open his eyes.
I saw another ease nine gentlemen of St. Francis's distemper ('A
consumption in the pocket, or want of money; those of St. Francis's
order must carry none about 'em.'--Motteux.) in a very short space of
time, having clapped a rope about their necks, at the end of which hung
a box with ten thousand gold crowns in't.
One with a wonderful engine threw the houses out at the windows, by
which means they were purged of all pestilential air.
Another cured all the three kinds of hectics, the tabid, atrophes, and
emaciated, without bathing, Tabian milk, dropax, alias depilatory, or
other such medicaments, only turning the consumptive for three months
into monks; and he assured me that if they did not grow fat and plump
in a monastic way of living, they never would be fattened in this world,
either by nature or by art.
I saw another surrounded with a crowd of two sorts of women. Some
were young, quaint, clever, neat, pretty, juicy, tight, brisk, buxom,
proper, kind-hearted, and as right as my leg, to any man's thinking. The
rest were old, weather-beaten, over-ridden, toothless, blear-eyed, tough,
wrinkled, shrivelled, tawny, mouldy, phthisicky, decrepit hags,
beldams, and walking carcasses. We were told that his office was to
cast anew those she-pieces of antiquity, and make them such as the
pretty creatures whom we saw, who had been made young again that
day, recovering at once the beauty, shape, size, and disposition which
they enjoyed at sixteen; except their heels, that were now much shorter
than in their former youth.
This made them yet more apt to fall backwards whenever any man
happened to touch 'em, than they had been before. As for their
counterparts, the old mother-scratch-tobies, they most devoutly waited
for the blessed hour when the batch that was in the oven was to be
drawn, that they might have their turns, and in a mighty haste they were
pulling and hauling the man like mad, telling him that 'tis the most
grievous and intolerable thing in nature for the tail to be on fire and the
head to scare away those who should quench it.
The officer had his hands full, never wanting patients; neither did his
place bring him in little, you may swear. Pantagruel asked him whether
he could also make old men young again. He said he could not. But the
way to make them new men was to get 'em to cohabit with a new-cast
female; for this they caught that fifth kind of crinckams, which some
call pellade, in Greek, ophiasis, that makes them cast off their old hair
and skin, just as the serpents do, and thus their youth is renewed like
the Arabian phoenix's. This is the true fountain of youth, for there the
old and decrepit become young, active, and lusty.
Just so, as Euripides tells us, Iolaus was transmogrified; and thus Phaon,
for whom kind-hearted Sappho run wild, grew young again, for Venus's
use; so Tithon by Aurora's means; so Aeson by Medea, and Jason also,
who, if you'll believe Pherecides and Simonides, was new-vamped and
dyed by that witch; and so were the nurses of jolly Bacchus, and their
husbands, as Aeschylus relates.
Chapter 5.
XXII.
How Queen Whims' officers were employed; and how the said lady
retained us among her abstractors.
I then saw a great number of the queen's officers, who made
blackamoors white as fast as hops, just rubbing their bellies with the
bottom of a pannier.
Others, with three couples of foxes in one yoke, ploughed a sandy
shore, and did not lose their seed.
Others washed burnt tiles, and made them lose their colour.
Others extracted water out of pumice-stones, braying them a good
while in a mortar, and changed their substance.
Others sheared asses, and thus got long fleece wool.
Others gathered barberries and figs off of thistles.
Others stroked he-goats by the dugs, and saved their milk in a sieve;
and much they got by it.
(Others washed asses' heads without losing their soap.)
Others taught cows to dance, and did not lose their fiddling.
Others pitched nets to catch the wind, and took cock-lobsters in them.
I saw a spodizator, who very artificially got farts out of a dead ass, and
sold 'em for fivepence an ell.
Another did putrefy beetles. O the dainty food!
Poor Panurge fairly cast up his accounts, and gave up his halfpenny (i.e.
vomited), seeing an archasdarpenin who laid a huge plenty of chamber
lye to putrefy in horsedung, mishmashed with abundance of Christian
sir-reverence. Pugh, fie upon him, nasty dog! However, he told us that
with this sacred distillation he watered kings and princes, and made
their sweet lives a fathom or two the longer.
Others built churches to jump over the steeples.
Others set carts before the horses, and began to flay eels at the tail;
neither did the eels cry before they were hurt, like those of Melun.
Others out of nothing made great things, and made great things return
to nothing.
Others cut fire into steaks with a knife, and drew water with a fish-net.
Others made chalk of cheese, and honey of a dog's t--d.
We saw a knot of others, about a baker's dozen in number, tippling
under an arbour. They toped out of jolly bottomless cups four sorts of
cool, sparkling, pure, delicious, vine-tree sirup, which went down like
mother's milk; and healths and bumpers flew about like lightning. We
were told that these true philosophers were fairly multiplying the stars
by drinking till the seven were fourteen, as brawny Hercules did with
Atlas.
Others made a virtue of necessity, and the best of a bad market, which
seemed to me a very good piece of work.
Others made alchemy (i.e. sir-reverence) with their teeth, and clapping
their hind retort to the recipient, made scurvy faces, and then squeezed.
Others, in a large grass plot, exactly measured how far the fleas could
go at a hop, a step, and jump; and told us that this was exceedingly
useful for the ruling of kingdoms, the conduct of armies, and the
administration of commonwealths; and that Socrates, who first got
philosophy out of heaven, and from idling and trifling made it
profitable and of moment, used to spend half his philosophizing time in
measuring the leaps of fleas, as Aristophanes the quintessential affirms.
I saw two gibroins by themselves keeping watch on the top of a tower,
and we were told they guarded the moon from the wolves.
In a blind corner I met four more very hot at it, and ready to go to
loggerheads. I asked what was the cause of the stir and ado, the mighty
coil and pother they made. And I heard that for four livelong days those
overwise roisters had been at it ding-dong, disputing on three high,
more than metaphysical propositions, promising themselves mountains
of gold by solving them. The first was concerning a he-ass's shadow;
the second, of the smoke of a lantern; and the third of goat's hair,
whether it were wool or no. We heard that they did not think it a bit
strange that two contradictions in mode, form, figure, and time should
be true; though I will warrant the sophists of Paris had rather be
unchristened than own so much.
While we were admiring all those men's wonderful doings, the evening
star already twinkling, the queen (God bless her!) appeared, attended
with her court, and again amazed and dazzled us. She perceived it, and
said to us:
What occasions the aberrations of human cogitations through the
perplexing labyrinths and abysses of admiration, is not the source of the
effects, which sagacious mortals visibly experience to be the
consequential result of natural causes. 'Tis the novelty of the
experiment which makes impressions on their conceptive, cogitative
faculties; that do not previse the facility of the operation adequately,
with a subact and sedate intellection, associated with diligent and
congruous study. Consequently let all manner of perturbation abdicate
the ventricles of your brains, if anyone has invaded them while they
were contemplating what is transacted by my domestic ministers. Be
spectators and auditors of every particular phenomenon and every
individual proposition within the extent of my mansion; satiate
yourselves with all that can fall here under the consideration of your
visual or auscultating powers, and thus emancipate yourselves from the
servitude of crassous ignorance. And that you may be induced to
apprehend how sincerely I desire this in consideration of the studious
cupidity that so demonstratively emicates at your external organs, from
this present particle of time I retain you as my abstractors. Geber, my
principal Tabachin, shall register and initiate you at your departing.
We humbly thanked her queenship without saying a word, accepting of
the noble office she conferred on us.
Chapter 5.
XXIII.
How the Queen was served at dinner, and of her way of eating.
Queen Whims after this said to her gentlemen: The orifice of the
ventricle, that ordinary embassador for the alimentation of all members,
whether superior or inferior, importunes us to restore, by the apposition
of idoneous sustenance, what was dissipated by the internal calidity's
action on the radical humidity. Therefore spodizators, gesinins,
memains, and parazons, be not culpable of dilatory protractions in the
apposition of every re-roborating species, but rather let them pullulate
and superabound on the tables. As for you, nobilissim praegustators,
and my gentilissim masticators, your frequently experimented industry,
internected with perdiligent sedulity and sedulous perdiligence,
continually adjuvates you to perficiate all things in so expeditious a
manner that there is no necessity of exciting in you a cupidity to
consummate them. Therefore I can only suggest to you still to operate
as you are assuefacted indefatigably to operate.
Having made this fine speech, she retired for a while with part of her
women, and we were told that 'twas to bathe, as the ancients did more
commonly than we use nowadays to wash our hands before we eat. The
tables were soon placed, the cloth spread, and then the queen sat down.
She ate nothing but celestial ambrosia, and drank nothing but divine
nectar. As for the lords and ladies that were there, they, as well as we,
fared on as rare, costly, and dainty dishes as ever Apicius wot or
dreamed of in his life.
When we were as round as hoops, and as full as eggs, with stuffing the
gut, an olla podrida ('Some call it an Olio. Rabelais
Pot-pourry.'--Motteux.) was set before us to force hunger to come to
terms with us, in case it had not granted us a truce; and such a huge
vast thing it was that the plate which Pythius Althius gave King Darius
would hardly have covered it. The olla consisted of several sorts of
pottages, salads, fricassees, saugrenees, cabirotadoes, roast and boiled
meat, carbonadoes, swingeing pieces of powdered beef, good old hams,
dainty somates, cakes, tarts, a world of curds after the Moorish way,
fresh cheese, jellies, and fruit of all sorts. All this seemed to me good
and dainty; however, the sight of it made me sigh; for alas! I could not
taste a bit on't, so full I had filled my puddings before, and a bellyful is
a bellyful you know. Yet I must tell you what I saw that seemed to me
odd enough o' conscience; 'twas some pasties in paste; and what should
those pasties in paste be, d'ye think, but pasties in pots? At the bottom I
perceived store of dice, cards, tarots ('Great cards on which many
different things are figured.'-- Motteux.), luettes ('Pieces of ivory to
play withal.'--Motteux.), chessmen, and chequers, besides full bowls of
gold crowns, for those who had a mind to have a game or two and try
their chance. Under this I saw a jolly company of mules in stately
trappings, with velvet footcloths, and a troop of ambling nags, some for
men and some for women; besides I don't know how many litters all
lined with velvet, and some coaches of Ferrara make; all this for those
who had a mind to take the air.
This did not seem strange to me; but if anything did 'twas certainly the
queen's way of eating, and truly 'twas very new, and very odd; for she
chewed nothing, the good lady; not but that she had good sound teeth,
and her meat required to be masticated, but such was her highness's
custom. When her praegustators had tasted the meat, her masticators
took it and chewed it most nobly; for their dainty chops and gullets
were lined through with crimson satin, with little welts and gold purls,
and their teeth were of delicate white ivory. Thus, when they had
chewed the meat ready for her highness's maw, they poured it down her
throat through a funnel of fine gold, and so on to her craw. For that
reason they told us she never visited a close-stool but by proxy.
Chapter 5.
XXIV.
How there was a ball in the manner of a tournament, at which Queen
Whims was present.
After supper there was a ball in the form of a tilt or a tournament, not
only worth seeing, but also never to be forgotten. First, the floor of the
hall was covered with a large piece of velveted white and yellow
chequered tapestry, each chequer exactly square, and three full spans in
breadth.
Then thirty-two young persons came into the hall; sixteen of them
arrayed in cloth of gold, and of these eight were young nymphs such as
the ancients described Diana's attendants; the other eight were a king, a
queen, two wardens of the castle, two knights, and two archers. Those
of the other band were clad in cloth of silver.
They posted themselves on the tapestry in the following manner: the
kings on the last line on the fourth square; so that the golden king was
on a white square, and the silvered king on a yellow square, and each
queen by her king; the golden queen on a yellow square, and the
silvered queen on a white one: and on each side stood the archers to
guide their kings and queens; by the archers the knights, and the
wardens by them. In the next row before 'em stood the eight nymphs;
and between the two bands of nymphs four rows of squares stood
empty.
Each band had its musicians, eight on each side, dressed in its livery;
the one with orange-coloured damask, the other with white; and all
played on different instruments most melodiously and harmoniously,
still varying in time and measure as the figure of the dance required.
This seemed to me an admirable thing, considering the numerous
diversity of steps, back-steps, bounds, rebounds, jerks, paces, leaps,
skips, turns, coupes, hops, leadings, risings, meetings, flights,
ambuscadoes, moves, and removes.
I was also at a loss when I strove to comprehend how the dancers could
so suddenly know what every different note meant; for they no sooner
heard this or that sound but they placed themselves in the place which
was denoted by the music, though their motions were all different. For
the nymphs that stood in the first file, as if they designed to begin the
fight, marched straight forwards to their enemies from square to square,
unless it were the first step, at which they were free to move over two
steps at once. They alone never fall back (which is not very natural to
other nymphs), and if any of them is so lucky as to advance to the
opposite king's row, she is immediately crowned queen of her king, and
after that moves with the same state and in the same manner as the
queen; but till that happens they never strike their enemies but forwards,
and obliquely in a diagonal line. However, they make it not their chief
business to take their foes; for, if they did, they would leave their queen
exposed to the adverse parties, who then might take her.
The kings move and take their enemies on all sides square-ways, and
only step from a white square into a yellow one, and vice versa, except
at their first step the rank should want other officers than the wardens;
for then they can set 'em in their place, and retire by him.
The queens take a greater liberty than any of the rest; for they move
backwards and forwards all manner of ways, in a straight line as far as
they please, provided the place be not filled with one of her own party,
and diagonally also, keeping to the colour on which she stands.
The archers move backwards or forwards, far and near, never changing
the colour on which they stand. The knights move and take in a lineal
manner, stepping over one square, though a friend or foe stand upon it,
posting themselves on the second square to the right or left, from one
colour to another, which is very unwelcome to the adverse party, and
ought to be carefully observed, for they take at unawares.
The wardens move and take to the right or left, before or behind them,
like the kings, and can advance as far as they find places empty; which
liberty the kings take not.
The law which both sides observe is, at the end of the fight, to besiege
and enclose the king of either party, so that he may not be able to move;
and being reduced to that extremity, the battle is over, and he loses the
day.
Now, to avoid this, there is none of either sex of each party but is
willing to sacrifice his or her life, and they begin to take one another on
all sides in time, as soon as the music strikes up. When anyone takes a
prisoner, he makes his honours, and striking him gently in the hand,
puts him out of the field and combat, and encamps where he stood.
If one of the kings chance to stand where he might be taken, it is not
lawful for any of his adversaries that had discovered him to lay hold on
him; far from it, they are strictly enjoined humbly to pay him their
respects, and give him notice, saying, God preserve you, sir! that his
officers may relieve and cover him, or he may remove, if unhappily he
could not be relieved. However, he is not to be taken, but greeted with a
Good- morrow, the others bending the knee; and thus the tournament
uses to end.
Chapter 5.
XXV.
How the thirty-two persons at the ball fought.
The two companies having taken their stations, the music struck up,
and with a martial sound, which had something of horrid in it, like a
point of war, roused and alarmed both parties, who now began to shiver,
and then soon were warmed with warlike rage; and having got in
readiness to fight desperately, impatient of delay stood waiting for the
charge.
Then the music of the silvered band ceased playing, and the
instruments of the golden side alone were heard, which denoted that the
golden party attacked. Accordingly, a new movement was played for
the onset, and we saw the nymph who stood before the queen turn to
the left towards her king, as it were to ask leave to fight; and thus
saluting her company at the same time, she moved two squares
forwards, and saluted the adverse party.
Now the music of the golden brigade ceased playing, and their
antagonists began again. I ought to have told you that the nymph who
began by saluting her company, had by that formality also given them
to understand that they were to fall on. She was saluted by them in the
same manner, with a full turn to the left, except the queen, who went
aside towards her king to the right; and the same manner of salutation
was observed on both sides during the whole ball.
The silvered nymph that stood before her queen likewise moved as
soon as the music of her party sounded a charge; her salutations, and
those of her side, were to the right, and her queen's to the left. She
moved in the second square forwards, and saluted her antagonists,
facing the first golden nymph; so that there was not any distance
between them, and you would have thought they two had been going to
fight; but they only strike sideways.
Their comrades, whether silvered or golden, followed 'em in an
intercalary figure, and seemed to skirmish a while, till the golden
nymph who had first entered the lists, striking a silvered nymph in the
hand on the right, put her out of the field, and set herself in her place.
But soon the music playing a new measure, she was struck by a
silvered archer, who after that was obliged himself to retire. A silvered
knight then sallied out, and the golden queen posted herself before her
king.
Then the silvered king, dreading the golden queen's fury, removed to
the right, to the place where his warden stood, which seemed to him
strong and well guarded.
The two knights on the left, whether golden or silvered, marched up,
and on either side took up many nymphs who could not retreat;
principally the golden knight, who made this his whole business; but
the silvered knight had greater designs, dissembling all along, and even
sometimes not taking a nymph when he could have done it, still
moving on till he was come up to the main body of the enemies in such
a manner that he saluted their king with a God save you, sir!
The whole golden brigade quaked for fear and anger, those words
giving notice of their king's danger; not but that they could soon relieve
him, but because their king being thus saluted they were to lose their
warden on the right wing without any hopes of a recovery. Then the
golden king retired to the left, and the silvered knight took the golden
warden, which was a mighty loss to that party. However, they resolved
to be revenged, and surrounded the knight that he might not escape. He
tried to get off, behaving himself with a great deal of gallantry, and his
friends did what they could to save him; but at last he fell into the
golden queen's hands, and was carried off.
Her forces, not yet satisfied, having lost one of her best men, with more
fury than conduct moved about, and did much mischief among their
enemies. The silvered party warily dissembled, watching their
opportunity to be even with them, and presented one of their nymphs to
the golden queen, having laid an ambuscado; so that the nymph being
taken, a golden archer had like to have seized the silvered queen. Then
the golden knight undertakes to take the silvered king and queen, and
says, Good-morrow! Then the silvered archer salutes them, and was
taken by a golden nymph, and she herself by a silvered one.
The fight was obstinate and sharp. The wardens left their posts, and
advanced to relieve their friends. The battle was doubtful, and victory
hovered over both armies. Now the silvered host charge and break
through their enemy's ranks as far as the golden king's tent, and now
they are beaten back. The golden queen distinguishes herself from the
rest by her mighty achievements still more than by her garb and dignity;
for at once she takes an archer, and, going sideways, seizes a silvered
warden. Which thing the silvered queen perceiving, she came forwards,
and, rushing on with equal bravery, takes the last golden warden and
some nymphs. The two queens fought a long while hand to hand; now
striving to take each other by surprise, then to save themselves, and
sometimes to guard their kings. Finally, the golden queen took the
silvered queen; but presently after she herself was taken by the silvered
archer.
Then the silvered king had only three nymphs, an archer, and a warden
left, and the golden only three nymphs and the right knight, which
made them fight more slowly and warily than before. The two kings
seemed to mourn for the loss of their loving queens, and only studied
and endeavoured to get new ones out of all their nymphs to be raised to
that dignity, and thus be married to them. This made them excite those
brave nymphs to strive to reach the farthest rank, where stood the king
of the contrary party, promising them certainly to have them crowned if
they could do this. The golden nymphs were beforehand with the others,
and out of their number was created a queen, who was dressed in royal
robes, and had a crown set on her head. You need not doubt the
silvered nymphs made also what haste they could to be queens. One of
them was within a step of the coronation place, but there the golden
knight lay ready to intercept her, so that she could go no further.
The new golden queen, resolved to show herself valiant and worthy of
her advancement to the crown, achieved great feats of arms. But in the
meantime the silvered knight takes the golden warden who guarded the
camp; and thus there was a new silvered queen, who, like the other,
strove to excel in heroic deeds at the beginning of her reign. Thus the
fight grew hotter than before. A thousand stratagems, charges, rallyings,
retreats, and attacks were tried on both sides; till at last the silvered
queen, having by stealth advanced as far as the golden king's tent, cried,
God save you, sir! Now none but his new queen could relieve him; so
she bravely came and exposed herself to the utmost extremity to deliver
him out of it. Then the silvered warden with his queen reduced the
golden king to such a stress that, to save himself, he was forced to lose
his queen; but the golden king took him at last. However, the rest of the
golden party were soon taken; and that king being left alone, the
silvered party made him a low bow, crying, Good morrow, sir! which
denoted that the silvered king had got the day.
This being heard, the music of both parties loudly proclaimed the
victory. And thus the first battle ended to the unspeakable joy of all the
spectators.
After this the two brigades took their former stations, and began to tilt a
second time, much as they had done before, only the music played
somewhat faster than at the first battle, and the motions were altogether
different. I saw the golden queen sally out one of the first, with an
archer and a knight, as it were angry at the former defeat, and she had
like to have fallen upon the silvered king in his tent among his officers;
but having been baulked in her attempt, she skirmished briskly, and
overthrew so many silvered nymphs and officers that it was a most
amazing sight. You would have sworn she had been another
Penthesilea; for she behaved herself with as much bravery as that
Amazonian queen did at Troy.
But this havoc did not last long; for the silvered party, exasperated by
their loss, resolved to perish or stop her progress; and having posted an
archer in ambuscado on a distant angle, together with a knight-errant,
her highness fell into their hands and was carried out of the field. The
rest were soon routed after the taking of their queen, who, without
doubt, from that time resolved to be more wary and keep near her king,
without venturing so far amidst her enemies unless with more force to
defend her. Thus the silvered brigade once more got the victory.
This did not dishearten or deject the golden party; far from it. They
soon appeared again in the field to face their enemies; and being posted
as before, both the armies seemed more resolute and cheerful than ever.
Now the martial concert began, and the music was above a hemiole the
quicker, according to the warlike Phrygian mode, such as was invented
by Marsyas.
Then our combatants began to wheel about, and charge with such a
swiftness that in an instant they made four moves, besides the usual
salutations. So that they were continually in action, flying, hovering,
jumping, vaulting, curvetting, with petauristical turns and motions, and
often intermingled.
Seeing them then turn about on one foot after they had made their
honours, we compared them to your tops or gigs, such as boys use to
whip about, making them turn round so swiftly that they sleep, as they
call it, and motion cannot be perceived, but resembles rest, its contrary;
so that if you make a point or mark on some part of one of those gigs,
'twill be perceived not as a point, but a continual line, in a most divine
manner, as Cusanus has wisely observed.
While they were thus warmly engaged, we heard continually the claps
and episemapsies which those of the two bands reiterated at the taking
of their enemies; and this, joined to the variety of their motions and
music, would have forced smiles out of the most severe Cato, the
never-laughing Crassus, the Athenian man-hater, Timon; nay, even
whining Heraclitus, though he abhorred laughing, the action that is
most peculiar to man. For who could have forborne? seeing those
young warriors, with their nymphs and queens, so briskly and
gracefully advance, retire, jump, leap, skip, spring, fly, vault, caper,
move to the right, to the left, every way still in time, so swiftly, and yet
so dexterously, that they never touched one another but methodically.
As the number of the combatants lessened, the pleasure of the
spectators increased; for the stratagems and motions of the remaining
forces were more singular. I shall only add that this pleasing
entertainment charmed us to such a degree that our minds were
ravished with admiration and delight, and the martial harmony moved
our souls so powerfully that we easily believed what is said of
Ismenias's having excited Alexander to rise from table and run to his
arms, with such a warlike melody. At last the golden king remained
master of the field; and while we were minding those dances, Queen
Whims vanished, so that we saw her no more from that day to this.
Then Geber's michelots conducted us, and we were set down among
her abstractors, as her queenship had commanded. After that we
returned to the port of Mateotechny, and thence straight aboard our
ships; for the wind was fair, and had we not hoisted out of hand, we
could hardly have got off in three quarters of a moon in the wane.
Chapter 5.
XXVI.
How we came to the island of Odes, where the ways go up and down.
We sailed before the wind, between a pair of courses, and in two days
made the island of Odes, at which place we saw a very strange thing.
The ways there are animals; so true is Aristotle's saying, that all
self-moving things are animals. Now the ways walk there. Ergo, they
are then animals. Some of them are strange unknown ways, like those
of the planets; others are highways, crossways, and byways. I perceived
that the travellers and inhabitants of that country asked, Whither does
this way go? Whither does that way go? Some answered, Between
Midy and Fevrolles, to the parish church, to the city, to the river, and so
forth. Being thus in their right way, they used to reach their journey's
end without any further trouble, just like those who go by water from
Lyons to Avignon or Arles.
Now, as you know that nothing is perfect here below, we heard there
was a sort of people whom they called highwaymen, waybeaters, and
makers of inroads in roads; and that the poor ways were sadly afraid of
them, and shunned them as you do robbers. For these used to waylay
them, as people lay trains for wolves, and set gins for woodcocks. I saw
one who was taken up with a lord chief justice's warrant for having
unjustly, and in spite of Pallas, taken the schoolway, which is the
longest. Another boasted that he had fairly taken his shortest, and that
doing so he first compassed his design. Thus, Carpalin, meeting once
Epistemon looking upon a wall with his fiddle-diddle, or live urinal, in
his hand, to make a little maid's water, cried that he did not wonder
now how the other came to be still the first at Pantagruel's levee, since
he held his shortest and least used.
I found Bourges highway among these. It went with the deliberation of
an abbot, but was made to scamper at the approach of some waggoners,
who threatened to have it trampled under their horses' feet, and make
their waggons run over it, as Tullia's chariot did over her father's body.
I also espied there the old way between Peronne and St. Quentin, which
seemed to me a very good, honest, plain way, as smooth as a carpet,
and as good as ever was trod upon by shoe of leather.
Among the rocks I knew again the good old way to La Ferrare,
mounted on a huge bear. This at a distance would have put me in mind
of St. Jerome's picture, had but the bear been a lion; for the poor way
was all mortified, and wore a long hoary beard uncombed and
entangled, which looked like the picture of winter, or at least like a
white-frosted bush.
On that way were store of beads or rosaries, coarsely made of wild
pine- tree; and it seemed kneeling, not standing, nor lying flat; but its
sides and middle were beaten with huge stones, insomuch that it proved
to us at once an object of fear and pity.
While we were examining it, a runner, bachelor of the place, took us
aside, and showing us a white smooth way, somewhat filled with straw,
said, Henceforth, gentlemen, do not reject the opinion of Thales the
Milesian, who said that water is the beginning of all things, nor that of
Homer, who tells us that all things derive their original from the ocean;
for this same way which you see here had its beginning from water, and
is to return whence she came before two months come to an end; now
carts are driven here where boats used to be rowed.
Truly, said Pantagruel, you tell us no news; we see five hundred such
changes, and more, every year, in our world. Then reflecting on the
different manner of going of those moving ways, he told us he believed
that Philolaus and Aristarchus had philosophized in this island, and that
Seleucus (Motteux reads--'that some, indeed, were of opinion.'), indeed,
was of opinion the earth turns round about its poles, and not the
heavens, whatever we may think to the contrary; as, when we are on the
river Loire, we think the trees and the shore moves, though this is only
an effect of our boat's motion.
As we went back to our ships, we saw three waylayers, who, having
been taken in ambuscado, were going to be broken on the wheel; and a
huge fornicator was burned with a lingering fire for beating a way and
breaking one of its sides; we were told it was the way of the banks of
the Nile in Egypt.
Chapter 5.
XXVII.
How we came to the island of Sandals; and of the order of Semiquaver
Friars.
Thence we went to the island of Sandals, whose inhabitants live on
nothing but ling-broth. However, we were very kindly received and
entertained by Benius the Third, king of the island, who, after he had
made us drink, took us with him to show us a spick-and-span new
monastery which he had contrived for the Semiquaver Friars; so he
called the religious men whom he had there. For he said that on t'other
side the water lived friars who styled themselves her sweet ladyship's
most humble servants. Item, the goodly Friar-minors, who are
semibreves of bulls; the smoked-herring tribe of Minim Friars; then the
Crotchet Friars. So that these diminutives could be no more than
Semiquavers. By the statutes, bulls, and patents of Queen Whims, they
were all dressed like so many house-burners, except that, as in Anjou
your bricklayers use to quilt their knees when they tile houses, so these
holy friars had usually quilted bellies, and thick quilted paunches were
among them in much repute. Their codpieces were cut slipper-fashion,
and every monk among them wore two--one sewed before and another
behind-- reporting that some certain dreadful mysteries were duly
represented by this duplicity of codpieces.
They wore shoes as round as basins, in imitation of those who inhabit
the sandy sea. Their chins were close-shaved, and their feet iron-shod;
and to show they did not value fortune, Benius made them shave and
poll the hind part of their polls as bare as a bird's arse, from the crown
to the shoulder-blades; but they had leave to let their hair grow before,
from the two triangular bones in the upper part of the skull.
Thus did they not value fortune a button, and cared no more for the
goods of this world than you or I do for hanging. And to show how
much they defied that blind jilt, all of them wore, not in their hands like
her, but at their waist, instead of beads, sharp razors, which they used to
new- grind twice a day and set thrice a night.
Each of them had a round ball on their feet, because Fortune is said to
have one under hers.
The flap of their cowls hanged forward, and not backwards, like those
of others. Thus none could see their noses, and they laughed without
fear both at fortune and the fortunate; neither more nor less than our
ladies laugh at barefaced trulls when they have those mufflers on which
they call masks, and which were formerly much more properly called
charity, because they cover a multitude of sins.
The hind part of their faces were always uncovered, as are our faces,
which made them either go with their belly or the arse foremost, which
they pleased. When their hind face went forwards, you would have
sworn this had been their natural gait, as well on account of their round
shoes as of the double codpiece, and their face behind, which was as
bare as the back of my hand, and coarsely daubed over with two eyes
and a mouth, such as you see on some Indian nuts. Now, if they offered
to waddle along with their bellies forwards, you would have thought
they were then playing at blindman's buff. May I never be hanged if
'twas not a comical sight.
Their way of living was thus: about owl-light they charitably began to
boot and spur one another. This being done, the least thing they did was
to sleep and snore; and thus sleeping, they had barnacles on the handles
of their faces, or spectacles at most.
You may swear we did not a little wonder at this odd fancy; but they
satisfied us presently, telling us that the day of judgment is to take
mankind napping; therefore, to show they did not refuse to make their
personal appearance as fortune's darlings use to do, they were always
thus booted and spurred, ready to mount whenever the trumpet should
sound.
At noon, as soon as the clock struck, they used to awake. You must
know that their clock-bell, church-bells, and refectory-bells were all
made according to the pontial device, that is, quilted with the finest
down, and their clappers of fox-tails.
Having then made shift to get up at noon, they pulled off their boots,
and those that wanted to speak with a maid, alias piss, pissed; those that
wanted to scumber, scumbered; and those that wanted to sneeze,
sneezed. But all, whether they would or no (poor gentlemen!), were
obliged largely and plentifully to yawn; and this was their first
breakfast (O rigorous statute!). Methought 'twas very comical to
observe their transactions; for, having laid their boots and spurs on a
rack, they went into the cloisters. There they curiously washed their
hands and mouths; then sat them down on a long bench, and picked
their teeth till the provost gave the signal, whistling through his fingers;
then every he stretched out his jaws as much as he could, and they
gaped and yawned for about half-an-hour, sometimes more, sometimes
less, according as the prior judged the breakfast to be suitable to the
day.
After that they went in procession, two banners being carried before
them, in one of which was the picture of Virtue, and that of Fortune in
the other. The last went before, carried by a semi-quavering friar, at
whose heels was another, with the shadow or image of Virtue in one
hand and an holy-water sprinkle in the other--I mean of that holy
mercurial water which Ovid describes in his Fasti. And as the
preceding Semiquaver rang a handbell, this shaked the sprinkle with his
fist. With that says Pantagruel, This order contradicts the rule which
Tully and the academics prescribed, that Virtue ought to go before, and
Fortune follow. But they told us they did as they ought, seeing their
design was to breech, lash, and bethwack Fortune.
During the processions they trilled and quavered most melodiously
betwixt their teeth I do not know what antiphones, or chantings, by
turns. For my part, 'twas all Hebrew-Greek to me, the devil a word I
could pick out on't; at last, pricking up my ears, and intensely listening,
I perceived they only sang with the tip of theirs. Oh, what a rare
harmony it was! How well 'twas tuned to the sound of their bells!
You'll never find these to jar, that you won't. Pantagruel made a notable
observation upon the processions; for says he, Have you seen and
observed the policy of these Semiquavers? To make an end of their
procession they went out at one of their church doors and came in at the
other; they took a deal of care not to come in at the place whereat they
went out. On my honour, these are a subtle sort of people, quoth
Panurge; they have as much wit as three folks, two fools and a madman;
they are as wise as the calf that ran nine miles to suck a bull, and when
he came there 'twas a steer. This subtlety and wisdom of theirs, cried
Friar John, is borrowed from the occult philosophy. May I be gutted
like an oyster if I can tell what to make on't. Then the more 'tis to be
feared, said Pantagruel; for subtlety suspected, subtlety foreseen,
subtlety found out, loses the essence and very name of subtlety, and
only gains that of blockishness. They are not such fools as you take
them to be; they have more tricks than are good, I doubt.
After the procession they went sluggingly into the fratery-room, by the
way of walk and healthful exercise, and there kneeled under the tables,
leaning their breasts on lanterns. While they were in that posture, in
came a huge Sandal, with a pitchfork in his hand, who used to baste,
rib-roast, swaddle, and swinge them well-favouredly, as they said, and
in truth treated them after a fashion. They began their meal as you end
yours, with cheese, and ended it with mustard and lettuce, as Martial
tells us the ancients did. Afterwards a platterful of mustard was brought
before every one of them, and thus they made good the proverb, After
meat comes mustard.
Their diet was this:
O' Sundays they stuffed their puddings with puddings, chitterlings,
links, Bologna sausages, forced-meats, liverings, hogs' haslets, young
quails, and teals. You must also always add cheese for the first course,
and mustard for the last.
O' Mondays they were crammed with peas and pork, cum commento,
and interlineary glosses.
O' Tuesdays they used to twist store of holy-bread, cakes, buns, puffs,
lenten loaves, jumbles, and biscuits.
O' Wednesdays my gentlemen had fine sheep's heads, calves' heads,
and brocks' heads, of which there's no want in that country.
O' Thursdays they guzzled down seven sorts of porridge, not forgetting
mustard.
O' Fridays they munched nothing but services or sorb-apples; neither
were these full ripe, as I guessed by their complexion.
O' Saturdays they gnawed bones; not that they were poor or needy, for
every mother's son of them had a very good fat belly-benefice.
As for their drink, 'twas an antifortunal; thus they called I don't know
what sort of a liquor of the place.
When they wanted to eat or drink, they turned down the back-points or
flaps of their cowls forwards below their chins, and that served 'em
instead of gorgets or slabbering-bibs.
When they had well dined, they prayed rarely all in quavers and shakes;
and the rest of the day, expecting the day of judgment, they were taken
up with acts of charity, and particularly--
O' Sundays, rubbers at cuffs.
O' Mondays, lending each other flirts and fillips on the nose.
O' Tuesdays, clapperclawing one another.
O' Wednesdays, sniting and fly-flapping.
O' Thursdays, worming and pumping.
O' Fridays, tickling.
O' Saturdays, jerking and firking one another.
Such was their diet when they resided in the convent, and if the prior of
the monk-house sent any of them abroad, then they were strictly
enjoined neither to touch nor eat any manner of fish as long as they
were on sea or rivers, and to abstain from all manner of flesh whenever
they were at land, that everyone might be convinced that, while they
enjoyed the object, they denied themselves the power, and even the
desire, and were no more moved with it than the Marpesian rock.
All this was done with proper antiphones, still sung and chanted by ear,
as we have already observed.
When the sun went to bed, they fairly booted and spurred each other as
before, and having clapped on their barnacles e'en jogged to bed too. At
midnight the Sandal came to them, and up they got, and having well
whetted and set their razors, and been a-processioning, they clapped the
tables over themselves, and like wire-drawers under their work fell to it
as aforesaid.
Friar John des Entoumeures, having shrewdly observed these jolly
Semiquaver Friars, and had a full account of their statutes, lost all
patience, and cried out aloud: Bounce tail, and God ha' mercy guts; if
every fool should wear a bauble, fuel would be dear. A plague rot it, we
must know how many farts go to an ounce. Would Priapus were here,
as he used to be at the nocturnal festivals in Crete, that I might see him
play backwards, and wriggle and shake to the purpose. Ay, ay, this is
the world, and t'other is the country; may I never piss if this be not an
antichthonian land, and our very antipodes. In Germany they pull down
monasteries and unfrockify the monks; here they go quite kam, and act
clean contrary to others, setting new ones up, against the hair.
Chapter 5.
XXVIII.
How Panurge asked a Semiquaver Friar many questions, and was only
answered in monosyllables.
Panurge, who had since been wholly taken up with staring at these
royal Semiquavers, at last pulled one of them by the sleeve, who was as
lean as a rake, and asked him,--
Hearkee me, Friar Quaver, Semiquaver, Demisemiquavering quaver,
where is the punk?
The Friar, pointing downwards, answered, There.
Pan. Pray, have you many? Fri. Few.
Pan. How many scores have you? Fri. One.
Pan. How many would you have? Fri. Five.
Pan. Where do you hide 'em? Fri. Here.
Pan. I suppose they are not all of one age; but, pray, how is their shape?
Fri. Straight.
Pan. Their complexion? Fri. Clear.
Pan. Their hair? Fri. Fair.
Pan. Their eyes? Fri. Black.
Pan. Their features? Fri. Good.
Pan. Their brows? Fri. Small.
Pan. Their graces? Fri. Ripe.
Pan. Their looks? Fri. Free.
Pan. Their feet? Fri. Flat.
Pan. Their heels? Fri. Short.
Pan. Their lower parts? Fri. Rare.
Pan. And their arms? Fri. Long.
Pan. What do they wear on their hands? Fri. Gloves.
Pan. What sort of rings on their fingers? Fri. Gold.
Pan. What rigging do you keep 'em in? Fri. Cloth.
Pan. What sort of cloth is it? Fri. New.
Pan. What colour? Fri. Sky.
Pan. What kind of cloth is it? Fri. Fine.
Pan. What caps do they wear? Fri. Blue.
Pan. What's the colour of their stockings? Fri. Red.
Pan. What wear they on their feet? Fri. Pumps.
Pan. How do they use to be? Fri. Foul.
Pan. How do they use to walk? Fri. Fast.
Pan. Now let us talk of the kitchen, I mean that of the harlots, and
without going hand over head let's a little examine things by particulars.
What is in their kitchens? Fri. Fire.
Pan. What fuel feeds it? Fri. Wood.
Pan. What sort of wood is't? Fri. Dry.
Pan. And of what kind of trees? Fri. Yews.
Pan. What are the faggots and brushes of? Fri. Holm.
Pan. What wood d'ye burn in your chambers? Fri. Pine.
Pan. And of what other trees? Fri. Lime.
Pan. Hearkee me; as for the buttocks, I'll go your halves. Pray, how do
you feed 'em? Fri. Well.
Pan. First, what do they eat? Fri. Bread.
Pan. Of what complexion? Fri. White.
Pan. And what else? Fri. Meat.
Pan. How do they love it dressed? Fri. Roast.
Pan. What sort of porridge? Fri. None.
Pan. Are they for pies and tarts? Fri. Much.
Pan. Then I'm their man. Will fish go down with them? Fri. Well.
Pan. And what else? Fri. Eggs.
Pan. How do they like 'em? Fri. Boiled.
Pan. How must they be done? Fri. Hard.
Pan. Is this all they have? Fri. No.
Pan. What have they besides, then? Fri. Beef.
Pan. And what else? Fri. Pork.
Pan. And what more? Fri. Geese.
Pan. What then? Fri. Ducks.
Pan. And what besides? Fri. Cocks.
Pan. What do they season their meat with? Fri. Salt.
Pan. What sauce are they most dainty for? Fri. Must.
Pan. What's their last course? Fri. Rice.
Pan. And what else? Fri. Milk.
Pan. What besides? Fri. Peas.
Pan. What sort? Fri. Green.
Pan. What do they boil with 'em? Fri. Pork.
Pan. What fruit do they eat? Fri. Good.
Pan. How? Fri. Raw.
Pan. What do they end with? Fri. Nuts.
Pan. How do they drink? Fri. Neat.
Pan. What liquor? Fri. Wine.
Pan. What sort? Fri. White.
Pan. In winter? Fri. Strong.
Pan. In the spring. Fri. Brisk.
Pan. In summer? Fri. Cool.
Pan. In autumn? Fri. New.
Buttock of a monk! cried Friar John; how plump these plaguy trulls,
these arch Semiquavering strumpets, must be! That damned cattle are
so high fed that they must needs be high-mettled, and ready to wince
and give two ups for one go-down when anyone offers to ride them
below the crupper.
Prithee, Friar John, quoth Panurge, hold thy prating tongue; stay till I
have done.
Till what time do the doxies sit up? Fri. Night.
Pan. When do they get up? Fri. Late.
Pan. May I ride on a horse that was foaled of an acorn, if this be not as
honest a cod as ever the ground went upon, and as grave as an old
gate-post into the bargain. Would to the blessed St. Semiquaver, and
the blessed worthy virgin St. Semiquavera, he were lord chief president
(justice) of Paris! Ods-bodikins, how he'd despatch! With what
expedition would he bring disputes to an upshot! What an abbreviator
and clawer off of lawsuits, reconciler of differences, examiner and
fumbler of bags, peruser of bills, scribbler of rough drafts, and
engrosser of deeds would he not make! Well, friar, spare your breath to
cool your porridge. Come, let's now talk with deliberation, fairly and
softly, as lawyers go to heaven. Let's know how you victual the
venereal camp. How is the snatchblatch? Fri. Rough.
Pan. How is the gateway? Fri. Free.
Pan. And how is it within? Fri. Deep.
Pan. I mean, what weather is it there? Fri. Hot.
Pan. What shadows the brooks? Fri. Groves.
Pan. Of what's the colour of the twigs? Fri. Red.
Pan. And that of the old? Fri. Grey.
Pan. How are you when you shake? Fri. Brisk.
Pan. How is their motion? Fri. Quick.
Pan. Would you have them vault or wriggle more? Fri. Less.
Pan. What kind of tools are yours? Fri. Big.
Pan. And in their helves? Fri. Round.
Pan. Of what colour is the tip? Fri. Red.
Pan. When they've even used, how are they? Fri. Shrunk.
Pan. How much weighs each bag of tools? Fri. Pounds.
Pan. How hang your pouches? Fri. Tight.
Pan. How are they when you've done? Fri. Lank.
Pan. Now, by the oath you have taken, tell me, when you have a mind
to cohabit, how you throw 'em? Fri. Down.
Pan. And what do they say then? Fri. Fie.
Pan. However, like maids, they say nay, and take it; and speak the less,
but think the more, minding the work in hand; do they not? Fri. True.
Pan. Do they get you bairns? Fri. None.
Pan. How do you pig together? Fri. Bare.
Pan. Remember you're upon your oath, and tell me justly and bona fide
how many times a day you monk it? Fri. Six.
Pan. How many bouts a-nights? Fri. Ten.
Catso, quoth Friar John, the poor fornicating brother is bashful, and
sticks at sixteen, as if that were his stint. Right, quoth Panurge, but
couldst thou keep pace with him, Friar John, my dainty cod? May the
devil's dam suck my teat if he does not look as if he had got a blow
over the nose with a Naples cowl-staff.
Pan. Pray, Friar Shakewell, does your whole fraternity quaver and
shake at that rate? Fri. All.
Pan. Who of them is the best cock o' the game? Fri. I.
Pan. Do you never commit dry-bobs or flashes in the pan? Fri. None.
Pan. I blush like any black dog, and could be as testy as an old cook
when I think on all this; it passes my understanding. But, pray, when
you have been pumped dry one day, what have you got the next? Fri.
More.
Pan. By Priapus, they have the Indian herb of which Theophrastus
spoke, or I'm much out. But, hearkee me, thou man of brevity, should
some impediment, honestly or otherwise, impair your talents and cause
your benevolence to lessen, how would it fare with you, then? Fri. Ill.
Pan. What would the wenches do? Fri. Rail.
Pan. What if you skipped, and let 'em fast a whole day? Fri. Worse.
Pan. What do you give 'em then? Fri. Thwacks.
Pan. What do they say to this? Fri. Bawl.
Pan. And what else? Fri. Curse.
Pan. How do you correct 'em? Fri. Hard.
Pan. What do you get out of 'em then? Fri. Blood.
Pan. How's their complexion then? Fri. Odd.
Pan. What do they mend it with? Fri. Paint.
Pan. Then what do they do? Fri. Fawn.
Pan. By the oath you have taken, tell me truly what time of the year do
you do it least in? Fri. Now (August.).
Pan. What season do you do it best in? Fri. March.
Pan. How is your performance the rest of the year? Fri. Brisk.
Then quoth Panurge, sneering, Of all, and of all, commend me to Ball;
this is the friar of the world for my money. You've heard how short,
concise, and compendious he is in his answers. Nothing is to be got out
of him but monosyllables. By jingo, I believe he would make three
bites of a cherry.
Damn him, cried Friar John, that's as true as I am his uncle. The dog
yelps at another gate's rate when he is among his bitches; there he is
polysyllable enough, my life for yours. You talk of making three bites
of a cherry! God send fools more wit and us more money! May I be
doomed to fast a whole day if I don't verily believe he would not make
above two bites of a shoulder of mutton and one swoop of a whole
pottle of wine. Zoons, do but see how down o' the mouth the cur looks!
He's nothing but skin and bones; he has pissed his tallow.
Truly, truly, quoth Epistemon, this rascally monastical vermin all over
the world mind nothing but their gut, and are as ravenous as any kites,
and then, forsooth, they tell us they've nothing but food and raiment in
this world. 'Sdeath, what more have kings and princes?
Chapter 5.
XXIX.
How Epistemon disliked the institution of Lent.
Pray did you observe, continued Epistemon, how this damned
ill-favoured Semiquaver mentioned March as the best month for
caterwauling? True, said Pantagruel; yet Lent and March always go
together, and the first was instituted to macerate and bring down our
pampered flesh, to weaken and subdue its lusts, to curb and assuage the
venereal rage.
By this, said Epistemon, you may guess what kind of a pope it was who
first enjoined it to be kept, since this filthy wooden-shoed Semiquaver
owns that his spoon is never oftener nor deeper in the porringer of
lechery than in Lent. Add to this the evident reasons given by all good
and learned physicians, affirming that throughout the whole year no
food is eaten that can prompt mankind to lascivious acts more than at
that time.
As, for example, beans, peas, phasels, or long-peason, ciches, onions,
nuts, oysters, herrings, salt-meats, garum (a kind of anchovy), and
salads wholly made up of venereous herbs and fruits, as--
Rocket, Parsley, Hop-buds, Nose-smart, Rampions, Figs, Taragon,
Poppy, Rice, Cresses, Celery, Raisins, and others.
It would not a little surprise you, said Pantagruel, should a man tell you
that the good pope who first ordered the keeping of Lent, perceiving
that at that time o' year the natural heat (from the centre of the body,
whither it was retired during the winter's cold) diffuses itself, as the sap
does in trees, through the circumference of the members, did therefore
in a manner prescribe that sort of diet to forward the propagation of
mankind. What makes me think so, is that by the registers of
christenings at Touars it appears that more children are born in October
and November than in the other ten months of the year, and reckoning
backwards 'twill be easily found that they were all made, conceived,
and begotten in Lent.
I listen to you with both my ears, quoth Friar John, and that with no
small pleasure, I'll assure you. But I must tell you that the vicar of
Jambert ascribed this copious prolification of the women, not to that
sort of food that we chiefly eat in Lent, but to the little licensed
stooping mumpers, your little booted Lent-preachers, your little
draggle-tailed father confessors, who during all that time of their reign
damn all husbands that run astray three fathom and a half below the
very lowest pit of hell. So the silly cod's-headed brothers of the noose
dare not then stumble any more at the truckle-bed, to the no small
discomfort of their maids, and are even forced, poor souls, to take up
with their own bodily wives. Dixi; I have done.
You may descant on the institution of Lent as much as you please, cried
Epistemon; so many men so many minds; but certainly all the
physicians will be against its being suppressed, though I think that time
is at hand. I know they will, and have heard 'em say were it not for Lent
their art would soon fall into contempt, and they'd get nothing, for
hardly anybody would be sick.
All distempers are sowed in lent; 'tis the true seminary and native bed
of all diseases; nor does it only weaken and putrefy bodies, but it also
makes souls mad and uneasy. For then the devils do their best, and
drive a subtle trade, and the tribe of canting dissemblers come out of
their holes. 'Tis then term-time with your cucullated pieces of formality
that have one face to God and another to the devil; and a wretched
clutter they make with their sessions, stations, pardons, syntereses,
confessions, whippings, anathematizations, and much prayer with as
little devotion. However, I'll not offer to infer from this that the
Arimaspians are better than we are in that point; yet I speak to the
purpose.
Well, quoth Panurge to the Semiquaver friar, who happened to be by,
dear bumbasting, shaking, trilling, quavering cod, what thinkest thou of
this fellow? Is he a rank heretic? Fri. Much.
Pan. Ought he not to be singed? Fri. Well.
Pan. As soon as may be? Fri. Right.
Pan. Should not he be scalded first? Fri. No.
Pan. How then, should he be roasted? Fri. Quick.
Pan. Till at last he be? Fri. Dead.
Pan. What has he made you? Fri. Mad.
Pan. What d'ye take him to be? Fri. Damned.
Pan. What place is he to go to? Fri. Hell.
Pan. But, first, how would you have 'em served here? Fri. Burnt.
Pan. Some have been served so? Fri. Store.
Pan. That were heretics? Fri. Less.
Pan. And the number of those that are to be warmed thus hereafter is?
Fri. Great.
Pan. How many of 'em do you intend to save? Fri. None.
Pan. So you'd have them burned? Fri. All.
I wonder, said Epistemon to Panurge, what pleasure you can find in
talking thus with this lousy tatterdemalion of a monk. I vow, did I not
know you well, I might be ready to think you had no more wit in your
head than he has in both his shoulders. Come, come, scatter no words,
returned Panurge; everyone as they like, as the woman said when she
kissed her cow. I wish I might carry him to Gargantua; when I'm
married he might be my wife's fool. And make you one, cried
Epistemon. Well said, quoth Friar John. Now, poor Panurge, take that
along with thee, thou'rt e'en fitted; 'tis a plain case thou'lt never escape
wearing the bull's feather; thy wife will be as common as the highway,
that's certain.
Chapter 5.
XXX.
How we came to the land of Satin.
Having pleased ourselves with observing that new order of Semiquaver
Friars, we set sail, and in three days our skipper made the finest and
most delightful island that ever was seen. He called it the island of
Frieze, for all the ways were of frieze.
In that island is the land of Satin, so celebrated by our court pages. Its
trees and herbage never lose their leaves or flowers, and are all damask
and flowered velvet. As for the beasts and birds, they are all of tapestry
work. There we saw many beasts, birds on trees, of the same colour,
bigness, and shape of those in our country; with this difference,
however, that these did eat nothing, and never sung or bit like ours; and
we also saw there many sorts of creatures which we never had seen
before.
Among the rest, several elephants in various postures; twelve of which
were the six males and six females that were brought to Rome by their
governor in the time of Germanicus, Tiberius's nephew. Some of them
were learned elephants, some musicians, others philosophers, dancers,
and showers of tricks; and all sat down at table in good order, silently
eating and drinking like so many fathers in a fratery-room.
With their snouts or proboscises, some two cubits long, they draw up
water for their own drinking, and take hold of palm leaves, plums, and
all manner of edibles, using them offensively or defensively as we do
our fists; with them tossing men high into the air in fight, and making
them burst with laughing when they come to the ground.
They have joints (in their legs), whatever some men, who doubtless
never saw any but painted, may have written to the contrary. Between
their teeth they have two huge horns; thus Juba called 'em, and
Pausanias tells us they are not teeth, but horns; however, Philostratus
will have 'em to be teeth, and not horns. 'Tis all one to me, provided
you will be pleased to own them to be true ivory. These are some three
or four cubits long, and are fixed in the upper jawbone, and
consequently not in the lowermost. If you hearken to those who will
tell you to the contrary, you will find yourself damnably mistaken, for
that's a lie with a latchet; though 'twere Aelian, that long-bow man, that
told you so, never believe him, for he lies as fast as a dog can trot.
'Twas in this very island that Pliny, his brother tell- truth, had seen
some elephants dance on the rope with bells, and whip over the tables,
presto, begone, while people were at feasts, without so much as
touching the toping topers or the topers toping.
I saw a rhinoceros there, just such a one as Harry Clerberg had
formerly showed me. Methought it was not much unlike a certain boar
which I had formerly seen at Limoges, except the sharp horn on its
snout, that was about a cubit long; by the means of which that animal
dares encounter with an elephant, that is sometimes killed with its point
thrust into its belly, which is its most tender and defenceless part.
I saw there two and thirty unicorns. They are a curst sort of creatures,
much resembling a fine horse, unless it be that their heads are like a
stag's, their feet like an elephant's, their tails like a wild boar's, and out
of each of their foreheads sprouts out a sharp black horn, some six or
seven feet long; commonly it dangles down like a turkey-cock's comb.
When a unicorn has a mind to fight, or put it to any other use, what
does it do but make it stand, and then 'tis as straight as an arrow.
I saw one of them, which was attended with a throng of other wild
beasts, purify a fountain with its horn. With that Panurge told me that
his prancer, alias his nimble-wimble, was like the unicorn, not
altogether in length indeed, but in virtue and propriety; for as the
unicorn purified pools and fountains from filth and venom, so that other
animals came and drank securely there afterwards, in the like manner
others might water their nags, and dabble after him without fear of
shankers, carnosities, gonorrhoeas, buboes, crinkams, and such other
plagues caught by those who venture to quench their amorous thirst in a
common puddle; for with his nervous horn he removed all the infection
that might be lurking in some blind cranny of the mephitic
sweet-scented hole.
Well, quoth Friar John, when you are sped, that is, when you are
married, we will make a trial of this on thy spouse, merely for charity
sake, since you are pleased to give us so beneficial an instruction.
Ay, ay, returned Panurge, and then immediately I'll give you a pretty
gentle aggregative pill of God, made up of two and twenty kind stabs
with a dagger, after the Caesarian way. Catso, cried Friar John, I had
rather take off a bumper of good cool wine.
I saw there the golden fleece formerly conquered by Jason, and can
assure you, on the word of an honest man, that those who have said it
was not a fleece but a golden pippin, because melon signifies both an
apple and a sheep, were utterly mistaken.
I saw also a chameleon, such as Aristotle describes it, and like that
which had been formerly shown me by Charles Maris, a famous
physician of the noble city of Lyons on the Rhone; and the said
chameleon lived on air just as the other did.
I saw three hydras, like those I had formerly seen. They are a kind of
serpent, with seven different heads.
I saw also fourteen phoenixes. I had read in many authors that there
was but one in the whole world in every century; but, if I may presume
to speak my mind, I declare that those who said this had never seen any,
unless it were in the land of Tapestry; though 'twere vouched by
Claudian or Lactantius Firmianus.
I saw the skin of Apuleius's golden ass.
I saw three hundred and nine pelicans.
Item, six thousand and sixteen Seleucid birds marching in battalia, and
picking up straggling grasshoppers in cornfields.
Item, some cynamologi, argatiles, caprimulgi, thynnunculs, onocrotals,
or bitterns, with their wide swallows, stymphalides, harpies, panthers,
dorcasses, or bucks, cemades, cynocephalises, satyrs, cartasans, tarands,
uri, monopses, or bonasi, neades, steras, marmosets, or monkeys,
bugles, musimons, byturoses, ophyri, screech-owls, goblins, fairies, and
griffins.
I saw Mid-Lent o' horseback, with Mid-August and Mid-March holding
its stirrups.
I saw some mankind wolves, centaurs, tigers, leopards, hyenas,
camelopardals, and orixes, or huge wild goats with sharp horns.
I saw a remora, a little fish called echineis by the Greeks, and near it a
tall ship that did not get ahead an inch, though she was in the offing
with top and top-gallants spread before the wind. I am somewhat
inclined to believe that 'twas the very numerical ship in which
Periander the tyrant happened to be when it was stopped by such a little
fish in spite of wind and tide. It was in this land of Satin, and in no
other, that Mutianus had seen one of them.
Friar John told us that in the days of yore two sorts of fishes used to
abound in our courts of judicature, and rotted the bodies and tormented
the souls of those who were at law, whether noble or of mean descent,
high or low, rich or poor: the first were your April fish or mackerel
(pimps, panders, and bawds); the others your beneficial remoras, that is,
the eternity of lawsuits, the needless lets that keep 'em undecided.
I saw some sphynges, some raphes, some ounces, and some cepphi,
whose fore- feet are like hands and their hind-feet like man's.
Also some crocutas and some eali as big as sea-horses, with elephants'
tails, boars' jaws and tusks, and horns as pliant as an ass's ears.
The crocutas, most fleet animals, as big as our asses of Mirebalais, have
necks, tails, and breasts like a lion's, legs like a stag's, have mouths up
to the ears, and but two teeth, one above and one below; they speak
with human voices, but when they do they say nothing.
Some people say that none e'er saw an eyrie, or nest of sakers; if you'll
believe me, I saw no less than eleven, and I'm sure I reckoned right.
I saw some left-handed halberds, which were the first that I had ever
seen.
I saw some manticores, a most strange sort of creatures, which have the
body of a lion, red hair, a face and ears like a man's, three rows of teeth
which close together as if you joined your hands with your fingers
between each other; they have a sting in their tails like a scorpion's, and
a very melodious voice.
I saw some catablepases, a sort of serpents, whose bodies are small, but
their heads large, without any proportion, so that they've much ado to
lift them up; and their eyes are so infectious that whoever sees 'em dies
upon the spot, as if he had seen a basilisk.
I saw some beasts with two backs, and those seemed to me the merriest
creatures in the world. They were most nimble at wriggling the
buttocks, and more diligent in tail-wagging than any water-wagtails,
perpetually jogging and shaking their double rumps.
I saw there some milched crawfish, creatures that I never had heard of
before in my life. These moved in very good order, and 'twould have
done your heart good to have seen 'em.
Chapter 5.
XXXI.
How in the land of Satin we saw Hearsay, who kept a school of
vouching.
We went a little higher up into the country of Tapestry, and saw the
Mediterranean Sea open to the right and left down to the very bottom;
just as the Red Sea very fairly left its bed at the Arabian Gulf to make a
lane for the Jews when they left Egypt.
There I found Triton winding his silver shell instead of a horn, and also
Glaucus, Proteus, Nereus, and a thousand other godlings and sea
monsters.
I also saw an infinite number of fish of all kinds, dancing, flying,
vaulting, fighting, eating, breathing, billing, shoving, milting, spawning,
hunting, fishing, skirmishing, lying in ambuscado, making truces,
cheapening, bargaining, swearing, and sporting.
In a blind corner we saw Aristotle holding a lantern in the posture in
which the hermit uses to be drawn near St. Christopher, watching,
prying, thinking, and setting everything down.
Behind him stood a pack of other philosophers, like so many bums by a
head- bailiff, as Appian, Heliodorus, Athenaeus, Porphyrius, Pancrates,
Arcadian, Numenius, Possidonius, Ovidius, Oppianus, Olympius,
Seleucus, Leonides, Agathocles, Theophrastus, Damostratus, Mutianus,
Nymphodorus, Aelian, and five hundred other such plodding dons, who
were full of business, yet had little to do; like Chrysippus or
Aristarchus of Soli, who for eight-and- fifty years together did nothing
in the world but examine the state and concerns of bees.
I spied Peter Gilles among these, with a urinal in his hand, narrowly
watching the water of those goodly fishes.
When we had long beheld everything in this land of Satin, Pantagruel
said, I have sufficiently fed my eyes, but my belly is empty all this
while, and chimes to let me know 'tis time to go to dinner. Let's take
care of the body lest the soul abdicate it; and to this effect let's taste
some of these anacampserotes ('An herb, the touching of which is said
to reconcile lovers.'--Motteux.) that hang over our heads. Psha, cried
one, they are mere trash, stark naught, o' my word; they're good for
nothing.
I then went to pluck some mirobolans off of a piece of tapestry
whereon they hung, but the devil a bit I could chew or swallow 'em;
and had you had them betwixt your teeth you would have sworn they
had been thrown silk; there was no manner of savour in 'em.
One might be apt to think Heliogabalus had taken a hint from thence, to
feast those whom he had caused to fast a long time, promising them a
sumptuous, plentiful, and imperial feast after it; for all the treat used to
amount to no more than several sorts of meat in wax, marble,
earthenware, painted and figured tablecloths.
While we were looking up and down to find some more substantial
food, we heard a loud various noise, like that of paper-mills (or women
bucking of linen); so with all speed we went to the place whence the
noise came, where we found a diminutive, monstrous, misshapen old
fellow, called Hearsay. His mouth was slit up to his ears, and in it were
seven tongues, each of them cleft into seven parts. However, he
chattered, tattled, and prated with all the seven at once, of different
matters, and in divers languages.
He had as many ears all over his head and the rest of his body as Argus
formerly had eyes, and was as blind as a beetle, and had the palsy in his
legs.
About him stood an innumerable number of men and women, gaping,
listening, and hearing very intensely. Among 'em I observed some who
strutted like crows in a gutter, and principally a very handsome bodied
man in the face, who held then a map of the world, and with little
aphorisms compendiously explained everything to 'em; so that those
men of happy memories grew learned in a trice, and would most
fluently talk with you of a world of prodigious things, the hundredth
part of which would take up a man's whole life to be fully known.
Among the rest they descanted with great prolixity on the pyramids and
hieroglyphics of Egypt, of the Nile, of Babylon, of the Troglodytes, the
Hymantopodes, or crump-footed nation, the Blemiae, people that wear
their heads in the middle of their breasts, the Pigmies, the Cannibals,
the Hyperborei and their mountains, the Egypanes with their goat's feet,
and the devil and all of others; every individual word of it by hearsay.
I am much mistaken if I did not see among them Herodotus, Pliny,
Solinus, Berosus, Philostratus, Pomponius Mela, Strabo, and God
knows how many other antiquaries.
Then Albert, the great Jacobin friar, Peter Tesmoin, alias Witness, Pope
Pius the Second, Volaterranus, Paulus Jovius the valiant, Jemmy
Cartier, Chaton the Armenian, Marco Polo the Venetian, Ludovico
Romano, Pedro Aliares, and forty cartloads of other modern historians,
lurking behind a piece of tapestry, where they were at it ding-dong,
privately scribbling the Lord knows what, and making rare work of it;
and all by hearsay.
Behind another piece of tapestry (on which Naboth and Susanna's
accusers were fairly represented), I saw close by Hearsay, good store of
men of the country of Perce and Maine, notable students, and young
enough.
I asked what sort of study they applied themselves to; and was told that
from their youth they learned to be evidences, affidavit-men, and
vouchers, and were instructed in the art of swearing; in which they soon
became such proficients, that when they left that country, and went
back into their own, they set up for themselves and very honestly lived
by their trade of evidencing, positively giving their testimony of all
things whatsoever to those who feed them most roundly to do a job of
journey-work for them; and all this by hearsay.
You may think what you will of it; but I can assure you they gave some
of us corners of their cakes, and we merrily helped to empty their
hogsheads. Then, in a friendly manner, they advised us to be as sparing
of truth as possibly we could if ever we had a mind to get court
preferment.
Chapter 5.
XXXII.
How we came in sight of Lantern-land.
Having been but scurvily entertained in the land of Satin, we went o'
board, and having set sail, in four days came near the coast of Lantern-
land. We then saw certain little hovering fires on the sea.
For my part, I did not take them to be lanterns, but rather thought they
were fishes which lolled their flaming tongues on the surface of the sea,
or lampyrides, which some call cicindelas, or glowworms, shining there
as ripe barley does o' nights in my country.
But the skipper satisfied us that they were the lanterns of the watch, or,
more properly, lighthouses, set up in many places round the precinct of
the place to discover the land, and for the safe piloting in of some
outlandish lanterns, which, like good Franciscan and Jacobin friars,
were coming to make their personal appearance at the provincial
chapter.
However, some of us were somewhat suspicious that these fires were
the forerunners of some storm, but the skipper assured us again they
were not.
Chapter 5.
XXXIII.
How we landed at the port of the Lychnobii, and came to Lantern-land.
Soon after we arrived at the port of Lantern-land, where Pantagruel
discovered on a high tower the lantern of Rochelle, that stood us in
good stead, for it cast a great light. We also saw the lantern of Pharos,
that of Nauplion, and that of Acropolis at Athens, sacred to Pallas.
Near the port there's a little hamlet inhabited by the Lychnobii, that live
by lanterns, as the gulligutted friars in our country live by nuns; they
are studious people, and as honest men as ever shit in a trumpet.
Demosthenes had formerly lanternized there.
We were conducted from that place to the palace by three
obeliscolichnys ('A kind of beacons.'--Motteux.), military guards of the
port, with high- crowned hats, whom we acquainted with the cause of
our voyage, and our design, which was to desire the queen of the
country to grant us a lantern to light and conduct us during our voyage
to the Oracle of the Holy Bottle.
They promised to assist us in this, and added that we could never have
come in a better time, for then the lanterns held their provincial chapter.
When we came to the royal palace we had audience of her highness the
Queen of Lantern-land, being introduced by two lanterns of honour,
that of Aristophanes and that of Cleanthes (Motteux adds
here--'Mistresses of the ceremonies.'). Panurge in a few words
acquainted her with the causes of our voyage, and she received us with
great demonstrations of friendship, desiring us to come to her at
supper-time that we might more easily make choice of one to be our
guide; which pleased us extremely. We did not fail to observe intensely
everything we could see, as the garbs, motions, and deportment of the
queen's subjects, principally the manner after which she was served.
The bright queen was dressed in virgin crystal of Tutia wrought
damaskwise, and beset with large diamonds.
The lanterns of the royal blood were clad partly with bastard-diamonds,
partly with diaphanous stones; the rest with horn, paper, and oiled
cloth.
The cresset-lights took place according to the antiquity and lustre of
their families.
An earthen dark-lantern, shaped like a pot, notwithstanding this took
place of some of the first quality; at which I wondered much, till I was
told it was that of Epictetus, for which three thousand drachmas had
been formerly refused.
Martial's polymix lantern (Motteux gives a footnote:--'A lamp with
many wicks, or a branch'd candlestick with many springs coming out of
it, that supply all the branches with oil.') made a very good figure there.
I took particular notice of its dress, and more yet of the lychnosimity
formerly consecrated by Canopa, the daughter of Tisias.
I saw the lantern pensile formerly taken out of the temple of Apollo
Palatinus at Thebes, and afterwards by Alexander the Great (carried to
the town of Cymos). (The words in brackets have been omitted by
Motteux.)
I saw another that distinguished itself from the rest by a bushy tuft of
crimson silk on its head. I was told 'twas that of Bartolus, the lantern of
the civilians.
Two others were very remarkable for glister-pouches that dangled at
their waist. We were told that one was the greater light and the other
the lesser light of the apothecaries.
When 'twas supper-time, the queen's highness first sat down, and then
the lady lanterns, according to their rank and dignity. For the first
course they were all served with large Christmas candles, except the
queen, who was served with a hugeous, thick, stiff, flaming taper of
white wax, somewhat red towards the tip; and the royal family, as also
the provincial lantern of Mirebalais, who were served with nutlights;
and the provincial of Lower Poitou, with an armed candle.
After that, God wot, what a glorious light they gave with their wicks! I
do not say all, for you must except a parcel of junior lanterns, under the
government of a high and mighty one. These did not cast a light like
the rest, but seemed to me dimmer than any long-snuff farthing candle
whose tallow has been half melted away in a hothouse.
After supper we withdrew to take some rest, and the next day the queen
made us choose one of the most illustrious lanterns to guide us; after
which we took our leave.
Chapter 5.
XXXIV.
How we arrived at the Oracle of the Bottle.
Our glorious lantern lighting and directing us to heart's content, we at
last arrived at the desired island where was the Oracle of the Bottle. As
soon as friend Panurge landed, he nimbly cut a caper with one leg for
joy, and cried to Pantagruel, Now we are where we have wished
ourselves long ago. This is the place we've been seeking with such toil
and labour. He then made a compliment to our lantern, who desired us
to be of good cheer, and not be daunted or dismayed whatever we
might chance to see.
To come to the Temple of the Holy Bottle we were to go through a
large vineyard, in which were all sorts of vines, as the Falernian,
Malvoisian, the Muscadine, those of Taige, Beaune, Mirevaux, Orleans,
Picardent, Arbois, Coussi, Anjou, Grave, Corsica, Vierron, Nerac, and
others. This vineyard was formerly planted by the good Bacchus, with
so great a blessing that it yields leaves, flowers, and fruit all the year
round, like the orange trees at Suraine.
Our magnificent lantern ordered every one of us to eat three grapes, to
put some vine-leaves in his shoes, and take a vine-branch in his left
hand.
At the end of the close we went under an arch built after the manner of
those of the ancients. The trophies of a toper were curiously carved on
it.
First, on one side was to be seen a long train of flagons, leathern bottles,
flasks, cans, glass bottles, barrels, nipperkins, pint pots, quart pots,
pottles, gallons, and old-fashioned semaises (swingeing wooden pots,
such as those out of which the Germans fill their glasses); these hung
on a shady arbour.
On another side was store of garlic, onions, shallots, hams, botargos,
caviare, biscuits, neat's tongues, old cheese, and such like comfits, very
artificially interwoven, and packed together with vine-stocks.
On another were a hundred sorts of drinking glasses, cups, cisterns,
ewers, false cups, tumblers, bowls, mazers, mugs, jugs, goblets, talboys,
and such other Bacchic artillery.
On the frontispiece of the triumphal arch, under the zoophore, was the
following couplet:
You who presume to move this way, Get a good lantern, lest you stray.
We took special care of that, cried Pantagruel when he had read them;
for there is not a better or a more divine lantern than ours in all
Lantern- land.
This arch ended at a fine large round alley covered over with the
interlaid branches of vines, loaded and adorned with clusters of five
hundred different colours, and of as many various shapes, not natural,
but due to the skill of agriculture; some were golden, others bluish,
tawny, azure, white, black, green, purple, streaked with many colours,
long, round, triangular, cod-like, hairy, great-headed, and grassy. That
pleasant alley ended at three old ivy-trees, verdant, and all loaden with
rings. Our enlightened lantern directed us to make ourselves hats with
some of their leaves, and cover our heads wholly with them, which was
immediately done.
Jupiter's priestess, said Pantagruel, in former days would not like us
have walked under this arbour. There was a mystical reason, answered
our most perspicuous lantern, that would have hindered her; for had she
gone under it, the wine, or the grapes of which 'tis made, that's the same
thing, had been over her head, and then she would have seemed
overtopped and mastered by wine. Which implies that priests, and all
persons who devote themselves to the contemplation of divine things,
ought to keep their minds sedate and calm, and avoid whatever might
disturb and discompose their tranquillity, which nothing is more apt to
do than drunkenness.
You also, continued our lantern, could not come into the Holy Bottle's
presence, after you have gone through this arch, did not that noble
priestess Bacbuc first see your shoes full of vine-leaves; which action is
diametrically opposite to the other, and signifies that you despise wine,
and having mastered it, as it were, tread it under foot.
I am no scholar, quoth Friar John, for which I'm heartily sorry, yet I
find by my breviary that in the Revelation a woman was seen with the
moon under her feet, which was a most wonderful sight. Now, as Bigot
explained it to me, this was to signify that she was not of the nature of
other women; for they have all the moon at their heads, and
consequently their brains are always troubled with a lunacy. This
makes me willing to believe what you said, dear Madam Lantern.
Chapter 5.
XXXV.
How we went underground to come to the Temple of the Holy Bottle,
and how Chinon is the oldest city in the world.
We went underground through a plastered vault, on which was coarsely
painted a dance of women and satyrs waiting on old Silenus, who was
grinning o' horseback on his ass. This made me say to Pantagruel, that
this entry put me in mind of the painted cellar in the oldest city in the
world, where such paintings are to be seen, and in as cool a place.
Which is the oldest city in the world? asked Pantagruel. 'Tis Chinon, sir,
or Cainon in Touraine, said I. I know, returned Pantagruel, where
Chinon lies, and the painted cellar also, having myself drunk there
many a glass of cool wine; neither do I doubt but that Chinon is an
ancient town-- witness its blazon. I own 'tis said twice or thrice:
Chinon, Little town, Great renown, On old stone Long has stood;
There's the Vienne, if you look down; If you look up, there's the wood.
But how, continued he, can you make it out that 'tis the oldest city in
the world? Where did you find this written? I have found it in the
sacred writ, said I, that Cain was the first that built a town; we may
then reasonably conjecture that from his name he gave it that of Cainon.
Thus, after his example, most other founders of towns have given them
their names: Athena, that's Minerva in Greek, to Athens; Alexander to
Alexandria; Constantine to Constantinople; Pompey to Pompeiopolis in
Cilicia; Adrian to Adrianople; Canaan, to the Canaanites; Saba, to the
Sabaeans; Assur, to the Assyrians; and so Ptolemais, Caesarea, Tiberias,
and Herodium in Judaea got their names.
While we were thus talking, there came to us the great flask whom our
lantern called the philosopher, her holiness the Bottle's governor. He
was attended with a troop of the temple-guards, all French bottles in
wicker armour; and seeing us with our javelins wrapped with ivy, with
our illustrious lantern, whom he knew, he desired us to come in with all
manner of safety, and ordered we should be immediately conducted to
the Princess Bacbuc, the Bottle's lady of honour, and priestess of all the
mysteries; which was done.
Chapter 5.
XXXVI.
How we went down the tetradic steps, and of Panurge's fear.
We went down one marble step under ground, where there was a
resting, or, as our workmen call it, a landing-place; then, turning to the
left, we went down two other steps, where there was another
resting-place; after that we came to three other steps, turning about, and
met a third; and the like at four steps which we met afterwards. There
quoth Panurge, Is it here? How many steps have you told? asked our
magnificent lantern. One, two, three, four, answered Pantagruel. How
much is that? asked she. Ten, returned he. Multiply that, said she,
according to the same Pythagorical tetrad. That is, ten, twenty, thirty,
forty, cried Pantagruel. How much is the whole? said she. One hundred,
answered Pantagruel. Add, continued she, the first cube--that's eight. At
the end of that fatal number you'll find the temple gate; and pray
observe, this is the true psychogony of Plato, so celebrated by the
Academics, yet so little understood; one moiety of which consists of
the unity of the two first numbers full of two square and two cubic
numbers. We then went down those numerical stairs, all under ground,
and I can assure you, in the first place, that our legs stood us in good
stead; for had it not been for 'em, we had rolled just like so many
hogsheads into a vault. Secondly, our radiant lantern gave us just so
much light as is in St. Patrick's hole in Ireland, or Trophonius's pit in
Boeotia; which caused Panurge to say to her, after we had got down
some seventy-eight steps:
Dear madam, with a sorrowful, aching heart, I most humbly beseech
your lanternship to lead us back. May I be led to hell if I be not half
dead with fear; my heart is sunk down into my hose; I am afraid I shall
make buttered eggs in my breeches. I freely consent never to marry.
You have given yourself too much trouble on my account. The Lord
shall reward you in his great rewarder; neither will I be ungrateful
when I come out of this cave of Troglodytes. Let's go back, I pray you.
I'm very much afraid this is Taenarus, the low way to hell, and
methinks I already hear Cerberus bark. Hark! I hear the cur, or my ears
tingle. I have no manner of kindness for the dog, for there never is a
greater toothache than when dogs bite us by the shins. And if this be
only Trophonius's pit, the lemures, hobthrushes, and goblins will
certainly swallow us alive, just as they devoured formerly one of
Demetrius's halberdiers for want of bridles. Art thou here, Friar John?
Prithee, dear, dear cod, stay by me; I'm almost dead with fear. Hast
thou got thy bilbo? Alas! poor pilgarlic's defenceless. I'm a naked man,
thou knowest; let's go back. Zoons, fear nothing, cried Friar John; I'm
by thee, and have thee fast by the collar; eighteen devils shan't get thee
out of my clutches, though I were unarmed. Never did a man yet want
weapons who had a good arm with as stout a heart. Heaven would
sooner send down a shower of them; even as in Provence, in the fields
of La Crau, near Mariannes, there rained stones (they are there to this
day) to help Hercules, who otherwise wanted wherewithal to fight
Neptune's two bastards. But whither are we bound? Are we a-going to
the little children's limbo? By Pluto, they'll bepaw and conskite us all.
Or are we going to hell for orders? By cob's body, I'll hamper,
bethwack, and belabour all the devils, now I have some vine-leaves in
my shoes. Thou shalt see me lay about me like mad, old boy. Which
way? where the devil are they? I fear nothing but their damned horns;
but cuckoldy Panurge's bull-feather will altogether secure me from 'em.
Lo! in a prophetic spirit I already see him, like another Actaeon, horned,
horny, hornified. Prithee, quoth Panurge, take heed thyself, dear frater,
lest, till monks have leave to marry, thou weddest something thou
dostn't like, as some cat- o'-nine-tails or the quartan ague; if thou dost,
may I never come safe and sound out of this hypogeum, this
subterranean cave, if I don't tup and ram that disease merely for the
sake of making thee a cornuted, corniferous property; otherwise I fancy
the quartan ague is but an indifferent bedfellow. I remember
Gripe-men-all threatened to wed thee to some such thing; for which
thou calledest him heretic.
Here our splendid lantern interrupted them, letting us know this was the
place where we were to have a taste of the creature, and be silent;
bidding us not despair of having the word of the Bottle before we went
back, since we had lined our shoes with vine-leaves.
Come on then, cried Panurge, let's charge through and through all the
devils of hell; we can but perish, and that's soon done. However, I
thought to have reserved my life for some mighty battle. Move, move,
move forwards; I am as stout as Hercules, my breeches are full of
courage; my heart trembles a little, I own, but that's only an effect of
the coldness and dampness of this vault; 'tis neither fear nor ague.
Come on, move on, piss, pish, push on. My name's William
Dreadnought.
Chapter 5.
XXXVII.
How the temple gates in a wonderful manner opened of themselves.
After we were got down the steps, we came to a portal of fine jasper, of
Doric order, on whose front we read this sentence in the finest gold, EN
OINO ALETHEIA--that is, In wine truth. The gates were of
Corinthian- like brass, massy, wrought with little vine-branches, finely
embossed and engraven, and were equally joined and closed together in
their mortise without padlock, key-chain, or tie whatsoever. Where they
joined, there hanged an Indian loadstone as big as an Egyptian bean, set
in gold, having two points, hexagonal, in a right line; and on each side,
towards the wall, hung a handful of scordium (garlic germander).
There our noble lantern desired us not to take it amiss that she went no
farther with us, leaving us wholly to the conduct of the priestess
Bacbuc; for she herself was not allowed to go in, for certain causes
rather to be concealed than revealed to mortals. However, she advised
us to be resolute and secure, and to trust to her for the return. She then
pulled the loadstone that hung at the folding of the gates, and threw it
into a silver box fixed for that purpose; which done, from the threshold
of each gate she drew a twine of crimson silk about nine feet long, by
which the scordium hung, and having fastened it to two gold buckles
that hung at the sides, she withdrew.
Immediately the gates flew open without being touched; not with a
creaking or loud harsh noise like that made by heavy brazen gates, but
with a soft pleasing murmur that resounded through the arches of the
temple.
Pantagruel soon knew the cause of it, having discovered a small
cylinder or roller that joined the gates over the threshold, and, turning
like them towards the wall on a hard well-polished ophites stone, with
rubbing and rolling caused that harmonious murmur.
I wondered how the gates thus opened of themselves to the right and
left, and after we were all got in, I cast my eye between the gates and
the wall to endeavour to know how this happened; for one would have
thought our kind lantern had put between the gates the herb aethiopis,
which they say opens some things that are shut. But I perceived that the
parts of the gates that joined on the inside were covered with steel, and
just where the said gates touched when they were opened I saw two
square Indian loadstones of a bluish hue, well polished, and half a span
broad, mortised in the temple wall. Now, by the hidden and admirable
power of the loadstones, the steel plates were put into motion, and
consequently the gates were slowly drawn; however, not always, but
when the said loadstone on the outside was removed, after which the
steel was freed from its power, the two bunches of scordium being at
the same time put at some distance, because it deadens the magnes and
robs it of its attractive virtue.
On the loadstone that was placed on the right side the following iambic
verse was curiously engraven in ancient Roman characters:
Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt.
Fate leads the willing, and th' unwilling draws.
The following sentence was neatly cut in the loadstone that was on the
left:
ALL THINGS TEND TO THEIR END.
Chapter 5.
XXXVIII.
Of the Temple's admirable pavement.
When I had read those inscriptions, I admired the beauty of the temple,
and particularly the disposition of its pavement, with which no work
that is now, or has been under the cope of heaven, can justly be
compared; not that of the Temple of Fortune at Praeneste in Sylla's time,
or the pavement of the Greeks, called asarotum, laid by Sosistratus at
Pergamus. For this here was wholly in compartments of precious stones,
all in their natural colours: one of red jasper, most charmingly spotted;
another of ophites; a third of porphyry; a fourth of lycophthalmy, a
stone of four different colours, powdered with sparks of gold as small
as atoms; a fifth of agate, streaked here and there with small
milk-coloured waves; a sixth of costly chalcedony or onyx-stone; and
another of green jasper, with certain red and yellowish veins. And all
these were disposed in a diagonal line.
At the portico some small stones were inlaid and evenly joined on the
floor, all in their native colours, to embellish the design of the figures;
and they were ordered in such a manner that you would have thought
some vine-leaves and branches had been carelessly strewed on the
pavement; for in some places they were thick, and thin in others. That
inlaying was very wonderful everywhere. Here were seen, as it were in
the shade, some snails crawling on the grapes; there, little lizards
running on the branches. On this side were grapes that seemed yet
greenish; on another, some clusters that seemed full ripe, so like the
true that they could as easily have deceived starlings and other birds as
those which Zeuxis drew.
Nay, we ourselves were deceived; for where the artist seemed to have
strewed the vine-branches thickest, we could not forbear walking with
great strides lest we should entangle our feet, just as people go over an
unequal stony place.
I then cast my eyes on the roof and walls of the temple, that were all
pargetted with porphyry and mosaic work, which from the left side at
the coming in most admirably represented the battle in which the good
Bacchus overthrew the Indians; as followeth.
Chapter 5.
XXXIX.
How we saw Bacchus's army drawn up in battalia in mosaic work.
At the beginning, divers towns, hamlets, castles, fortresses, and forests
were seen in flames; and several mad and loose women, who furiously
ripped up and tore live calves, sheep, and lambs limb from limb, and
devoured their flesh. There we learned how Bacchus, at his coming into
India, destroyed all things with fire and sword.
Notwithstanding this, he was so despised by the Indians that they did
not think it worth their while to stop his progress, having been certainly
informed by their spies that his camp was destitute of warriors, and that
he had only with him a crew of drunken females, a low-built, old,
effeminate, sottish fellow, continually addled, and as drunk as a
wheelbarrow, with a pack of young clownish doddipolls, stark naked,
always skipping and frisking up and down, with tails and horns like
those of young kids.
For this reason the Indians had resolved to let them go through their
country without the least opposition, esteeming a victory over such
enemies more dishonourable than glorious.
In the meantime Bacchus marched on, burning everything; for, as you
know, fire and thunder are his paternal arms, Jupiter having saluted his
mother Semele with his thunder, so that his maternal house was ruined
by fire. Bacchus also caused a great deal of blood to be spilt; which,
when he is roused and angered, principally in war, is as natural to him
as to make some in time of peace.
Thus the plains of the island of Samos are called Panema, which
signifies bloody, because Bacchus there overtook the Amazons, who
fled from the country of Ephesus, and there let 'em blood, so that they
all died of phlebotomy. This may give you a better insight into the
meaning of an ancient proverb than Aristotle has done in his problems,
viz., Why 'twas formerly said, Neither eat nor sow any mint in time of
war. The reason is, that blows are given then without any distinction of
parts or persons, and if a man that's wounded has that day handled or
eaten any mint, 'tis impossible, or at least very hard, to stanch his
blood.
After this, Bacchus was seen marching in battalia, riding in a stately
chariot drawn by six young leopards. He looked as young as a child, to
show that all good topers never grow old. He was as red as a cherry, or
a cherub, which you please, and had no more hair on his chin than
there's in the inside of my hand. His forehead was graced with pointed
horns, above which he wore a fine crown or garland of vine-leaves and
grapes, and a mitre of crimson velvet, having also gilt buskins on.
He had not one man with him that looked like a man; his guards and all
his forces consisted wholly of Bassarides, Evantes, Euhyades, Edonides,
Trietherides, Ogygiae, Mimallonides, Maenades, Thyades, and Bacchae,
frantic, raving, raging, furious, mad women, begirt with live snakes and
serpents instead of girdles, dishevelled, their hair flowing about their
shoulders, with garlands of vine-branches instead of forehead-cloths,
clad with stag's or goat's skins, and armed with torches, javelins, spears,
and halberds whose ends were like pineapples. Besides, they had
certain small light bucklers that gave a loud sound if you touched 'em
never so little, and these served them instead of drums. They were just
seventy-nine thousand two hundred and twenty-seven.
Silenus, who led the van, was one on whom Bacchus relied very much,
having formerly had many proofs of his valour and conduct. He was a
diminutive, stooping, palsied, plump, gorbellied old fellow, with a
swingeing pair of stiff-standing lugs of his own, a sharp Roman nose,
large rough eyebrows, mounted on a well-hung ass. In his fist he held a
staff to lean upon, and also bravely to fight whenever he had occasion
to alight; and he was dressed in a woman's yellow gown. His followers
were all young, wild, clownish people, as hornified as so many kids
and as fell as so many tigers, naked, and perpetually singing and
dancing country-dances. They were called tityri and satyrs, and were in
all eighty-five thousand one hundred and thirty-three.
Pan, who brought up the rear, was a monstrous sort of a thing; for his
lower parts were like a goat's, his thighs hairy, and his horns bolt
upright; a crimson fiery phiz, and a beard that was none of the shortest.
He was a bold, stout, daring, desperate fellow, very apt to take pepper
in the nose for yea and nay.
In his left hand he held a pipe, and a crooked stick in his right. His
forces consisted also wholly of satyrs, aegipanes, agripanes, sylvans,
fauns, lemures, lares, elves, and hobgoblins, and their number was
seventy- eight thousand one hundred and fourteen. The signal or word
common to all the army was Evohe.
Chapter 5.
XL.
How the battle in which the good Bacchus overthrew the Indians was
represented in mosaic work.
In the next place we saw the representation of the good Bacchus's
engagement with the Indians. Silenus, who led the van, was sweating,
puffing, and blowing, belabouring his ass most grievously. The ass
dreadfully opened its wide jaws, drove away the flies that plagued it,
winced, flounced, went back, and bestirred itself in a most terrible
manner, as if some damned gad-bee had stung it at the breech.
The satyrs, captains, sergeants, and corporals of companies, sounding
the orgies with cornets, in a furious manner went round the army,
skipping, capering, bounding, jerking, farting, flying out at heels,
kicking and prancing like mad, encouraging their companions to fight
bravely; and all the delineated army cried out Evohe!
First, the Maenades charged the Indians with dreadful shouts, and a
horrid din of their brazen drums and bucklers; the air rung again all
around, as the mosaic work well expressed it. And pray for the future
don't so much admire Apelles, Aristides the Theban, and others who
drew claps of thunder, lightnings, winds, words, manners, and spirits.
We then saw the Indian army, who had at last taken the field to prevent
the devastation of the rest of their country. In the front were the
elephants, with castles well garrisoned on their backs. But the army and
themselves were put into disorder; the dreadful cries of the Bacchae
having filled them with consternation, and those huge animals turned
tail and trampled on the men of their party.
There you might have seen gaffer Silenus on his ass, putting on as hard
as he could, striking athwart and alongst, and laying about him lustily
with his staff after the old fashion of fencing. His ass was prancing and
making after the elephants, gaping and martially braying, as it were to
sound a charge, as he did when formerly in the Bacchanalian feasts he
waked the nymph Lottis, when Priapus, full of priapism, had a mind to
priapize while the pretty creature was taking a nap.
There you might have seen Pan frisk it with his goatish shanks about
the Maenades, and with his rustic pipe excite them to behave
themselves like Maenades.
A little further you might have blessed your eyes with the sight of a
young satyr who led seventeen kings his prisoners; and a Bacchis, who
with her snakes hauled along no less than two and forty captains; a
little faun, who carried a whole dozen of standards taken from the
enemy; and goodman Bacchus on his chariot, riding to and fro fearless
of danger, making much of his dear carcass, and cheerfully toping to all
his merry friends.
Finally, we saw the representation of his triumph, which was thus: first,
his chariot was wholly lined with ivy gathered on the mountain Meros;
this for its scarcity, which you know raises the price of everything, and
principally of those leaves in India. In this Alexander the Great
followed his example at his Indian triumph. The chariot was drawn by
elephants joined together, wherein he was imitated by Pompey the
Great at Rome in his African triumph. The good Bacchus was seen
drinking out of a mighty urn, which action Marius aped after his
victory over the Cimbri near Aix in Provence. All his army were
crowned with ivy; their javelins, bucklers, and drums were also wholly
covered with it; there was not so much as Silenus's ass but was
betrapped with it.
The Indian kings were fastened with chains of gold close by the wheels
of the chariot. All the company marched in pomp with unspeakable joy,
loaded with an infinite number of trophies, pageants, and spoils,
playing and singing merry epiniciums, songs of triumph, and also rural
lays and dithyrambs.
At the farthest end was a prospect of the land of Egypt; the Nile with its
crocodiles, marmosets, ibides, monkeys, trochiloses, or wrens,
ichneumons, or Pharoah's mice, hippopotami, or sea-horses, and other
creatures, its guests and neighbours. Bacchus was moving towards that
country under the conduct of a couple of horned beasts, on one of
which was written in gold, Apis, and Osiris on the other; because no ox
or cow had been seen in Egypt till Bacchus came thither.
Chapter 5.
XLI.
How the temple was illuminated with a wonderful lamp.
Before I proceed to the description of the Bottle, I'll give you that of an
admirable lamp that dispensed so large a light over all the temple that,
though it lay underground, we could distinguish every object as clearly
as above it at noonday.
In the middle of the roof was fixed a ring of massive gold, as thick as
my clenched fist. Three chains somewhat less, most curiously wrought,
hung about two feet and a half below it, and in a triangle supported a
round plate of fine gold whose diameter or breadth did not exceed two
cubits and half a span. There were four holes in it, in each of which an
empty ball was fastened, hollow within, and open o' top, like a little
lamp; its circumference about two hands' breadth. Each ball was of
precious stone; one an amethyst, another an African carbuncle, the third
an opal, and the fourth an anthracites. They were full of burning water
five times distilled in a serpentine limbec, and inconsumptible, like the
oil formerly put into Pallas' golden lamp at Acropolis of Athens by
Callimachus. In each of them was a flaming wick, partly of asbestine
flax, as of old in the temple of Jupiter Ammon, such as those which
Cleombrotus, a most studious philosopher, saw, and partly of Carpasian
flax (Ozell's correction. Motteux reads, 'which Cleombrotus, a most
studious philosopher, and Pandelinus of Carpasium had, which were,'
&c.), which were rather renewed than consumed by the fire.
About two foot and a half below that gold plate, the three chains were
fastened to three handles that were fixed to a large round lamp of most
pure crystal, whose diameter was a cubit and a half, and opened about
two hands' breadths o' top; by which open place a vessel of the same
crystal, shaped somewhat like the lower part of a gourd-like limbec, or
an urinal, was put at the bottom of the great lamp, with such a quantity
of the afore- mentioned burning water, that the flame of the asbestine
wick reached the centre of the great lamp. This made all its spherical
body seem to burn and be in a flame, because the fire was just at the
centre and middle point, so that it was not more easy to fix the eye on it
than on the disc of the sun, the matter being wonderfully bright and
shining, and the work most transparent and dazzling by the reflection of
the various colours of the precious stones whereof the four small lamps
above the main lamp were made, and their lustre was still variously
glittering all over the temple. Then this wandering light being darted on
the polished marble and agate with which all the inside of the temple
was pargetted, our eyes were entertained with a sight of all the
admirable colours which the rainbow can boast when the sun darts his
fiery rays on some dropping clouds.
The design of the lamp was admirable in itself, but, in my opinion,
what added much to the beauty of the whole, was that round the body
of the crystal lamp there was carved in cataglyphic work a lively and
pleasant battle of naked boys, mounted on little hobby-horses, with
little whirligig lances and shields that seemed made of vine-branches
with grapes on them; their postures generally were very different, and
their childish strife and motions were so ingeniously expressed that art
equalled nature in every proportion and action. Neither did this seem
engraved, but rather hewed out and embossed in relief, or at least like
grotesque, which, by the artist's skill, has the appearance of the
roundness of the object it represents. This was partly the effect of the
various and most charming light, which, flowing out of the lamp, filled
the carved places with its glorious rays.
Chapter 5.
XLII ('This and the next chapter make really but one, tho' Mr. Motteux
has made two of them; the first of which contains but eight lines,
according to him, and ends at the words fantastic fountain.'--Ozell.).
How the Priestess Bacbuc showed us a fantastic fountain in the temple,
and how the fountain-water had the taste of wine, according to the
imagination of those who drank of it.
While we were admiring this incomparable lamp and the stupendous
structure of the temple, the venerable priestess Bacbuc and her
attendants came to us with jolly smiling looks, and seeing us duly
accoutred, without the least difficulty took us into the middle of the
temple, where, just under the aforesaid lamp, was the fine fantastic
fountain. She then ordered some cups, goblets, and talboys of gold,
silver, and crystal to be brought, and kindly invited us to drink of the
liquor that sprung there, which we readily did; for, to say the truth, this
fantastic fountain was very inviting, and its materials and workmanship
more precious, rare, and admirable than anything Plato ever dreamt of
in limbo.
Its basis or groundwork was of most pure and limpid alabaster, and its
height somewhat more than three spans, being a regular heptagon on
the outside, with its stylobates or footsteps, arulets, cymasults or blunt
tops, and Doric undulations about it. It was exactly round within. On
the middle point of each angle brink stood a pillar orbiculated in form
of ivory or alabaster solid rings. These were seven in number,
according to the number of the angles (This sentence, restored by Ozell,
is omitted by Motteux.).
Each pillar's length from the basis to the architraves was near seven
hands, taking an exact dimension of its diameter through the centre of
its circumference and inward roundness; and it was so disposed that,
casting our eyes behind one of them, whatever its cube might be, to
view its opposite, we found that the pyramidal cone of our visual line
ended at the said centre, and there, by the two opposites, formed an
equilateral triangle whose two lines divided the pillar into two equal
parts.
That which we had a mind to measure, going from one side to another,
two pillars over, at the first third part of the distance between them, was
met by their lowermost and fundamental line, which, in a consult line
drawn as far as the universal centre, equally divided, gave, in a just
partition, the distance of the seven opposite pillars in a right line,
beginning at the obtuse angle on the brink, as you know that an angle is
always found placed between two others in all angular figures odd in
number.
This tacitly gave us to understand that seven semidiameters are in
geometrical proportion, compass, and distance somewhat less than the
circumference of a circle, from the figure of which they are extracted;
that is to say, three whole parts, with an eighth and a half, a little more,
or a seventh and a half, a little less, according to the instructions given
us of old by Euclid, Aristotle, Archimedes, and others.
The first pillar, I mean that which faced the temple gate, was of azure,
sky-coloured sapphire.
The second, of hyacinth, a precious stone exactly of the colour of the
flower into which Ajax's choleric blood was transformed; the Greek
letters A I being seen on it in many places.
The third, an anachite diamond, as bright and glittering as lightning.
The fourth, a masculine ruby balas (peach-coloured) amethystizing, its
flame and lustre ending in violet or purple like an amethyst.
The fifth, an emerald, above five hundred and fifty times more precious
than that of Serapis in the labyrinth of the Egyptians, and more verdant
and shining than those that were fixed, instead of eyes, in the marble
lion's head near King Hermias's tomb.
The sixth, of agate, more admirable and various in the distinctions of its
veins, clouds, and colours than that which Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, so
mightily esteemed.
The seventh, of syenites, transparent, of the colour of a beryl and the
clear hue of Hymetian honey; and within it the moon was seen, such as
we see it in the sky, silent, full, new, and in the wane.
These stones were assigned to the seven heavenly planets by the
ancient Chaldaeans; and that the meanest capacities might be informed
of this, just at the central perpendicular line, on the chapter of the first
pillar, which was of sapphire, stood the image of Saturn in elutian
(Motteux reads 'Eliacim.') lead, with his scythe in his hand, and at his
feet a crane of gold, very artfully enamelled, according to the native
hue of the saturnine bird.
On the second, which was of hyacinth, towards the left, Jupiter was
seen in jovetian brass, and on his breast an eagle of gold enamelled to
the life.
On the third was Phoebus of the purest gold, and a white cock in his
right hand.
On the fourth was Mars in Corinthian brass, and a lion at his feet.
On the fifth was Venus in copper, the metal of which Aristonides made
Athamas's statue, that expressed in a blushing whiteness his confusion
at the sight of his son Learchus, who died at his feet of a fall.
On the sixth was Mercury in hydrargyre. I would have said quicksilver,
had it not been fixed, malleable, and unmovable. That nimble deity had
a stork at his feet.
On the seventh was the Moon in silver, with a greyhound at her feet.
The size of these statues was somewhat more than a third part of the
pillars on which they stood, and they were so admirably wrought
according to mathematical proportion that Polycletus's canon could
hardly have stood in competition with them.
The bases of the pillars, the chapters, the architraves, zoophores, and
cornices were Phrygian work of massive gold, purer and finer than any
that is found in the rivers Leede near Montpellier, Ganges in India, Po
in Italy, Hebrus in Thrace, Tagus in Spain, and Pactolus in Lydia.
The small arches between the pillars were of the same precious stone of
which the pillars next to them were. Thus, that arch was of sapphire
which ended at the hyacinth pillar, and that was of hyacinth which went
towards the diamond, and so on.
Above the arches and chapters of the pillars, on the inward front, a
cupola was raised to cover the fountain. It was surrounded by the
planetary statues, heptagonal at the bottom, and spherical o' top, and of
crystal so pure, transparent, well-polished, whole and uniform in all its
parts, without veins, clouds, flaws, or streaks, that Xenocrates never
saw such a one in his life.
Within it were seen the twelve signs of the zodiac, the twelve months
of the year, with their properties, the two equinoxes, the ecliptic line,
with some of the most remarkable fixed stars about the antartic pole
and elsewhere, so curiously engraven that I fancied them to be the
workmanship of King Necepsus, or Petosiris, the ancient
mathematician.
On the top of the cupola, just over the centre of the fountain, were three
noble long pearls, all of one size, pear fashion, perfectly imitating a tear,
and so joined together as to represent a flower-de-luce or lily, each of
the flowers seeming above a hand's breadth. A carbuncle jetted out of
its calyx or cup as big as an ostrich's egg, cut seven square (that number
so beloved of nature), and so prodigiously glorious that the sight of it
had like to have made us blind, for the fiery sun or the pointed
lightning are not more dazzling and unsufferably bright.
Now, were some judicious appraisers to judge of the value of this
incomparable fountain, and the lamp of which we have spoke, they
would undoubtedly affirm it exceeds that of all the treasures and
curiosities in Europe, Asia, and Africa put together. For that carbuncle
alone would have darkened the pantarbe of Iarchus (Motteux reads
'Joachas.') the Indian magician, with as much ease as the sun outshines
and dims the stars with his meridian rays.
Nor let Cleopatra, that Egyptian queen, boast of her pair of pendants,
those two pearls, one of which she caused to be dissolved in vinegar, in
the presence of Antony the Triumvir, her gallant.
Or let Pompeia Plautina be proud of her dress covered all over with
emeralds and pearls curiously intermixed, she who attracted the eyes of
all Rome, and was said to be the pit and magazine of the conquering
robbers of the universe.
The fountain had three tubes or channels of right pearl, seated in three
equilateral angles already mentioned, extended on the margin, and
those channels proceeded in a snail-like line, winding equally on both
sides.
We looked on them a while, and had cast our eyes on another side,
when Bacbuc directed us to watch the water. We then heard a most
harmonious sound, yet somewhat stopped by starts, far distant, and
subterranean, by which means it was still more pleasing than if it had
been free, uninterrupted, and near us, so that our minds were as
agreeably entertained through our ears with that charming melody as
they were through the windows of our eyes with those delightful
objects.
Bacbuc then said, Your philosophers will not allow that motion is begot
by the power of figures; look here, and see the contrary. By that single
snail-like motion, equally divided as you see, and a fivefold infoliature,
movable at every inward meeting, such as is the vena cava where it
enters into the right ventricle of the heart; just so is the flowing of this
fountain, and by it a harmony ascends as high as your world's ocean.
She then ordered her attendants to make us drink; and, to tell you the
truth of the matter as near as possible, we are not, heaven be praised! of
the nature of a drove of calf-lollies, who (as your sparrows can't feed
unless you bob them on the tail) must be rib-roasted with tough
crabtree and firked into a stomach, or at least into an humour to eat or
drink. No, we know better things, and scorn to scorn any man's civility
who civilly invites us to a drinking bout. Bacbuc asked us then how we
liked our tiff. We answered that it seemed to us good harmless sober
Adam's liquor, fit to keep a man in the right way, and, in a word, mere
element; more cool and clear than Argyrontes in Aetolia, Peneus in
Thessaly, Axius in Mygdonia, or Cydnus in Cilicia, a tempting sight of
whose cool silver stream caused Alexander to prefer the short-lived
pleasure of bathing himself in it to the inconveniences which he could
not but foresee would attend so ill- termed an action.
This, said Bacbuc, comes of not considering with ourselves, or
understanding the motions of the musculous tongue, when the drink
glides on it in its way to the stomach. Tell me, noble strangers, are your
throats lined, paved, or enamelled, as formerly was that of Pithyllus,
nicknamed Theutes, that you can have missed the taste, relish, and
flavour of this divine liquor? Here, said she, turning towards her
gentlewomen, bring my scrubbing-brushes, you know which, to scrape,
rake, and clear their palates.
They brought immediately some stately, swingeing, jolly hams, fine
substantial neat's tongues, good hung-beef, pure and delicate botargos,
venison, sausages, and such other gullet-sweepers. And, to comply with
her invitation, we crammed and twisted till we owned ourselves
thoroughly cured of thirst, which before did damnably plague us.
We are told, continued she, that formerly a learned and valiant Hebrew
chief, leading his people through the deserts, where they were in danger
of being famished, obtained of God some manna, whose taste was to
them, by imagination, such as that of meat was to them before in reality;
thus, drinking of this miraculous liquor, you'll find it taste like any wine
that you shall fancy you drink. Come, then, fancy and drink. We did so,
and Panurge had no sooner whipped off his brimmer but he cried, By
Noah's open shop, 'tis vin de Beaune, better than ever was yet tipped
over tongue, or may ninety-six devils swallow me. Oh! that to keep its
taste the longer, we gentlemen topers had but necks some three cubits
long or so, as Philoxenus desired to have, or, at least, like a crane's, as
Melanthius wished his.
On the faith of true lanterners, quoth Friar John, 'tis gallant, sparkling
Greek wine. Now, for God's sake, sweetheart, do but teach me how the
devil you make it. It seems to me Mirevaux wine, said Pantagruel; for
before I drank I supposed it to be such. Nothing can be misliked in it,
but that 'tis cold; colder, I say, than the very ice; colder than the
Nonacrian and Dercean (Motteux reads 'Deraen.') water, or the
Conthoporian (Motteux, 'Conthopian.') spring at Corinth, that froze up
the stomach and nutritive parts of those that drank of it.
Drink once, twice, or thrice more, said Bacbuc, still changing your
imagination, and you shall find its taste and flavour to be exactly that
on which you shall have pitched. Then never presume to say that
anything is impossible to God. We never offered to say such a thing,
said I; far from it, we maintain he is omnipotent.
Chapter 5.
XLIII.
How the Priestess Bacbuc equipped Panurge in order to have the word
of the Bottle.
When we had thus chatted and tippled, Bacbuc asked, Who of you here
would have the word of the Bottle? I, your most humble little funnel,
an't please you, quoth Panurge. Friend, saith she, I have but one thing
to tell you, which is, that when you come to the Oracle, you take care to
hearken and hear the word only with one ear. This, cried Friar John, is
wine of one ear, as Frenchmen call it.
She then wrapped him up in a gaberdine, bound his noddle with a
goodly clean biggin, clapped over it a felt such as those through which
hippocras is distilled, at the bottom of which, instead of a cowl, she put
three obelisks, made him draw on a pair of old-fashioned codpieces
instead of mittens, girded him about with three bagpipes bound
together, bathed his jobbernowl thrice in the fountain; then threw a
handful of meal on his phiz, fixed three cock's feathers on the right side
of the hippocratical felt, made him take a jaunt nine times round the
fountain, caused him to take three little leaps and to bump his a-- seven
times against the ground, repeating I don't know what kind of
conjurations all the while in the Tuscan tongue, and ever and anon
reading in a ritual or book of ceremonies, carried after her by one of her
mystagogues.
For my part, may I never stir if I don't really believe that neither Numa
Pompilius, the second King of the Romans, nor the Cerites of Tuscia,
and the old Hebrew captain ever instituted so many ceremonies as I
then saw performed; nor were ever half so many religious forms used
by the soothsayers of Memphis in Egypt to Apis, or by the Euboeans, at
Rhamnus (Motteux gives 'or by the Embrians, or at Rhamnus.'), to
Rhamnusia, or to Jupiter Ammon, or to Feronia.
When she had thus accoutred my gentleman, she took him out of our
company, and led him out of the temple, through a golden gate on the
right, into a round chapel made of transparent speculary stones, by
whose solid clearness the sun's light shined there through the precipice
of the rock without any windows or other entrance, and so easily and
fully dispersed itself through the greater temple that the light seemed
rather to spring out of it than to flow into it.
The workmanship was not less rare than that of the sacred temple at
Ravenna, or that in the island of Chemnis in Egypt. Nor must I forget to
tell you that the work of that round chapel was contrived with such a
symmetry that its diameter was just the height of the vault.
In the middle of it was an heptagonal fountain of fine alabaster most
artfully wrought, full of water, which was so clear that it might have
passed for element in its purity and singleness. The sacred Bottle was
in it to the middle, clad in pure fine crystal of an oval shape, except its
muzzle, which was somewhat wider than was consistent with that
figure.
Chapter 5.
XLIV.
How Bacbuc, the high-priestess, brought Panurge before the Holy
Bottle.
There the noble priestess Bacbuc made Panurge stoop and kiss the
brink of the fountain; then bade him rise and dance three ithymbi
('Dances in the honour of Bacchus.'--Motteux.). Which done, she
ordered him to sit down between two stools placed there for that
purpose, his arse upon the ground. Then she opened her ceremonial
book, and, whispering in his left ear, made him sing an epileny,
inserted here in the figure of the bottle.
Bottle, whose Mysterious Deep Do's ten thousand Secrets keep, With
attentive Ear I wait; Ease my Mind, and speak my Fate. Soul of Joy!
Like Bacchus, we More than India gain by thee. Truths unborn thy
Juice reveals, Which Futurity conceals. Antidote to Frauds and Lies,
Wine, that mounts us to the Skies, May thy Father Noah's Brood Like
him drown, but in thy Flood. Speak, so may the Liquid Mine Of Rubies,
or of Diamonds shine. Bottle, whose Mysterious Deep Do's ten
thousand Secrets keep, With attentive Ear I wait; Ease my Mind, and
speak my Fate.
When Panurge had sung, Bacbuc threw I don't know what into the
fountain, and straight its water began to boil in good earnest, just for
the world as doth the great monastical pot at Bourgueil when 'tis high
holiday there. Friend Panurge was listening with one ear, and Bacbuc
kneeled by him, when such a kind of humming was heard out of the
Bottle as is made by a swarm of bees bred in the flesh of a young bull
killed and dressed according to Aristaeus's art, or such as is made when
a bolt flies out of a crossbow, or when a shower falls on a sudden in
summer. Immediately after this was heard the word Trinc. By cob's
body, cried Panurge, 'tis broken, or cracked at least, not to tell a lie for
the matter; for even so do crystal bottles speak in our country when
they burst near the fire.
Bacbuc arose, and gently taking Panurge under the arms, said, Friend,
offer your thanks to indulgent heaven, as reason requires. You have
soon had the word of the Goddess-Bottle; and the kindest, most
favourable, and certain word of answer that I ever yet heard her give
since I officiated here at her most sacred oracle. Rise, let us go to the
chapter, in whose gloss that fine word is explained. With all my heart,
quoth Panurge; by jingo, I am just as wise as I was last year. Light,
where's the book? Turn it over, where's the chapter? Let's see this
merry gloss.
Chapter 5.
XLV.
How Bacbuc explained the word of the Goddess-Bottle.
Bacbuc having thrown I don't know what into the fountain, straight the
water ceased to boil; and then she took Panurge into the greater temple,
in the central place, where there was the enlivening fountain.
There she took out a hugeous silver book, in the shape of a half-tierce,
or hogshead, of sentences, and, having filled it at the fountain, said to
him, The philosophers, preachers, and doctors of your world feed you
up with fine words and cant at the ears; now, here we really incorporate
our precepts at the mouth. Therefore I'll not say to you, read this
chapter, see this gloss; no, I say to you, taste me this fine chapter,
swallow me this rare gloss. Formerly an ancient prophet of the Jewish
nation ate a book and became a clerk even to the very teeth! Now will I
have you drink one, that you may be a clerk to your very liver. Here,
open your mandibules.
Panurge gaping as wide as his jaws would stretch, Bacbuc took the
silver book--at least we took it for a real book, for it looked just for the
world like a breviary--but in truth it was a breviary, a flask of right
Falernian wine as it came from the grape, which she made him swallow
every drop.
By Bacchus, quoth Panurge, this was a notable chapter, a most
authentic gloss, o' my word. Is this all that the trismegistian Bottle's
word means? I' troth, I like it extremely; it went down like mother's
milk. Nothing more, returned Bacbuc; for Trinc is a panomphean word,
that is, a word understood, used and celebrated by all nations, and
signifies drink.
Some say in your world that sack is a word used in all tongues, and
justly admitted in the same sense among all nations; for, as Aesop's
fable hath it, all men are born with a sack at the neck, naturally needy
and begging of each other; neither can the most powerful king be
without the help of other men, or can anyone that's poor subsist without
the rich, though he be never so proud and insolent; as, for example,
Hippias the philosopher, who boasted he could do everything. Much
less can anyone make shift without drink than without a sack.
Therefore here we hold not that laughing, but that drinking is the
distinguishing character of man. I don't say drinking, taking that word
singly and absolutely in the strictest sense; no, beasts then might put in
for a share; I mean drinking cool delicious wine. For you must know,
my beloved, that by wine we become divine; neither can there be a
surer argument or a less deceitful divination. Your ('Varro.'--Motteux)
academics assert the same when they make the etymology of wine,
which the Greeks call OINOS, to be from vis, strength, virtue, and
power; for 'tis in its power to fill the soul with all truth, learning, and
philosophy.
If you observe what is written in Ionic letters on the temple gate, you
may have understood that truth is in wine. The Goddess-Bottle
therefore directs you to that divine liquor; be yourself the expounder of
your undertaking.
It is impossible, said Pantagruel to Panurge, to speak more to the
purpose than does this true priestess; you may remember I told you as
much when you first spoke to me about it.
Trinc then: what says your heart, elevated by Bacchic enthusiasm?
With this quoth Panurge:
Trinc, trinc; by Bacchus, let us tope, And tope again; for, now I hope
To see some brawny, juicy rump Well tickled with my carnal stump.
Ere long, my friends, I shall be wedded, Sure as my trap-stick has a
red-head; And my sweet wife shall hold the combat Long as my baws
can on her bum beat. O what a battle of a-- fighting Will there be,
which I much delight in! What pleasing pains then shall I take To keep
myself and spouse awake! All heart and juice, I'll up and ride, And
make a duchess of my bride. Sing Io paean! loudly sing To Hymen,
who all joys will bring. Well, Friar John, I'll take my oath, This oracle
is full of troth; Intelligible truth it bears, More certain than the sieve
and shears.
Chapter 5.
XLVI.
How Panurge and the rest rhymed with poetic fury.
What a pox ails the fellow? quoth Friar John. Stark staring mad, or
bewitched, o' my word! Do but hear the chiming dotterel gabble in
rhyme. What o' devil has he swallowed? His eyes roll in his loggerhead
just for the world like a dying goat's. Will the addle-pated wight have
the grace to sheer off? Will he rid us of his damned company, to go
shite out his nasty rhyming balderdash in some bog-house? Will
nobody be so kind as to cram some dog's-bur down the poor cur's gullet?
or will he, monk-like, run his fist up to the elbow into his throat to his
very maw, to scour and clear his flanks? Will he take a hair of the same
dog?
Pantagruel chid Friar John, and said:
Bold monk, forbear! this, I'll assure ye, Proceeds all from poetic fury;
Warmed by the god, inspired with wine, His human soul is made divine.
For without jest, His hallowed breast, With wine possessed, Could have
no rest Till he'd expressed Some thoughts at least Of his great guest.
Then straight he flies Above the skies, And mortifies, With prophecies,
Our miseries. And since divinely he's inspired, Adore the soul by wine
acquired, And let the tosspot be admired.
How, quoth the friar, the fit rhyming is upon you too? Is't come to that?
Then we are all peppered, or the devil pepper me. What would I not
give to have Gargantua see us while we are in this maggotty
crambo-vein! Now may I be cursed with living on that damned empty
food, if I can tell whether I shall scape the catching distemper. The
devil a bit do I understand which way to go about it; however, the spirit
of fustian possesses us all, I find. Well, by St. John, I'll poetize, since
everybody does; I find it coming. Stay, and pray pardon me if I don't
rhyme in crimson; 'tis my first essay.
Thou, who canst water turn to wine, Transform my bum, by power
divine, Into a lantern, that may light My neighbour in the darkest night.
Panurge then proceeds in his rapture, and says:
From Pythian Tripos ne'er were heard More truths, nor more to be
revered. I think from Delphos to this spring Some wizard brought that
conjuring thing. Had honest Plutarch here been toping, He then so long
had ne'er been groping To find, according to his wishes, Why oracles
are mute as fishes At Delphos. Now the reason's clear; No more at
Delphos they're, but here. Here is the tripos, out of which Is spoke the
doom of poor and rich. For Athenaeus does relate This Bottle is the
Womb of Fate; Prolific of mysterious wine, And big with prescience
divine, It brings the truth with pleasure forth; Besides you ha't a
pennyworth. So, Friar John, I must exhort you To wait a word that may
import you, And to inquire, while here we tarry, If it shall be your luck
to marry.
Friar John answers him in a rage, and says:
How, marry! By St. Bennet's boot, And his gambadoes, I'll never do't.
No man that knows me e'er shall judge I mean to make myself a drudge;
Or that pilgarlic e'er will dote Upon a paltry petticoat. I'll ne'er my
liberty betray All for a little leapfrog play; And ever after wear a clog
Like monkey or like mastiff-dog. No, I'd not have, upon my life, Great
Alexander for my wife, Nor Pompey, nor his dad-in-law, Who did each
other clapperclaw. Not the best he that wears a head Shall win me to his
truckle-bed.
Panurge, pulling off his gaberdine and mystical accoutrements, replied:
Wherefore thou shalt, thou filthy beast, Be damned twelve fathoms
deep at least; While I shall reign in Paradise, Whence on thy
loggerhead I'll piss. Now when that dreadful hour is come, That thou in
hell receiv'st thy doom, E'en there, I know, thou'lt play some trick, And
Proserpine shan't scape a prick Of the long pin within thy breeches. But
when thou'rt using these capriches, And caterwauling in her cavern,
Send Pluto to the farthest tavern For the best wine that's to be had, Lest
he should see, and run horn-mad. She's kind, and ever did admire A
well-fed monk or well-hung friar.
Go to, quoth Friar John, thou old noddy, thou doddipolled ninny, go to
the devil thou'rt prating of. I've done with rhyming; the rheum gripes
me at the gullet. Let's talk of paying and going; come.
Chapter 5.
XLVII.
How we took our leave of Bacbuc, and left the Oracle of the Holy
Bottle.
Do not trouble yourself about anything here, said the priestess to the
friar; if you be but satisfied, we are. Here below, in these circumcentral
regions, we place the sovereign good, not in taking and receiving, but
in bestowing and giving; so that we esteem ourselves happy, not if we
take and receive much of others, as perhaps the sects of teachers do in
your world, but rather if we impart and give much. All I have to beg of
you is that you leave us here your names in writing, in this ritual. She
then opened a fine large book, and as we gave our names one of her
mystagogues with a gold pin drew some lines on it, as if she had been
writing; but we could not see any characters.
This done, she filled three glasses with fantastic water, and giving them
into our hands, said, Now, my friends, you may depart, and may that
intellectual sphere whose centre is everywhere and circumference
nowhere, whom we call GOD, keep you in his almighty protection.
When you come into your world, do not fail to affirm and witness that
the greatest treasures and most admirable things are hidden
underground, and not without reason.
Ceres was worshipped because she taught mankind the art of husbandry,
and by the use of corn, which she invented, abolished that beastly way
of feeding on acorns; and she grievously lamented her daughter's
banishment into our subterranean regions, certainly foreseeing that
Proserpine would meet with more excellent things, more desirable
enjoyments, below, than she her mother could be blessed with above.
What do you think is become of the art of forcing the thunder and
celestial fire down, which the wise Prometheus had formerly invented?
'Tis most certain you have lost it; 'tis no more on your hemisphere; but
here below we have it. And without a cause you sometimes wonder to
see whole towns burned and destroyed by lightning and ethereal fire,
and are at a loss about knowing from whom, by whom, and to what end
those dreadful mischiefs were sent. Now, they are familiar and useful to
us; and your philosophers who complain that the ancients have left
them nothing to write of or to invent, are very much mistaken. Those
phenomena which you see in the sky, whatever the surface of the earth
affords you, and the sea, and every river contain, is not to be compared
with what is hid within the bowels of the earth.
For this reason the subterranean ruler has justly gained in almost every
language the epithet of rich. Now when your sages shall wholly apply
their minds to a diligent and studious search after truth, humbly
begging the assistance of the sovereign God, whom formerly the
Egyptians in their language called The Hidden and the Concealed, and
invoking him by that name, beseech him to reveal and make himself
known to them, that Almighty Being will, out of his infinite goodness,
not only make his creatures, but even himself known to them.
Thus will they be guided by good lanterns. For all the ancient
philosophers and sages have held two things necessary safely and
pleasantly to arrive at the knowledge of God and true wisdom; first,
God's gracious guidance, then man's assistance.
So, among the philosophers, Zoroaster took Arimaspes for the
companion of his travels; Aesculapius, Mercury; Orpheus, Musaeus;
Pythagoras, Aglaophemus; and, among princes and warriors, Hercules
in his most difficult achievements had his singular friend Theseus;
Ulysses, Diomedes; Aeneas, Achates. You followed their examples,
and came under the conduct of an illustrious lantern. Now, in God's
name depart, and may he go along with you!
THE END OF THE FIFTH BOOK OF THE HEROIC DEEDS AND
SAYINGS OF THE NOBLE PANTAGRUEL.
End of Project Gutenberg's Gargantua and Pantagruel, by Francois
Rabelais
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