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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.
J. De la Salle, to the Honoured, Noble Translator of Rabelais.
Rablophila
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.').
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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—
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.))
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!